A Very Ambitious Project

It's been such a long time since I've posted. It's been one of those times when so much has been happening, I didn't even know where to begin. So I decided to start with a fun one!

Last Christmas, we asked our the members of our wedding parties to join us on our big day. We had asked everyone but our "Ring Bearer" and "Flower Girl" (our niece and nephew) because we were waiting until it got closer. They are young children, after all. So this Christmas, we decided it would be the perfect time to ask them and also give them a special something in order to do so.  Naturally, this became way more of a project than I expected it to be.

I had this idea to give them personalized picture books. I always think the ones they make for babies (where they insert the name into a pre-written story) are such a cute sentiment. But, they're still a little too impersonal and are also expensive. We are operating on a TINY budget, so I decided to get creative; I decided to just make them myself.

I ordered blank books off of Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B1Z5508/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) and downloaded a bunch of images to try and recreate. I also got a great deal on some fun water color colored pencils, which is a new medium for me that I am now in love with.  I decided that Cooper's would be Star Wars themed and Stella's would be Moana themed (some of their favorite things). I also paired them each with a cuddle item so they could curl up and read. We found a great Star Wars blanket for Cooper that we put his name on, and Stella got a stuffed Pua.

Each book took me about 5 evenings to complete. The kids loved them, and I'm so glad I could give them something special that they can hang on to forever.  Here are some photos of each book...sorry they're sideways.  Enjoy!

Stella "reading" her book.

Emily reading to Cooper.

Front cover of Cooper's book

Dedication page.

Front cover of Stella's book

Dedication Page

I do not own any of the art that these images are based on. 

A Literary Review

It is amazing how many books there are for weddings. Our tiny library has two entire shelves of wedding books, which doesn't even scratch the surface of what Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and Google have to offer. When we started our wedding planning process, we knew that we would be doing everything ourselves. That meant no wedding planner. And, since we aren't religious people, it also meant that we wanted to explore a little DIY pre-marital counseling as well.

The books out there are plentiful, but you would be surprised at how many didn't actually meet our needs. Most of what we found were heavily religious, extremely heteronormative, and too "basic" for our style. But we did manage to find a few diamonds in the rough.  Below is a review of the books we've found, what we've used them for, and what we loved and didn't love about them.  I've also given each book a score out of 10, where 1 is the worst and 10 is the best.

The Wedding Ceremony Planner: The Essential Guide to the Most Important Part of Your Wedding Day
Reverend Judity Johnson, Ph.D.

What We Love: This book is great! It has endless options for how to organize and word your ceremony. This is perfect for us because we are having a dear friend officiate, so it's helpful to write the script for someone who hasn't done it before. It includes traditional church ceremonies as well as super unique secular ceremonies. It has each section of the ceremony broken down and provides tips to personalize them for your needs.  The best part is that the book includes access to downloadable PDFs of their scripts.

What We Didn't Love: It is VERY heternormative. In the introduction, the author mentioned that they tried to be inclusive, but no where did we actually see those efforts. Everything was "Bride" and "Groom."

Overall, we would rate this book an 8/10. It was really helpful and we were able to create a script that is perfect for our ceremony.  

Our Q&A a Day: 365 Questions, 3 Years, 2100 Shared Answers. 3-Year Journal for 2 People

What We Love: We haven't actually started this book yet. We're waiting to start it on October 13, so we can capture the year leading up to our marriage and our first 2 years of marriage on the exact date.  I have previously used a one-sentence a day journal for myself, so when I found this one I got really excited. I love the guided question format of it, and that it asks you the same questions on the same day for 3 years. I'm excited to use this and see how our answers change and develop with each other over time.

What We Don't Love: Some of the questions are kind of weird. And also, we're not always the best at remembering to do things like this at the end of the day. I suppose it will require us to practice our end-of-the-day reflection and mindfulness!

I can't score this one fairly because we haven't actually put it to the test. 

52 E-mails to Transform Your Marriage: How to Reignite Intimacy and Rebuild Your Relationship
Samantha Rodman, Ph.D.

What We Love: This book is great because it's so unique! I love the modern twist it has to communicating with your partner. It acknowledges that sometimes talking about tough subjects is hard, and helps guide you through processing how to talk about them.  It includes conversation starters about all aspects of a relationship, and includes questions and examples to walk you through your thought process. It also asks you to start each "email" with "Talking to you about this subject makes me feel...", so you can acknowledge your vulnerability from the get go. I appreciate that it encourages emotional intelligence and wellness, and makes those emotions ok. Instead of emailing, we decided to journal our notes. We try to spend a little time each week writing our letters to each other in the journal, and then we trade and write a response. After we finish writing, we talk about it. It's cool because the prompts include questions to ask of your partner so they have a way to keep the conversation going.  We opted to journal because it's more intimate and we can do it together, as well as keep everything in one place. We also appreciate that it's 52 prompts, which gives us one prompt a week. We try to make it our Sunday night ritual. This book is also great because it uses inclusive language and is designed for use in a variety of stages of life. It's called "rebuilding your relationship," but it talks about people getting ready to be newly wed and well as people who have lost their way a bit after being married for a while. We're planning on using it now and also revisiting it down the road.

What We Didn't Love: We are bad at keeping up with it, which is on us but not the book. There's not much we don't like about it.

Overall, we would give this book a 10/10! We love it. It's a great find, and it's been a really great way to connect with each other. 

1001 Questions to Ask Before You Get Married
Monica Mendez Leahy

What We Love: It covers anything you could ever imagine needing to have a conversation about. It's broken down into sections and chapters, and it covers all the bases. I appreciate that it helps guide conversation through some things we never would have thought to talk about. It's also nice because it gives you the questions in a variety of ways. Some are just traditional lists of questions to go through, while some are worksheets that you fill out separately and then come back together to talk about.

What We Don't Love: It is A LOT of questions. It's a bit exhausting to get through them. Some we were able to skip because they were conversations we've had before, but it's almost excessively thorough.

Overall, we would give this book a 9. It gives you new ideas of what to talk about, and provides opportunities for self-exploration as well as relationship exploration. 

Instant Wedding Planner: Get From "Will You?" To "I Do" In Record Time
Jennifer L. Shawne

What We Love: It's a planning binder, so it includes lots of checklists and tips for getting things accomplished. We got this one by accident, because we didn't realize it was an "instant" planner, meaning it helps you plan a wedding if you have a timeline of a few months. Even though that is not the case with us, it was still helpful in providing a different perspective of all the things you need to plan a wedding. It's also super helpful in helping you prioritize things. It helps you outline the bare-bones of a wedding.

What We Don't Love: It's not something we needed. It's a great book, especially if you have a quick turnaround.  It could be improved in the budget breaking-down section.

Overall, this one gets a 10. It's so helpful! And it was very inexpensive. 

The Knot Ultimate Wedding Planner and Organizer

What We Love: This book has EVERYTHING you need to plan a wedding. It includes check lists, ways to imagine your wedding before you even get to the actual planning stages, as well as helpful reminders and questions for venues and service providers. It's also neat because it's in a 3-ring binder, so we were able to reorganize and take out the sections that we didn't want or need. It's great because it helps you think of everything and leaves no stone unturned. It has worksheets for everything from service providers to color schemes, and even has business card holders.

What We Didn't Love: There weren't enough worksheets for interviewing service providers. It advises you to make copies if you need more, which we did, but for the price it would have been nice to have those included. It was also pricey. It includes a lot and is certainly cheaper than a human wedding planner, but we would have liked to pay less for it. It could also use more pockets for collecting handouts and brochures from providers.

Overall, we would give this an 8/10. It's great and has been helpful, but it's far from perfect. 

Emotional Fitness For Couples: 10 Minuets a Day to a Better Relationship
Barton Goldsmith, Ph.D.

What We Love: This is like a non-religious devotional. It makes checking in and keeping up with each other realistic. It's simple and short for daily things, so it doesn't feel like an exhausting undertaking. We haven't really done a lot with this one, but it seems like a helpful book.

What We Don't Love: We didn't find it to be guided enough. Which is fine for some, but we were using it for a pre-marital counseling kind of thing, and it wasn't necessarily good for that.

We can fairly score this one as we haven't used it enough.

Overall, these were the books we found that met our needs the most. There are a lot more than this, but this is just what we've collected so far. A lot of these books are nice because they can be used now as well as down the road. We're excited to have them along for the journey!

If you know of any other books that you think we should check out, we'd love to hear about them!

Adventures in Wedding Crafting: The Card Box

Besides Emily, two of the things I love most in this world are Disney and crafting.  Weddings are the most perfect vehicle for taking advantage of these.  So naturally, when we started throwing out ideas for our wedding, Disney and DIY crafts came up. I could put Disney into literally every piece of our wedding, but Emily had to slow me down and put some restrictions on my Disnerding. (Rest assured, there will be plenty of opportunities for our guests to seek Hidden Mickeys and other secret Disney touches on the day of.)

The subject of today's installment of our journey is one of our Disney crafts. While it may be overdone and somewhat expected, I've been counting on this since the first time I saw the film UP. Cliche or not, I'm so excited about it. 

Hopefully you'll all be familiar with this scene, a beautiful moment between the film's couple.  This is the inspiration for our mailbox. 

Courtesy of Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Pictures

We started with a trip to Lowe's to get the mailbox.  As luck would have it, we found a gray box (perfect for our color scheme) that was on sale! Fate. 

Yes, I'm wearing shorts. 

The plan was to add our hand prints and names, just like in the movie. Emily had the fantastic idea of adding Lavender's paw print as well.  Thankfully, Lavender is the most easy-going, chill dog on the planet, so we figured we'd catch her while she was lounging on her bed (which she does 80% of the time).

Blinkey-eyed and freshly woken-up from a nap.

She didn't really seem to mind; she allowed us to maneuver her around and play with her feet. The only thing she wasn't exactly thrilled by was the paint on her toes...she hates it when her feet are wet. Thankfully she still tolerated us and only tried to wiggle free a couple of times.

Her face says "I'm not sure what you're doing but I'm not a fan." She gives me this look a lot. 

Giving in. 

The perfect made-with-a-little-too-much-paint paw print. 

I'm so thrilled with how cute it turned out...it's PERFECT and exactly what we were going for.  I'm so excited to share it with all of you in October 2018. 

I should note, we managed to not get any of turquoise paint on the beige carpet! We had a bit of a scare with some turquoise paint-water right after we washed her paw, but thankfully it came out easily. 

The finished product

Emily managing to get paint all over her face.

Displeased with her involvement in the wacky ideas of Moms.

Clearance Rack Wedding

I am a clearance rack shopper. It is rare for me to purchase things not on a clearance rack; I have to absolutely love it for it come home for less than 40% off.  I come by it naturally--my Grandma Karen is a professional clearance rack shopper, and she's taught everyone in the family well.

With our tiny budget wedding, we cut corners and costs everywhere we can.  We are doing most things ourselves (including recruiting family members to collect months worth of recyclables and growing all of the plants from seed), and we have been taking advantage of every sale and coupon we can get our hands on.  It's even better when I can get it from a clearance rack.

We have opted to use paper flowers for our wedding. One because it's cheaper, two because we get to DIY them, and three because we will be ultimately be creating less waste by reusing the paper flowers as decorations later. I've been experimenting and creating various prototypes, but the idea of making enough for bouquets, boutonnieres, and table garlands was overwhelming. They are incredibly tedious to create.

Then I found the perfect solution! A Cricut cartridge that cuts all the pieces for you and also creates easy assembly. Unfortunately Cricut cartridges are not cheap and you can't use coupons on them. Joann Fabrics was running an online sale, and while less than normal, only 15% off was painful to accept.

Emily thought that we should go the store and check it out before making a purchase. On our wandering to the scrap-booking section, we found a clearance rack tucked in the back corner; in all its glory, it was a disorganized mess of irrelevant craft odds and ends. It was a bust except for one thing: on the top shelf was a random assortment of old Cricut cartridges.

Emily started to browse through them when she pulled one out and handed it to me.  Lo and behold, there it was: the cartridge I had my eye on, covered in dust. The little red clearance sticker was a message of fate. We even found an additional one with different types of flowers on it.  For $40 I walked away with TWO cartridges designed for creating 3D flowers PERFECT for our needs.  I can't wait to start putting them together.

Now we just need some cheap card stock!

Lavender modeling a practice flower made from one of the new cartridges!

Walt Disney World Staycation

Hello World!

I realize it's been quite some time since I last updated--life has been so busy, I haven't had the time.  I've had several posts lined up but they never seemed to make it to the computer.  Stay with me as we do a little back tracking...

In March, Emily and I decided we needed a vacation. Coupled with our anniversary falling on a break for her, we wanted go back to our favorite place in the world, but it didn't look like it would be feasible.  We've been so accustomed to 2 Disney trips a year, it was hard to not be able to go this Spring.  With grad school and operating single-income, we wouldn't be able to swing it.  However, life is too short to not take a vacation, so we decided to go with a Plan B: we would go to the beach and bring Disney to us.

Disney has a lot of meaning for our relationship. Not only is it where got engaged, but also where we fell in love, where we have shared endless memories, and something we both really enjoy.  We knew it would be tough to pull off, but even a little taste of magic would be better than nothing.  Plus, we could save all of our anticipation for our next trip, which will likely be our honeymoon, and make it even better.

We booked decided to take a long weekend to Norfolk, which is right on the coast of Virginia, around 3 hours from Charlottesville.  We found this super cute Air BnB for a STEAL. Right on the beach, steps from the water...it was looking like this trip would be almost as magical as the real thing.

For weeks, I researched different ways we could make Disney World at home.  I looked up copy cat recipes, downloaded music, saved youtube videos of our favorite shows and rides...it was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be.  We settled on some of our favorite park treats: jalapeno cream cheese pretzels, fish and chips, tipsy ducks in love, and tonga toast. I burned new copies of my WDW Millennium Celebration soundtrack as well as the Wishes soundtrack.  We packed up and headed for Norfolk.

Unfortunately, the warm sunny weather that was forecasted ended up being cold rainy weather.  The beach was beautiful, but we couldn't enjoy it as much as we had hoped.  Still, the house we rented out was really nice. It had a full kitchen, a HUGE bedroom, and lots of bonus space. Lavender loved it.

 While the trip certainly wasn't anywhere close to the real thing, and we had several set backs, we still had fun. It was nice to get away and to just think about us instead of everything else happening in our lives.  We spent some time working on our marriage books and just being together. It was a good reminder of where the magic actually comes from, and that made it all worth it in the end.

Here are some pictures for a photographic journey of our trip:

On the bridge heading into Norfolk.

Enjoying a Tipsy Ducks in Love and a little sunshine. 

One of the best meals you can get at Disney is the Fish and Chips from the UK in EPCOT! We got some great sustainable fish from Whole Foods before heading out, and it was so delicious.  The only downside was I forgot the beer that was designated for the batter, and all we had was the strawberry beer designated for drinking.  While tasty, the fish had a strange strawberry flavor to it.  The recipe was a keeper, though!  We paired it with some frozen salt and pepper waffle fries.
http://www.thedisneydiner.com/2011/08/rose-crown-pub-dining-room-batter.html

Sunrise on the water.

Special Order Kona Blend coffee to go with our breakfast.  This is our favorite coffee on site, and we love to get the French Press for 2 at Kona Cafe at the Polynesian Resort.  In case you want to know, Disney has several different blends that you can order directly from Joffreys. How cool is that?!
https://www.joffreys.com/disneyparksandresorts

One of the best breakfasts at Disney is the Tonga Toast at Kona. It's stuffed with Bananas and rolled in Cinnamon Sugar and is to die for!  This recipe was very involved (it took a lot of steps and made a lot of mess). But it was SO worth it.
http://www.disneyfoodblog.com/2012/08/08/disney-recipe-tonga-toast-from-kona-cafe-in-disney-world/

An Emily and Lexie WDW Tradition: The Tipsy Ducks in Love. This is a drink found at the Joy of Tea stand in China at EPCOT. Worth every penny of the $9 price tag.  It's a mix of coffee, tea, and alcohol. A lot of alcohol. It's so good. And surprisingly easy to recreate!  We forgot our chocolate syrup and had to run to the sketchy 7/11 up the street to get some, but it was so worth it.
http://www.magicalrecipes.net/joy-of-tea-tipsy-ducks-in-love-recipe/

Lavender LOVES to sunbathe. She was in her element!

To make our Disney trip even better, there were dozens of these little guys running around the beach. It was right out of a short!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VS7wR7gjJE

The beach. 

Footprints in the sand. 

The biggest FAIL of the trip. These were supposed to be jalapeno cream cheese pretzels. One of the most delicious snacks that you could get at WDW. Unfortunately, we learned the last time we were there that they discontinued them. So of course we had to try and make them ourselves. Clearly it didn't work...we ended up ordering a pizza.  The Disney pretzels are stuffed with cream cheese and ever-so-slightly spicy jalapenos, topped with crispy cheese and deliciousness. These were blobs of nasty. I'm not even going to give you the recipe they were that bad. 

Celebrating our anniversary with some champagne and cuddles. 

Lavender Brûlée Groves

Happiness.

We both have been wanting to get a pet for some time. After not being allowed at SNC and then moving halfway across the country, it was never the right time.

In December, while visiting our families for Christmas, we had the opportunity to adopt Dixie from Emily's brother. So we cancelled our flights and drove her down.  Within a few days of getting her to Cville, though, Dixie got really sick. We ended up having to take her to the Doggy ER, where they discovered she had a completely compacted lung and couldn't really breathe on her own. She passed away early in the morning on New Years Eve (good riddance, 2016!).

Dixie hanging out on her blanket.

Finally it was our time to get a dog, and she dies in the first few days of having her.  We were beginning to think that universe really didn't want us to have a pet. We would always be destined to be pet-sitters for all of our friends instead.

Since Dixie's passing, we made a few trips to the SPCA to meet some pups that we fell in love with online. Every single time, something came up and it would work out. We found one that someone else also found first. We found one that was too much of a puppy and needed a lot of attention. We found one that was too aggressive. All three of them we loved online and in person, but they just weren't quite right for us.

We looked at another SPCA in a neighboring county and found a super sweet neglect case that we thought might be perfect. When we arrived to meet her, she was on a walk with a volunteer. It seemed as though fate was stepping in again and keeping us from adopting. Well, fate was stepping in. But this time it was in our favor. 

Meeting Lavender for the first time! She immediately attached herself to Emily.

While we were waiting for the dog to get back from a walk, we decided to play with another dog who had been left behind. We fell in love with her from the second we entered her room. She was a best-guess lab/hound mix with long floppy ears and big puppy eyes. She attached herself to us right away and wanted nothing but endless loving.  She was a stray that was picked up from Animal Control, then brought to the shelter when she went unclaimed. She had clearly lived her life very hungry, as we could count every rib and hip bone in her body.

Lavender Brûlée Groves became part of our lives on February 8, 2017.

First Family Photo: Mommy, Lavender, and Mama! 

We've now had Lavy (as we call her) for almost a month, and we fall in love with her more and more every day.  She is the sweetest (and most stubborn!) dog I've ever met, and will do anything for just a few pets.  She spends more time hanging out with people than with other dogs when we visit the dog park. She comes when she's called and she knows how to sit, though she does so very reluctantly (we think she was abused with this command).  She loves being outside, sleeping on her bed, and giving plenty of kisses.  She walks well on a leash, and only pauses to get really excited about other passing pooches.  Even though she clearly had owners at one point in her life, she probably didn't live where she was well loved.  She's learning how to be loved as much as the love she gives.

We're learning a lot about each other through Lavender in our lives. It's been such an interesting experience so far, and there's nothing I love more than having Emily as a partner on this journey together.

She LOVES the sun--she will just plop over mid-walk to catch a few rays.

Taken right after her first Doggy School class. 

Hiding in Mommy's closet from a thunderstorm. She stayed in there for several hours and wouldn't come out.

Hanging out at Hilltop (our favorite Cville winery, and where Emily proposed)

Being naughty and sitting on the love sack. 

Playing with Mommy!