locations, tulle, dresses & flowers. oh my!

Wow. I've never immersed myself into the "feminine wedding" world so much as I am right now and it's crazy! Color patterns, inspiration boards, dresses, shoes, budget, music, jewelry! It's overwhelming!

I have never thought/dreamt of my wedding before. Growing up, we were raised in an anti-princess world. My sister and I would torture our Barbies, re-enact guns and robber or play dress up in military garb. We skipped the whole step of dreaming of our ideal wedding. And now, we are both completely immersing ourselves into this world. Mai is doing much better at playing the girl role than I am, she's already envisioned everything from the band, flowers, table decorations and food. I have to keep reminding her that it's my wedding.

I've been looking at the magazines and they scare me! All the magazines are pretty much the same and promote the exact same things. I've gone through Brides, Martha Stewart Weddings, InStyle Weddings and Real Simple Weddings and they are all identical! I'm glad that these were given to me because I feel sorry for the suckers who pay over $7 per magazine to get the same sugar-coated stuff in each 'zine. Besides the overwhelming factor, I don't know where to really start. I've only been in two weddings as a bridesmaid before so this whole wedding territory is so new to me. But at least we did one major thing already.

We crossed one thing off the list: the date! So, the official date of our wedding in Los Angeles will be (drum roll): Saturday, May 2, 2009.* We still haven't decided on the location but we are dreaming of it being by the beach (Malibu, Santa Monica, etc) so we can have the water, sand and sun reflecting on us all. For those that are going to be adventurous and join us for the Netherlands celebration, that date has been chosen too! It's going to be Wednesday, September 9, 2009 (yea, we are one of those kids who thought having another celebration on 9/9/09 would be rad).

And then there's the post-wedding things to think about. The last name?! After long thoughts on it, I'm keeping my last name because, well, it's been with me for the past twenty-eight years. Besides, I've perfected the art of the perfect signature that it will take too much effort for me to redesign my signature :)

Then there's the immigration world. Man o' man, is that complicated too! K1, L1, work green card vs. marriage green card. Throw into the mix that we want to move to the Netherlands in a couple of years and things start to get even crazier.

So although there are so many things that are overwhelming me, it makes me excited and happy all at the same time. We're still floating along in Cloud 9 and will continue enjoying it for as long as we can. I figure that it's best to focus most of our energy on all of the summer adventures and then start worrying about the details once September comes. There is one thing that I've become certain on that I want at our wedding. It's cupcakes and delicious desserts. Just take a look at these dessert bars, don't they look absolutely amazing and mouth watering? Yup, dessert bar is indeed a yes.


*oh crystal, laura, paddy (and all my other long distance loved ones) please tell me that you will be on the west coast?!*

Realizations and celebrations

When it comes to height, I've always seen myself as average. I'm 5'3" and on days when I want to be really spunky, I can be 5'7" although the days when I feel spunky are few and far between since I've discovered how much I love the flats. I surround myself with people who are similar to height and Marijn fits perfectly with me for height...not too tall where I hurt my neck trying to give him kisses so it's just right. However for the first time ever, I felt like a midget!

I went to Marijn's school reunion (their version of high school but starts at age eleven instead) which is celebrated every ten years because the class sizes are really small. So I was dragged to the event, meeting his classmates, his old snogging partners and his old teachers. While standing around everyone, I felt short but it didn't seem to bother me. Everyone was at least six feet tall so there was some height difference between me and everyone else. However that did not make me feel short. The restroom made me feel like a midget! After using the water closet, I went to wash my hands which stood at a decent level for me. I looked up to do the standard hair/makeup check and to my surprise, the mirror started at my forehead. Even standing on my tippy-toes, I could barely look into the mirror! This is a school where eleven years and older go and I could not even reach the mirror! I wish that I had my camera on me so you could see the difference. Dutch kids are tall! And I, a twenty eight year old grown woman, cannot see my own reflection in a kids high school mirror. Sigh.

On the celebratory note, I've inched closer to being an actual adult and accepted a beautiful proposal from my now fiancé. It took me a few days before I was able to say that word out loud. Marijn laughed at me but I think that at the same time, he was trying to get used to saying it out loud too! We've been talking about our future for awhile now so in the back of my mind, I knew that it was coming but there's such an amazing feeling when the dream finally becomes a reality and we've made it official.

We spent a couple of days in Barcelona, enjoying the time with my two beautiful college friends. We enjoyed plenty o' bottles of Cava with a delicious home cooked meal and ended up with the best mojitos on the Ramblas at about 2am. We stumbled back to our lovely four star hotel near Placa de Catalunya and passed out quite quickly upon our return. It was a really long and sleepless night since I was pretty sick starting at 4am which continued through until 11am. Being the great gentleman that Marijn is, woke up at noon and told me that he would pick up coffee. He came back, waking me up with breakfast in bed and beautiful red roses. Waking up to the smell of coffee and breakfast though didn't make me feel too pleasant but that was offset by the next few moments.

For me, it was the perfect moment, the two of us in our hotel room sharing this moment. Some people wonder/day dream that this moment will be a huge and elaborate affair but that's not something I would have dreamed of. We got to share this moment with just the two of us as we sat together feeling this euphoric wave come over us as we took the next step to make our lives connect on a deeper level.

Now it's time for the fun of planning! We haven't settled on any dates yet but things are starting to take shape. We are leaning towards a Spring wedding in the Netherlands followed by a Fall wedding in Los Angeles. I believe that once we get the dates set everything else will fall into place. We really are excited about this and can't wait to throw some kick ass parties! Weeeeeeeee!!!

Time for sangria on the Mediterranean

It's that time for a vacation so we're heading off to the Netherlands and Spain for some relaxation. Although I think that relaxation is an understatement. We're fitting in a wedding, a high school reunion, three birthday celebrations, a journey to Barcelona to visit the amazing Crystal and Laura and to enjoy wine, food and of course: el sol sin la parte superior en la playa! ;)

I'm looking forward to heading off again although it's a short trip. Time has flown since it's already been a year since my world travel adventure. So much has happened that it feels like it's been years since I've been traveling. The whole journey became so life changing that it still surprises me with how it's made me view life. I'm really not going to go into details because some of it is personal nor do I want to bore you with all the details. I will say that I love having the separation of work and pleasure. That my career shouldn't be what drives me in life and that it's important to try new things, whether it be new foods (my mad cooking skills increase daily), new clothes (this is a biggie for me because I despise shopping), new adventures (cave rappelling is really fun) or new journeys (planning for the future).

I wish that American's were given more vacation time, I just don't think that ten days is sufficient for anyone. I either need to go back to school or move to Europe, wink.

• candlelit boat ride through Amsterdam's canals

• Barcelona's coastal art

Understanding the green thumb

My favorite part of Spring is watching life blossom. It's been fun watching Silicon Valley bloom because everything is new to me so I'm enjoying Spring (although we are getting closer to Summer) with a fresh pair of eyes. It makes me tingly and happy inside.

With the end of apartment living, I finally have a garden that I can start tending too and learning how to properly grow and maintain. Although our house was already full of life when we moved in, I've become very diligent in making sure everything survives and grows and it's been amazing to see what has grown since we've moved in! Pears, plums and peaches to name a few! I can't wait to start making fruit pies and jams. The only thing lacking in our garden is an herb garden so that is my next goal. Yum.

Here are some photos of the life that has started growing in our backyard, I don't know what everything is and I wish I did. If you know of anything, let me know :)