Yosemite trip #3

I'm sorry if you're sick of hearing me say how much I love these people, but I just can't help myself. I love 'em and I love that we get to share incredible places like Yosemite together! This year was our third annual trip to Yosemite to celebrate Lindsey's birthday. I'm starting to feel like we are Yosemite pros! Fall colors, perfect temperatures, incredible views of nature in every direction, high energy games of Nutsack, scrumptious brunch at the Awahnee, paper crane folding (more on this soon!) and some of my fav. peeps in the world - folks, it doesn't get much better than that. Here are a few pics of our trip this year!

On a hike to Upper Yosemite Falls - we're heading to the top of that fall.

View of the falls along the way.

We made it to the top! Gorgeous bluebird views.

Sunset with Half Dome.

Beautiful!

El Cap with my love.

The girls!

And the boys!

And speaking of boys...that boy of mine worked on grouting tile on our new table when we got home today! Check it out...I love how it's turning out!

Goin' to the CHAPel :)...

Okay so maybe we're not actually going to the chapel. BUT, we ARE going to

Hakone Gardens! And yay! We're goooooooing to Hakone and we're goooooonna get maaaaarried (written to the tune of Going to the Chapel :))!

Hakone is the first place that we saw and it set the bar pretty high for the rest of the venues we visited. We feel so lucky to get to have our wedding at such a beautiful and historic place. Hakone is the oldest Japanese Garden in the western hemisphere - it was first established in 1915. It is modeled after a Japanese Samurai's garden which is significant since my ancestors were samurai! oooh and fun fact - part of the movie Memoirs of a Geisha was filmed on site!

I'll be sure to keep you all posted as more ideas unfold!

In other news, that sweet fiance of mine was busy this past weekend remodeling IKEA furniture. Here's a sneak peak at his work in progress...

....and his newly decorated man-cave - complete with transformers posters and lots of big power tools! More pics on the finished product coming up! Stay tuned!

I appreciate this bride's advice....

"Also, I would advise brides to not get too tied to any idea or vision
of your wedding. The end result of my wedding was quite different than
my initial thoughts, and I think what made it successful was not
rifling at unexpected changes, but rather letting the curves in the
planning road shape the final outcome."

simple pleasures

1) super supportive phone conversation about what else? Weddings! with my future sister-in-law Clare - I am marrying in to such a cool family.

2) going to get fingerprinted for my upcoming coaching gig and having the guy tell me how beautiful my ring is :). (Joe and I have been engaged for over a month now and I still find myself staring at it!)

3) Having a reason to browse through wedding blogs - I love being inspired by the creative and beautiful things that people do.

props to us :)

Well, no definite wedding venue yet - Hakone Gardens is still a top contender, but we may check out a couple other places this week - in the mean time, I'll be visualizing a wedding venue victory happening for us this week! I'm so ready to get on with the rest of wedding planning!

Besides wedding venue shopping, we've been brainstorming for our upcoming engagement photo session and today we made a couple props that are going to double as decoration for our bedroom and possible decoration for our wedding day. I've had the canvases for a couple years and painted them for my last apartment to add a little color. I've been wanting to add some meaningful words to them, but inspiration didn't strike until Joe and I moved into our new place together. Here's a sneak peek...

This guy has been hanging on the wall in front of our bed since May. We decided months ago that we wanted to put the words, "It's a beautiful day," on it because it's the name of a U2 song (Joe's all time favorite band!) and because we thought it would be fun to wake up every morning and see those words to set the tone for the day. Thank goodness for impending engagement photo dates to force us to finally make it happen! We started trying to stencil the words on, but didn't like the rigid, uniform feel of the stencils - so we painted over with some home made turquoise and made a quick trip to Michael's for some paint pens - I love having the words hand written instead - sure the word day is a little crooked, but it feels much more organic :).

This has become one of my favorite quotes in the past month, it has served as a good reminder that although the craziness of the wedding industry can be overwhelming, celebrating true love is well worth it. Combine that with my favorite gingko leaves and well it just kind of makes my heart happy. Excited to have these up on our bedroom walls and excited to have them ready for our engagement photos :).

Couple simple pleasures from today....

1) beautiful brunch in the city with Laura, Karen, Kat, Lindsey, Nate, Erik, Julian and the love of my life :). We had a delicious dish called Green Earth - how sweet is that?

2) The Wailing Jenny's on Spotify - seriously, if you don't Spotify yet, you're missing out. Lovin' the playful harmonies in this song - think they'd come sing at our wedding?



3) Joe's bbq chicken teriyaki - reason #2984058343 that I am marrying him :)

4) Our favorite post bbq dinner dessert - S'mores on the grill in the back yard

Simple pleasures

1) Gingko trees beginning to turn golden
2) Pumpkin Candles
3) Engagment rings that fit perfectly!
4) Joe's home made fruit smoothies
5) Fall recipes - pumpkin pancakes, turkey, brie and apple sandwiches
6) Homegrown tomatoes
7) Morning runs
8) KFOG's acoustic sunrise
9) Engagement photo brainstorming with Joe and Lisa
10) Operation October!
11) Homemade tomato soup with Parmesan croutons

And I'll leave you with a few pics of the tomatoes! From the vine to creamy, tomato soup! So perfect for a fall evening!