Oh, Mark

So, we were spending our Friday night being wild and crazy. And by wild and crazy I mean sitting in our apartment surfing the Internet machine while sitting on the couch and munching on cake cookies.

I know many of you have already started calculating just how lame we are, but lest you think it was time ill-spent, we bring you the single most decisive moment from the 70's:

Growing up

This is so us... (comic from xkcd.com)

Yay!

I'm SO excited! I just can't hide it! I'm about to lose control and I think... I think I better stop before you start to question my sanity.

In a week and a half my cousin M, who is living in NYC is coming to LA! M is one of my favorite people in the whole world.

At Bryant Park fashion week with M in NYC last year

If we would have had a wedding party she would have been the MOH. She is incredibly smart and beautiful and SO well dressed. I went to visit her last September in NYC and had a blast. And now she is coming here. I definitely think we should keep this trend going.

Anyway, we are going to have so much fun. I know you are jealous. I have all kinds of ideas for stuff to do like: the Hollywood walk of fame and Grauman's Chinese Theater, drive around the crazy houses in Beverly Hills, visit the Getty, eat at C&O's, 3rd Street Promenade, Disneyland, a Dodger's game, go to some of the swanky hotels, the Huntington Botanical Gardens, the Hearst Castle, LaBrea tar pits, the flower district in the morning, Rodeo Drive, and of course go to the beach. That is a given. And of course M can choose anything and everything or nothing. As long as we hit the beach I'll be happy.

Then, a few days after M leaves T and I are headed to Iowa for a family reunion!

I actually took this picture in New Jersey. They must love Iowa, too!

I LOVE small town Iowa. It is one of my favorite places in the world. Ever since I was little I wanted to live in my grandparent's Iowa lakehouse. I love the green, the corn, the fireflies, the houses, and that it is still close to Des Moines.

We are going to hit up the JK Nature Preserve, of course, and the Iowa state fair (I heart the butter carvings!), and maybe Adventureland and Amana.

Family reunion two summers ago

I haven't been able to stop smiling and saying, "I'm SO excited!" since we decided to go.

It's going to be a great two weeks!

Can anyone think of anything else we should hit up in LA or Iowa?

San Diego - best day ever!

That's me! Heading out to play! Let me tell you how I got there.

Last Saturday T and I went with the USC ward to San Diego.

We met at the institute at 8 a.m. We were even a few minutes early! We had to wait for everyone else to show up (that's my waiting face) but it was all good because we didn't have to drive! This was our destination:

the San Diego Temple.

Here's the group from the ward. There were about 30 of us.

Us outside the temple. The grounds are ridiculously beautiful. The last time I was at the San Diego temple was for A and K's wedding 4 years ago!

We saw two brides! I love weddings!

K (not the K from above) and her husband J took all the pictures in this post. I had to snatch them off of Facebook. We had a good time at the temple then it was off to lunch and the beach! We went to a surfer beach instead of La Jolla. We parked ridiculously close to the beach and the surfing beach was not crowded at all.

K (who married A) riding the boogie board all the way into shore

Look! It's us! This is when we were about to leave. It was cold-ish by then.


The ward chillaxing

A (who married K) and her baby B-pants

Us and our boogie boards! Well, I'm using our boogie board, T is using someone else's because the entire ward shared and everyone used everyone's stuff.

Then we went to dinner at In-N-Out, snatched a french apple pie from Marie Callender's (I love pie from Marie Callender's!!!), and saw the Disneyland firework show on the way home.

So in one day we got the San Diego temple, the beach, In-N-Out, pie, and fireworks.

I don't think the day could have been any better.

This Book Will Change Your Life

Two years ago my friend E gave me this book for my birthday. All images are from Amazon.com.


It's funny and not meant to be a life guide or anything remotely like that. It's kind of like a mild dare a day. Every once in a while I would randomly open a page and do that day's task - like some of the ones you see below.

I'm going to take this book seriously (well as serious as you can - it's not a serious book at all) and do every task on it's assigned day. So I'll be doing something everyday, starting this Monday. We'll see how it goes. I'll keep you updated on the weekly events.

California Sky

I don't have the best of relationships with California. But every once in a while California pleasantly surprises me.

The first time was this past February when I came to SoCal from Utah to take engagement pictures with T. That SoCal day was ridiculously beautiful. It was sunny, 74 degrees and clear without a trace of smog.

And I was surprised again last week when T and I went outside to sit on the porch swing (actually to swing on the porch swing - who can just sit on a porch swing?!) and we saw this:


The sky looked SO beautiful and SO fake. Like it was a backdrop at Universal Studios. And it got even better because as the night went on it turned into this:

Just when I think I am through with California she goes and does something like this...

Boogie Boards

We got our boogie boards! I ordered them online and was a bit nervous that they wouldn't arrive by this Saturday for our beach trip to San Diego.

Our boogie boards are identical (this photo shows the front and back). We bought pretty good quality ones with the thought that we will probably use them for several years. I can't wait to use them this weekend!

Our Wedding Movie!

My amazing brother W put together this wonderful movie for us. It's where T and I came from and where we hope to be in the future. It made me laugh and cry. It was THE best gift and it totally made our wedding. I love our families!

Wordle

It's our wedding Wordle! Made at http://www.wordle.net/. Wordles are ridiculously easy to make. You just enter in some text and ta-da! It gives you a pretty little word cloud weighted to word frequency. This is what I got when I entered the very long list I had for our wedding ideas. You can somewhat customize the fonts, colors, and format.

So it's pretty much lots of fun for pretty much anything. I think a Wordle would be really cool framed if you had a sweet layout with some sweet colors.

Don't mind the words that don't make sense...Like Keith...it was supposed to be "It's a love thing" by Keith Urban but Wordle doesn't keep phrases together...

I think I'm going to go make a Wordle of my favorite things...

Signs

Photobooth!

My favorite thing at our wedding party was the photobooth! Okay, I'll be honest I absolutely LOVED every part of May 23 and my favorite part changes daily. Here's our booth!


I love wedding stuff, but for a few weeks in March I was really stressed out. It was the busy season for my mom at H&R Block and T was extremely busy with school projects in California and I felt like wedding things weren't coming together and I was on my own.

My mom set aside a Saturday to go to a bridal show with me and we went even though I didn't feel like it. And there we found the magic photobooth of goodness by A Day to Remember Receptions.

I had looked at other photobooths before and they were all about $1000. My mom and I took a fun set of pictures together in the A Day to Remember Receptions photobooth. And then we found out that A Day to Remember Receptions was offering a screaming deal ($416.95 total!!!)and I decided right then that I wanted to book them. I called T and asked him if it was okay and booked our date right then.

And I realized right then that even if nothing else worked out we would have this rocking photobooth on top of our awesome music and delicious cake and amazing photographer and thus our party would be fantastic. And all of a sudden, I got my wedding groove back.


Each photobooth session had four pictures with a choice of black and white or color. Then the photobooth printed two copies: one for the guest book and one for the guest to keep. And we had an unlimited amount of pictures to take in the booth!

Putting together the guest book

The pink and our names and our date were printed on every photobooth picture just like this.

1. We are so happy to be married!

2. AAAHHHHH!!! We're married!!!

3. Some kissin' (c'mon you knew it was coming)

4. We have proof (the rings) that we are married

I wish our photographer had taken a picture of T's feet and my dress in the photobooth and a picture of us pulling back the curtain in the photobooth. C'est la vie.

Here are a bunch of fun individual shots that we pulled from the comprehensive CD A Day to Remember Receptions gave us. There were SO many great pictures and it was hard to decide so there are LOTS.

These first three are a series of my cousin M and her dad J...

That's 9 crazy people in a photobooth. Gotta be a record. At least for crazy people.

Our photographer, Elizabeth Taylor Frandsen

It's a ghost! Or maybe a white ribbon stick...

Everyone, thanks for taking great pictures and making our party AWESOME!