NYC

So, slight change of plans.

I know I talked up Europe around this time last year - that I was TOTALLY going to go in the next year, no matter what. And to hold me accountable for saying that.

Well, after our amazing (READ: expensive) honeymoon, and since I've gotten a full-time job, we did some number-crunching and realized that really, Europe just isn't feasible for 2011.

Although it is still a possibility. Our school takes tours of girls to various places throughout the world each summer, and this summer two of my favorite teachers are taking a group of girls to Ireland, Wales, England, and France. There are already two chaperones, and (last I heard) only ten-ish girls enrolled for the trip. For every five girls that go, a chaperone goes for free. There's already another teacher in line before us, but if 25 girls sign up for the trip, we're going for free!

So we'll see how that unfolds.

In the meantime, my office works in the summer. So Pete and I decided to not go on any trips in summer 2011, unless the Europe trip comes through, or if my family/friends of the family plan a big reunion trip back to Hilton Head Island.

So, since we aren't really planning any summer trips, we took a look at the calendar and realized that since we work at the same school, we have the same spring break. And since we have the same (ahem, paid) spring break, we should totally go on a trip!

Hence, New York City and Philadelphia.





We'll fly into NYC, hang out there for a few days, then take the Megabus to Philly and stay with some friends. Then take the bus back to NYC and fly home.

I am so excited and have been doing preliminary research of things I want to do - I've been to New York once, for like 15ish hours, so I am excited to actually see the city. See Central Park, and the Museum of Natural History, and the Magnolia Bakery.

And I have yet to set foot in Philly - that's where Megan lives, along with Pete's good friend from high school, David, AND Karen, an awesome blogger. I totally told her on twitter that we need to meet up when I'm there. And she said yes! Squeee! Commence a conversation peppered with Arrested Development, Mindy Kaling, and 30 Rock quotes. I am tres excited!





So if any of you lovely readers have suggestions of things to do in New York or Philly, please let me know! I would love to hear from you!

images:
one
two
three
four

Scout!

Meet Scout, our newest addition to the family!

She isn't a dog, but she's pretty darn cute. And frankly, I am THRILLED to have her here.

She's about eight weeks old. My friend, Maggie, has a cat who escaped earlier this year. After searching and searching for her, they found her a week after she had disappeared - but she was pregnant! Five adorable kittens were born on July 13th this summer. And we picked our Scout up yesterday :)



Pete and I have had so much fun watching her play and explore our apartment. She is super adorable, and may I add - VERY photogenic. And it's like she knows to sit still when a camera is out. Which is perfect for me. I've already taken way more photos than I would like to share...


[size comparison - that is Pete's forearm. she is teensy tiny!]

Bake it in a Cake

Thanks to the super-talented, uber-amazing Cakespy, I was introduced to this tumblr - Bake it in a Cake.

HELLO?! Do not all of these things look delicious? I want to eat them all. Right now. In a row.

This blog is basically about all of the awesome things that one can bake inside a cake. On the first page, Twinkies, cream puffs, s'mores pop tarts, strawberry jam, mini key lime pies, Milano cookies, and baklava all make an appearance. But the one that looks like the best to me?

A cupcake with a Cadbury Cream Egg baked into the middle.

Cadbury Cream Eggs are my FAVORITE part of Easter, hands down.

Honeymoon Day 5

I loved this day. I've realized that I have been writing a LOT - so I'm going to try to keep it minimal. Also, I'm watching America's Got Talent and, well, I need to put a lot of my concentration into Prince Poppycock and Donna Summers performing together.



In short, we started the morning at Venice Beach, which is such a cool area. The beach is beautiful and the street right behind the beach is full of tourists, potheads, radicals, sunglasses shops, crappy bookstores, and snack stands. It's just the coolest mishmash of people ever. Did I mention that it's on a beach?



After spending some time by the water and eating some fish tacos from a shack, we headed down to Abbot Kinney Blvd, where there are a ton of shops/boutiques, hair salons, restaurants, architecture firms, etc. The houses all look like fairy tale houses - all different colors of pastel and teeny tiny and cute little yards. I would have moved in right there (by this time I was definitely feeling less homesick).


[um, can I please have a sign like this?]

I had read about a place called the Abbot Pizza Company - and Pete urban-spooned it (this quickly became a verb on our trip) and sure enough, it won his praises. The pizza is all kinds of crazy flavors (Pete got a slice of chicken curry and I had four cheese, which included ricotta) and baked on bagel dough. Yuuuuuum.



I dragged Pete into some stationary stores and clothing shops. We found an awesome shoe store that was way out of our price range. We then proceeded to wander around the neighborhood, gawk at the houses (and the prices OF the houses...yikes), look at murals, and gawk at the houses some more.



We then began our trip out to Disneyland. This took FOREVER. We were about an hour away from Disneyland without traffic. Add that to trying to get there around rush hour and, well...it took us awhile.

Eventually we made it, though, and jumped on a tram to get to the park. Neither of us had been to Disneyland, so it was fun to see how it was set up - it is truly just THERE, just on the street, in the middle of Anaheim. So weird, compared to the way that Disney World is set up.

We only went on one ride (oops!) but we had free passes to the park, so I didn't feel too bad. It's a Small World is just as kitschy as I remember it being. We wandered around the park, people-watching and eating. And taking pictures.


[Pete, being awesome in front of Star Tours]


[oh hey It's a Small World]

Finally, it was time for the Fantasmic! show to start. I can't really formulate it into words, but it just made me so happy. Ever since I could remember, I have loved everything Disney. I loved the princesses, but also Robin Hood and all of the Pixar movies and just...all of it. So Fantasmic! was this huge water show and there were a ton of characters and huge boats sailing through and Malificent (the dragon from Sleeping Beauty) was huge and breathed fire and tried to kill Mickey! But Mickey prevailed (obviously). And I felt like a kid again. Walt Disney tends to do that to me.


[how awesome is this?!]


[forgive the blurry picture; I just wanted to give you an idea of what it was like. This is the Steamboat Willie steamboat, and all the characters you could ever imagine were on it, like Winnie the Pooh & Co., Mickey and Friends, the princesses, Pixar people, etc.

By the end of the day, we had probably walked ten miles between the park and the Venice neighborhood and for some weird reason we chose to walk back to the parking lot, instead of taking the tram. And we had wanted to crash as soon as we got back to the hotel room, BUT I wanted to get some NyQuil from a WalMart by our hotel - since we were getting back so late, I didn't think we would have to wait long. But we stood in line for over an hour! There were hundreds and hundreds of people waiting in line with all kinds of stuff - hangers, cleaning supplies, a week's worth of groceries - at 11:30 at night. I asked the woman who checked us out (when we finally got there) if it was always so crowded, and she said that it was usually busy until 2 AM. What?!

Honeymoon Day 4

Day four was one of my favorite days. We hiked from Las Vegas to Los Angeles.

Let me start by saying that I LOVE LA. I find the "fakeness" of it comforting, somehow. I just feel home when I'm there. But really I'm probably just a California Gal at heart.

Regardless. We sort of slept in in Vegas. After waking up, we played a few lazy games of War with the sweet LAS VEGAS deck of cards we had gotten the night before. We watched a bit of a Top Chef marathon. We talked a lot about the wedding and the rest of the honeymoon, and then we got excited to actually be ON a honeymoon, so we packed up our stuff and headed out.

First stop was Trader Joe's. I just have to say - it was very comforting being in a Trader Joe's. Even if the layout is different and they have things there that they don't have in St. Louis (HELLO why are there not peant-butter stuffed pretzels here in the Midwest?!).

Then we hit the road. We drove through the desert. The temperature outside hit 112 degrees. The windows of the van were literally hot to the touch. We drove by our first In-N-Out but didn't stop until we saw the next one from the highway.

Oh. My. They were as good as I remember them being. We definitely had In-N-Out three times on the trip and just writing about it makes me miss it.

We also stopped at a Vans outlet store where Pete bought me new checkered shoes. Which was great. Someday I'll tell the famous story of my Vans.

We finally made it to LA, and of course, we sat in traffic before we even got the hotel. We stayed in Baldwin Park, which is (I think?) a suburb. LA is so spread out, it's hard to tell. But we were at least an hour away from everything that we wanted to go to, so once we checked into the room we sat and relaxed for perhaps a total of two minutes before running out to explore!

We headed down to Santa Monica right around dusk. It was beautiful. I love the ocean. I miss it. I don't know if I would want to live near it all the time, but...oh. It was just wonderful.

Pete had never seen the Pacific Ocean (except from a plane) but he enjoyed the beach. And he took an obscene amount of pictures of me.





After enjoying sunset on the beach, we headed up to the pier. We strolled hand-in-hand, did some people-watching, and played at the arcade. Pete tried to make me go on the ferris wheel but I am not a huge fan of heights. So we stayed grounded.


[Santa Monica Pier is the official end to Route 66 - which starts in Chicago. So I was pointing to St. Louis, where we began our trip. We drove the entire route, minus Chicago, on our honeymoon. And since then, we've been to Chicago and home twice.]

Because we didn't want to eat Bubba Gump's Shrimp or greasy boardwalk food, we finally decided to head out for dinner around 8:30. Thanks to the Urban Spoon app for the iPhone (if you have an iPhone you need to download this asap - it's free and amazing) we were lead to Urth Cafe. Which was amazing in every way. Organic. We sat outside. There was a heater nearby (because it was chilly, outside, in JULY. Why do I not live there?). I ate a caprese sandwich. It was perfect.

This place was also right across the street from a pizza place that my family and I went to when I was there in 2005. And the liquor store my parents stopped at to get a bottle of wine was right down the street, too. So odd. It was like I knew the neighborhood really well...but I didn't know it at all.

We walked around Santa Monica a bit - all the shops were closed, but we peeked inside. We got some Ben & Jerry's. It was a glorious first couple of hours in CA.

Also, may I mention - Pete and I went down to Cairo a few weekends ago. Maci, our niece (it's fun saying OUR nieces) had her birthday party. Mike and Bridgett and their daughters and son came, too. Bridgett was having a hard time getting her phone signal to pick up her Yelp app, so I grabbed my phone to try to help. And let me just say, when it finally did load, it was stuck in San Francisco, from when I had used it last. It was SO SAD to see that as I stood in a parking lot in Paducah, Kentucky, trying to find a coffee place that wasn't McDonald's. That is all.

UP (again)

So I was looking through some happy notions archives and I watched this video again.



I'm just saying, you should too. I haven't watched UP in a long time, though Pete and I talk about it a lot.

This segment above reminds me of last Christmas at the Wissinger estate. The girls (our nieces) wanted to watch UP. Or maybe I wanted to watch UP and I tricked them into thinking that they wanted to watch it. Whatever the story - we put it on. So there were four little girls in there, along with me, Pete, Mary, Steve, Mike and Christy. During this scene I'm pretty sure we were all tearing up (I don't know about Steve, and Pete probably wouldn't want to admit it). Bridgett walked into the room and was like, "I don't know WHY you guys are watching this!" And we all sort of giggled and tried to nonchalantly wipe away tears...but it's so good. Watch it again to remember how wonderful and fleeting life can be.

Baby Cash

So my awesome friends Lindsay and Paul made a baby. His name is Cash. He is wonderful and cuddly and adorable.

Also, do you KNOW how small newborns are? He is teeny tiny! I knew that they were little. But then I saw his fingernails and how perfectly itsy bitsy they were and just...wow. So small. So perfect.

Anyway - this is Cash and two of Lindsay and Paul's pugs, Bruno and Savannah (Nana? Nannah? for short). L + P, I hope you don't mind that I totally swiped this picture from facebook.



I know, I know. Makes my ovaries ache. Kind of like how Leo made me feel last Christmas (and pretty much every time I see him).

The Most Perfectest Jacket Ever

How gorgeous is this? Le sigh. Even though I have a full-time job, I still can't afford it. Isn't that what jobs are FOR?!

Validation

My mom passed this video along to me yesterday. She watched it during a faculty meeting at her school. I was wary at first (I love my mom, but she's into those cheesy forwards sometimes, so...I wasn't really sure what to expect).

But this was SO GOOD. Pete found me at the end of the video, curled up on the couch in tears. Good tears.

If you have 16 minutes, I implore you to watch it. Pronto if possible.

Commercials

It's been awhile since I wrote about some awesome commercials that make me cry/think.


The first time I saw this video I thought, "wow that's so true!" Timing is everything in some cases. Very cool perspective.


Another AT&T commercial - love the music, love the visuals.


I always love Target. The commercials are kind of hit and miss for me right now, but this reminds me of Wes Anderson's style. Also those girls are adorable.

Lastly -

Old Spice. I laughed so hard when I first saw this one.

Enjoy! Have you seen any good commercials that you like recently?

Crossing it Off...

So I've been busy with all kinds of great stuff, BUT I realized the other night that I hadn't told the blogosphere about all of my recent accomplishments.

Remember this list? Well, I've been (somewhat slowly) crossing things off. I have four months left to try to get all of it done. I know I'll get some more of it finished, but other things (roller coaster? Sky diving? Surfing? ha.) will probably have to wait until some later moment of my life.

1. I graduated! I posted pictures here, and miraculously, STILL have not gotten pictures from my parents of me and them. Oops.

2. I found a job!

3. I got married!

4. I did indeed go on an amazing honeymoon! Read about days two and three. I need to continue writing about the other days. We did more than drive through the Southwest and visit Vegas.

5. I saw the sunset at the Grand Canyon.



6. I did gamble in a Las Vegas casino.



7. I did drive up Highway 1 from LA to San Francisco. Well, I drove a good amount of the way. Pete drove the most. I got a teensy bit carsick on those twisty turny roads.



8. I did visit Disneyland.



10. We didn't stop at any of the bizarre road-side attractions I thought we would see. We didn't see many. One was right outside of Amarillo. We stayed there our first night of the honeymoon and got up early to get on the road. Within ten minutes of driving, we came across these. Looked really cool, but we didn't stop, since we had JUST GOTTEN IN THE CAR. So, this one didn't really happen.

11. We did visit the beach. Pete liked it more than he thought he would, which was great.



14. We did paint one of the rooms in our apartment. It's my craft room, and it's yellow. I'm not totally finished with it yet, which is why you haven't seen pictures. We are currently working on painting our bedroom. Sea-foam spray is the color. Pretty!

15 (kinda). We are not able to adopt a dog, unfortunately. It would cost us a LOT of extra money to put a deposit down for our apartment. However, one of my dear friends' cats ran away from home. When they found her a week lady, she was carrying kittens! We'll be getting our own kitten in about a week and a half. Her name is Scout and she is gray. I'm so excited to welcome her to our place!

17. We didn't BUY a new bed, we BUILT a new bed. And when I say "we" I totally don't include myself in that - Pete and our friend Paul built it. On one of the hottest days in the summer. Again, pictures to come.

30. I have made sure that there have been fresh flowers in the house once a month, with the exception of July. Which doesn't really count because we were gone for two weeks of it.

39. I got a credit card! But I haven't used it yet (probably for the better?)

44. I did put my arms around a giant redwood tree (well, as far as I could, at least)



45. Portrait of me and Pete - DONE. Thanks, Nan Lawson!

72. I am four books away from having read 20 books this year.

73. Pete and I have cleaned out this apartment three times now and taken a ton of stuff to Goodwill. I LOVE doing that. And it was much needed after the wedding.

76. We bought cloth napkins AND used them. Blamo!

81. We visited Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. I didn't buy anything, but we did go to Sprinkles in BH and I got a cupcake. So good. I wish we had a Sprinkles here in St. Louis...



82. I have watched one more movie off of the AFI list. It was From Here to Eternity, and it wasn't that great.

89. We went to a drive-in movie in San Luis Obispo - Inception. It was amazing.

94. I learned my blood type - O+


So. That's that. I have some work ahead of me!

College Advice

Stolen from this wonderful, thoughtful man - I wish someone had been around to tell me this when I changed my major back here.

Okay, that isn't totally fair - many of my friends were supportive (although I had to almost always tell them reasons - only Mary was nonjudgmental, from what I can remember), and Pete's family was very supportive. My family, on the other hand, well...not so much. People told me it was okay, but I wish that I had had a counselor that said these things.

Dear College Students:

You picked your major and determined the course of your professional life before you were really ready to do so.

Please don’t be offended by this.

Some of you were ready, because your passions aligned correctly.

But most of you picked what you thought would be best, well before you understood what it would mean in the decades to come.

Some of you are already discovering this to be true. I’ve worked and taught on a college campus for over a decade. I see it all the time. That’s okay.

You can change your major.

For those of you that didn’t just close this window:

Yes, it will suck. A lot.

But so will the lifetime you may otherwise invest in something you do not love.

Follow your gut. Especially when it is aligned with your heart. This especially goes for you creators. The drive to create will never go away.

Don’t do anything crazy. Don’t drop classes this minute. Talk to a counselor. A good one. One that loves what they do. If you don’t get one, make another appointment until you do.

Make it work.

Your future is worth it.

Hey, college students - from a person who's been there - this smart man is right. Don't finish just to finish. You're in college, finish it with something you love.

I have to say, the last three days at work have been a bit overwhelming but I am so glad I am doing that and not teaching. It would have been awful - not just for me, but I'm pretty sure for the students and my fellow staff as well.

Blueberries

I took these pictures the weekend after we returned from our honeymoon. We were home and wanted - no, needed - to see our friends. So we had a big old party and invited a ton of people.

I made a blueberry tart. The cheater kind - from Real Simple - but it was delicious. The filling was delectable. And those blueberries just looked so pretty in the sunlight, they had to be documented.

Job!

So. I'm totally employed.

At my HIGH SCHOOL.

I still couldn't believe that it was real. And I had my first day today. And it was glorious.

And I have my own email address! And my own phone extension! And my own laptop, PLUS a desktop that stays at school!

I still can't believe it, after a day.

Here's what I wore (my parents were ALL ABOUT the first day of school pictures, and since it was Pete's first full day, and my first day of grown-up work, well...)

Did I mention that Pete also works there? So we both work there? What a wonderful world.



Oh - in case you were curious, I'm working in the development office - working on recruitment, fundraising, communication for the school, etc. Today I proofed some letters and started putting together the parent manual!

So. That's my big news. I can access blogger on my work computer, so if the day is ever slow (although I don't think they ever will be!) I'll do some stealth-blogging.

If You're Getting Married...

...here's my two cents.


1. Stand up straight ALL DAY. No, seriously - all day. I think I did a pretty good job throughout my wedding day, but there are some pictures I've seen (mostly taken by friends) where I am slumping over. I normally slump over. My posture isn't excellent. This doesn't bother me on a normal day, but when I'm wearing a beautiful dress with beautiful hair and make-up, I wish I had stood up straight more.


[not the most attractive picture of me, but it illustrates my point]

Also, here's a thing - standing up straight helps get rid of back fat. SCORE. Which, when you're wearing a tight dress (and most dresses will be so they will fit correctly), almost every girl inevitably has.

2. Really, really, REALLY love your dress. I did love my dress. It's beautiful. HOWEVER, I will always wonder what my wedding day would have been like if I had worn a shorter, tea-length dress. I wouldn't have been as hot. I would have been able to move more. My poor bridesmaids wouldn't have had to spend 20 minutes in the reception bathroom trying to figure out the bustle.



3. I wish I had looked at our guests when I walked down the aisle. I was so nervous beforehand, grinning like a fool and just looking at Pete, at the altar, made me feel oodles better. However, I'm pretty sure that looking at the beaming faces of our guests would have made me feel good, too. (Also, looking at the picture below - the wedding coordinator told me to hold the flowers between my hips. This is slimming but I was a bit distracted)



4. Smile! I have no problem smiling. And obviously a wedding is a super happy occasion! Remember that you're marrying the love of your life and that everyone that has come to see you share this day with each other LOVE YOU.



5. Remember that everyone there LOVES YOU. (I know, I sort of said that above.) My friend Lindsay gave me this piece of advice when I told her I was so nervous about walking down the aisle. The people that are there love you. They want the best for you. They are there to support you. If you trip or pass out or poop your pants, they won't hate you.



Also, it helped me to think about who, in our group of lovely guests, is a doctor or a nurse. So if I DID pass out, they would know what to do. Maybe that sounds morbid, but hey, it helped.

6. Take arguments or disagreements with family members with a grain of salt. My mom and I fought over things relating to the wedding A LOT. She didn't like the idea of a short wedding dress. We had some spats over where we are going to have the reception. Everything was like an argument - I was afraid to suggest things, for fear that mom would reject it right away. Like blue shoes and a snack at the end of the reception and fake flowers and and and. HOWEVER - the things that I wanted, for the most part, didn't work out for various reasons. And as it turned out (and how it ALWAYS HAS, for the most part), my mom was right. I DID deserve real flowers on my wedding day. Everyone loved the wedding dress and I did feel like a princess in it. The fact that we had our reception in the city, in a modern/awesome location, worked out a lot better than in a barn with Christmas lights strung up.



Another problem with my mom, and maybe even my parents and sister and other family members, was that they really just wanted a traditional wedding, complete with garter toss (shudder) and a send-off limo and all that jazz. Which, hey, if that is what you want, AWESOME. I'm glad you know what you want. But I didn't, and having them breathing down my neck was not the best experience. So. Take a bubble bath, watch some 30 Rock, do something to unwind during those stressful wedding planning meetings/

7. Garter toss. I shuddered in the paragraph above. I just don't get it. I think it's weird and awkward to watch as a guest (who wants to see a man stuck his hand, or worse, his HEAD) up his new wife's dress and come out with a piece of stretchy elastic in his teeth? I DON'T.) and I'm pretty sure I would be permanently red if I did that as a bride. So, be ready for all 120/200/300/whatever people to possibly see your under-roos, because that is definitely a possibility.

8. If in doubt, ask your bridesmaids/maid of honor. When I wasn't sure about something, they were my go-to girls. I didn't always like the answers that they gave me, but they were always on my side. They teared up when they saw me in my dress the first time (even though my hair looked like poop and I had horrible acne that day), they stuck my head in the freezer when I felt like I was going to pass out on the wedding day, they picked up my gown during pictures and danced the night away at the reception. Seriously, some of the best girlfriends I have. UTILIZE THEM.



Also - along with moms and daughters butting heads about wedding-related things, my mom bought a white shift dress to wear. At my wedding. And at my friend bridal shower, my sister (who was also a bridesmaid) and I talked about it and there, she heard all 16 of my closest friends saying how crazy it was for mom to have a white dress to wear. So, she said something to mom (I had tried to, but didn't want to see like a bridezilla). And mom returned the dress and got a pink one instead.

9. Crying is charming. It's okay to let a few tears drop during your day - and that goes for the groom, too. Although surprisingly, I didn't really cry at all. Must have been the Xanax.

10. Take a Xanax if you have to. I did. It was awesome.

11. Make sure you get PLENTY of sleep the night before. I know that there are people in town, people you never get to see, and all of your friends are hanging out somewhere. But seriously, you need your rest. Take some NyQuil if you can't sleep (again, I did). HOWEVER, if you do take NyQuil you need to get as much sleep as the bottle says. Because I didn't, and then I looked like crap when I went to get my hair and make-up done. That, along with having taken a Xanax, I have no idea how I managed to stay awake.

12. Saltine crackers are your friend if you're nervous. So is ginger ale. So is champagne. Pick your poison and make sure you have plenty of each to keep your nerves down.


[Marcy, Emme (my sister), and me - with saltine in hand and ginger ale close by]

13. Maybe this is only because I was married on a day in July that was 95 degrees and 95% humidity, but bring deodorant. I'm pretty sure most women get sweaty on their wedding day regardless of season, and you'll be hugging and kissing people and dancing and running around. BRING deodorant.



14. Try to do a first look if you can. I'm a pretty superstitious person (I try to not leave the house on Friday the 13th) but I think it was fate when Pete and I found out that our entire wedding party would have to wait in the church basement before we could all head upstairs for the ceremony. So, we decided (with the help of our faithful photographer, Ryan) to do a "First Look" - when the bride and groom see each other before the ceremony.



I'm not very good at keeping secrets that are happy secrets. I buy someone a present, and I want to give it to them right away. So it's pretty amazing that over the period of nine months, Pete never HEARD about my dress or SAW it. So seeing the look on his face, close-up, when he first saw me all made-up and in the dress, was just amazing. It also took the pressure off of walking up the aisle and kind of being able to see Pete, but kind of not being able to see him.

15. Finally, for the love of GOD - play Lady GaGa at your reception. Insanity ensued on our dance floor. I had no idea it would happen.


[Ryan, Marcy, and Shannon - Lady GaGa-ing it up]



all photos by Ryan Gladstone Photography