my little forest gnome

The latest greatest update on our forest wedding! :)

one GREAT weekend!

Best Parts of Last Weekend:

1. Holly, Presley, & Madison at my house for a slumber party

2. MIA- Minneapolis Institute of Art

3. Children's Museum- FREE passes

4. Mickey's Diner

5. Candyland

6. Bridesmaid dress shopping with Holly

7. Mall of America rides

8. Build-a-bear

9. Mailing letters to Santa

10. NO SHOPPING!

What a fantastic weekend! I love when the girls come up! We had a great time touring and taking in the cultural aspects of the cities. Ok, not that Build-a-bear is considered cultural, but it was fun too! Kevin and I gave Presley a gift coupon for her birthday for a build-a-bear session. Such patience. She's waited 3 MONTHS! We couldn't take Presley and not Madison, so we treated them both to a bear and gave Madison her 2nd birthday present early! Holly and I had a great time (a 5 hour session) of shopping for dresses, and think we've found some winners! More to come on that later! As you can see, we took in two museums. The Children's Museum was awesome for the two of them, but MIA was a little rougher on Madison. I had to go there as a class trip. Presley seemed to like wandering around! Thanks to Holly for bringing the crew up for a great weekend!!

engagement photos

Kevin and I have been super excited for our photo shoot with Laura Ivanova (our wedding photographer). Our plan was to shoot in October, but because of the snow, we had to wait until today. I can't wait to share the photos with you. As soon as we see a few of them, you will!!! 3 weeks to wait. That's the part about having another photographer that I don't like. Oh well...I'm sure they'll be sweet when we see them! It was definitely a strange experience being on the other side of the camera. Laura did a great job of helping get our natural expressions. Here's a photo to show the color swatch/shoe/jewelry choices we went with for the shoot! :)Kevin also brought me these amazingly adorable flowers last night. He thought the purplish color looked much like our sangria wedding colors. Isn't he cute? They're adorable!

wedding details!!

The planning is well underway, and as promised, here's a sneak peek at one of our many projects! We're a little afraid other people are going to steal our original wedding ideas and coin them as their own, so we're being very careful what to publicly disclose. I have too many friends getting married this year, and want our ideas to really be our own! I'm sure you all understand!

Happy 60th Dave!

Today we celebrated Dave's 60th Birthday!! Complete with a trip to the Louisiana Cafe, ear candling (just Lynda and I were cool enough to try it), and tarimasu!! Here's to many more years Dave!!

Rascal's Teriyaki Grill

In less than a week, improvements have already been made to our MN branch of Rascal's Teriyaki Grill. Check it out!

so sorry

My goodness, where have the past few weeks gone? I'm so sorry I haven't written in weeks! Safe to say, life is too darn busy! I've been absolutely swamped with school, work, photo shoots, weddings, wedding planning (updates coming on all of that), trips home, a trip to Chicago for a funeral, did I mention school and work? UGH! Too much. We finally passed midterm here, and I am seriously counting down the days until my California visitors Kelly and Amy come to see me! At that time, school will be over for the semester, and only 4 more credits will separate me and graduation. YES! Amy, Kevin and I made this video especially for you the other night while we were eating our own version of Rascals in my room. We're always thinking about you!

What else? Oh, I won 3rd place in a photo contest and my prize was a flip video camera. Super awesome. I am so used to taking photos, I never really think to use it, but I'm trying to get better at it. Kevin's mom brought home a whole bunch of awesome clothes from Kevin's grandma's house last week, so we went over and played dress up in her many mink coats, and sweet boots! I'm also on the hunt for a sweet brooch for wedding purposes. Anyone have one? Rhinestones only...no colored stones or animal brooches please! Looking for "something borrowed"! :)

We had a wild showing of winter last week when massive snowflakes came plummeting from the sky. I got out of town as fast as I could to try and beat the nasty drivers. Two days later, it was fall again. Funny how that goes. I've had 20 photo shoots in the last two weeks. The most in the history of my small business. Some people had chattering teeth in their portraits, but they all managed to come out ok. Here are a few shots of my life lately. I promise to update more often. Missing California today, yesterday, likely, tomorrow. What's new?

Oh, and one last thing. I ate seven slices of toast with butter today. What can I say? I'm a carb maniac! :)