Day 2 of Newlywed Christmas Activities - Decorate Christmas Stockings

On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...Decorating personalized stockings. Or an alternate title should be...How we failed at our first newlywed art project. Lol.

With the Christmas tree up, the next activity was going to put our creative juices to work. I found a really simple personalized stocking kit at the Dollar Tree nearby. The instructions were simple. Cut out the letters, place on the stocking, iron on, and Ta-Da! Well Hubby and I followed the instructions and the sound we heard was more like the sad music on game shows (Wonk, wonk, wooooonnnkk).

The personalized stocking kit

Just cut out and iron on...yeah right!

I ironed the stockings over and over
and still couldn't get a good transfer. 

You know what, though? We loved it! Hubby and I laughed at how no matter how long we ironed, the letters would not transfer and how in the end, we had to just outline our names with permanent markers and call it done. It was our first non-success during these 25 Days, but if all failures can be this fun, who cares.

I would definitely suggest this activity for others, but maybe try a more expensive iron on kit. This would be particularly fun for those with kids.

We hung our stockings beside the stockings that we bought for the cats and dogs. With the tree, the stockings, and other decor that I have put up, it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here.

The dogs and cats have better stockings than us. 

Feels like Christmas

Two down...23 more to go! I can't wait until you see what else is in store this month. Feel free to do these activities with your loved ones.

Talk later - XOXO!
Crystal

Day 1 of Newlywed Christmas Activities - Decorate Christmas Tree

Today, I was FINALLY able to start my 25 Days of Newlywed Christmas Activities. Hubby had to go to Baltimore for a few days and I promised him that I would not start without him. We are a few days behind, but if we do two activities for the next two days, we will be all caught up.

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...Decorating of the Christmas Tree! When making the activities list, I knew that I wanted this to be first. I love looking at the lit Christmas tree for as long as I can during December...and sometimes into January, depending on how lazy I get with taking it down.

Artie helped Hubby pick the first
envelope off of the activities calendar. 

Since we are on a budget, I went with a 6.5' artificial tree from Walmart. After reading several articles about the dangers of a live tree for pets, I knew this was the best way to go. Plus, I have done the live tree before and not only did it shed heavily, but by the time Christmas came, it stank to high heaven. Not a good memory.

Putting together the tree was actually pretty easy. Twenty minutes and we were done. I was a little worried when we first took it out of the box because it looked very sparse and Charlie Brown-esque. Once we plumped the branches and covered the empty spots, it looked great.

Before we plumped the branches

After we separated the branches.
That is Midnight hanging with Hubby. 

Over the last week, we have shopped at various places around town to get the decorations. Target for the shatterproof ornaments and a tree skirt, the local pet store for the "candy cane" dog treat ornaments, and the local thrift store for a few higher value keepsake ornaments. Our tree doesn't really have a color scheme or a theme, but it is fun and cute with all of the things we love.

Hubby, Mumu, and the completed tree. 

First activity down, 24 more to go. I am now laying in my living room in darkness watching a Christmas movie with our Christmas tree lit in the corner. What a wonderful start to the month.

Talk later - XOXO!

Crystal

25 Days of Christmas Newlywed Activities

For some reason, I am SUPER excitement about Christmas this year. I have been scanning Pinterest boards for at least a month pinning everything related to the holiday. This Christmas is especially important to me because this is the first year that Hubby and I have decided that we will be spending Christmas together and in our own home. This Christmas will be complete with cheesy traditions like making gingerbread houses, decorating the tree, and other cliche acts. I don't care! It will be amazing!

In honor of my new love of Christmas, I have created 25 days of activities for Hubby and I to do between December 1 and 25. For the next 25 days, I hope you enjoy our activities and hi-jinks. 

What I found on Pinterest

What I made for my fridge

To create my calendar, I printed off numbers from a website I found, taped them to half cut envelopes, and arranged them on my fridge in the shape of a tree with more tape. In each envelope are pieces of paper with a description of the activity. To top it off, I found a very cute glitter star from Family Dollar. Can't wait until Hubby sees this!

If you want to do your own version of 25 Days, here is where you can print the cool numbers for the envelopes.

Talk later - XOXO!

Crystal

Shrimp Creole, Chardonnay, and Guilty Pleasure TV

I have been busy. I know, I know! Everyone swears that they are always busy. For me though, this was a busy few months. As an Events Marketing Specialist for Best Friends Animal Society, my job revolves around the adoption and fundraising events that we have throughout the year. In the spring, I traveled to New York City and Salt Lake City for our Super Adoption events, which were amazing! Hundreds of pets were adopted and went to good homes. After that I went right into the marketing for ten Strut Your Mutt events across the country. If you have ever tried to manage volunteers, media, and other staff from all over the country, then you know what I mean when I say that for six months, I feel like I was wrangling cats...lol. At the end of September, though, we had raised over $2.1 million for homeless pets, gained recognition for both Best Friends and the rescue groups we work with, and everyone had an amazing time! Translation: Totally worth it!

Me at the Super Adoption in Salt Lake City

Representing NKUT (No Kill Utah) in Salt Lake City 

A look at Strut Your Mutt

Well now that I can finally breath again, I realized that I hadn't made a great gourmet meal in ages! Hubby actually started getting worried for me because I was so stressed that I was beginning to burn everything when I cooked. Not good! Well during my recent trip to NYC, I went to a New Orleans themed restaurant and had the worst shrimp creole that I have ever had! It was literally shrimp tossed in marinara sauce. How could they desecrate such a wonderful dish?! Well when I came home, I was determined to make an authentic shrimp creole. 

Where do you go when you want a great recipe? Pinterest, of course! How I lived life before this wonderful website it beyond me! I searched dozens of recipes for shrimp creole. Everyone has their variation, but the one that caught my eye was one that instructed me to make my own stock. Anyone who would take that extra step in making a labor-heavy stock is going to be my expert on a good creole. 

What I did not anticipate, though, was that with a great, detailed recipe comes lots of ingredients! Hubby and I broke the bank alone on spices and fresh herbs. And have you seen the price of quality shrimp lately? Whew! Well I did the full recipe, did not skip steps, even making my own shrimp stock, and the end result...MAGNIFICENT! I strongly suggest that you make this recipe. Seriously, leave your house now and get the ingredients. Check it out here.

Yum! Yum! Yum!

Oh, what is that behind that delicious plate of shrimp creole in the picture? Wine, of course! The recipe requires a dry white wine to be added and that was all you needed to tell me to send me in search of a good bottle. Automatically, I thought Chardonnay. Since this would be used for cooking, I stayed away from the more expensive French or Italian wines and walked over to the American whites. I went with the Poppy Wines Chardonnay. The description of the wine said that it had notes of lemon, melon, nutmeg, and clove. Because this was a shrimp dish, I knew that all of those flavors would work really well and would not clash with any of the other spices in the dish. 

Additional notes about this wine: It stayed within my budget comfort zone of under $15. My local market is great in giving the wine rankings of wines, which helps wine newbies like me, so with a ranking of 90, I felt good about trying this out. The verdict: It was actually a really good wine. I expected it to be too dry, but it went down smooth and left a great citrus aftertaste that went well with my meal. It was so good that I finished the bottle and did not know it was empty until I reached for another glass. Sad Face! This will definitely be going into my wine arsenal. 

Hubby and I sat down to a great meal with great wine and it was a great evening. Then we capped it off with horrible TV. OK, ok, it is not horrible, but it is a definite guilty pleasure! Tyler Perry's newest dramatic soap opera, "If Loving You is Wrong." 

Let me first say that this show is LITERALLY just a rewritten version of his movie, "Single Mom's Club." Did he not think we would notice this? It even has the same actress playing the same role in both movie and TV show. Come on Tyler, stop being lazy. For some reason though, while I thought the movie was only so-so, I am addicted to the TV show. Maybe it is because of all the juicy drama that seems to be nonstop or maybe the bad acting that I love to make fun of. Either way, Hubby and I DVR it every week and every week, we are absorbed in the antics of this new soap opera. 

Movie Version

TV Version. You ain't tricking me Tyler!

So there you have it - a night in the life of me and Hubby. He definitely deserved a special evening because he has been amazingly understanding with my work and constant travel. And I am sure he is thanking God that I will now stop burning all of our food. Lol.

Talk later!

Crystal

Bucket List #31 - Elope in Vegas...Uh Savannah (The Day of Our Wedding)

Wow, I am telling you. Time flies around here. Work has kept me so busy that I forgot to finish the story of our elopement. My apologies...so here is the final installment of "How Hubby and I Crazily Eloped."
________________________________________________________________________________

Get Engaged to Marry...Check!

Decide to Elope...Check!

Do Majority of Wedding Planning...Check!

Off to Savannah to Get Married!!!

So here we are, finally in Savannah for a week for our elopement. During this week, Hubby and I planned on doing some sightseeing, finishing some wedding planning details, and getting married, all while I was working full time remotely. Yeah, easy enough, right? 

We check into our beautiful Airbnb suite. Can I say that I have never even had a hotel room this nice. We were in our own wing of this huge historic house with a large bedroom and a grand bathroom. Words can't even describe...see the Airbnb listing here. 

The beautiful home we stayed in. Our room was overlooking the park. 

The week went really well. In between taking conference calls and staying on top of work (this was literally the busiest time at work), I did some wedding errands, took in the sites of Savannah, and truthfully, just had fun times with my love.

So here we are the day of the wedding and I wake up frazzled. In all of my planning and fun during the week, I still had to find shoes, a bustier for my dress, and needed to get my nails done. UGH! And anyone who has seen me frazzled knows that that eventually leads to me being an angry, grumpy, witch. Poor Hubby. I spent the morning running around to store after store like a chicken with my head cut off and at the same time complaining to him about all that was wrong. This went on until I finally had a meltdown, complete with tears because I had run out of time and did not have time to get my nails done. Not proud of this moment, but it happened.

So Hubby sat me down, told me everything would be ok, then proceeded to paint my toenails for me. It was the best part of the day and it definitely did the trick. It wasn't the best pedicure that I have received, but it was given with no much concentration and love that it was the most special thing ever.

After Hubby calmed me down, I thought to myself, "This day is meant to be stress free. If everything is not perfect, it is ok. Just enjoy it."

The time had come to get dressed and go to the chapel. Hubby and I quietly got ready, with me doing my hair and makeup while he showered and started dressing. I still wanted that element of surprise though, so before I put my dress on, I kicked him out of the room and made him go downstairs to wait on me.

Putting on that dress was again one of those moments when I wished I had my mom with me to primp and make sure that my dress was perfect. Plus the zipper was really long and I needed someone to help me into that sucker...lol. So after struggling with the zipper and glaring at myself in the mirror, I walked downstairs to the man who would be my husband. The look on his face when he saw me was amazing. He gave me the biggest, goofiest smile I have ever seen. There were also some ladies who worked in an office in the historic house we were staying in who also saw me and clapped. It was a special moment.

We proceeded to the chapel to get married. Instead of describing it, I will just show you some pics of the ceremony.

After the ceremony, we had our "reception" at Vic's on the River on River Street in Savannah. If you have read my blog by now, you know I LOVE food and wine, so let me tell you that this place was AMAZING! Everyone smiled at us when we came in in our wedding attire and the piano player played "Hear Comes the Bride" when we walked in. Nice touch! And because my boss at work knew I was getting married, she sent us a wonderful bottle of champagne to celebrate. How she remembered where we were going for dinner or how she knew the perfect champagne is beyond me, but she is just sweet!

What is a reception without music and dancing?! It was really time to celebrate, so we went over to Savannah Smiles Dueling Piano Bar where we spent the night being celebrated by perfect strangers, being filled to the brim with free drinks, and dancing until we were giddy. By the end of the night, we were totally drunk, totally happy, and totally ready for bed. We hailed a cab back to our Airbnb and fell asleep within minutes. Needless to say, we did not consummate our marriage that night, which I hear is quite common for newlyweds. 

In summary, Hubby and I took control over what could have been a stressful situation - a wedding - and made it into something that we will remember forever. Sure, it was unconventional and went against everything our families wanted, but in the end, it made us happy and everyone should appreciate that. Do I plan on doing something later that is a bit more elaborate? Hmmm, maybe for our five year anniversary. But for now, I will remember my pedicure, my beautiful dress, and the man who was there for the entire journey. 

For any bride who is considering eloping, I would say to think hard about it. It is a personal decision and I would not suggest it for everyone. Think about what makes you and your future husband happy and take it from there. Whether a wedding or an elopement, just be happy. 

Talk later!

Crystal

Bucket List #31 - Elope in Vegas...Uh Savannah (How We Planned the Elopement)

My last blog discussed why Hubby and I eloped. The decision was a hard one and unlike what my family now thinks, it wasn't one that we took without thinking of everyone involved. In the end, we wanted a ceremony our special way and eloping did just that. Well, now comes the hard part...planning the elopement.

First decision: Location? Savannah, GA. 

This was a no brainer. We LOVE Savannah, GA. We love the history, romance, and the southern charm of this city. It is a gorgeous place and we had dreams of taking photos under the Spanish moss. If you have never visited Savannah, you must visit. 

So we knew what city we were going to stay in, but then we needed a place to lay our weary heads. Hubby and I are HUGE fans of the website, Airbnb. You can rent someone's home or a room for a week for the cost of a hotel for one day. It is amazing. Because we were limited in our budget, we decided to rent a suite in a home in historic Savannah. Location? Check! House to Stay In? Check!

Second Decision: Church or Justice of the Peace? Church. 

Hubby and I are religious people. We believe that God and prayer are an integral part of our lives. Although we were not having a traditional wedding, we were going to have a traditional ceremony. With that in mind, I needed to find a church that would allow us to wed in their sanctuary with us not being members and for not a lot of money. 

I searched the net and happened upon a website that promoted elopement packages for Savannah. They would do everything from the ceremony to the flowers to the cake. While tempting to do a ready package, I wanted to do something more personalized. However, in the package description, they mentioned Rev. Steve Schulte who does elopements. I researched him and saw that he had amazing reviews from brides and I loved his snappy dressing. So I emailed him and got a response within days. Within a week, we had decided that he would be our pastor for the ceremony and we could get married in his church, St. Luke's Lutheran Church, outside of Savannah. Score!!!

Rev. Steve Schulte

The entrance to the church

Third Decision: Full Wedding Attire or Casual? Wedding Dress, Duh!

Most people would think, "Hey, you are getting married with no one there, why dress up?" Because I want to feel like a bride! While I could not afford to buy my dream Monique Lhullier dress, I wanted to wear a wedding dress that made my feel beautiful and I wanted Hubby in a nice suit to accompany me. He was in luck because he already had a suit, but I don't just have a wedding dress lying around. So here I go to David's Bridal. 

I can honestly say that this is the part where I missed having my mom and aunt there. Shopping for the most important dress in your life is not as much fun without the opinions of the women you love the most. So I trudged into DB with no idea what I wanted and with a budget of only $500. 

In a matter of hours, I tried on nearly all dresses that would fit me and I narrowed it down to a traditional gown and a teacup dress. I was torn. I could not make up my mind. Both were equally beautiful. So, I had to break tradition and bring in the person who's opinion I value the most - Hubby. With his opinion, I went with the traditional dress. 

Sidenote here: I did the typical bride mistake! When I bought my dress, it was tight on me. I vowed to work out, lose weight and fit into that dress. Well I worked out a bit too much, got injured, and spent 4 weeks before our wedding completely sedentary. When I went back the week before our wedding to pick up the dress, I not only could not fit into it, but I had to convince them to trade it in for one in a larger size. Buy the dress in the size you need it at your first fitting.  

My dream Monique Lhullier dress...sigh

The beautiful teacup dress I was considering.

My wedding dress!

Final Details: Decide later? Yes!
So with a few weeks before our wedding, planning of the details came to a halt because of my work-related travel. We still needed a photographer, cake, flowers, my veil, and other smaller details. Hubby told me to stop spinning circles in my head and to just deal with it when we went to Savannah, so that is what we did. I think I got a lot of the major plans done before we got there, but if I had known what I know now, I would not have waited.

So next I will tell you about our wedding day...

Talk later!
Crystal

Bucket List #31 - Elope in Vegas...Uh Savannah (Why We Eloped)

When I say that time flies, I mean it. It was six months ago that I last wrote on this blog. In that time, I have worked more hours than humanly possible, gotten more animals in my household (all foster failures!), had some life changing moments, and had some equally normal and boring moments. I won't bore you with them all, but to get back into the swing of writing, I will tell you the wonderful story about how hubby and I eloped. This is a long story, so I will split it up into three parts - Why We Eloped, How We Planned the Elopement, and The Day We Got Married.

Ryan (Hubby) and I had been friends long before we even became a couple. Finally, three years ago, we became an exclusive couple and despite the fact that most of the time we were in a long distance relationship, we grew more in love and knew that we wanted to spend our lives together. Well when two people figure out that they love each other and want to spend even more time together, what do they do? Get married, of course. 

Long distance loving in 2012

Us at a friend's wedding in 2012

Well here we are. Ready to get married. My Pinterest board is filled with wedding dresses, table settings, and all kinds of great ideas for the ultimate wedding. I am ready to blow things out of the water. Then Ryan gets the call one day while at work. "Babe, let's elope!"

So why did I decide to go against tradition and elope? 

1) Money. (The root of all evil)

Do you know how much weddings cost these days? The dress, the food, the venue, the DJ, the travel and hotels, transportation, gifts for guests. Yes, I could have done a very simple wedding, but I know me and I know that I would have wanted the world. To have something less than ideal for a real wedding would have been more disappointing to me. 

Then you have two people who are still young, having moved to a new city, with me traveling a month straight for work, and with Hubby just getting established at a new job. There just was not enough money for what we dreamed of. In the end, we were not going to hold our MARRIAGE for a WEDDING. 

2) Family. (Who do you invite and who do you cut?)

If we were going to do a wedding, we had decided that we wanted it to be small. We originally set a cap of 40 people. For me, that was easy. My family is small and I could have easily stuck to 20 people on my side, but Hubby has a family that could fill both sides of the church. So the number soon grew to 50, then he was asking for 75. Everyone was essential and important in his life and after meeting his family, I could not think of one person who I didn't instantly love and did not want there. There was too much pressure and when you think of reason #1, you will see how this was soon becoming a major issue. 

3) We wanted something intimate and special

I am sure every bride says that her wedding was special, but if you think about it, 80% of the day is not actually spent with your spouse. You start the day away from each other getting ready and getting fussed over by friends and family. Then you have a 30 minute ceremony where you have to profess your undying love and affection in front of God, your parents, 50 friends and family, and other random people who you may not know. Followed by a reception with said people where the majority of the night is spent walking around thanking them for being there. Hubby and I did not want this for our wedding day. We wanted to be more intimate with each other and really feel the major decision that we were making. 

After my initial phone call, Hubby and I talked about it for another week. We discussed how our families would react. We talked about how we would feel about it. He dealt with me changing my mind over and over and over again. I read blog after blog about eloping. I thought about other friends who decided to elope and how it affected them. Finally, we made the decision that this is what we wanted to do.

So then, planning began...

Talk Later!
Crystal