The ear doctor is an only child

The other day the ear doctor and I were out on our morning walk around the neighborhood. We found a new path that runs between a small, beautiful creek and the back yards of rich people. Cool. This way we could enjoy nature (I love Colorado) and snoop a little (my favorite pastime).

We walked up to one back yard and noticed that they had your garden variety swing set in their back yard.

We both paused for a minute and pointed to the teeter-totter type swing and said in unison, "I like that kind of swing."

Then the ear doctor looked at me sheepishly and said, "It's nice because you can do it all alone"

What a cute, sweet, amazing, fun, rad only child.

Life long goals

After getting married the ear doctor and I switched churches. The one we were going to before was geared toward single, college aged people. We both decided that it was time to grow up a little a join a congregation with families and older people.

Last night we had an appointment with our new bishop (that's what we call the pastor/preacher/leader of our congregation). He wanted to meet both of us and get to know a little more about us. I thought that was pretty nice.

Anyway, he asked the ear doctor what he likes to do in his spare time.

The ear doctor paused, looked off into space in his characteristic, "I'm really thinking hard" face and then said:

"I really want to become a grill master"

I just bust up laughing. The bishop just kind of laughed in surprise at the comment from left field. It was a pretty classic moment.

The thing about him is that he doesn't really have that far to go.

Last night he made us dinner. (BTW, doesn't dinner just seem so much more awesome when you aren't the one who made it?!?) Anyway, he decided to make beer can chicken in his new grill.

It was awesome. Juicy, perfect meat just dripping from the bone. Absolutely amazing.

Then only thing is we now have 5 cans of Bud in our fridge and not a clue what to do with them. Is it weird to come into work and offer your co-workers your leftover alcohol?

Be still my beating heart

Surely, I will never do anything good enough to warrant a gift like this desk set from Elum Stationary.



Yet I still yearn for it.

(This set actaully made me gasp in awe this morning!)

Cute jacket?

Should I get this coat? It's only $80...

Smile from ear to ear

This afternoon as I drove around doing errands on my lunch hour I saw a really cute couple slow dancing without music at a bus stop.

It made me really happy.

Walter

The ear doctor and I are considering getting a pet.

We want to catch a prairie dog from the vacant field just down the street from our house. Then we are going to build him a tall, clear plexi-glass terrarium, fill it with dirt from the vacant lot, and place in out on our small balcony by my tomato plant. Then we are going to enjoy watching him dig tunnels in the terrarium...like a really cool big ant farm.

It will be great.

And we're calling him Walter.

Now I just have to go hone my prairie dog catching skillz....

Happy B-day Mom!

Today is my mom's birthday, and since she's pretty much the coolest mom a girl could hope to have, I thought I'd send her a nice little blogger, birthday wish.

Cool or Tacky?

I saw these on Etsy and thought they were really cool.

The second one would be really perfect for the colors in our front room!From what I gather, the artists paints, collages and woodburns onto/into a piece of .5" wood. My question is this:

Would it be dorky if I had a "C" one hanging on my wall?

(our last name starts with a C)

My 5 lives

Today Rachel Jones was the quest blogger over at Design Mom and she wrote a post that really interested me, and it's been something I've been thinking about for quite a while.

So often I've heard that you should always strive to achieve your dreams. That you should always be working toward your ultimate goal, to fulfill your dreams.

This has always made me a little uncomfortable. Why? Because I've never had an ultimate "dream" to achieve. I've never been the kind of person who has one ultimate dream that is so definable and focused that they can say in one sentence what they dream of being. If you do, you're lucky.

I have lots of dreams and lots of things I love, but because I don't have a single aim the charge to "live my dream" has always made me feel...kind of...well...bad.

Which is where Rachel's' post comes to play. She suggests that you write down what you would do if you had 5 different lives. Then you should look at the list and make sure that you are actively pursing elements of the 5 lives in the 1 life that you have to live. This idea appeals to me like you wouldn't believe. It seems so simple, clear and totally do-able....but then most good ideas are that way.

So here, in no particular order are my 5 different lives and how I'm living them all at the same time.

1 chef I love cooking. I love it so much I surprise myself sometimes. My favorite part of every week is sitting down and making out a weekly menu for the ear doctor and I. I sit in the middle of our living room surrounded by my favorite cook books and think of a weeks worth of meals. I like to vary the protein, the style, the origin and the ingredients all week long. I find a thrill in the challenge of creating variety, trying new foods and cooking techniques while also using similar ingredients so that we don't waste things or throw any excess away.

2 landscaper Sometimes as I'm coming into work I see the grounds maintenance people at our office and I get jealous of their job. There are very few things in life that bring as me as much pleasure as a well designed garden. Seriously, just walking around an old established garden is sheer delight. Whenever the ear doctor and I go on walks through neighborhoods we critique the houses and I critique the landscaping. I love getting up early and weeding a garden. Going to a nursery and picking out the perfect plant for a spot in a garden is a personal treat. Right now, since we don't have a yard I have plants inside. I grow my own herbs (a must for someone who really loves cooking) and I have a little cherry tomato plant.

3 Interior Designer Every year the ear doctor and I go to the parade of homes. And when I say we "go" to the show, I mean we set aside hours so that we can slowly, methodically take in each space. I love to notice the details of each house, which hardwood the designer chose to go with, which shade of paint looks better at which time of the day. I love it. Sometimes I think the ear doctor gets a little bored by my molasses pace of walking through these houses. Right now this is probably the area that I am the least active in. It's hard (for me) to design my apartment space. I want to paint walls, change out flooring, get a freakin backsplash of little square tiles in my kitchen but I can't because it isn't mine. As a stand in for the time being we watch a lot of HGTV.

4 Book Store Owner The smell of a new book is intoxicating. I've always loved books. When I was in elementary school and we'd get the book order form I'd excitedly go page by page through it and circle about 20 books that I wanted my parents to order for me. I've always loved reading. I'm lucky to have a mom who is as much a book lover as myself. I don't think we ever left a Waldenbook without a heavy sack of new books tangling from our arms. Now I go book stores and just wander around for fun. I read whenever I have the chance. Almost every night I'll leave the ear doctor alone on the couch so I can curl up with a book. Some of my best friends are my friends because of our shared literary love.

5 Talk Show Host Except, I'd love to be a little different than your average talk show host. I'd love to interview "normal" people. I love meeting people and getting to know them. I love finding out their stories. I'm not really good at talking about myself, but I love to hear about other people. I mean, sure, probably no one would watch my show if I didn't have George Clooney as a guest, but I think it's a neat idea. In my current life I love to get to know people. That's a major reason that I read blogs...to meet new people and get to see a little picture of their life. I figure that as a talk show host I could potentially get paid to do it.

So there are my 5 different lives.

What would yours be?

My lasting shame

In the fourth grade I got out of a spelling bee on the word "robin" as in the little cute bird with a red belly. I spelled it R-O-B-B-I-N. I figured it would have two B's like ribbon, a word I was very good at spelling.

Wrong.

Since that day I've never been sure of how to spell robin correctly.

There are a bunch of words like this that are seemingly easy words to spell but I cannot for the life feel confident in their spelling. Here is a list of my nemesis words:

awkward
completely
conscious
conscience
abrade
sentence
message
and many more...

It's so bad that I actually reword phrases just so that I avoid using these words. In fact, I just reworded the preceding sentence so that I could avoid using the word sentence. UGH!

Is there anyone else afflicted with my malady?

A new goal

I've been living in my new apartment with the ear doctor for a month now, and there are STILL boxes stacked up to the ceiling in my bedroom!!! That is UNACCEPTABLE! Seriously, why am I such a lazy bum.

It's actually getting so distracting that it is bothering me while I am in my cubical at work...that's pretty bad.

So, my new goal is this:

While the ear doctor is feverishly studying for the second part of this comps exam tomorrow I am going to go whirling dervish on that stack.

It must be defeated. It will not take over my thoughts and invade my solitude for one more day. It will not best me at my own devices.

I will be master of my own domain!!!

Plus the majority of the boxes are stacked in a corner that is just begging to be filled with this chair:

Wish him good luck

Right now my ear doctor is taking the first half of his clinical comps test for his AuD. Be sure to send him some good vibes.

I hope his hand doesn't cramp up with all that writing!

Ear Doctor Q&A

Guess what, I write about the ear doctor an awful lot. (understatement of the century)

Those of who have been reading for a while probably wonder what he is really like. You probably stay up at night pondering things about his him. You've probably said to yourself, "if I could only meet the ear doctor I'm sure we would be instant friends." You've probably become so intrigued by him that you can hardly stand it.

Well, lucky for you Jef suggested that we do a Q&A with the ear doctor! Just leave a question for the ear doctor in the comments to this post and he will answer.

His answers will make all of your dreams come true, so you should probably do it.

A sleeping problem

Our new apartment has the loudest air conditioner on the planet. It wouldn't bother me if it was a constant sound all night long. Unfortunately, it clicks on and off and wakes me up all night.

After a month of trying to live like that I've turned into a sleep-deprived raving beast.

The ear doctor came up with a solution to use the A/C less and get a fan that we could run all night. That way the low level white noise could hummmmm me to sleep and he could stay cool. Sounds like a great idea, right?

Well, I'm a little bit picky about what we use in our house. The thought of getting a big, plastic oscillating fan makes my skin crawl. So, I've been looking for cool, vintage/antique looking fans.

We found one at restoration hardware that looked great, but it cost over $100 and the salesgirl went on and on about how quiet it was. Well, guess what, we are looking for something that makes some sound! Quiet is not what we want.

This morning I've been looking around and I found Darryl Hudson's S. Carolina website. He masterfully restores old fans and his work makes me drool! What he does with them is BEAUTIFUL! Just look:

Now those are worth paying money for!

A little update

I thought I'd update the ole blog template this afternoon. These are the same colors we're using in our front room. I really like the light blue/almost teal color with shots of bright red. We don't have any pink anywhere, but the red and teal looked way too intense for a blog, so I toned it down a bit.

I think the ear doctor would drop dead if I tried to bring some pink decor into our house...and rightly so.

Recent thing I learned about the ear doctor

He loves fruit.

I know, I know. You are probably thinking, "well, Katie, who doesn't?"

He really loves fruit. Last week we went grocery shopping and I was pretty much SHOCKED by the shear volume of produce in our cart. Here is a list of everything we got (be prepared to be amazed):

15 peaches
4 lbs of blueberries
3 lbs of strawberries
2 cantaloupes
1 honeydew melon
3 lbs cherries

And that was only for 1 week!

Does anyone else find this staggering?

I love live music

Last night the ear doctor and I went to a really awesome show. My old fiddling teacher just moved back to Colorado from Paris and put on a concert. First of all, she is an amazing musician. It is really rare to hear someone who can play the jazz violin. Jazz is all about laying back on the beat and for some reason it's just hard for violins to do that.

Not for her.

As we sat in the corner of the dark coffee shop and took in the amazing tunes created by 5 very talented musicians I once again was amazed. I'm always so shocked that there are SO many people who are truly talented in this world who never end up as famous musicians.

It kind of makes me annoyed that people who have no talent and get so much attention.

Grrrr

Last night they played an amazing rendition of a song I'd never heard before. It is called Goodbye Pork Pie Hat. The way they played it last night, it is one of the saddest, most beautiful songs I've ever heard. I found some versions of it on youtube, but they really sucked in comparison to the arrangement that my old teacher, Katie Glassman, wrote and performed.

I love music that can make me really feel.

Really awesome

My brother-in-law is starting medical school in St. Louis this fall. We are so proud of him and very excited that he's going to use all those brains he's got to help people feel better! To get out there he, my sister and their ADORABLE little sister had to move from Logan, UT out to Missouri. Last night they stayed with the ear doctor and I on their trip out east. Also, my dad and his best friend are driving one of their two cars out and a golfing-across-America adventure.

That means we had 6 people and a 4 month old baby staying in our apartment last night. I was very excited to have them all there!!!

When the ear doctor got home, he surprised me with a beautiful set of sky blue iris and little yellow circular flowers (I don't know what they are called, but they are really cool and modern looking). He said to me, "I just thought my wifey might like some flowers"...yeah....pretty awesome.

Then, as we were cooking for everyone he took the reigns on the grill and made us up some perfect steaks. He really is the master of his new wedding-grill.

After dinner he helped me with the mountain of dishes.

After the dishes we all sat around and laughed and I realized how awesome it is that he gets along with my family so well.

As we were getting ready for bed I was setting up all of the sleeping arrangements for everyone. He saw me putting a fitted sheet on our big air mattress and jumped up to help me put it on.

My dad's friend made a comment to him. He said, "Wow, ear doctor. If I'd learned earlier to help my wife like you do I could have been a lot happier sooner."

And then I started to think about how much the ear doctor does for me. It started to make me nervous that I take so many of the thoughtful things he does for granted.

I mean, this was the man who came home one day last week and the first thing he did was apologize for not taking the garbage out that morning. He'd been thinking about it all morning and was concerned about it.

I'm a pretty lucky woman.

A curtain solution?

I found this beautiful cotton tea towel on Etsy.






What if I bought a couple of them and use them to lengthen my drapes. What do you think?

Heres the thing

Art.

I've tried to understand it. I love going to art museums to check out different works. I love flipping through books or clicking through prints on Etsy. However, when it comes to buying art and putting it up in my own house I'm at a loss. I've just never found a piece of art that I looked at and thought, "I love that and would like to see it every day of my life". I just haven't.

The problem is that a lot of the walls in my new house are very large and very blank. Add to that the suggestion that I've recently read that family photos shouldn't really be displayed in main common rooms.

So here is the question.

How do I find art that I really like? What do you like? How do you go about picking what you really love?

New Hair do?

I've been wearing my hair essentially the same way for the past 5 years, and it might be time for a change.

This picture at Anthropologie made me stop short and ask myself...

Could I rock this look?

What do you think?

Design Dilemma

So, I just moved into a new apartment. I love the apartment, it's pretty fun to live there with my husband.

Yesterday I finally got around to installing my restoration hardware curtain rod and curtains. The hitch is that the ceilings and windows in the new apartment are about 2 feet higher than anything I had in the old house.

Enter my design dilemma:

The walls in my room are painted a nice, neutral khaki/taupe color (this picture is much pinker than our actual walls). The off white, heavy canvas-type (twill) material curtains fall about 18 inches short of the floor and look AWFUL being that short...like the room is waiting for a flood or something. I read in my Domino black book that curtains should puddle about 1 inch on the floor.

My current situation must be corrected, and quick. However, we're on a bit of a budget and I'd rather not just go out and buy new drapes.

The colors in my room are (going to be) deep chocolate brown with blue and green accents. I saw this picture on the restoration hardware site and thought I could just add some fabric to the bottom:

But what kind of fabric should I use? It looks like this picture is some kind of dupioni silk, but do you think that silk would look too...fancy next to the plain canvas fabric?

Or maybe I should add some kind of cool pattern to spice it up a bit?

Any stellar ideas?

This is me...still stalling

We still haven't found the computer cord. Instead, I'm going to share something with you that the ear doctor does that has made me smile every single morning.

He has to get up and go to work before I do. His commute is 45 minutes and mine is 10, so I get to sleep in longer than he does.

When he leaves the house, he locks the door behind him. I'm still in the house and probably will leave only 30 minutes behind him, but I'm locked in. We don't live in a crime riddled neighborhood...quite the opposite. Our complex is part of a gated, golf course community.

I'm not sure if this locking-the-house-even-though-someone-is-still-in-it is a habit of his or what, but I like to think that he does it so that I am protected from any crazy people coming in the apartment while he isn't there to look after me.

And I think that is pretty cute.

Stay tuned

The ear doctor and I have to search through a mountain of boxes to find the camera cord before I can upload any of our glorious Alaskan honeymoon pictures. Gimme a couple of days to get that put together m'kay?

Happy Birthday...to me

I have to take a break from the wedding/honeymoon recap to let you know how awesome my new husband is.

Today I got breakfast in bed for my 26th birthday! He made me a heaping pile of delicious french toast with rainbow sprinkles. How lucky am I?

Plus, I'm only working a half day today.

I'm spending the other half of the day sipping a jamba juice and reading my beloved Harry Potter.

I could not think of a better day.

Wedding Post 5: The party

Shortly after dinner the rest of the party arrived, and it couldn't have been too soon! I was so excited for them to arrive that I jumped up and scooted out there before anyone else. I wanted to prevent everyone from entering the mansion because I wanted to get the whole party out on the front balcony for a huge group shot. Lucky I did, too because look at this awesome picture we got!

I would highly recommend trying to organize a big shot like this. It turned out to by one of our very favorites!

As people re-entered the mansion they were instructed to take a picture of themselves using a Polaroid camera and tape it into a photo album. Then, they wrote something to us next to their picture. Kind of like a fancy yearbook. Now that we've put all the pages together it is SO awesome. Much better than just a bunch of signatures on plain white lined paper.

After each person entered they were directed straight for what? More food, of course. We had stuffed mushrooms, bruchetta with goat cheese, a cheese platter (yum), éclairs and more.
After eating our fill, again, we headed back out to the back patio for toasts. The ear doctor and I have been to many, many weddings and the toasts are always the part that we feels makes or breaks the “specialness” of the wedding. We asked our parents in advance to prepare something to say. Sure, its not really spontaneous. Then again, I don’t think that anyone has ever accuse me of being spontaneous. What can I say? I’m a planner.

The toasts were awesome. Apparently there was a bet going in my family whether or not my dad would cry. What a sucker bet.

Of course he was going to cry. This is the man whose eyes are “very sensitive to light” or whose “allergies” often bother his eyes. The toasts were perfect and I even learned something about the ear doctor I didn’t know. When he was really little and did something really good he’d extend his arms out in front of him, clinch his little hands into two furious fists and shake his arms really fast. In honor of our big day, the ear doctor’s dad asked all of our guests to do a happy-arm-shake for us. It was awesome.

After the toasts we headed back in for our first dance together. I think most of you know this, but the ear doctor and I love to dance. Love it SO much. Actually I think if you kept track of how many times we spontaneously break into dance it would average out to about twice a day. So, obviously, the music and dancing at our wedding was important.

We chose our first dance song to be “I’ve got a crush on you” which was perfect.




After the first dances we did a daddy/daughter and a mother/son dance. It was awesome because the ear doctor’s mom danced beautifully, and my dad did his best to wow the crowd with his moves. Then, we invited everyone else up to the floor by doing a snowball dance. It was awesome. There were tons of people crowded onto the dance floor, just what I really wanted.

After some dancing we cut the cake. The cake we got was AMAZING! The best tasting cake ever. Plus, she made us a grooms cake in the shape of an ear with a little ear doctor coming out and a fondant odoscope. The groom’s cake was raspberry citrus, and the main cake was half chocolate cinnamon and Italian cream with apricot filling (my fav).

It was pretty delicious



After the cake I surprised the ear doctor with a planned, secret lip sync routine to Michael Buble’s recording of “Everything.” The whole thing went off really awesome, especially my rad back-up dancers. It was hilarious and the ear doctor loved it.

After that we just danced the night away and walked around the room talking to everyone and enjoying ourselves. I found out later that all my space dork friends from work went out on the front patio to try to watch the shuttle as it passed over. So nerdy and so awesome.

As the night drew to a close the ear doctor and I swooped away in his awesome silver truck. I thought the contrast between me in my dress, him in a tux and a truck would be awesome. Thankfully, the only décor on the car was white writing on the windows (anything else would have made us loose our security deposit with the venue…dang those historic buildings).

We drove off together to our new house.

He carried me over the threshold of our apartment.

I love him.

Wedding Post 5: Ring Ceremony and Dinner

We were supposed to be up at the Boettcher Mansion at 5 to take pictures with our photographer for an hour and to help set everything up for the ring ceremony at 6:30. Well, we didn't leave the hotel until around 4:45, so we showed up almost a half hour late. That kind of set everyone off at a rushed pace. We wandered around the property for 45 minutes taking more beautiful pictures.

Before I show more photos I have to give credit to our AMAZING photographer. Debi and Amanda Tipton of Kokoro Photography did an amazing job!

(the one below is my very favorite photo...SO pretty!)

Things started to slip back on the schedule, but it was good because quite a few of our guests got a little lost finding the mansion. Exchanging wedding rings is not part of the wedding ceremony in the temple. Therefore, we decided to have a special ring exchange ceremony at the Boettcher mansion with just our friends and family so that everyone could be included in our special day.

As I looked through the weathered stone archway onto a patio filled with our best friends I again got a little choked up. We asked a dear friend, our church bishop, to officiate in the ring ceremony and I could see him standing there, eyes full of proud tears for us. The ear doctor and I decided again to hold hands and walk down the aisle together, as a unit, a husband and wife. There was no music playing, just the wind in the pines and the chirping of birds, exactly the kind of Colorado scene I was hoping for.

As the bishop offered us more advice I smiled and again was filled with awe for the ear doctor. What an amazing man! I extended my hand and the ear doctor slipped the beautiful wedding band onto my finger. I did the same for him.

Right after the ring ceremony we asked our family to join us for dinner in the main room. Despite the whole debacle with the flowers, I thought it came together nicely. Actually, when I entered the room it took my breath away a bit. Making sure to have everything go together was SO important for me. I was so happy when the whole thing came together.

The food was really great! I've still been getting comments on the food, so that is a pretty great sign. I snarfed my food down as quickly as humanly possible because I wanted to stand up and start talking to all of my friends. I wanted to make sure that everyone really knew how much it meant that they were there for me.

Wedding Post 4: The exit and lunch

Many of you may not know this, but there is a little tradition we LDS folks have. Because there are typically many people who we love desperately, and are not members of our faith, we miss out on having important people at our weddings. Also, often the bride and groom take a lot longer than any of the other guests to leave the building. As a result, when the bride and groom leave the building there is always a lot of hoopla surrounding their first steps into the rest of the world as man and wife. Every wedding I've been to in a temple has this little tradition. Everyone waits excitedly for the bride and groom to come out.

Well, for us this was a bit of a snag. We wanted to wait to come out together until everyone from our family was there. When we were ready to leave the building, neither grandma was present. We ended up waiting for a few minutes before everyone was gathered so that we could leave amidst cheers.

It was totally worth the wait.

As we walked into the bright, beautiful sunlight I looked at the ear doctor and smiled from ear to ear. I gave his hand a little squeeze of excitement and we looked onto 25 of the happiest, most loving faces in our lives. It was a moment I'll never forget.

My man gave me a little celebratory smooch as we were overwhelmed with joyous applause!

After many happy greetings...

We all calmed down and took some official family pictures. After a strict 30 minutes of photos (I absolutely did not want to make people stand around in the heat all afternoon), everyone drove over to a little park and enjoyed a picnic lunch. In my family, keeping people fed with delicious food is pretty much the number 1 priority. Add to that fact that my little sister is still nursing her baby and you'll understand why it was so important to get that group of people fed, and quick.

We stuck around for another 30 minutes to take some pictures of us as newly weds alone. There are SO many amazing pictures from this short time, but I'm only going to show my favorites.

(Notice how fresh and great the ear doctor's flower is in this photo)

After we left to join everyone for lunch I was really really glad that I'd rented a park shelter. It was close to 100 degrees that day and everyone would have burnt to a crisp! As it was people were pretty melted. I really didn't want this lunch to be too hard to set up, since my awesome roommate Boggs was coming down to put it all together for me.

After lunch everyone went back to the hotels and crashed. The ear doctor and I were so exhausted by this point. We needed naps more than everyone else if the party was going to keep going later in the evening. Too bad we slept a little longer than we ought...

Wedding Post 3: The ceremony

As I sat waiting for the ear doctor to come in the beautiful foyer of the temple I started to get a little nervous. As sure as I was of the ear doctor's love for me, I don't think there is a single person alive who doesn't have a momentary thought of being left at the alter when their soon to be spouse is later than they are to the ceremony venue.

As the minutes ticked on my formerly ultra-composed self started to worry a bit.

Tick

Tick

Tick

And then, he arrived.

Ahhhhhh

He looked so handsome! Together we went to the recorder and sat hand in hand making sure that all the legalities were taken care of so that they wouldn't get in our way. I didn't know this, but the temple handles all of the mailing and filing for you, so you don't have to do a thing with the state. Very cool.

Well, we parted ways and went to change into our wedding clothes. Because my big wedding dress is off-white (much, much better for this red head), and the temple only allows pure white dresses with full length sleeves, I decided to get a second, all white very plain sheath dress to wear to the actual ceremony. Plus, what girl doesn't like to have two pretty dresses, right?

I sat in a very beautiful room, all dressed up, waiting with my mom. I could not believe the calm I felt. I was so sure, so collected, so confident. I was a little surprised by just how grounded I felt. After being afraid of marriage for so long it was a little shocking to be so certain. But with the ear doctor everything has been different. It has been easy and real. That's how I knew it was right.

The room we got married in was fabulous. It was a perfectly circular room with a small gorgeous alter centered in the middle. The ear doctor and I knelt on either side of the alter completely encircled by 20 of our closest friends and family. Our hands that had held each other so many other times in so many other settings clasped over the alter. This hand hold was different, tender and sincere. As the officiant offered us blessings and advice I looked into the ear doctor's fiercely blue eyes and realized that I was making the best choice possible. Not only was this man the love of my life, but my best friend and a worthly partner to spend my life with.

After the ceremony was completed we stood and greeted each person who was in the room to witness our marriage. Throughout the entire ceremony I didn't feel like crying. I felt warm, calm and at peace. When each of our loved ones left the room and we were able to thank them for being a part of our day I started tearing up with joy.

As I went back to the changing room to put by big off-white dress on I took a few moments to myself to think about my feelings. Honestly, I have never felt so loved and cared for. From my friends, my family, my husband and my Savior.

I changed very quickly into my dress and waited for my new husband to join me in his tux. I must have a talent for changing fast because it always takes me less time to change than it does for him.

Again I was waiting

tick

tick

tick

and then I saw him again, but this time as my new husband. My heart dropped to my stomach and I was floored. How was I so lucky to get this man!

However, there was a slight snag...

Wedding Post 2: The morning of

I'd always heard that everyone has the hardest time sleeping the night before they get married. I, however, did not find that the case. After a long day of pulling everything together and a belly full of delicious bbq, I drifted off into a glorious slumberland. I spent the night sharing a room with one of my oldest and best friends, Kath, in a hotel very close to the Denver LDS temple.

We woke up at the crack of dawn to start the preparations. Kath just happens to be one of the best stylists I know, so she willingly did my hair and makeup. There aren't many pictures of this phase because Kathy and I were alone with her almost 2 year old daughter Olivia, and while Olivia is a very talent and smart girl, professional photographer she is not.

Just as we finished up my hair I was instructed to open the closet. Out came the most beautiful set of luggage. My sweetheart got me a gift for our trip! Inside the case was a really really pair of pearl drop earrings. They looked perfect with my dress and "look" so I put them on immediately. Included with the gift was a very touching card. It took every fiber of my being to not melt into a sappy blob of jell-o right there on the floor. My ear doctor is the sweetest, most thoughtful man alive.

The day was perfect. Really, really beautiful. One of those perfect breathtaking Colorado days.

We got all ready and my mom, dad and I rushed off to the temple. The ceremony was at 11, but we were instructed to be there at 9:30 to give us plenty of time. As we drove up into the temple parking lot my mom, dad, and I took a few moments just to be together. I realized how much I love them and how lucky I am to have such amazing examples in my life.

After a few minutes we were rushed into the temple to await the ear doctor's arrival.

Wedding Post 1: The day before

After quickly deciding that I could make the lavender hydrangeas work with my all blue theme, I moved on and the rest of the wedding went off without a single hitch.

The day before we had an awesome bbq for family at my apartment building. It didn't really make sense to call it the "rehearsal dinner" because there was nothing for us to rehearse. Instead we decided to call it our "wedding eve" party.

Despite the fact that the caterer called 10 minutes prior to the party and asked if we were going to get plates, or if he was supposed to (UGH), everything was awesome.

We found the caterer for wedding eve by complete happenstance. We were driving through a strip mall by our new apartment and saw a big smoker with a huge poster advertising "FREE BBQ". Now, I am not one to pass up anything free and bbq makes the ear doctor's heart swell with genuine love, so we pulled over. Turns out the free portion of the day was over, but we were referred to a store called Wally's Quality Meats. Inside the ear doctor found his personal Mecca. A real, honest to goodness butcher/meat shop. They had every cut of top quality meat you could ever want...along with about 50 different kinds of sausage. Wally, the owner of the shop, told us that Big Al was the bbq man and he gave us a number to call.

Lucky for us, Big Al makes the most amazing bbq you can find in the great state of Colorado. We met with him and got a sample of his food. During the sample he entertained us with a mini bbq lecture. The ear doctor was enthralled. He informed us that bbq is different all over the US. Each state in the south has developed its own feel and take on what "real" bbq is. He told us that his style was a blend of Texas and N. Carolina bbq. All I know is that I've never had better brisket.

At the party I wore a new yellow sundress and felt very cute and summery. Unfortunately for us, they air conditioner in the building broke that afternoon and it was sweltering in the room. As soon as the sun went down it cooled down enough to be comfortable. After the wedding I contacted the people who charged us $50 to rent the building. You better believe I got every red cent back from them.

The party was so much fun and SUCH a good idea to get both families together to hang out before the big day. We had everyone go around the room and introduce themselves. It was really important to me that everyone there felt included and really felt like we appreciated them coming.

The ear doctor's parents got us bride and groom mickey mouse ears to wear that were pretty awesome...see:

Beginning to loose it

Is it alright if I freak out that my hydrangeas were delivered today and they are a butt ugly WRONG COLOR!?!?!?


The hydrangeas I designed the entire color scheme and feel around!


The hydrangeas I paid extra for to get the "perfect" color!


Gahhhhh

(head explodes and bits of brains slowly drip from the ceiling)

Lunchtime Bliss

Today for lunch I took a blanket to the park and enjoyed my ice cold fresh-squeezed lemonade in the shade of a big oak tree. Then, I sat and watched some geese swim around in the crystal clear pond.

Pretty much perfect.

Indecisive

I can't decide whether I prefer the matte or glossy version of our engagement photo.

Anybody have a good reason to choose one over the other?

Why has this been the toughest choice to make in this whole wedding planning process for me?

Wedding weather

About a week and a half ago I woke up in the middle of the night worrying that the weather on my wedding day would be awful.

Not that you can really trust at 10 day forecast for the ever changing Colorado weather, but this made me really, really happy this morning:

That 0% is that chance of rain.

HOORAY!

Distracted

Between the drama unfolding at work and the building anticipation of getting married next week I think I'm starting to loose it.

This morning instead of exfoliating my face in the shower I tried to use it on my hair. Getting those fine gritty pieces of scrub out of my scalp was a bit of a challenge.

Who has the most adorable niece in the world?

I do! Plus, my sister is pretty much a knock out.

If I weren't

helping the ear doctor move into our aparment this weekend I would spend my time making these for the wedding:



Their cuteness is almost TOO much to bear. I would make the frosting a light blue and then have my awesome roommate pipe our initials on the top. However, right now I'm a little overwhelmed and the last thing I need to be doing is piping frosting on 100 cookie wedding cakes.

But it makes me really sad that I'm not making them...

Finding my style

For the past 6 months I've really been trying to hone in on my own, personal style. I've had a hard time really articulating what it is, or describing it to other people. Luckily, I found a picture this morning. I'm thinking about printing it out and keeping it in my wallet so that when I'm doing a horrible job of explaining what I like I can just take this picture out and say, "This! This is what I'm looking for."

The Shower

Saturday night my amazing, beautiful, talented friend Sarah threw me a bridal shower. I was completely overwhelmed by how much effort she put into it! She is pretty much amazing. The food was amazing!

Starting from left to right, there was caprese salad, orzo with pine nuts, carrotts and hummus, a huge block of brie and crackers, spinach salad with oranges, Mexican wedding cookies, cannoli and cherry tart. To drink, my favorite, Perrier with a slice of lime! So good!

After some great eats we played a game where I had to match the ear doctor's answers to a bunch of questions. If I got it wrong I had to put a marshmallow in my mouth.

Needless to say, I wasn't very good at it. After games we opened gifts. I am so blessed to have such awesome friends in my life! I've been to all of their wedding showers and it was surreal to think that I was now the person in the limelight. So weird!

One of the questions from the marshmallow game was "What is the ear doctor's favorite physical feature of Katie's?" The answer: little mouth.

Just like Christmas

If there is one thing you can count on with me, it's that I'm sticking to a budget. Over the years I've honed this skill down to an art form. If I've set a limit for myself I'm sticking to it.

Except when it comes to buying Christmas gifts.

As the festive season starts I am very rigorous about setting limits for myself. I am very very good up until the week before the big day. At that point all restraint is pretty much thrown out the window and I buy things for people just because it looks like something they'd love. Usually I've exercised enough restraint leading up to the critical I'm-spending-like-a-mad-woman phase that I don't get into any trouble. Plus, Christmas comes so fast that the frenzy is pretty time restricted.

This wedding planning is becoming like the Christmas frenzy.

For the last 3 months I have been meticulous about our budget. Cutting things I may have wanted to reduce cost. I was bound and determined to only spend the allotted amount.

However, I'm in the home stretch and starting to feel signs that the self-imposed budget-keeping bonds are being loosed. Did we really need little picture clips for our centerpieces...probably not. Did I spend $30 on them yesterday...you bet I did. And now that we have the clips we'll need to get some really nice photos printed up to incorporate into our centerpieces...that will probably cost something. And did we really need to cleverly label our tables using the swirl pattern from the invitations to tie the paper all together? Labels that will cost additional from our printer....probably not. Am I going to do it?...yes.

The scary thing is that we've got 3 weeks left. That's a lot of time to do damage....