Time Flies

I can't believe that it's already been so long since I've posted anything. I'm not the most consistent blogger, but do attempt to do it a little more often than that even if I don't succeed.

Heading to The Cotton Mill after the wedding for pics

Gary and I have been married for over 2 months now! Crazy how time flies. After the wedding we had a 2 week honeymoon. The first 4-5days we spent in San Fran and LOVED it. We walked EVERYWHERE and were exhausted by the time we got back to the hotel. Our hotel was also right across the street from an amazing sourdough bread bakery that served breakfast, lunch, and dinner and I'm pretty sure we had at least one meal a day there. So good!

The Boudin Bread Bakery 

Early morning breakfast at the bakery

Lombard Street (the crookedest street) 

Ghirardelli Square - we hung out here everyday drinking some yummy wine, listening to live music, watching people, reading, and having some delicious ice cream from the ghirardelli shop :) 

One of our favorite parts - night tour of Alcatraz...so fun!

After a few days there we drove out to Yosemite and spent a week in Curry Village. Yosemite is absolutely a beautiful place that both Gary and I love and I can't wait to go back and someday take our children.

Hiking up the Mist Trail 

Another hike up to Yosemite Falls (apparently when you climb high enough the rain turns into snow...like blizzard snow :/ ) 

This was at the top. See the rock behind me? Yep that's the edge of the mountain where you can fall off...hard to see in the fog/snow right? That's what I thought too. 

 This was our 'tent' in curry village. Big enough for a double bed, chair, and set of shelves. Much nicer than a tent, but no camp fires :(

Unfortunately we were only able to do the two big hikes because the day after the wedding I started feeling sick and by the 3rd day in Yosemite I couldn't hike a few hundred feet without coughing my lungs up :( I felt bad for Gary but it was a pretty relaxing rest of the week.

Since then we've just been trying to get back to our normal routine. Gary switched shifts so we don't see each other as much as before, but still more than most couples I'm sure. We've been working a lot, but now Gary's ironman season is starting so we get to go on lots of trips which I'm super excited about. Hopefully I'll be better about updating as the summer goes on but we'll see how that goes :)

Hope everyone has a fabulous week!

Kate

15 Days...

Only 15 days left until the wedding! I can't believe it's so soon. Feels like just a month ago Gary and I booked our venue and figured out we were exactly 10 months from the date, which seemed SO far away at the time. I'm so excited and cannot wait for it to be here. I've got pretty much everything done and ready, which is good and bad. I'm not stressing anymore about what I have left and if I'll get it all done in time, but then again now I'm trying to think of what I've forgotten (which I'm just sure that there's something), or sad about not having what we cannot afford to have, or thinking up new things that I could do (that would add more stress than I need at this point). So tonight I decided to try and just be done with everything. What we don't have, won't matter...and everything that we do have I'm soo excited about. And I WILL not add more to my plate at this point...won't do it....most likely ;)  I had my bridal portraits this week and I'm SOO excited to see how they turn out. I LOVE our photographer and also cannot wait to see pics from the wedding (that's still 2weeks away) and how they all turn out. Most of all I'm just ready to be married. I cannot begin to explain how much I love Gary and how happy and excited I am to be spending the rest of my life with him. He is such an amazing man and I couldn't have asked for more.

I'm so excited to spend the whole weekend with our family from out of town and especially with my best girls friends from around texas. I'm so honored to have them part of our day and am so thankful for having them in my life through everything (and for putting up with me for this many years!).

 Alright enough of the gooshy, sappy Katie. All of that to say...YAY!! ONLY 15 DAYS LEFT!!!  :)

Holidays 2010

So I know that I've been slacking recently on my blogging, but with the holidays blogging went on the back burner for a while. And unfortunately I always seem to find time to blog while I'm at triage at work (shh don't tell the boss people) which means no pictures. But I'll work on getting some updated pics up.

Let's see, new things going on?
Well more wedding planning which is becoming a bit overwhelming at this point. Another thing that went on the back burner with the holidays was the wedding planning...so now i'm trying to play catch up. It's all of the little things that are starting to add up, but the big things are done and I'm trying to just take it all just one at a time. I try to keep reminding myself that it's supposed to be fun and to enjoy it while I can. Next on the list: making invitations!

One of my best friends Ashley got engaged to her perfect match Vince and I am thrilled for her! I can't wait for their wedding...I'm sure it will be great :)

I've been working a whole lot lately to save up extra money for wedding festivities. That means much less time at home with Gary :( and more time working...but only through February and the paychecks make it worth it ;)

Yesterday we had our first snow at our new house! It was so pretty and Harley LOVED it! All day he kept begging to go outside so he could run and play in the snow.

We have decided on our honeymoon...we are going camping for a week in Yosemite National Park and then spending a few days in San Francisco. I know some people may think that I'm nuts for wanting to go camping for our honeymoon, but seriously, if you haven't been to Yosemite you HAVE to go. It's amazing! and breathtaking! and...basically I'm so excited about it. Gary and I went there for our first trip together back in April. He had been for years and said it was his favorite place ever, and I quickly figured out why. Seriously, you all have to go.

I have finished more quilts and sent them off to the quilter to put them all together, so when I get the finished products I'll try to post some pics...I'm real excited about getting these back :)

That's about all we've been up to here lately. The next few months will be pretty busy, but hopefully I'll get some pics up at some point.

Happy January everybody!

So Gary and I are finally getting settled into the new house and we both LOVE it. Most of the boxes are unpacked, just a few more to go. I have my sewing room set up and can't wait to use it. Harley's hair unfortunately shows up quite well on the dark hardwoods, turns out I have to vacuum every few days. But I can't wait for Halloween tomorrow so I can hand out candy to all the kids! Here are a few pics taken before moving in...

(family room from upstairs)

(thats my sewing room to the left :) and the entry way)

(outside view)

So we are officially Prosper residents! I guess I could finally change my drivers license address from my parent's waco address now...

Hawaii was awesome and beautiful, but very expensive. Honestly I'd almost rather go to an all inclusive at one of the other amazing beaches and not have to worry about each penny we are spending. But I'm happy we went, and we do want to plan on going back (but saving up more money to take next time).

We also finally got some of our engagement pics on the computer. Here are a few of my favorites...

We are finally enjoying a long weekend, hopefully I'll get some sewing projects actually done (not more started which has been my habit lately) and can show some pics next week...we'll see how that turns out. Hope everyone has a happy halloween weekend!

tidbit of advice...

So, being the brilliant people that Gary and I are, while planning this big wedding, planning our Hawaii vacation next week, and working as much as possibly can while staying sane...we also decided to buy a house. Which yes, I am super super super excited about the fact that we are getting a house...BUT...the actual home buying process, not so excited. Other than the fact that in order to get through the whole process you have to promise off your first born and fax a novel of paperwork longer than even Stephen Kings greatest works (which is REALLY long just fyi), the part that put us over the top was the mortage loan guy trying to screw us over and out of about $5000. Yeah we weren't too excited about that. But don't worry, we had our amazing financial advisor meet with us and have a conference call 'meeting' with said mortgage guy and let him know we were on to his little scheme. And would you believe it, low and behold, you know what we could bring that %age down, and we could get you a better deal. omg it's crazy how that happens.

So just in case anyone is looking to buy a house...two pointers we learned: 1. always have someone else look at the good faith estimate and what they are charging you to be sure you aren't being screwed (these guys are worse than car salesmen!)...and 2. PLEASE do NOT do it at the same time as planning a wedding, planning a vacation, working all kinds of overtime, and getting ready for the fun holidays...at least not if you want to stay sane...

So that's my little rant for today. On the good news front: our photographer (the fabulous Christina Carroll from Austin) posted our engagement pics on her blog and has mailed us the disc of all the pics! I'm so excited to see all of them (and of course will share our favs when we get them), but I love what I've seen so far on her blog!

Three days until we leave for Hawaii!! can't wait...

Engagement Pictures and more planning...

So this past weekend Gary and I had our engagement pictures taken! yay! Our amazing photographer came up from Austin Sunday and met us over in Fort Worth. We took all of the pictures at the Fort Worth Japanese Botanical Gardens. I had never ever heard of this place before, but it was BEAUTIFUL. If yall are in the area, you really have to check it out, so cool. Of course it would have been nice if we weren't covered in sweat throughout the whole shoot, but hopefully it won't be so obvious in the pictures :/ I was really nervous going into it, because really, who has had their pictures taken professionally on a regular basis, definitely not me, not ever. But Christina (our photographer) was amazing and made both of us completely relaxed. I can't wait to see how they turned out.

Wedding plans are coming along. We met with a florist, Bella Flora, this past Friday and booked them for our wedding day. Everything I've seen from them is just amazing and I can't wait to see our sample center pieces when it gets closer to the day of. Everything is pretty much coming together easily. Everything costs more than we originally wanted or expected, but it seems like everything with weddings is that way. We are both really happy and excited about the vendors we picked so far, so I'm excited to see how it all comes out.

I think that's about it for our recent news. We are leaving for our Hawaii trip in October and CANNOT wait! I'll def have to post some pics from our trip! I hope everyone has a great week!

So I've just come to the realization (as I'm looking at everybody's amazingly cute blogs!) that my blog is severely lacking in the cuteness department...i mean realy, could it get any more boring? Yeah that's what I thought too. But never fear, tomorrow I will see the amazing Ms Jessica who I will beg to aid me in all of my horrible blogging decorating defecits.

I'm super excited about this weekend because tomorrow (after a little sleep from working my night shift tonight) I am going down to Waco for a weekend with Jessica! Woohoo! And finally her family! (who I haven't gotten to spend time with in a VERY long time) and of course I'll get to see a little of my fabulous family as well.

Next weekend Gary and I are getting our engagement pictures taken. I'm very nervous but excited. I not at the weight that I want to be at (not even close), but I'm hopeful that they will still turn out ok. We have a wonderful photographer from Austin actually for our wedding that suggested going to the Japanese Botanical Gardens in Fort Worth for our pics and after seeing some of the pictures of the place I'm so excited! I'll be sure to share some of the pics once we get them back from the photographer :)

No other exciting news to share...all the wedding plans are coming along and we can't wait! I hope everyones week has gone well and stayed dry from the rain!