Girls weekend

A couple weekends ago (right after finals), I had a relaxing vacation getaway to the San Francisco area to visit Emily (and Sam came to meet there from Denver as well). College roommates reunited always = fun times and lots of laughs.

We spent the weekend eating (homemade crepes, authentic Mexican, thai, pizza from Cheese Board in Berkeley--highly recommend it!), chatting, sitting in the sun until we were (ahem...I was) burnt (I know...should have used sunscreen since it was the first time my delicate winter skin had seen the light of day since last August, but it was breezy, so who knew the sun's rays were so powerful?), hiking, flying our cow kite at Berekely marina, and just hanging out catching up at Emily and Bryan's new house. Oh yeah, and we found our bridesmaid dresses at a cute boutique in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood!

We also took part in the Bay 2 Breaker 12K, which was ridiculous. It was like Mardi Gras or a traveling frat party with people of all ages there. Our Where's Waldo team looked pretty awesome in our red/white matching outfits. The funny thing was our idea was soooo not original. There were like five other groups of Waldos. We made friends with them most of the time. But there were also some snotty Waldos that didn't want anything to do with us. Rude. The oddest thing/or at least the thing I guess the race/walk is most known for is its nudity. That's right. One minute you're walking along happy as can be laughing at some tasteful Dunkin' Donut costumes....the next minute you glance to your right and see a naked 70-year-old man with a sun hat on just watching and taking pictures of the parade of costumed people walking past. Yep, I saw lots of naked or semi-naked people. You really have to be bold to do that--lots of groups wanted their pictures taken with the naked peeps. Me? Absolutely NOT. The whole thing was fun to do once -- you know, to say "Oh yeah...I've done the Bay 2 Breaker" and then reminisce about it with your friends who were also there. But would I want to do it again? Umm....probably not....well, maybe I'd run it and finish it ahead of all the crazy costume people (like Sam did this year) and then just watch them all afterwards. Except I'd wear more than just a sun hat. It is good people watching (it's like a crazier, nakeder State Fair).

Here are all my pics from San Fran - just click on the album below:

May - San Francisco

Rings, suits & dresses

Some other exciting things we've done this week is pick out bridesmaid dresses, Eric's and the groomsmen/ushers' suits and our wedding rings.

Em and Sam will be wearing latte-colored, knee-length dresses that we got super good deals on while in San Francisco last weekend. And the men will be wearing khaki-colored suits with white shirts, a brown tie for Eric and green ties for the others. Still up in the air what we're doing with the dads. We'll figure it out soon hopefully!

As you heard previously, Eric made my initial engagement ring out of a Euro and a diamond. Of course, I plan on hanging on to that and resizing it for a different finger (Eric, we need to bust out the knife sharpener again soon. :)) This time around, we ventured to R.F. Moeller in Highland Park and picked out our wedding rings. Mine is technically an engagement ring, but I am sticking with being a little different and just plan on wearing it without a wedding band later. I like the look of it by itself a lot more than with another band. The ladies at the store said "lucky you!" to Eric when I said I didn't want a band. Well, if I had a wedding band, it would block the view of the cute little "peek-a-boo" diamond that sits under the crown and peeks out the side of the band. You don't want to block that - it's my favorite part! See for yourself below.

Photo extravaganza

Can you tell I'm catching up with finally getting photos online today? Here is an album of pictures that Eric and I took in March when we were up north looking for places to have our wedding. All the pics show sites (Gooseberry Falls, Temperance River State Park, Chateau LeVeaux) that look pretty cool in the winter, but will look completely different and beautiful in the summer for our wedding too!

Click on the album below to view all the pics.

Winter 2009 Up North

Here is a brief sampling:

Bring on summer

This is me with my poster at my Adult Language & Cognitive Disorders final ready to talk to people about group therapy for TBI. This was the last final of the semester. Hard to believe that was already 1.5 weeks ago! So far, I'm definitely enjoying my summer with evenings and weekends free to do things such as:
- watch episodes of 24
- watch movies from Netflix
- take Indy for walks and to the dog park
- take care of wedding planning details
- sit in the backyard and enjoy the weather
- spend time with family and friends who I feel like I've neglected for the past semester

Does this diaper make my butt look big?

Spent some time with Finley last night. Although she had been crying a bit, she's still cute as ever. Don't you think?

PS I added more recent pics to my Finley album on Picasa. Most are from my two babysitting adventures with her and Eric.

See the album here.

Word cloud

Here is a word cloud I created using this website: www.wordle.net. It generates “word clouds” from the text listed within this most recent page of my blog. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text.

So apparently, I use the words like, wedding and really a lot!

Where the heck have I been?

Hello dear readers,
I'm sorry it's been so long (almost a month!) since my last post. Life has been insanely busy lately with final projects, wedding planning and wrapping up my practicum in the St. Paul Schools (my last day was last Tuesday...sad...I miss them).

Here is a not-so-quick update of what the heck I've been up to during this long blog absence...

Grad school stuff:

• Doing research about TBI (see post below from March or April). I ended up finding 11 studies, which is pretty good. I'm giving a poster presentation on Wednesday night -- students, faculty and the public (like, real SLPs from the community) will show up and wander from poster to poster and I need to pretend like I know what I'm talking about and give them the quick 'n dirty summary of what group treatment should look like for adult TBI patients.
• Working on other school projects for my motor speech disorders and augmentative & alternative communication classes. Both very interesting, but they give us way too much to do with far too little notice. I'm very over-tired and ready for this semester to be over! (are you bored yet? are you still reading?)
• Finishing up my second year of grad school! Only one more year left! I wish I was done this year...but I know the rest will fly by.
• Realizing that I really like working in the schools! The flexibility and laid-back atmosphere is really nice. I even surprised myself by also realizing how much fun I had working with the kids in the Autism program. I never thought I'd feel comfortable working with kids who are low-functioning, but it was really fun. I will miss them a lot!
  

Wedding stuff:

• Bought some fun paper and other supplies at the Paper Depot (which rocks!) to make wedding invitations. Yes, I might be crazy, but have you met me? I love crafty projects, and I'm hoping to get all paper cut and ready and then have a little army of friends over to form an assembly line of invitation makers. :) Food and drinks will be provided, of course.
• Bought some cute mason jars and different size vases from some garage sales to use as candle holders and vases for centerpieces for the wedding. Here is my inspiration:

• Booked a bluegrass band called The Fishheads! They play a huge mix of stuff, all with a bluegrass twist. I chatted with Kim (member of the band) yesterday, and she wants suggestions for songs or artists to be played at the wedding -- they've done everything from Aerosmith to the BeeGees, so if you have any ideas, let me know! Should be great fun.
• Eric's been doing research for our honeymoon, and the latest and greatest idea is to go to the Loire Valley in France! Oh la la! C'est fantastique! Seriously, best idea ever. We can apparently rent bikes and bike from Chateau to Chateau, drink wine and stay in cute little cottages off the beaten path. Nothing is booked yet because we're watching airfares waiting for the prices to go down a bit. Eric et moi, nous sommes deja practiquer notre francais!
  

Other stuff:

• Eric and I have been doing lots of yard work. Poor Eric tried to plant some seeds to grow vegetables, but Indy saw him digging and thought it'd be a good idea to help...so pretty sure the seeds are strewn about randomly (some in the grass, some in the flower bed...). We might end up with zuccini growing in the middle of our lawn?
• We have tulips in our yard. What a lovely surprise -- they weren't there last year when we moved in, so this was a delightful spring surprise.
• On Thursday this week I will be going to San Francisco to visit my dear friend and old college roomie, Emily (and Sam will be meeting us there from Denver, as well). I am soooo looking forward to escaping for a bit and taking a much needed vacation after the stress of this semester. We're planning on running/walking the Bay to Breaker 12K, which is a pretty well-known run through San Fran that involves people wearing costumes and sometimes having adult beverages along the way... Our team is going to be dressed as Where's Waldo. :)

If you've gotten this far, I would like you to leave a comment consisting of your favorite song to hear at a wedding. Thanks. :)