Painting, Check!

So we finished the painting of our guest bedroom last night. It was more work than the primer, but I think it looks pretty nice. Looking at it this morning in the day, I think we'll have a few touch ups to do, but overall I think we did a great job! The color is fun and I think will really brighten that room up. It is weird seeing it a color though, I'm just so used to plain old boring room.

Tonight we'll work on pulling out the carpet. I think this is going to be a pain. Not really the carpet, but the mat is stapled down and we'll have to remove all the staples. I just hope the floors aren't horrible or something. I guess we can always buy a rug! Then we just need to nail up the baseboards and we'll be finished. I think maybe we might be done by the weekend, but it may be next week. Either way, I'm super excited to be really making some progress on the room.

I think Mat and I are both feeling the pressure of a million things we need to do in the next few weeks. It is hard to look at it and know we will get everything done, but I just know we will. And if something doesn't get done, no one will really know but us! I just wish I didn't have two conferences in the next two weeks! That would make things a lot easier for me. Then I could take a day or two off work and get some things accomplished. I guess I just better get my butt in gear and get some stuff done and maybe I can at least leave early on Friday.

Memorial Day Weekend

Whoosh. That was one good, long, busy weekend. Friday started off the weekend when I got to leave work early, which is always a fun treat! So we went to the gym and were home at a normal time for dinner. I did some wedding stuff and we watched the Grey's Anatomy season finale.

Saturday morning I was up bright and early to go shopping and run wedding errands with my mom. We had such a great day, but man, were we tired when we finally got home at 7 that night. My feet were tired and I probably could have fallen asleep at 9! I did make it through Top Chef before my little eyes told me it was time to go to bed.

Sunday I got up and did our grocery shopping and cleaning for the week, while Mat and his dad finished the roof. Well, technically they finished today, but it is now completely finished!! I know they are so happy and I'll be happy to have my cleaning and shopping partner back. After I got home from the store, I put together some food to take over to my parents for dinner. We had some delicious food for dinner with them and did some fun wedding things. We also got our wedding gift from my parents early and it was our pots and pans!! We were so excited and were totally surprised. We can't wait to use them and I know we'll just love them to pieces. We even had time for a game of hand and foot and my mom and stomped the boys this time around. It was nice to play a game and actually relax for a few minutes with them.

Today started off nice and early again. Mat and I tackled the organizing of our garage. It was so great to get that done. We had a few boxes that hadn't been totally unpacked from the move and it was hard to walk in there. Now, we can go out and wrap presents at our little present wrapping station and we have the china cabinet set up with books and things that won't fit in our house. It looked really nice until we moved everything out of our guest bedroom into the garage! But that is only temporary while we paint!

We might be officially crazy, but we decided that we do want to paint the guest bedroom and pull up the carpet. We might hate ourselves for doing it so close to the wedding, but it isn't that big of a room. We actually got it all taped off and even primed tonight. So (fingers crossed) it will be all painted tomorrow night! It didn't take too long at all to get it all ready. I think it is going to look so great once we get it all finished.

Sometimes Mat and I don't use our thinking caps. We bought some molding to put up after we pull out the carpet to match the rest of the house. For some reason, the guest bedroom has no molding. It is seriously the lamest of all rooms. Anyway, we bought the molding in four pieces for the four walls. One of the walls is about 12 feet long and so we had this super long molding and finally figured out how to get it in the car. We start home and SNAP! The long molding just snapped in half and went flying off! I'm not sure why we didn't think about that happening, but it did. So now we have to go back and get a new one and have to pay for it. Stupid us.

So nonstop fun for us this weekend! This week we'll be painting and pulling up carpet. This weekend I leave to go to a conference for a few days. We need to still do lots of wedding related items this week, so I know we'll be super busy. I think I'm headed off to sleep. Sleep is good.

Gulp.

Now it is less than one month until our big day! Yikes. I am really looking forward to seeing all of our friends and family that are coming into town. I wish we could have a week to spend time with everyone. It will be such a great weekend!

This weekend, however, does not look like much fun. Mat and his dad are going to finish the garage roof, while I am going to be working on organizing our garage. Our garage has become a bit of a home to every single box we didn't all the way unpack. So there are boxes everywhere, opened and not unpacked. Then we have a million pounds of wrapping supplies. Tissue paper, ribbons, boxes, etc. and there is no rhyme or reason to any of it. So I'll try to work on that and hope that it isn't freezing. This morning it was in the 40s and I really thought we were past that! It is supposed to be cool and rainy (Spring returns) all through the weekend. Luckily it's Memorial Day weekend so I have a three day weekend!

Saturday will be fun lots of fun because I get to spend it shopping with my mom! We're going to hit all kinds of fun stores to get things ready for the wedding. So at least it won't be all garage organizing this weekend. I guess I still have one more work day to make it through until I get to the weekend!

One Month Until the Big Day!

I can't even believe that one month from today I'll be a married woman. I am seriously so excited that I might burst! Plans are coming along nicely, it just seems like there is more than enough to do on our plates.

Last weekend we had a very busy weekend. It started with our night out to see Floater. We had a great time and went to bed late (crazy for us on a Friday night!). Saturday I had a heck of a time fiddling with our borrowed mower and couldn't get it to start, so I just bought a new mower. I usually find that buying new things solves problems fairly easily. But I really did buy a new mower! It is a nice electric mower that plugs in and we really like it. The other mower wasn't ours and we had plans to buy a new one, so I just did it. I did mow the lawn and let's just say, I'm not the best mower. But at least I tried and I'll get better.

That afternoon, we went to our friend Alana's graduation party. She graduated with her Master's degree from BSU in Counseling (I'm not sure what the exact degree was!). It was a great day at her parent's house. We had a fun time playing lawn games and just lounging in the shade. And eating! There was lots of eating and drinking. We ended up the evening at Alana's to play some Mario Party and Scattergories and then we called it a night.

Sunday morning was when we planted our seeds for the garden. We'll find out in a few days whether we'll be getting anything from them. Then we headed to clean my work and met my parents downtown for the Idaho Green Expo. This was the first year of the Green Expo and was a pretty cool event. They had all kinds of exhibitors with green ways of doing things - there were cloth diapers, organic food, sustainable furniture, organic pest control, etc. You name it, they probably had it there. So that was fun and then we had a little lunch together.

That night we drove to Twin Falls and stayed in a hotel there so I could do a site visit in the morning for work. I checked out a new hotel and an event center that was recently opened to see if it would work for any of our events. After I did those site visits we drove to Blackfoot for Mat's Great Grandma's funeral. It was a beautiful service and her niece gave a wonderful speech about some of the great memories of her life. It was a sad day, but also there was relief to know that she was in a better place and she isn't suffering any longer.

We drove home Monday night and basically collapsed into bed. I think my allergies are getting the best of me these last few days and my head is not having fun. So yesterday I just kind got through until I could go to sleep again! I feel much better today and I know I'll just keep getting better as the week goes by.

Tick Tock

Time seems to be running out quickly! Mat and I went through our calendar the other night to schedule times to work on certain things and now there are only 36 days until the wedding! They are going to be 36 busy days, but it will be worth it in the end. And we'll relax when we get to the reception!

Last night we skipped our evening workout (yes, sometimes we have been working out 2x a day - UGH) and worked on our garden. Or I guess I should say what will be a garden, eventually. The girl that lived in the house before us had a small garden, but not much in it. So we decided to expand it a tiny bit. So all we did last night was Mat shoveled out the outline of the dirt, while I acted like I was helping, but I wasn't doing a whole lot. I think we have the outline now, so the next step will be to put in some turkey poop and mix it with the soil. Then we'll also have to plant our seeds. I think we'll do that this weekend for sure. The seeds need to start soon. We're going to start them inside and then when they get big enough, we'll transfer them outside. I think we're going to plant several peppers, some herbs and tomatoes. Next year we'll add more and then even more the next year! Fun, huh? It's a lot of work!

Tonight we are going to see Floater, one of Mat's favorite bands. They played a show last night, but we decided that we could really only afford one show, so we picked tonight since they are playing an acoustic show. I think it will be fun and I'm looking forward to a night away from housework and wedding planning!

It's Like Christmas!

We have a tiny kitchen at work and we keep some bowls, coffee mugs, silverware on hand for lunches and that sort of thing. Yesterday I was explaining to my co-worker about how I had one particular spoon that I enjoyed using to eat my yogurt and how I always felt happy when I got to use that spoon. You see, it isn't like the others. I think someone must have brought it from home and it got mixed in with our silverware, but we've had it for months now. So I used it yesterday, someone ran the dishwasher and when I went to get a spoon today, there she was, all shiny and ready for me to use again. Two days in a row!

In bigger, more important news - Happy Birthday MOM! I hope you have had a wonderful day and are enjoying yourself. I hope you like the really expensive presents I had shipped to your house. I sure hope they have arrived by now...

Race for the Cure and Mother's Day

What a great weekend! It all started on Saturday morning when Mat and I joined his mom, Jamie, and her husband, Nick, and Sherry from Jamie's work for a quick breakfast before we headed to the Race for the Cure. Mat's mom is a breast cancer survivor and we were so excited to get to share this day with her. It was truly amazing. There were so many people there (they said there were 14,000 last year) and everyone was wearing their shirts and had pinned on who they were racing for on the back of their shirts.

The race started at 9:15 am and we were in the front of the pack, but didn't end up even close to winning! It was just a fun walk. There were people on the sidelines cheering us on and we just had a great walk with our team the "Udder Walkers". Jamie got a medal and a flower when she finished the race. Then we explored the booths to see what they had and then it was time for the Survivor parade. I wish I would have brought my camera so I could post some of the pictures. Then all the Survivors gathered together for a picture. It's crazy to see how many there were and how breast cancer is in so many people's lives.

That evening we spent with my mom and dad, Jennifer, Eric and Violet. We made dinner for my mom for Mother's Day/Birthday and it was delicious! Mat made chicken and shrimp on the grill, I made a baked goat cheese appetizer, my sister and Eric made a yummy corn, black bean, pepper and avocado salad and tasty coconut rice. Then to top it off we had cake and ice cream. YUM. We did presents and Violet was excited to get to help Grandma open her presents. She is growing so fast, I just can't believe it!

Yesterday, Mat and I spent some time with his Grandma and Mom for Mother's Day, then we headed out to my parents house for burgers and to spend some time with my mom again. We did have some wedding business to take care of too!

The ARGH news was that we got home last night and went to watch the Survivor season finale and it hadn't recorded! Beerwagon recorded something else and I was about to give him up for adoption. Luckily, we can download it off Amazon unbox and it only costs 1.99, so we plan to do that later this week. A little annoying, but at least we aren't going to miss it. Now we just have to avoid any kind of web sites that might give away the winner.

So that was our weekend! It was busy, but so great overall. Now only five weekends separate Mat and I from becoming husband and wife! I think I can't get any more excited and then I do. We went to look at wedding bands for Mat and found a couple he likes. We're going to keep looking, but better find something soon.

Hope all the Mothers out there had a great day yesterday!

A Little Bit of Bridezilla

I think the whole theory is right about Bridezilla coming out as you get closer to the wedding. In this case, my Bridezilla reared her ugly head with the DJ. It wasn't that bad, but I did get frustrated. I felt like I did when we met with this local company who sets up receptions and ceremonies - like they were telling me how our wedding should go and I didn't get much say in it.

So the guy shows up and is what Mat and I had feared - an over the top, really animated DJ Guy. He was nice, but just so energetic that it kind of makes us sick. (After he left, Mat even asked if I thought he snorted some coke right before he came in our house!) So we sit down and start going through our ceremony details. One of things Mat and I had talked about the previous evening was how everything was going to happen, who was walking when, etc. But over the top, really animated DJ Guy really, really, really wanted to talk us out of playing certain music and how people were coming in, etc. That's where I was annoyed. Seriously dude, I don't see why you care so much. And why do we have to do the exact same ceremony as every single other person who gets married in Boise? So maybe our vision is different, but there is nothing wrong with that. So that's where I got irritated and just told him that I respected his opinion, but that Mat and I had talked through the ceremony and reception and we knew how we would like the evening to go.

The rest of the conversation went fairly well, but I know he was disappointed when we opted out of the "Grand Cake Cutting Theme" (why can't we just cut the cake without really loud wedding bells?). We're excited about how everything is going to go and it seems like it is all starting to fall into place.

After over the top, really animated DJ Guy left, we got to pick more dandelions! I will conquer you dandelions.

Songs, Songs and More Songs

Tonight we meet with our DJ to go over our ceremony and reception choices for songs. I have a feeling he is going to be disappointed in us. Not only did we pick most of our songs, nowhere on our list is the YMCA, Chicken Dance, I Will Always Love You, etc. When I talked to him on the phone, he said that we could pick out specific songs to play, but that he will let us know if he thinks a song won't win the crowd or something like that. So tonight should be interesting, but ultimately it is our wedding reception, so we'll just have to be strong and stick up for our songs!

After we got into bed, we were talking about how maybe I should do some of my impressions for the wedding reception. Over the years, I've mastered some really great impressions. So I did my most famous three: Jerry Seinfeld, Arnold Schwarznegger and Yoda, but then I couldn't think of a single other impression. Mat and I just stared at each other blankly, but nothing was coming to either one of us. So we turned off the lights and a few minutes later one popped into my head and I had to start laughing because it is one of my favorites, inspired from a Saturday Night Live sketch, when Horatio Sanz plays Aaron Neville. In the end, I think we decided to save my impressions for another occasion. Preferably when no one is around but Mat.

Edited to add:
I forgot until just now about how Mat suggested that I do my Jeff Probst impression. And then I told him that just repeating the same thing that Jiffy says every week isn't exactly an impression. But I am always spot on.

Reason #83529 I Love Mat

He lets me yell at him when he gets a sunburn.

Dandelions, I Curse YOU...Part 2

Dear Dandelions,
Why do you taunt me with your ways? Your yellow petals haunt me in my dreams. I fear our entire yard will turn into the fuzzy dandelions and you all will laugh at me. If there is a hell, it must be filled with dandelions that grow 20 times faster than normal dandelions.

Is it possible that you could try to grow a shorter root? Could you try not to reproduce so quickly? Why do you silently mock me as every inch of my body aches with pulling you out of the ground with all my might, only to turn around and see that 3 more have sprung up in your place?

Let me tell you something. We will conquer you. Even if we have to quit our jobs.
Love, Kristin and Mat

50 Days!

Just 50 short days until Mat and I are officially husband and wife! I really think we're right on track with everything that needs to get done. I just can't believe how fast the time is flying by! I know the wedding will come and go before I even know it. I'm just trying to enjoy everything and take time to enjoy the slow moments with Mat while we can. I know our lives our just going to get busier over the next several weeks.

We sent out the invitations and already have quite a few RSVPs. We even came home to a present the other day! That was so exciting!

Work is keeping me busy these days and will be keeping me busy right up until the wedding, after the wedding and after the honeymoon! I'm ready for Friday night to get here. Tomorrow my mom and I are going shopping and then my sister and I are going to get together for dinner and some good old fashioned hang out time. I think Sunday we might work in the yard some. Who knows? We are a crazy couple...