Alphablog - B

B is for Bones.

Bones is one of my favorite tv shows. When we first started watching it I was not a huge fan - I thought it was cheesy. The truth is, it is cheesy, but that is part of the charm. You really grow to love the characters and this week, one of America's favorite tv couples finally tied the knot, and it was perfect.

I just wanted to keep a reminder of it here in my little corner of the internet.

The Good In The Bad

It has been a pretty intense month. It's hard to even know where to start.

After some weird bumps showed up on her neck, one of my sisters went to the hospital. There were tests and surgeries and waiting periods and a scary prognosis that turned into an even scarier reality and diagnosis: Hodgkins Lymphoma. Or, to be as succinct as possible: my sister has cancer.

I have been avoiding writing about this because nobody wants to commit to actually typing out those words. My sister has cancer. My fingers press the keys, and a lump swells in my throat. My sister has cancer. There's nothing I can do about it. It is our family's new reality.

As far as my blog is concerned, I tend to try to be either funny or eloquent in my updates. Cancer is not either of those things. Cancer is not funny. Cancer is not eloquent. Cancer is scary. Cancer is a bully. Cancer makes you question everything. I know that it's not my job to decide anyone's fate. I don't even believe in the death penalty. But... it is hard to understand why there are terrible people in this world who are alive and healthy and getting away with awful, awful things... and my sister - who is kind and sweet and funny, and the best mother in the entire world - has cancer. It does not make sense, and I cannot wrap my head around it sometimes. I think at this point, I'm done asking why. We'll never know why. But here is what I do know: my family is amazing.

From the moment that all of this started, there has never been a time that I was afraid Beth would not get the support that she needs. Our family has really come together to make sure that she has everything that she needs when and how and where she needs it. Even people who are my family and not her family have helped - my amazing mother-in-law came over one Saturday to help me make two weeks worth of freezer food (dinners, snacks, and breakfasts) for her to have on hand to defrost and eat, or throw in the crockpot so that her and her family will have one less thing to worry about. Whether it is watching her 3 kids so she can take a nap, setting her up right for chemo with a Nook and some super soft PJ's, flying in from out of state to be with her for a couple of days, or giving her husband a ride to work because they only have 1 car and she is tired - we have all done it without question or hesitation. Beth told me that she knows how loved she is because her phone is constantly going off now - calls and texts and Facebook messages of encouragement and offers of help and funny pictures to cheer her up. Despite what her new and terrifying truth is, these are things to be thankful for. She is thankful for them, and I am thankful for them.

We have another thing to be thankful for as well. The Good in the Bad, the Light in the Dark - my newest brother.

Beth and Garrett have been engaged since August 2012. I remember being so happy for her and them - it was two months before my wedding and I was in full on bride mode, so I was nothing short of thrilled. They have been planning a wedding for February 2014. On March 15th, they decided to get married legally at the court and still have the big party next year. At first when she was talking to me about it, it made me very, very sad. I was super bummed that she even had to think about this kind of thing (marrying legally so that he has rights if he needs them) - I was just devastated that these are the kinds of things she has to worry about now, instead of getting to enjoy being engaged the way I did and just going to bridal shows and vendor meetings and trying on big dresses, and where my biggest concern was whether or not I would be able to afford imported beer - not whether or not my partner had legal rights should the need arise in a medical setting. So I cried some, and then I got it together and got excited for her because I don't care what anyone says - even a courthouse wedding is still a wedding and what's not to be excited about? My sister is totally in love with an awesome guy who happens to be totally in love with her too, and they were finally making it official - hooray!

Because our family is so close, we wanted to be there, and they wanted us to be there, so it turned into slightly more than courthouse vows. A longtime family friend happens to be an ordained minister - he also happens to have a huge house and backyard which he very graciously offered up for this last-minute event. What family and friends managed to put together in three days was pretty incredible.

I gave Beth the dress I wore to my rehearsal dinner, and she borrowed my sparkly wedding flats and some pearl jewelry. We went shopping that Saturday to find outfits for her two daughters - her eldest picked this really pretty mint chiffon dress with fluttery little flowers on the bust and then I spent the rest of the day with her searching for the perfect matching shoes (and you'll be relieved to know we found some!) and we even managed to find a dress for the baby that matched perfectly. As a surprise for them, my husband and I decided to go to the florist who did our wedding and get a bouquet for Beth and a boutonniere for Garrett. Poor thing, you should have seen her assistant's face when I asked her on Monday if she could make me a bridal bouquet by Wednesday! I told her not to stress about it though, that I had a few pictures for her and I had no particular requests on flowers - just that I wanted it to look very springy and with soft colors, the size of a bridesmaid bouquet, and tied with a lilac ribbon. I told her that I trusted the florist completely because we had been so happy with our wedding flowers, and that she could take my inspiration photos and that they were open for interpretation. Come Wednesday when I went to pick up our order, I was delighted to find that she did not disappoint.

Inspiration.



 Fruition - sorry for the terrible lighting!

A shot of the flowers and the cake - with the cake topper that I made! :)

I ran around that afternoon with my step-mom completing some last-minute errands - picking up a cake cutting set, chasing down the rings from the mailman (HA!), picking up the food and cake that she had ordered, and going to our family friend's house to set everything up. The house looked great - our friend/officiant's girlfriend had decorated the backyard with tiny lights, candles, and lots of white. Everyone started arriving, the sun set, and it was time to get started. At 8pm there in the back yard under the stars, surrounded by ~20 of their closest friends and family, with their children standing beside them, and with the smell of orange blossoms wafting over everyone, Beth and Garrett got married.

Life has been scary and intense and busy and a little bit hard to handle for the last month, but last Wednesday, March 20, 2012 - was perfect. Everyone smiled all night long. The love in the air was tangible. The support everywhere was overwhelming. The smile on my sister's beautiful face was priceless. Their children were gorgeous, as always. The tears in Garrett's eyes and the way his voice caught in his throat when he uttered the words, "in sickness and in health" were heartbreaking, but encouraging and comforting. He is an amazing father. He will be an amazing husband. He will help her through this. He will be her rock, when for so long she has been the rock for everyone else. I am glad he is her husband, and I am proud to call him my brother. I love my sister. I love my newest brother. I will never forget that night, and I am so happy that it happened, despite the reason behind it. It was beautiful.

It was the first day of spring.

Saturday, October 6, 2012 - Part Two (Ceremony)

Every breath I had taken since meeting a boy at the tender age of only 17 years had led to this moment. As my dad and I walked out from our hiding spot behind the lemon tree, the beauty of Craig Armstrong's Portuguese Love Theme swelled inside of me. One step at a time, clinging to the only man who had ever meant as much to me, I made my way down to round the corner of the long sidewalk, wanting nothing more than to see Clinton's face. Finally, at long last, after waiting for 20 hours, after waiting for 9 years, I came around the curve, and I could see him. I'm sure that the seats were filled, but I had eyes only for him. I could not stop smiling, I could not stop crying, I could not stop the heaving in my chest that was every single emotion I had ever felt for him all bubbling to the top at the exact moment when it all should. He was crying, and he was gorgeous, and he was about to be my husband.

The walk seemed to last forever - the walk seemed over in an instant. Finally - suddenly - I was at the proverbial altar, hugging my father and watching him shake hands with the new most important man in my life.

All of our parents stood and voiced their support and blessing of our marriage, and our officiant asked us to stand together, facing our guests, and he welcomed them all on our behalf.

We are all here to learn about loving and being loved, and to watch the miracle of love exchanged enriches every one of us. Therefore, we appreciate the opportunity to witness the shared love of this beautiful couple. Their enthusiasm is contagious, their certainty of their destiny together is inspiring and their great expectations give us all a glimpse of the heights love can reach.

We spent a lot of time looking at each other, smiling at each other. My dad had knocked the flower off of Clinton's boutinniere when he hugged him and so I touched his lapel a few times. Our ceremony was pretty short - the vows were the most important part to us and we didn't want to take away from that so we didn't do a unity candle, a sand ceremony, or any special readings. We had a couple of meetings with our officiant where we chose exactly what we wanted him to say and wrote our own simple vows.

I choose you, Whitney, to be my wife.
I have emptied my heart of all others,
It is only filled with you.
You're my best friend and my only love,
And I'll cherish you for the rest of my life.
I choose you, Clinton, to be my husband.
I have emptied my heart of all others,
It is only filled with you.
You're my best friend and my only love,
And I'll cherish you for the rest of my life.

We held hands and made promises to love and respect each other, to share our lives and our dreams, to build a home and a family together, to be everlasting companions, to share in successes and failures, happiness and sadness, and to always give each other our unwavering support.

Our officiant added a few words here and there of his own that he had added in as a little gift to us - things we had discussed about the way we met, things we had done together, the time we had spent together - he said how lucky we were to have had Fruitcake Happened, and we cried.

I give you this ring as a reminder that I will love, honor, and cherish you.
In all times,
In all places,
And in all ways, forever.
You are the love of my life,
And you are my very best  friend.

Getting these words out was a bit of a challenge - we were both crying so much. We had waited so long, and it was finally happening. I could hardly tear my eyes from his face, but I'm told that there wasn't a dry eye to be seen during our ceremony.

The rings were on, the vows were said, and all I wanted was to kiss the perfect face in front of me, but there were a few more words to be said.

May your lives be filled with wisdom, blessed with good health, and abundant with miracles.

May you eternally have your amusement, remembering how to play, and may you always see the connection that brought you both together.

Today, you are embarking on a new journey. This is a journey no two have travelled before; it is unique to you.

It is up to you to make the most of your life together. Dream big dreams, love like there's no tomorrow, and become the best people you know how to be.


In my presence and in the presence of your family and friends, you have exchanged vows and made promises. You have opened your hearts to one another, declared your love and friendship, and have united yourselves with the exchanging of rings.

Therefore, with the blessings of God, it is my pleasure to now pronounce you husband and wife.

You may now kiss the bride!

And now, to all the friends and family who have come to celebrate this marriage, I would like to present, for the first time anywhere, Mr. & Mrs. Clinton and Whitney Reissig!

And suddenly, finally, at long, sweet last, we were married.

Photos courtesy of Tea Ho of Dreambox Photography



Just Popping In

I know that it's been over a week since the wedding with no updates, and while I don't have time for a full post right now, I just wanted to pop in and say that it was the most beautiful day ever, and that I couldn't have asked for more. I promise to update soon with as many details as I can remember. For now, one guest picture that is indicative of how we felt all day long.

WEDDING DAY IS HERE! OMG.

Ribbon and glitter and wood - oh my!

Things that I am thinking right now:
1) I can't believe it's only Wednesday.
2) How is it already Wednesday?!

I simultaneously feel like this is the longest week ever, and that I need more time in the week for all that I have to do. People keep asking me if I'm enjoying my time off, but it doesn't really even feel like time off. I had a bad day yesterday - I feel like I'm supposed to relax and enjoy this time, but I'm so stressed out I don't even know what to do with myself. I woke up at 430a today for no damn reason and laid in bed for 30 minutes trying to force myself to go back to sleep but it wasn't happening, so I figured hey, why not blog?

Clinton had his bachelor party on Saturday and while he was out doing that I decided to take advantage of having the place to myself and make a total mess while doing my crafts and trying to get things organized.

At some point in the night, my living room was actually even MORE cluttered than this. I did not take a picture however, because it was after 3am and I was delirious.

First I finished up all of our favors.

After the favors I decided to get everything organized and ready to go. I made stacks of candles so that when we do our set-up it will be really easy - one stack per table, no confusion, and hopefully not 10 people asking me where things go. I packed everything for our centerpieces neatly into 2 boxes, and a 3rd box for table signage. I also packed a smaller, separate bag with important small things that I need easily accessible in it - ring boxes, flower girl buckets etc.

Next, I got to crafting. The first thing I made was a card box. There are DIY cardboxes all over the internet that look like a 3 tier cake - the point of these is to make something people can put cards into so that they can't be stolen. While this was originally my intention, when I went to Michael's to buy supplies, I realized I just didn't want something that big and plus, we're having a relatively small wedding - we know/love/speak to everyone there on a regular basis and are close enough to them to not have to worry about anyone stealing anything. So I went in a different direction and just bought a small, plain wood, card-sized box. I also bought a metallic champagne paint, some burgundy cardstock, and some gold letters (I already had the sheer ribbon pictured).

From this...

And this...

To this!

It's kind of hard to see the color, but it's a very light gold/champagne with a bit of shimmer to it.

It wasn't difficult, just required a little bit of precision for the lining, and patience for the paint to dry between the 3 coats. I guess some people might say it's a risk to have an open box like that but I don't know, I kind of feel like if you think it's risky, then you probably invited people to your wedding who shouldn't be there.

My next project was a cake topper. Now, this cake topper journey has been a trying one. A week before the wedding and still didn't have one - so frustrating. I (well, we) knew exactly what we wanted but it was proving nearly IMPOSSIBLE to find. As mentioned in a previous post, we have a sort of inside joke with crabs - the extremely short version is that before saying The L Word, we used to say "I peench" to each other (which basically meant the same thing, but SOMEONE *cough*notme*cough* was too scared to say it) because of this old commercial for the Honda Element with Gil the Crab. It's a little too silly to explain much more, but it's something that has stuck with us. We still say it sometimes, and always draw little crabs on cards and stuff. SO. Even though our wedding could not be farther from a beach theme, we knew we wanted crab cake toppers no matter what.

DO YOU KNOW HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO FIND CUTE CRAB CAKE TOPPERS? I WILL TELL YOU. IT IS VERY DIFFICULT. Apparently people just don't want their cake topped with a couple of cute crustaceans, believe it or not. I found a few, but they were mostly real-looking crabs, which, I don't know, just doesn't seem cute to me? I wanted something cartoon-ish and simple. I finally found ONE thing that I liked on Etsy. I didn't end up buying it because the seller was charging $70 for it, and it probably would have been even more because hers were blue and red and I would have asked for custom white. Finally I decided I could not possibly justify spending that much money on something that nobody else would probably even notice, so I thought I'd give it a whirl and see what I could come up with myself.

While at Michael's for the card box materials, I remembered that I had purchased the little wooden crab for the our save-the-date pictures there too. I found some crabs in the same section that were similar, but not exactly the same. I actually liked these ones a little better though, because they were slightly rounder and friendly-looking. I bought 4 of them so that I could do a trial run and a final draft, but I ended up only using the two because I was happy with my first attempt.

Plain wooden crabs.

First I traced them onto a piece of paper.

Then I drew the design I wanted on the picture and cut out some construction paper accessories.

Next up, 3 coats of plain white paint, then a tiny brush w/ some black paint for the faces.

 I don't have pictures of the next step, but basically I used some burgundy carstock painted black to make a bowtie and top hat for the groom. Next I cut out a tiny piece of tulle to make a veil for the bride. I also placed a few rhinestones on her claw as a bracelet. I decided to skip the bouquet because it looked unnatural anywhere I placed it. I had also purchased a small wooden base and I used mod-podge to stick the little guys to it. The base is painted white, and it's hard to see but there's also 1 coat of  clear iridescent glitter on it so that it is not the same finish as the bride and groom crabs.

The final product.

In better lighting, but hard to see the shimmer.

Final cost - like 4 bucks. Take that, $70 etsy topper! I did this one all on my own without consulting the groom which was a bit of a risk - he's been involved in nearly every decision thus far so I was worried he may not like it, but I didn't want to be texting him while he was having his boys night out. The good news is that the next day when he came home, he was in the middle of telling me a story when he stopped and asked me where/when I bought the cake topper, because he really liked it and didn't remember me showing it to him. Score one for me! It was pretty sweet to say, "oh I didn't buy that, I made it last night". Bonus point - he also loved the card box. Whoo-hoo, go me! DIY Bride for the win.

I also finally finished painting the initials for our Sweetheart Table. This was actually a long process because they originally started out neon green and yellow, so I had to primer them and use A BAJILLION COATS of glitter paint. That is an exact number.

And lastly, my most recent project this week has been the seating chart. Talk about a tedious task. That is definitely one of those that I wish I could have delegated to someone else, but wouldn't have trusted anyone else with, so I got stuck with it. It wasn't as difficult as I thought but I did have to do some finagling to get everyone where I thought they might be comfortable. Of course, there's always that one person who you don't want to subject anyone to and finally you just have to put them somewhere and hope it all works out haha.

Step 1 - Posterboard. I highly suggest this method. I also highly suggest a pencil instead of a pen. Rookie mistake.

Final product after I typed it all up and matted it in this frame I picked up for only $5!

 So that's what I've been up to this week! My living room no longer looks like that 1st picture, but one wall is stacked several boxes high. The spare room is mostly cleared out and will be finished today because OH HEY MY FAMILY ARRIVES TONIGHT! Actually more than one part of my family arrives today - my mom, step-dad and brother get in tonight from Nevada and are staying with us, and my sister and her husband and my 4 nieces are getting into town from Oregon. I hope I have just a moment to spend with other out-of-towners before the wedding, but everything is so hectic it's impossible to say. I can't believe how close the day is! I hope to blog again before Saturday, but no promises!