Yay March!

I can honestly say that I've NEVER wanted a month to be over as much as I wanted February to be GONE! True to form though, February wanted to get just ONE last dig in and I was sick all weekend. Just a cold though, but it did cause me to miss work yesterday. You won the battle February, but you will not win the war! :)

On a tangent, I know I've mentioned before how much I love vintage jewelry. For Christmas, Taylor bought me a few pieces that I plan on making into jewelry for my wedding day. Another piece that he bought for me, I made into a necklace that I can't wait to pair with a cute dress once the weather gets warmer. Hopefully this will be REAL soon because I'm tired of the cold weather. I'm so ready for a flip flop weather and I'm equally pumped about getting a pedicure to show off my toesies!

And now for your viewing enjoyment, here's a picture of the brooch turned necklace. This picture does not do it justice though, it's much prettier in person :)

The Trip!

So as you know, Valentine's weekend Taylor and I headed to Ruidoso with 7 of our friends. We rented a cabin that was really adorable and had plenty of space for all of us. The first night we got there, Taylor and I fixed dinner. We made homemade pizza and spaghetti and it was delicious. We had the ipod going and Michael Jackson starts playing. Taylor LOVES to dance (or at least try to!) like Michael Jackson. Here is the link to the video our good friend Erica took. Yes my friends, this is the man I'm marrying! haha!

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/video/video.php?v=784289869818&subj=16726263

We stayed in the first night, played Catch Phrase, Guesstures and even had a mini dance party to LMFAO's Shots! Zane bought us a bottle of Tequila Rose and labeled everyone's "shot" glasses. I'm Lady Fidler haha!

Saturday morning, the boys got up and got ready to go skiing/boarding. Adam is an avid snowboarder and Taylor opted to ski, he tried snowboarding once and HATED it! Logan is a decent skier, but decided he wanted to try boarding. Unfortunately after only a few runs, he fell and hit his head pretty hard. He thinks he had a minor concussion because of his fall. Since Taylor had our car on the mountain, Court, Zane and Erica went up to get Logan in the only other car we had there. Since we couldn't all fit, Britt, Murph and I opted to stay at the cabin and ended up having a mini photoshoot!After Logan was picked up, we were about to go shopping when we noticed a TON of deer outside our cabin. We had so much fun feeding them, they really weren't afraid of us at all! Then we piled into Britt's Hummer and went to a few shops while Taylor and Adam continued skiing. Here's a pretty funny pic at one of the stores. Zane's glasses crack me up!Here's where the trip got "fun." We decided we wanted to go out to eat Saturday night we left the cabin around 5:30 or 6. Now we knew we'd have a wait wherever we went, but we didn't anticipate a 2 hour wait! We literally drove to 5 different places. The fact that there were 9 in our group probably didn't help either! We decided to stop in at El Camino Nuevo. Now Zane and Erica went there 6 years ago and had a terrible experience, but we thought that surely in 6 years they would have corrected any issues they had. Hahaha yeah right!

Our first clue should have been that there was only a FEW cars in the parking lot. Their "open" sign said "YES we're open." Hmmm do you really have to put emphasis on the YES? We should have turned around right then!

The waitress comes by to take our order and we order some queso and since I don't drink beer, I was the only one in the group who ordered a margarita. They bring the queso out and it's literally cheese soup. It was EXTREMELY watery and not to mention disgusting. We were all STARVING by this time and NOBODY would touch the psuedo queso! I then took a sip of my margarita and I could not taste ANY alcohol at all.

We looked at each other and thought right then that we should leave. Taylor went to talk to the kitchen to see if our order had even been put in yet and asked if we could talk to the manager. The manager comes out (he's also the one cooking the food in the kitchen) and tells us our order was already on it's way out and for us to PLEASE give them a chance. We mentioned how we didn't like the "queso" and how my margarita had no alcohol in it. Here's what the manager said:

"What? The waitress didn't warn ya'll about the queso? And our margarita's are made with wine. Did she not warn you about that either?"

Wait a minute, hold up...."warn" us? Since when should a restaurant WARN customers about food? So the manager says he'll take off the margarita, (which I'm pretty sure had NO wine in it) take off the quesos and throw in some sopapillas. Again he begs us to stay.

The food slowly starts coming out and it's mediocre at best. We were all picking at our food because we've ALL seen the movie "Waiting" haha! So then Court's food comes out. She decided to play it safe by ordering kid's chicken tenders with french fries. We're all munching on our food and I hear Court make a weird noise and I see her spit her chicken out into her hand. She literally can't speak and I take a look at her chicken tender for myself and it was completely RAW and pink on the inside! Right then we all get up and head for the door. Everyone paid for their beers and Taylor took the chicken tender to the manager that literally had nothing to say at all. What if they had fixed that for an actual child? What if a child ingested it because let's face it, sometimes kids don't know any better. Terrible I tell ya....

We obviously didn't have an appetite after that so we headed to the casino. Nobody really had any luck while there except for Taylor. He sat down at a poker table, and on his first hand he won $70! Needless to say right after that we cashed out!

Then Sunday morning, Taylor and I made breakfast for the group and after packing up we headed out to go tubing. We had such a blast! We even got a huge tube that ALL of us could ride in. Here's a picture of our group in front of the Little John cabin. And under that? Yeah that's Taylor, Adam and Zane dragging the monster of a tube for us!

So like I said, we hit a few bumps in the road but nonetheless we had a great time with great friends and for your viewing enjoyment, here's the video of us tubing!

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/video/video.php?v=784298203118&subj=16726263

Ready for February to be OVER!

Sorry for my lack of posting/commenting, but this past week has been terrible. Scratch that, this whole MONTH has been terrible. On my last blog, I spoke about how ALL of us going on the trip soooo needed the break. Well for the most part, we all had a GREAT time. We hit a few bumps in the road, but I'll save the trip for another blog.

This past week really affected me mostly because of things that happened to very important people in my life. My co-worker Jana was out most of last week because she got a call from her brother-in-law that her mother entered pretty much the final stages of Alzheimer's. She and her family made the decision to place her in assisted living and it was a very tough decision. Jana is such a sweet, loving and giving woman and to hear her story of how she went to see her mom and she didn't even recognize her was heartwrenching.

Then last Wednesday, my Mom and Step-dad's sweet chihuahua Maggie was killed by a pit-bull. Maggie was the sweetest chihuahua...EVER. Most chihuahua's are semi-vicious, yippy and not really loving at all. Maggie was none of these. She loved everyone and wanted to be in your lap or carried at all times. My Mom thinks the pit-bull carried her over the fence and into their front yard because there was no possible way for Maggie to get over (or under for that matter) their fence. They heard a dog crying in their front yard and found poor Maggie out there. My Mom saw the dog and it growled at her and then ran away. They haven't seen the dog since.

Last Friday my dear friend Erica posted that her grandfather passed away and later that day, I get an email from my Step-Dad saying they were putting his father into hospice care because he had a stroke Thursday night. Fast forward to Saturday morning and my Step-Dad's father passed away. Yes Maggie was just a pet, but she was family too and my poor Mom and Step-Dad lost two family members within days of each other.

To make things even more stressful, I'm in the process of moving. Moving sucks as I'm sure that most of you agree! The final cherry on top of this pretty terrible week is that in the process of moving, Taylor accidentally left his Tupac's (his cat) food on the floor of my bedroom where the dogs could easily access it. We left my apt to pick up my Mom's truck and when we returned, we walked into a bloody mess. Apparently Sadie and Coco started fighting over the cat food and Sadie sliced Coco's ear. Being that this happened on a weekend, the emergency vet place was going to charge us around $300. We opted to clean and dress the wound ourselves till Taylor could take Coco to the vet today.

Is it March yet???

Road Trip!

These past 2 weeks have been pretty terrible. Life in general has been pretty hectic and this weekend Taylor and I are taking a much needed mini-vacay with several of our friends. It seems that these last 2 weeks have been terrible for almost ALL of us going! We're heading out this afternoon for Ruidoso, NM and Taylor's best friend Adam flew in from L.A. last night so he'll be joining in on the fun as well.


We plan on visiting the casino tonight, maybe we'll win big and we can have $$ for our wedding haha! The boys will be going skiing and the whole group plans on going tubing tomorrow night. There are a total of 9 of us going and since we don't have a picture with ALL of us, I found a few seperate pictures of our little group! Yay, I'm so excited! Hope all of you have a wonderful Valentine's weekend! :)

Stressful Day....

This morning around 9:30 I get a call from Taylor. Immediately I can tell that something is wrong. He then tells me that he was sleeping and all of a sudden his cat Tupac jumps off the bed and starts making these weird cat sounds. He shrugged it off and then all of a sudden his bed was shaking. He looked up and saw my baby Coco shaking violently. He tried to calm her down and tried to get her to stand up. Her back legs wouldn't move at all. He then called me to see what I wanted to do and then he loaded the Cokes up so that we could take her to the vet.

We get to the vet and find out that they do surgeries on Friday mornings and we'd have to bring her back at 3:00. We then load her back into the car and they dropped me back off at work.

All day I was stressing about my baby. Coco means the world to me. I've had her almost 6 years and she's been by my side through all sorts of trials and tribulations. Guys have come and gone, but my Coco has been with me to comfort me and to bring me joy. She knows when I'm sad and she knows when I'm happy. She's literally the best dog and is super smart. I didn't have to really potty train her, kennel train her or anything of the sort. She taught herself. When she wants something, she sits up like a bear on her hind legs, to which earned her the nickname Circus Bear from Taylor. Needless to say, I was a wreck today.

I started reading online about seizures in dogs and had pretty much figured out from what Taylor described that she had a seizure. So later today, Taylor comes by to get me and we take Coco to the vet. My concerns were confirmed and she did in fact have a seizure. The vet assured us that she'd be okay and from what we told him she may have epilepsy. He said that the seizures could be few and far between and that we really shouldn't worry unless she's having them frequently. He warned that if this became the case we could always put her on epilepsy medication but that it could possibly cause liver damage and it may change her personality.

That in itself scares me. My Coco has a personality unlike any other dog I've known. I call her my human dog because she acts more like a human than a dog. All I can do is pray that she'll be okay and I hope that you guys will keep her in your thoughts as well. She's returned back to normal as if nothing happened, so I just hope that this sort of thing doesn't happen again.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures of my baby girl...

Tags!!

I know I've mentioned it before, but I LOVE Etsy. I recently came across a shop that sells digital downloads and for those of you not exactly sure what I'm talking about, here's the info! People that have an eye for graphic design submit samples in their store and if you like the sample, they will alter the image to your specifications and then email the jpeg to you to use however you'd like! You can use them on invitations, favor tags, save the dates, or whatever else you'd like.

Behold our favor tags! We'll print these out and tie them onto the ornaments we'll use as favors. Yay! Total cost? A whopping $6 bucks! Not spending hours trying to do something similar and getting super frustrated with photoshop? Priceless!

Workin' on my Fitness

With engagement pictures looming, dress shopping right on the horizon, and the thought of being up in front of a ton of people, I knew that it was time for me to get my butt in gear. Since Taylor and I started dating in 2007, I've gained about 15 lbs. This number is not all that huge, but the fact that I'm 5'2, it's made a difference.

I've ALWAYS been skinny. For example, I didn't even break a 100 lbs until the end of my sophomore year in High School. My metabolism was outta control back then! I used to eat McDonald's french fries ALL the time, not to mention at LEAST 3 times a week my boyfriend and I used to go to McDonalds for breakfast. Then I came to college......so long teenage metabolism!

I really struggle with eating healthy mainly due to the fact that I HATE veggies. I've NEVER liked them at all and the only thing i'll eat is green beans. Pretty pathetic huh? This leaves me with exercise as pretty much my only option of getting back to a weight that I'm happy with. Another thing? I HATE working out! So obviously the odds are against me!

My friend Erica and I are partnering up to get our butts in gear. We are trying new classes (bosu, zumba, step, cardio kickboxing) and hopefully by the time we take our engagement pictures, I'll have the tone body that I've never had. That's my problem, I used to be skinny, but it wasn't a "tone" skinny.

Don't believe I've gained some weight? Here are a couple of pics for your viewing enjoyment :) This is how I looked on the day Taylor and I met......literally! For those of you who don't know, Taylor and I met at a Halloween party!

And here is Taylor and I in Charlotte for Suleika's wedding back in September. Look at those arms! You guys better buy your tickets now, because hopefully in a few months you guys can all come to my gun show! Hahahaha! :)

They Were Cones!

I love that line in The Wedding Singer when the limo driver hits the cones during the obstacle course while showing off to Drew Barrymore! So in an earlier post, I told you about some cones that I'd purchased as well as a bunch of ribbon. The plan is to create these:

out of these:

I'd like to put these on the same table as the cake and all the other sweet treats! When I got engaged, Lins (the baby seeeester) gave me a HUGE stack of bridal magazines and I found the idea in Martha Stewart Weddings and fell in love with it! :)

I splurged!

So I've had my heart set on something special for my wedding, but I didn't think we'd be able to afford it. This past weekend my Mom and I went to a bridal fair here in Lubbock and the item I wanted was there AND if you booked it at the bridal fair then you receive a 15% discount. What did I splurge on? One of these!
Not this one exactly, but you get the point! Guests get to take their own strip of pictures with a monogram and the date of our wedding on it and Taylor and I get a CD with all the pictures on it for us to keep! I'm so excited! :)

Decorations Galore

Since we're getting married in December, we wanted to have a Christmas like theme without having an over the top Christmas wedding extravaganza! We chose black and silver as our primary colors with red accents. Right after we got engaged, the plan was to hit up all the after Christmas sales for some good deals. We hit the jackpot and several places, namely Hobby Lobby, Target, Wal-Mart and Pier 1. We didn't pay full price for anything and almost everything was 50% off. I'm most proud of my Pier 1 purchases though, we got a whopping 75% off! For now I have everything stored at my Mom's house and to keep track of things, we organized everything last weekend and I took pictures of what we've purchased thus far. Here we go:

These "sticks" will be spraypainted (probably black) and will be arranged in vases with Christmas ornaments.

Speaking of ornaments.....

Lights!

The red candle holders will go in the windows to the entrance to cathedral. The silvery things in the bin are miniature wreaths that we will place on the table and place an ornament in it. On the ornament itself, we'll attach some kind of sentiment thanking people for attending our wedding. These will be the wedding favors!

The red boxes towards the back are snowflake picture holders that we will use to hold table numbers. We'll spray paint the red and green picks to use in the centerpieces and the red birds will probably be used on the Christmas trees.

Just a few different accents to be placed on tables ie. gift table, food table etc. See those 3 trees in the back? Paid less than $5 bucks a piece at Pier 1, they were originally $20!

Ribbon, lots of ribbon! I'll explain later why! And those cones? Yeah I'll explain those later too!

Out of all my purchases, I'm probably most happy with these. Two 7 foot pre-lit Christmas trees that were 50% off at Wal-Mart after Christmas. Two for the price of 1? Yes please! And see those tree skirts? Those were originally $65 a PIECE! After the 75% off sale at Pier 1? About $17 each! My favorite part of the tree skirts are the little red birds in the design which matches perfectly with the other bird aspects I plan to include in the wedding. And as you can see, my Mom's dog Maggie was pretty pumped too! :)

Total spent? Less than $400! If we'd have paid full price we would have spent upwards of a $1000. The good thing about a lot of the stuff we purchased, is it can be used after the wedding as home decor. I'm pretty proud of myself :) In my next post, I'll explain how I intend to use some of these goodies!

The Legacy

For those of you who don't know already, Taylor and I have set a date for our wedding. We picked December 4 of this year and I'm proud to say that we have checked off a TON of things on our wedding to-do list!

Shortly after our engagement on October 9, we found our venue and booked it. We chose The Legacy for a number of reasons. 1. The size....it once was a Presbyterian church, but a few years ago, the YWCA bought it, renovated it and now use it as an event space. The place is huge, it has a cathedral that seats 400, with adjoining reception hall that seats 350 (not that we're planning on having that many people, but it gives you an idea about the size) 2. The overall look....it looks like a church and feels like a church, but has some hip and edgy updates 3. The price....a lot of venues in Lubbock are super expensive.

For example we looked at 2 other venues, none of which were NEAR the space the Legacy offered and they cost approximately $400 more than what the Legacy charges. Here's the kicker though, these other venues have to be set-up with chairs for the ceremony, and then set-up immediately after for the reception. This means people literally have to move out of the way in order for the tables to be pulled in. I didn't want the hassle of all this plus for a cheaper price, I'd rather have 2 seperate spaces!

Here are some pictures I took of the venue: This room is located right outside the bridal room. (See that door? That's the entrance to the bridal room) This is probably where my Mom/Memaw/Dana (Taylor's Mom)/whoever else will hang out here prior to the wedding.

And this is the bridal room, isn't it pretty??

This is the entrance to the cathedral. Where those tan colored candles are, we're going to have these really pretty red votive candle holders as well as two miniature silver Christmas trees.This is the inside of the cathedral from the balcony and the second is a close-up of the altar. Isn't the organ beautiful?

Here is the reception area. You will notice some doors on the left, and doors on the right. These doors lead into two separate areas.This is the room to the left of the picture above. We'll probably have our cake set-up in here and we'll have some tables set up in here for people that don't want to be so close to all the music!This room is to the right of the picture above and will probably be where we'll have the food and bar set-up

Taylor and I really lucked out and I can't wait to blog about the decorations we've already purchased! :)

Holiday Re-Cap

Hard to believe that the New Year is already here...well not that hard since yesterday was my first day back to work since Dec. 22! I love all the time off at Christmas that the University allows, but it went by WAY too fast and it makes it so hard to get back into the swing of things!

On my last day of work for the year, the forecast called for snow. Now Lubbock sometimes gets snow flurries and what not, but nothing too terribly bad. We figured it would all melt and that we'd be able to get to Lamesa by mid day Christmas Eve, no problem. Haha yeah right! Lubbock and the surrounding areas were COVERED in ice. We decided to hold off for awhile to see if the roads would improve after being traveled on all day. The drive normally takes about 50 minutes tops, but it ended up taking us almost 2 hours to get home. Cars were in ditches and some were even out in the neighboring fields. Crazy I tell ya! Here are a few pictures of the animals out in the snow. This was Sadie and Tupac's first snow experience!

Not Coco though, she's an old pro!

Once we were all safely in Lamesa, we all opened presents. Taylor bought me some gorgeous antique jewelry I'd had my eye on and I'm excited to incorporate it into my wedding attire!

On Christmas night my family gathered around our kitchen table and played games. Among them Loteria (Mexican Bingo) and Toma Todo. Toma Todo is a game played with a toy top. Each side of the top reads in Spanish, put one, take one, take two etc. etc. We played the game with nickels and the goal is to spin the top until it reads Toma Todo (take all) and you win what's in the pot!

That night we also had a lot of fun going through some of my sister's old toys. She was a huge barbie fan so she brought out all her old barbies. She pulled out a couple of them and I dubbed them the Ghosts of Christmas Toys past. When I was in 10 and she was 5 we were IN LOVE with New Kids. I got Jordan for Christmas that year and she got Jonathan. To this day she remains a wee bit jealous that I got the Jordan doll and she got stuck with his brother Jonathan!By the end of the night, Ms. Coco was beat. This was when she jumped on me like a lap dog and proceeded to sleep on me for about 2 hours!

Next came New Year's Eve. A lot of our friends were in San Antonio for the Bowl Game so Taylor and I decided to dress up and hit the town on our own. We took a cab to the Depot District and had a blast. Here are a few pics we took while waiting for our cab to come get us.

Coco was ready to party!

I hope all of you had a fabulous Christmas and New Years!