Driving back.

We got back to my grandmother's house around 5 this afternoon and after a busy time of visiting & getting the babe to take a nap/bedtime, we packed up and are on the road to the airport for our red-eye flight back home...though we have what I anticipate to be a joyful layover in the Dallas airport. Wish us some much needed luck.
xoxo, natty ♥

A theme.

Beach soccer kicked off the wedding day for our friends; what a gorgeous venue!

We then had lunch in the beach town of Mendocino {quinoa and kale cakes with salad...and two pieces of pizza poached from the larger group's lunch - yum!} and then tried to get the baby to nap - her sleep is all sorts of off which is OK considering the people willing to hold and entertain her here.

A beach ceremony awaits us as well as a night of dancing under the stars in an adjacent field {not beach}- congrats to our friends!!!



xoxo, natty ♥

Hello Mendocino!

Mikey and the babe and I are winding our way up the state for the wedding of a dear friend. We probably won't have any service up there so I'll take note of what's happening and post it later on...for now, here's to beautiful views and gorgeous weather!!!
xoxo, natty ♥

Back in California ♥.

We {me and babe-o}got here late last night after hours of plane time; yea for family and a California late heat-wave
xoxo, natty ♥

Oh what a night.

We had a blast at the wedding yesterday.

And though her parents got down on the dance floor, little baby slept through it all in her stroller. Only to wake up upon return to our {quiet} hotel room - babies are such a mystery!

We have a flight out tomorrow so we get today to relax and eat out some more. Happy wedding to our friends!
xoxo, natty ♥

Boogy down.

Today was great. It's beautiful weather here and Hanna Lu and I got to spend the day with some wonderful women folk, including my personal fountain of love Ellie Fence. I'm so honored to introduce my daughter to this other piece of my heart.

After a good breakfast we walked down to the lake and into the art museum, though we didn't check out the exhibits - is it bad that after being spoiled by DC {aka "free"} museums I feel disinclined to want to pay to see anything?

Onto the wedding tonight!
xoxo, natty ♥

To where it all started.

After a really early flight we three have arrived in Wisconsin for a weekend of love and merriment. We had a lovely little lunch and walk with the groom, our college friend, and are now very ready for a nap!
xoxo, natty ♥

Whew!

Last night Guinness lost his momentum on the way up the stairs.

 

And in some positive news!

1} I got through day 1 of the 2013-2014 school year!!!! The second day is always the hardest since all of the adrenaline and momentum from the first day is sapped, but getting through that first day? A major feat in and of itself...so yippee!!!

2} My wonderful husband made us a wonderful dinner both last night AND tonight; thank you SO MUCH sweetie for supporting me during these busy days.

3} It's almost September...that seems like a good thing to me today.

4} I get to go to Minnesota next month.

5} FOR REBECCA'S WEDDING!!!!!!!

What's good for you today Reader? Are you enjoying the back-to-school time even if you're not a student or educator? I mentioned last year that I think that this time of year is more ripe for renewals that New Year's is and I'm still of that belief.

Here's to a good week folks!
xoxo, natty ❤

Almost a week.

If all goes and is published as scheduled, we will have been in Iceland for a solid five days now. 

And we will have just celebrated the wedding of a pair of great friends; congratulations and skál to you three!!!!!

xoxo, natty ♥

So happy!

 xoxo, natty ♥

Quite a day!

Though it's late for dinner right now {it's European!}, I'm anxiously awaiting some spinach/Oaxacan cheese {procured on yesterday's sojourn} enchiladas from the oven. I'm also drying off a bit because I got stuck in this :

...we don't get downpours like this in San Jose. Nor do we walk or take the bus very often.

Lessons learned.

After mass this morning I puttered around our neighborhood and ran a few errands until it was time to take the bus downtown. I had wanted to stop at the main library to look up a few tomes before going to wait in line for Sleep Walk With Me. 

I knew there would be a line because one of the producers would be answering questions from the audience after the show. Not just any producer, I suppose, since it was Ira Glass. 

If you're not familiar with This American Life {the NPR radio show} then his name won't ring a bell and you might not be too interested but I certainly was!

I had never seen a picture of him {or the real-life-him} before the show {I try not to look up what radio personalities actually look like, it ruins the mystique for me} so I was pretty rapt not only because of what he had to say {interesting!} but mostly by my reconciling his looks with the voice I've known for several years now {and several hundred miles since it's the radio show I listen to the most as I log my miles}.

In other news, Mikey and his brother are in Philadelphia {how weird for us west-coasters that this is now a day trip!} to see a Pearl Jam concert so it's just Guinness and I enjoying enchiladas and the rain {from inside}. As an aside, I crumbled some of this

on top of these puppies. Is there anything more delicious that a thick slice of this cheese at the bottom of a mug of Colombian hot chocolate? No, I didn't think so.

Oh. Another thing. Today is our official 365 day wedding anniversary {it was a leap year!}. Tomorrow is our real anniversary {date/HEART-wise}. 

I'm so excited and happy and all sorts of good things. I love this man SO MUCH. I'll be back with our paper gift reveal and other ruminations soon enough I'm sure.
Love to you all.
xoxo, natty ♥

Wordless Wednesday™; "I sure do love these girls ♥".

xoxo, natty ♥

Wordless Wednesday™; you know you had a good an amazing the best time ever at your wedding when...

...and you kept on dancing ♥

xoxo, natty ♥

Great things.

The best part about this week, other than great family and friends coming here, was the surprise of these amazing shirts last night at the airport. I promptly stripped to my sports bra and put mine one.

 

Also, this is what the boys {cousins, dad, brother, Mikey & his dad} did while we girls enjoyed the great shower I blogged about earlier this week.

In case you can't read what the Hooters girls wrote on the paper towels tucked into his shirt, it spells out   "S-U-C-K-E-R.

Class all the way, homes.

xoxo, natty ♥

Cleaning, cleaning and more cleaning.

In the quest of getting the house ready for a wedding, I'm also cleaning/organizing all of my/our things. I've alluded to or directly mentioned this before this post, of this I'm sure. I'm also sure that I'd rather be sitting around eating bon-bons and watching Law & Order reruns. Today, I continue the battle. My non-working days are dwindling rapidly and I'm trying to take advantage of the time.
On a happier note, I just ate almost-two full containers of berries {raspberry and blackberry}; I'm always pleasantly taken aback by how darn good good fruit is.
Cheers!
xoxo, natty ♥

Plugged in.

I just finished my run and am enjoying a ggod peach and well deserved coffee. It's been a busy week of wedding stuff and the next one promises to be so as well, thus, I'm going to enjoy a bit of a respite today. I'd like to get done as much as I can before back to school meetings start in the middle of August and I'll be away for a week soon so I'm definitely feeling the burn, so to speak. Once classes start it's 10 days until our wedding so getting as much completed before work makes my life crazy and takes up most of my time seems to be the prudent choice.
Anyhoo, in preparation for said nuptials there have been a few things going on in and around the old house. We're putting in some stone work in lieu of grass in one part of the yard and my cousin is spearheading this project. He ripped out the lawn, got 1300 pounds of flagstone into my little-car-that-could

and laid it out in the yard with my brother's help. My grandmother's putting in fast growing ground cover type plants to go in between the stones. Nice work everyone! I watched and worked on wedding programs. 
On a different note, I carry my phone when I run. It's technically for safety but I listen to things while I'm getting in my miles. It used to be only music, fast tunes with a quick beat {think Black Eyed Peas and certain Taylor Swift songs} but in the past year I finally branched out into podcasts {I'm a HUGE fan of Ira Glass} and even more recently I've delved deeper into some category of base and shameless runner that I never thought could exist; I run while listening to TV shows or movies on Netflix. I can access Netflix on my phone, see, and I don't watch them, obviously I'd not see where I go, rather, I just listen and follow along. This morning I listened to Food, Inc..
There are some running purists in the world who don't believe you're one with your sport/nature/God/etc. if you do anything else but run while you're running. There are lots of races where headphones are not allowed, though it's more for safety {so that you can hear things around you...like people!} but some smaller races definitely ban them out of moral reasons.
I need to confess, though; I sometimes get bored. Please don't get me wrong, I love running. I suppose it can be kind of love/hate as I believe all running relationships are to a certain extent, but the overall feelings I harbor towards running are extremely affectionate-addicted. I run a lot though, and mile after mile can get tedious. I also get tired, especially after a day of standing up in front of adolescents. The thought of tuning out to some of my favorite music is sometimes what gets me out the door.
So I'm OK with it, really, I am. I wear headphones and listen to things while I run and I make sure I'm not too zoned out to hear the approaching cars at intersections. I don't really care how I get out the door and off the couch, as long as I do. The joy I get from completing any run, no matter how long or short, entirely eclipses any self imposed guilt. I also realize that I'm not always going to be able to run {though I'm going to try my dangdest hardest, by golly} and I am going to be grateful for the runs I get in every day, even if the Real Housewives are my only motivation.
xoxo, natty ♥

An assortment of things.

I have not a whole lot to report about this weekend. We Obon-ed it up yesterday {refer to posts from earlier this week}, did some yard work, got really sore from that yard work, searched for wedding bands,, went to Costco and decided that tonight we'll get pizza for dinner. That's about it and moving on to other, random things...
I came to a realization the other day; I don't think I announced that Mike and I are getting married. I might have but don't feel like looking back through the annals of history. I believe that I just started to mention it here and there as it pertained to my days and going-ons. What a blip! So...

my dude and I are getting married!!!

It happened in October last year over a wonderful weekend. I just couldn't be happier to be with my right hand man for the rest of our lives. We've had an amazing time together for over five years and look forward to many, many more. It's been so much fun to think about how we'll be spending those years and to plan our big day which kicks them off {and which is rapidly approaching at the end of my summer vacation; yea!}. 
This was us the day after he popped the question. And I said yes. Obviously.

Like I mentioned, the most recent wedding related adventure has been looking for bands and working on the yard which is an integral space for our day. My body aches now from that work.
Another random tid-bit {I know, this post is so disjointed}is the Harry Potter biz-nass. I've been a fan since I was in high school when I started reading the books and would schlep myself out to buy the new ones as they were released. I've never gotten into the movies, though. In anticipation of the last movie coming out, I've decided to watch them all before. Also, to read to all too. With what time you ask? It's summer after all! Plus, I can fold laundry and craft my nuptial decorations in front of a tv. I started the first book last night. ABC family has been playing all the movies this weekend and the mr has been watching {ha!} but that's too disjointed for me so I'll watch each one after I finish a book? Again, I am one of the lamest people I know.
We're invited to a HP party this coming Friday where everyone will leave to see a late showing and I'll beg Mike to go home and let me sleep; it's safe to say that I'll probably see it during the day at some point. We will, however, be dressing up.
As you can see in this picture

Mike has been growing out a beard. It's getting scraggly. It's perfect for this costume:

Via.

I was thinking of going as a house elf but decided on this idea that I got from my friend Kathy

via, via.

Only Harry Potter fans should be able to guess what my costume even means.
Guinness will also be in attendance. I'll be sacrificing a couple of Good Will stuffed animals and something to attach their heads on.

Via.

Are you doing anything interesting for the movie release? Do you have a favorite book/movie of the series? {Mine is the last one I think, I love closure.}
I haven't been feeling super great all day so we're finishing off the weekend easy and I hope that you are too!
xoxo, natty ♥

Gotta get down on Friday.

The title of this post belies the actual nature of this day which is mostly all about getting things done and going to bed at a reasonable hour; I'm like the lamest 20-something out there, aren't I? Oh well.
I have plenty of wedding stuff and general all-around cleaning to "get down" with today. I'm also meeting friends for lunch which I'm looking forward to. One of the big things I need to work on is scanning. I've been thinking about making posters of the mr and I as we grew up, kind of like poster sized collagees. Since it's probably not a good idea to cut into all of those original pictures of us from the 80s and 90s that have no negatives (do you remember negatives?!) my plan has been to scan them all, print them out (any good ideas on this out there? I usually just take a usb to target and print them out on their machine, but I've never done more than 10 or 15 and I can't fathom how long it would take with the amount we have...), crop and arrange them in poster frames. We'll see how this turns out.
Another crafty thing I've been working on is fabric bunting that I want to use to decorate the yard and outside of the house. I'll post my own pictures later, maybe, but here's an idea of what I'm aiming for:

via

I'm using fabrics of varying patterns as long as they're bright and colorful and not too focused on one color. My eyes get bored easily.
That fun stuff though, will wait for next week. Today is about cleaning and more mundane tasks. Mentioning it here (to the bored chagrin of my readers) is meant to keep me accountable.
Wish me luck and GET DOWN ON FRIDAY!
xoxo, natty ♥

Galletas.

That means "cookies" in the Spanish. 
Monday night I made the dough for shortbread cookies. I tried to roll it out but it needed more butter. By virtue of being shortbread cookies, more butter was adding to an already high amount of butter in said dough, but butter is always better. I was using her recipe, by the way. Quick de-railing, a while back I needed some plain cookies and had kind of been thinking of sugar cookies, they being a nice back drop for accoutrement like Nutella. I was perusing PW's cookie recipes since her recipe collection is a go-to one for me and my mind saw "s" and "cookie" so these I made only several months later to realize that they weren't even sugar cookies but they sure are delicious! Yesterday morning I took the dough out of the fridge and tried to roll it out but it was cold, so I worked it a bit with my hands and then it was good but it turned out to be a BOOGER (only figuratively) of a dough to roll. It might have been the extra butter, who knows, but I had a horrible hard time getting the stuff not to stick on the rolling pin and the board I was rolling onto. 

Trouble

It was worth it though because oh-my-gawsh these were DECADENT, buttery, crispy, dreamy...all of the above. 

Getting ready!

They were SO good! 

Then I bagged them up

and we used them as bribes around the neighborhood for signatures of our neighbors so we can get hitched and party it up in their street. The wedding will actually be in the backyard but who's counting? We are so blessed to live with such great people. I already knew most people on the block and that they're so awesome, but our neighbors were so kind and interested last night that I was able to reaffirm my belief that people are good, patient and kind. What a fun way to announce something!
I also made another batch while I had the Kitchen Aid going 

Nom nom nom!

and I thought I'd try to make them hearts too, which wasn't so easy since they're drop-cookies; some came out ♥-like

and others, blob-like.

The post on niceness is tomorrow, get excited.

xoxo, natty ♥

Yippee!

Some warmth has finally arrived to our parts, but being so close to the water (SF Bay and the Pacific), things are always subject change so I'm greatly enjoying this.

Today I did some wedding planning, most specifically a plan of what the table centerpieces will look like. I would like for our reception tables to be themed and so far I'm having a great time putting together things for each theme. Ideally I'll put the stuff for each table in a bag or box for easy assembly and clean up, whomever is helping us can just unpack each bag/box of stuff onto a table.

Over the years I've gotten good at collecting things I realized today, not necessarily collections but just crap (arguably so to some, I realize). It's mostly older home ware, Pyrex and vintage cookie plates and vases. The upside to this, ahem...habit, is that I've got a great supply of centerpiece decorations to choose from! I can use the bowls and vases to hold things in, obviously, and the other tchotchkes fit in to my various themes. This sounds a bit jumbled, but trust me, it works!

The great thing is that it's forcing me to organize a bit. Does anyone else have as much stuff as I do? I never know what to do with all of the notes and greeting cards and little mementos that I get. If I were better organized, I could pare things down so that I could have a neat little box for the different phases in my life, like a high school box or fun kitchen stuff box {we're not living in our own place yet}. Since we moved last year I kind of started this and 'box' is more like a big rubbermaid tub , but this way things are contained, easy to find and unpack in the future.

So I'll get some more tubs since I have a few already half full and when the wedding is over then I can disassemble the centerpieces into their respective boxes or donate what we probably don't need anymore. I don't want to sound as though I'm not sentimental, I'm too so much so considering all the stuff I hold on to. I'm finding things from when I was in grade school, not much, but there still is some and I'm just so blown away by how many things we accumulate. When I would visit Mike in El Salvador while he was living with pretty poor people, they often had as much stuff packed into their homes as they could, which means it must be only human to gather and gather and it's not just unique to US culture?? So I'm inspired to live more minimally but it's going to take some digging out to begin. More than some, actually. Wish us luck and watch out Goodwill donation stations!

I grilled a lovely late spring dinner for me and my grandmother, including my first go at grilled fruit! We had some bitter apricots and I thought the heat might help to bring out the natural sugars. It didn't, but it looked kind of pretty

Don't worry, the fence is being repainted soon.

I tried out this contraption that a coworker lent me, it's for making baby cupcakes in a short amount of time, though if you do a full box of cake mix, it will take as much time as baking a whole cake in the oven, but baby cupcakes are cuter so yay! ***UPDATE***After getting the hang of it, this is quicker...

Cupcake machine.

Spooning...

Baby-caking...

Trying to be ready...

My only complaint is that the little buggers were sticking like crazy, so I used some cooking spray which helped a bit. It was fun to try, though I probably wouldn't buy it.

Crumbly mess =(

***UPDATE*** I wrote this while "baking" and figured through trial and error that my "babycakes" were not baby enough, they were too big, so with a bit less batter and the spray, they came out awesomely!!

Mo' bettah =)

Of course, everything's even better with chocolate frosting.

I'm going mother of the bride dress shopping with my mom tomorrow and then later seeing a friend; vacation is wonderful!

Trying-to-be-artistic side of house and cat shot.

xoxo, natty ♥