Get 'Er Done!!!

Everyone warned me. I paid attention, mostly. They said that the week before our wedding, there would be piles of stuff for me to do. I would be busy, morning, noon and night. I acted like I believed them. In the back of my mind, I thought everything would be peaceful. I could spend the week at the spa. I would get a massage every day. I would hang out with friends. My parents could come and relax. Then, 7 days before the "big gig", it happened. I got slapped in the face with a whole lot of "must do's". Wow. I am not treading new water. I feel large waves from those who have been here before.

Fortunately, my parents showed up just in time. The night they arrived, they suggested getting a head start on one of the projects. I obliged. We hunkered down and made progress. We had tickets to the Falcons/Bears game. Great seats. We had planned to go to the game. Then, we decided to stay in, watch it on tv and tackle the mounting lists. Ugh.

Judy arrived Monday night to provide an extra set of hands.

Tad squished his cigar to pitch in.

We have tackled A LOT. Welcome bags. seating chart (I am proud to say that I had NOTHING to do with this, as it upset me too much), favors, other favors, welcome bags, hair cut and color (if I couldn't lose 30lbs before this thing, I am going super blonde to look like I did). All complete. Everyone has had a vital role. Truly a team effort. It will be a beautiful event.

The bride may look tired. She is running on empty. Up late (because she has to do important stuff like blog) awake early.

She is now going to hit the sack, because she is the bride. At the same time, she can't thank her parents and future mother in law for being instrumental in getting everything done that we have this week.

3 days and counting.

Why I Love My Job

I get to fly big jets. That is pretty cool. But nothing is as cool as catching up with old girlfriends from high school over burgers in cities far, far away from San Jose. I haven't been working much lately so I can prepare for the "big gig" but this week I was able to score a rare 20 hour layover. What does a girl do with all that time? Obsess over seating charts? Playlists for the DJ? Program verbiage? Nah, with 20 hours you call a girlfriend who you haven't seen in years and catch up over a much needed (because I am wearing white in 9 days) bacon cheese burger and fries.

Enter Tiffany Kurtz (Foulk). She is a dear friend from San Jose who now lives in Texas! We have stayed in touch loosely all these years and she came to entertain me with her son, DJ. - Don Junior, who is Donald Lester, so I am still trying to wrap my noggin over the "J" in D.J. It was SO great to see her and I had a ball playing with her 15 month old son who has just discovered the pure joy of putting his entire hand in your glass of water.

D.J. and Tiffy

After some power shopping where DJ demonstrated his love for fine fabric, the little guy was a bit worn out. Not generally a baby who sleeps in the car I am told, he is pretty close to "resting his eyes" here. Sure enough, a quick power nap in the car and he bounced back and was ready to go.

DJ contemplates - "Nap or No?"

DJ, Tiffy and Me

I had an amazing time with Tiffy and family and hope that we can do it again soon. Maybe next time they can come to Atlanta! We live right next to the best place for DJ to dunk his hand in some serious water, the Georgia Aquarium!

Thank you, TIFF! xoxoxo

Licensed To Wed

Just like it began - we got caught in the rain!

I have had a LOT of time off of work lately, which has left me plenty of time to obsess over (I mean get ready for) "The Big Gig". Tad has entertained most ideas and thoughts with full sentence responses which I greatly appreciate. We realized that we needed a Marriage License, so I penciled myself in on his calendar and off we went to the Fulton County Court House. It turned out to be a rather comical morning as we first delivered a load of my belongings to Tad's home then went over in one car, his. As we were leaving his garage it started to rain heavily and we then realized that there was not a single umbrella to be found in his car -- but there were plenty in mine. Oh well, there was no turning back. We parked in a garage and took off on foot in torrential down pour into the court house. As soon as we got through security, we were turned away because we were in the wrong building. The building that we needed to be in was 2 blocks away. Not to be deterred, we took off on foot again. As we were sprinting, I got a vivid image of about 18 months ago, when we got caught in the rain at the Inman Park Festival and we hid under a tree until it passed. At that point, I didn't realize we were even dating but standing under the tree I realized that I REALLY enjoyed being around Tad and was having a blast. It also gave me a moment to pause over the last year and a half or so and the lives of Tad and me as we become one. A few highlights have included:

- 2 Beastly Feasts

- Eagles Concert

- Finding out Tad had Mono (great story behind this one)

- Neil Diamond Concert

- Introducing Tad to Double Double, Animal Style

- New Years under a falling peach

- A Valentine's Day that puts all others to shame

- Christmas in California and Christmas in Georgia

- The Big Yellow SLIDE!

- Tad meeting "Jenin" and of course, grandma

- Super Bowl

- fishing with new equipment off the 21st floor

- hiking to see fall colors after a big rain

- a VERY special 1st anniversary

- an amazing trip to Saint Martin and locking ourselves out on our balcony

-U2

- 6 months that has gone by so quickly we are about to count down in single digits...

So, once we finally found the correct office we stood in line and contemplated which license to apply for. The options wereFIREARMS or MARRIAGE. We chose the latter and tomorrow we go into single digit countdown mode......

Does This Make My Finger Look Fat?

This weekend is the last weekend Tad and I have together before all the wedding festivities begin. We had lengthy discussions about what we should do to occupy our time. Candler Park Fest? Get the rest of the move done? How about have NO plans. Just hang out. That is something we haven't been able to do since this whole mess - I mean wedding - came about. Friday night, I made a nice dinner and we sat outside and played Scrabble. Saturday morning, I walked a 5K with a couple of girlfriends. No plans. Then we got the call we had been waiting for: Our wedding bands had arrived.

While contemplating when to go get them, we decided this was worthy of putting on our agenda so off we went to see Nuni. When we got engaged, Tad's mother, Judy gave us diamonds to use for my wedding bands. We took them to Tiffany to have them set and chose Tad's wedding band at the same time. His is truly beautiful. It is thick platinum with an etched band at the top and bottom. Mine were to be two bands with diamonds just along the top (not all the way around because of weight gaining and losing issues and re-sizing). They were finally here. We walked in and were greeted with hugs from Nuni, which has become customary and invited to sit in the private viewing room while we waited for her to finish with another customer. When she was done, she emerged with Tad's wedding band and both of mine. I cried (shocker). Tad slipped his on and we put our hands together. I don't think either one of us had grasped the fact that "the big gig" is just 14 days away until we saw our hands marked as the others. I cried some more. As if I didn't realize the 1000 reasons I was ready to spend the rest of my life with Tad, he asked me one of the most wonderful questions ever "does it look like my finger is poured into this ring?". What does a girl say to this?! The only appropriate thing that can be said "no, just your wallet"........14 days and counting.

So That Is Where The Bug Spray Lives!!

Combining two households is a challenge at best. Adding wonderful gifts sent from our registry's has complicated things further. We have been through several rounds of purging. We had a yard sale and made $154! We have piles of boxes and loot in various locations.

Tad has been out of town for the last couple of days and since I have the week off, I thought I would start organizing. I have often marveled at the SPEED in which Tad puts things away - walks in house, starts putting things away in a fury and heads off to do something much more interesting. I found evidence of this last night. While deciding where to place our fondue pots (thank you Ann, Teresita and Randi!) I started to clear the cabinets above the refrigerator to make way for our new small appliances. It was FULL of light bulbs. And empty light bulb boxes. And bug spray. Off. Cutter. Skintastic. THAT'S WHERE THE BUG SPRAY LIVES! Not any more. The bug spray has been moved to a more logical (for me anyway) and reachable location (again for me). We still have lots of light bulbs which now share their home with our fondue pots. Come on over, we will fondue it up under really bright light!