Just for you, Lisa!

Heehee! Lisa always kicks my ass into posting. I love it! Anyway, Christmas was amazing. It was hectic - it always is, but I wouldn't want it any other way. On Christmas Eve, after Josh and I got off work, we drove up to Camp Verde to his parents house. Their tradition is to do dinner and open presents from the family on Christmas Eve. It really works out amazing, since my family does it Christmas morning. So we got there about 6, and Josh's mom made the most amazing mexican food in the world. Seriously, omg, she should open a resturant. It's ridiculous. She made tacos, tamales, red chile sauce, and homemade beans and rice. YUM!
Then we opened presents, it was so fun! Josh's parents got me the most incredible Samsung digital camera ... HAHA! Yes, I went from having zero to two in less than a month. So, now Josh and I each have one (I kept the 10 megapixel tho - haha sucka!) I was very spoiled, I also got lots of clothes for work, jewelry, gift cards, and all sorts of goodies. His family is VERY good to me. :) I think his family enjoyed what we got them too, we got Alina a really nice robe and an Eternity gift set. His Dad the Dexter DVD set and the wine opener set he's been wanting. We got his sister Jordan one of those cute flat wallets and some pj's. His grandpa the Lonesome Dove set and his Grandma a monogrammed letter "F" (for Fant) to hang on the wall, it was really cool.

Then in the morning we went to my mom and her boyfriend's house and got to open more presents!! There I got the Top Chef cookbook I'd been wanting, the House Bunny DVD, (love me some Anna Farris) some Victoria's secret goodies, not to mention some cool things in my stocking like my RED SWINGLINE STAPLER! Yeah, bitches, don't try to take it or I'll set the building on fire! (LOL -if you don't get that, you don't know me at all!) We came back for dinner at my mom's that afternoon she made the best dinner EVER! Prime rib, ham, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, corn casserole, strawberry fields salad, hashbrown casserole, rolls, omg. The food was insanely good. (There's nothing like Mom's home cooking, right?) I got to see Steve's (my moms boyfriend) whole family and they are so sweet. Also my Gramma Luci who I haven't seen in a while so it was wonderful.Later than night, Josh's family had their Christmas dinner (I know, can you beleive this!?) and they made, guess what? PRIME RIB! The food being lavish is an understatement. We had leftovers for daaays. We headed back that night since I had to work the next day (booo!) and although we didn't get a white Christmas, we got a wet rainy Christmas. The drive back was awful between the rain and fog and piling in myself, Josh, our roomate Foreman, our giant Bullie, little Fritz and all the Christmas loot in the tangeRIO! (That's what I call our orange Kia Rio - haha). We got back safe though, and all in all Christmas was amazing, better than any year before. Only 12 more months til next time - and it will be out first Christmas and husband and wife! :)

Engagement photos

Yesterday we met with a wonderful photographer (www.maureenslens.com) who did some engagement shots for us! It's very exciting, because I think I also found my wedding photographer now without even trying to - her prices are very good, she takes good shots, and most importantly she's very easy to get along with and very interactive. So yay! Here's a few of my favorite shots from yesterday, or you can see all of them on my myspace. :)

Company Christmas party

Last night we had our work Christmas party at Gordon Biersch out in Tempe. We had alot of fun! Josh stayed at home with his guy friends to watch the De La Hoya fight, so I took my coworker Susan as my date. :) We had tons of fun! Food, drinks, and great scenery of Mill Ave! We all got watches as our Christmas present from the owners of the company and then had a raffle to win some other cool things we got through vendors throughout the year - anything from digital picture frames, to Amex gift cards, to Ipods. I won a Nikon Coolpix digital camera! Which (as most of you know) I've needed sooo bad! I've been taking all my blog pictures with my phone, that's why they haven't been very good quality. Now, I can be a blogging machine! Lol. :)

Reason #153,697 I love my mom and sister

Today was a great way to start the weekend! After I got off work at noon, I met my mom and sister at this place called The Wedding Accessory Superstore - it's an awesome store that literally sells EVERYTHING bridal related except for gowns. Which to me is nice, it's a one stop shop without the hassle of pushy salespeople wanting you to try on "the newest gown". They were having a fashion show today, which was neat, they all all sorts of vendors there from cake, to photo booths, to Oreos with your face on them. (Disposable income much?! Kinda crazy!) They were modeling some different dresses for bridesmaids and mothers of the bride. I had Jessica try on some bridesmaid dresses and we fell in love with this pinkish one. My ONLY complaint with the dress is it doesn't come in the color I wanted. Coral has such variations. This dress is called coral, but I am looking for more the orange-y/peachy coral. Other than that I adore it and I think all my lovely bridesmaids will look perfect in it - or something just like it in my color. : ) I also got Jess to try on a crazy bright orange one which actually looked really cute on her! But it definitely looks more like a party dress than one to walk down an aisle in. It did get the very rare thumbs up approval though! Afterward we cruised the megastore's invitation section. They have NINETY ONE sample books of invites. I decided I am going to do Cinderella invitations, to tie in the proposal (in front of Cinderella's castle at Disneyland ... are you seeing the theme here?) I want something pretty and simple though, not cartoon-y, something along the lines of this. It's hard to see the detail but it's embossed with Cinderella at the bottom with her carriage . We'd probably do silver font color instead of black, but it's still just a thought at this point. Then we all CRAMMED in the photobooth and took a super cute photo of mom -n- daughters. It was a great day and I am so very lucky to have a mama and sister/maid of honor who are willing and even happy to travel 90 miles just to go to a bridal fashion show. :) I am a lucky girl indeed.

New addtion!

So, we have a new addition to our family. We just became the proud owners of a one year old English Bulldog! No, we were not looking for a new dog - but happened to see an ad on Craigslist (where else?) and we couldn't pass it up. Josh has wanted an English Bulldog as long as I have known him, and everything just seemed to work out getting him. He is a great dog, potty trained and the most mellow dog I've ever seen - a huge change from Fritz who never calms down! They get along great! Oh, yeah, Lisa you will love this ... his name is Tyson. :) He was already named that and it wouldn't really be fair to try and change his name at one year old. He's adjusted pretty well already to apartment living, which luckily he won't have to deal with long as we are moving in January. We attempted to give him a bath last night and it was sooo funny! Definitley a two person job! Twenty minutes later Josh and I were covered in water and dog hair, but he was happy to be clean, he was filthy! Then him and Fritz ate their bones we bought them and watched tv with us. You'll be seeing alot more of this big Bullie Tyson! This is how I woke up the other morning:
On another note, Thanksgiving was great! We had dinner at my mom's first, got to see everyone there and ate my mom's yummy food! Then we went to Josh's grandparents for dessert. Later we caught up with my sister and her boyfriend and went bowling (I sucked!) before heading back home. Who doesn't love the holidays?

Dos Gringos

I just got back from Dos Gringos with Josh, Caleb, Foreman and Rob. Caleb's off his TASC program, so we had to celebrate by doing - what else? - getting completely drunk, of course! Well, not me, I was the super lucky DD. So, it's 12:oo am on Friday, I should get up in about 6 hours for work - and I'm taking care of 4 guys who drank one too many Gringoritas. : ) (Or in Caleb's case a glass of jager, vodka and pineapple juice?! We need to name your one of a kind drink buddy, that's pretty epic.) It was a fun night though, Rockband 2, a concert, and running into my manager ... all before getting kicked out for a reason of which I am not yet entirely sure! After a few ... pit stops ..., a Jack in the Box taco run and helping some boys up 3 flights of stairs, I am now cozily in bed watching some celebreality. Cheers for Dos Gringos!

A night out at Whiskey River

To celebrate ... hm, celebrate? I don't know if that's the right word, but anyway, to celebrate our friend Brittany's move to Tucson with her beau, we threw her a little going away bash at Whiskey River Saloon. None of us had been there before and it was SO much fun. $2 you-call-its? Yes, please. Crowne Royal girls giving out free stuff? I'll take it. Drunk tats at the tattoo parlor next door? Not for me, but Britt was down. Gotta love her. One girl can never have too many butterfly tattoos, right? Relive the night the was the epic Whiskey River:

Dress up and cake tasting

Today was so much fun! My mom, sister and I went shopping at the mall, then had an amazing lunch at On The Border. Tacos and margaritas are always good in my book. After that, we headed over to David's Bridal and tried on some wedding dresses! I've heard some not-so-good things about David's and had an unpleasant experience there myself, so I was less than thrilled to go in and deal with pushy salespeople, but the girl who helped me, Emily, was sweet and cute. :)

This dress is my favorite. I adore the pick up skirt style of bottom and it laces up the back which I love. My mom said it looks like "Belle's" dress from Beauty and the Beast. : )

And this is the princess dress. : ) I like this one too, but it's soooo poufy! It was a struggle to sit down in! It really is a fairy tale dress though! And I love the beaded halter top!

So much fun! I didn't buy either dress yet, because I refuse to buy it the first place I try it on, no matter how much I love it. Plus I still have alot of time to decide, and now I have a really good idea of what I want. I think I know which of the two I like more, but tell me what you think. =D
After that, Josh and I went to our cake tasting at Bamboo Bakery. We got to try seven different types of cake:
Left to right there was white cake with strawberry bavarian cream filling, chocolate cake with whipped cream frosting, pink champagne cake with champagne frosting, white cake with peaches and cream filling, red velvet cake with chocolate icing, lemon cake with buttercream frosting and some yucky espresso cake. :-/ They were all pretty good except for the espresso cake and the champagne cake. Such a pretty name for such a disgusting cake. Ever wondered what carbonated pepto bismol tastes like? Wellllll, I think I have your answer.

Anyway, we chose the first cake with buttercream frosting. Yum, I am so excited! And this is the design of cake we chose:

It's a bad picture, but you get the ... ahem, picture. This cake looks sort of gold, but we are doing solid white. And of course the scroll writing will say: "Joshua & Kristy Oct 10 2009" not whoever those people are. We're gonna add some fresh flowers in our colors, just a few, as to not overdo the already designed cake. Just a touch of a few orange roses to give it some color, and then of course our cake topper.

It was a productive and fun day, just another step closer to the wedding! <3

Petting zoo fun!

I just found some pictures from a few weeks back of when me, Josh, my sister, my mom and Steve went to the state fair. There was a kick ass petting zoo inside! Not just goats and pigs like you normally see at a fair, it was cool. Super cute giraffe!
(LOL - this reminds me of the snl giraffe skit! If you haven't seen it, jump over to youtube. Funny shit!) Josh conversing with a camel! (I heard it was deep conversation).
ZEBRA!

And Mr Billy Goat, King of the zoo:

I love animals I really do. And until we get back to the Phoenix zoo, the state fair zoo suits me just fine. :)

Halloween!

Yeah, so I am aware I am about a week late. I basically just want an excuse to put up this adorable picture of Fritz dressed as a bumble bee:Omg! He hated it so much. Do you see how his head is hanging?! Haha, he's such a silly dog. He liked it until I put the headpiece on. That was pretty much that highlight of my Halloween, sad but true. I had to work at 8 am the next day, so I let the boys go to Tempe Town Lake and I stayed home watching scary movies and making caramel apples with my dressed up puppy. :) Can you guys believe it's already almost Thanksgiving and Christmas? It kills me that I go out to buy stuff for dinner at the GROCERY store and am bombarded with Christmas ornaments and garland ... already! I do love fall though, it must be because I am so over the 8 month summers that now I embrace the sweater weather, even if that is 70 degrees. :) Gotta love Phoenix.

Josh and Kristy's infinite wedding playlist ...

Josh came up with a really great idea for the reception - why not have everyone who is going to be there come up with what they want to hear at the wedding? So, if you are reading this, I need your advice. Leave a comment (if you can't do it here, go to myspace) and let me know what song you want to hear! Fun fun! Also, here's some more little things I've seen on www.theknot.com (greatest website ever) for a few more ... inspirations!


I really like these flowers for the bouquet, I think the colors are beautiful.


I also love these boutonnières for the guys. Anyone know what flowers these are? Some type of lilly?



This cake is gorgeous, in my opinion. A little extravagant, and really I don't need a 4 tier cake, but it's so pretty!


I really like this girl's hair. I definitely want an updo like this. Ok, that's all I can think of for now.






Thanks, Lisa, for getting me blog-addicted. Who needs to eat on their lunch breaks anyway??!

Gettin' married!

Okay. So, my lovely sister Lisa set up this blog for me, since she is many many miles away and still wants to be a part of my wedding planning process. Altogether now, "awww!" Isn't that super sweet? Seriously, I am crazy blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life! But anyhow, here goes with this blog, let's see how far I get before I screw it all up and have to have Lisa log in for me and do damage control. ;)
For those of you who don't know, I am getting married 10/10/2009 to the love of my life, Josh, my boyfriend of the last six years. He proposed at Disneyland in front of the Princess Castle.

Okay, so now we plan the wedding! Here's what I know so far. We are getting married locally, at a hotel in Phoenix, called the Crowne Plaza. We are having a garden ceremony ...

...And having the reception in the Phoenix room of the hotel. Our tentative menu options will be prime rib or asiago chicken, based on how the tasting goes :) We get to choose our cake from www.bamboobakery.com, I am having a heck of a time with that, so any suggestions are appreciated. Go look at that site, but not unless you have a piece of cake sitting next to you right now. Seriously.

Our main color is coral, and going to have accents of variations of orange and hot pink. Somewhere along this color scheme except with more pops of color with the accenting magenta:

I'm sure my mind will change a million times, but right now, I am really feeling this dress for my bridesmaids (who are my beautiful sister Jessica, Josh's adorable sister Jordan and my best freaking friend Caitlin) in a coral color:

In lieu of traditional favors, we're going to do a "candy bar", such as below, but in our colors

I really like these flowers, I want to do something simple with the flowers, I like the garden-y look of these but think I want to add a bit, either with some magenta gerbera daisies or some romantic looking two tone roses, depending how I feel closer to the date :)

I also want to add some flair to the simple chairs outside with some "kissing balls" (yeah, google that! Fun stuff!)

Bottom line, I could have none of these things, go to the courthouse with my lover, get hitched and be on my merry way. I know I would live a life that is just as happy. But I want to celebrate with everyone I love, to celebrate love, and have beautiful people surrounded by beautiful things. I can't wait to marry this man, and I wake up happy every day knowing I am one minute closer the big event!