Christmas in Chicago

We were in Chicago over the weekend visiting my dad for Christmas. It was the first time Mike had been away from his family for Christmas and I could tell he was a little homesick.

We could not have asked for better weather while we were there. Of course, it was a little cold, but not at all unbearable.

Merry Christmas!!

Hello all! As many of you know, Theresa and I were taking dancing lessons for several months before our wedding. Much to my surprise, I just found out today that Theresa has secretly continued the lessons with out me! Click here to check out her latest moves!

Christmas is coming...ready or not!

We finally got our Christmas tree decorated! We'd had it for almost a week, just sitting there waiting to be decorated.

I have a new work schedule for a while, M-F and no weekends. It's nice having weekends off, but I miss having weekdays off to catch up on stuff. We are also out of town a lot on the weekends.

We at least got our Christmas cards out before the final cutoff!


We've been to a lot of weddings lately. 3 plus ours in 2006. And there's 2 that we know of coming up in 2007!

We were in Chicago over the weekend for a wedding. Mike's friend from KU, Brad, got married on Saturday. The reception was at The Palmer House. It was very nice. It was the first wedding I'd been to with a live band. It was a lot of fun.

We'll be back in Chicago next weekend to see my dad for Christmas.

Wedding Pictures are here!!

Our photographer sent our wedding photos to us and I'm going to put them on the blog tonight. There are 500+ photos, so it'll take a few hours to upload. Look for the links off to the right to click on.

The photo on this post is one of my favorites.

Oahu Review...finally!

Continuing with our honeymoon details.....After a week on Maui, we went on to Oahu for a week. We were glad to have another week, because we weren't exactly ready to go home yet. We arrived in Oahu and went over to Mike's Uncle Greg's house. He and Jan were kind enough to let us stay at their beach house on the North Shore.

We spent a lot of our time just hanging out at the beach house instead of going on a lot of tourist-y adventures. The house is literally on the beach. At night, the water comes almost under the house.

The North Shore is very laid back and quiet compared to the Waikiki area. In November, the waves are supposed to get bigger on the North Shore, so there were a lot of surfers in the water. Unfortunately, the waves didn't get as big as they normally do when we were there, so we didn't get to see a whole lot of action.

We took a few walks on the beach to check out the scenery. The first day we went out, we almost stepped on a sea turtle, because it was just laying on the beach and blended in with the rocks.

We walked down the beach to where they film "Lost". We don't watch that show, but it was cool to see a set. They happened to be filming that day, but we weren't able to see a whole lot.

Mike went out running one morning on the beach with his uncle and was hit by a tsunami wave. There had been an 8.1 earthquake off Japan and the coast guard was flying around telling everyone to get out of the water. I was at the beach house and heard someone yelling, but I thought it was someone yelling at their kids to get out of the water. When Mike came back from his run, he was all wet and sandy and said he was crushed by a wave. So, we decided he'd gotten hit by the tsunami they were warning us about.

We did get out and enjoy some of the sights on the island. Just down from the beach house was a nature trail leading out to a waterfall that you could swim under. That's Mike there in the picture with his arm raised.

There were also a lot of cool plants and trees that we took pictures of along the way.

We also went to a luau at the Polynesian Culture Center. It was the closest luau to where we were staying. It was fun and the show afterwards was pretty cool, but I prefer the beach luaus.

Our last night on Oahu, we stayed with Uncle Greg and Jan and enjoyed dinner and lots of wine. Jan had suggested we get up at 6am and hike up Diamond Head to see the sun rise. We figured that would be a cool thing to do our last day.

We enjoyed our trip to Oahu, but it's not our favorite island. We will definitely go there again to stay at the beach house though, it is very relaxing.

We are thinking of heading to Hawaii again next year. Might as well while we are on the west coast. Next up will be Kauai.

Vegas Nov 24-26

This is a late post, but I was waiting for pictures. Last weekend, we went to Vegas for a couple KU basketball games. We left Friday morning, the day after Thanksgiving. We checked into Excalibur (they had the cheapest rate for the weekend) and went to the KU-Ball State game Friday night. I was impressed by all the KU fans there, Mike kept saying it was like a home game.

After the game on Fri, we met up with some friends and went to dinner at the Voodoo lounge at the top of the Rio hotel. I'd never been there before, the view was awesome. We gambled a little afterwards...and lost, so we called it a night about 2:30am. It seems that when Mike and I go to Vegas together, we lose when we gamble.

Saturday night was the big game against number 1 Florida. KU ended up with a victory in overtime. The place was packed with KU fans and they were heard throughout the entire game.

Maui Review

I promised some reviews of the islands. I figured I'd better get started before I forget. Maui is known for being the honeymoon destination. I wanted to go there first, because I thought we'd be relaxing and going to the beach a lot. We did get a lot of relaxing done, but we were also very busy going on adventures.

We stayed at Maui Sunset (in Kihei), which are condos that are partially owned and also used as time shares. It was a cool place, we had an awesome view of the ocean, which allowed us to see the beautiful sunsets every evening. They also had an activities desk on site where we were able to plan the things we wanted to do while we were in Maui.

Since we were up at 5am the first day there, we decided our first adventure would be the bike tour down Haleakala. We got up at 2:30am the next day (our 2nd day on Maui) to ride to the top of the volcano and catch the sunrise. It was very cold and windy that morning. The gusts were up to 50 mph and were rocking our tour van. We watched the sun come up over the top of the crater and it was pretty spectacular. Afterwards, we drove down a little ways to get out of the wind and rode down the rest of the way on bikes. Usually, the bike tours start from the very top. I guess we went about 35 miles, but it was all downhill. We both decided the experience was worth doing it, but we probably won't go again if we go back to Maui. I was the third person going down in our group, so I was able to go fast a few times. The guys are towards the back and I heard they had to break most of the way down.

I had heard of "The Road to Hana" before, but I never really knew it was in Maui. We decided (and was talked into by our hotel's activities person) to take the guided tour to Hana instead of driving it ourselves. It was a narrow and winding road that went on for about 50 miles. It was dubbed the "road to divorce" by some locals, because one person drives and doesn't get to see anything and the other person yells at the other person's driving! We ended up having to take motion sickness medication while on the trip.

The scenery is amazing with all the different plants, trees, and waterfalls along the highway. After going on the trip to Hana, we decided next time we'd drive it ourselves to be able to stop more along the way and then we'd stay overnight in Hana before driving back the next day.

We went snorkeling on our own at this cool spot we heard about from our hotel connection. She said there was a spot that locals called "the aquarium", but you had to hike out to it. There ended up being several people looking for this spot and we were able to find it by hiking over lava rock. It was amazing, the best snorkeling by far. It was very clear and there were lots of fish to see. We ended up going out there twice, because it was so awesome!

We did go on a guided snorkeling trip to Molokini on a catamaran Maui Magic. Molokini is an extinct volcano and basically a little cresent-shaped island off of Maui. It's very popular for diving and snorkeling. We enjoyed the boat ride, but the snorkeling at Molokini wasn't as good as our spot we'd found previously. It was nice for a change of pace, because the water is very deep and you don't go over coral or rocks. I don't think it's something we'd do again since we know where to go for better viewing.

However, we did get to see huge sea turtles swimming in the ocean and we followed a couple of dolphins with the boat. I thought that was pretty cool.

We also drove around checking things out and had a little beach time. We did go to the beach one day and found it to be closed, because there had been a shark attack that day!! We decided to go back to the hotel and sit by the pool instead. Maui was great, we had a blast, and we are looking forward to going back again.

Aloha!!

We are back from the honeymoon! We had an awesome time. We were putting pictures on the blog while we were there since we had to clear the memory card every couple of days anyway. We took a lot of pictures as always. None of them are really labeled yet.

We'll put up reviews of the islands within the next couple of weeks, but right now, we are pretty busy getting our place back in order. We got home very early this morning. We were supposed to fly back into San Diego and be home by 10pm. We were delayed leaving Honolulu and then San Diego was fogged in, so we ended up being diverted to LA. We rented a car and drove home instead of waiting for a charter bus.

We are sticking around home for Thanksgiving and then heading to Las Vegas to see KU play basketball. We hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving weekend!

WE ARE MARRIED!!

We did it! We have now been Mr. and Mrs. for 24 hours. The day was AWESOME. I had to rely on others to tell me about some of the details since I didn't see everything. We couldn't have asked for a better November day. The weather was perfect for us to be outside for the ceremony.

The Circle S Ranch was the greatest place for our day. The place was beautiful! The food was great! I can't wait to get pictures back, so keep checking the blog for those. We are hanging out at a friends house waiting to head back to San Diego, then it's off to Hawaii on Monday!

We'll have a lot to post when we get back in 2 weeks!!

Things are Looking Good!

This may be the last post until after the wedding. With a week left to go, the weather has been looking good for next Saturday. Sunny and 60! We are keeping our fingers crossed that it stays that way.

We are having a fun, relaxing weekend at home before we head back to Kansas on Wednesday. I'm trying to get the programs all printed out, but it's always a process to make sure the printer doesn't malfunction while printing large quantities of things.

The magic number for the guest list is 160. We have heard from everyone now, we hope!

As part of our videographer package, we had the opportunity to have a memory scrapbook DVD made for us. We sent them pictures of us individually and together and they put it all to music. We may or may not show it at the wedding, but here's the link until they take it down. We realize that the date at the end is wrong, they put 11/11 instead of 11/4.

http://www.cmusic.com/download/blundell/

Please NO RAIN! and LEAVES STAY ON THE TREES!

The countdown is almost in the single digits!

I have been frantically checking the weather almost every day. We still have 4 more days until we can get within the 10-day forecast on weather.com. Right now I'm a little worried, because it seems to be raining or have a chance of rain every other day. When I started planning the wedding, the farmer's almanac assured me it hadn't rained the first Saturday of November within the last 5 years or more! I hear rain is a sign of good luck, but I'd rather have the wedding outside. To those that are coming, make sure you bring a jacket or something, because it's going to take a lot for us to move the ceremony inside...ha ha! In seriousness, there is a backup plan, but everyone will be standing for the 20 minutes of our ceremony if we have it inside. That would be cool also as it would be very intimate.

When we were back last week, I also kept surveying the trees. I was a little obsessed. There seemed to be a lot of green left, so we are hoping that the trees still have a lot of pretty leaves on them. Maybe the rain will help!!

I mentioned in my last post that I went to the Kstate-Nebraska game last week. It was my first game this season as I've been busy with the wedding to go to any games. It was cool seeing the changes since last season and since Ron Prince started coaching. They come out of the locker room now carrying flags and they walk through smoke...pretty fancy! The Cats lost, but it was Harley Day and I got to see Willie the Wildcat ride in on a Harley. Yes, I'm easily amused!

Unfortunately, that loss against Nebraska and today's loss against Missouri might hurt my chances of selling my homecoming tickets! Ugh!


I'm going to get back to finishing my table numbers. These little guys are taking longer than I would have wanted, but I haven't been that motivated to get them finished. I was always a procrastinator in school, I waited until the last minute to do projects! Luckily, it's the only thing left for me to do. The rest of the projects will be done the Thursday night and Friday morning before the wedding with a little help from friends and family!!

Busy Busy Weekend

Mike and I were back in Kansas trying to get all the last minute things finished for the wedding. We had to get our marriage license, meet with the florist and ranch owner, go to the pumpkin patch, and go shopping for a lot of things. We actually got everything done! My friend, Nicki, volunteered to come in for the weekend also to help me out, which was awesome. She and I went shopping all day on Friday at all the craft stores in Kansas City.

On Saturday, before going to the disappointing Kstate-Nebraska game, Nicki and I went by my mom's house and dropped off everything I had brought from San Diego or bought the day before for the wedding. I'm using her house as storage until I get back to town a few days before the wedding. I also had to check out all my latest online purchases that I'd had shipped to my mom's house. I have a lot of stuff there!

So, 2 and a half weeks to go! I've been having a little trouble falling asleep at night as my mind is racing thinking of things I have left to do and thinking of how the day in general is going to unfold! I can't wait for it to get here! Hopefully, I won't drive Mike insane, or myself for that matter.

Wedding Update - 1 Month to go

With the wedding 1 month away, I get these little mini anxiety attacks thinking of what I have left to do. Although, I think I have everything under control.

I'm excited to show off my current projects. I'm making table numbers and table cards. This table card shown has a generic name, because I put pictures of my stuff online for other brides to be to see. I didn't want to put any real names online.



We are assigning tables at the wedding, so everyone doesn't have to worry about where to sit and with whom they are sitting with. Hee Hee, we get to decide that!! Just kidding, we aren't going to stick anyone with people they don't know. Weddings these days get pretty fancy with this stuff and I'm having fun getting craft-y. Mike thinks I'm getting a little crazy with it all and I'm sure no one will remember these details, but it's fun!


This is our guestbook that just arrived today. It's so cool, I love it. I decided to get a scrapbook guestbook, so after the wedding, I can put a lot of wedding pictures and stuff in there. Most people won't see the front of it at the wedding, so I thought I'd post a picture here.

San Jose

Mike and I went to San Jose for the weekend and met up with some friends from KC and San Francisco. One of our friends, Amy, decided to throw us a little party since all of us would be together.


We all went out for pizza.


And, our friends Nicole and Alex brought us an X-rated cake!



More pictures from the weekend.

San Francisco

The guys and girls separated on Saturday. The guys headed to SF and went to watch the KU-Nebraska game. The girls went to the spa to get a pedicure. It was so awesome, I hadn't had one in a long time. I'm so glad Amy planned this for us. Afterward, we headed to the city.


We did a little sightseeing in San Fran.


We drove down the curvy Lombard Street.


Notice all the cars coming down the curvy road. There was bumper to bumper traffic to go down this path, but our friend, Nicole, who lives there guided us around the traffic and in front of everyone, it was great.
















Before leaving the city, we all got to ride the trolley! I love SF!

Pictures from Torrey Pines hike

Mike and I went hiking on the trails in Torrey Pines State Park today. It was a beautiful day! Mike proposed to me on one of these trails last December.

Happy First Day of Fall!!

I love Fall! I think I may be in the minority of people
that consider it their favorite time of year. Not only
does it mean we are getting closer to the wedding, but
it's going to get cooler outside (maybe not as much here
as it will back home) and very pretty.
I also love this time of year for all the pumpkin-flavored
things that come out. Right now, I enjoy a pumpkin spice
latte from Starbucks about once a week! Einstein's bagels
has their pumpkin bagels and cream cheese out too. I had
one last week and it was really good! My other favorite
thing is when Dairy Queen gets their pumpkin pie blizzards,
which is usually late October or November I think. I love
those, they taste just like pumpkin pie. The only problem
is that I have to drive 20 minutes to get one around here.


I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some color to be left
in early November!!

Shower Photos

Let's try this again, I've been trying to make posts today, but the blogger is being slow....

I've only been to one shower in my life and it was a couples shower. I didn't know what to expect, so I was a little nervous. My mom and Mike's mom had never met and a lot of my friends didn't know each other. I, like Mike, have a lot of different groups of friends all over the place. It turned out to be a nice event and I was really excited to see everyone that came.


I had to include this photo, because Nicki decorated the table with leaves. It was so cute!


We had the shower at Brant and Bridget's house...thanks guys!


Mike's grandmother, Mom, Sister, and Sister-in-law


My mom, Grandmother, and Sister

I got my baby fix on Saturday. A lot of my friends have babies, so I was busy holding them all day. My arms were sore on Sunday!

This is Eva! Her dad, Tim, was in my pharmacy class. Her sister, Audrey, is our flower girl.

This is Colin! His mom, Jen, went to Kstate also. She was one of my roommates for a few months.

My friend, Nicki, from Illinois planned my shower last weekend. She's my Maid of Honor. We've been friends since 7th grade. We met in band class! We both played clarinet and were new to the school.

I'm very close to her family as her parents consider me a second daughter. It's a big joke, but the men are tearing themselves away from the farm for 24 hours to attend the wedding!!

Weekend with Family and Friends

Mike and I went back to KC for his bachelor party Friday night, my bridal shower on Saturday, and a dinner party with family and friends Saturday night. It was a very fun weekend, but it flew by so quickly. We went to Buca Di Beppo for dinner Saturday night and had a great time!
We want to thank everyone that came!

Isn't She Cute!

Posing with our flower girl, Audrey!

Our Photographer's Blog

So, I added our photographer's blog to our blog list. If anyone has time, you should check out her Sept 5 post. It's a slideshow of a wedding she just photographed. I love her work and can't wait to see our pictures after the wedding. If you've kept up with our photographer hunt, finding the right photographer was very, very important to us. We actually interviewed 4, which is a couple more than most people interview. I've got to say I feel pretty lucky to have come across Kelley. Her personality and her work were exactly what we were looking for in a photographer.

Labor Day Weekend Pictures

We went to Coronado Island on Friday after we picked up Brant and Bridget from the airport. We went to The Hotel Del Coronado, which is a major attraction on the island. After hanging out there for a while, we went to eat lunch and had a great view of downtown San Diego.