Rain...

So I love rain. I finally was able to sleep last night without the fan on for ambient noise. I had the rain to thank. But last night the rain was a bad thing for one of our neighbors. Our immediate neighbor has a a mutt and a chocolate lab(and she is the most precious thing, if I could I would steal her, although that might be kind of obvious.) Anyways back to the story. So around 2 or 3 this morning Ian and I hear a sad howling noise, and little yelps. The poor dogs live in the little side yard no bigger than 4ft by 12ft and they were left out in the rain. I was enraged. It is sad when pets are given to the pound because the owner no longer wants them or cant take care of them anymore, and I foresee this happening to these poor guys if they don't shiver to death.

Our neighbors run an elderly home, so I understand why the dogs are outside, but at least let them in the garage. But really they shouldn't have gotten dogs in the first place with the business that they run. I wish there was something I could do.

Ian and I went and gave the lab a good head scratching this morning when we went to leave and Ian brought the trash can in. The dog can stand up against the fence and her head just peers over. One day she may be able to jump right over. That will be the day that she will be our dog, or if not then we will hoard her until we can find her a good loving home.

So Ian just had to stop at the 5th Ave. cube (an Apple store) as that is one of his holy grail spots. So as he wanders around slack-jawwed, here I sit, under the "glass" spiral staircase one floor underground.

Good Morning New York!

We just docked in New York. We'll be home on Sunday night. It has been a great trip so far!

Landed in Dulles. Here's to hoping we can get upgraded on the next leg, since i haven't slept since 5am on Sunday.

Well I have been a bad blogger... not only did i disappear, it is now 20 days after the wonderous event and have yet to do a recap. I guess i will need to catch up. Whether to pick up where I left off or to just summarize... i'll ponder this while I switch gates. I am at o'hare international, courtesy of a work conference. And because I allow myself plenty of time to get to my destination, I gave up my connecting flight seat to one of the many military personnel looking to catch a flight home. Thank you to all those that are protecting and serving this great nation.

And now to switch gates... woohoo!

eek a mouse!!!

Those were the words i can only assume came out of my mother's mouth this past week. Oh and don't forget to add a blood-curdling scream in there too!

It seems she had a visit at her house, and doesn't know how long he has been there. He took up residence inside one of her couches and had been snacking on Smokey's cat food. My mom shredded the couches when she had seen the critter scurry underneath it. There were some droppings inside the back cushions, and that is when those couches then found themselves out in the garage and being sliced up the wazoo. I guess goodwill will be getting a really nice set of living room furniture...lol

It seems the cat won't come downstairs at all. Since when are cats afraid of little ol' mice. Hmmm...

Well my mother then set our about 24 of the glue traps in attempts to cat the critter and after 2 days she did...



The poor thing was stuck, fur and all. My mom then threw the trap outside on the patio. The poor guy was letting out some interesting cries for such a little thing.

I think i need to stop tormenting my mom about how cute the mouse is, because she isn't calling or emailing me since i made the comment: "Would you like some fried mice with that" (She had called my father amd we were about to go out to get chinese with him)

the winds of change...

So we are officially going to be moving. I am excited to paint the inside of the house, my parents house has been in dire need of a new coat on the interior of the house. When they had the remodel some years back some areas didnt get new paint, and boy howdy does it need it. So all those wanting to join in on the painting party let me know.

We are going to be moving stuff over the course of the month, and depending on what goes on with our current lease we will do a large item day with a moving truck as well. Woohoo for a big screen, courtesy of Ian's folks, hope we can hook up the Wii to it.

Large back yard, pool, balcony, park view, and trail. Oh and racketball court. So if anyone is down for some racketball or tennis and not the wii kind let me know, I am dusting off my rackets :-)

Fun Times at Ridgemont High

So I was just examining the photos from the bachelorette party last Saturday, and some of them are just so fun. I am not going to post them, as I want Casey to make the call on which of them she wants to post. Some of Kristi's pictures flared out, but it created a cool effect.

My dresses came back today from being altered. Yea! Ian is picking up his tux tonight, so we are all set for our wedding gear. Can't hardly wait, it will be a fun and joyous event, to see two of our good friends get married!

I now pronounce you ...

So the third candidate got back to me and we met with him on Saturday. It went well. But for our needs we wanted someone that presented themselves a little nicer. So we chose the gal we the week prior. Onto the next item on the list...

In other news, my save the dates came in!!! And they turned out soo good, the only thing is, we might be moving so the address on them is now null and void. So I will be putting labels on them if we do in fact move. I'll put a picture of them up when I get home tonight.

Mom is coming into town in 2 weeks, and I will be finalizing my dress decision. I think. I am having such an issue with it, because I love all of my choices equally and some for differing reasons. I went and looked at a few more of the new styles that came in for Spring on Friday, and now have 4 total that i need to chose from. It's hard, because one I know isn't a good choice because it will get dirty there is so much fabric. But because I never have been one to wear dresses or skirts, I don't think that the feeling of this is the "one" will ever come. It doesn't help that one place doesn't have a close enough size for me to try it on and know how it will completely fit.

Next up... photographer & videographer(if Ian's friend can do it for us)

to have and to hold. . .

So this weekend we are interviewing prospective officiants for our wedding.

First one seemed a little slacker-ish, so we cancelled our appointment. Second one, is a really nice lady. She got in an accident on her way to meeting with us. Ian is worried that it might be a sign, we'll see. The third has yet to respond to my email inquiry but to his credit I had just emailed him late on Friday so if I don't hear from him on Monday afternoon I will call him.

Another option that we have been considering is a family friend who is a minister. I haven't asked them yet, but I might be doing that this week just to cover all my bases.

Now we are off to find gold shoes and go wine tasting in temecula.

Jamba Juice Secret Menu

As requested per Casey(cagequeen) here it is:

White Gummi Bear [Now Known as White Gummi because of trademark laws]

Red Gummi Bear

Green Gummi Bear

Pink Starburst [known as Pink Star because of trademark laws]

Raspberry Dreamin'

Pineapple Dreamin'

Sourpatch Kid

Tropical Tango

Pacific Passion

Berry Depressing

Now and Later

Peanut Butter and Jelly

Apple Pie

Fruity Pebbles

Rainbow Sherbert

Strawberry Shortcake

Skittles

Andres' Surprise

Jamba Juice does not recognize, endorse, or approve any of these smoothies due to copyright and trademark on names. However, the White Gummi, Pink Star, and Strawberry Shortcake have been added to Jamba's register system as well as the employee recipe list, though remains off the menu visible to customers.

To save or not to save. . .

So I finished designing my save the date cards last night, and i had hoped it turned out well despite the working through the groggy fog that I am in from being sick. Well I got an email back from the printer, telling me that despite everything looking good, there was a wee bit of a problem. I thought I left enough room for a full bleed(printing all the way to the edge) but I didn't. So instead of being a crappy company and printing them anyway with the possibility of a funky uneven white rim, they proof all submissions and give you the option of resubmitting the file so that it comes out right. Now I just have to wait until I go home before I can do it since it is on my home computer. Got to love overnightprints.com :-)

Starbuukians

So I just took a trip down memory lane, to a time when Starbucks wasn't such a hated entity and there was coffee competition. i.e. the beloved Diedrich Coffee still existed with its loving heart of a company.

So I did a stint at Starbucks, as most people tend to have their one job in the food business realm. It was probably a little simpler then, as it was prior to the Starbucks breakfast sandwich moving out of its test market of Seattle and into the mass market; and my store was a brand new store so we had the automated expresso shot machine. I am glad I didn't have to use the older espresso machines as I already have issues with carpel tunnel, but it would have been a nice experience to at least have learned to tamp the perfect shot.

To this day I remember quite a number of my morning regular's drinks. As I was posting on Casey's blog, more and more came flooding back to me. The short woman who worked at the Marriot who had a twin that would get her coffee from Diedrich, while she got hers from us at 5:45 am. As I saw her car pull up in the morning I would start her tall nonfat extra foam cappacino for her, so when she would come in it would be ready for her. Or the crazy tall woman who had to have her venti iced caramel macchiato with 9 pumps of sf vanilla syrup, 6 splendas, 2 raw sugars, 1/2 shot of decaf espresso, loads of ice. The customer I recanted to Casey had a decaf quad venti no foam non fat (140F) with a splash of cold soy 6 pumps cinnamon, 2 pump vanilla, caramel latte. I mentioned this to her as she felt obligated to get her tall, 1 pump caramel, zebra mocha with caffeine this morning as if she was doing something wrong by ordering something decaf in a coffee shop. By all means get it how you want, that is their underlying motto. I mean you can order a gift card with your drink order permantly on the card, talk about customizing.

:-)

I Finally Got my BM!!!

... and by BM I mean my bridesmaid dress. My color is a dark purple, and it quite lovely. The other gals are in Spice and Fuchsia, the Spice is very nice, and the Fuchsia is...well just to much pink for my blood. I may be a girl, but I am still a tomboy-ish gal deep down. Pink frequents my closet, but only occasionally, and sometimes even then I don't always wear it.

In other news, I am going to be making a decision on which dress I will be wearing for my own wedding by the end of the month, whether I actually order it is another story. Trying to lose weight and buying an expensive dress that should only be taken in about 2 dress sizes is not very cohesive. Because these dresses if you don't have a corset tieback, which mine doesn't, does not retain its proper and pretty shape if you take it in too much. Although when I lost 25 lbs a number of months ago, I didn't drop a size at all, so we'll see. I just don't want to order a size smaller and hope that I will make it into it, because as much as I have strong willpower, I have issues dealing with eating, esp when I am the only one in the house trying to watch what I eat.

Moving right along, have my centerpieces, well part of them anyways. And I am taking it to one of the two florists I am meeting with to see what they can do and how they can incorporate it into everything nice and smoothly. More updates on that and everything later, now back to the regularly scheduled program... work.

Happy New Year!

We had started off with the notion we were going to stay home for New Year's Eve, and possibly hang out with Phil and Monica (and the Wii.) Then as last minute things go, we always stay home on new years so why don't we go out... so how about Tia Juana's...or how about Knott's Berry Farm...

at 8pm the winner was Knotts, and it came down to price...$39 vs $60 a person. So we haul tail up to Buena Park so we can eat dinner at TGI Fridays, since they are closing early... odd considering the park is open and it is practically on park grounds. Got the worst service in the history of restaurants, can we say burnt to a crisp...

Anyhoo, unlike Disneyland who reaches capacity at like 2pm on NYE, we strolled into Knotts at 950pm. Managed to get in a number of rides, the longest wait was for Silver Bullet and that was probably only 15 mins. Oh by the way it happened to be Praise 08, so that made things a bit interesting. We just steered clear of the concert stages, rode the rides. I do have to say that Xcelerator was great with the fireworks going off just in the distance. A great start to a new year, and sleeping until 11 the next morning didnt hurt either.

Hope everyone had a good start to their new year as well!