Wedding Planning

Mike and I have made some significant progress this week with regards to wedding planning. Even with helping Kati and Brigitte with their planning over the last year, I definitely didn't realize just how much there is to do! Today, the biggest weight feels lifted off my shoulders - I made the deposit at the florist. It's been a bit of a hassle due to some special circumstances, so what is probably a very minor thing in most people's wedding feels like a major victory to me.

Here are just some of the things we've done in the past few days since getting back from our trip:

Flower Deposit - check
Rehearsal Dinner Planned - check
Favors Ordered - check
Shuttles for Guests Researched - check (we FINALLY found an option that won't cost an arm and a leg!)
Ceremony Musicians Booked - check

We still have a lot to go, but at least now the biggest pieces are covered! Woo hoo!

Lake Almanor Recap

Well, all good things must come to an end... today is my last day of vacation. I tell you, it was much needed. I feel very recharged and ready to face the rest of this wedding planning!

We spent a week up at one of my favorite spots, Lake Almanor. We could not have asked for better weather during this trip... it was mostly in the high 80's during the day and cooled off nicely at night. As always with vacation, I spent the first two days in a coma. I don't know why, but the minute I get away (especially to a mellow place like the lake), I can't peel myself out of bed! I spent some time reading, some time napping (ok, a lot of time napping) and some time catching up on "Ultimate Cake Off". Great show, by the way - I'd never seen it, but it was pretty cool to see some of the cakes they make!

Of course, we did some serious fishing. A lot of this week was spent doing still fishing with all sorts of different bait (live crickets, live meal worms and dead anchovy tails). We did catch some pretty nice fish:

Dad's 1lb 15oz Fish

Mom's 1lb 6oz Fish

Mike's Big Fish Coughed Up A Little Fish!

I'm not going to lie, I get a little bored with the still fishing business. I like the movement of trolling (and that we tend to catch way more fish), however, this was not a bad way to spend the evening:

Not A Bad Way To End The Day

I got in some very good water skiing at the beginning of the week. This is pretty much the only time during the year that I get to ski. I must say I'm not bad, considering that I only ski for one week a year. I didn't get very many pictures because I mostly skied when it was just Mom & Dad (Mike was busy doing a serious hike - more on that later), so one of them had to drive and the other had to watch me/man the flag. I did, however, have one of those great falls that I haven't had in a couple years. I'm still not sure exactly what happened, but I think my ski caught the wake on the way back in. I did some sort of flip through the air and underwater. During this whole acrobatic stunt in addition to getting a lovely sinus wash, my back foot got stuck and then yanked out of the back binding. I ended up with a foot that looked like this for a day:

Hurt Foot

It may not look horribly bad, but it's still pretty bruised to the touch. I don't think anything is broken - I'm pretty sure I just got a nice bone bruise. Needless to say, I didn't ski after that - it hurt too much to stick my foot back in the binding (I did get back up after my fall... wanted to make sure I wasn't scared to get back in and out of the wake).

I mentioned Mike did some hiking. By some hiking, I mean he climbed Mount Shasta. I'm so freaking proud of him! He posted some great pictures on his Facebook page - if you have some time, take a look! We also did some cycling - including my first solo ride. The weather was beautiful and I managed to find some decent hills to climb!

We also did some kayaking while we were there. Both Mike and I had never done it before. It was definitely fun, but I think we would need to kayak somewhere like a river... we both got a little bored paddling around the lake.

Mike & I Kayaking

Now it's back to the grind. We picked Shadow up yesterday and am spending today doing laundry. We've got some cycling to catch up on (the USA Pro Cycling Challenge) and a movie to watch... it might not be a horrible Sunday!

Bridal Shower!

Today Kati and Mom threw me a bridal shower... it was fantastic! They went with a tropical theme held at Kati's house and it turned out really well. The food was absolutely delicious - there were chicken kabobs, coconut rice, fresh fruit, salad and sweet & sour meat balls. Yum! They also had a delicious rum punch! Later we had cake AND cupcakes... it was really fantastic!

The Centerpieces

We played bridal jeopardy (everyone had to answer questions about me, Mike, etc) and a game where the ladies had to decorate cupcakes. Here are the top three that I chose (they were all great!):

Brigitte's Tiki Cupcake

Eva's Beachy Cupcake

Kristine's Wedding Cake Cupcake

Then, there was the presents! And lots of them! It was definitely a little uncomfortable to sit in front of that many people just opening gifts! That said, my friends and family were so generous and I got lots of great stuff! Now time for all the people pictures:

Kati & I

Kati, Mom and I

The Yellow Table!

The Pink Table!

The Blue Table!

I had so much fun today and felt so loved by everyone! I'm truly touched that so many people wanted to come out and celebrate me getting married... I had friends and family that spent 4 hours in the car today just to be there! Now I'm completely exhausted and looking forward to a good night's sleep!

The Creature Chronicals Part 2

As promised, I've been trying to snap pictures of the fun (and sometimes scary) critters around my house. I found this one the other day when I was working on digging up the peach tree. On a side note, Mike said that I loosened it up for him - two hard whacks with the sledgehammer got the roots out. I knew I should have pounded on it for a little bit longer! The new crepe myrtle looks beautiful!

I digress...

I discovered a lizard (look really hard in the middle of the picture):

Lizard

There are tons of these little guys all over up here. They're incredibly fast, which is why the picture is a little bit blurry... I had to sit very still for about five minutes to get him to come back out of the bushes after I originally spotted him. These little guys are super fast and tend to hang out just about everywhere outside. They scare the heck out of me because I'll hear something move in the leaves and, of course, my mind immediately things I'm about to be eaten by a mountain lion, only to look over and see a little lizard tail scoot away. Of all the critters around here, these guys might be my favorites... they stay outside, look cute and leave me alone!

Conclusion to the Nature Experiment

Well, I waited a whole week only to discover that the only things in the forest that eat defrosted squid are the neighbor's dog and vultures. It was a little bit disappointing, but at least now we know!

We did get one brave deer that was willing to walk past the stinking pile of squid to make his photogenic debut:

Is Anyone In There?

We also had 12 pictures of the neighbor's dog (alone and off leash, I might add) doing I don't know what to it. The neighbor must wonder why his dog keeps coming home smelling like fish when we live no where near a body of water...

One Smelly Dog!

Finally, I got to see some vultures up close and personal. When we went down to retrieve the memory stick, there were a couple still hanging around - they're huge!!!

Two Vultures

Flying Vulture

Yup, this confirmed that they're pretty much the most disgusting creatures on the planet. Must suck to have your only marketable skill be to be able to find dead things. They (along with the snake) really must have pissed God off somehow...

So that concludes my back yard experiment - pretty much only vultures and dogs will eat nasty, decomposing squid. We've also learned that mountain lions apparently don't enjoy seafood...

500th Post & A Puppy!

Before you get too excited, no, it's not my puppy. My best friend Brigitte and her husband Dan got a new puppy today. He's a 10 week old yellow lab and his name is Remington - yup, like the gun. He's going to be a bird dog! But for right now, he's an adorable puppy! Brigitte and Dan invited me over to meet the puppy (and to see their beautiful new house) this afternoon. We had a blast hanging out and they made a fantastic BBQ for dinner.

Mr. Remington Porter

I'm blown away at how smart this puppy already is - in the 4 hours that I was there, he had already learned to ring the bells to go outside (that's how they're training him to let them know he needs to go outside to go potty). Just after I left, he put himself to bed in his crate!

In other exciting news, this post is my 500th post on the blog! Woo hoo!

Lessons I Learned By Cutting A Tree Down

One of the first things Mike planted when he built the house was a peach tree. Over the years, it started to lean and was staked a little too late. In addition to that, it's never really been healthy - sometimes it gets peaches, sometimes it doesn't. We've been talking for the last couple weeks about taking the tree out and planting something in it's place. I'm going to plant a couple peach trees down in the orchard (because of the placement of this one, it also always got attacked by the deer because it was easy for them to eat off of) and hopefully get some productive, healthy trees.

I decided this afternoon to surprise Mike and cut down the peach tree while he was at work. I figured it couldn't be that hard and since most of my gardening ideas have involved heavy lifting, I wanted to do a little bit so that something pretty was planted without Mike having to dig. I learned the following lessons:

Lesson 1: Cutting down a tree is surprisingly easy.

The Chopped Down Peach Tree

Lesson 2: A surprising amount of spiders live in peach trees. Every time you chop, they fall on you. It was my worst nightmare come true.

Lesson 3: Shadow is a really good helper. I hitched the tree to his harness and he helped me pull it up the driveway. Now if only he was strong enough to pull out the stump! I wish I would have gotten a picture, but I was too busy trying to convince him to move!

Lesson 4: Pulling out a stump is surprisingly hard. I dug. I pick axed. I shoveled. I hacked. I finally caved in and called Mike to see if he had any special tips for getting a stump out of the ground. I even walked down to my neighbor's house to see if he would bring his back hoe up (he wasn't home).

The Stump

Lesson 5: Blisters, cuts and sore muscles make laying down on the sofa feel soooo good. There's something to be said for good, hard manual labor!

It looks like I'm going to have to wait until Mike gets home to get the stump out. What am I going to replace this peach tree with? A beautiful baby pink crepe myrtle. I can't wait to have it planted!

A Nature Experiment

I have begun an experiment, right in my own back yard.

Here's where it all began - we're starting to buy stuff for our wedding and needed the freezer in the garage. The whole purpose of that freezer was to store the squid that Charlie and Mike caught in their quest to see a great white shark.

I had to somehow dispose of the squid to make room for 120 pounds of tritip. There were a couple options:

1. Throw it in the garbage can. My garbage man comes on Friday and this was Monday night... I don't think I could live with the smell of defrosting squid.
2. Roll it down the hill. But then the smelly, defrosting squid would be a little too close to my house for comfort.
3. Schlep the smelly, defrosting squid down to the game camera for some (hopefully) instant entertainment.

Obviously, I chose option number 3. Of course, I'm trying to do this discreetly, but the easiest path to our game camera involves crossing our neighbor's land. And (of course) he happened to be standing there as I hauled what I can only imagine looked like a dead boy across his land. So, I had to explain myself (quickly because that sucker smelled!) and his eyes lit up. I'm not the only one excited about this...

Mike and I are going to head down Saturday or Sunday to check out the footage... and to find out if mountain lions eat seafood. I can't wait!