Out of obscurity...

Oh hey! I'm married now. I also live in Idaho. Being married is cool, living in Idaho... well, let's just say I hope it grows on me.

I should probably recap the wedding reception or something, but basically everything has been erased from my memory except for the few (minor) annoyances I dealt with during those hectic few hours. For the sake of extending this blog post, I will recap the irritations. Namely, my sister scheming to upstage my fantastic gold shoes by convincing my mom to buy her and my other sister the same pair, but in silver. Awful. There was also the thing with the lights... the under-the-table lights got put under the wrong tables (best man Nathan Coon saved the day) and people kept flipping the lights on so that guests could look at the cake, and then that ended when whoever put the hideous stake center lamps on the cake table... goodness. Then the car was decorated in the usual, though still aggravating, fashion. Saran wrap, shaving cream, "just married" sign, and cans tied to the back bumper. And we can't forget the slices of cake stuck to the back window, which reminds me... I didn't actually eat more than one bite of the cake. Nathan was such a trooper. While I was panic-attacking over trying to change out of my beautiful (but incredibly fluffy) wedding dress, he cleaned off the car in the rain. I'm pretty sure I have the best husband ever. Don't even try to convince me otherwise, because I will never change my mind about this.

I know I come across as a huge whiner in that last paragraph, but in all honesty, I am a HUGE whiner. Complaining relieves stress for me, and though I am aware that it's a totally obnoxious trait... well... whatever. Truly, though, I had a great wedding day. My dress turned out SO WONDERFUL. I seriously, seriously love it and I felt so beautiful wearing it. I got DOUBLY MARRIED, but just to one person. It was raining during the outdoor photographs, but I barely noticed. The lunch was delicious and didn't make me want to throw up (I'm not the best with nerves). The cake was amaaaazing! Colby did a GREAT job and nobody had anything but compliments about it! The cake toppers were fantastic, too. Pika-bride and Pika-groom :) The desserts were PHENOMENAL. Best spread ever, I just wish I'd had more time to eat some of them. I don't know what I was expecting, but DANG IT I DIDN'T EVEN GET ONE LEMON BAR :( The bouquet toss made me realize that I need to improve my backwards throwing, but I guess Laura body-checked my friend Steph and caught it hahahhahahaha. My Canadians came down for the reception!! And I FINALLY got to meet Elise, who I've been emailing for a couple years but still hadn't met! The Parselmouths were there, too, and gave us some rubbermaids to replace the ones they never gave back when I made them salsa haha. Got to spend time with my four best friends from high school: Krislynn, Johnathan, Francesca, and Katie! There were sooooo many people there, it was great! THEN, THEN, THEN, we got takeout sushi from Tokyohouse and my friend Jae threw in an extra roll for free :) And dot dot dot it was a GREAT day!

Oh wait, I just kind of recapped my wedding. Whoops. I was honestly going to talk about something completely different but now it's 11:30 and I want to play Nathan's Nintendo DS in bed while he plays with my GameBoy Advance SP: Pikachu Edition, like we have done for the past few nights. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a bedtime routine and it is as nerdy as anyone who knows us should have expected. Happy new year!

Holy cats!

I'm getting married tomorrow. Oh my gosh!

All the single digits!

We're down to nine days until the wedding! HOLY CRAP! I can't even say anything about that because I have no idea where my head is at.

My dress is done! I'm picking it up this afternoon! I can't waaaaaait!

My shower is tonight! I'm super super super excited! Nathan's "bachelor party" is also tonight but I'm pretty sure the shower is going to be more fun.

Ummmmm. Yeah.

I forgot everything else I meant to say.

It's go-time.

If you're keeping track like I am (or, like the wedding day countdown I added to iGoogle the other day is) you will know that it's just 17 days until Nathan and I get married. WHOA! I'm really excited but I'm also glad that I got a bite guard from the dentist because I'm sure all this stress is making me grind my teeth like crazy. I know I'm overthinking things, and there aren't as many things left to do as I think there are, but just to ease my mind, enjoy a list.

~ flowers
~ pick up my wedding dress! it's done!
~ tablecloths! navy squares/runners!
~ call people about making desserts
~ clean my room
~ pack my stuff
~ make a guestbook! ahhhhhh! or procure one at any rate...
~ plates, cups, napkins, forks
~ vases! I need two large identical vases!
~ make a playlist for the reception (two point five hours of music)
~ pick up cool light fixtures from bro. vaughan
~ honeymoon!honeymoon!honeymoon!
~ pikachu cake topper...
~ order ties
~ figure out if I need to buy new makeup bought some.
~ make my face less ugly/acne-ravaged
~ make sure Nathan gets shoes
~ let virtue garnish my thoughts unceasingly


ummm. that's it for now. I am probably forgetting some small things but not too worried about it. HOPEFULLY I haven't forgotten anything major.

One month to go!

On July 18th, 2009, I was practically kidnapped and forced to leave the hotdogs and joy of the Stake Pioneer Picnic and go to the Young Single Adult's activity on the adjacent field. I was assigned to team up with some guy named "Nathan West" who I had only ever heard of because his sister was my visiting teacher and he was at one point fake-engaged to some chick on Facebook. He was kind of quiet, and I was kind of angry and jetlagged (I'd just gotten home from Germany three days before and already seen Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince twice) so it turned into a pretty one-sided conversation in which I kept complaining and making fun of the random people who talked to us and Nathan half-smiled a few times during our 30-minute partnership (I ditched the activity and rejoined the hotdogs), not really knowing what to make of this incredibly short and ill-tempered girl. The picture below shows clearly my irritation at having to be on the foodless field and Nathan's boredom, not to mention our matching bandannas. Apparently he was amused by me, however, because in a shocking twist that nobody saw coming except maybe his mom, four months later as of yesterday, we are getting married in precisely one month: December 19th, 2009.

tldr: stupid activity at Cascade Park, just friends, oh wait! we're getting married a month from today!

I loooooove youuuuuu!

Dinosaur shower curtain!

Sometimes I forget how lucky I am. I have great hair, I'm good at brushing my teeth, I make REALLY delicious salsa, the house I live in has a roof that is intact and protects me from the rain, I am healthy, I'm a very capable babysitter, and most importantly, I am engaged to the most amazing person I have ever met and we're getting married in FIVE WEEKS in the temple!

In the last week or so, I've been feeling the pressure. I'm not usually much of a crier, but I have definitely been having miniature sob-fests about twice a day. It's really weird and I wish I wasn't getting so emotional and stressed out. It's incredibly stupid, but I dislike being emotional around other people, especially since it's not a normal thing for me. I wrote in "Rebekah's panic attack" on the West's calendar. I think everyone needs to be prepared. December 17th, it's on.

I am so happy and excited at the prospect of getting married, but I am really losing it with planning the reception. This is not my forte AT ALL. I don't and have never had an eye for details. I definitely don't care very much if there are centerpieces on the tables, but I have been assured that we must have centerpieces. By George, we will HAVE centerpieces. I sure hope they're pretty.


This makes it sound like nothing's done, which is not the case. Let me make a list.

1. We got the invitations printed and sent out!
2. Nathan's aunt Suzanne agreed to come take our pictures! Thank you, Sue!
3. My dress is coming along. I'm going to Teresa's house on Monday for the first fitting of the actual dress!
4. I have shoes! They're gold! They're beautiful!
5. Apparently both of my sisters have bridesmaid dresses. I don't care that much.
6. Julie, the woman who has been cutting my hair for years, told me she would do my hair as her gift to me!
7. Oh man, I haven't blogged this: We got a great apartment in Rexburg! We move in on the 30th.
8. We asked Stephanie to call her sister-in-law about maybe decorating our cake :) Hope that pans out!
9. In that same vein, we got the number of the "Costco Flower Lady" and will be calling her and/or emailing her once we figure out how many flowers we need!
10. We got our marriage license yesterday! We could get married on Sunday if we wanted, but I guess we'll wait. I guess...

I know I need to chill out and focus on the really awesome part where I'm marrying Nathan in the temple. The reception is more for our families than for us. In the long run, it doesn't matter if he decides to get a suit or a tux. It doesn't matter what color shoes my sisters wear. It doesn't matter if Debbie decides to Bedazzle her blue jumper and just wear that [an aside: please don't do that]. It doesn't matter if we don't get a Kitchenaid mixer... that much... but what really matters starts at 10 AM on December 19th in the Seattle temple. I'll be there; will you?

In the meantime, maybe some Xanax and a day or two away from all things involving the wedding.

Ach, Härm Noch!

Oh jeez. I haven't blogged in forever. Sorry. Here, enjoy a list.

1. After a week or so of doing absolutely nothing wedding-related, Nathan and I finally got our butts in gear and accomplished a few things. The first is we made our wedding registry at Target. It wasn't exactly the non-stop fun-fest that we were told it would be, but it was fun enough. Yesterday, my brother-in-law Jonathan took some engagement pictures for us! They look pretty good, but we haven't decided which one we're going to use.

2. I could include this with number one but I don't feel like it. Tomorrow, my mom and I are going to see Teresa and finalize a dress design and then go fabric shopping. OH MY GOSH! I'm really excited for this :D I hope she has some cool ideas, because if there is one thing I will absolutely never be, it's a clothing designer. All of those Project Runway episodes have done me absolutely no good.

3. I could include this with number two but I won't. The next thing on our list is announcements. If there's time tomorrow, Nathan and I are going to head up to Paper Zone and find some, you know, paper. We have a couple weeks before the ~appropriate~ time to send them out, so we really need to get on that.

4. Next Monday, my German host sister Alex will be arriving! She'll be staying at my house for a couple weeks and it's going to be RADDD. As a precursor to this, I have to clean my ENTIRE house. My room is by far the most daunting task at hand. I'm doing twelve thousand loads of laundry today. Why do I have so many clothes? And shoes, oh my gosh. I have like 20 pairs of shoes. Possibly more, but I'm afraid to count.

5. For the first time in my life, I watched all four sessions of General Conference. WOW. That was a lot of conference. At one point, Nathan's mom referred to Elder Bednar as "Babyface Bednar" and I laughed for a century.

6. Neil Diamond sucks.

It tastes like elementary school.

Today I was roused from bed by my mom at the crack of freakin' dawn (9:30 AM, are you SERIOUS?) and told me that Teresa Weaver was on the phone. I sat up immediately. Having been plagued by dreams of wearing an ill-fitting wedding dress with "MADE IN CHINA" stamped on the back in crusty black ink, I tried and failed in my drowsy excitement to catch the phone my mom tossed at me. I picked it up from the floor and resumed the conversation 2 seconds later than I had initially planned to, but no harm done.

Teresa Weaver is the lady who made my sister's wedding dress, and told me, not that she would be willing to, or would like to, but would LOVE to make my wedding dress! SO YAAAAAAAAY NO MORE DRESS SHOPPING ON SHADY CHINESE WEBSITES!

In other news, I went down to Ikea in Renton or wherever it is with my friend Katie so she could check out some furniture for her apartment. We found a couch she kinda liked that was in her price range, but then we found a bed that she always wanted (old fashioned metal frame that doesn't squeak) only to realize that it wouldn't fit in her car so she made a note of it and is going back tomorrow with her dad's truck. She also got some cutting boards, a cheese grater, a mortar and pestle, and some cool tumblers, and then we ate Swedish meatballs with apple cake. We had little cartons of chocolate milk to go with our meals. As Katie said, "It tastes like elementary school." And it did. Ah, nostalgia.

I'm fairly certain that nobody in my immediate family will ever read this blog. I'm kind of okay with it. But I should probably not say anything negative about anyone who might be irritating me at the moment. So I won't.

Sorry this blog post has nothing interesting in it whatsoever. Nathan is really cool.

If at first you don't succeed...

Take a nap and then try again when you wake up.

Today was round one of wedding dress shopping. We went to David's Bridal first and were informed upon arrival that they don't actually carry any dresses with sleeves. No, seriously. I didn't really care that much, however, because I wasn't fool enough to believe that we'd find something that worked right off the bat. We tried on a few different styles with varying degrees of success, but one in particular looked pretty awesome on me. I don't really think it's possible to alter it to make it modest and not have it look stupid, but at least I'll have a frame of reference if I'm going to have one made! So yay for that!

After we got back, my mom insisted that we peruse a few websites to look at dresses. I'm not too thrilled with the idea of ordering a dress off the internet, because [insert one of dozens of reasons here], but I'm willing to look. After cruising through one site's extensive and expensive collection, I told my mom to carry on while I took a nap. She was happy to do so, and, possessing vaults of patience that I can only dream of, finally found this wholesale website where you can buy the dress direct from China for REALLY CHEAP. Like, $150 for a custom-made dress. MADE TO YOUR SPECIFIC MEASUREMENTS. It's ridiculous. My mom is all for it, but I'm just petrified that we'll get it and it will either A) look horrendous on me even though it fits, or B) not fit at all and we'll have no time to get it altered before the big day. WHAT THE HECK DO I DO?

So much for not getting stressed. I REALLY hope the lady who makes dresses calls us back soon.

I'm not sure how I'm going to pass the time this evening. I should probably clean my room, and now is a pretty logical time to do so, but when have I ever been logical? Haha.

Ron loves Twizzlers.

Okay, here's a bit of back story for everyone. I have started and deleted a blog at this address no less than four times. I've never been much of a blogger...

You know, that's not true. I was big into blogging back in middle school, but pretty much everything I had to say was irrelevant and stupid and generally the typical whiny, 12 year-old girl crap that one would ordinarily expect. Nowadays, the vehicle I used for such posts--my beloved LiveJournal--is more or less a dumping ground for my Twitter updates and I'll rarely post something worth reading.

Enter this particular blog. I can't guarantee anything lovely, or of good report, or praiseworthy will be seen here, but I just want to see how well I can keep up with the goings-on in my life. Now seems to be as good a time as ever because...

I'm spacing this out so as to incite anticipation.

I GOT ENGAGED ON SUNDAY! HOLY CATS!

My fantastic and brilliant boyfriend Nathan made a ring box out of origami paper (no pattern, I might add!) and asked me to marry him during a walk on Centennial Trail after Stake Conference. Of course, I said yes! I'm sure I could discourse for hours about how great Nathan is, but I'm afraid it would read a lot like Twilight if I were to do so. Except Nathan is not a fictional character, nor dead, nor creepy. YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST, LADIES AND GENTS. NATHAN WEST > EDWARD CULLEN.

I'm way too lazy to upload my own pictures of the ring and the box, so if you're curious, check out a couple of blog posts from my be-awesome future mother-in-law HERE and HERE. (I sincerely hope someone got that reference.)

So what now? Wedding planning. I honestly have no idea where to start. We've got the date (December 19th) and we've reserved a room at the Seattle temple, but THAT was the easy part. Tomorrow I'm going out with my mom and Nathan's sister Stephanie to try on some different dresses to see which styles don't look completely heinous on me. We're hoping to have my dress made by the same woman who made my sister Rachel's wedding dress in 06, but it will help to have some ideas to go off of!

Luckily for us, the entire planet seems to have our back and we'll have a lot of help. What I need to be focused on--first, foremost, and continually--is keeping calm and doing my best to not get stressed out over the little things and in the meantime enjoy my engagement! I'll only be engaged once!

Happy trails!