
I thought I would end the week with this picture of this nice little guy Cobalt and I found in our front yard the other day… So colorful. Also, I love my iPhone camera…
Tag: photography
Fake Married?

Last week, Cobalt and I got the aluminum sizers for our wedding bands in the mail. We each got to pick three different sizes of the same width so we could wear them around for a while and figure out which size was the size for us. Cobalt had an easy time of it, one of his sizers fit perfectly and the other two were either too big or too small. So that worked out for him.
I had more of a challenge. Because this ring is so much thicker than my engagement ring, the largest size I picked out (which would have been too big for a skinny ring like my engagement ring) was actually a little small. It went on my finger just fine but then it didn’t want to come off. In fact, I actually hurt my left finger trying to get the sizer off, which is why we are wearing our sizers on our right hands in the picture. So last weekend, we got to go on a fun trip to one of our local jewelers so that I could ask about sizing. Turns out that the half size up fits much better, going on easily but coming off with just a little encouragement instead of yanking and pain. So yay! We shipped the sizers back on Monday along with our preferred sizes so crisis over. Whew.
Guess what else we mailed on Monday?! Allllll of our invitations. Yay! Saturday was a fun day full of envelope stuffing, fancy handwriting (aw yeah, calligraphy pens), and envelope licking…
We are headed to wedding number two of the summer this weekend and one of my blog friends is also getting married this weekend. So exciting!!! Any fun plans for your weekend? Natalie, I know what yours are… :):):)
Civil Wars Part 2!

A few weeks ago, Cobalt and I got the opportunity to go to a small meet and greet for one of our favorite new bands: The Civil Wars. We got to see them in concert last year and that was pretty awesome but this was even cooler. We showed up to the record store with these bracelets Cobalt got at Record Store day and we were whisked to the back of the store where the Civil Wars performed a very small concert for us (and other people too obviously, as you can see from the pictures). By small, I mean 4 songs. But it was still neat. The sound was really good too for the inside of a record store. Then after the 4 songs, all of us braceleted people got to get in line to meet and get stuff signed by the Civil Wars. They were in a rush so we didn’t get to get pictures with them but we did get to tell them that we are using one of their songs for our first dance song at our wedding and they were pretty excited about that! :) We also got them to sign the EP of that song. Sweet!
Some pictures. Above: wrist bands. Below: Joy and John Paul singing away and then a picture of them signing things! I love Joy’s smile in the last one… Sorry about the crappiness of that picture. My Canon Powershot and I are not currently agreeing on most things picture-like.



Have you ever gotten to meet one of your favorite bands? What was it like? Cobalt was amused by how awkward and starstruck I was upon meeting the Civil Wars… It’s not like I get to meet famous people every day, geez! >_<
Congratulations to a new married couple!

This weekend, Cobalt and I headed to our first wedding of the summer! It was awesome. J looked beautiful in her dress and S looked handsome in his tux. The ceremony was lovely and we all cried like babies. We caught up with friends who we haven’t seen in years over dinner and then we danced the night away! Good times… During the dancing, J and I talked about how exciting this summer is! First her wedding and then wedding number three of the summer is Cobalt’s and mine! Can’t wait! Cobalt and I are sooooo excited right now. :) I’ve been up to a lot of stuff so hopefully I’ll get a chance later this week to talk about it all… but for now, I am celebrating Memorial Day by taking a nap in the middle of the day! I hope you all are having wonderful Memorial Days! Is there anyone you are honoring today?
Pictures: up there! J looking stunning during their first dance – one of my favorite parts of a wedding.
Down here: J and S during the toasts… they were all very good toasts… :)

Ribbit?

This weekend, Cobalt and I went to the Denver Botanic Gardens as part of his birthday adventures and we had a really good time. The gardens are kind of awesome (except the plains one which, in our opinion, seemed a little plain… :-/). It was all overcast and wet outside, which apparently inspired me to be really creative with my photography. I took so many cool pictures with my DSLR… it was awesome. As soon as I can pick out which pictures I like best, maybe I will post some cool flower pictures on here. Today’s pictures come from the rainforest part of the garden (verrrrry humid in there…) where they had some poison dart frogs. The frogs were being a little antisocial and hiding behind the plants in the darker parts of their aquarium so it made taking their pictures kind of challenging (working at really low exposure speeds and f stops…). Which is your favorite?

I like that his little toes are in focus in this one…

One without a flash…
Dress Fabric update (and a day in the city)!
Hey everyone!
Wow… it’s been so long since I updated. Boooo grad school making me do stuff all the time. It’s not like you’re my job or anything… Anyway. Craziness has semi subsided so you get a post today! And it’s a fun one with LOTS of pictures! :)
Also, today is Cobalt’s birthday! Yay! Happy birthday Cobalt! I’m sorry grad school has made a bad fiancee out of me this week but I promise I will make it up to you tomorrow on your fancy birthday outing that I have planned! :D But that’s a secret (for now) so let’s talk about something else…
So last weekend, my mom and I went to go get fabric to make my wedding dress! When you want good fabric for something fancy like a wedding dress and you live in California, there is one really good place to go and that is Britex Fabrics in San Francisco!! So that’s where we went. Since neither my mom nor I really enjoy driving in the city, we decided to make a day out of it and take the San Francisco ferry into the city. It was really fun. Some pictures:

Here is a pic of Mom and me on the boat, ready to go!

Scrarmpl the shark got to come too but after this whole fiasco of him getting on the other side of the railing in an attempt to reach the water, he had to spend most of the boat journey in my purse…

The Golden Gate bridge was being shy/mysterious and decided to hide behind a cloud of fog…

San Francisco!!! So pretty. I like that I got the sail boat in the pic too..

It was windy on the boat… :-/
Anyway, then we got off the boat and walked to downtown San Francisco where Britex lives. It was a beautiful day in the city, perfect for walking around and hanging out with your mom. Britex had a HUUUUGE variety of fabrics in all sorts of colors and patterns. I was drooling as soon as we got inside. Anyway, we found a bunch of really nice silk satin fabrics in all sorts of colors. I actually found the perfect blue I wanted for my dress but when Mom and I put it up to my skin, we realized that perhaps light blue is not a very good color for me. She said I looked all ashy but I thought I just looked yellow. SO I gave up on the plan for a light blue dress and decided I would rather have a color that would make me look pretty instead of a color that I personally like but that makes me look weird on my wedding day. We found this amazing silk satin instead that looks really good with my skin color and it was sooooo soft. I can’t WAIT to have an entire dress made out of it. So exciting. Sorry though, we weren’t allowed to take pictures in the fabric store AND I can’t have pictures on here anyway because Cobalt reads this blog… So you all will just have to wait for that.
Anyway, we went upstairs (Britex has FIVE FLOORS of fabric, people… :):):)) and found some really nice fabric for my mom’s MOtB dress too. I also got some French netting and a comb for my veil/hairpiece thing. I loved chatting with the French netting ladies because they were so excited for me and we talked a lot about how to arrange the netting to make it be the perfect veil/hairpiece. They were very knowledgable and funny. :) So yeah. A good experience overall! And a great day. I love San Francisco. I feel bad though because being there reminded me of how much less I like Denver, CO… Sorry Colorado…
Here are some more pictures:

Beautiful day in a beautiful city. Look at those trees and the buildings and the sky! <3

Saw this guy at the grocery store at home… Totally made me want to buy those nectarines… Haha, such a sucker for shark things.

Cute bunny in Colorado… See, there are things I like about Colorado!
Anyway, that concludes my post for the day. I hope you guys are doing swimmingly! I am off to have lunch with Cobalt for his birthday!!!!! But while I do that, you should tell me some things… Like… what is your favorite city in the whole world? I think it’s a tie between San Francisco and Seattle for me. But there are so many places I haven’t been to yet! Also, I am always talking about sharks in here so what is your favorite animal?
Have a good weekend! :)
Fabric shopping!

Short wedding post today due to insanity continuing in life.
Anyway, this weekend, my mom and I are going to go fabric shopping for my wedding dress (and veil, if you count French netting as fabric)! I am really excited to spend the day with my mom and to finally pick out the fabric for this dress! We are also doing one final fitting with the muslin dress to make sure I like her corrections from last time and then… she gets to make the dress! Should be a good weekend. Updates next week! :D
In other wedding planning news, Cobalt and I have planned our “honeymoon” in that we have decided we are going to go ziplining the day after our wedding before we have to head back to CO and our respective jobs. Booooo time off why are you so short? I am excited that we will get some fun and exciting “honeymoon”-like time together anyway. :) Hopefully we will get to have a real honeymoon sometime in the nearish future!
Have you ever been ziplining before? I am excited now but I am pretty sure I will get nervous when I actually get up there… What is your idea of the ideal honeymoon? For Cobalt and me, it’s a joint trip – first to New York City and then to Paris. One day…
About the picture: I know this isn’t ziplining but it is still a picture of me and Cobalt having fun and there is a rope and some trees in the picture so… I say it works. :)
I love soccer

My friend A and I were talking this last weekend about activities that feel “natural” to us. Like an activity that feels so natural to you that you don’t really have to think about what you are doing. You kind of just go. That is how soccer feels to me. As soon as I can feel my cleats digging into the grass as I sprint towards the soccer ball, I am home. Isn’t that a relaxing feeling? I am so in the game that I am not concentrating on what I look like, what I have been worrying about lately, or even how much I suck at breathing when I am running. I am just going. For my friend A, it is horseback riding. What is it for you? Did you guys do anything amazing this weekend?
Thanks to Cobalt for taking pictures of my soccer game yesterday! Look at this awesome shot he got of me trying to score a goal!
Mountain towns are fun…
Oh the joys of living in a mountain town… This morning, as I cruised along my new (mostly downhill) route to lab, I noticed these signs on cones in the middle of the bike path reading “MOUNTAIN LION PRESENCE IN THIS AREA CONFIRMED. BE ALERT!”
…
Be alert?! That’s it?! If I see a mountain lion on my way home, should I just nod and be like “Hey Mountain lion! Please don’t eat me but I’m aware of your presence!”? Hrmmmm… maybe I should take the long way home….
In other non big scary cat related news, I repotted my baby lemon cucumber and tomato plants last night! They are growing so happily. I hope they weren’t too traumatized by the move to bigger pots. They will thank me when they realize their roots have so much extra dirt to crawl through… Pictures hopefully next week…
In OTHER non plant or cat news, my sister’s birthday was this week! This message is as belated as my present to her is (hopefully you get it today, wee!) so I hope both find her well. Happy belated birthday! :D Here is a picture of me, Gustav, and my sister in CA last time we were both home…

Transparency

Last week, Karyl tagged me in a blog post. Basically, each person tagged had to answer a specific question. Mine was: “What do you look forward to in your marriage?”
I thought about this all week last week. Not that I’m not looking forward to anything… more like I was trying to figure out what will be different about being married. I know that things will be different but Cobalt and I have been together for so long now that it’s hard to nail down exactly what. So I thought a lot about what changes when you get married: the breaking off from your families and forming a new unit, coming up with new traditions, etc.
Then Cobalt and I met with our premarital counselor/pastor last weekend and he talked to us about this idea of being transparent to each other. We were talking about learning how to better communicate our feelings to each other and our pastor told us that we are becoming the safest person in the whole world for the other person. That it’s okay for me to open up to Cobalt and that it’s okay for him to open up to me. That we can be totally transparent about our feelings and our beliefs and that it’s okay. It’s safe. Cobalt won’t stop loving me when I am feeling fragile or angry and I won’t stop loving him when he is feeling frustrated or hurt. And I think that is what I am most looking forward to in marriage, learning how to be transparent to Cobalt. Makes me feel all warm and bubbly inside. Makes me feel safe to know that he’s the one I get to finally open up to…
In other wedding news, we have officially paid off the photographer! Kudos to her for making us a contract where everything is due BEFORE a month before the wedding so we can get her checked off before we have to start paying everything else off in July…
Also, the invitations are almost done. Cobalt and I had to decide on some fonts for T, which we did this weekend. Hopefully we can get those printed off soon.
ALSO – we are starting to get registry gifts! I am excited to try out Natalie’s Gift/thank you note excel file and excited that Cobalt and I already purchased our Thank You notes.
Picture: Cobalt and me at 14,000 feet above sea level on Pike’s Peak – the easiest 14’er to get up around here (you drive).