Goodbye to Beautiful 2018!

This year, was nuts. And I'm not even referencing the fact that I got married. This year was insane and busy and jampacked full! I have a lot to look back on that I can't even believe was only this year, and feeling endlessly appreciative, accomplished, and ready for a break!

January: AJ and I celebrated our 3-year anniversary up in Big Bear for our last January anniversary. Kicked off the wedding planning process with engagement photos in LA and started recruiting professionally with my first trip to France and Germany

February: I ended up in Europe 3 times in the shortest month of the year! Returned from Germany at the beginning of February, celebrated AJ's 32nd birthday with friends in Norway and Sweden, and then returned at the end of the month for a recruitment trip in Madrid.

March: Welcomed the month in Madrid. Celebrated my own 32nd birthday with an amazing Vegas trip with my friends, including seeing Le Rêve at Wynn and lots of virtual craps!

April: April 1st didn't exist to me as I was in transit to the eastern hemisphere for the first time in my life. A full circuit in India was all I needed for awhile, and then I got to come home and celebrate my nephew's first birthday!

May: Went to a concert (those are getting increasingly rare for my taste!) with Kathleen, had a fun Disneyland trip with AJ, Iris and Jessica, and had a 3am wake-up call to watch that Royal Wedding! Ended the month in Philadelphia for a work conference.

June: Marked 10 years since I graduated from college! AJ and I headed to Las Vegas to watch the life-changing Hamilton show.

July: Wedding fever with wedding craft days and trying to beat the heat at the dog beach inbetween!

August: Last work trip of the season to DC where I got to hang with Chrishon, AJ's flag football team won championships, and Marisa hosted a bridal shower for me at her place of business where we crafted away!

September: The real madness begins...! My cousin Brianna and other members of my bridal party host my beautiful bridal shower, and fall recruitment begins with a two week recruitment trip throughout Canada

October: I return from Canada and head out for my drop-dead-amazingly-fabulous bachelorette out in Palm Springs, then turn around and head out to Japan for just shy of two weeks, made even more fun with Kathleen joining me for the first week. My first time in East Asia! I end the month by taking the GRE

November: This is a blurry, stressful mess. My amazing grandmother turns 101, I have a work trip to Raleigh and get to hang with Jayna and meet her newest addition Annika, final wedding preparations have me and AJ going nuts and back and forth from Riverside and other appointments, AJ and I move from our apartment to a house, my work throws me a bridal shower and I submit 7 out of 8 of my applications for grad school and say a prayer for December!

December: The sparkling grand finale. The first week, although kicked off with a spa day for mother's day, was nuts. But I got the most amazing wedding day with everyone I loved around me, got to marry my love AJ, then head out for a fabulous honeymoon throughout New Zealand and French Polynesia, then try to finish settling into our home to welcome in the new year pleasantly.

Can you see why I don't want to let 2018 go?? What a beautiful year it's been! I'm still looking forward to more calm in 2019, and also all the good things sure to come.

December 2018

Where do I even start?? I had the best month ever. I'm a married woman, I had the mot magical wedding ever surrounded by more family and friends than I could have hoped for and have the best memories of my wedding day and what was probably the best day of my life :) Honestly everything felt so perfect and I just loved it all. The pictures still give me goosebumps and make me so happy to see them.

Went on a badass honeymoon to New Zealand and Tahiti which was friggin brilliant and everything we wanted, and now back home with our dearly beloved pets, setting up house with all our beautiful and generous gifts, and slowly easing back into work and life and reality before 2019 hits.

I'm not even sure how to capture all the photos and videos from all that excitement, so I'm going to try to condense into a sampling of some favorites here of the wedding... the honeymoon photos will have to come later, this is an undertaking as it is!

Everything started with the rehearsal at our venue, followed by the dinner immediately after at Heroes across the street. AJ and I even got a free shot of Fireball and a dessert, as did Shannon since it was her birthday too!

The electricity was buzzing from all the excitement of everyone in town and the upcoming festivities and seeing everyone, it was so much fun.

That night some of us even went walking around downtown with the Festival of Lights, and then Jayna and I crashed in my suite, to wake up bright and early on the morning of my WEDDING DAY and get ready with the girls!

Then it was off to the first look at the Riverside Municipal Auditorium steps... it was getting hot! Followed all that with some photos of the bridal party and family.

All this before we had even gotten married! However, being at the venue and seeing them set up the chairs and the whole place for my wedding was pretty surreal and definitely freaked me out a bit at how real it was getting (as if I couldn't process it all before that!) And then there was nothing left to do but get married...!

I loved our ceremony so much, and I loved getting married and that venue and seeing everyone around us, inside and above. But I was still looking forward to the dinner and dancing.

This might be my favorite picture from the
whole day. This was right after we exited the
ceremony, headed outdoors, and AJ spontaneously
kissed me and literally swept me off my feet. I
wasn't expecting it at all, and the Best Man was
right behind us to capture it :)

And then, rooftop for the real par-tay!! Good Lord this was a fun time.

When it shut down, a few of us went to the Presidential Lounge at the Mission Inn for a nightcap, which was convenient since AJ and I were staying there and he wasn't exactly firing on all cylinders anymore LOLOLOLOL. 

Rob was cute and snuck behind us on our way out to take this picture of us heading upstairs.

Funny story, it wasn't until probably the plane ride home from the honeymoon, going through AJ's phone, we found this photo below. Neither of us have any recollection of it hahaha but it was our last photo from our wedding day!

Aaaaand the next morning! I may not have looked it, but I still felt like a ray of sunshine. Family came by to pick up some stuff from the suite, Kathleen brought coffee, and my mother basked in the glow of her sons LOLOLOL.

We went to brunch with some friends, which was a great little conclusion, and then AJ and I headed home. We stopped by South Coast Plaza and AJ took me to the Kate Spade store and let me pick out anything I wanted! That was a fun surprise. Then, we went home, opened some beers and went through our cards and guestbook, which was so sweet and helped us relive the fun day we had just had.

At brunch I told my friends, I don't feel sad it's over... I had such a great day and I'm just so happy with everything, I don't feel any post-wedding blues. They pointed out that it probably helped I was leaving for New Zealand and Tahiti the next day LOLOLOL #truth.

AJ and I crashed early on Sunday then woke up to go open up a joint bank account together then go home and throw stuff in suitcases in time for Chris, AJ's Best Man, to drive us to LAX for our honeymoon. And that'll have to be a post for another day!

I remember, on the day of the wedding, taking time to very conscious and present and enjoy each event and each moment and take it all in, and I remember thinking "this isn't going by too fast like everyone says", but of course, a few days later it was starting to feel blurry and like it did go by too fast and couldn't believe such a momentous occasion was over with so quickly! I feel lucky though, because it felt pretty darn perfect, and in the end I got to be married to AJ #cheesybuttrue