May Goals + April Recap

Happy May, friends! I am so happy to be right in the thick of spring, with summer starting NEXT MONTH! Spring is my favorite season closely followed by summer, and springtime colors in LA have not disappointed so far (the pic above is from my backyard, which has blossomed so much lately). 

April was a good month. It could have easily felt hectic and overwhelming, but it really didn't because we (especially Grace) were intentional about boundaries and balance. We had houseguests (each of our moms) for two weeks straight and then immediately after that I was in Boston for the better part of a week, so the majority of the month was different than "normal" life for us, which made it go by super fast. That said, I made a ton of wedding progress and at this point there is nothing stressful hanging over my head with wedding planning, which is an amazing feeling! Planning keeps getting more and more fun, because at this point I'm getting to pick out the little details and extra, special, over-the-top stuff, which I have been waiting my whole life for.

There were a few things left undone/pushed to May from my April goals, but overall I feel accomplished from the past month. Here's how I did:

• Have a successful Boston trip--yes! It was really good and important for me for a lot of reasons
• Take my wedding dress in for some minor alterations--made an appointment with a seamstress, taking my dress in next week
• Book all wedding-related transportation--yes! This one was stressing me out, but what I ended up booking seems perfect and affordable so I'm really happy
• Book hair and makeup and schedule a trial so I can see what it will look like for the wedding--yes! I have my trial this coming weekend :)
• Get thank-you cards and start writing them for gifts we've gotten so far--ordered custom thank-you cards, haven't started writing yet (because I haven't received the cards yet) . . . Definitely changing that this coming month
• Finalize vintage furniture rentals and lighting setup at the venue--yes! Deposits paid and plans laid
• Order signage and details for our reception--yep, what did people do before Etsy?!
• Finish booking accommodations for every night of our honeymoon--yes and omg, I am SO EXCITED for our honeymoon. Pinch me
• Finalize all gifts I'm giving at/around my wedding (for my bridesmaids, for my family, etc.)--just a couple of small gifts left to get, but I have gifts for everyone in my family and my wedding party and I can't wait to give them!
• Meet with our officiant to start mapping out how our ceremony will go--not yet, doing that this month. We saw our officiant a few times this month but haven't been able to figure out a time to meet about our ceremony yet
• Do a cake tasting--booked, but haven't gone yet. We are doing our tasting in two weeks

And now my May goals:

• Meet with Rev. Ed (our officiant and dear friend) to plan our ceremony
• Order and design ceremony programs
• Send out our wedding invitations
• Decide on all music and give notes to our band about what types of music we want played at our reception
• Decide on and purchase all details for reception (little things like cake toppers, decorative ribbon, etc.)
• Shop for and purchase our wedding rings (!!)
• Catch up on thank-you cards I need to write
• Blog a home tour (have been wanting to do this for so long and feeling like our house is finally ready!)
• Decide on some additional honeymoon details and gather recommendations (if you have favorite things in Maui and/or Kauai, I'd love to hear them!)
• Shop for and purchase my wedding shoes
• Really soak in being engaged. Only 3 months left!

Wishing you a sweet month!

Q & A With Grace

Hi everyone! As you might have seen on my Instagram, we are now less than 100 days out from our wedding! I'm feeling all kinds of sentimental these days and relishing this season of dating/engagement that is about to come to an end (to make way for the best chapter of all). We are almost all done with our premarital counseling, so I feel like we know each other better than ever and have really gone over the ins and outs of our relationship, dreams, goals, personalities, etc. With that in mind, and in response to questions I got in my reader survey from a few months back, I thought it would be fun to do a little Q&A with Grace on our relationship. We answered the questions separately and then I pasted them into this post, so we weren't influenced by the other person's answers. Enjoy!

Do you remember the first thing you said to one another?

G: I don't remember the first thing we said to one another, but I do remember the first time we saw each other. We were in a class so it was probably our names.

E: Yes, I remember the first second I saw Grace and exactly what we both said. It was December 2012. I walked into a pre-semester meeting for a new class we were both signed up for in the coming spring (also side note what was wrong with that professor?! Having a meeting before the semester started? That's not right, haha). Grace was there already, which looking back is funny because I'm usually more on time than she is. I'm pretty sure she was wearing purple sweatpants. The professor was going around and asking where people were from, and when I found out Grace was from Belgium, I asked why she didn't have an accent or if she was faking an American accent. COOL. That's not weirdly judgmental or nosy at all... Then Grace put on a perfect French/Belgian accent and started talking like that to show she could do both (she's very interesting in that Belgian people can't tell she's a native English speaker and Americans would never guess she's also a native French (Belgian) speaker).

What is your favorite quality about each other?

G: Lizzie goes above and beyond to make the people in her life feel special. She never forgets a birthday, and can't wait to throw you a dinner party. She's also a great listener. She will be as attentive to friends going through a rough patch, as she will to me complaining about the Hellraiser franchise.

E: If I had to pick one, I would probably pick Grace's easygoing, trusting perspective on life. Even though we both get the blues every now and then or get anxious about something specific, Grace is SO good at keeping perspective, not sweating the small stuff, and snapping me out of it if I'm ever in a spiral of worrying or negative thinking. Grace really does trust that it will all work out in any given situation, which is such a good quality for me to be around.

Who said I love you first?

G: I did. I was waking up from a nap and it just came out.

E: Grace did, a month after we started dating, right after waking up from a nap.

Who is the messiest?

G: She is. I'm not kidding. That's the gag of the season.

E: Me, which is SO CRAZY because I never in a million years thought I'd marry someone cleaner than I am. I am pretty clean, I probably clean the house a couple times a week and generally like things to be tidy. But Grace will not sleep if even one thing is out of place. It's kind of fun being the "messier" one, because I never imagined that could be the case.

What is something people don't know about your (soon to be) spouse?

G: She has just as many weird voices and characters as I do. Ask her about The Yukon Shrew.

E: This is hard, because I feel like Grace is a pretty open book. I guess I would say one thing that some people might not realize is how sensitive Grace can be. People might guess that I'd be the main one needing a shoulder to cry on or getting hurt feelings easily, but I'd say it's about equal between us.

Do you ever fight?

G: Not really. We disagree plenty, we are very different people. But we don't get into fights with each other.

E: No, we've never had a fight. I don't say that as a way of bragging or a badge of honor, it's just true. I don't think fighting means you're necessarily in a bad relationship. It's just not in either of our personalities to fight. We've raised issues with each other and had tough discussions every now and then, but we've always gotten over it within 5 minutes. Grace is so so forgiving and humble, she would never make me try to earn forgiveness if I did something to bruise her feelings. She just forgives and truly moves on and never brings it up again.

Between the two of you, who would you generally say is the money spender and who is the money saver?

G: Lizzie is great with saving and budgeting. We both like to splurge, but I would say I can be more of a spender than her.

E: We have actually been talking about this a lot lately in premarital counseling, because I know that financial struggles are one of the biggest sources of conflict with newlyweds (so we want to address it beforehand!) I would say that we're both generally savers who have no problem with treating ourselves and choosing nice things when it matters. For instance, when we were furnishing our first house together, we rarely made decisions based solely on price and finding the cheapest option--we made decisions based on how long things would last, the quality, and whether they fit our style and would be something we'd be proud to have in our home together. Same with our wedding and honeymoon. These things happen once in a lifetime so it's just not worth skimping for the sake of skimping. I also really cringe at being cheap when you don't have to be. So I guess we're practical people, with a touch of champagne taste :) But for daily decisions and ongoing payments, we try to be frugal and wise, and we have some exciting goals for how much money we want to save as newlyweds. I trust Grace completely; we are combining our money into a joint bank account asap after we're married and I have no worries at all about doing that. 

Who takes longer to get ready?

G: Me because I change my outfit at least 3 times before deciding on anything.

E: I think usually Grace, but we might be tied. Neither of us takes long to get ready. 

What was your first road trip together?

G: I think it was to Kern River. My first camping trip too!

E: A weeklong trip in summer 2015 from Sonoma (Northern California wine country) to San Diego. We slept under the stars, had a private tour and tasting at a hilltop winery all to ourselves, played on the beach with Casper in Big Sur, saw Joshua Tree for the first time, fell in love with Pismo Beach (which we'd never heard of previously), treated ourselves to a night at the Ojai Valley Inn and Spa, and started a lifelong hobby together of road tripping with dogs.

*Note--Grace is right, Kern was our first road trip... I was thinking along the lines of a multi-part trip I guess.

What part of your wedding day are you most excited for?

G: I'm excited for all of it - but I'm especially excited to celebrate the day with some dear friends and family who are coming to Malibu from all over the world. We feel really blessed to have such a great support system.

E: Our vows. We wrote them recently and they're so good. After saying those words, I'll be on cloud 9 no matter how the rest of the day goes!

Thanks for reading! xoxo

Favorite Podcasts for Road Trips

I don't know why, but it look me a LONG time to get behind the idea of listening to podcasts in the car (or at all). It just was not appealing to me for a while. I had heard that there were all these great podcasts out there, and people seemed to really like them, but I felt like I would be bored.

Well, I finally opened my mind to this awesome medium a few years ago (mostly through Grace intentionally choosing podcasts for our drives), and today I want to share what some of our favorite podcasts have been for road trips! In my experience the best podcast recommendations have been through blogs or word-of-mouth, so I hope you find something new that you enjoy listening to. If you have suggestions you think Grace and I would like, I'd also love to hear them!

Here are some that we've gotten really into:

Generation Why - the two hosts get together and discuss a case or mystery each episode. They usually discuss famous/infamous murders, but they also discuss mysteries like the Titanic conspiracy theory (that they totally debunk), Princess Diana's death, and others. This is one of the few murder mystery podcasts Grace will listen to (because she wants to avoid parallel thinking for her show Murder with Friends), because it's a different-enough concept. That said, if you like her show, I'm sure you will love Generation Why.

Young House Love - actually, this is one that I'm just into on my own (I haven't had Grace listen to it but it's more my style than hers). It's a married couple who are somewhat of experts in home decor and renovations, and each episode they discuss common questions and new ideas related to those concepts. I was skeptical when I heard about this podcast--how can a non-visual medium deal with design and decor in an interesting way? But trust me, they really do! If you're at all interested in DIY, home decorating, etc., check out Young House Love.

Serial - this one kind of goes without saying, as it really revamped the whole podcast genre and was incredibly popular. I'm guessing you've already listened to it. If you haven't, this is a great introductions to podcasts and will convince you of how riveting they can be. Note: I tried listening to Season 2 and didn't like it, I'm sorry to say.

S-Town - initially along the same lines as Serial (same producers, I believe), S-Town is a captivating and wildly fascinating podcast. It's the first podcast Grace and I listened to on our Alaska trip, and we were both completely engrossed for hours. I will say, without giving anything away, the themes and topics were VERY different from what I was expecting, and very different from Serial. I promise, this one is worth listening to.

Criminal - this podcast has one of my favorite narrators, Phoebe Judge. Just love her voice. She discusses different crimes and a whole variety of things that somehow involve criminal justice (the theme is very broad). Every now and then there's an episode that's a miss for me, but most are hits. They're pretty short episodes, which is nice if you just have an average-length commute and want to hear a good story.

You Must Remember This - one of Grace's all-time favorites. It discusses the secrets and forgotten histories of Hollywood's first century. Grace is an old Hollywood fan and knows all the old movie stars' names, which I think most people have forgotten (which is kind of the theme You Must Remember This explores). If you are interested in old Hollywood, this is a great podcast.

In the Dark - Grace and I each (separately, on our commutes) recently listened to this podcast, and we agreed it was one of the most riveting we'd listened to in a long time--for us, up there with Serial and other "greats". It's been out for a couple of years, but I hadn't heard of it until recently. The subject matter is dark (as the name might suggest), but it's incredibly compelling and highlights an important area of criminal justice/social policy from a perspective I had never thought about. Season two (about a different case) is coming out next week, and I'm looking forward to listening.

Heaven's Gate - we listened to this podcast last weekend on our drive to Jamul (check out my recap of that trip here). Sometimes the narrator was a little cheesy or overly dramatic, but the basic topic (the Heaven's Gate cult and the mass suicide in San Diego) is SO interesting. I didn't know much at all about the cult, so I was hooked on this podcast and learned a lot about a strange little slice of history.

Honorable Mentions - these are a few that I wasn't glued to, but definitely still entertained us on our long Alaska drives (and I'm sure they're exactly someone else's cup of tea):

Up & Vanished - this podcast is about the disappearance of Georgia beauty queen Tara Grinstead. The story is horrifying and compelling, but the narrator just wasn't my favorite. We didn't end up listening to the end of this one. I also felt like there were entire episodes that didn't go anywhere and could have been cut out of the series. That said, if you have a particular interest in this case, the podcast goes really in-depth about it.

Someone Knows Something - kind of the same issue; slow podcast, not my favorite narrator. But again, very interesting case, and took place in Canada, where we were traveling at the time.

Missing & Murdered - we listened to this because it deals with Alberta Williams, who (it is suspected) was murdered on the "Highway of Tears." We drove the Highway of Tears (a highway in rural British Columbia where a high rate of women have gone missing and/or been murdered) for a couple of days on our Alaska trip, and--I have no idea why--we thought it would be "fun" to listen to a podcast about it. Well, we didn't get up getting scared, which goes to show you the podcast was a little dry. Side note - you can find out more about the Highway of Tears here. We felt perfectly safe our whole drive.

Happy podcast listening!

Jamul Hipcamp Trip Recap

We had the best time this past weekend camping at this Hipcamp in Jamul, California! I posted a bunch of pictures and videos on my Instagram stories and got some questions about the details, so today I'll share them all plus some of my favorite pictures we took. The first thing I'll say though, is that if you don't have an SUV with 4-wheel drive, you will NEED to rent one to be able to go here. This was the second-worst road we've ever been on, but it was so worth it to get to this at the top:

As you can see from some of the pictures above, although it was remote, there was actually a lot set up at the site. There was a big platform with a table, a space to hang a hammock (we brought our own), a small outdoor kitchen (propane stove, sink with running water, and prep area), and plenty of room to lounge. Above that, there was a little house with a slanted roof that you took a drawbridge to get to:

And then there was the green safari tent pictured above, plus a bathroom! The bathroom was SO cool. It was built onto the side of a rock, so it was a little treacherous to get there, but it was all part of the adventure :) Plus, having a flushing toilet and a sink to brush your teeth in while camping was incredible.

Never thought I'd post a pic of a toilet on my blog--but I've never seen one with a view!!

Best bathroom view I've ever had.

In case you can't tell from the pictures, the bathroom actually had privacy from the campsite area--the open air part of it only faced out to 160 acres of empty space! It was such a unique and cool concept. This Hipcamp is private, so we had the whole mountain to ourselves. And for those who haven't used Hipcamp before, it's like Airbnb but for private campsites. This is probably our 4th or 5th time using it, and every experience has been awesome! This campsite even had super fast WiFi and electricity!

Let's talk about camping food. I like to eat really well when we camp, but also not spend a ton of precious daylight hours prepping. For our dinner, I made a super yummy one-pot meal that used some seasonal ingredients, too!

Here's the recipe: 1 cup orzo and two cups water in a deep cast-iron skillet on a propane camp stove on medium-high heat. Also add in (all at the same time) 1 small chopped yellow onion and 1 bunch of asparagus, cut into bite-sized pieces. I'm not normally the biggest asparagus fan, but they are in season in California and so tender and delish right now!! 

Bring everything to a boil, stirring frequently, and then turn down the heat a little and cook until all the water is absorbed (you don't need to drain this). I also stirred in some onion powder, fresh thyme, and red pepper flakes. When it's all absorbed, take off the heat and stir in about half a cup of pine nuts and half a cup of parmesan cheese, whether vegan or dairy. 

I added a little salt and pepper on top at the end. It was honestly so good, Grace loved it and was going back and scraping the pan clean.

Of course, we had to roast some marshmallows after. Dandies is one of our favorite brands, and it doesn't have any gelatin in it.

Can you believe how perfect this natural outdoor fireplace is?! Grace made a great fire, as always. I don't know how she does it so perfectly every single time. I might have to get her to write a guest post on that topic at some point.

For breakfast the next morning, I kept it simple (and tasty) and toasted some bread on the stove and made peanut butter-banana toasts and avocado toast. A bit of lime and salt and red pepper flakes are the keys to great avocado toast, in my opinion!

This trip was over too quickly, but it was so sweet. We got to play scrabble, look at the stars and the city lights in the valleys below, work on our wedding vows a bit, soak up alone time together, and of course adventure with our dingo dog Willie. We boarded Bean because I was nervous about taking such a small dog to such a wild location, and I'm glad I did. He would have been scared. We want to expose him to camping for sure, but this was not the location to do so! We need to test the waters in the proverbial baby pool first.

We would HIGHLY recommend this spot for camping and would go back, but I do have to caution others about the rough road. It is not for the faint of heart, even if you do have 4-wheel drive. I was literally sweating as we drove up the mountain. But if you are experienced in off-roading, it's so worth it! For reference Grace has a Subaru SUV and we have done worse road before, but this was high on our list of "worst." The Sub could handle it, but I just want to caution people.

I'll leave you with a few more favorite pictures from the weekend! It was impossible to take a bad picture in this stunning place.

April Goals + March Recap

I don't normally like to pat myself on the back too much on my own blog--but I am pretty proud of myself this month! I completed (or substantially completed) every goal on my list, which I haven't done in a long time. There's a old saying: "If you want something done, ask a busy person." I feel like that couldn't be more true in my life lately. I'm busier than ever, but I'm also knocking out goals more than ever. It's a good feeling (though I also know I will be very excited for it to all stop on our honeymoon--check out two posts back if you haven't yet, to see where we're going!).

Because I'm feeling like I'm on a roll, I'm trying to pack even more into April. This month, both Grace's and my mom will be visiting us, I'll be spending a week in Boston, we have several venue and vendor visits for wedding stuff, and my goals are kind of bananas to go along with all of it. Later this month will mark only 100 days left until our wedding, so I'm also making a huge push this month to check a ton off my wedding planning list. It's starting to feel so real and I just can't wait for that sweet day.

To recap, here were my March goals:

• Do my taxes by myself for the first time ever--yes! Done & done. Excited for my refund to arrive.
• Decide on our wedding cake--yes. Decided where to get it and our general vision; need to schedule tasting (one of my goals for April, as you'll see)
• Book our honeymoon (!!!)--booked our flights and some accommodations. Our dates are officially set and we know everywhere we want to stay, I'm just waiting to book some things until later this month because $$$. For the most part I'm paying for everything in advance because you often save a ton when you do that! (rather than booking now and not paying until you check in)
• Make a plan for our premarital counseling with our officiant--yes. In case you're curious, here's how it works, at least for us (I had no idea how any of this worked until this past month): we plan out our ceremony with our officiant, i.e., readings, music, what he'll say, etc. Then separately, we meet with an actual therapist (our officiant is a priest, not a therapist) for premarital couples counseling. It's a requirement of the Episcopal Church, just to make sure you're in good shape and on track for a forever marriage! I couldn't agree more that it's super important and worthwhile. We had our consultation with our counselor and like her a lot. We're going to go through several sessions every other week for the next few weeks.
• Design and order our invitations--yes! They are being printed now and I can't wait to see them in person!
• Plan my mom's visit and prepare the house--yep! She gets here in two days and I can't wait
• Make an appointment with a dog behaviorist --yes, we are starting to learn a lot more about what makes our dogs tick and how to make sure we are maintaining harmony in the home. If you can't tell, we are big believers in seeking out help--whether counseling, dog training, etc.--to me it will never be wasted money (as long as you're working with someone you trust).

And now for my April goals:

• Have a successful Boston trip
• Take my wedding dress in for some minor alterations
• Book all wedding-related transportation
• Book hair and makeup and schedule a trial so I can see what it will look like for the wedding
• Get thank-you cards and start writing them for gifts we've gotten so far
• Finalize vintage furniture rentals and lighting setup at the venue
• Order signage and details for our reception
• Finish booking accommodations for every night of our honeymoon
• Finalize all gifts I'm giving at/around my wedding (for my bridesmaids, for my family, etc.)
• Meet with our officiant to start mapping out how our ceremony will go
• Do a cake tasting

I hope you have a wonderful first full month of Spring! xoxo

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter Sunday, friends! As I got up early this morning and walked Jellybean, watching him bound through fresh spring green grass taller than he is (ha!), I felt these words on my heart that I wanted to share in a short post.

Years ago, I heard this Easter message: "The worst thing is NEVER the last thing." That's what Easter is all about. Whether or not you celebrate Easter, I hope this is encouraging and hopeful for you.

Have a beautiful Easter Sunday!

Our Save the Dates

Today I wanted to share the vision behind our save the dates and some photos! The photo above is what our cards (front and back) and envelopes ended up looking like. The black and white heart tape wasn't part of it--I just had to cover up some personal information for the photo :) Also, if you tilt your head and read the address, it's a made-up one just for fun! But it gives you an idea of how we addressed everything.

I love paper, and writing letters to friends and family is one of my main hobbies. So when it came to planning out our save the dates and invitation suites, I knew I wanted them to be really special and meaningful. There are SO many things you can do with save the dates these days--you can make it into a magnet, do online save the dates, and a couple of people even suggested that they aren't necessary (with love, I disagree). I knew for mine I wanted to stick with a regular paper invitation style, but I thought that save the dates were the perfect time to go a little more bold and fun than I wanted for our actual invitations (which will be a mostly black-and-white, classic style). 

I designed our save the dates through Artifact Uprising, which is a company I've loved for years and ordered a lot of printed photos and photobooks through. I thought it would be fun to use a photo of us on the save the dates especially since I knew I wouldn't want to include one on our invitations. Our good friend Molly sweetly met us for brunch and then took some photos of us hanging out in Elysian Park for us to use on our save the dates. Here were some of the outtakes that we didn't end up using (but also loved):

Once we settled on which photo to use, I thought the rest would be easy . . . until we had a mishap that was totally my fault! Grace posted about this in her Instagram stories a few months ago, but I forgot to put the date of our wedding on our save the dates. Literally the point of sending save the dates is to let people know the date of your wedding in advance. And I just completely forgot to put it on there! I ended up hand writing in the date at the top of each card, as you can see in the photo at the top. I had a few people tell me they thought it was intentional and added a sweet personalized touch. I'm not sure if I believe them, but I'll try to choose to think that :) Ultimately, it was a good learning lesson that something like a save the date mishap is not even close to being the end of the world in terms of wedding planning.

When it comes to mail, stationary, and invitations, I believe that the packaging is almost as important as what's inside! Seeing a beautifully addressed envelope with interesting stamps in my mailbox always makes my day, so I wanted to provide that for our guests when they received our save the dates and give them a glimpse of our wedding style. I used a metallic gold pen to address our invitations and picked a suite of three stamps that I used on each one. Here's a tip if you love the look of multiple stamps, but the weight of your invitation only needs 1 forever stamp: the US Postal Service website has tons of low-denomination stamps you can order online! I used stamps that were only worth a few cents in addition to forever stamps, really just for decoration and to say a little bit about ourselves.

I used the National Park stamps as our main stamps, as a nod to our love for camping and trips to national parks with our dogs. Then I added low-value seashell stamps, reflecting the fact that we're getting married in Malibu, and 1-cent apple stamps, mostly because they were cute and only 1 cent each. But also, fun fact, one of the first conversations I had with Grace's mom was about our favorite varieties of apples. So I like to think it's a wink to that, too!

We also ordered a few sheets of international stamps. It's only $1.50 to send a letter anywhere in the world! So cool. For our international guests, we just used those. Some of our invitations actually made it to London before they made it to some of our stateside guests.

Thanks for reading! I hope to share more wedding updates and details soon!

Deciding Where to Go for Our Honeymoon!

I am so excited that we will be spending a couple of weeks in the great state of HAWAII for our honeymoon! I have been to Hawaii with my family and absolutely love it there, but I've only been to the islands of Oahu and Hawaii (known as "the Big Island"). Grace has never been. We will be spending half of our time on Maui and the other half on Kauai. Today I want to share a little bit about how we chose this destination and our process for planning so far. Once we've actually planned out the trip a bit more, I'll do a post about planning the trip, similar to my planning for Alaska post. This one is more just about how we decided where to go for our honeymoon :)

How We Decided Where To Go

First of all, Grace is an angel and would have let me pick literally anywhere in the world I wanted for our honeymoon. I thought about the following: Santorini (I went two summers ago and it's unreal beautiful); an Africa tour (one of my other all-time favorite travel destinations; I've spent time in Zambia and Botswana and would love to go with Grace to South Africa, Madagascar, and the Seychelles); OR a big US road trip where we could bring the dogs and take ferries to places like the San Juan islands off of Washington.

So why did I pick Hawaii? A few factors. First, although I love adventurous travel, I wasn't really looking for that in a honeymoon destination. I really wanted something relaxing, stress free, and easy for our honeymoon. I want to do a huge Africa trip at some point with Grace, but that's a logistically complicated trip. And as BEAUTIFUL as Santorini is, it really takes a full 24 hours to get there from California. In addition, all of those places involve a different language, different currencies, passports needed, etc. Hawaii is just incredibly easy.

• You don't need a passport (as a US citizen). We both have passports but it's one less thing to worry about and potentially lose/forget
• There are ONLY nonstop flights from California. There's literally nowhere to stop because you're just flying over the ocean! And you can get there in under 6 hours
• The time difference is minimal (3 hours from California)
• Currency, language (for the most part), etc. is all the same as the US

Again, I'm a pretty experienced traveler but just for purposes of our honeymoon, I really want something as simple as possible! Hawaii fit the bill.

One other factor is gay-friendliness. With the exception of severe cases of homophobic places (i.e., Jamaica), I try not to let this determine my travel destinations. I'm not offended if people in certain countries assume we're just friends or sisters traveling together; if we can fly under the radar and experience beautiful places on earth, I'm all for it. We live in West Hollywood so I generally assume that anytime I leave my home it will be to a place less gay friendly than where I live, haha. As a gay couple it's common to turn heads in certain places where you travel (in the Yukon Territory of Canada and some parts of Alaska, for example). But for our honeymoon? I want the red carpet rolled out, champagne upon arrival, the whole enchilada. I don't want people asking if we're friends or assuming we want two separate beds in our hotel room. Of course, that can still happen anywhere, but Hawaii is SUPER gay friendly (it's the rainbow state after all!), so it lessens the chance :)

If you saw Grace's IG stories a few weeks back, you might have seen that I made a PowerPoint going over the different options of which islands we could visit in Hawaii during our honeymoon. It's true! I am a planning nerd at heart.

Picking Which Islands to Go to in Hawaii

This part was surprisingly easy. I'd already been to Oahu and Hawaii (the Big Island), and awesome as they were, I wanted to go somewhere new that Grace and I could both experience for the first time together. The other inhabited islands in Hawaii include Maui, Kauai, Lanai, Molokai, and Nilhau. Molokai and Nilhau are very different from the rest and don't include large resorts or many amenities (you actually can't visit Nilhau without an official invitation). They probably don't have the best "honeymoon vibes," at least based on what we're looking for. Lanai is tempting, but out of the three (Maui, Kauai, and Lanai), it feels like the one I can skip for whatever reason. I've heard so much about Maui and Kauai and so those were the ones we settled on visiting.

Deciding What to Book First

I have been getting super antsy and excited about booking our accommodations (there are so many good ones on Maui and Kauai!), but ultimately I realized I needed to book our flights before anything else and I'm glad I did! I found a great fare and our flights were completely free with all the credit card points I've racked up. I also booked our first three nights at a resort in Wailea (a town on Maui) that I am super excited about. I have a few more accommodations, plus our car rentals, to book and then we'll be set! Also, at the strong urging of a few people, especially my best friend Sarah, I made a reservation for Mama's Fish House on Maui! I don't want to make too many reservations or pre-set plans, but I think booking a few key things that we'd otherwise miss out on without advance reservations is worth it.

What I'm Most Looking Forward To

I'm excited for our first totally carefree, no responsibilities vacation . . . ever! Don't get me wrong, our dogs are my babies and I love them so much. But we always take them with us (hence the title of this blog), which makes vacations a lot more active because we have to be on a stricter schedule with dogs' feeding, walking, etc. This will be one of the first vacations we've really ever had time to just sleep in, spend our days with no schedule, and be super lazy and do things on a whim whenever we want. In my experience, Hawaii is a great place to have no schedule, so I'm just so excited to be lazy with Grace. 

In terms of the actual islands, I think on Maui I'm most excited to drive the road to Hana and on Kauai I'm most excited to see the Na Pali coast (where a lot of iconic tropical movies were filmed like Jurassic Park). I think Hawaii will be the perfect mix of having plenty of things to do but also being on "island time" when we want to just relax and soak in the fact that we're married!

Why We Opted Against a Road Trip and Traveling with the Dogs

In this post, I talked about being torn between two potential honeymoon destinations but didn't say what they were. Well, the two things I was torn between were (1) Hawaii, which ultimately won and (2) taking a big wild road trip with the dogs, seeing Vancouver again, taking ferries to the San Juan islands off of Washington, exploring Montana, etc. To me, that second option is still SO tempting and something I hope we get to do at some point. But I decided on Hawaii because I want to prioritize relaxation and I want to focus on JUST us. A lot of our lives revolve around our dogs' schedules (in a good way) but we are the only people in our marriage--so I want to slow down and remove all distractions during our honeymoon. And while a road trip definitely puts me at peace, there's a difference between being at peace and being totally relaxed. I'm hoping Hawaii will give us both!

When We're Leaving

We are leaving on Monday morning after our wedding! I feel like the idea of being whisked away to your fabulous destination immediately following your wedding is super romantic and dreamy, but not very practical. We want to spend part of Sunday with our guests who are still in town and also have time to get organized with the dogs and not be rushed with packing and everything. We also might want to sleep in on Sunday morning and not be worrying about getting to the airport! So a Monday morning departure is perfect. With the time change, we'll be in Maui before noon! On the other end of the spectrum, I know it's also pretty common nowadays to wait a while after the wedding before honeymooning. I think that's a great choice too as it prolongs that newlywed season and gives you something to look forward to. That said, I've always dreamed about spending those first couple weeks as a married lady on my honeymoon. So it was important to me that we go right away (albeit minus one day). 

Thanks so much for reading! If you have any Maui or Kauai suggestions, I'm all ears :)

When You Get the Blues After Getting a Dog

This is the truth: I got the blues after we adopted Jellybean. Bad. I was crying frequently, unsure if we'd made the wrong choice by adopting him, and honestly grieving my old life with just me, Grace, and Willie. I had a constant knot in my stomach worrying how this little crying baby would ever fit into our household and whether we'd ever have peace and quiet again!

Well, here's the reality 4 months later: I LOVE Bean and while my life and schedule has been altered since bringing him home, I also can't imagine things being any different now. And the other piece of that is that yes, puppies do learn. I feel like one minute we were in the thick of house training, worrying that our home would forever smell like urine, and the next minute I looked up and realized I can't even remember the last time Bean went to the bathroom in the house. Grace has been so patient and diligent in training him. We'd never trained basic commands before (because we always adopted older dogs who already knew them), and it turns out it's SO rewarding and astonishing how puppies learn.

Having Jellybean has taught me so much about how things grow. It might sound cheesy or hyperbolic, but watching a puppy grow is pure magic. Seeing with my own eyes these past few months that puppies grow, flowers bloom, wounds heal, and winter turns to spring has been so life giving and special for me.

I wrote once that Casper taught me that all things can be redeemed. I felt so privileged to get to witness his story, from abuse and neglect (and accompanying severe aggression) to the good life in his old age. He died more at peace than I think most humans can ever hope for. But in this new season of life raising Bean, I've learned about redemption all over again, in a different way. I've learned how a new being on this earth sees things and understands them for the first time, and how what seems like an annoying crying baby at first can turn your whole world upside down with love. 

The point of this post is to say this: you are not alone if you bring home a dog (or any pet) and wonder if you're regretting it! I just wanted to share my experience of post-adoption depression in the hopes that it might encourage someone who is going through it. I truly believe that for the vast majority of people, it is impossible to care for a living being and have it rely on you for sustenance and NOT fall in love with it. It's just a biological response. I'm sure there are exceptions, but give it enough time, and I really think that fears that you won't love a pet are unfounded in the end. How long? I'd honestly say it took Grace and me about a month to really love Bean. That's not to say we weren't sweet on him and didn't give him affection and take care of him during that time--of course we did. But to get to the point where I got so excited just to see him when I got home from work (in addition to Willie) and just wanted to scoop him up and kiss his snout all the time, it took a little while! I feel almost weird admitting that, but maybe it will help give someone hope who feels the same.

After talking to a few people who have adopted dogs, I realize how common this feeling is. Grace certainly had it when she first got Casper; she bonded with him quickly but wondered if she was in over her head. And it was hard to immediately love Willie, too, especially while we were grieving Casper at the same time. But I kind of think a puppy has an especially steep loving-curve, if you will. They might destroy things in your house, pee on your nice rug, bark and cry in the night, eat things that give them diarrhea, and generally be a terror. It's easy to miss your old life when things were simpler, and you could sleep in past 6:30! (at least I did). But if you fake it til you make it, I really do believe that your attachment to the dog will catch up with the dog's learning and bonding with you as well. And the good news is that the more bonded you are with the dog, the easier training becomes, because the dog already WANTS to please you. The dog loving YOU isn't always automatic, either! But a dog's love and needs are so simple that a mutual attachment and fierce love is, in my opinion and experience, all but inevitable. A month of waiting for the bond to fully take root will undoubtedly feel like a lifetime, but the years of precious memories and good times as a family are so worth it.

Wedding Planning Update #2

I just realized how long it's been since I wrote an update on planning our wedding! We are now just over 4 months out, and SO much has happened since I wrote my last post about planning.

I have been using a system where I wrote down EVERYTHING that has to happen by our wedding day, which was somewhat overwhelming but good, and then broke it down by month. Then when I make my monthly goals each month, I remind myself of the wedding action items that I designated to that month back when I first started planning. This has been so helpful to make me realize what needs to be prioritized each month. I also generally about once a week try to plan out one "detail" for our wedding. Examples of details include: gifts for my bridesmaids, my day-of-wedding gift to Grace, how to display seating charts, what drinks to serve at the bar, etc. Focusing on one per week is very manageable and fun!

Here's a rough list of everything we have accomplished since I last updated this blog about wedding planning:

• Made an appointment for an initial consultation for premarital counseling (required by our officiant)
• Booked our honeymoon flights and some accommodations (I am so excited to write a whole post about honeymoon planning!)
• Decided on some key details (some I'm keeping a surprise for our guests, so I won't describe in detail here)
• Booked our hotel accommodations for our wedding weekend
• Decided where to get our wedding cake (still need to do tasting and decide on final selection)
• Sent out save the dates
• Designed our wedding invitations and accompanying paper suite
• Booked our florist
• Booked our caterer (SO excited for our wedding food)
• Negotiated to get group rates for hotels and provided info to our guests
• Created our wedding website (I just used the same website builder as I used for my blog, so they look similar and it was super easy)
• Registered for gifts
• Booked our wedding reception band and ceremony musicians
• Booked my East Coast AND West Coast bachelorette weekends (yay for double the bachelorette parties, haha!)
• Started preliminary discussions with our officiant about how we want to structure our ceremony

Whew! I feel kind of tired just looking at this list. It's definitely a lot of work, but I honestly love it so much. Planning my wedding has been one of my biggest dreams my whole life, and to be in the thick of it is pretty surreal. 

In case anyone is curious or in a similar season of life, here are some things I've learned over the past few months:

Catering is hands down the biggest expense. I'm sure there are some people for whom that's not the case, but for the most part, this is far and away the most expensive part of our wedding. The cost was kind of shocking at first, but once you think about the fact that you're feeding 200 people a nice meal, it's not as surprising. I have heard that the food is also one place you really shouldn't skimp, because it's something people will remember about your wedding. We ended up contacting 3 different caterers and while they were all similar in costs, what made us pick the caterer we did was the creativity they displayed. With roughly the same amount of money as the other caterers, they wrote a specially customized proposal for us with fun infused waters and juices for when our guests arrive on a hot day, s'mores toasted to order for the evening, and a ridiculously delicious tasting with fun and interesting items, not your standard protein, vegetable, and dinner roll situation. I don't want to give away our whole menu because I love the idea of surprising our guests with fun details, but I will do a whole post on food after our wedding is over!

One other note on catering: we found that a good way to save money is to have the dinner be buffet style rather than plated. While plated is more elegant, our wedding is going to be an al fresco summertime celebration, so a buffet seemed to fit (whereas an elegant ballroom wedding might feel weird with a buffet). At least for the caterers we spoke with, having a buffet rather than plated saved literally THOUSANDS of dollars. 

Send lots of pictures for inspiration when talking with vendors. We found our florist through our caterer, as they often work together. When we started talking with her, we sent tons of pictures of what we had in mind (let's be real--what I had in mind. Believe it or not, Grace does not have a scrapbook of dream floral designs hidden under her bed, haha!). I think this helped so much because from the minute we got a first draft of a proposal from our florist, it was exactly on point with what we wanted. 

This one is a screenshot from our florist's own Instagram--I sent it to her to show what I already liked from her work and would love for her to recreate for us.

Just like how if you have a particular hairstyle in mind, it's a good idea to bring your hair dresser photos to show what you want, you should show your vendors tons of photos of your style and vision. A talented vendor will be able to incorporate this with their own style, not just do straight copies of what you send them. This is also why it's a good idea to screenshot some favorites from the vendor's Instagram, etc., to show what in particular draws you to THEIR work and what kinds of things you would like to see at your own wedding.

Your fiancee will probably surprise you with what they care about. Don't get me wrong, Grace reminds me every day that she is very excited to finally be married. But out of the two of us, I'm the one making day-to-day wedding decisions and the one who has strong feelings about flowers and details like that. But every now and then, Grace surprises me with something she randomly cares about! For example, I was looking at mock-ups of invitations and liked both of the below (spoiler: neither of these are our invitations, as I'll explain):

Sorry for the grainy quality; these are just pics I took of my computer screen. Anyway, Grace vetoed both of these because she was not a fan of the calligraphy/brush lettering. We ended up going with a very classic invitation instead that I am in LOVE with, and ultimately I'm happy Grace spoke her mind. But that said, it was just surprising and funny that she had a strong opinion about this. If you're in the boat of the person who is taking the lead on planning, I think it's helpful to defer to your fiancee when they pipe up with opinions, especially if it's rare that they have a strong one. 

Honeymoon planning is the perfect antidote to any stress over wedding planning. I'm happy to say that I have not been very stressed throughout the wedding planning process. But sometimes it can get a tad overwhelming or my eyes just get tired of looking at countless different options for things. I have found that planning our honeymoon is the perfect solution for that stress! Even though the two are highly linked, planning our honeymoon is a totally different thing for me mentally. There's also a lot less to plan (which is almost ironic, because we'll be on our honeymoon for two weeks whereas our wedding is just one day. Ha!). Now that I have our flights booked, I'm so excited to book accommodations and make a handful of reservations for things little by little like I did for our Alaska trip. 

Don't assume that people (especially your wedding party) don't want to help out and celebrate with you. Since I have not had many close friends get married yet, sometimes I feel like I'm kind of navigating in the dark in terms of what's appropriate to ask of guests, wedding party, etc. I am super self-conscious about expecting people to spend money participating in our wedding. The thought of asking our bridesmaids to buy expensive dresses makes me cringe, and I wanted to do an East and a West Coast bachelorette so that people wouldn't have to travel too far depending on which coast they live on. All of that being said, I think it's good to remember that these are your best friends and they WANT to be part of your wedding day! I was so self conscious about one of my besties flying down for my bachelorette and also flying for our wedding that she snapped me back to reality and reminded me: "why wouldn't I come to your bachelorette??" So that's been a good learning lesson. I still am erring on the side of trying to be conscientious about other people's schedules and budgets, but I think it is possible to err TOO far on that side.

Case in point of super thoughtful, and willing to help, bridesmaids: one of the gals in our bridal party (on Grace's side) lives in Canada and wanted to order her dress from a company that does easy shipping there, and so she mailed me fabric swatches so I could see them in person before she ordered! We have the best bridesmaids :) And bridesmen. Or brides butlers as I call them.

Registering for gifts is fun but honestly VERY tiring! Not to sound ungrateful in any way--people's generosity with our wedding gifts blows my mind and we've already received a bunch--but just something to factor in if you're going to make a registry! We registered first at Crate & Barrel and we had to take a coffee break in between and then a few times of plopping down on couches in the store and resting. I laughed when after 2 hours, I looked at our list and we'd only registered for 40 items. (Not that 40 gifts isn't a huge luxury to receive, but I want people to have a bunch of options and price points when they look at our registry, so 40 is a bit low for 200 guests!!). We ended up doing our other two registries--at Bed Bath & Beyond and Anthropologie--online. And by we I mean me. It's fun to have the scanner and walk through the store and check everything out, but it's truly exhausting so that's why we opted to build them online for the second two.

Speaking of gifts, one of my oldest and best friends sent this as a surprise engagement gift recently--I can't even believe how thoughtful and special!

That's about all I can think of right now with wedding planning! We are very excited to go back to our venue in a couple of weeks with my mom when she visits. I have a feeling April, May, June, and July are going to FLY by. And then it's time to get married!