A First Time for Everything.

As a general rule, I have not been a huge fan of the traditional Schnauzer haircut, because I think it makes the dog look fierce, and I would rather my puppy be cute than fierce. However, Idecided to give it a shot just once to see if she'd look okay, and I think she turned out pretty cute! So I think Allee will be getting the "real" Schnauzer 'do more often. :)

A Simple Request.

Hey friends. I'm not usually one to ask things from people, but I have a favor to ask. Tomorrow--or today, depending on when you read this--(Wednesday, July 21st) is my birthday, and I have a simple request: if you read this or think of me, will you do something nice for someone? It doesn't have to be anything complicated, just a little random act of kindness. It could be anything, from giving a note saying something nice to a stranger to being a little bit more patient with your kids to...well, you get the idea. And then, if you have the time and motivation, will you leave me a comment and let me know about it? I was just thinking it would be a cool birthday present to send a little more love out into the world, wherever my friends and family might be. Thanks, friends. I can't wait to hear what you think up! I love you!

They're HERE!

Amy and Ster successfully moved to Portland this weekend! They got here on Saturday, late afternoon, and before we knew it, Sterling, Amy, Wayne and I were neck-deep in unloading the truck and cars and trailer and filling their adorable new rental house with all their belongings. Apparently when the four of us start a project, we're incapable of stopping before it's done, because we got that done lickety-split! In fact, it happened so fast that, when I got there Sunday morning to help them start unpacking and organizing, Wayne had already packed up and headed back to Utah!

Anyway, Amy's friends came over and helped for awhile, and we basically got their whole kitchen put together. They still have work to do, but it's coming together quite nicely. :)

And they'll be here for my birthday! I love this new sister living here thing. :)

THE Hat.

Okay, so I said my next post would be about THE hat, so here we go.

Are you ready?

She had originally told us the hat would be small-ish, kind of tear-drop shaped, and brown to match our dresses, with "a few feather accents" in our individual colors. A couple of the girls had seen some proto-types or tried on very early versions of the hat, but I don't think any of us had seen the finished product.

Until the night before the wedding.

At the end of the rehearsal dinner, she excitedly gave each of us our hats.

Are you ready?

This was mine:

No, I'm not joking.

Yes, I'm serious. :)

Now, I'm not the only one who looked at that and thought, "A FEW feather ACCENTS?" right?

And if you remember correctly, each of us had a different color, so one hat had bright yellow feathers, another bright green, another bright blue, and the last bright orange.

Needless to say, we were all a little...surprised...when we saw the hats.

I will refrain from saying much more about it, but I will tell you that this Chinese man did my hair, and I took the hat in to show him what I had to work with and he created a style that, at least from the back and side, looked pretty cool with the hat.

There was seriously a 2" curler buried underneath in my hair. It was crazy.

So, seriously...what do you think?

MY SISTER IS MOVING HERE THIS WEEKEND!!

Ahhhh, soooo, soooo, sooooo, SOOOO excited to have Amy and Sterling finally here! It cannot happen fast enough. YAYYYYY!!!!

They come on Saturday...wahooo! Safe travels, kids. :) See ya when you get here!

E & G

My dear friends, Ellicia and Geoff, came to town last weekend, and I got to spend a day with them! Talk about two wonderful people--I am BLESSED to have them in my life.

We did some shopping, some talking, went to lunch, explored downtown Portland, visited the Chinese Garden, and experienced the Farm Cafe for the first time (DELICIOUS!!). I love these two, and I'm so glad they are such good friends.

Weddings, weddings, weddings...

Okay, seriously? I go to an inordinate amount of weddings. At first I thought it was because I'm from Utah (let's be honest...Christmas break of my freshman year of college, I went to TWELVE wedding receptions...and skipped four more that I was invited to...it's a little much). And for awhile it was. Now I think it's just craziness.

One of my college friends, Tana Small, married another college friend, Devin Joslin, last month. Devin had been in love with Tana for years, but they just started dating about two years ago. They dated long-distance for a year and a half of their relationship, but it worked out! :)

Devin's had a big year...in the span of one year he got engaged, moved from CO to Seattle, changed jobs, converted to Catholicism and got confirmed, graduated with his Master's degree, and got married. Go Devin!

Anyway, they asked me to be a bridesmaid in the wedding, so that was fun. She told me their colors would be Rainbow Sprinkles (if you're reading that again to see if you somehow missed something...you didn't), which means exactly what it sounds like--all the colors you'd find in rainbow sprinkles, like the ice cream topping. I guess she wanted lots of bright colors, and as a friend and bridesmaid, you just go with it, so I said, "Okay." What that resulted in was every bridesmaid and groomsman being assigned a different color--mine was "fuschia," aka HOT PINK.

We had brown floor-length dresses (that were actually pretty nice--cut off to tea/cocktail length, I think I could totally use it again) with a high waist and a halter top, and our shoes were in the color we were assigned. Yep. Hot pink shoes for me. She also wanted to have a 1930's theme...largely because this girl LOVES hats. And she really wanted all the women in and at her wedding to wear hats, like in the old days. Including us. More about that later.

So, the weekend of the wedding, I drove up on Thursday night after work to stay with my aunt and uncle in Seattle. I met up with a few of the girls the next morning for a little bit of pampering and a lot of last minute detail work.

My toes matched my shoes almost perfectly...but this photo doesn't do justice to how bright the color actually is...

Shiloh (another bridesmaid) and I did a lot of frantic scrambling around, but managed to get the program put together and printed and take care of some things that Tana was stressing out about. We did the hand-off with the programs and I had to run back to my family's house to change for the rehearsal--only to find that Macy's had LEFT THE FREAKING SECURITY TAGS ON the outfit I was planning to wear, and I had NO time to remedy it. Luckily I had brought a dress for church on Sunday, so I threw that on and ran out the door. Literally.

Then I was off to the church, because several months before the wedding, Tana had also asked me if I would sing the Ave Maria at their wedding. I agreed and told her to let me know which version (as there are many). A week before the wedding (no, I'm not joking), she chose Shubert's classical "Ave Maria." Beautiful. And Difficult. So I had a week to learn a classical piece I hadn't sung in many years. Let's just say iTunes was my best friend that week. Anyway, I told her I needed time with the accompanist to run through it, so I went to the rehearsal early. It was an adventure, but it all worked out.

The actual rehearsal was pretty low-key. The wedding coordinator got stuck in traffic and was late, so we all sat around for awhile. When she got there, I would have SWORN the lady was from Brooklyn by her accent and attitude (turns out she was a relocated Hurricane Katrina victim from New Orleans...who knew?). She was alright, but she was frazzled, so she kind of just barked orders at us. The most hilarious thing was that she refused to learn the kids' names, so she would yell, "RING BEARER! FLOWER GIRLS!" and get really frustrated when the four-year old ring bearer and the four and two-year old flower girls didn't know she was talking to them. Imagine that. :)

Bride, groom, and groomsmen at the rehearsal. (I told you she likes hats!)

We made it through the rehearsal to discover that it was pouring torrential rain in Seattle. Lovely. We all scrambled to our cars and headed over to the dinner. The rehearsal dinner was at the restaurant on the ground floor of Tana's condo complex. She has gotten to know the people quite well over the last few years, and they did a GREAT job with us. They treated us like royalty, and we had lots of fun.

Tana's mom and dad. Mom is a public health nurse, and dad is a judge. They are VERY cool people, and super kind and generous.

Tana, Devin, and Chris (a groomsman). They look pretty happy, huh?

At the end of the rehearsal dinner, Tana gave us our bridesmaids' gifts--an awesome folding purse hanger and a water bottle in each of our colors (so mine was pink)--and our hats. Which is a topic I'll save for the next post...to be continued...