The Road to the Alter

AKA, how our surprise wedding came about.

After dating about a year we started talking pretty seriously about getting married. Originally, we both had different ideas of what a wedding meant to us. I wanted something intimate and personal, Jerad wanted what has become the traditional wedding. Ceremony in a church, indoor reception, centerpieces, toasts, bouquet toss, garter toss, cake cutting, all that jazz. We did both want "small" with only immediate family and then all of our friends. We wrote out a guest list, over 180 people. Hmm, not very small.

After another year or so went by, we both changed our minds and decided we wanted a big wedding. In a barn. With twinkle lights and candles, and Santa Maria Style BBQ. So we began planning, researching different venues, colors, all that jazz. Meanwhile, we went to more and more weddings as all of our friends began to tie the knot. Although they were all different, they still felt very much the same. We decided we wanted something different, something more "us." About that time I discovered this blog post all about a surprise wedding. I decided that was the best idea ever. Surprising all of our family and friends, minimal hassle, SO US! Jerad was about 90% gung ho on the idea. He worried that planning something so big, all by ourselves, without ANY help from anyone would stress me the hell out seeing as how I'm such a perfectionist. He was 100% right, I just didn't want to admit it. Still, I told all my best friends about the idea and tucked it away.

I also had really been studying my Quaker heritage and had been going to Quaker Meetings so I wanted to include something of that in the wedding. We both decided that having a Quaker Ceremony would be amazing. It would be something that most people weren't used to, and so personal. Instead of boring toasts at a reception, our friends and families could voice their hearts during the ceremony. I also like the idea of walking down the isle together instead of being escorted down. Since I'm already grown up and have been living on my own for 7 years I didn't feel like I should be "given away."

During the next year, we finalized our plans. We would be getting married in the Valencia Town Hall (ADORABLE!) with the reception at Quail Hollow Ranch. The reception would be outside, with more of a family reunion feel than a wedding feel. We would have lawn games, picnic tables, picnic blankets, and all our nearest and dearest as long as it wasn't more than 80 people (picture something like this). It would be a weekend event with fun things to do and we wanted to find a rustic lodge type place that everyone could stay at.

We both loved the idea, but putting it into practice was difficult. First of all, just our immediate families, aunts/uncles/cousins/grandparents came out to almost 70 people. By the time we each picked a few friends to be in the bridal party, we were already at our 80 person limit. It was also just crazy expensive. Neither one of us buy into that "your wedding is the most important day of your life" mentality. We wanted it to be fun for sure, but not consume all of our thoughts/time/energy/ There are a lot of things we were more excited about, like building a house and starting a family.

Nevertheless, we made lists of ideas and links, the invitations we would have, vendors, everything. Now all that was holding things up was the proposal. In the beginning of this year we talked about getting married by the end of the year. As time ticked by, it started seeming more and more like that was NOT going to happen.

I wanted to get married in October, when the weather was still nice, not too hot or cold. Jerad said he "didn't want to share his birthday month." At first I thought he was kidding, but he explained that in the last 4 years of us dating he has had more fun than ever on his birthday and was worried that if we had an anniversary around the same time that the birthday planning would cease.

During the summer we went to 4 weddings, a ton of concerts at the fair, bought a car, reorganized the house, and Jerad started doing AutoCAD side jobs fairly frequently. We were so busy we sort of just stopped talking about getting married any time soon.

Then about 2 months ago when we were in the living room one night Jerad asked me "tell me again what you would want for a wedding if you could have whatever you wanted." I said that honestly, after going to so many weddings (13 since we started dating 4 years ago), and knowing all the stress and tension they cause, I would want SMALL as in not more than 20-25 people, and LOW KEY. A wedding that was about the marriage and not the decorations. About us as a couple and not trying to please everyone else.

He asked me how I would feel about eloping. I said I would love it, as long as it was somewhere that was special to us. Yosemite was the obvious choice. We go camping there multiple times a year (this last camping trip was the third time this year and we're going back in December as well). We love everything about it. We love going with our friends and have SO MANY memories there.

We talked about going and getting married just the two of us. We both felt like we couldn't do it without our core group of friends. They are the people we talk to whenever we have something important and need support, and they are the people who have gone to Yosemite with us year after year as our relationship blossomed. At this point I brought up the surprise wedding idea again and it sounded like a blast. Honestly, I think Jerad was just as excited about surprising everyone as he was about getting married:)

We thought about inviting just our parents, but decided that our siblings would feel left out. We knew that Jerad's sister that lives in Nebraska and just had a baby couldn't make it, and his other sister might not be excited about camping with 3 toddlers. IF everyone could come, it was up over 30 people. We also knew there was no way we could invite our families who had never been camping with us, and everyone not know something was up.

Now we had decided where, who, and how, but needed to figure out when. I really wanted a fall or winter wedding. We had also been getting more serious about starting a family and wanted to wait until at least a year after we were married. If we got married next fall/winter and then waited a year, we were talking 2 years before we even started TRYING to have kids. So.... my answer was "if it was up to me, either now, or when we're done having kids."

He asked what about October.
I said I would love that, but what about his not wanting to share his b-day month? Apparently he was over it.

We already had plans the first 2 weekends of the month, then the 3rd was his birthday, and the 5th weekend was Halloween. That left one weekend free. Oct 24th-25th. Which gave us about 8 weeks to plan a wedding.

Stressful? Yes. Doable? Stay tuned!

What we did last weekend:

So, sorry for the lack of posting lately. Planning a surprise wedding takes up a considerable about of time apparently.

Hey guys, I'm still here!

Wow, over a month since I last posted. How out of character is that? I guess June was such a blur and I needed awhile to return to normal.

July has been a pretty crazy month too. We've been to the beach a few times, drive-in, waterslides, wine tasting, Avilla Barn, girls nights, boys nights, and taken up tennis and frisbee golf. It turns out I'm pretty bad at tennis, but I'll keep trying. Actually I'm pretty bad at Frisbee Golf too so good thing Jerad has a coworker to play with:) We also bought a new car and are leaving tomorrow for Arizona. Phew, I'm tired just from typing that! And that was just the last 2 weeks on top of both working 40 hours a week!

Sometimes I feel like all we do is "go go go" and I never have a minute to catch my breath. We are always doing something. So, for my birthday this year Jerad and I decided that we wanted to do something calmer, something just the two of us.

We have a tenative plan to take a road trip through Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada then home. I know "road trip" doesn't seem relaxing to most people, but to us it sounds like heaven. We'll do a lot of camping and visiting national parks on the way. It will be nice to set our own pace and itenerary and build some new fun memories together.
We're planning on spending the majority of our time in Colorado. It is such a beautiful place, and because (Beth and Tina stop reading) we've been talking about moving there. Nothing too serious, just if Jerad were to get a promotion he's hoping for at his job he has a choice of moving to a different office if we'd like and out of all the states that would be available, Colorado is the most appealing to both of us. Plus its only a 13 hour drive from here so not too far from our friends and fam. Before you start freaking out, there is like a 2% chance we would actually decide to move, BUT just in case we wanted to spend some time in the area.

Well, now that I broke my blogging silence, maybe I'll get with it and post some pics tonight before we leave for Arizona. Don't hold your breath though:)

Progress

Yesterday I got home to find a collections notice in the mail from our former internet provider. "Pissed off" would be the under statement the year. We switched from them to another company for a few reasons, but one of them was that they kept on billing us for renting a cable modem when we owned our own. I'd call them, they'd credit us back the rental charge, then the next month they would charge us again. Finally enough was enough.

Guess what the account when into collections for? $23.17 for failure to return a rented piece of equipment. Ohhhh I was NOT HAPPY. That was the first notice we had about the whole thing. Nothing was ever said when we canceled, no letters were ever sent that they were going to send it to collection. Ugh. We have worked like crazy since January to pay off all of our debt. We finally have no more credit card debt (yeay!!!), and are well on the way to paying off Jerad's bike and my car. Then this little gem.

I called the cable company and after going from department to department, and person to person they are going to fix it and promised it would come off of our credit reports. Supposedly. I wrote down everyone's names and user numbers just so I have some sort of reference... still, crappy way to start the night.

Well, we managed to finally put away our laundry. Its so sad that somehow that became a blog-worthy event in our lives. We also went through and cleaned out our closets and dressers of all the clothes that didn't fit, we have hung onto but never wear, or we just wanted to donate. Now we actually have the room to put away everything which is nice.

We did sleep in the guest room again. We sort of had to because we are addicted to Here Comes the Newlyweds. Did you watch last season? Loooove it!!! They had a challenge this time where they had to run into this house and pick up as many bugs as they could, then run back outside and fill up a jar with them. Anyways, it didn't get over till 11, then we watched an X-Files rerun. Also about bugs. Needless to say we both had creepo insect dreams and tossed and turned all night.

Getting up at 5:45 was not my bff this morning.

On my lunch break I am running to SLO to the dealership where I bought my car to cancel my Gap Insurance and Extended Warranty... yes I am one of the people who actually bought those things... so that will take off more than $1,500 of my car loan and get me closer to being debt free. My car isn't even 3 years old and has 33k miles on it. I plan on getting a small SUV before I would ever need the extended warranty. I have it paid down enough that I don't need the Gap anymore so its def worth the hassle of canceling them.

I can't imagine how crazy it would be to *not* have a car payment.

PS: the most wonderful news evah, PBR is back at the fair this year. The Challenger Tour. I can die happy.

My 'get up and go....'

Got up and went.

I had a list of a million things that Needed To Get Done this weekend... ya, not so much.

Friday morning I met Beth in Atascadero at the gym for a Step class. I'm def going to have to go back a few times to get the hang of that one... or take some speed first to have the energy. After that we did a 30 minute "Core" class that is mostly ab exercises. As a reward we headed to Cafe Vio where Carly was working and had lunch and iced lattes. We talked and visited and it was a GREAT way to start the day.

When I got home I decided to fold the 4 loads of clean laundry that I had been putting off and putting off. I folded everything and left it on our bed so that we couldn't go to sleep without putting everything away. Since Friday I have washed 3 more loads of laundry, and they have also been folded and added to our bed. Instead of putting the laundry away, we just started sleeping in the guestroom instead. Ya. That was basically the tone of the weekend. We might never end up putting said laundry away either because we are getting quite comfy in the other room!

Neither one of us are pro TV in the bedroom. But we have one in our guestroom. And a DVD player. And Satellite. Its been niiiiice. Also the bed is right against a window so if you open it you can feel the breeze. Its been a nice little vacation, except every morning when I go back in our room to get ready I see the HUGE pile of laundry taunting me. Its so not me.

We worked in the garden and finished transplanting everything where we wanted it to go. Jerad rigged up a sweet contraption complete with a pulley to raise and lower our upside down tomato plants. I planted lettuce and broccoli seeds and some more radishes and green onions. Jerad put up trellises for our squash plants. Since we don't have lots of room for them to grow all over the ground, we're making them grow vertically instead. We made tuna for lunch on Sunday and got super excited because we were able to use a radish and green onions from the garden. For dinner we made pizza and went outside to pick some fresh cilantro to put on top. All our hard work is starting to pay off! I can't wait until the tomatoes, onions, tomatillos, and peppers are ready and I can make salsa!

Saturday we went to Maddie and Abby's first birthday party. I can't believe they are a year old already, crazy. After that we got a bunch of stuff done for Tina's wedding which is now only 5 days away. I still have a few more centerpieces to make and then print out programs/ photo scavenger hunt cards and make them purdy. I also need to get my dress hemmed. I think I'm going to have Jerad do it... hopefully it comes out okay because it was a $300 dress. Tina is letting the bridesmaids wear whatever they want (thank you!). Before I bought a dress to wear for the ceremony I decided to look through my old dresses and see if I had anything that would work. I found a red dress (which is one of her wedding colors) that I wore for my ex and my 3 year anniversary. As in, almost exactly 7 years ago. I didn't think it would fit but it is such a beautiful dress and I had only worn it once so it would be nice to save some $$ and wear it again. It fit. With room to spare. I was sooo ecstatic. I remember trying it on a few years ago and not being remotely close to having it zip up. It is really long though, I hope its not a hard material to sew? I don't want to be out dress shopping the day before the wedding, but I also don't have time to have it professionally done. We'll see!

After almost a year of on again off again work, our back bathroom shower is a little closer to completion. Jerad and his brother Joey put up all the rest of the Hardiebacker except for the curb, and the two pieces where the shower heads will go. Tonight he's going to bring home a hole saw from work and get those done. Then it will finally be ready for tile!!!

Our next big project is finishing landscaping the front yard. Last year we overhauled the front yard, built a window box, and built a new fence. Now its time for a planter along the fence. We have talked about a lot of different options, and finally decided on gravity blocks sort of like this:



It will match our neighbor's yards the best and we won't have to worry about staining it or nicking it with the weed eater like we would have to with wood. The issue is those stupid little blocks are expensive! At least we only have to do it once right?

Tonight I'm Spinning after work again then lifting weights. And even if we decide to sleep in the guestroom again, I will NOT go to bed tonight until the laundry is put away... its getting embarrassing.

Weekend warriors

Why is it that the only posts I can manage to muster these days are weekend updates? To be fair I always have 3 days weekends, so technically thats already almost 1/2 of the week...

This 4 day weekend thing really messed me up. How is it Wednesday already? Anyways, I'll take it! Saying we had a busy weekend would be an understatement. Thursday night our friends Tina and Tom came down and stayed with us to finalize some wedding details for their wedding that is 2 weeks away.

Tina and I got up bright and early and met Beth in Atascadero for a 6am Spin class Friday morning. Holy. Crap. I had never done Spinning before. I knew Beth hated it, and that it was a really hard work out... but I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. For the rest of the weekend I wished I had a donut to sit on because my butt hurt so bad. After the class we went to Beth's house and had some coffee before Tina had to go to pre-marital counciling. Ahh the fun.

I went back to Beth's a few hours later and we washed our cars together. I NEVER wash my car. The dealer always does it for me for free when I get my oil changed. Beth whipped out all of these amazing car washing products and had all these tips... after an hour and a half of cleaning, my car still had dog hair and dust in it and spots on the outside. Next time I am paying someone. After her car was clean and mine was clean(er), we loaded up her kids and a few of the neighbor kids and headed to Trader Joe's and went grocery shopping. Because we are both domestic and brave like that.

Since one workout wasn't enough, us girls decided to go to a "Groove" class at the gym that evening while Jerad and Tom played Basketball. Beth and Tina did a pretty good job keeping up with the dance moves and I got repeatedly kicked by the not so nice girl beside me. That night Beth and Ty, Tina and Tom, and Jerad and me had a bbq with waaaay too much yummy food just to make sure we weren't getting too healthy.

Saturday Tina and I took an afternoon Cynergy class which is basically a mix of Yoga, Pilates, and Tai Chi. Then we ran wedding errands and got dresses for the Reception. Jerad spent most of the day working overtime trying to get a project at work done, but he got off in time to hang out with us and Tina's brother. And the pizza. That night Jerad and I took our poor lonely dogs to the beach. At 10 pm. In my clean car. They had so much fun. It was pitch black and we could barely make them out, but they tore around for 45 minutes or so until they were nice and worn out and wet and covered in sand. We drove back home the long way, Santa Rita Rd. We saw about 10 deer. It was maybe the best night of the dog's lives. The next morning it looked like we had cut open a bag of sand in the back seat, and then sheared a few sheep. Jerad was nice enough to re-wash the car (without being asked!)

After T&T went home, Jerad met his bromance Tyson in SLO and they went flying.

I'll eventually post some pics of that, in the meantime Beth wrote about it here. In the evening we went to Atascadero Lake and rented a Paddle Boat.

I think the paddle boat was more of a workout than the spin bike. We had fun trolling around chasing the ducks though and the weather was BEAUTIFUL!

Monday Jerad worked a side job and I stayed home and cleaned, and washed towels, and changed sheets and did all the things you do after having company. After I got bored of that, I decided to paint the kitchen. I had bought paint a week or so ago and it was calling my name. About 15 minutes into the painting I realized I should have waited for Jerad because all the cutting in around the windows, cabinets, counters, and million outlets was a LOT of work... but it was too late. It came out pretty good!

Tuesday Jerad tried out Spinning with me after work and liked it (well, thought it was a hard enough workout) enough that we are going to go again today. Our goal is to start going to the 5:45 classes before work starting next week, we'll see if that happens:)

Sleep is for the weak.

I have been more tired (I can't figure out a this moment if that is grammatically correct or not) these past few weeks than I can ever remember being. I have taken numerous afternoon naps, evening naps, after work naps, after dinner naps. I don't know who this sleepy person I've become is.

Its a good thing I've been stocking up though, because I needed it for last night. I went to bed around 11, a little later than normal. Around 11:30 I got woken up by a text message. Thanks. After drifting back off, Bailey woke me back up about 12:45 because she needed to go pee. BAILEY, the dog that will hold it for an entire 3 day camping trip. Around 2, Buddy is in a panic because ohmygoshheneedswaterthissecond. A few hours later its Wyatt.

Our dogs sleep through the night. Hello, that's WHY they're allowed to sleep in the house. Every now and then one of them will need to get up. NEVER all of them.

5:00am I get a phone call, wrong number. Fuc^er.

5:30 Tobee is scratching on the door and meowing because he decided that breakfast needed to be served 45 minutes early.

6:00am, time to take a shower and prepare for the workday. Not the best night's sleep.

Some body's wife made made banana bread at work though, so its going to be okay.

Le wonderful weekend

Despite temperatures in the triple digits, I had a FAB weekend! Friday while Jerad was at work, I put on some Bluegrass and whipped (or attempted) my house into shape. Having my 13 year old sister living with us all week was messier than our 3 dogs. After a little bit of cleaning, I got all dolled up, put on a cute top, earrings, lipstick and some foot ware that didn't consist of Uggs or flip flops. For me, that was huge!

I went downtown and walked through a few Antique and Vintage stores. Heaven. I found an adorable vintage quilt that I was planning on making our new picnic/beach blanket, but when I brought it home later it matched our living room so perfectly it now resides on the back of our couch. After antiquing a bit, I walked over to the theater and got my geek on:

I also got popcorn AND a diet coke. Rare treats. After the movie I picked up Addy from school and we made dinner and worked on crafts. I made some flowered headbands, and she made a necklace. Jerad worked a double shift and didn't get off until after 11pm to fund my frivolousness.

Saturday Jerad was working and Addy had a b-day party so I puttered around the house.

When Jerad got off work, he scooped me up and took me out to dinner. He told me I could choose ANY restaurant I wanted. I chose Chili's. Who am I lately? We NEVER eat out, and I pick something like that. It just came out. Anyways, we printed out all of the menu's nutritional info before hand and had fun trying to come up with a dinners that were under 2500 calories. Soo hard! I had the guiltless cedar plank tilapia (199 calories), seasonal veggies, 60 calories, and kettle black beans. Jerad had the half rack of baby back ribs (something like 400 cals), spicy lime shrimp 130 cals, and seasonal veggies, 60 cals.

We were looking at the dessert menu when I mentioned that really what sounded good was Foster Freeze ice cream. So, we drove all the way to Morro Bay at 8:30 at night for soft serve ice cream. We drove over and parked by Morro Rock and talked and ate our ice cream and had a lovey old time, then drove home. It was a nice surprise for a Saturday night.

We are normally the couple that goes our own ways or divides and conqueres in social situations and people always remark "oh, they're dating?" not the couple that takes moonlight ice cream walks on the beaches. Especially sans our dogs. That was soooo 3 years ago in our relationship. It was a fun change.

SundayI woke up craving In n Out. Random, we go there maybe once every 2 months? I kept mentioning it to Jerad. He went to the Paso Gun Show with a friend then we went and picked up my parents from the airport. I ditched that party in favor of my lsm Beth. My lover Beth who texted me out of the blue asking if I wanted anything from In n Out. Mmmmm. We went to a "designer inspired" purse party where I scored 2 new purses that I am in love with. My sister Melinda met us there and we all decided on some Fro Yo. It was really depressing watching Beth navigate the millions of topping in search of "sugar free" but she managed. When I got home I took a 2 hour nap. Love. Jerad worked on sewing cloth napkins for Tina's wedding and didn't bother to wake me up because he was so happy to have total control of the remote control. He watched some car/nascar/race/something or another *yawn.*

Since we had cheated so much by eating out all weekend, we had Subway for dinner too. But seriously, when its over 90-100 outside, its hard to motivate yourself to turn on the over or stove top right? Somehow even with all that deccadent food, I lost 1.2 pounds. Just over the weekend. I think it was all sweat. Gross.

Movies, shopping, food, purses, girls, FroYo naps. Life is good.

Yikes!

2 weeks since my last post? How un-me. We have been soo busy, and I don't want to blog about things without sharing the photos. And that would mean uploading them. And that would mean taking time away from the 5-6 hours of sleep I have been getting per night.

In the last couple of week we have gone to a few weddings, visited friends in San Fransisco, Yosemite, gone to Hearst Castle, had my littlest sister staying with us (my parents are in Hawaii), tried new recipes, gotten hair cuts, finished all of our garden beds and have been tending them every day, and are working on sewing 50 napkins for my best friend's wedding. Jerad has also been working a side job and frequently getting home at 2am, and this weekend is working overtime at his regular job so I'll be entertaining my bad self. Until I get some pictures up and some sleep here's a story you probably don't want to hear:

***

Monday night Jerad came home after work, ate a quick dinner, and went to work at the side job that's been making him fall asleep during the day keeping him busy nights. Since my parents are in Hawaii, Addy stayed last week with my sister Melinda, and this week with us. While she was working on her homework, I went outside to love on water my garden. The dogs were going batshit crazy. We have been gone so much, and Jerad has been working so much, they have not been getting their exercise fill. I could tell some fetch wasn't going to hold them over anymore.

By now it was 8:30 at night. I went in the house and told Addy to load up because we were taking the dogs on a run. We all got in the car to go out to our favorite spot in Peachy Canyon. The dogs were STOKED. It was dark. It was windy. I drove down the 2 mile dirt road, kicked them out of the car, and drove away. They all ran behind the car at about 20 miles an hour for a mile and got niiiiice and worn out. Then Bailey decided to run off the road so Buddy had to follow her. Because that's how they roll. I slowed down a bit figuring they'd pop back up as usual. Nope.

It was so windy I think they lost the car and couldn't hear us call. Or went off after a deer, who knows. We found Bailey, but no Buddy. We loaded up Bailey and Wyatt and drove back and forth and back and forth calling Buddy, NOTHING. I decided to drive over to Jerad's friend Paul's house since the dog's spend a lot of time there figuring that maybe Buddy would head over there. It was 9:30 or so. Paul wasn't home. I called Jerad and told him I lost the dog. I wasn't really worried, more annoyed.

Paul showed up and I told him what was going on and he offered to go look for Buddy. I said I'd go with him. His daughter and Addy went in the house and I left my dogs in the car. We drove up the road and there was Buddy up in the distance, back on the road basically where I had lost him. He briefly paused when he saw Paul's headlights but when he saw it wasn't my car he kept trotting the other direction. Paul stuck his head out the window and called him and Buddy turned and looked at him and kept on truckin. As soon as I called him he turned around and started wagging like crazy and barreling towards the truck. Awe, melt my lil heart! He was so tired by then he was not feeling like attempting to jump into Paul's raised truck bed so he made Paul life him. All 80 pounds. Nice.

When we got back to the house, I visited a few minutes, said thank you, and went to get in my car. My car that mysteriously had the emergency flashers on? My car that the dogs had locked me out of. With the windows up. My ONLY set of keys were inside. Luckily I had left one window cracked ever-so-slightly and Paul came to the rescue. Jerad showed up about that time, worried about Buddy. He had been trying to get a hold of me but my phone was locked in with Buddy. They were about to locate one wire hanger, and 30 minutes later we were on the way home. Stupid dogs:)

By the time we were done combing out the fox tails, and vacuuming up the hair we got to bed around midnight. So much for my quick trip.

Tuesday Wyatt did NOT want to stay outside so we left him in his kennel in the house. When we got home to let him out of his box, a strange smell wafted through the laundry room. He had some sort of explosive poo situation. Jerad walked in before me and told me to not even come in. He cleaned up everything. Like always. I sat in our room and listened to him talking to Wyatt and saying things like "poor pup, you don't feel good? did you have a poopccident?" and all sorts of cute things in his "dog voice." He wasn't mad or upset about coming home to something so gross AT ALL. That is something I love about him.

I have a bad gag reflex. BAD. If he's gone and I have to, I can deal with dog/cat vomit/poo issues cause they're mah baybees and if they need something, I can do it. Otherwise the unwritten rule is Jerad does those things and I do anything medical related UNLESS it has to do with eyes. Like when Bailey had an eye infection and had to have cream rubbed in her eyeball twice a day... ewe ewe ewe.

It just warms my lil heart that he loves our pets enough that he feels bad that they are sick so he is HAPPY to do yuck factor things for them. Wyatt seems to be fine now btw. Every one of our 3 cats and 3 dags has had one accident like that except for Tobee. Good old Tobee. The funniest was when Winston the cat ate all the chilies off of my window chili plant. Ya, that one caused some stomach upset!

After the dog mess was dealt with we had dinner, and Jerad finished cutting the fabric for the cloth napkins for Tina's wedding. I had a fever and fell asleep about 7:30 on the couch for about 2 hours. I was also in a terrible mood. No idea why. I'm usually pretty chipper, but I was just GRUMPY! Usually at night we try to catch up on our days and just talk. Instead I told Jerad I didn't feel well and just felt like chewing him out for no reason so I just was going to turn on the tv and not talk for a few hours and see if it passed. It did and today I woke up a happy monster again:)

I'll try to stop talking blogcations and have something better than poop to talk to you about soon.

Ate aight eight

Honeywine tagged me with this little meme, so here we go!

The rules: Answer the questions, make sure you mention who tagged you, and tag 8 of your blogger buddies.

8 Things that I am Looking forward to:

1. My best friend's wedding in 6 weeks. Eeeek!
2. Actually sleeping in on a weekend. And some breakfast in bed would be sweet-sauce.
3. Finishing our quilt.
4. My 25th b-day this August. Vegas? Yosemite? Cruise? BREAKFAST IN BED?
5. Jerad and I having no credit card debt after this Friday. For reals.
6. Our garden.
7. Summertime bbq's.

8.Getting married (these were obviously in no particular order:)

8 Things I Did Yesterday:

1. Forgot to wash the conditioner out of my hair.
2. Worked 10.5 hours.
3. Played with the dogs.
4. Made a yummy dinner and homemade blueberry buckle for dessert.
5. Decided on a few more things to plant in the garden and made a shopping list for the nursery today.
6. Snugged with the boy.
7. Caught up on House episodes on my DVR.
8. Drank a beer while Jerad cleaned the kitchen. Because I am a kept woman people, a kept woman...

8 Things I Wish I Could Do:

1. Sew better than Jerad
2. Use power tools.
3. Stay up past 10pm two nights in a row.
4. Own a Bed and Breakfast... that made money.
5. See the 5 states I haven't.
6. Have more time in a day.
7. Be able to eat massive amounts of homemade waffles with whipped cream and strawberries every day and never gain any weight.

8. Sleep for a week. <-- I agree!

8 Shows I Watch:

1. LOST
2. The Office
3. House
4. Chuck
5. The Hills (its like a train wreck... I can't look away)
6. CSI: Las Vegas
7. Celebrity Apprentice
8. Big Love

8 People I’m Tagging:

1. Beth
2. Heidi
3. Jill
4. Jackie
5. Lucinda
6. Liz
7. Sarah
8. Tiffany

Weekend of Camping Lurve.

Yosemite. Bomb Ass.

Well I don't want to talk your heads off so I'll make it short. We packed up and left Friday after Jerad got off work. All of our camping gear is in totes in the basement that we re-organize and stock after each trip so we are always ready to go. We have three different sized tents so since it was going to be a shorty trip (only two nights) and we were traveling sans pups, we took our little tent.

Fast forward 4 hours (we made quite a few stops including a leisurely Target shopping spree since I forgot to pack Jerad PANTS) and we arrived. In the dark after the fires had to be out. Taylor and Dom, and Matt and Lucy ended up coming, but they were about an hour behind us. We set up camp and shivered.

From left to right, Matt and Luce, Tay and Dom, Us:

Here are some highlights from Saturday and Sunday:

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Annnd a few of my favorite parts. The two and a half hour mule ride to Mirror Lake:










Taylor cooking the Tri Tip by covering it in Whiskey and lighting it on fire:


The intense hike past Vernal Falls, up Mist Trail (worse than any stair stepper known to man), past Emerald Pool and toward Nevada Falls. I think just to Vernal you climb 1000 ft. elevation. Then once you've hiked the whole thing you have to go back down. Ugh:)

See that little "No Pets on Trails" on the bottom? This hike is why we didn't bring the pooches this time. It was beautiful and worth it:)

Getting ready for the hike:

Stuff along the way:






Part of Mist Trail:






View from the top of the falls:



Once we got to the top we had some fruit and took a little siesta. It was kind of like sitting at the top of heaven.

Emerald Pool:



After the LOOOONG hike back down, we had a picnic lunch. Jerad had some fresh squeezed juice:

Here is the view from the lookout point driving out of the Valley. See why we love it?


The part you can't tell from the pictures was that it was about 50 ° during the day and 19° at night. Still fun though! The trip home was uneventful. Except for when we saw a CAT hat in the road and I could tell Jerad wanted to stop and I told him he should and he slammed on the brakes and ran about 1/2 a mile up the road dodging traffic to retrieve it. The little yellow speck would be Jerad (still running):

So, basically he cheated on John Deere AND almost got killed doing it. That'll teach him. The cool part was it was a brand new hat. Not that I won't wash it just in case but still, nice!

In summary; great place, great friends, great boy, great trip.