Oh yeah...

We also REGISTERED(!) at Target for fun a couple weekends ago. Shane and I are aware we'll have to most likely have to re-do the whole list a few months from now seeing as with retail the turn-over rate is pretty high for most products, but we did it anyway just for fun. :)


...I got a little trigger happy. :)


And it's a really funny coincidence (to me) that he happens to be standing in front of the women's underwear holding the scanning gun. Hahahahahaa!

Fa-La-La-La-Bah

Completely un-wedding related...but I wanted to share these pictures. For Christmas, Shane and I took some pictures for our parents and framed them. THESE, however, are the out-takes. I thought everyone would enjoy them. :)

Casey was my stand in...




But sometimes she just didn't want to get out of the shot...


We got a little silly at one point...


Way to hang in there, Sleepy Head. :p

All in all the pictures turned out well and looked nice in the Brighton frames I put them in.

The Scuba-Diver

Again... sorry for the lack of posting. I started two new jobs a couple months ago and my life's been kind of hectic ever since then.

However, IT'S OFFICIAL!! A lot of things are finally starting to come together for the wedding and it's starting to feel like everything's really happening. Shane and I are getting married!!!!! (Holy cow!) ... (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

I designed and made the Save the Date cards and addressed them today. Er, rather, I addressed them today. I've been making them for the past week or so. Hat-tip to Shane and Kim who helped assemble and fold them with me a couple nights ago. Although, silly me... I miscounted and OOPS! I made about twice as many as I actually needed... They're super pretty but I'm a little annoyed I can't do anything with them since they're date and name specific. Everyone should be getting them in the mail in about a week or so. That's exciting, right? RIGHT??

8 . 15 . 2010

We've also obtained a venue! It's at the Arista ballroom on Hawthorne Blvd in Portland. Très exciting, no?

The place is gorgeous and absolutely perfect for us. Both the ceremony and the reception will be held there, so for those who had been looking forward to driving to one place and then hopping in your car and driving a mile or two to get to the next location to party it up, I do apologize. It just made more sense to have it all in one place to save $$ and to save gas and time with lost guests who used Mapquest for directions... plus we love it. Which was very important to us in our decision making.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand drum roll.........................................................







I found the dress. THE END! :)

Creative Madness

Out of boredom today I took it upon myself to create some mock-up invitations just to see what they would look like with Shane's and my name on the card...telling everyone we're getting married... wow.

And this is what I came up with. No, we haven't set a date yet, sorry. Everything on these invitations is completely fictional with the exception that we are in fact, getting married.

I made them using Adobe Photoshop 6 because Adobe Photoshop 7 is lost in the Abyss we call a computer room upstairs and Adobe Photoshop CS3 is much, much too expensive for anyone in their right mind to buy on purpose.

^^ This one needs work obviously. It's probably my favorite but I need to rescale everything so you can actually read our names and the location...

And probably fix the dates............. since August 10th, 2010 is a Tuesday and definitely not a Sunday... :)

Ta-Da!

FINALLY! Things to post. I just noticed that I've made it a pattern to start each blog with an exclamation. Huh.

Mom and I went hunting for cupcakes last Friday. We drove all over the west side of Portland (pretty much...) and ended up in Beaverton at Bliss Cupcakes. Or Cupcake Bliss. Not really sure which way it went. ;)

The shop owner was very, very nice. She even showed me the cupcake of my dreams displayed in their window. It was the size of a baby watermelon. It sure looked amazingly scrumptious for $30. I ended up trying just one bite-sized red velvet cupcake.

Wasn't very good. Not really at all.

To be honest, it was pretty bland. I'm a big red velvet fiend and it's really hard to find an absolutely delectable red velvet cake made by others. This just wasn't up to par.

Our next stop was almost scratched off the list due to awful construction happening on Glisan downtown, preventing us from easily reaching Saint Cupcake. Well...really there is no SUPER easy way getting there. All those one-way streets make it almost impossible not to get frustrated trying to reach the building and then find parking. (Joke was on us. Turns out there's another location on the East side of Portland on Belmont, MUCH closer to home. GRRR!)

When we arrived at the perfectly pleasant pink bakery, a Land Rover pulled away from the curb leaving the best parking space available open for us. "A Good omen," Mom said.

However, I didn't take it as a good sign when the first thing I smelled outside of the car was burnt cake. Still, about five families showed up right as we did and all bolted for the front door at once. We made our way inside the bustling shop and followed the commotion.

Inside was an L shaped counter with about 14 different flavors of cupcakes sitting behind a plexi-glass shield. All beautifully decorated with fun flourishes. Since there were so many people shouting out orders to the various workers, when it was my turn, I simply said I wanted to try one small size of each cupcake on the long side of the L. (Ten of them it turns out.) We were in and out in about six minutes, tops.

From the top, left to right: Hot Fudge on Chocolate, Chocolate Buttercream on Vanilla, Chocolate Chip, Lemon Berry, Red Velvet, the Malt Ball, Coconut, Hot Fudge on Vanilla, Buttercream on Vanilla, and Buttercream on Chocolate.

Easily, without a doubt the best out of this bunch was the red velvet and the malt ball. The Malt Ball was simply amazing to put it lightly. To some it may sound like too much, but really, it's not. A cupcake infused with maltballs topped with chocolate buttercream frosting and chopped malt balls... twas divine. The red velvet also blew me away. Like I said before, it's hard to find a really good red velvet cake. And this my friends, was a really good red velvet cake. Shane and I both agreed these two were keepers.

The rest of the flavors were about 50/50 on which I'd recommend to try for fun. The coconut was actually very good- Even Shane liked it and he hates coconut.

From there we went down a few blocks to Cupcake Jones. I'd heard very, very good things about this place so I had high hopes. A lot of their cupcakes are filled with various flavors of ganache. They were only offering 6 flavors on this particular day so I again, ordered one of each in the small size.

From the top, left to right: Downtown Cupcake Brown, Grasshopper, Mocha Mudslide, The Pearl, Lime in the Coconut, and Velvet Painting.

These flavors were quite different from any I'd had from Saint Cupcake. Shane raved about the Downtown Cupcake Brown (Devil's food cake filled with sour cream chocolate ganache, topped with rich fudge icing and hand shaved chocolate). The Pearl (White velvet cake filled with vanilla bean pastry cream, topped with vanilla bean buttercream icing.) was equally as amazing. We split the two in half and savored each bite.

Yet...again, we settled on the red velvet being the best. Between the two, Cupcake Jones probably takes the cake on this one. (Har har, get it? ;p) Both cake and frosting were equally tasty.

As for a decision, I'm not sure. Debating on making them all myself because simply, it would be a LOT cheaper. We shall see what our budget allows though.

Shane and I discussed having a small cake at the top of a tier of cupcakes. And like every great cake, there's a great cake topper. Now we talked about this detail in particular quite a few times. We agreed we didn't want to be traditional or boring. (It's a little hard to find an action figure-sized interracial couple that looks like us...) Looking around online, I found some great pictures of video game and cartoon themed wedding cakes that looked brilliant. Very non-traditional in a traditional sort of way. After showing them to Shane, we both got really excited about this aspect and started brainstorming ideas. And this is what we've come up with:

Characters from the Japanese anime series Bleach. I'm going to end up painting the guys' hair though to match Shane's and maybe add some little flourishes here and there on them just so they match the bridal party somewhat. :p Should be fun!!

So there you have it!! Not exactly an adventure but there's an update. :)

So fly to Jesus...

WE'RE ELOPING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just kidding.

With all that comes with planning the Big Day, I sometimes find myself entertaining the idea though. But alas, neither Shane nor I could go through with something like that... (Well...knowing us we could. We're pretty great at "Spur-of-the-Moment" events.) But it means a lot to both of us that everyone we love is there to witness our marriage. One thing we'd talked about is that we both want a small wedding. But we LOVE too many people to be able to!!!!

Sorry I don't have any new planning details as of yet up here. People close to me know I'm a procrastinator... :) Worry not though. I do very well under stress. (Heh.) I have been brainstorming and writing plenty of ideas down. And I hear my Maids of Honor have been brewing up some great ideas for Engagement/Etc. Parties.

Really, there is no relevance to this post... I just felt bad for neglecting the Wedding Blog. Hopefully soon, I'll have something new, interesting, and exciting to put up here. Scratch that. I promise I will. I will MAKE something exciting happen so all of you can laugh and cry and spill milk out of your noses at all of our silly pre-marital misfortunes.

Love you all!

Le Sigh...

Well, as pretty much everyone now knows, Shane and I are in ENGAGED!!

We couldn't be more thrilled with the ecstatic response from friends and family. It's much appreciated.

I decided to make this blog because I had an overwhelming amount of people ask to be kept 'in-the-know'. So now I can keep everyone who'd like to be updated- well...updated. Just bookmark this page and check back here for details as they grow in number, because believe me, they will. :)

As for the proposal everyone keeps asking about, it goes something like this (this is the LONG version so sit back and relax...or just scroll down a ways if you're feeling antsy...):

It was a warm and fuzzy day (August 5th, 2009) around 10:30am when my boyfriend, Shane, arrived to snatch me away from home for an 8-month anniversary mini-hike. A few days prior, he'd suggested Bridal Veil Falls since we hadn't been there in a while and it was supposed to be a gorgeous day.

I, being a woman, of course was not ready to go when I answered the door.

[Side note: I am gravely afraid of spiders. My whole body reacts; freezes up and I am so revolted at even the notion of taking a step closer when I'm near one, it sends me into panic mode. Anyone who's been to my house during spider season (a.k.a summer) knows why. I'm not talking about little baby itty-bitty spidey's. I'm talking half-the-size-of-my-fist hairy monstrosities that for the most part scramble about the dark places of my house at 15 miles an hour. Every now and then I will find one in my bathroom sink or shower because APPARENTLY they're harvesting water. Like they can't do that outside??? I personally think they're trying to give me a heart attack. Jerks.]

See, I had woken up at 8am that morning in order to be ready for Shane when he arrived at 10. (He's usually a little late though so I knew I had some padding for putzing around a bit.) I went about my morning routine, letting Saide outside and feeding her, wiping sleepies out of my eyes, etc. When she came back inside I prepared myself for a shower. When I walked into the bathroom, what else could I find in my sink besides the cutest, fuzziest, sickeningly grossest spider ever just hanging out. It's whole span covered the drain hole. Ew.

So I did what most girls would do and freaked out like a five-year-old and got the H-E double hockey sticks out of there. I text Shane immediately to tell him about Little Miss Muffet's *BFF conveniently hanging out where all my bathroom amenities were. He responded about an hour later saying he'd kill it when he got to my house.

Yes, I'm a big baby, I'm aware of this.

An hour and 2 episodes of The Secret Life of an American Teenager later, Shane arrived all smiles and gorgeousness that he is, to find me frumpy, still in sweatpants and a tank top, hair a complete mess with morning breath to boot. He hugged me tightly and said "Wow, guess it doesn't matter that I'm late."

Insert dry stare here.

Ready to be done with the spider I promptly ushered him downstairs to the bathroom (I had checked about 8 times to see if it was still there before Shane even got to my house. It was.) to kill my morning nemesis. He was surprised by the size of it like everyone who sees them for the first time at my house is. I retreated back to the safety of my room while he smooshed it reeeeeal good.

Fast forwarding, I took an hour to get ready. I kept finding things I "needed" to do. Looking back now, I realize why he was being so impatient with me. "Hurry up and go take your shower!!" He'd said it more than once while he'd been flipping through the channels on my TV.

The drive to Bridal Veil Falls was wonderful. The sun was out in full force and shining over all the beauty the Gorge has to offer. We talked and joked about this or that. Stopped at Jack in the Box for lunch...had their taco's I haven't had in a few years. (Bad Krista, bad! ...but they're SO GOOD!!!) Made a wrong turn once we took the exit off the freeway. Remembered how NOT to get there from a previous experience.

Finally got to the grassy field where we parked and got out of the car- Shane grabbing his backpack. I thought that was weird so I asked, "Why're you bringing that?"

He looked at me with a weird look and said "To carry the water bottles." I told him they're not that heavy and he just shrugged and closed the trunk.

Hand in hand we walked toward the entrance of the trail leading down to the waterfall.

For those who have not been there, there are two trails. One trail goes to the left and is about a 1/2 mile loop that brings you back to the parking lot and the other trail is 2/3 of a mile forward and goes downward (a little steep in some parts) to the falls. Last time we'd been there with Brittany...


(Maids of honor #1 & #2: Brittany & Amanda. Yes. MaidS of Honor.)

...we hadn't taken the road less traveled so we took the 1/2 mile loop to see what there was to see.

The trail isn't much, just a windy "loop" that zig-zags at random and brings you close to the edge of the cliff that overlooks the freeway- as well as an amazing view of the Gorge. Great for pictures.

As we came back around to the parking lot we headed for the next trail. I'd worn flip-flops forgetting how much of the trail was gravel and dirt and just how steep the slope was. Almost fell twice. Yay me. Shane was patient as he always is with me and held me steady. On our way down an older woman stopped us on her way up and said to be careful not to fall off the edge. We said we'd be careful. She said she'd put glue on the hands of the kids she came with. ......... O_o ??? Again, we said we'd be careful and kept going. She kept talking but walked up the hill away from us. We laughed and poked fun at her strange warning.

Again for those who haven't been to Bridal Veil, I strongly recommend it if you value the beauty of the outdoors. It's a very short hike but it's amazingly beautiful once you get to the bottom and very worth seeing. You know you're near the end when you reach a thick cement staircase, complete with railing. (Slippery when wet though, so be careful!!) From there you can see a wooden bridge that covers a creek that flows all the way down to the Columbia River. Around the area you can see slight signs that the area was once occupied by man. Gigantic, bent, old nails are pretty common on the ground on the other side of the bridge. A cement wall retains the creek on either side of it, left side of the bridge, a few posts still stand where they once held...something? Scaffolding maybe? Not really sure.

Either way, when you get to the middle of the bridge look to your right and you will see a giant rock and behind it, you begin to see the tail of the waterfall from around a corner. To top all of it off there is enough tree cover that the sunlight spills through any crevice it can find; shines through onto the water and the rocks making everything sparkle. It creates a very serene, picturesque scene for those that venture to find it.





Once over the bridge Shane noticed a group of about six Asians (tourists maybe?) taking a billion pictures at the lookout point we were headed to. You know how us Asians and our cameras are. ;) Hehe. So we climbed the little hill and waited by the path that led down to the giant rock. Took a few pictures while we waited. Another older couple went up to the platform and eventually the camera-happy group dispersed.

Shane and I made our way up to wait our turn. We walked onto the platform that hangs over the flowing creek, facing the falls. It. Is. Awesome.


[NOTE: These pictures don't even do the place justice one bit!!]

The other couple stayed for a few minutes then left. Shane pulled me into a hug and kissed my nose as soon as they were gone.

At this point it gets a little blurry. I was so wrapped up in the moment. He said, "You know how much I love you and want to be with you the rest of my life." And then something about kids? And love? And mooshy-moosh lovey-dove tummy-fuzzies. Heh. Honestly, it was very sweet- I really, really wish now I could remember his speech!!

Anyway he followed that up with, "I know how much you like surprises so turn around and count to seven. Or...make that ten."

And right at that moment a gangly, awkwardly tall teenager came bounding up the steps onto the platform as Shane let go of me. The teen, completely oblivious to us leaned against the wooden railing to check out the waterfall. Feeling awkward, I went to the other side of the platform to inspect some names that had been carved into the wood. That lasted about five minutes. When the kid left, I turned around like Shane had asked. I didn't count to ten because I know him well and knew he'd just tell me when to turn around. And he did.

When I turned around I was momentarily confused, not seeing him. A split-second later I glanced downward to see my loving boyfriend on his knee, holding a little open gray box with something really freaking shiney pointed towards me.

"Will you marry me?" His face was expectant, slightly nervous.

Flabbergasted, I ran to him and said "Are you kidding me??" While throwing my arms around him, still kneeling on the ground, I told his ear, yes. :)

And he hugged and kissed me. The end.

Just kidding. The whole way back up the path to the car I huffed and puffed and was all sweaty from hiking in the sun. I'm not sure why but I was embarrassed with my appearance given the circumstances. I took a picture of the ring on my hand with my phone and text it to a few people. Then more people. Then more. Honestly, if you didn't get a picture text from me, I apologize. I wasn't really thinking all that clearly at the time. Hopefully I told you though. :/ Mom called me and freaked out, half screaming in my ear.

That night he made me a dinner consisting of pork chops, asparagus, and tater tots. Because we're classy and love us some tater tots! We dressed up fancy, and ate our food by candlelight. It was wonderful and silly all in one. I can't even begin to express my feelings in words about that night. Part of me laughed inside at how grown up we are becoming and how strange it feels. It felt like we were playing House like most of us did when we were children. But when he stared at me across the table in the dim light, and gave me a small smile my heart flipped and I felt, for maybe the first time, my age.



* For those who didn't know...
As mentioned earlier: BFF = Best Friend Forever