bridal weekend

i may have had the best weekend of my life. i want to start off by saying thank you so much to everyone that participated in / helped plan this past weekend - i could not have asked for anything more!

friday night we had my wedding shower. even though i am biased i believe it was the best wedding shower i have ever been to. my mom's friend ann hosted it at her house and they did a cocktail type shower with wine and appetizers and games. it was perfect - like i said before, exactly what i wanted. my friend maddy had a really neat idea that everyone bring me a bottle of wine along with a gift; i loved this idea because not only did i get some really amazing bottles of wine, i also got some incredibly unique bottles that i probably wouldn't have ever bought for myself. i am definitely excited to try them all!

i know that it is traditional to do a sunday afternoon lunch type shower but i loved the friday night cocktail idea. i really think that the cocktail type atmosphere put everyone at ease making the experience all the more enjoyable. we played the traditional shower games like "how well do you know the groom" (yes, i did win - thank goodness! haha), "how well do you know the bride" (shockingly 4 of my friends tied for 1st!) and the "toilet paper wedding dress" game! all of them went super well and everyone had a ton of fun! after we were done playing the games, drinking some wine and eating some food we all opened presents. i was so incredibly lucky - i got a ton of what we needed and a lot of what i wanted. thank you, thank you, thank you!!

all my girl friends

the three wedding dresses made of toilet paper

all my gifts!!

my bouquet made out of present wrapping

so, since i knew i would be up late the following day for my bachlorette we called it a night around 11. i was fairly exhausted from the work week and it was definitely good that i went to bed early since saturday was a very late night. val hosted my bachlorette at her place. we did a similar cocktail / appy style evening then all piled into a party bus and headed to hudsons, a local pub we all love! all of us had such a blast. the fact that i misplaced my camera that has all the pictures from my bachlorette on it is a testament to what kind of shape i was in at the end of the night! so is this picture of yours truley and emi....

unfortunately, the picture is not the best quality but apparently i crawled into bed (around 1:48 pm) and emi crawled up after me. i guess she was trying to cuddle me. good thing she left my nose and mouth exposed so i didn't suffocate to death in my sleep... haha

all and all it was such an amazing weekend! i have the BEST family and friends! i love you all!!!

update as promised

okay, so yet again, it has been a while since i blogged. i honestly love my blog so the fact that there have been so few entries as of late is a true testament to how busy jesse and i truly are at the moment. since there are multiple updates that need to happen i am going to separate them with subtitles for your easy, reading pleasure...

wedding update:

so, as most of you have probably noticed, the wedding invitations have been sent and rsvp's have started arriving which means that there is once again, wedding work to be done. unfortunately,  i am beginning to stress because there are a few more people rsvping than we expected but c'est la vie.

one really exciting update is that both jesse and my wedding rings have arrived. i am so excited. sometimes i go up into our room when no one is home and take my rings out of their pretty purple boxes and wear them in secret for a few minutes (and by a few minutes i may mean a few hours). that is how beautiful they are. but sshhhhh.... don't tell any one.

no, you can't see inside the boxes... we have to keep some surprises for the wedding day

tonight jesse and i actually drove into cochrane after work to meet with our justice of the peace. we were really looking forward to this meeting because we had no idea how this ceremony was going to go. she explained everything to us really well and we are definitely excited to start planning out our ceremony and vows.

after we met with brenda, our jp, we went into town and got an ice cream from mackay's ice cream shop. mackay's is this 50's style ice cream parlour that cochrane is known for whose ice cream is actually going to be featured on our wedding menu so we figured it would probably be good to try it. we were both super impressed. there had to be over 30 different mackay's original flavours to choose from but i choose chocolate and coffee while jesse opted for pistachio almond. honestly, the coffee ice cream was the best i ever had - it had real coffee grounds in it. delicious. i am definitely happy we choose to do the mackay's ice cream bar at our wedding.

revelstoke update:

another reason for me being so m.i.a. from the blog is the fact that we were in revelstoke for five days over the august long weekend. for the past couple years our baseball team has been going to revelstoke august long for the kokanee glacier challenge - a five day softball tournament / camping trip that is an absolute blast. i love revelstoke so much that i actually call it christmas in august. this year we did surprisingly well and ended up placing third.

we literally set up camp around the baseball diamonds

it was almost 37 degrees 2 out of the 3 days... i actually got heat rash

we made a giant jenga game out of plywood

it was so hot the local fire department came to cool everyone off

we made really good friends with out camp site neighbours and organized a giant 20 team beer pong tournament the last night there. even though they were from vancouver, we seemed to get along great haha

emi update:

so, emi is growing like a weed as always. we left her with val and kev while we were in revelstoke and she seemed to enjoy herself. she is definitely over 55 lbs and is getting what we call her "big girl teeth". she is very consistent with "sit", "shake a paw" and "lay down" but we are still working on "down", "come" and "stay".

what a babe

sleeping beauty

update

a quick thank you to everyone who regularly reads our blog! i know it has been a while since our last update but i promise that i will be updating soon! we have been incredibly busy lately due to the wedding, long weekend trips and baseball tournaments! the next entry will be packed with pictures and updates so PLEASE keep checking in on us!

weekend alone

i think it is funny how we have only lived together for ... 5 months, yet the thought of spending a weekend alone my house seems so odd to me. i am used to coming home to jesse, being with jesse or leaving jesse. i know that it is only a few days but it is definitely going to be odd. luckily, i have emi to keep me company in his absence.

in a sense, i think that it is going to be nice to do whatever i want whenever i want. i am working this morning until about 1 in the afternoon then i plan on going home, making lunch and taking emi for a walk. if i am lucky, i may even be able to see one of my best friends, michelle, who i rarely see since she is now living in LA (unfortunately, she is in calgary for the weekend to say goodbye to a dieing family member). at four o'clock i have a pedicure booked. after that i will probably go home and watch the hours of trash television that have accumulated on my pvr over the week. then, bed with emi. it is sort of fun to plan a day to myself when you know it is just for one day. i couldn't imagine having to do it over and over again though - knowing that i would never see jesse again.

i know this is a morbid blog post but this thought process came upon me this morning when i was searching for my photographer's blog online. i had forgotten the exact address of her blog and googled her instead - the link that google produced was a link to her personal blog instead of her photography blog and the sad, struggle that filled the pages honestly broke my heart. our photographer, christa harriman, was married to a man named tim harriman in may 2010. unfortunately, after battling cancer four times, tim passed away in july 2010. they were married for less than two months. now, christa devotes her life to capturing other happy couples as they embark on the journey of marriage. jesse and i met her in november for our engagement photos and she was such a happy, kind person who seemed to really love her job - you never would have known that she had lost her husband. i couldn't imagine photographing weddings for a living after my own marriage ended so painfully.obviously, she is still struggling with the loss but is still such an inspiring person. her blog was a combination of happy memories, self pep talks and sad struggles that really touched me and got me thinking about how lucky i am to have the person i love in my life here with me every day.

we are looking at a little bird that was flying around - christa said that this happens on a regular occasion and in her heart she knows that little bird is tim, helping her capture happy moments

so jesse, i love you. you are my very best friend and i am looking forward to spending the rest of my life with you. have fun this weekend and come back in one piece, please and thank you.

montana

this past weekend we went to montana with maddy, brian, adelle and chris. maddy's parents have a place on the US side of lake koocanusa and i was really excited because this is the first time we have been invited out there with them. the lot that maddy's family has is unreal - they have such a beautiful view of the lake. unfortanutely, i forgot my camera (shocking for me, i know) so i do not have any pictures.

anyways, we drove up there on friday night after work. we basically took our usual route out to fernie and then drove an extra half hour across the boarder to eureka, a really cute, little town in montana. as soon as we crossed the boarder the first thing out of jesse's mouth is "i really hope they have a sonic". i seriously could not stop laughing. pretty sure eureka is the american version of fernie, they just got a subway. they definitely did not have a sonic. after we did some shopping in eureka we headed to rexford, about 10 minutes down a sketchy back road, where her parents land is. the oddest thing to me about montana is that the people who own the land also own the road that drives up to the land so, if you get lost and drive on the wrong road you are technically tresspassing and, since we were in american, if you are tress passing the owner of the land is allowed to shoot you no questions asked. i did not like this at all. americans are so odd to me.

anyways, we made it to maddy's parent's place on friday without getting shot, thankfully. since it took about 3.5-4 hours to get there from calgary we didn't arrive until almost ten which meant that very little happened on friday apart from setting up camp and saying our hellos. saturday, on the other hand, was action packed. we woke up, ate breakfast and immediately headed down to the lake. at the lake we loaded onto their boat and boated 2 kms down the lake to an amazing little beach. here, chris's parents, who were on a golf trip in montana, met us with their seadoo. the hougan's were nice enough to let us all play with their seadoo that afternoon. i had never driven a seadoo before this weekend and i loved it. they really are so much fun. after some serious seadooing the girls tanned while the guys went wakeboarding or wakesurfing or something with a wake. it is all very confusing to me but they seemed to enjoy whatever it was they were doing.

so after an action packed day we were starving and decided to go to the local "bar". now rexford had one restuarant, the rexford bar, which had 4 things on the menu: steak sandwich, fried chicken, breaded shrimp, or a burger (american style aka raw on the inside, of course). thankfully, the steak sandwich i had was thoroughly cooked. all and all the food was really good but i found this entire bar concept confusing. we are in the "rexford bar" yet there are five year olds at almost every other table. apparently, in america it is fine to take your children to the local pub. my mind was blown.

so, after our dinner we headed back to maddy's parents place and just had a fire and hung out. the next morning we went into town and got breakfast at the local restaurant, did some shopping and then headed home around two o'clock. jesse and i were pretty anxious to get home since we had left emi with my sister and were really starting to miss her. 

so, after a quick two day trip to america i had learned two things: 1) that americans have every right to shoot you if you get lost on their "road" and 2) children are allowed in bars. americans are seriously odd.

jesse's birthday

this weekend was pretty packed. not only was it the beginning of stampede but it was also jesse's birthday weekend. friday was a nice, relaxing night. jesse and i cooked dinner and took emi for a good two hour walk through fish creek. the weather has been amazing lately so we couldn't waste it by sitting inside.

western girl through and through

how can you not love her?

saturday was jesse's birthday. every year jesse celebrates his birthday with his good friend caleb since they are one day apart. i always feel bad for the boys.  since their birthdays, july 9th and 10th, generally coincide with opening weekend everyone is dieing to head down to the grounds and they always get stuck going to the stampede regardless of whether or not that is how they want to spend their birthday. this year we decided to compromise and have everyone a barbecuing with the plan being to head down to the stampede grounds around 8 o'clock. one thing our friends are always good for is bringing more than enough food. all of the girls made side dishes like green salad, potatoes and pasta salad, while the boys all brought meat and booze (typical). all and all i think everyone had an amazing time.

the birthday cake i made jesse.
i know, it looks like it belongs to a five year old but that is what i get for letting him choose his own sprinkles (yes, they are dinosaurs) and candles.

barbecuing

jesse seriously enjoying his birthday cake 

enjoying ourselves at the stampede grounds

emi welcoming jesse home!

we had a ton of fun on saturday and were definitely feeling it on sunday. my mom called at about eleven o'clock inviting us over for breakfast. we went over for pancakes and sausages so that my family could give jesse his birthday presents. he got some new underwear (is it weird that my mother buys my fiance fancy lulu lemon underwear? possibly, possibly....), a few t-shirts and some summer sandals. after hanging out at my parents for a while we came home and cleaned our house since it was a bit of a disaster after saturday. then, after a relaxing afternoon, we went to jesse's parents for his birthday dinner. val and kev got jesse a pellet gun and jesse, being a big kid at heart, loved it. after taking turns shooting the pellet gun we ate dinner. kev made an delicious dinner of bbq ribs, corn on the cob, potato salad, coleslaw and baked beans. then, for dessert, val made the most hilarious birthday cake ever for jesse: a mini emi!

the cake version of emi

honestly, i think that jesse had a really great weekend. he was definitely tired come sunday night...

PS>> the wedding invitations are officially in the mail so keep your eyes open!

emzilla and camping

 i know i keep saying that our dog is becoming massive in almost every blog post but she really is. when we took her to the vet on thursday the 23rd she was almost 33 lbs. the following tuesday jesse hopped on the scale with her again and she is about 38 which means in 4 days she gained almost 5 lbs. we should have clued in since she seems to be constantly starving, eating up to six cups of good quality dog food a day. we are scared to weigh her again...

emi in may about a week after we got her

emi about 2 weeks ago - growing like a weed

luckily, she seems happier than ever. we took her to this really amazing dog park by our house and she had an absolute blast. i am beginning to think that the dog park may create some sort of complex for jesse and i since nearly every person we run into goes off at length about how beautiful her colouring is and temperament and personality are. luckily, she is beginning to really catch onto her training. it made camping with about 10 of our friends this weekend just that much easier.

since it was canada day long weekend we hopped into the car friday morning and went camping in cochrane for the weekend.

emi enjoying the mountain air on the drive up to the campsite

making a cooking stick

emi bringing us presents.

jesse playing newfie golf

the weather was beautiful so that made the entire weekend a complete success. the group of us brought up newfie golf, boccie ball and beer darts. basically, we just hung out and enjoyed ourselves and the amazing weather. we were really impressed with emi. she was completely laid back and respectful towards everyone - we could tell she was really enjoying being able to roam free in woods. whenever she drifted too far we would call her name and she would come running. we didn't have to tie her up once.  all and all it was an awesome weekend.