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Our wedding invitations! 

Trying to be the most frugal bride I can be, I decided to make my own wedding invitations. It was a little extra work, but actually really fun to do it myself. I found the yellow color I wanted at a store called PaperZone. When I asked the lady who worked there about the paper, she told me some amazing news! The paper came in "parent sheets" - a.k.a. huge sheets of paper that PaperZone cuts down to the size you want it to be. The parents sheets were only $1 each and one parent sheet gave me 30 small sheets!

With my yellow paper already cut down to size, all I did was buy off-white card stock and printed 4 invitations on each sheet. (We drove all the way up to the Everett PaperZone that was going out of business to buy the paper at 30% off. We are getting really cheap in our old age!)

 

Then I hired a professional paper-cutter to cut them down to size for me. He's pretty cute for hired help, I'd say! He ended up not charging me a dime!

Once everything was cut down to size, my bridesmaids Emi and Mollie came over to help me assemble them. It took about 3 hours with all of us working together.

It probably would have taken less time if I wasn't such an idiot! I counted up our invite list to find that we were inviting around 210 people... so I planned to make 210 invitations... Thankfully, after making about 170 invites Mollie pointed out that most invitations went to houses of at least 2 or 3 people. Ahhhh! I have PLENTY of extra invites now! The next picture is of Mollie' fancy double-sided tape tool. It was a lifesaver and really fun to use!

Special thanks to Mollie, Emi, and my hired paper-cutter for making these effective yet inexpensive invitations possible! 

P.S. If you have received an invite, please RSVP as soon as possible! Also, don't forget to fill in your name on the RSVP so I don't get too many nameless RSVPs in the mail. It can be hard to figure out who they came from! :) 

Deer Creek Hike

Okay, so Lowell was going to blog about this hike, but he is making brownies instead. So, I guess I'll take the lead on this one!  Just right off of the I-90 corridor is a little hike called "Deer Creek" that is actually so much more than just a creek...

We did about 10 miles total round trip, but we got to see a lot!

The views from the valleys were gorgeous. 

What you do not see in these pictures are the huge numbers of FLIES. It was a really warm the day we went on this hike, and the flies were driving me crazy. Lowell accidently swallowed one. But not me, my mouth was fixed tightly closed just in case...

 

Look at that picture. We should be on a Nature Valley box of granola bars.

At the top of the hike was a beautiful lake (we forgot the name of it...) where we ate our sandwiches. Lowell was so hot he was determined to go for a dip in the water. He didn't want to get his khaki shorts all wet, so instead decided to swim IN HIS UNDERWEAR. I told him it was gross- almost like a baby swimming in the water with a full diaper, but he didn't listen. So, I did what any good fiance would do, I took pictures of him! Haha! This on is PG for the kiddos...

Sleepless in Seattle

I haven't been sleeping very well because it has been so hot! I'm so cranky and SO glad it is finally Friday!

This weekend (Seafair) should be a blast and I'm delighted to say that the temperature should stay within a normal range. Lowell and I are having some friends over on Saturday to watch the Blue Angels perform since we live within walking distance to Lake Washington. They have been practicing right above our house for the past few days which has been fun to see (but extremely loud... poor Lulu is a little confused...) 

The rest of the weekend will be devoted to doing "wedding chores". It is getting closer and closer. On Wednesday we bought Lowell's wedding ring! I have yet to figure out how to take a good picture of a ring without the picture over-exposing. I tried my best! I'm not very good with jewelry terminology but his ring is white gold, (I believe "brushed" white gold) and those boarders on the edges are "millgrain". That's about all I can tell you!

On Thursday, my bridesmaids Mollie, Amy and Emi met me in the Wallingford neighborhood of Seattle to pick up my wedding dress! I need to get a couple things altered by a seamstress, but amazingly it fit almost perfectly for not being a "custom-made" dress (meaning I ordered a standard size.) Here's to less extra money for alternations! After stuffing the dress in Mollie's car, we went out for a dinner at a new Japanese restaurant and Amy addressed some invites for me in her wonderful handwriting. Sorry, no pictures of my dress YET. :) 

Also, please stay tuned for a post by Lowell! He has offered to do a blog entry about a hike we went on last weekend. I'm excited to see that guy's blogging skills in action! 

What?! A new dining room table?! Woohoo!

I finally convinced Lowell that we needed to buy a new dining room table as a wedding present to ourselves. I have been dying to buy some new furniture for about 2 years. But, with me being in graduate school (and broke as a joke), buying a house, and now in the midst of helping to pay for our wedding, it just hasn't been in the cards! Our old table was your typical Ikea hunk-of-particle-board-junk. It could barely seat 4 people and was so flimsy, I felt like I was 4 years old again playing tea party at my mini table and chairs. 

Well, say good bye Ikea table! I'm putting you up on Craigslist for some extra cash! Someone else will have to suffer with you! 

Having champagne taste on a beer budget, I'd been looking at Pottery Barn and Crate and Barrel and found some tables that I just loved. (How can you not be drawn in by those glossy catalogues with perfect rooms?) But, I knew the accounting department at my residence (a.k.a Lowell) would not approve a purchase with a bigger price tag (He's a financial planner, he can't help it, ya know?) so we found a perfect solution at Cost Plus World Market! 

I was a little nervous we would get another flimsy fake-wood table, but this thing is solid! To top it off, it goes perfectly with our shelves next to the TV! I'm so happy about this table, I even completed a review online raving about it. I know, a bit of a nerdy move, but if people out there are considering buying a table from Cost Plus World Market, I encourage them to do it!

Lowell put it together like a champ! (See? He's happy we got it!)

Of course, I helped by opening the boxes and kindly laying out all the parts...

The final product! 

It has a leaf in it so we are able to make the table smaller if we need the room. Surprisingly, the table fits in our small dining area with the leaf extension. I may just have to go back and get the 2 extra chairs I didn't think would fit... However, I had to make an agreement with Lowell when we bough this that I would not look at buying any more new furniture for at least 10 months! Shoot! :) 

Lake Chelan

August 15 - August 19 Best Weekend EVER!

We rented an awesome house near Wapato for a long weekend with our friends. The house was gorgeous and we had a blast! The weather was perfect for hanging out in the water (in the 90s) while refreshing yourself with some ice cold beverages!

Our friends Austin and Rachel have wonderful parents that let us use their boat. Kelly amazed us all with his crazy wakeboarding moves while the rest of us just chilled out on the boat or floated around in floaties.

We had some pretty intense volleyball games at the park against each other and others who dared to join in. I was reminded once again how much I suck at volleyball and Lowell and the guys were pretty hardcore pretending they were in volleyball scene of the movie Top Gun.

After all that sun, we spent the evenings having dance parties in the living room!

Or playing mean game of flipcup and/or beer pong. One of those things that felt good at the time... but not the next morning... :-) 

Wish it could have lasted longer! Until next year, Chelan! 

Olympic Peninsula Trip

Lowell and I spent part of our July 4th weekend on the peninsula doing some camping and hiking. We drove out and camped in the Hoh River Rainforest. It was gorgeous and really well-maintained. There are rangers everywhere who are thrilled to tell you all about the rainforest ecosystem. 

The Hoh River is glacier-fed and FREEZING cold. We could barely stand to have our feet in the water for more than 30 seconds! We met many backpackers along the way carrying cramp-ons and ice picks who were on their way to climb Mount Olympus.

There's our favorite tree-hugger! That is a giant blue spruce tree that Lowell is hugging. There are tons of these in the rainforest. Also plentiful is good old moss! (see below)

The next day we headed out to Sul Duc Valley to do a short hike to see Sol Duc Falls. It was gorgeous and a really easy hike. I think this was Lowell's favorite highlight of the trip.

On our way home, we stopped to BBQ some veggie burgers at Lake Crescent (east beach park.) I think this was my favorite highlight of the trip because the water felt amazing! This lake has to be one of the most beautiful lakes in all of Washington. It is so clean and sandy and a good swimming temperature. You can walk out for maybe 100 feet or more from the shore because it is so shallow. 

Of course, this post would not be complete without me admitting this one: I made Lowell stop in Forks, WA so I could get my picture taken next to Bella's truck from the oh-so-popular Twilight book series. I needed my vampire fix and how cool is it that these books put a little town like Forks on the map? They even have stores now in Forks completely dedicated to selling Twilight memorabilia (because everyone needs a Twilight lunchbox and thermos.)

My vampire teeth

Oh, Edward... if only you were real...

For Your Viewing Pleasure

Lulu is famous! She is on You Tube so that everyone can enjoy a little Lulu and Powpow action:

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