Pretty much all we have been doing lately is decorating and planning...how boring, right? With the wedding at 99 days out, I've been starting to get a lot of things checked off my list. I've noticed as the day gets closer, I have way more to do! This week, I've been trying to find shoes! You'd think it'd would be easy, but not for me. I always seem to want things that aren't that common. (Mike says he's the same way.) I want CUTE (keyword) low heel, closed toe shoes, because the ceremony is outside and I'll be walking on gravel. All I seem to find are strapy, open toe, 3 inch stilettos. AHHH!

Also this week, Mike and I had our first dance lesson. We decided (yes, mutually) to learn some new moves. Hopefully, we will be able to entertain everyone when we have our first dance! It was a lot of fun, I kept giggling the whole time we had to practice our steps in front of the instructor. We are taking private lessons, because our schedule (mostly mine) never matches that of classes being offered. We started off by learning east coast swing. Mike is just used to twirling me around randomly, but there is actually footwork involved....triple step, triple step, rock step. I had that in my head the whole next day. Once we chose a song, we'll learn the type of dance that goes along with it. It'll be fun. (our instructor is the lady in the picture.)

Our New Table Arrived Today

We finally got our table in that we ordered about 3 weeks ago. We had picked out the table together, but Mike went back and picked out the colors and chairs one day when I was working. I think he did a fantastic job. We decided on a bar top table. We will keep 2 of the chairs at the bar unless we have company. We don't have any travel plans for Aug as of yet, so maybe we'll work on decorating the walls. I know Mike is dying to get some more art work up.

Circle S Ranch Pictures in the Summer

Last weekend, we also went out to the Circle S Ranch to meet with Mary and go over some details. We finalized the menus and some other things. It ended up being a very helpful meeting. Come to find out, they already have some things that we need or want. Now I don't have to go out and buy or rent certain things. Mary also offered to go pick up anything that we do rent and bring it out to the ranch. For example, we want some pumpkins for the wedding, so she said after we order them she'll go pick them up for us. That was so nice of her. While we were there, we snapped a bunch of pictures since we hadn't seen the place with leaves on the trees yet. Here are a few, but there's more in our photo albums in the wedding planning album.

Ceremony

When we were back in town for Brian's wedding, we decided to do some wedding planning of our own. We went to the small town of Oskaloosa, Kansas to meet with our officiant. We came across his name on the referral list from The Circle S Ranch. I had contacted him a few times, but we were never able to meet up with him until now. Either we didn't have enough time when we were in town or he was out of town.

We sat on his front porch on a hot, steamy day in Kansas to discuss our ceremony. Instead of the traditional unity candle, I came across the idea of a sand ceremony. I figured a candle and outdoors really didn't go together. If I'd left it up to Mike, he'd just do the "I dos" and call it good. I was trying to come up with ideas to make the ceremony last like 5 minutes longer...ha ha. So, we'll see how it all turns out. Mr. Reiling (the officiant) said he was going to be preforming a sand ceremony here in San Diego within the next couple of weeks. At least he'll have performed one before our wedding and know what to do, because we might not have a clue. How hard can it be to just pour some sand in a container?

After our meeting, Mike and I headed over to a local diner to have lunch. The food was decent and it was the cheapest meal we'd had in a long time. Oskaloosa was a cool little town, they even had a local corner pharmacy with a soda fountain, something I hope to have some day.

Wedding Music

I've been working on wedding music for the ceremony and reception. We are having a string quartet at the ceremony. I don't want to do the whole "Here Comes the Bride" thing, so I've been searching around for other ideas. I really like "Can't Help Falling in Love" by Elvis. I listened to a string version of it and it sounded really nice. Convincing Mike is a different story.

:::whispering::: I think he likes all the traditional ceremony music.

We've also been trying to figure out what our first song is going to be at the reception. We don't really have "our song". I've always wanted George Straits' "I Cross My Heart" and he kind of wants Chris Ledoux's "Look at You Girl." Those are both great songs, but I kind of want something more upbeat. We are taking dance lessons starting next week, so maybe we'll figure something out. I know we are going to brush up on our swing dancing and maybe learn some other dances.

This is hard work...

Another One Bites the Dust

Over the weekend, one of Mike's college friends got married. It was a very nice wedding, Steph and Brian O'mara looked marvelous! We didn't take many pictures, because we thought our camera wasn't charged. We discovered later that it was charged...duh! Anyway, we asked someone esle to forward pictures to us. The party pics will show up as soon as Jama emails them to us.

We also got to see that cute little famous Mya while we were in town. I was having a good time making little faces at her and babbling to get her to smile. She's so cute when she smiles. She's got to be one of the best babies I know. Check out her photo link for some of her latest pictures.

Pictures from Home

Sam


Joe's Geodome greenhouse. He built this greenhouse after receiving the Howard R. Swearer Student Humanitarian Award (story here).

Joe & Sarah and their newly painted home. Doesn't it look cool?























The Humanure.

Alone in San Diego

Well, Mike had to stay in Kansas City for a conference and left me to travel back to San Diego alone. We had been in Joplin for the Blundell reunion this last weekend. The last time Mike and I were in different states was when he had his appendix taken out over Thanksgiving. It sure is quiet around here. At least I have 3 cats to keep me company and overtime at work. Before the whole wedding planning and having a mortgage, I didn't like working overtime. Ha ha...I still don't. I just look at it as extra money to help pay for our photographer or DJ or whatever.

I'll be back to see Mike in KC Thursday evening as we are going to a wedding in Wichita this coming weekend. Brian, another KU swimmer, and Steph's wedding to be exact. We'll also be doing some more wedding planning while we are in the area. I finally have a meeting set up with an officiant and we'll be heading out to the ranch to update them of our plans (menus, etc). Oh, then we come back to San Diego and Mike's mom and sister will be here for a week.

July is just busy busy for us!

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!

photo of Del Mar fairground fireworks

We hope everyone had a fun and safe day! A very tame day for us. We decided to skip the beach this year, which is where almost everyone here goes for the 4th.

photo of how Pacific Beach looks on the 4th.

Swiffer Rocks

Man, the person that discovered the Swiffer is one very smart person. I decided to hang up my days of getting down on the floor with a wash cloth to clean the floors when we were living in our apartment. Investing in the Swiffer Wetjet mop made mopping a lot easier.

Now today, I bought the Swiffer sweeper. I'm in heaven. Mike came in from grilling the food and I was dancing around the place with my new sweeper. With 3 cats and tile floors, my back was killing me from sweeping like 700 square feet of flooring every couple of days. With this thing, I can sweep the floors a lot faster and even get under the furniture without moving anything.

No more broom and dust pan, I highly recommend one of these! I'm going to go sweep now.