Naturally Optimistic

Happy Anniversary, my Sweet Stevie!

Saturday was Chris & Michelle's wedding. It was a very beautiful ceremony. It took place at the Moorish Room at Greysolon Plaza downtown. The ceremony was actually in the lobby area near the fountain and the reception was in the Moorish room. The ceremony was performed by an old family friend of Michelle's - Rabbi Amy (although neither Chris nor Michelle are Jewish). She made it a very personal, sweet ceremony and included a lot of their own words in letters they had each written to the Rabbi. I was touched to be mentioned (a few times) for setting them up! Michelle looked so pretty & just absolutely glowing. It's been a long time since I've seen her so incredibly radiant and that made me very happy! I'm also glad her evil headaches were kept at bay! The reception was a LOT of fun. Not only was it fun to hang out with my new friends (Michelle's friends Kristen, Kelly & Kari) but my OLD friends were there too. That's the benefit of being friends ...

It's hard to believe that two years ago Steve & I got married. It seems like just days ago and it seems like I've known him forever. We celebrated our anniversary early by going up the North Shore for a night on Sunday. Dahlia stayed with Grandma B and we had about 30 baby-free hours. We had a great time. We hiked for 4 hours on Sunday, 2 hours yesterday, ate some good food, enjoyed some good wine, sat in the jacuzzi and most importantly - SLEPT IN. More pics & details coming soon. Honey - I love you. Thanks for 2 fabulous years - looking forward to many many more to come.

Please go wish Michelle & Chris a HAPPY ENGAGEMENT! I'm so happy for them. I've known Chris FOR.EVER. and I've known Michelle for a couple years now. I am happy to say that I did some strategic wedding reception seating chart planning and got them at the same table. Actually Michelle was seated with 2 eligible bachelors at our reception and I told her she could have her pick! She picked well! I've known about their engagement now for almost 2 weeks!! But have been waiting for her to spill the beans first....yay! She asked me to be her matron-of-honor and while I hate the word MATRON I am thrilled to be a part of their special day! CONGRATS!

I find it hard to believe this was already ONE YEAR AGO! To my sweet husband: I love you more and more every day and can't wait to see what the future will bring us. You make me so incredibly happy & I love you.

A belated wedding gift arrived today for us from my lovely and sweet and wonderful friend Sudhara & her beau - wait - FIANCE - this afternoon. I was so excited to open it but had to wait for Steve to arrive some til I tore it open. Inside were these amazing & lovely glasses: They are bluish & speckled (the green "spring" light sort of throws it off). There are also these: which are blue and have flowers in them. And finally (!) this awesome pitcher which I cannot get enough of. In fact, I'm not sure if Sudhara knows of my deep and passionate love for pitchers (I believe we now have 3 new ones from the wedding- can you ever have enough pitchers?). THANK YOU so much Sudhara & Alex!!! We love it!

Time flies when you're having fun.

We had a lovely time in Florida. We stayed at Steve's Mom's (& boyfriend's and aunt & uncle's...the 4 of them own together...) condo in Bradenton Beach on Anna Maria Island in the gulf. It was so nice to be in a condo instead of just a hotel room. We had 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a dining area, an eat-in kitchen, a living room and a balcony. The weather was okay - not too warm but much warmer than Minnesota! We rented bikes the first day and used them a lot to get around the island. Everything is flat so it was easy-peasy and kind of fun. No hand-brakes or gears though so that took a while to get used to. We visited Myakka River State Park which was about 35 minutes east of Sarasota (the island was off the coast in that area) and it was nice to get outside and see the landscape. The park was really cool - we did some hiking and also enjoyed the treetop canopy walk. I was petrified of seeing snakes and/or alligators but thankfully we did not. Instead we saw wild b...

...well, hopefully by that I only mean the week of vacation in Florida. We had a lovely time! The weather was cool, however. Not exactly tropical as the Alberta Clipper that swept the nation made it all the way to Anna Maria Island...Hmph. Friday was only in the 50's! But that was okay. We managed to spend the day biking, walking, lounging, reading, napping, playing guitar and watching the sunset on the beach. We were BUNDLED up but it was the most beautiful sunset of the week so it was okay. More details to come..... Here're some tidbits: biking hiking tree-top canopy walk kayaking eating eating eating (I'm so not stepping on the scale until I've worked out for this whole week!) sitting on the beach DisneyWorld Trying to watch the space shuttle launch (it was canceled though -hmph) eating reading lounging and just really enjoying being on "island time." I have lots of pictures to share....but haven't gotten around to getting them on the computer yet... Ti...

Steve & I went to Barnes & Noble last night where I purchased this: I am so excited to make some projects! Although it'll have to wait til the New Year because right now I'm stacked with Christmas projects & upcoming honeymoon (have I mentioned that we're going on vacation in a mere 4 days?? huh? Have I? hee hee) I love browsing a good book store...I see books everywhere that I want to read, own, linger on, study every page, get lost in - ah! I love it! But I want to BUY BUY BUY which is unnecessary - (unless they're good reference books) - and I'm currently trying to download my library by selling books on Amazon and giving them away so....as much as I drool.....I know I should not purchase. We spent a wedding gift card at B&N tonight so I don't even feel guilty about buying a little something for me this holiday season! Hopefully it's a gift that'll keep on giving.

We've been throwing our loose change into the piggy bank since we booked our honeymoon trip last July. Today Steve took in our aluminum recycling (also designated honeymoon cash) and so we decided to see how much our little pig held. Grand total? $68.12 Whohoooo! Sounds like one dinner out to me! *sigh* It's the simple things...right? *sorry the picture is blurry

Photo by Sarah Holden Photography Good Lord I almost forgot!!! Today is the 2nd month "anniversary" of Steve & I's wedding day!

(photo courtesy of www.spaceevent.com ) Steve discovered last night that the Space Shuttle Discovery is scheduled to launch while we're in Florida on our honeymoon! Although we're not really going to be near Cape Canaveral (or what, Kennedy Space Center...what's it called these days? Am I old? *sigh*). It's a night launch and who knows if it'll actually happen (you know how these things go) but I think we're going to try to watch. How often do you get to see something like that(when you live in Minnesota) live? Yes, the countdown is on...t-minus 16 days and counting til we take-off for our Honeymoon - whohooo!

I don't know why the wedding is on my brain so much lately. Maybe because we just ordered some goodies from Target with our gift cards (set of sheets for the bed, a couch cover, 4 water goblets) or maybe because we got a wedding gift yesterday from my friends Kevin & Daren who were unable to come to the wedding (wine glasses & cheese set) or maybe because my Mom keeps asking me to send her pictures for the book she's putting together or maybe because we watched the ceremony last night (for the first time). I'm a little bummed. I asked my friend/producing partner J to shoot the ceremony for us. He agreed but wasn't thrilled as he was bringing a date and didn't want to leave her "in the cold" as he ran around and worked. I told him it's no big deal...shoot it simply and no need to get "extra" stuff as Sarah's husband was gracious enough to do that. I just asked him to get the pre-music as I wouldn't get to hear it otherwise (my ...

Photo by Sarah Holden Photography

I did something sort of stupid last week. Well, sort of stupid and sort of thoughtless and just well, not really like me. I started (continued, I should say) working on wedding thank-yous. I figured since I LIKE to do stuff like this I would do most of them and leave a few for Steve that I know he wants to write - to his parents, his best man, etc. No problem. Steve was gone on the camping-adventure-from-hell so I sat down with a nice cold diet coke, iTunes and a stack of cards, envelopes, addresses & gift list. I whizzed through almost all the gifts (cash/giftcards left to do) no problem. I tried to sprinkle "I's" and "we's" in as deemed appropriate but really I was wrong. After Steve got home I asked him if he wanted to read the thank-yous before I sealed them up and sent them off. He did. That night he took the stack to bed with him (riveting nighttime reading!) and read a few. 3. The next day I asked him if they were okay and he sort of had this look...

Today we are celebrating one month of wedded bliss! I cannot believe that it has gone so fast. Time really flies. It's a wee bit scary if you ask me. One month before the wedding I was excited to go to Vegas with my girlfriends. I can't believe that was two months ago! Now I am happily taking time to *breathe* and regroup and resettle now that life is returning to normal. I have a list of projects a mile long that I wish to tackle and the holidays & honeymoon are right around the corner. Happy One Month, My Sweet Sweet Husband! xoxo