Merry Christmas Eve!

Although this is the fifth Christmas Mark and I will be spending together, this is the first year we're tackling the holiday as a couple. In the past, he has given his family priority, and I've given my family priority, and we've met in the middle where we can. This year, we decided to spend time with both families withough splitting up. The resulting schedule is mildly chaotic, but doable.

One of the best things about doing the holiday together, though, is that we've gotten a chance to talk about each of our families traditions and work on blending them to make our own, special Christmas. We started with the tree on Thanksgiving weekend. I can't tell you how much I love our tree. Aside from the ornaments that Mark and I exchanged, there are handmade ornaments from my family members and ornaments that Mark has been putting on his tree since he was little. While we were out Christmas shopping, we picked up the star. You can't tell from the picture, but Mickey and Minnie are sitting on top, and the star twinkles.

One of the big (or, in my opinion big) differences between the way our families do Christmas is that his family isn't big on wrapping things - where in my house, everything gets wrapped. In this case, I got to win on whose tradition we'll be carrying on.

He won on stockings, though. My family never puts theirs out until Christmas Eve. Ours have been out since Thanksgiving. Mark's been sneaking little gifts into my stocking early - candy, chapstick, lottery tickets. It's something his Mom always did, and something I think will be fun to carry on!








We also took on the Huber family tradition of making lots and lots of cookies to exchange at the family Christmas party. Everyone had cookies for us, so I was glad to be able to have some to give out too.

Another decorative touch is the Christmas card door. The cards started out on top of the entertainment center, but there were so many you couldn't see them all - so they got moved to the door. My Mom does it the same way.

There are a lot of other little things that are getting mixed together too. We're shaking up how we usually spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and we'll be going to Christmas mass together for the first time. The blending, so far, feels comfortable - I hope it stays that easy in the years to come!

DIY Parasols

I've seen some really fun pictures of brides and bridesmaids with paper parasols. They seems like such a fun, summery detail so I decided to see what I could do with them.


I bought a dozen white, paper parasols a few weeks ago, but finally had some time last week to tinker with them. I made a big stencil of the S we'll be using in our monogram, taped it to the parasol, gently traced the outline, and then filled it in later with acrylic paint.



I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out, so I used a parasol that had a small slit in it as my first try. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), I really like how it came out - which leaves the issue of the slit. I'm debating if I want to re-do it, or just let it go. I don't think the perfectionist in me is going to let it go, though.

Wedding Day Wheels

I got an unexpected, but very welcome, email from Mark this morning saying that he had booked the limos. This is something that has been sitting on the to do list for months, and really should have been checked off months ago - we had picked out the company we wanted to use, and the limo... and just never found the five minutes to actually make the call and book.

When we first started looking around at limos, we were thinking of getting two. It didn't take us long to realize that was out of the budget, so instead we looked for something that was a little fancier than a regular limo that wouldn't have a huge price tag. We ended up picking a Crysler 300 Super Stretch - only $25 more than a regular limo, and super cute (or, as the website touts, "sleek and sexy").

Hawaii, Here We Come!

Our honeymoon is officially booked! We are beyond excited.

The travel agent we've been working with was on a special assignment today - helping man the AAA booth at the Jackson Outlets. It wasn't the ideal place to sit down and book a trip, but we were so determined to get it done that we decided to make it work. We sat down with Linda at a table in the food court, and twenty minutes later we had everything ironed out and a deposit down.

Linda was amazing. She did a great job of getting us just what we wanted and for a great price, too.

So, the official honeymoon plan is now:

-Flying to Maui on the Sunday after the wedding.
-Staying in Maui for 6 Nights
-Flying to Oahu that Saturday
-Staying in Waikiki for 4 nights
-Heading up to the North Shore of Oahu for 2 more nights
-Flying back home from Oahu

There's also some fun things thrown into there, like a lei greeting at the airport. And the last resort we're staying at looks absolutely amazing! I really can't believe how lucky we are - this is going to be an awesome trip!

A Scenic Tour of Our Christmas Tree

I'm a big fan of sentimental gifts. I'm also a big fan of decorating for Christmas. Given the combination of the two, it's really no surprise that Mark and I have exchanged ornaments every Christmas.

We put our Christmas tree up Thanksgiving weekend and it was fun to go through all of the ornaments we had, together. He had some that he brought from home, and I had some that I had gotten for my Christmas tree in my college apartment. Together, they created quite a mix of fun and fancy... and it's very much reflective of us.

Now that the tree's been up for a few weeks, and I walk past it several times a day, I realize that my favorite ornaments are all ones he's given me. Every year, I'm thrilled with the ornament I pick out for him - until I open the one he's gotten for me. He always does better.

I thought I'd share them with you, so, here they are- Our relationship in Christmas Ornaments!

2004 - First Christmas Together

This one is actually a locket - and opens up to a verse and picture of us. I think it's my favorite ornament out of all of them.

2005 - Teddy Bears

2006 - Our Chrismtas Together

2007 - Christmas Stocking Bears

2008 - Mickey Ears
We picked up this ornament when we were in Disney in October. I like that it's a reflection of what we did that year. We decided to change up our tradition, and pick one ornament together rather than each getting one. I think in the future, we'll be picking up ornaments while we're on vacation. Hopefully someday it will look like a well-traveled tree!

Hawaii Dreamin'

Very early on in the wedding-planning process, Mark and I split up some of the more specific tasks. He took the honeymoon, since he usually does a lot of the research and booking for our vacations. I really have to give him credit on it- he's spent a lot of time reading guidebooks and looking up stuff online about the different islands, hotels, flights... pretty much everything.

It's starting to feel like it just wasn't meant to be, though.

We wanted to go through a travel agent, but since we'd never used one before we decided it would be good to try it out on the Disney trip. Well, the trip went fine, but we decided we really weren't so fond of the travel agent we used... so it was back to the drawing board there. A few weeks ago we went to AAA to see what they could offer, and ended up working with this great lady, Linda.

Linda gave us a ton of options, and some really great prices on things so we were excited - but not ready to book yet. We took all of our brocures and booklets and print outs home to look at them. We've been in touch with her since, changing small details, flight times, etc.

Finally, last night we sat down to go over everything and make some decisions so we could book today. The first thing we noticed was that we had been quoted a special hotel rate, only good until December 1st - uhoh!

We tried to not worry ourselves over it too much, and decided to keep our options open and see what we could do. Linda was optimistic that we'd be able to stay around the same price, but when we went to see her this morning, the vendor AAA uses to book Hawaii trips wasn't open yet - they're based in California and we were about an hour and a half too early. Since we had guests coming, we ended up leaving with another stack of info, but everything still up in the air.

It's a little frustrating. We've been putting a lot of effort into it, especially Mark, and I feel like we're getting nowhere fast. We have an appointment to go back next Saturday - and hopefully book for real this time. Keep your fingers crossed for us!