Social: To be or not to be?

Those of you who really know me know that I am not too social. Its not for lack of trying its just that I don't feel the necessity to be out all the time talking to people I don't know at bars spending money weekend after weekend. I am fully aware that is how you make friends but sometimes I am just too lazy to put myself out there. Some would refer to me as Debbie Downer but hey, its what it is.

I do have to say I have improved these last few weeks! I have been a party animal, saying yes to any invitation that comes to me. I thought it would be more of a nightmare than it has been.

First weekend was a bridal shower at my moms house. Nothing too exciting but I enjoyed it. We then had dinner out with our dear friends Seth and Bea and went out for ice cream with them. So much fun! Hubby and Bea celebrate birthdays really close to one another so it was a sort of birthday ice cream date. Yummy.

Second weekend was a halloween/birthday party for Bea. Games with new people. I only knew a handful and made conversation almost the whole night. But I did become quite depressed after this party due to meeting a man my age going through a divorce. I just couldn't wrap my head around the situation. I felt so bad for him and I didn't even know him. I just wanted to hug this man and fix his relationship. The woman even had the nerve to take his dog in the divorce. He had the picture on his phone as the background and everything! I don't know why it affected me so badly but it did. Divorce isn't a light word or subject. It is something I never want to even consider. We made a deal never even to joke about it so to meet someone in that situation made my heart ache.

Third weekend I had a wedding and a family get together "Tamale Fest 2012". New families and new family members. My sister was the Maid of Honor so I went to watch her run the show. She did amazing and the bride was beautiful and happy. Then at "Tamale Fest 2012" My cousin shared amazing news with us, she is expecting! May 1, 2013 little P.J.J (Pete Jacob Jr) will join this world and I couldn't be happier for her. She has a ultrasound with the baby sucking his thumb! Adorable! By the end of the family gathering my stomach hurt from all the laughter. I love when family gatherings go so well and everyone is happy. I am a sentimental person so those are memories I will always cherish. My other cousin leaves for what he calls it "the slave ship" next week so this was our chance to be around him before he is gone for another 5 months as a sous chef on a cruise line. He loves the job and even mentioned a sweet family discount that I hope to be able to take advantage of in the near future....Hawaii anyone?

All in all I feel that being social has been good for me, especially when good news is celebrated and happiness is abundant. Have a great week!

1-7-12

M&M Wedding day that my grandpa photographed. Here are some pictures that I didn't know existed until yesterday.

Me, grandma and sis

Hubs and I

Attempt at a dip?

Way too much fun I guess....

Reception

The hubs and I had a quickie ceremony on Friday July 16, 2010. (7-1=6, I like how it works out). 

We held a pool party at our apartments.

Our families were demanding that we have a party. We would have been fine with just the ceremony. But alas we must please everyone. 

As hubby and I didn't want a big thing the guest list was easy to create. My family. His family. Best friends. Sounds easy enough. Well, he comes from an awfully large family so just the family was over 50 people. 

Our reception site was easy. For free we used my parents home. They live on 10 acres of property in the country. Private and it had a view. In the planning stages I googled something like "backyard wedding, DIY" and came across my favorite blog that has pretty much inspires my life, Young House Love. Their backyard wedding inspired me to go with lemons and limes for center pieces in lieu of the traditional flowers. Plus they are Duck colors! Go ducks!

 Keg station! Best part of the day was my Paulaner Hefeweizen Keg. 

 In the front of the house we had another sitting station.

 There were so many good ideas for guest books I couldn't decide. On Etsy I found some thumb print wedding trees that all your guests thumb print and make a tree. Then I saw people using Polaroid cameras and having guests sign the polaroids. I opted to create a wedding scrapbook. I thought it would be a good activity for people to make a page with words of wisdom or whatever they liked. As polaroid are expensive and hard to come by I just placed a point and shoot for people to take pictures that I would later print out. 

 The Knot has some favor ideas, and I stumbled upon these on sale. They are plantable flowers so people can always remember your wedding with wildflowers. I thought it was nice. Hopefully the guests did too. This way its not something they don't feel like they can't use or have to keep to display when we come over or something. 

Bouquet toss from my perspective

Bouquet toss from below.

Our cake was from The Desert Tray. 

 Mambo got the first lick of the cake. It was hilarious. Normally I am very uptight I guess you could say so everyone was really worried to tell me that the cake had been "compromised". Well, you saw the keg above, and it was my reception day. I just laughed and surprised the masses.

As we didn't have the traditional walk down the aisle ceremony there was no need for a bridal party. Our niece and nephew were at the age where they wanted to be flower girl/ ring bearer so we gave them the title and bought them cute matching outfits. Luckily for them though, the title came with no responsibility but to be cute, which they are excellent at.

 Other activities we had set up were horse shoes and badminton. Hopefully nobody got bored.

The moms

Obligatory champagne twisty arm thing

I had one cousin come up from California and my other two cousins live in Portland. We stacked on the hammock. Rodriguez's in the front, cousins boyfriend in back. All enjoying none the less.

At the end of the night the "stragglers" decided to take a picture. There was a serious one but I much prefer the sillyness.

After the long day we sat down to open presents. Family friend's 8 year old daughter took pictures.  This was my favorite.

We asked my recent culinary school graduate, Cousin Ben to be our "chef" for the day. He recruited his brother and sister to help with the prep work. They used two of my parents neighbors ovens to cook the food for the day. He created the menu and executed the food nicely. My favorite part was blue cheese garlic mashed potatoes. yum.

It truly was a great party. Afterwards we drove off into the dark night to PDX to board our flight to Cancun. Delicious. I wish I was there now.

Nostalgia

Baby J turns one tomorrow. At the time of her birth we were signing our offer to this beautiful home. So I began perusing our photo files and decided I wanted to share our wedding photos. 

Lets start with how it all began. Back in 1993 when we were kindergarteners at Dilley elementary... Just kidding I wont go back that far. But that truly is where it all began. The date is an estimate. Fast forward a few years and we arrive on March 16, 2010. I arrive home (our apartment) from work to find that Justin has made dinner. Cue the collective "awww" because it was the first time he did this alone. He helps with chopping veggies every once and awhile but not a whole meal. It was tacos. On a tuesday. Every tuesday since has been deemed "taco tuesday" because I am cheesy like that. He was wearing his "nice jeans" (aka the only ones without holes). Afterwards he acts a little suspicious, saying he needs to take the mail to the box. I needed something at the store and I knew there was a mailbox there so I convinced him to walk with me and drop the mail off then.  Then he goes out on the porch. Its March. In Oregon. We never go on the porch at night. Whatever. I start making our favorite cookies, my grandmothers snicker doodle recipe. I hear him talking to someone but don't think anything of it. He disappears into the bedroom and comes out all lovey dovey, big grin on his face. He hugs me. (I have a batch of cookies I need to remove from the oven at this time) He tells me all the things he loves about me. I won't bore you with specifics. I had a feeling something was happening so I got a big grin on my face and he gets down on one knee and pops the question. Boy was that ring shiny. Of course I said yes. And I burned my first batch of cookies. It was worth it. Next day, St. Patty's day, we took the family out to chinese at FG's spot and told everyone. I love all the green at one table.

Fast forward a few more months. J and I are not big party people. I didn't have a pinterest album full of wedding things or know about style me pretty. So we decided the best solution for us was to head down to the court house. Heres a photo montage of the events.

 When you think of court house wedding you didn't think of this did you? I loved it. My parents, grandparents, sister and his parents were in attendance. The fabulous photographer was none other than our dear friend Bea Haynes (Hansen) and her Hubby.

Thats it for today. I have all next week off of work. Want to know why? Monday is the observed holiday for New years and also the Rose Bowl -GO DUCKS! I figured I might want the day off after said rose bowl so I took my Governor's holiday, months and months ago I had asked for January 6th off because my cousin is getting married that weekend so I took a "floating furlough". That left me with a 2 day work week. One of which is my BIRTHDAY! So vacation days it was. To explain the relevance of this I was letting you know I will be posting the rest of our story next week. Its time for work now!

BTW I went to work this week. It was brutal but it felt good to go back. Plus, I am still sick. I just cannot kick this nasty bug, and I think I contaminated my co-workers (oops)