Preparing For the PA Reception

Our PA wedding reception is in two days and we've been working like bees! First we spent hours upon hours making our invitations. Then we took a lot of time to try and find all our wedding stuff in all our boxes. I couldn't find our framed photos, so I spent quite some time making a scrapbooked poster of all our pictures. I re-vamped our new card holder, which is a really cute wishing well. We also had to re-candle all our snowflake centerpieces. At our AZ reception, we made enough for 125 people, but there are 225 people coming to the PA reception! So we were quite short on centerpieces and had to come up with a new idea to fill the remaining 9 tables. I got out my dress and spent about 3 hours steaming both it and my petticoat. It has all been a lot of work. It has made me miss my Mom and bridesmaids and all the help they gave me. I will be missing you ladies this weekend!!

On top of everything else, we're going to New York for a few days. My sister and Dad are flying in for the festivities, so the day after the reception, we're heading to NYC! Since my birthday and my sister's birthday are only 10 days apart, we're making it a short birthday trip.
With everything going on, it's going to be a very busy, fun, crammed weekend!

Happy Birthday Mom & Sis

Happy Birthday to my Mom, Deneen and Sister, Kara! Yes, today is BOTH of their birthdays. Twenty two years ago, my Mom got the best birthday gift ever- a baby girl!

Happy Easter

Today I've been thinking of Easters past.... How fun it was to dress up for Sunday School at North Phoenix Baptist... Getting together with friends to watch the Easter Pageant at the Mesa Temple... Smelling the millions of flowers that covered the entire stage at the Crystal Cathedral... Getting birthday presents in my Easter basket when my birthday would fall on Easter... But today, Jan-Michael and I are especially missing Glendale Presbyterian and the message Pastor Hall is finishing up right now.
Another very special event happening today that we are too far away to join: My step-dad Charlie and brother C.J. are being baptized in the church Jan-Michael and I were married in. The same church my grandpa attended before he passed away. Charlie and C.J. were baptized today!! Joyful joyful!
This Easter will hold a special memory and join the others because it is our first Easter as Mr. and Mrs. Also, a very unusual thing for me to see on Easter Sunday- SNOW! Although it was cold, I kept my tradition and wore a dress to church. Luckily, it was melting so I didn't have to wear snow boots with my dress. What a sight! 30 degrees on Easter... ?!?
I hope everyone had a blessed Easter. Congratulations to Charlie and C.J!

Hibachi Birthday

Last week, during the early stages of my now week long terrible cold... we were invited to join Emily for her boyfriend, David's birthday dinner at Hibachi in West Virginia. Now I know what you're thinking... WEST VIRGINIA!?! But really, the border is only like 30 minutes away. So, now I can say I've been to West Virginia :) Hibachi is a Japanese restaurant and are famous for their crazy style of cooking. The chefs are extremely talented and make the food at your table. Summer tells me this is called Teppanyaki style (thank you cultured friend). Even in my Tylenol Cold blur, I throughly enjoyed it. Our chef took advantage of my state and pretended to throw things on me which I always fell for. I would have fallen for it regardless ;p The food was great and the atmosphere was even better. Happy birthday David!

60th Wedding Anniversary

Last Saturday, we attended a 60th wedding anniversary party for Jan's Great Aunt Janet and Great Uncle Jack. Even though it was snowing pretty hard, they had a great turn out. I got to meet a lot of my *new* family, most of whom will be attending

our reception. So, at least I will recognize some people instead of everyone being new. We had dinner and cake and it was decorated like a wedding reception. There was toasting and story telling too. To me, it sounded like they had a wonderful marriage and have grateful and wonderful children to show for it. Congratulations!
My Grandma and Grandpa Klassen celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary just after our wedding. We had our DJ acknowledge their achievement during our reception. Although we were on our honeymoon and could not attend the festivities, they deserve an honorable mention here as well. Congrats!

Jan-Michael and I will join the club on December 1, 2067 :)

Speaking Of Coffee...

As most of you already know, I worked at Starbucks for about 7 months. Lets just say, I drank A LOT of coffee while working there. Therefore, the flavors are boring to me. Been there, done that. I guess that's how Seattle's Best became my favorite coffee place- I've never worked there and therefore cannot get sick of their flavors. Maybe if I still worked at Starbucks, it would be a different story because I'd mix the flavors until something new came along. Even their seasonal drinks don't do much for me anymore because I worked there during Christmas! haha! Don't get me wrong though- I still love Starbucks. It's a great place for me to go when I want a "safe coffee"... meaning, I know they can't mess it up.
If you haven't heard, Starbucks came out with a new flavor! Yes new! They've introduced honey. Now, I've had honey lattes before, and they're not very good. But I thought I'd give it a try. So my friend Whitney and I went to the one and only Starbucks in town for this special occasion. We each got a honey latte... and... well... didn't like it. Sad face! Not that it's gross, there are just better flavors than honey. So, nice try Starbucks! Whitney and I were still happy to be holding a latte in our hands :)
Speaking of coffee, I finally made coffee from one of our wedding favors yesterday! Mmm Mmm good! Before you start wondering WHY our coffee pot suddenly went from red to white- it's not our coffee pot! Remember, we're still living with the in-laws. Now would be a great time for you to pray for us and our house!

Thanks Husber!

In the chaos of making our PA reception invitations, the printer did not communicate well with the computer, vellum got stuck in the printer, cardstock had to be taped to printer paper just to get it to print straight, vellum also had to be taped to paper, glitter glue was painted on ribbon, they had to be assembled, envelopes were stuffed, addresses were hand written, we had to color the snowflake stamp with a marker because we couldn't find an ink pad, and well..... it was tiring. So, my wonderful husband made me dinner one night to help elevate the stress. Yes, he had a little help from Chef Boyardee, but I couldn't be happier! Love you honey!!!

Hiking... In the Back Yard

It snowed so much a few days ago, Jan and I decided to take a hike- - - the great thing is we only had to go a few feet from the back porch! I told you I live in the forest!!