Wedding Woes

Tuesday ;)

edited December 2016 in Wedding Woes
Hi everybody! It is Tuesday morning here.
I hope you and your loved ones are happy and healthy in the last week of 2016. I can't wait to hear all the holiday stories. :)

Needless to say, I made it! My flight could not have been better and it feels so good to be with DH again. We are still staying in the hotel until our things can be delivered. They have been in the port for about a week so it should be any day now. We bought a bed frame and mattress for the guest room from ikea last night and it will be delivered on the 28th so, worst case scenario, we will move into our apartment then. Speaking of the apartment, DH did a fantastic job. I am so impressed. 3 bedrooms, an office, floor to ceiling windows, allllllll the closets. Now just to get furniture. :P 
I haven't really done too much since I have been here. We have dinner with some of DH's coworkers who are staying at the same hotel almost every night. They are wonderful and hilarious, a Frenchman and an Aussie. My most exciting day (and definitely a top 10 day of my life) was spent with a friend of the Frenchman who was visiting. She and I toured the Emirates Palace and had a cappuccino with gold flakes. Then we walked to a beach on the corniche, it was lovely but we decided to go jet skiing so we went back to the hotel to get passes to the beach next to the hotel. It was my first time jet skiing and it was SO MUCH FUN! Seriously one of my favorite activities.
I am meeting the landlords today to do our walk through, hopefully our stuff is released soon because DH invited everyone over for a NYE party! Lol.



eta: customs was way easier/ less stressful than going through Canada.

Re: Tuesday ;)

  • @lyndausvi your slacker days put my best days to shame.
  • @lyndausvi your slacker days put my best days to shame.
    Trust me, this is only because I'm working both jobs this week.   Lots of running around at both jobs.

        According to DH's fancy scale I'm down just over 9 lbs since Nov 25.  Not I'm not trying to lose weight at this point, but all the hiking from work, all the walking around at work and not eating mindlessly throughout the day has me dropping.   I'm hoping to level off.   I don't think I need to drop any more, plus I don't have the time to buy more clothes. 






    What differentiates an average host and a great host is anticipating unexpressed needs and wants of their guests.  Just because the want/need is not expressed, doesn't mean it wouldn't be appreciated. 
  • Quiet holiday for us. NYE will be the true test of my patience, as we have family coming who just invited themselves a few days ago, including 4 kids, to stay a couple days. Ummmm, ok, sure! 

    I took a week of break to just be lazy and relax, and now I need to spend the 2nd week actually getting to some of the things on my to-do list. 

    Today I read about someone who leaves the tree decorated and just puts it in a closet to be pulled out each year. Man, I wish I had a spare closet to do that with. That would be so awesome. 
    What did you think would happen if you walked up to a group of internet strangers and told them to get shoehorned by their lady doc?~StageManager14
    image
  • Nothing much here.  We had some great times with family and friends.  Ate too much.  Drank too much.  Today the kids are playing nicely.  We're going to get hair cuts and have a monopoly tournament with the neighbors.
  • @missJeanLouise, I'm glad to hear things are going so well in your new move to foreign lands.

    @lyndausvi, glad to hear your new job is going well...albeit super busy!!!

    @Heffalump, good luck with Weight Watchers.  Sounds like you had a great Christmas.  That was nice the mom from the sponsor family sent a text on Christmas morning.  I know you and your neighbors made it a nicer Christmas for them.

    As for me, I primarily enjoyed having 4 days off.  Though there were a lot of annoyances.  For example, I went grocery shopping on Christmas Eve and, when I got home, realized they had not put one of my bags in the cart!  Luckily, it wasn't anything important for the weekend, but still.  That was $10 down the drain.

    For Christmas, I made my fiesta breakfast casserole.  Having leftovers at work this morning.  Yummers!  My H made a ham for dinner.  It came out delicious!  A certain kitty girl and puppy girl loved their tidbits of ham treats.  After the ham, they were stalking us every time we went in the kitchen, lol.

    My H was really sick all day yesterday :(.  He was a bit better this morning.

    And we had to put the A/C back for the last two days.  Crazy! 

    Wedding Countdown Ticker
  • Back to work after 4.5 days off. I needed the break. I gave the scarves I made for Mouse's teachers to them Thursday and one was kind of meh about it but the other one (the one I was worried about) pulled it out of the bag and said, "Is this a scarf?! I loves scarves!" All while simultaneously wrapping it around her neck. So at least one was a hit. 

    My oldest spent Christmas Eve with us and went to his dad's around 11:30 Christmas day. He wanted to see his little brother's first Christmas. We cooked dinner at my mom's and it was so nice having double ovens. 

    H spent almost all day yesterday on his new PS4. He was playing online with Oldest. I had a splitting headache all day to the point that I couldn't even attempt to crochet. 
  • We're on the road again! Heading back after four full days of too much food, too much drinking, but a lot of fun and family. I got to spend a ton of time with my sister, which was wonderful. I miss her a ton so it was great. She's 23 weeks pregnant and finally feeling a lot better, she's super excited. Also, she asked me to be the baby's Godmother! I'm stoked. I bought her the "Rad American women from A to Z" and "Rad women worldwide" books to start off her library. 

    Congrats!  This popped up in my FB feed over the long weekend, if you are interested:

  • *Barbie* said:
    Howdy from TX!

    Christmas cruise was awesome -  we got back yesterday. Getting home was delayed a bit - typically ship docks early morning and you depart after breakfast. The port was closed until about 11:30 yesterday morning due to heavy fog, so we didn't end up getting off the ship until 2ish, and didn't manage to get a shuttle to our car until around 3/3:15. The port was insane because all of the passengers for the next cruise were already there/waiting to board. RCCL handled it well, but the parking/shuttle company sucked balls. (pickup location not labelled, shuttles not labelled, poor crowd control, etc.)

    We had a great time with the excursions - everyone's favorite was the dolphin encounter. I signed us up for the first session of the day, which meant being up and on the pier before sunrise. We (DK, Wolverine, and I) ended up being the only party doing our particular package, so it ended up being a private tour and we ended up getting a lot more time with the dolphins. (Typically the group is ~10-12 people, so each person gets 3-4 minutes of individual interaction time. We had the full ~45 minute session to ourselves.) The other very cool thing was that we got to go in with 2 dolphins - a mother and baby. They were just starting to train the baby, and told us we were the first group that got to interact with her. We got to pet her, and each of us got to try doing one behavior with her - she was really playful, so it made the experience that much cooler. 

    We also got to swim with the stingrays, go snorkeling, spend some time on the beach, go ice skating, ride water slides, try surfing, watch shows, eat great food, and Santa  visited the ship -  all while we relaxed and enjoyed ourselves -so huge win. I would definitely do it again.  

    Have you done Alaska?  We booked a cruise when Wooz was little, but then I got KU with DS on the first try (not to be TMI, just that we figured it would take longer than it did) and I was laid off and there were rumors about DS's team being folded (which they were, although he hopped to a new team right away--but we didn't know that at the time) so LSS we made the tough decision to cancel.  Over the long weekend, we were talking about resurrecting that plan, so I was curious whether you have been.

    Also, random: a) DH got me Stitch Fix for Christmas (squee!), so b) I have been doing a Pinterest board for my stylist, per their recommendations, and c) after talking about dropping a dress size for the wedding this summer, I got sucked into browsing dresses at Nordstrom.  I want this dress, and I am having a tough time justifying $468 plus tax.  Sigh.


    Main Image - Diane von Furstenberg Penelope Colorblock Wrap Fit  Flare Dress
  • SaintPaulGalSaintPaulGal member
    First Comment First Anniversary 5 Love Its First Answer
    edited December 2016
    So glad things are working out, @missJeanLouise!  

      I've barely been on here in the last couple of weeks because work has been crazy busy!  I finally got the last of the holiday baskets handed out to clients las week.  FI had taken the day off, so he actually wound up driving so I could just jump out, run in, have a very quick chat with the client or reception desk person, and then dart off to the next without worrying about parking.  I was in the office until almost 9 PM on Wednesday making sure that all my ducks were in a row for re-signing each client for 2017, because...

    The thing I have been dreading for months finally happened.  As of last Thursday, my hotel is officially sold and under new management.  So far it's not as bad as we had all been fearing.  Still no warm fuzzies for the new company, but they seem to at least be respectful of how we have been doing things instead of coming in like bulls in a china shop.  They are going to change just about everything we have for internal policies and procedures, but I guess they have been less aggro about it than expected.  Still highly concerned that will change as things go forward--they are a very "straighten up and fall in line" sort of company, whereas the old management was much more about giving employees autonomy to take care of things our way as long as we were successful at it.  Oh well.  We will see.  There is the potential to earn an extra 3 days a year of PTO for participating in some sort of team-building committee thing for a couple of hours a month, so that could be a significant upside. 

    So holidays...I got off early on Friday, which was unexpected.  With the new company on board I figured they would keep us busy until 5, but I got my work wrapped up by 2 and by then I was the last one in the office.  Christmas Eve FI and I exchanged the presents we had gotten for each other.  We are both "open on Christmas day" people, but it seems silly to transport everything down to my parents' just so we could unwrap it a day later.  He liked what I got him, and I liked my presents, so win!

    Then we drove a couple of hours down to my parents' place, stopping by FFIL's house on the way past.  He has some mild-ish senility problems that make it hard for him to deal with anything outside his very rigid schedule of daily events, but he was surprisingly happy to see us and thrilled about his present: a large framed print of a photo FI took.  Reached my parents' place, talked a while, watched a movie, and went to bed.

    Christmas day we opened presents and ate tons of food.  It was sort of a loose, informal multi-course setup where we had a different thing every hour or so all afternoon.  The biggest win was some spicy shrimp that I absolutely must get the recipe for.  It poured rain all day, which is completely bizarre for December in Minnesota.  The car almost hydroplaned on the drive home!

    Yesterday we went shopping for a new stove, since our current one is broken in no fewer than four distinct ways.  The glass in the door cracked recently and that was the last straw.  On the bright side, our favorite appliance store has some great deals right now, and it will be great to have full functionality back that has been missing for years.  But ugg...we didn't particularly want to spend another chunk of money between Christmas and our European trip.
  • Heffalump said:
    We're on the road again! Heading back after four full days of too much food, too much drinking, but a lot of fun and family. I got to spend a ton of time with my sister, which was wonderful. I miss her a ton so it was great. She's 23 weeks pregnant and finally feeling a lot better, she's super excited. Also, she asked me to be the baby's Godmother! I'm stoked. I bought her the "Rad American women from A to Z" and "Rad women worldwide" books to start off her library. 

    Congrats!  This popped up in my FB feed over the long weekend, if you are interested:

    That's fantastic, thank you. It's going in my Amazon cart now. 
  • @Heffalump I'm liking that dress, but the shoes?  Am I that far out of the loop on that?
  • 6fsn said:
    @Heffalump I'm liking that dress, but the shoes?  Am I that far out of the loop on that?

    If you are, I'm right there with you.  I bumped on those, too.  I would definitely go with a nice strappy sandal, personally.
  • Heffalump said:

    Have you done Alaska?  We booked a cruise when Wooz was little, but then I got KU with DS on the first try (not to be TMI, just that we figured it would take longer than it did) and I was laid off and there were rumors about DS's team being folded (which they were, although he hopped to a new team right away--but we didn't know that at the time) so LSS we made the tough decision to cancel.  Over the long weekend, we were talking about resurrecting that plan, so I was curious whether you have been.

    @Heffalump - Alaska is on the bucket list. We're going to go when Wolverine is a little older - maybe 9/10, because it's pricey, and by then, she'll (hopefully) remember and appreciate it. We're holding off on a safari for the same reason. My parents and ILs both did the land/sea tours in Alaska within the same month a few summers ago. It was funny hearing how different their experiences were - my parents loved it, but you would have thought my ILs went to a 3rd world country. It's a lot of nature, so i'm betting your kids would enjoy it. They all went on Princess, which is geared more towards older couples/groups (that's my understanding, anyways) - RCCL is really family friendly. Wolverine loves the kids' club - she willingly went every night. You need to be 3 and 100% potty trained to participate, so I'd recommend waiting until your DS could participate. I think the ships they use for Alaska are usually the smaller/older models - so nice, but with less bells and whistles than what you see in the Caribbean or Mediterranean.

    The upcoming Alaska trips look like they are The Radiance OTS on: http://www.royalcaribbean.com/findacruise/ships/class/ship/home.do?shipClassCode=RD&shipCode=RD&br=R

    DK and I did a trip on the Serenade OTS which was in the same class - it was a nice ship. 
  • Our Christmas was lovely.  My parents made it safely, we ate too much and had a nice quiet weekend together.  I wish they could have stayed longer, but I will just have to work harder to get us out to visit them in the spring.  I got the socks I asked for, DH got his Yeti 65, my parents had a great time (they said it was really lonely last year :( ) and, miracle of miracles, the banana creme pie I made for DH's birthday set spectacularly.  No drama with people or animals, for the first time in, like, living memory.  Okay, that's a *slight* exaggeration, but it's been at least 4 years.

    I am at work today and not loving it.  What I wouldn't give for 5 consecutive days off of work that involve nothing but a pile of books and wine....


    "And when they use our atoms to make new lives, they won’t just be able to take one, they’ll have to take two, one of you and one of me..."
    --Philip Pullman

  • Good Morning/Afternoon WW!

    I started today fasting for my glucose test.  I felt fine at the end of it, not even hungry, so I'm hoping that means good things for me and baby!

    Christmas was so nice and relaxing.  Christmas Eve was our fast paced day.  We got up and I made us a nice breakfast of bacon and French toast made with Pepperidge Farms French toast bread.  Yum!  Then we baked a few batches of cookies.  I'm not sure what happened with the Butter Cookies, but while they ended up tasting fine and delicious, we were having a heck of a time getting them to stick to the cookie sheet out of the cookie gun.  So that was just an annoyance.  We then showered and headed off to Church.  We had our old pastor, who performed our wedding, so it was nice to have him back for a mass.  After Church we headed back home, packed up some of the cookies and went over to my cousin's house.  Her house is always lots of fun and it was great to see family.  This was the first time I had seen most family since my pregnancy was announced, so every one was oohing and aahing over the prospect of a baby soon!

    Christmas Day was our lazy day.  We are enjoying it while we can!  I was up early because I didn't sleep well.  So I got our breakfast started, which were chocolate puff pastries for H and cinnamon roll puff pastries for me.  They were delish!  Then it was gift exchanging time.  H got me one of the Willow Tree figures with the pregnant woman and "the dude" as he later told his mom when she had called.  H got a new belt and an electronic gadget thing-y.  After that we just settled in for some cuddling and TV watching.  We went up for a nap around 2, where I was able to catch up on my missed sleep at night.  Then we headed down to make dinner.  We had bacon wrapped filet and cheddar bacon mashed potatoes.  I had bought dinner rolls and totally forgot to serve them!  But dinner was outstanding and we gave ourselves a pat on the back for it!

    Yesterday was some shopping for me and H studied most of the day for his last cert test today.  I'm hoping he's taking it right now.  He texted me 15 minutes after it was supposed to start to say the test center was having issues.  I haven't heard from him in an hour, so hopefully he was able to start it.  Now I just wait until I get he tells me the result! 

    I'm so glad that WW seems to have had great times this weekend!  I only have 3 days to work and am off on Friday.  I will probably be seeing the new Star Ways film with my brother, nephew and my parents tonight.  Can't wait!

  • Is it Tuesday today??  I love that I worked until the 23rd, as I now have 2 weeks off with nothing to do.  Christmas was good - breakfast with family, dinner with family, though I fully experienced a food hangover yesterday.  

    We marathoned season 2 of Man in the High Castle yesterday, so today is groceries, start workouts again, fitting in appointments I can do during the school year.  DH is taking these 2 weeks off as well.  Our main project for this break is to frame the quilt we were given for our wedding.  It's hanging at the moment, but we have a paper frame around it, to see if we liked it.  Not sure if we do, but we don't want to repaint the entire wall, so it's getting a frame.  

  • @OliveOilsMom congrats to OliveOilsDad! I keep saying I'm going to start studying for the CPA exam since it's after Christmas, but all I want to do is crochet. However, after crocheting three scarves in the last few weeks, I've completely forgotten how. It's the weirdest thing.
  • I think we should start a movement to have all businesses closed when schools are closed. Because this is definitely how I'm feeling today: 



    Last week and this week are 3-day work weeks with 4-day weekends for me.

    That's how it should be.  ALWAYS.  It's not right that over 70% of our days are work days (for those of us who work f/t).

    I know it has only been two weeks of this awesomeness.  But I don't know how I can go back to a 5-day work week.

    At least with kids out of school, my drive to work is substantially easier and more pleasant.  Alas, my drive home is always the same nightmare.

    Wedding Countdown Ticker
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