Fremont Solstice Parade!

Gasworks Park

Saturday was nuts! Stephanie and I walked down the hill from our place to the Fremont Solstice Parade. This is the first year that we have attended as Stephanie was moving up to Seattle last year during the parade.

Waiting for the start of the parade

I waited at a spot in front of Roxy's Diner and saved a spot for Stephanie, as she waited nearly 40 minutes for them to prepare our egg on bagel breakfast sandwiches... (THE BOMB and totally worth the wait). There were so many people down there! We also lucked out and got to stand next to this insanely drunk guy that fell on me halfway through the parade, but he was nice other than that.

"Party Boy"

Before the actual parade starts, there is this group call the The Painted Cyclists, that bike the parade route. The Painted cyclists join in an artistic, non-political, clothing-optional bike ridecelebrating the spirit of the Summer Solstice. All I can say about it is wow...

These people are only wearing paint!

Cheetah

Eek!

There were HUNDREDS of them. This went on for about 45 minutes before the actual parade starts.

There was this really funny older gentleman (I use this term very lightly) walking around and dancing for people.

Shaking what his mama gave him...

Once the actual parade started it was really cool. This kid from the crowd kept doing all of these flips right in front of us.

The whole parade is quite an event. Many different floats with numerous people involved in building. There had to be at least 25,000 people down there.

"Moments" from the Parade

Eat your heart out Liza!

Get your programs

"Thriller"ish?

The Elephant Revolution

Weird

A musical float

Stephanie wants a train like this for her wedding dress...

Cat in the Hat

Naked bikeguy Cat in the Cat

After the parade we went to get something to eat, walked around some more and found an odd car show...

This was dust on the back of the car that the artist painted after. Very cool!

AND THE STRANGEST CAR OF THE DAY...

Denture Car

Nice Teeth!

A Productive Sunday

This past Sunday Samantha and I had a date to try on wedding dresses. We started the day by fueling for the task at hand by having brunch at Tilth in Wallingford. Tilth is an organic restaurant that I had been wanting to try and was near the bridal store. Samm and I each enjoyed our entrees (breakfast mac and cheese for her; croque monsieur with a fried egg for me), mimosas, and coffee. What was really cool was how the interior design matched our wedding colors.

Color Palette

It was nice to see that the colors did in fact work together in real life. You can see a photo of the interior of the restaurant in the photo gallery

After brunch we were still a little early for our 1:30 appointment so we stopped in at Paper Delights which was just across the street. It is a stationery store with a lot of cute greeting cards as well. I didn't really have too much time to go through their paper and cardstock but I did see one that matched the blue and green from our color palette. I think I have to make an appointment to go over their catalogs and get pricing.

Our next stop was "I Do Bridal" in Wallingford.

I Do Bridal

We arrived for our appointment and met with our dress consultant, Bridget. Bridget was awesome. She was very easy going and wasn't pushy. She made me feel real comfortable and made the process less intimidating. After putting our purses in the fitting room (man, no sneak attack camera phone pics!) she put us to work. She told us to start going through the racks of dresses and pick out any that might interest me. In the meantime she was also bringing dresses for me that I might like. Let me tell you, there are a LOT of ugly dresses out there. Some of them look like they got into a fight with the bedazzler and the bedazzler won. Sparkles are nice, but not when it seems like the dress is just a vehicle for sparkles.

After going through all the racks, I ended up with 10 dresses in the fitting room. Since I didn't really have a concrete idea of what style of dress I wanted I tried on different necklines, material, and silhouettes. Trying on dresses is an interesting process of finding out what works for your body type as well as your venue. I knew I didn't want anything too formal because Orcas Hotel has a casual vibe.

Since we weren't allowed to take pictures, Samm stepped up to the plate and took copious notes and sketched(!) the dresses I tried on. She wrote down all the terminology that Bridget was throwing at us. I'm so glad she did this because everything was starting to just blur together.

Samm's lovely sketches

After trying on all 10 dresses - some I disliked immediately and some I only liked certain elements - I did find one I liked. It is really simple and elegant. Bridget was right. I did surprise myself in regards to what dress I would like.

I'm glad I took everyone's advice and just tried on dresses. It gave me an idea of what I like in a dress and now I'm not as intimidated. I'm looking forward to trying on more dresses at different stores.

On our way out Samm and I even saw a potential MOH dress for her to wear. It matched the green from our color palette perfectly and it had pockets! We didn't have time for Samm to try it on so hopefully it looks just as cute on as it did on the mannequin.

Queen Creek Arizona FOOD Trip!

Last month, Stephanie and I went down to Arizona to spend some time with her parents. This was my first time meeting her stepmom Leni, and it was wonderful getting to know her and Stephanie's dad Arnell a little more. A weekend filled with so much delicious food, sun, talking, singing and dog petting!

We celebrated our recent engagement with a fabulous meal at Fleming's Steakhouse in Chandler. Stephanie had the bone in ribeye steak and the rest of us had filet mignon. The steaks were paired with a Pinot. So GOOD!

LAVA CAKE

Leni tried to get a cute picture of us feeding eachother lava cake, but we had to get a few practice pictures in first...

Diving in...

It tastes so good on my lips...

Delicious

These were a gift from Fleming's MMM...

We were very spoiled on this evening. Thank you so much for taking us out and celebrating Leni and Arnel!

What do you do after a night of fabulous food and drink? Sing! We stayed up and sang on the magic microphone until 2am (Steph and I stayed up a little later for some duets). Both Leni and Arnel are magic mic ALLSTARS. Leni got the high score of the night. I can't wait for a rematch...

I believe this was Atlantic Starr's "Always"

Other treats from the weekend...

Fried Tilapia w/ mango salsa

Leche Flan (the mango salsa in the background went with the tilapia)

And my favorite dish...

Sinigang is a tamarind based meaty and vegetable filled soup dish that you eat with rice. It has a sour flavor that is so addicting. Stephanie first cooked it for me last year when she moved up to Seattle from L.A. and I have been in love with it and her ever since! I was very excited to try Leni's and was not disappointed. I could eat this all day everyday...

These Dogs (Starsky (in front) and Benji (Seated) Love to get there bellies rubbed. But hey, who doesnt?

Thank you again for having us. We are excited for Ohio and Thanksgiving in Vegas!

Coco Says "Hi"

That's So Inspiring...

from Snippet & Ink

Coming up with a color scheme and theme was difficult for me. I turned to friends and family and asked them how they had come up with theirs and some went with their favorite colors and some just chose colors based on the season of their wedding. I don't really have a favorite color so I asked Brian if he had any preferences. He said he definitely did NOT want purple (Husky color)! He said he liked blue and green. So with those guidelines I started researching.

I hit the wedding blogs for research purposes. Snippet & Ink is just one of the blogs that I have been reading lately. She posts some great inspiration boards and provides so many different ideas. She also posts photos from "Real Weddings" and it is really interesting to see how other brides have incorporated ideas into their weddings.

The inspiration board above caught my eye. I thought the colors and theme really meshed well with the vibe of our venue. Not to mention that it has blue and green. The colors and images on the inspiration board just exudes a calming, casual, and relaxed feel. This is exactly what we want our wedding to feel like.

Yesterday Brian and I had to stop at Fred Meyer after the gym to pick up some things for dinner. I asked if we could stop in the housewares department. I wanted to look at the paint chips and hopefully see some colors that were close to those on the inspiration board. After holding up several paint sample cards next to each other to see if they matched we came up with three colors from the Dutch Boy Paint line that we are going to use for our color palette:

1) Bartel Blue

2) Dining Alfresco (a pale green)

3) Phyllo

I like the colors because essentially it is sea/sky, grass, and sand - very natural colors. I'm excited that we have another thing we can check off the list. Now we can use these colors to start brainstorming invitations and decorations.

Next up - trying on wedding dresses this Sunday with my MOH, Samantha. Stay tuned...

It's Time!

...or at least everyone is telling me it is. What is it time for? Time to try on wedding gowns, of course! I don't know why but after securing our date and venue and getting my wedding binder organized I just have not been that inspired to do much wedding planning. Maybe it's because it seems like it is so far away that I have plenty of time to make decisions. Although part of the reasoning behind August 2010 was to give us ample time to plan and not to rush. Now I just hope I don't procrastinate since I think I have sooo much time.

So I did it. I bit the bullet and made an appointment. I just need to start the process and start window shopping. Now that I made my appointment, I'm actually getting a little excited about it. I still have no idea what I will like or what will look good on me but I guess that's part of the process.