the night in.

Pay off all debts.

Follow my fashion inspiration.

Make a house a home.

Happy New Year to You and Yours!

On Christmas Eve we received one of the best gifts ever!  Our engagement photos arrived and I am so excited to share a few of them...

We got started a little late this year with putting up the Christmas decorations since we took our trip to Disneyland right after Thanksgiving.  But, we finally got everything up and the house definitely feels very Christmas-y now!  I put together a video of us putting the tree together... watch all the way until the end for some silly outtakes.

P.S. Nick is not in the video because he was at work that night.  The people in the video are his sisters and dad. :)

P.P.S Watch the video in HD!!!

Last Thursday we left for Disneyland to take our engagement photos and enjoy the holiday season at the parks.  Let me start off my saying that this trip was one of Murphy's law... everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.  But, in the end it all worked out.

Thursday morning, Nick and I packed up my car and hit the road around 4am with his family following shortly behind us.  The forecast was calling for rain in Anaheim, which left me slightly worried... and my mouth was in pain from a wisdom tooth that had decided to jab its way through my gums the night before.  I've felt this pain before from my other wisdom teeth but it usually went away after a few hours.  To top it off, I realized that in the rush of last minute packing (which is so unlike me) I had forgotten to grab my glasses off the nightstand.  This left me to fend with one pair of contact lenses for the weekend.





The day was fun.  A little chilly and drizzly with intermittent mouth pains when I would try to eat.  This was a real bummer since the food at Disneyland is half the fun.  Upon returning to the hotel that evening, I realized that I had left some important daily medication (I'm sure you ladies know what I am talking about) at home, which made me even more upset.  What else could I have forgotten?  Also, would my mouth ever stop hurting?  There's only so much Advil a 105 lb person can consume in one day!






Friday was the day of our photo session.  I was a ball of nerves as the slight sprinkles of rain turned into torrential downpour.  Nick and I headed back to the hotel to get ready.  I had 40 minutes to organize our stuff and tame the frizz ball on my head into something decent looking.  Just as we were about to leave our hotel room, I received a phone call from our photographer saying that if the weather did not clear up we may have to cancel the shoot (the rain would make the camera lens foggy and the lighting would not be right due to so much water).  I was freaking out, but could only accept what mother nature had given us that day and hope for the best.  We hopped in the car and I then discovered... dun dun DUN... I had chipped a nail!  This was a surprise since I had just gotten a gel mani one week ago and those thing are usually rock solid on me for about 4 weeks!  The polish was still on, but hanging on by a thread.  By this point, we were running late and Nick had to drop me off in the Downtown Disney parking lot so I could head over to Sephora to have my makeup done.  With my heels and dress on, I popped open the umbrella, held onto my huge pink tote as tightly as I could and trekked it out in the rain while Nick went to park the car in Mickey and Friends.
Sigh.

Luckily once I got to Sephora, everyone was super accommodating and helpful!  I temporarily fixed my nail with some clear polish, one of the women who worked there graciously offered to re-curl my hair and set it with some spray (since my hair was literally flat and awful looking by the time I arrived).  Jose, my makeup artist worked diligently for 35 minutes to make my face camera ready.  I have never worn so much makeup in my life... I mean, I would not go out in public like this everyday but I have to admit that it looked amazing from a distance and I'm hoping even better on camera!  While all of this was happening, Nick was rushing around to get us a locker at DCA to keep all of our stuff in and pass off our car keys to his family members. He finally popped back into the store when my makeup was about finished.  I asked Jose to touch up a few spots on Nick's face and he went to town, giving Nick a mini makeover that looked completely natural in the end.  It was seriously such an awesome experience and I will be sending a compliment over for Jose today.

Finally, it was time to meet up with our photographer!  The rain had let up a bit and we met Brooke, her husband and two adorable children in front of DCA.  Our shoot began at the front of the park and we worked our way around.  I did not expect it to be so much fun after all of the hectic moments that had led up to the shoot, but it really was!  Brooke was amazing, friendly and made us feel so at ease in front of the camera lens.  We moved over to Disneyland after a quick outfit change and took photos in front of the most magical locations!  The rain began to come down a little more near the end of the session, but we pushed through it (thank goodness for the lone umbrella that Nick and I purchased on a whim Wednesday night before leaving).  I am literally chomping at the bit to see how the photos turned out!  I also cannot even express how lucky I feel to have found Brooke's work on Pinterest, so we could book her for our photos.

The rest of the trip went by in a flash... we were so exhausted from staying at the parks from open until close almost every day we were there.  Saturday morning I put my right contact lens in only to have it literally burn my eye ball and turn it bright red.  Nick came to the rescue by running down to our hotel gift shop and bringing me eye drops so I could look (and see) like a normal person again.  This was the real cherry on top of my Disneyland trip ailments though.  Haha.  My mouth also still really hurt for the remaining two days and it hurts as I am typing this.  I went to the dentist this morning and found out that I need to have all four wisdom teeth removed.  *Sad Face*  But, at least the pain will stop after that!  I then have braces to look forward to... er- yay?

Anyway, I will post the engagement photos here as soon as I can get my hands on them (4-6 weeks)!  I think the overall lesson that I learned this weekend is that there is definitely always a bit of sunshine even on the most awful days.