Moving Forward

I've neglected the blog for over a month - Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Fernando finally got his letterpress, but has not started using it yet. He's been very busy with work, extra freelance projects and helping me with my new project (more on that later).

Our Christmas was WHITE and lazy. We spent the holiday in Burleson at the in-laws' new house, or as we like to call it, "The Cottage on the Hill". The house is not quite lived in yet, since they don't officially move until June, so we were disconnected from cable and internet. We did however make a trip to Costco to help pick out a 57" HD TV to watch movies and play games on. We had a great time hanging out with the family, relaxing and doing just that. Charlie and Amanda sent us a Wii Fit Plus and Dance Dance Revolution and Fernando's parents got me the New Mario Bro's Wii game. Fernando got the first two seasons of Mad Men on DVD.

Fernando and I exchanged stockings that we were to fill with $50 worth of goodies. I gave him candies, a slinky (which doubles as a drying rack when letterpressing), dunnys, a Star Wars Driod (in place of the Droid phone), a mini whiskey bottle, a coke and a cigar. He gave me candy and a Nikon Cool Pix camera. Which one of us broke the rules? Oh, well. I like my gift : )

We went on our yearly trip to see The Nutcracker with the whole family this time and ate at Joe T Garcia's in Ft. Worth before the ballet. Yum. It was a great night. Fernando was secretly sporting his new favorite tee (gift from Tracy). We had a holiday friends night out just days before.

For New Year's Eve we had a dinner party with Tracy and Scott and played Wii. It was a lot of fun. Fernando made braised short ribs and mashed potatoes and Tracy made a green bean casserole and Mexican brownies. It was a great night and fun way to ring in the new year.

What will 2010 bring? We are approaching one year of marriage and so much has already happened. I am excited for our future together. I don't know where I would be right now without Fernando.

I have left my position at RHE and have decided to pursue the wedding planning business on my own. My newly formed LLC is called After Yes. My first weddings of the year will be Holly and Grant's on March 27, followed by Rachel and Adam's on April 17. I'm excited and scared, but mostly excited. Fernando is currently finishing up my website. His first letterpress project will be my business cards.

One step at a time...

My (our) New Wheels!

6 months with one car was long enough! Fernando and I now the proud owners (along with American Honda Finance) of a 2009 Acura RDX. It's pretty accurate to the photo, except that ours has a side step. No more sharing!! We are also proud to announce that the RSX is paid in full - just need to change my last name on the title : )

Thanksgiving!

Good food, family and shopping.

We had a full house at the Pfingston's - just missed Steven, Christine, Henry and Toby, but did get to Skype them.

Nano impressed us all with her cooking and I made my famous corn casserole:

Heat oven to 350

Mix all ingredients in 9x13 casserole dish

Bake 1 hour or until golden brown

2 cans cream corn
2 cans whole kernel corn (drained)

16oz package sour cream

1 stick butter (softened)

2 boxes Jiffy corn bread mix

We played games, saw part of Alex's soccer tournament, shopped, of course, and the boys/men watched football.

Thanksgiving Day was also Alex's 16th birthday and she drove us to Starbucks in her new Jeep!

Thanksgiving Eve was dinner at the Messerchmitt's. Sue was also in town.

Christmas Traditions: Old & New

Watch A Christmas Story

Lasagna dinner on Christmas Eve

Candle light service at church

Open gifts Christmas Eve

Stockings Christmas morning

Nieman Marcus pralines

Poinsettias

Baklava

Tree and Decorations

Nutcracker at Bass Hall

Happy Birthday Husband!

Fernando had a pretty nice birthday (Oct 24). He is officially an old man and his next birthday will be 3-0-oh-my!

We slept in late, got coffee, went out to lunch with friends to Twisted Root - really good burgers and shakes in Deep Ellum. Mine had guacamole, green chilies and pepper jack cheese with a side of twisted fries. Fernando got to be Peter Parker and had a lamb-mushroom burger with sweet potato fries and an Oreo shake. After lunch we took a nap then got up to get ready for Chris' wedding, which was of course a lot of fun - congrats to him and Ruthanne! (I skipped the RHE wedding to be with them)

My husband is of course spoiled like me. My mother sent him a nice surprise check and we ordered his Kelsey letterpress! It is being custom restored and he will soon have shop set up in our storage room to begin his stationary business.

We even went to lunch at Cosmic Cafe the following Saturday (Halloween) and had a pizza/wine/movie date at home that night to make up for going to a wedding on his birthday.

My sweetie is 29!

Catch Me If You Can

I've been running non-stop the past month (hence no blog updates), but today I did absolutely nothing.

Here's what I've been up to:

Sunday - Pottery Barn: 6 hours
Monday - Pottery Barn: 6 hours
Tuesday - Rebecca Hackl Events: 6 hours, Pottery Barn: 5 hours
Wednesday - Rebecca Hackl Events: 6 hours, Pottery Barn: 5 hours
Thursday - Rebecca Hackl Events: 6 hours, Yoga babysitting 2 hours
Friday - Rebecca Hackl Events : 6 hours, Yoga front desk: 4 hours (every other week), Wedding Rehearsal: 1 hour
Saturday - Wedding: 7-20 hours

I've just requested less hours at Pottery Barn, with Mondays off as much as possible. Fernando and I have also been slacking on getting to yoga class, so we are challenging our selves to go once a week for a month or I will have to see about not working there any more. My time is moving more toward RHE and that makes me SO happy.

Since Iowa, there has been a wedding every weekend with Rebecca. I am loving it!! This past weekend, we were in Houston. It's such an amazing experience - I'm so happy to be doing something I love. This is the perfect job for me and I keep hearing I'm doing great : ) Pictures will be posted to Rebecca's Facebook page/website as we get them - some of our vendors have already posted their own.

I'm relying on my Google calendar more than ever. Fernando and I have scheduled a date for Halloween weekend - there's no wedding then! It's been a while since we've gone out - just the two of us and I'm really looking forward to it. His 29th birthday is approaching - the weekend before Halloween, but I will most-likely be working a wedding. I hope to be able to celebrate with him the Friday before. We also have Chris (an old Boise friend of Fernando's) and Ruthanne's wedding that weekend. I'm hoping to make up for not having much time for him on his day by getting him a letter press. It's going to be a VERY busy weekend!!

The Wish 100 was on the 3rd and was a HUGE success. There were over 1400 riders! We have a wrap party on November 3rd to celebrate - so happy it all went well and that work is off our plates.

We saw Ben Folds with the DSO at the end of September. It was a great show - nice night out with friends. He did not play our song, The Luckiest though : (
A few days before the show, Fernando's 91 year old grandfather passed away and we made a quick trip out to Laredo. I finally met the other side of the family.

Fernando is still working long hours at Beauti Control. He has also contracted to do an e holiday card for EquaTerra.

This weekend, I have a fund-raising pre-event with Rebecca and Julian and a couple birthday parties to go to - it's October Birthday Bash time! We've already had a bougie happy hour for Robbie - I tried some fancy cocktails and appetizers. Many more to go... Maybe we'll have time to hit the last weekend of the State Fair and get some fried butter... We may also sqeeze in a lunch date before Valerie's party.

Elizabeth Gonzalez, Wedding Coordinator/Consultant/Planner...

Last weekend I helped with my first wedding at Wilshire. I was shadowing Margaret (lead) and Charmaine (assistant) and actually got to do a lot more than watch. It was a pretty large wedding - daughter of a staff member. I had so much fun and got to see all the behind the scenes work of what went into our wedding. Hers was much easier to coordinate since it was not in the middle of a tornado and the construction is now complete. We had access to outdoors, the elevator and no leaks! I was in charge of the girls -- taking them from the parlor where they dressed around to where they would hide before their entrances. I also ran around the building to tell the guys when to walk out. I got flowers in place at the reception (in the church basement and first one ever to be held there) and pinned corsages and boutonnieres - which is hard to do when the MOB's dress is all sheer at the top! I also helped coordinate the rehearsal the night before. Margaret said I did a great job and she could not have done it without me. I'm now officially on the payroll and should be getting my own weddings soon!

I've been working with Rebecca for a week now and we are going on a road trip for a wedding starting this Wednesday. After this weekend I will really have some experience - so exciting!