March ends with a bang

Whoops! It's been quite awhile since my last post. As usual, we've been busy filling our weekends (and, lately, weeknights) with more activities than we can realistically complete, but we love it. We got back yesterday from an awesome engagement party for my big brother and his gorgeous fiancee, Ashley. We must have met half a dozen couples who are either engaged or newly married, so we had a blast exchanging wedding tips and getting marriage advice. It's always great to see my family, but the trips always feel SO short. We only have two more trips to the Bay Area planned before the wedding, so we really need to take advantage of the time we have when we do get up there. Our next trip includes my first dress alterations appointment, meeting with the Palm Event Center to hammer out details for the big day, and hopefully buying our first new car together! Such a grown up thing to do - yikes.

Lately our focus has been split between wedding details and packing for our big move (well, that and entertaining/being entertained by our adorable kitten). I'm about halfway done with my part of the invitations, and hopefully we can get them out in the next few weeks. We finally found an incredible apartment that will be our home during our first years of marriage. I love moving - the process of cleaning out all our stuff, organizing our lives, and starting fresh in a newly remodeled apartment just makes me giddy. I love redecorating and figuring out the puzzle of how to fit everything in the allotted space. Plus, our new place has two pools, a workout room, and a much better location. We look forward to the big move!

The next few weeks may feel a little crazy for us. It's my spring break, so I'm finishing up the packing before my parents come down to help with the move. Then in two weeks I have my first bridal shower with Terry's side of the family! Terry's birthday is coming up in April, and we're each entering busy times for work and school. Thankfully, the craziness is all such great stuff, and we're generally motivated by the fact that our wedding is getting SO close!

Thanks for reading - we're nearing the big day!

Food, Finals, and DIY Fun

Food first (those two words may or may not be a way of life in the Lanier/Heinrich household). I mentioned in a previous post that Terry and I are partaking in a 10-day challenge to eat all real food and no processed food. We started Wednesday, and we love it! So far, we have eaten these new recipes:

• Whole wheat crepes
• Whole wheat French toast with real maple syrup (our favorite so far)
  
• Whole wheat macaroni and cheese
• Spaghetti sauce with whole wheat noodles
• Peanut butter and jelly smoothies
• Caprese salad sandwiches
• And tonight's dinner: whole chicken in a crock pot

Macaroni and Cheese

Crepes

Vegetable Stir-Fry

All recipes are from the 100 Days of Real Food blog - check out the idea behind it and all the other yummy recipes! It's surprisingly easy to eat only real food, and in only a few days we've eaten more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains than we would in two weeks. For bread, the blog recommends buying bread from the Great Harvest Bread Company. I found one in South Pasadena, not too far from my work, so we have been completely spoiled with delicious (and healthy!) bread all week. I highly recommend the honey wheat!

In addition to our food challenge, Terry has had to study for two finals this week, and today he's finishing up the second one. What a stud - almost done with his Master's! He'll graduate in June, and we are both very excited for him to be done. Working full time and doing a graduate program is ridiculously difficult - but he's ridiculously awesome, so it all works out. :-)

This week, between the new recipes and receiving my pink slip (you like how I just slip that in there?), I found some time to relax with some fun projects. We're starting the invitation printing and assembly process tomorrow, so I focused on our guest book for the wedding. We played around with a lot of different ideas that we've seen at various weddings - a framed picture with a large matte that guests can sign, a regular guest book, a giant wine bottle with silver Sharpies, postcards, but ultimately we decided that we want to use our gorgeous engagement pictures from our wedding photographer, Rhee, and our good friend Roxanne. Between the pictures at Point Dume and UCLA and in downtown San Jose, we have over 200 pictures we can use. So we're making a little keepsake book that guests can sign and we can then place on what will hopefully be a new coffee table. :-) We're still in the design process, but if it works out and looks good I'll share all the details and make a recommendation!

Four Months, Baby!

Four months! I can't believe the big day is finally getting close! Today's post will be super quick, but I found this interesting blog post on why hiring a great photographer is so important. Okay, granted, I stole the link from our own wedding photographer, Rhee Bevere, but still, it's great. Terry and I agreed from the start that we would find our photographer first and base the rest of our budget around that one item. I'm so glad we did! Just based on our engagement pictures, we know the wedding photos will be amazing.

Enjoy!
Why you should NEVER skimp on wedding photography from Southall Eden's blog

A sample from Rhee's amazing work!

Fat Tuesday and a Busy Month Ahead

Tomorrow marks the beginning of Lent, so today is Fat Tuesday. Terry was raised Catholic, and we both really believe in the idea of Lent, so now we both observe the 40 days of giving up something important or indulgent. Tonight we're going out to ice cream (well, frozen yogurt, at our favorite add-your-own-toppings shop, Twist) to indulge before we dive into Lent. Our sacrifices for the next 40 days: chocolate (for Terry, although I am cutting back also), cheese crackers (for me, because I love Cheez-Its and the like), and soda.

Tomorrow also marks the beginning of our 10-day real food challenge. Today I cleaned out our fridge and pantry to purge all the processed food and make room for the loads of groceries (from THREE stores, plus a bakery to buy real whole grain bread) that we bought today. I planned out all ten days to make sure we have plenty to eat, and the fun begins during breakfast tomorrow (on the menu: whole wheat toast and fruit). We love participating in these kinds of endeavors together to challenge ourselves, improve our health, and grow closer to each other. Terry has been very patient as I've explored the 100 days of real food blog and thrown out endless facts about the food industry, but he is on board for some healthy eating! Wish us luck!

Meanwhile, between the food challenge, work, and Terry studying for his final, real life must continue. We are planning to move to a new apartment at the end of the month, and we've (hopefully) found a place we really like - more to come if we actually decide to live there. So the packing process will begin soon, and my parents will venture down to LA to help us move (they owe Terry's parents big time for all the times they helped us!). We are so excited to find a lovely new apartment that will be our first married home! On a down note, I will be let go from my teaching job at the end of this school year (again) - the budget cuts are hitting us along with everyone else. While that puts a damper on things, we are grateful to have plenty of warning and the opportunity for me to apply for other jobs. While dealing with that, we're also shopping for a new (used) car, which we'll purchase after we make a decision on an apartment.

And finally, oh yes, that whole wedding thing. Last night I added stamps to all the reply envelopes and continued work on one of our DIY projects - the place card holders. Despite the minor battles with the glue gun and X-ACTO knife, we're well on our way to finishing one of our first big projects! Terry has promised me a wedding work day (well, a few hours) this Sunday after his finals to get our invitations underway and to finish up the designs on the response card and information card. It'll be nice to finally have something wedding-related to report on the blog! I'm trying to take pictures along the way so I can come back and document it all later, and I look forward to posting those in a few months.

So, tomorrow is March 9th - the first day of Lent and four months to the wedding! I'm looking forward to reporting our progress on the things we are giving up for Lent, the 10 day challenge, our new apartment, and the invitations!

Nutrition, Health, and all that Fun Stuff

While nutrition and diet aren't directly related to the wedding, the topics seem to appear in every issue of every bridal magazine I've received in the last 18+ months. And who doesn't want to look as fit, toned, and healthy as possible on their wedding day? Still, the little articles on "health" seem mediocre at best (titles such as "Get Slim and Sexy! The Two-Week Countdown" aren't exactly promising), and I always love to find genuinely educational articles about nutrition, healthy lifestyles, and exercise.

Today, I want to share an amazing blog that I recently discovered through one of my many food magazines. This family challenged themselves (successfully!) to 100 days of "real food" - meaning absolutely no processed food. The website includes how they did it, recipes with real food, and even how to buy real food on a budget. So if you have a minute to explore the idea behind real food, enjoy! http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/

If you click on the "10 Day Challenge" tab, you can read about the challenge that Terry and I are going to attempt. It is what it sounds like: We challenge ourselves to 10 days of real food, nothing processed. Essentially, we can eat vegetables, fruits, meat, pasta, dairy products, even sweets, but none of it can be processed food. You can check out the rules here. Wish us luck!

Speaking of health and nutrition, a lot of people have asked me if Terry and I are changing our diets or exercise routines for the wedding. While we've always aimed to be healthy, we are definitely more conscious of our health as we approach the wedding. We look at it as establishing routines for the rest of our lives, so we have focused on a big push to get and stay healthy. Here are some of the ways we stay healthy:

• exercise between four and six days per week (running, yoga, strength training, hiking, Pilates, or other cardio videos on OnDemand)
• eat small meals throughout the day (I do this more than Terry; I eat 50-300 calories about six times per day) and try to write down what I eat
  
• try to eat lots of fruits and vegetables, yogurt, milk, lean meats, and whole grains
• make food from scratch as much as possible (avoid frozen dinners, fast food, etc.)
• eat out only once per week
  
• eat dessert only once per week (this one's tough, and we cheat all the time)

Of course, we can only do our best. When things get busy, we eat out or skip a workout, but we really love the way we feel when we're exercising and eating healthy food. Terry is training for a 200-mile, 12-person relay race (www.ragnarrelay.com), so he runs 4-6 miles every few days, but we'll need a new motivational tool after he's done, and your ideas are welcome! We hope that by mixing up our workouts and continuing to try new recipes, we can stay motivated throughout our married life together. And here's hoping we'll feel healthy and confident on the big day!