2013: What a year!

I can very easily say that 2013 has been one of fastest years of my life. I can't believe all that's happened in the past 12 months:

our engagement, wedding planning, becoming an Auntie, making lots of improvements to our new house

my best friend and I both getting married within a few months of each other, an amazing honeymoon in Hawaii, accepting the role of Matron of Honor for another great friend's wedding next year

traveling around the country for work, especially to Kentucky and watching horse races at Churchill Downs, witnessing AHS Water Polo history and they clenched the NCS Championship

another whirlwind holiday season filled with family, my Nana going to heaven and seeing my family gather around each other showing so much love and support, spending extra time with the grandparents that are still with us

then saying goodbye in style to that crazy, wonderful, busy, unforgettable year!

2014 has so much in store for the Fisher family:

some expected changes and some surprises, times of joy and surely times of struggle. we'll take it all on together. 

finishing the biggest home project thus far (new flooring throughout!), job changes, a quick visit to New Orleans, grad school, our nephew's 1st birthday, a trip to London, more wedding festivities, our one year anniversary, and many more! 

I am so lucky and blessed to get to share all these past memories and future moments with my family and friends. Here's to a fabulous year done, and another one just begun!

Our wedding day was...

September 14, 2013 was:

hands down, the most fun, love-filled, exciting, nervewracking, day of my life.

a day where we were surrounded by 105 of the most loving, supportive and party-ready family and friends.

planned down to the minute, and that plan was executed flawlessly by a team of said loved ones.

when our families witnessed our raw emotions as we said the vows we had written to each other.

a day my inner diva came out and I kicked out a couple of wedding crashing cougars.

when my family realized I married an amazing dancer.

the day I realized I have an obvious obsession with lists - according to all the speeches people gave for us.

photographed beautifully by our amazing photographer and friend, Kevin.

the best day of my life.

~~~

Now that I have settled back into reality after nearly a month of wedding and honeymoon bliss, I am planning to put together several posts on our wedding and honeymoon. We should be receiving our professional wedding photos in a few weeks, so that's when I'll do most of the posting. I realize this will likely take me months to put together, but I am going to split it up like this: 

• The Prep
• Ceremony
• Cocktail Hour
• Dinner, Toasts & Speeches 
• Dancing the night away
• I Do for Ice Cream
• Wedding Party
• Favorite Photos
• Honeymoon - Oahu
• Honeymoon - Kauai

Here are just a few favorites from the KP Mora Photography blog: 

My favorite number of days until the wedding!

Yes, that's right ---

Just a little quickie before I head off to bed after a very long and very productive day (first, I was on-time to work, got LOTS done, came home in minimal traffic where Marc had dinner ready, did some wedding planning, then went for a run, then back to wedding planning, and wrote a blog post)! I would say that's pretty good for a Monday.

I'm getting sidetracked here, where was I?...

In the past few days, we (my parents, Marc and I) have crossed SO many things off our wedding to do list! It feels so great. I think with each thing crossed off, I relax a tiny bit and get a little more excited (if that's even possible)! Here's everything we did since last week:

• Dress fitting! It fits great! I tried on my veil with the dress as well, I made my veil from my mom's and I'm so glad it's going to work out. I just need to jazz it up a little :)
• Wedding day walk through with the caterer at the venue. He is going to be the coordinator on the day of, which I didn't realize, so that's a huge help!
• Made hair and make-up appointments for wedding day.
• Ordered the vases for the center pieces which we are making ourselves.
• Picked out the flowers we will order on Wednesday (since they can only be ordered 1 month in advance) - we're getting them for a great deal at SAMs Club.
• Purchased my jewelry - love it!
• Purchased my second pair of shoes for the wedding/reception - wedges that will be easier to dance in. I tried them out at work today, they feel pretty good, considering they're still quite tall.
• My uncle became an official Deputy Commissioner and can legally officiate our wedding!
• Sent out rehearsal dinner invites.
• Wrote wedding programs (won't print them until 2 weeks before, just in case we change a song or something).
• Made the flower girl basket - my mom decorated it so cute with ribbons, I love it!
• Made the prelude and ceremony music playlists.
• Bought Marc a new honeymoon wardrobe - my most successful shopping trip for him yet! Everything I brought home fit except for one shirt. Woo hoo!
• Made the Wedding Day schedule and shared it with the bridesmaids.
• Decided on our "thesis" for the wedding ceremony, we just need to email it to my uncle so he can finalize what he is going to say.

WOW! Making this list of what we did just this week makes me feel so accomplished! I can almost breathe! I am sure I missed some things too.

Oh ya, Marc and his dad replaced all the trim on the front of the house in preparationon for painting the house next weekend. Things sure are picking up here at the Baldisher household! Soon to be the Fisher Household in just ...... 33 days!

Excited is an understatement

To say I am excited for this weekend is a complete understatement. This week has been so hard to concentrate! I have been waking up at all hours of the night just because I know what is coming and I cannot contain myself.

I feel like I should be spending each moment doing something wedding related. Whether it be for the wedding to come this weekend, or the wedding that's coming in 52 days.

Back to this weekend though, we will be celebrating the marriage of my beautiful BEST friend since we were babies. We are so different and so similar in so many ways. We grew up together. We played together. We had countless sleepovers in a row. We whined together. We wine together. And now, we even get to get married together! Well practically, I think within 50 days of each other is close enough to say we're doing it together. She is going to be a beautiful bride and it is going to be a beautiful wedding.

As we met for coffee last night for the last time as "as single woman," we found ourselves saying, I can't believe it's already here! This time that we will remember for the rest of our lives. It's here. She is getting married in just 3 days and will soon be a wonderful wife to a wonderful husband.

So here's to the weekend of a lifetime celebrating these two love birds!





May Showers bring ....

a month that flys by so fast I blinked and it was June!

May was such a fun month, I want to document it all in lots of photos:

We showered a very special bride, my best friend since birth, Valerie, for her upcoming wedding this summer. Here you have all the Baldwin ladies and a Barnes, but not for long... :)

This gives you a little glimpse of the beautiful decor - lace, candles, vases, bird cages, so cute!

Opening some sexy gifts...

and some practical ones,

 

And playing a game where we asked her questions about her husband-to-be and each question she got wrong, she had to put a piece of bubble gum in her mouth - how cute is that little flower girl?! And I spy a beautiful maid of honor in there too :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Celebrated my soon-to-be sister-in-law's baby shower. It was an elephant theme to match the nursery and turned out so cute! Isn't she just the cutest pregnant mama?! Can't wait to welcome this little boy into the family sometime around June 24th :)

The pretty table spread - that punch was delish!

Played "Name that Poo!" where you sniff the diapers filled with melted candy and try to identify the candy bar...

 Sniffing the poo :)

Check out this adorable elephant cake Marc's cousin's wife made for us!

 ~~~~~~~

And here are a couple other random fun times that filled up the month of May:

Celebrated Mother's Day with these beautiful ladies!

Visited the wedding venue for some more planning and hotel where the girls will be getting ready - here's my mom and sister being their silly selves on the rooftop terrace of the hotel. Can't wait to stay here!

Marc and I celebrated our 4 year dating anniversary and decided it was a perfect excuse to go out and race some go karts. It was a blast! I had no idea how much fun I would have skidding around corners and passing cars just like the pro's!

Stopped off on the way to plan our wedding ceremony with our officiant, my uncle, and walked across the Foresthill bridge, what a beautiful view and it was SO high up!

I got to meet this little cutie: Preslie Kay - can you see her one dimple on her right cheek? Adorable!

I started addressing wedding invitations - the date is quickly approaching!!



 

~~~~~~~~~~

And now to leave you with a little milestone we hit today - cue the freaking out!!

Finally!!!!

After a few months, I have finally gotten my act together with a post on our Engagement Photos!

Let me begin by explaining why it has taken me so long to get around to posting these. First, it was a much longer process than we anticipated for a few reasons:

• After some unfortunate technical difficulties on the photographer's behalf, all the photos from our first photo session were lost and we had to schedule re-takes. :( Yes, this meant that all the effort that went into round 1: hair done, makeup done, outfits dry cleaned, day off work had to be done alllllllll over again. Needless to say, it was frustrating and really drug out the whole process. After spending some time being upset about it, we decided it must have happened for a reason and showed up for the retakes knowing more about how the session would go. I skipped the hair and make-up appointments this time and just did my own, which I surprisingly ended up liking better than having them done. I think the photos from the retakes came out better than the first ones, so in the end, we were not so upset.
• Once we finally got the photos back, there were about 60 of them (which I don't really get because many more photos were taken than that... maybe the other 100 just were hideous and the photographer wanted to spare us?). We had fun looking through them all but when it came down to actually chosing which ones we wanted to print, it was so hard!
• First, the photographer offered to make our Save the Dates, which turned out really cute so we quickly ordered those and sent them out. That was the easy part.
• Then, we had to chose actual printed copies. The package we were given came with 3 8x10s and 6 5x7s and 25 digital images on a disc. It took us about 2 months to narrow it down and actually find time to sit down together to chose our favorites.
• We didn't find out until recently that the digital images will be watermarked and encrypted or something so we won't be able to print them ourselves. I guess they're supposed to be only for online use or something... We are a little disappointed about this, but at least we get high quality prints of our top favorites.
• I also wanted to order just one single print copy of all the ones we looked decent in (about 45 of them) but this turned out to be crazy overpriced, which again is disappointing and I don't understand it.

**I hope this portion didn't come out too negatively... we did enjoy having our photos taken and it we had a fun time doing it. I learned that Marc is really artistic when it comes to photography. He had no problem making suggestions for poses and those ones actually turned out to be some of our favorites! He totally surprised me! We just hope our actual wedding photos don't end up being this difficult. Which we know they won't be because we've chosen a family friend as our photographer and he's going to be great!**

Now, the part you've all been waiting for, THE PHOTOS!!!! These are just a few of our favorites --

*Yes, we did break one of my rules and make silly hearts with our hands... It was sorta like torture and really awkward... But it didn't turn out too horribly ;)

"March"ing into spring

March was a crazy month! It was a great one, but crazy! We just "March"ed right on through! ;) I want to just recap a few highlights in photos:

Celebrated a certain someone's birthday with his favorite funfetti cake!!

Sprinkles!!



  

Spent an evening in SF watching The Bay Lights. It's an awesome
light show that will be running on the Bay Bridge for the next 2 years
every evening.  http://thebaylights.org/

Hosted my grandparents and aunt & uncle for a progressive meal
where we enjoyed asparagus and goat cheese soup at my sister's then a
 panini bar and delicious green beer for St. Patty's Day at our house! Such fun
to see my grandparents before they head back to Arkansas for the summer.

My mom and I did some wedding planning/shopping on 4th Street
in Emeryville. The shops there were so cute! We got lots of ideas for
centerpieces like this beautiful succulent that was just clipped and
placed in a large vase

And I love this vase that adds a little color and the
look of wildflowers freshly picked from the garden.

Went on a work trip to Louisville, KY where I
enjoyed some delicious fish tacos and a grapefruit
cocktail at this super cool restaurant. Check out the
chandelier and the frames on the ceiling!

That was a little bit of what happened in March! Now we're on to April which will hopefully be a very very productive month! Soon, I will post updates on our home improvement projets and a story about  how our engagement photos went - not exactly how we planned, but it's all worked out!