Bridal Shower

Hello!!!!!!!!!!!! My weekend was AMAZING and packed full of fun, so to make this slightly less overwhelming, I'm going to break it up into a few different posts. Let's start with my shower!!!

Sheena flew in on Thursday night - woohoo! We spent all day Friday getting ready for the shower, which obviously included doing a workout dvd, getting mani/pedis, and stopping by Lululemon and TJ Maxx for fun. ;-) Then we headed over to Anna's to get ready for the party!

Anna and her mom had the place looking AMAZING! I cannot express how thankful I am to her for opening her doors for my shower. :-)  Many hugs and kisses to Anna!!! xoxoxoxo!!!! Ali and Sarah came over early to help with prep too!

Ali and Sarah

Sheena's making whipped cream!

Anna got us these cool hats haha

I don't know about anyone else, but I thought I had a pretty amazing (and very healthy) spread!

Delicious!

Dessert and Drinks!

Pretty decorations

Rose's GORGEOUS cake!

Beautiful flowers provided by the Steltenpohls!

Everyone arrived around 7:00pm, and we spent an hour eating, drinking, and talking. I was so excited for my friends to all meet each other, especially Sheena since I tell her about all of them on a daily basis. I was really happy with how friendly eveyone was. :-)  

Then it was time for shower games!!! Sheena created a game called "How well do you know Barbara?" where she asked everyone a million questions I had given answers to.

Sheena - game master

Everyone hard at work answering the questions

And the winner.... it was a tie!!! Sarah and Anna know me best. Gee, how am I not surprised. ;-)

After that it was time for.... TOILET PAPER BRIDES!!!!! Sheena divided the girls into teams, then everyone got crafty!

Kristin, Marcia, and Anna

Rose, Carrie, and Ali

Sharman, Tara, and Elizabeth

Jeanne, Lisa, and Sheena (at least her left hand)

Team Sarah (with Laura and Cindy)

Once they were all ready, they put on a fashion show, haha. I took a video of it, but for some reason it won't load to my blog, so if you'd like to see it, send me an email and I'll send it your way!!

Anna's cat Otis also got in on the action too.

Otis and his beautiful veil

With games out of the way, it was time for dessert. We all LOVED Rose's gluten/dairy free cake. It was seriously delicious.

Cake time!

That meant there was only one thing left to do....

OPEN PRESENTS!!!!!! hahaha

What a pile o' loot!

I was a little nervous before the shower about opening gifts in front of everyone. From what other's had told me, it's an odd experience to have everyone staring at you. I'll admit... I loved every freaking second of it!!! 

In all seriousness though, I have an amazingly loving and generous group of friends. It was so wonderful to be surrounded by people I love and care about so much, and I know that will only be multiplied on the actual wedding day. 

THANK YOU SO MUCH TO ALL OF MY FRIENDS FOR AN AMAZING SHOWER!!!!! It will stick with me as one of my most happy memories. :-)

The girls from Job #2 :-)

2 Months Left!

That's right!!! Only two months until the big day. It's getting so close and the time is flying by. My shower and bachelorette party are this weekend so it feels like things are really starting to happen!

My first week back was good - nothing too exciting, but nothing bad either, so I'll take it. Job #1 was fine... I actually got a new computer, so I've been having fun using that. Since I was still adjusting to the time change, I didn't wake up early to exercise, but I did manage to do two tabata workouts with Carrie and go for a 3 mile run with Sarah. My hamstrings are so sore!!!

Carrie and I did one workout outside at this park!

Anna's dad, Eric, was also in town, so I met them, plus Andy, Will, and Rose for FroYo one night! I only got a little frozen yogurt (no toppings), and I am proud to say it is the only thing I've had in 17 days that is not.... vegan. That's right. Today is day 17 of trying to be a starch-free vegan. In no way am I wanting to go crazy about this - but for now it's kind of fun to see how long I can keep it up. Anyway, after FroYo we went back to Anna's to see this amazing deck she and her dad built. And once we admired that, we tried to lure Poco onto Anna's food scale to see how much she weighed (spoiler alert: it never worked).

Come on Poco - just two more paws!

Over the weekend, Andy and I did some wedding shopping. I found two more pairs of shoes that have joined the "potential wedding shoe" category.

Two more options

Andy also got his tie and ties for his groomsmen as well. He was very smart to realize Father's Day weekend would be a good time to look for ties (they were all on sale!).

So that's about it! After work today I'll go home and get the guest room ready for Sheena. Tuesday I have a dentist appointment (blah), then work both jobs. Wednesday I work and then have REDO. And Thursday I work and then Sheena arrives. Then it's party time!!!!!!!! I'm so excited. :-)

I'm Back!

Hello friends! I'm back from the wonderful west coast! I'm sorry I didn't post while I was away, but I will make it up to you with a big recap from my awesome trip.

Friday - 5/30
My trip began after Job #1 on Friday night. I got to the airport and was told my flight was delayed and I would miss my connection. They were able to put me on a different flight so that I could still get back that night, it just meant I had to go through Atlanta instead of Minneapolis. Let me tell you.... that's a lot of pointless flying to go all the way down to Atlanta before finally crossing the country.

My flight from Atlanta to Seattle was the most miserable flying experience I've ever had. I was in the middle seat (bad start) next to a morbidly obese man. He was so big he had to have a seat belt extender and that was expanded as far as it could go. I could go into more details, but let's just say I was completely miserable. And it's nothing against his size. Honestly. It's just I paid for my tiny chair and I expect to be able to sit in it. All of it. They've got to change their policy. Anyway - I made it to Washington. Yay!

Saturday - 5/31
The morning started by introducing my parents to T25.

My dad's idea of hydrating for T25, haha

After I killed them with that, we hit the Soos Creek trail - one of my favorite places.

Soos Creek Trail

This is where I like to start

Little bridge

After our morning of exercise we headed to downtown Seattle for the.... NORDSTROM WOMEN'S HALF YEARLY SALE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Woohoo!!!!! We were on mission: wedding shoes.

Now the Nordstrom shoe department is divided into three sections, each on it's own section of carpet - 1) casual/juniors, 2) regular people shoes for work and nice occastions, and 3) I don't know. And I say I don't know because section 3 is way too expensive to even step foot on that carpet. As you can imagine, I was like "what is she doing?!?" when I saw my mom step onto the forbidden carpet zone. Long story short.... I got my wedding shoes in the forbidden carpet zone!!!!! Or so I thought... (more on that later).

The rest of the day was spent shopping, then eating dinner at home. It was a pretty awesome day.

Sunday - June 1
The morning brought on another round of T25, which my very sore parents reluctantly gave a shot. ;-) Once we were all showered we headed out for more shopping. Towards the end of the day we ended up at Nordstrom Rack (Nordstrom's outlet store). I ended up finding almost the exact same shoes I had bought in the forbidden carpet zone (same brand and color) - only these were marked waaaay down. Hello new wedding shoes!

Wedding Shoes

Now they aren't at all what I pictured wearing, so there's still a chance I'll come across something else that I'll end up with, but if not I have a pair of shoes I think are beautiful and are surprisingly comfortable. :-)

Monday - June 2
Both of my parents had to go to work, and with the conference not starting until Tuesday, I had a free day. I ended up going up to help in my mom's classroom at lunch until the end of the day. For those that don't know, my mom teaches kindergarten (moving to third grade next year). Good God. I don't know how she does it. I'll just leave it at that, haha. After school she runs an art club. I actually ended up doing the art project too, haha.

My Painting

That night my dad drove my mom and I downtown so I could check into my hotel for the conference. My mom was able to take a few days off so she could stay with me too!

Tuesday - June 3
Woke up - did T25 with my mom. Go us! Then we hit the streets to go shopping.

Starbucks + Nordstrom... it doesn't get much better than that

The biggest "surprise" find on our trip was a $350 dress... that was marked down to $12. Good find Mom!!! I will most likely wear it to the opening night for Job #1 in September. You'll just have to wait to see what it looks like!

At 1:00 I had a 5 hour session for the conference. I thought it would be excruciatingly boring, but I'm happy to say it was mildly interesting and I went away with some good ideas to implement at Job #1.

Wednesday through Friday - June 4/5/6
These days all blur together. Conference sessions, a little exercise, and a lot of shopping. My mom and I are a dangerous duo, but boy did we get some cute stuff! Staying downtown was a lot of fun - one of the perks was being a few blocks away from the market.

As you can see, the weather was gorgeous

I wish my wedding flowers could come from here!

Saturday - June 7
Saturday was a big day - my mom's first alterations appointment for her mother of the bride dress! I was really excited to get to see it in person. She picked a good one!!! She asked me not to share the pictures of her dress (going to be a surprise!) so instead... here is a picture of me, haha. I'm wearing new pants which I like a lot.

Striped pants!

The casino just happened to be on the way home from the dress store so of course we stopped. :-) No big winners, but it was still a lot of fun.

Sunday - June 8
Happy Father's Day! Ok, so that's really next week, but since I was in town, we decided to celebrate a week early. First there was lunch downtown at The Yard House - a restaurant my dad (and the rest of us) really liked in Las Vegas.

My healthy greens

Mom's healthy soup and salad

Dad's Father's Day HELL YA!

After lunch we went to REI to get my dad a fitbit! That night however, the girls took over... my mom and I watched the Miss USA pageant. :-) We love watching pageants so it was very lucky that we got to see it together (although it went really late and I was very tired).

Monday - June 9
I finished packing in the morning, then it was time to head to the airport. I was definitely sad to leave, but knowing I'll see my parents in 7 weeks when they come out for the wedding made it a little easier. I just love being home so much.

THANK YOU MOM AND DAD. I loved being home. I loved being with you both. I loved all the shopping!!!! But most of all I loved that I just felt taken care of. My mom did an awesome job of getting me back on track with food (and I'm feeling great). Even my dad who had to work the entire week I was there still took time to lay out coffee for me each morning.

Good morning :-)

I am one lucky girl.