Engagement Pictures

They're here! We waited very patiently to get our Engagement Pictures back, and they were definitely worth the wait. A friend of mine from the sorority has taken up professional photography, which works out perfectly for us because now we get to have a wedding photographer who I know and trust. Her website is kristenhoneycutt.com for anyone who is interested in seeing all of her work. She's obviously very good at what she does.


Next on the wedding to-do list is to select one for the Save The Dates and get those ordered and sent out. It definitely won't be easy to pick a favorite though because there isn't a single shot that I dislike, and they all have different elements to them. I don't know if I want a cute, up close shot or a fun one. I can't wait to see what she does with our wedding pictures!


Be on the lookout for the Save The Date, and let me know if you want to see all of the pictures and/or want a copy of any of them

New Additions

Jake and I have been debating for some time now whether or not it was time to add to our little family, and have finally made a decision. It most definitely is! After doing lots and lots of research we've decided that Boston Terriers would be perfect for our lifestyle. They're little, but sturdy. They're perfect for people with allergies (me) to the point where they're called "hypoallergenic", plus they hardly shed! PERFECT!

We decided to get two so that they could keep each other company while we are at work, plus I've read that they learn faster from each others' example. We went and picked them up yesterday down in Onalaska, Washington. There were five puppies left to pick from, 3 girls and 2 boys. Choosing our boy was pretty easy, he was the bigger and goofier of the two. Picking out our little girl was harder. Obviously all three were adorable, but they all had different personalities. One was super aggressive and came out right away, one was a little timid at first but then warmed up to us, and one was scared of pretty much everything. We went with the second one hoping that she would be friendly and playful without being totally psycho. She also had the prettiest coat with black around her eyes and a lot more white than the others.

We had picked out the name Hurley as one of our favorites for a boy, and the little boy that we picked out looked like a Hurley, so that name was easy. It was a little harder to name the little girl, because we didn't want a name that sounded too similar to Hurley, and we wanted a name that fit her appearance and personality. In the end we went with a name that we hadn't even put on our lists and named her Bella.

Already Bella is showing off by learning everything the fastest because she's figured out that she gets lots of love for doing the right thing. Hurley might take a little longer to train because he's so laid back, but he's paying attention to Bella's example. So far we haven't had any accidents inside, and with how much they sleep I think we won't have too many problems keeping our eye on them.

Meet the new additions to our family!

This is our little girl, Bella

And here's our boy, Hurley

The kids' first bath. Hurley didn't really seem to mind it, but Bella was NOT a fan.

Look at the evil look she was giving us!

Cuddled up after a very long day

Bella and I sharing our first of many naps together

This is exactly why we wanted to get two so they can keep each other entertained without having to get into too much trouble

NEW BLOG!

After being reminded (as in slightly harassed) that I haven't been keeping up with the blog as much as I should, I figured it was a good time to update with what's been going on. I'll give quick snippets of everything I have been forgetting to add here.

A few weeks ago Jake and I took along wedding party members Dave and Danielle to the Seahawks game with us. It resulted in some priceless pictures that will definitely be found in a wedding slide show I'm sure. There's nothing like getting Seahawk Fan Drunk on a Sunday.

I have officially decided to make all of our wedding invites! I had been thinking about it, but after making a run to Paper Zone and finding out that I could order the shape of the invite I wanted, get everything printed at a local printer (Evergreen Printing) AND have them cut all of my paper for me, I realized it wouldn't be so bad. It's pretty much me gluing pieces of paper together and making them look pretty. I think I can handle that! Along with the invites, I plan on making the programs and possibly the thank you notes also. We'll see how many paper cuts I have by then.

Thursday of this week we are doing our Engagement Pictures, so I will be posting some of them both on here and our wedding website. I'll need some help picking out the one(s) I want to use for the Save the Dates. I'm really excited to have some professional pictures of the two of us instead of the typical hold the camera myself to take pictures of us while we're about 16 beers deep. It will make for a different look, I'm sure.

Lastly, we've decided on doing our Engagement Party at a bar called Mulleady's on Saturday, November 8th. That way it works as our Engagement Party AND a birthday party for me. I'm not good at making decisions like this that effect how everyone's night will turn out, so it will be nice to get two things accomplished in one night.

There, now I'm fully updated!

New Blog Site

Because I really want to keep up with all that has happened and is still in the works for the wedding, I decided to move the blog from the wedding website (www.mywedding.com/jakeandalicia) to an actual blog site. It just works smoother and then I can continue with it after the wedding without people having to look at the wedding website.

That being said, not much has happened with the planning since we figured out our honeymoon. Jake and I are going to email our photographer, my G-Ma from my sorority, Kristen Honeycutt (http://www.kristenhoneycutt.com/), with dates that work for us so that we can set up our Engagement Photos. Then from those, we'll pick out our favorite picture for our Save The Dates. I'm pretty sure that I'm set on having our Save The Dates be magnets. I think that they're cute and functional, so hopefully that will make them less likely to get misplaced.

In unrelated news, I've been involved with a new product coming out at the bank and our vendor wanted to thank us for working with them and so they gave us 4 tickets for this weekend's Seahawks game! I'm not sure where the seats are yet, but I guess that they have box seats for the Mariners, so there's a chance that we'll have a suite this Sunday. I won't complain where ever the seats end up being because it's a free Hawks game, but it would be awesome if we had a suite. I'll be sure to post pictures from the game, because it will be a drunken debacle of Jake, Dave, Baker, and me. As in the groom, two groomsmen and the bride-to-be. It will definitely be a good time!

Honeymoon!

As soon as I started planning for the wedding I decided that, after warning my bridesmaids of all of the parties they will have to attend in the next year, I needed to get our venue and honeymoon figured out. The venue was a little stressful because of how many weekends in 2009 are already booked, so after getting that out of the way I was excited to get working on the honeymoon.

Since I love Jake so much, I've vowed not to force him into telling me which shade of beige he think looks best for the napkins, so instead, I put him in charge of the bar for the reception and the honeymoon. We had been checking out the Sandal's Resorts because the whole "all inclusive" part was really appealing (thanks for the tip, Michael Scott). We agreed that not having to pick up the bar tab at the end of the night would be a very nice bonus on what is sure to be an already awesome trip. Jake narrowed down the choices to either the Bahamas or Negril, Jamaica, and after careful consideration that included comparing pictures of the beaches and how many swim-up bars each resort had, we decided on Negril.

Apparently September is the worst month out of the year to visit Jamaica, which works out perfectly with our September 12 wedding date. We decided that, although it will be awful to have to wait to go on our honeymoon, it was probably a good idea to wait until the weather improved down there. We booked our trip last night and will be gone from November 28th - December 7th, so we get 9 nights and 10 days.

Get excited for us to return with steel drums and braided hair with beads at the end!



Here is the resort from the beach

And here is a swim-up bar I'm guessing we'll spend at least half of the trip at

First Round of Decisions!

So we have an official date and location. The wedding will be Saturday, September 12, 2009 at the Bear Creek Country Club! I'm really excited that we got Bear Creek. I think it's the perfect for us. I have a couple of pictures of the golf course that's around the Club that I'll put in this message.

The plan after that is 9-10 days in the Jamaica/Antigua/Bahama area, and then we'll head over to Spokane once we're back. We decided that since it might be hard for all of Jake's friends and family from Spokane to get over here for the wedding, we would have second reception over there. I'm obviously not too upset about having to have another big party. I'm thinking the Spokane reception would be Saturday, September 26.

So there are the first couple of real decisions!


This is what everyone will see first after parking

This will be the view behind us when we'll hold the ceremony

Venue Found?

Yesterday's venue hunting turned out to be successful. I had hoped that I would find a place right off the bat, and it looks like that might be working out for me!

Jamie, Danielle and I went to a venue in Snohomish first, and after driving MUCH further than I had anticipated, were a little disappointed. The thing that we kept saying to each other during our walk through was "We can do better". From the awkward event planner to the awful chairs, it just wasn't for me. After deciding that the barn wasn't exactly the "classy but casual" look I had pictured, the even planner suggested showing us another property that they own with a mansion from the 1800's on it. Yikes... From the green carpet to the awkwardly placed twin sized beds used to stage the rooms upstairs by the "bridal suite", it was definitely not for me.

After pretty much running away from the mansion, we were trying to stay positive and hopeful for the next place on our list. As soon as we pulled into the driveway for our second appointment, things were starting to look MUCH better. The event planner here was much more laidback and easier to talk to, and as soon as she showed us the outdoor ceremony spot which flowed right into the indoor reception area, I could happily see Jake and me getting married there. After she showed us the full service bar, I could really see all of our friends being happy about us being married there. I won't go into all of the details about the place that I forced Jake to listen to, but all in all, it was exactly what I had pictured when thinking of a place that was both "classy but casual". All I have to do now is get the buy in from my parents and it's a done deal.

So! If everything works out with the parents, Jake and I will be married on Saturday, September 12, 2009, at the Bear Creak Country Club in Woodinville!

Venue Hunting

Today is the first day that I am going to go and check out venues for the wedding. Two of my bridesmaids, Jamie and Danielle, are coming up to help me out and give me some input, which will be really nice. I originally was just going to go out on my own, but realized I would look ridiculous to the event planners at these places considering that my ring is currently in being sized so I would show up to plan a fairly large wedding with no ring or friends.

I know that it's very wishful thinking, but I'm hoping that one of the two places we see today is just perfect and I can go ahead and get it booked today. It's crazy that Saturdays in August of 2009 are already booked! I thought that I had a good head start, but apparently people are already way ahead of me.

I may just be being naive to the whole wedding planning process, but I really feel that once I have the venue figured out everything else will fall into place. After the venue it's just picking out some dresses, a cake, sending out some invites and planning the honeymoon, right?