PA is boring

Well I've been home for 2 weeks and have exactly 2 weeks to go. I'm rather bored. There's not much to do here and very very very few people to see. Well the one person who actually cares to see me has gone off to Israel! What fun! I expect postcards... haha.

Mainly all I've done besides watch a few seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is wedding plan. I've met with the DJ, one cake baker, the florist, and went to church on Sunday to check it out. It's so pretty. I have two more cake meetings this week and then on Thursday it's off to MD for Michael's wedding! I'm looking forward to that.

I had a Bridal Shower last Saturday put on my Jillian and my mom. It went pretty well. It seems like nearly everyone had a good time and that's great. We had tasty food, a doggie guest, and a game to play. It was nice to see everyone again. The majority of everyone had to drive from Philly or the outskirts of it to get here, and I'm very glad they did especially since they all went back and I probably won't see them again until the wedding. It was a good get together.

Ellie and Xander visit!

Well I've been home for two nights now, going onto my third. It's VERY cold here. I'm not a fan of the 50 degree rainy weather, not at all. I've done a little shopping around for various clothes and wedding stuff. Yesterday I had my first official, in person, wedding meeting and that was with the DJ. It went pretty well. I spaced out on an important name so with that and a few other things, I have some DJ homework to do! haha.


Today was very nice. I've been here a few days and the first friend to see me isn't even from around here! Ellie and Xander drove up from Maryland this morning to visit me. It's about a 4 hour drive without stops but they didn't mind. She's only available for 5(or so) days before the Marines send her to Cali for desert training. Then she'll have more leave but is going to Colorado to get married and then ships out to the big desert in the east.


It was absolutely great to see them. They didn't have the time to spend the night so they made it a day trip. We went to the mall and got her some special shoes for engagement/wedding photos and I found a dress for my bridal shower. Both very cute and actually very easy to find. It was exciting that we didn't have to stress out a lot about them. Before all this we ate at Peking Chef, which was delightful as always. I love their dumplings. Well we shopped and wandered and chatted for a bit before driving back to my house so they can leave. It was quite the perfect visit, though it would have been nice if they could have stayed. It's a very long drive to do both journeys in one day.


Tomorrow is Momma's birthday. My main plan is to meet with Men's Warehouse about tuxes and then come home to bake and decorate a cake. Hopefully it turns out well! I'm not very skilled at icing a cake.

Postcards

Will you send me a postcard from wherever you live? It can be a "boring" place, that's fine! I'm having mom send me one from Dallas! I want ones from everywhere! I'm sure most of you are family and have my address. If not just ask me :-)

Love,
Meredith

Anxiety!

You know what's annoying? Anxiety. I seem to always get it whenever I'm doing something new, traveling, or other random things. Currently I've been anxious all week because I go home soon. I hate traveling and especially with the 9.5 hr flight with a 2+ hr drive coming up. Bleck. I'll be landing at 5:30am MY TIME but 11:30 EST. I'm hoping I sleep the whole flight. At least there are no layovers this round.

That's why I always start packing a week ahead of time. I'm too anxious about the trip that I get a strong need to do something about it so I start packing. Hopefully I don't forget a lot.

Dixie has a sitter who has a key and a parking pass in her hands now. Food and litter is stocked up and even brand new toys. She's my precious little girl, but I think she'll be ok. I'll miss her. Besides the main sitter, Kevin will stop by to play with her and once Cayley is home from Texas, she'll be around a lot as well. This will give kitty lots of attention and also give my condo a lot of traffic.

I'm mainly going home for Michael's wedding on June 5th. Hooray! But after John's entire schedule changed I changed my flight to go home earlier. I think I'll miss Hawaii, but it'll be nice to visit at home.

Once I'm  home the day after I have to meet with the DJ and then throughout the week I also meet with Men's Warehouse, East Mountain Inn, the florist (actually this is the week after), and I have to set up a cake testing appt. Yum! John likes sweet but since my change in diet and exercise, I don't eat the same things. But chocolate is still always a winner. We shall see what works best.

I'll be home a whole month. It's going to be weird! I'm looking forward to going to Kohls! And eating pizza and chinese food, which is very different here, and other various things like Back Mountain Creamery- YUM.

Hmm. So I don't really know what else I'd say about it.
I guess I'll see most of you in June!

Wedding Website

New Wedding Website

I switched domains so I had to redo most of it. A lot of it has just been copied and pasted and then I put in lots of photos. I like photo galleries.

I still have to go through and make sure the new pages make sense but that's the new one!

SEA TURTLES

Today I went to Ko'Olina with Tracy and her 2 yr old daughter Hannah and Patti with her three kids 20, 17, 11. I think. I made up the last two, but I think they're fitting. I played with Hannah the whole time haha.

We went to the lagoon near Paradise Cove. We had some trouble finding parking but once we did , it was great. There were turtles! There was one guy sleeping at the far end and then three in the water. We didn't realize there were three of them for a while. They were very friendly and swam right up to all of us, many times. I even was able to pet one while it swam by me. They were so neat!

Many more sea turtle pictures

P.S. My camera has NO zoom!

Woo-hoo!

Before moving I got a Bed Bath and Beyond gift card,  I then learned there wasn't any here and spent it at home. That wasn't an issue because what I wanted was small anyway.

Well, guess what? In the Fall we're getting one! And not only are we getting one, but we're getting one in PEARLRIDGE! That's the mall right down the hill from me! I'm excited. So if you're ever at a loss for a gift.... gift cards are fantastic. :-P haha. I love gift cards. I love shopping but always worry about spending money and gift cards force you to. It's wonderful haha. I think John and I had a discussion about that. At first we think "Oh gift cards are the easy way out" when we're shopping but then when we think about what we want, we get pretty excited over gift cards haha. Nerds...

This will also make any possible BBB registry exchanges easier. We're also registered at Amazon. I was a little worried because I know how often people just run out and grab things, but in addition to the ease of putting anything we want on the list (like games!) nearly everyone is from pretty far away and we live pretty far away so shipping things out here instead of getting them at the wedding is very ideal. We shall see.

Unfortunately we still have no Bath and Body Works. I finally have my oil burner up and running. At first I only had the oils because the burner was with John on the way to HI. Then I couldn't bring the oils because movers and mailers get upset because it's oil so they won't ship it. Finally my mom brought it with her so now I have those. Then it took me a while to look for and find the oil burner. Finally did that but no longer had my dozens of tealights. Just got those and oh no! No lighter or matches! I haven't been very organized with this, and this is a pretty boring story but oh well. I finally have it up and running and my house smells of Lilac, it's quite wonderful. I was burning Vanilla Coconut earlier and it was quite nasty. When I worked at BBW I always opened up the candle or oil and smelt it, but when it started burning it was terrible. I'll have to find some more oils, or order them online. That's how I got them to begin with. Buy two oils, get the burner for free! Flower scents are definitely best, but no lavender! Yuck!

Hmm. What else?
I LOVE volunteering at the Humane Society. It indulges the cat lady inside me, haha. On Tuesday I walked in and immediately a Russian Blue claimed my lap while a yellow kitty sat next to me and played with the strings on the apron. It was pretty cute. Soon after a calico kitty wanted to play so I had one on each side of me playing with the strings while the RB was lounging on my lap. Being a crazy cat lady would be fun. It was also quite wonderful anytime someone adopted a cat. It's so great to see. Sweet Owl was still there, the poor thing. She's more friendly but still rather sad and scared so she won't leave her cage. We have three open cat rooms and one with each cat in a cage. Those are for the cats that are either on medication, cats that aren't used to other cats or don't like them, or cats that still need help being social. So sweet little Owl won't leave her cage. She was almost adopted but hissed and scratched when trying to get her in the box. I want to take her home and pamper her... haha. Dixie would be very upset though. Dixie is such a great kitty, I'm glad she's the one I come home to! haha.

Ahh the house smells of lilac again, it's wonderful.

I finished the Cake decorating course!

There it is! The cake is oddly shaped.. Oops. The hardest part was actually icing the cake! The flowers came out amazing, but the actual iced cake is kind of messy. Oh well. That was the first try. I'm very proud of the roses, that's for sure.

Drew and Jamie part 2

Hey there! I suppose I'll split this into the visit and then into a little update.

The second visit was very nice, as to be expected. This time they had a lot of experience with Hawaii and were a bit more adjusted to my time zone.

I picked them up pretty early to drop them off at the Arizona Memorial. I figured that since all the books warn against bags and petty theft that it would be best to take all their bags and not join them for this trip. I went to a friends to finish a movie while they jumped on the boat to see the memorial.

Once they were done I picked them up and we drove to Haleiwa. I found the address for Matsumoto's Shave Ice and figured that would be a fun stop. That's the one that has ice cream and "Azuki Beans" red beans boiled in sugar in the cone before the shave ice. I wanted to try it and thought they'd appreciate the special hawaiian treat. It was tasty! We then went on a hunt for beaches and Giovanni's Shrimp Truck! We stopped on Sunset beach and passed a few others on Drew's list. I did find the Shrimp Truck again and it was just as delicious as the last time.


After our bellies were filled to the top we drove to Ahupua'a O Kahana State Park to hike the Kapa‘ele‘ele Trail. This trail wasn't as kept up as many of the others I've been to so at points we kind of guessed which way to go. It did have a lovely view and we ended up having to walk along the beach to get back to my car. It was a neat thing to see.

We then drove to my apt to relax and so Drew and Jamie could shower up and repack before their plane flight home.

It was a nice day. It was really nice seeing them.