Addicted to Pinning

I recently became a member of Pinterest...and in a few short minutes I was hooked- hook, line and sinker. Pinterest is like blogging on crack, in the best possible way. The prettiest, most creative, unique, ahhhmazing pictures from any where on the web can be pinned to Pinterest, to share with the other members who then pin to their own personal pin boards. It's like a bulletin board for the Internet (and I lurrrved bulletin boards when I was younger), and it's ridiculously easy schmeasy. Obviously I have honed in on the wedding aspect of Pinterest, they even a page dedicated to weddings and events, but I am 110% inspired every time (i.e. everyday) I get on by the creativity and beauty that is laid out in pictures on my screen.

The reason I'm sharing is that in the short time I've been a member, like 2.5 weeks, I have found oodles of inspiration pictures for every part of my life. And quite possibly the best part? Is that each picture references back to the original poster with the original address; score! I always have a hard time remembering where I find pictures across the interwebs, so this is huge for me.

Here's some of the goods:
Stuff for the Home...

Bright Kitchen (I Want.):

{House of Turqouise}

Patterned Staircase (I Want.):

{Conversation Pieces}

Loads of Tasty Food Ideas...

Raspberries & Chocolate Chips (Yum.):

{Saucy Sprinkles}

Cute Animal Pictures? Yes, please...

Happy Elephant:

{Google}

Heart Kitties:

{ffffound}

And Funny Stuff...

Royal Wedding & Cinderella:

{twitpic}

Thoughts on Outdoors:

{someecards}

Now, don't even get me started on wedding inspiration...I have already found SO much on there that will be inserted elsewhere throughout my blog and wedding planning, but I have found hair inspiration, jewelry inspiration, food ideas, tons of photography ideas...the list goes on and on. This is my disclaimer to say that a chunk of future inspiration pictures will be via Pinterest.

And as my weekly email from Pinterest says: Happy, Pinning!

She's Mine, All Mine!

I made the leap and bought my dress, and was told it would be 3-4 months before she came in. Being the doodle-on-calendar lover that I am, I marked the 3 month date and the 4 month date...the 4 month date happened to be my birthday so I figured that would be the perfect birthday present.

BUT, a short three weeks later, a call from the 505 area code came in..."Whaaaaattt? My dress is IN!?". I promptly (okay, it took me a few days to call them back because I was working on getting the rest of the funds together to pay for the dress) called the shop and set up an appointment to go pick her up.

After work one Friday Mama Honey and I hopped in my car and started the 45 minute trek to New Mexico. Half way there my car started to shake and began making this terrible sound..I had gotten a flat tire. Boo! Neither Mama Honey or I had changed a flat tire, but fortunately this nice gentleman stopped to help us. We told him we were on our way to buy my wedding dress and he got us up and running in a hot second. I feared we would be late, the shop would close, I would not get to see my dress that day and I would have a meltdown on their front step. Fear not, even after having to drive 50 mph for over 30 miles, we arrived on time.

I suddenly had this nervous feeling rush over me; before it was the sample dress I had fallen in love with, but this time it was my fabric, my flowers, my lace up in the back. Wow. We skipped the Spanx and corset for this try on, that's too time consuming, plus I knew she wasn't going to fit me. We ordered the dress a size bigger then I think we should have. I could have fit into the size down, but the girls (both the sales consultants and my, ahem, girls...I seem to gain weight in the upper torso area) insisted that it's easier to take in a dress than it is to let one out. I'm not gonna lie, the size of the dress we ordered was hard for me to accept because I just felt like I wasn't that size. And that was confirmed while I was swimming in my dress the day I picked her up. I know that it will be tailored to fit me, and it's comforting knowing I won't be squishing into my dress on W-Day. But, damn you, wedding dress designers, help us girls out and DON'T size up your dresses 4 sizes, boooo!

Moving on, and moving on to pictures of me in my dress! Mama Honey was just flailing around the salon taking pictures without warning me so the shots of me looking happy and not making funny faces are slim pickin's. Looking at the pictures I can tell the dress is too big for me, but even with it not fitting perfectly, I.love.it. Have I said that yet?!

At the risk of sounding negative, but to also assure myself that the dress is in fact too big: the boob cups pook (all technical terms, of course) out beyond my chest. The point where the flower bottom begins need to be raised an inch or two, closer to my hips. There is excess material in the abdomen area, that could be fixed either by lacing the back properly or by altering it.

{Mama Honey and I}

The Details! Obviously the lace up ribbon will be tucked in properly, and hopefully the flowers will hit my booty in all the right places, not far below it.

When I picked up my dress we were still nine months out so I have plenty of time to get her altered AND kick my butt into gear for working out and trimming up. For now, she sits in her purty little bag, tucked not-so-nicely behind our spare room door.

Mr. Honey and I are pretty un-traditional peeps, and sticking with non-tradition I showed him the dress the day I got it. He didn't see me in the dress but he saw it in raw form, which for any guy, it's hard to picture the bigger picture: hair done, fitting right, perfect makeup and accessories on the big day so I'm not worried. I don't think our marriage will be cursed because he saw the dress as a piece of fabric. He woke up the next morning and said, "I love your beautiful wedding dress, babe". That's when I knew I made the right decision to show him. I got to point out my favorite details and say "Feel how soft the flower are! Look at the perfect neckline!" Things I'm not sure I would remember to point out to him on the big day, and let's face it, most males don't pick up on the details we fall so in love with about our dress.

Who else showed their soon-to-be-hubby the elusive wedding dress?!

She Said Yes: The Second Part

When I left off, we successfully took the sailboat down and kept my bling hidden from my best friend. The drive home was surreal as I sat there and stared at my left hand ring finger. My parents and I are very close and it was always important to me that my parents knew of the impending proposal. Mr. Honey did good and spoke to them before popping the question, so when I called to tell them they were giddy with anticipation. Of course were thrilled...and cried tears of happiness.

Celebration was in clearly in order. We rode our cruisers downtown to one of our favorite Mexican restaurants. We splurged and got seafood and Prickly Pear Margaritas. I positioned my hand each time the waiter would come to our table to attempt to blind him with my new sparkly:

Mr. Honey picked out my ring by himself, the only thing that ever came up was that I adored a 'cushion cut'. I don't even know if that's a technical term, but I saw a ring on Tiffany's once and I knew that's what I wanted. I love the shape of the ring and that it has an antique flare.

After dinner, we stopped at the liquor store and got the finest yummiest sounding Champagne we could find...we got home to our backyard, popped the cork, and watched the sunset with our four fur babies.

{Our first picture of an engaged couple!}

Sailboats, actually watercraft in general, tend to be named. You know the creative names you see plastered all over the sides of fancy schmancy boats. We have had many conversations about what to name ours and finally it came to us: She Said Yes. Our engagement will be forever memorialized on the side of our boat. Perfect.

How did you celebrate your engagement? More importantly, who else celebrated with the finest bottle of $18 champagne?!

She Said Yes: The First Part

I apologize for the spoiler alert in the title...

Last summer, Mr. Honey purchased a sailboat, to round out his collection of skateboards, kayaks and snowboards. I frequently tell him we need a garage so that he can sit in all his manly glory and admire his toys. Side note: don't google images of man and his toys; weird things come up.

I had never been sailing before, and envisioned calm, relaxing afternoons in the high mountain lakes. Mr. Honey, of course saw the new hobby as an addition to his extreme sports. You know, the kind of sailing that involves harnesses, high winds and sail boats sailing sideways:

Photo by John Harvey Photo

While I understand his desire to be extreme, I made it very clear that if I'm on the sailboat, both pontoons need to be in the water...a little bit of this is out of my control as you are at the mercy of the wind on the lake, which is why I don't have pictures of Honey sailing, because the wind can take him far, far away.

Finally one weekend in August I accompanied him to the lake for a sailing trip. He swore to me he would be mellow and promised a calm relaxing afternoon. I believed him and we made our way to Vallecito Lake, a beautiful mountain lake at 8,000 feet surrounded by mountain peaks. We set up the sailboat, carefully looped all the ropes and put the pins in the proper places. (I'm such an expert, heh?) and finally got our lil' sailboat on the lake:

{Our boat at Vallecito, with the doggy}

And hive, it was amazing...so peaceful and calm, but exciting at the same time. I was honestly loving every minute of it and I could tell Mr. H was pretty happy to have me on his newest toy with him.

The clouds were rolling in over the mountain peaks and we decided to drop the sails and have lunch. A very sophisticated lunch of PB&J sandwiches. We were laying on the trampoline deck soaking in the sunshine and all of a sudden he just blurted out "I love you. Will you marry me?" I laughed and said, "Yes, I will marry you." He must have known I wasn't taking him serious because the next thing I know a pretty, sparkly ring was being dangled in front of me. I can't remember exactly what was said in the seconds following the presentation of the ring, but I guarantee it was sweet. I do remember asking him if he was 'for real' and even 'is the diamond ring real?'. Of course I managed to get my response out, which was "Hell yes!!!!". Or maybe it was "Absolutely!!". I can't remember. But we were engaged!

And then we laid there in our newly engaged bliss while I stared at the sparkler on my left, ring finger. In. Love.

{The Honey's on our sail boat}

It just so happened that my BFF, who is now my MOH, and her entire family were at the lake wake boarding. Not five minutes after Mr. H popped the question, they pulled up to us to get us to wake boarding. We declined the offer since we were still in such a state of bliss. I decided I wanted to tell my parents first, before telling anyone else and so I tucked my purty lil ring inside her safe case in the dry bag and we made our way back to shore. We began the tedious task of taking down the sail boat and if you've ever put together/taken apart a sailboat, you will know it is no easy task. It involves heavy pieces of very large metal, excessive amounts of rope, and p.a.t.i.e.n.c.e.

This trait ceases to exist just moments after you have gotten engaged and are trying to keep it hidden from your best friend.. So I kept my left hand hidden the entire time. I got so distracted at one point I failed to do something with the sailboat which resulted in the mast being dropped and good chunk of skin being removed from Mr. Honey's shin. Oops. That's when MOH Honey casually said "Well you know what they say...if you can put a sailboat together without fighting, you can have a successful marriage". While I don't know if that's what they actually say, us Honey's found it amusing and gave each other a wink.

How we celebrated our engagement is next!

How about you engaged bees, did you have to keep your newly engaged status a little secret before you made the big reveal to friends or family? Did anyone else have to manage patience with the excitement of being engaged?

*All personal pictures unless otherwise noted.

We Live the Sweet Life

I cannot tell you how many times we've been doing something in our town, where everyone around us wants to pinch themselves, because we can't believe where we live and the things we get to see and do. Let me paint a picture: you and some of your favorite people in the world all sitting around drinking beer. Ya ya, I realize everyone almost everywhere can do that. But do you do it at 6,500 feet elevation? (That's what she said!) Do you drink beer nestled between peaks reaching fourteenthousand feet? Do you cheers your friends because there is around 300 days of sunshine? Do drink up because you are one of only sixteen thousand people soaking up said rays of sunshine? Well we do, so take that. * Oprah has been here. Shaun White practiced for the X Games. Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid shot a scene here. The Mountain Bike World Championship started here. What is this magical little town, you ask? Durango, Colorado. Check it, it's breathtaking. We live in such an awesome place that earlier this year, Men's Journal named our little mountain town as the #1 Place To Put Your Outdoor Life First.

One of the 18 coolest towns in America, What What!!

We have rivers, mountains, lakes and desert...we have a snow beach & a river beach...we have festivals out the wazoo...we a ski resort...we have street festivals...we have local microbreweries...we even have a train and a motorcycle rally...we have spring, summer, winter and fall. We, my friends have it all. (Woah, I just reminded myself of Dr. Seuss. Oh The Places You'll Go!!).

Top Row, L to R: Animas River, San Juan Mtns, La Plata Mtns

Middle Row: Vallecito Lake, Durango Film Festival, Snowdown Festival

Bottom Row: Purgatory/DMR, D&SNGRR, Ska Brewery

We camp, we sail, we snowboard, we do motorcycle rides. We drink beer, we raft, we ride cruisers. We do it ALL. Some more than others (ahem, drink beeeeer, yum).

I have a new goal: to document the sweetness that is our life. Enter, my blog. Let's see how it goes, heh?

*I fully, 100% realize that there a gajillion amazing places to live and I am just expressing my tiny little viewpoint.