Happy *cough* Thanksgiving *cough cough* -er

Last week was brutal.  The week started off not quite right with Tim battling a bug. It was no big deal. He just didn't feel great. I was good.
Wednesday I woke up with a lump in my throat and powered through the day with vitamin C. Luckily Tim got to leave work early that day because his "not so great" had progressed into feeling downright bad.
Thursday my throat had gotten a little worse, but I was still feeling generally good. More vitamin C, plus delicious  homemade smoothies helped me in my efforts to get the house cleaned up for Tim's parents' arrival on Friday morning, but I could not get my sick Timmy out of bed. Already reluctant to expose my entire family to whatever bug had gotten loose in our home, we decided to skip the trip to the O.C. for Thanksgiving with the Handys. It broke my heart to miss Thanksgiving.
Later in the evening, my well rested husband got a burst of energy and put the Christmas tree up in the living room to make me feel better. I wish it filled the hole that missing Thanksgiving left, but it did make me feel a little better.
Unfortunately, I went to bed Thursday night feeling not-so-awesome.

Friday morning Tim woke up, checked in with his parents on their trip, and brought me dayquil and ibuprofen - without which I would not have gotten out of bed. Tim's parents arrived around 11. We all hung out together for a while before Tim and his mom started cooking our Thanksgiving-er dinner. It would have been Thanksgiving; Part 2, but we didn't make it to Thanksgiving; Part 1
We had way way too much food, so some of my family came by to help us eat it all. I was very happy that they were able to make it out - especially since I wasn't able to see them the day before.

Saturday morning Tim got up first and brought me dayquil and ibuprofen to help get me out of bed. We immediately ventured out into the world - had to get $5 off at Bevmo and buy a new bookshelf. I spent the rest of the day going upstairs to take naps between socializing and watching TV.

That night we watched Pirates of the Caribbean; On Stranger Tides and gave Tim's mom her birthday presents - her birthday is today, by the way (Happy Birthday, Bridget!).

Sunday, I think, was my worst day. We had to get up early to say goodbye to Tim's parents, who wanted to miss any Thanksgiving traffic on their way back down to San Diego. Once they were on the road, we were back in bed, where we slept soundly until about noon. Tim woke up feeling refreshed, like he was actually getting better, and I woke up happy for him, but feeling terrible. We did hardly anything all day. I hardly left the couch all day. My parents brought us some soup and Tim ran out to the store to restock our orange juice supply and pick up some Mucinex. They helped enough that I was able to assemble the bookshelf we'd bought on Saturday. It looks great, by the way - pictures soon!

Monday morning I woke up feeling totally not awesome, so I called in sick and slept until 1030. I spent the rest of the day on the couch, watching the first two seasons of Parks & Rec on Netflix, and getting dizzy every time I turned my head.

Yesterday I went back to work, and today (in addition to being my mother-in-law's birthday) is my dad's birthday! Happy Birthday Dad! You're the greatest ever!
I'm still not feeling awesome, but I am determined to feel good enough to get to my dad's birthday dinner tonight.
So, in the interest of rest...

Peace out.

Happy Holidays!

I won free photocards from Kim's Kitchen Sink! I ordered them today! Hooray!
(also, as a side note, my husband is currently cheering against Oklahoma by singing "Oooooklahoma!")

Bursts Of Snowflakes Holiday Card

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Caaaaar!

For months, Tim and I have been making trips to car dealerships - looking for the best deal on the best car and what is the most realistic and reasonable for us, researching cars online, finding out what kind of financing we can get where and what the monthly payments would work out to. We sent a whole slew of car options to our insurance guy to find out what we could expect to pay for insurance on each car, and then we looked at our budget again and again to make sure we were managing this car buying thing effectively.

After trips to Honda, Dodge, Ford, and Subaru, we finally made our way over to Nissan on Saturday. We looked at a few different cars while we were there, and though some of them were really nice, only one of them was going to be our Tim's new car. We went home on Saturday to mull things over, and came back on Sunday with this very specific car in mind - a 2012 Altima.

And then we set about negotiating with the Nissan people to buy it.

So now we have officially bought our first car as a married couple. I kind of love it, and sort of wish we had bought it for me, but my turn will come. :) My little Honda Civic is still truckin' away, so I've got some time before it needs replacing. 

In the mean time, check out Timmy's totally awesome new car. :)

Operation Get Out of the House; Take a Cooking Class

For a while now, the husband (tehehe) and I have realized that we have been in a bit of a rut. We're talking work, home, gym, watch tv, sleep, work, home, gym, watch tv, sleep. Yuck.

So, we've been making an real effort to get off our butts and actually do things.  In August, we planned an elaborate and terrifying fishing trip. We bought a 6 person raft (which is really a 2-3 person raft) and set out into the Pacific Ocean, where I promptly had a panic attack and then calmed down to take some nice pictures. 

After that, we were kind of whelmed by wedding stuff. Getting married takes up a lot of time. It did, however, get us out of the house for extended periods of time. We had a lovely mini-vacay in Santa Barbara and an amazing party in our honor with all our family and friends, before heading off on a full length vacation and then spending a day at Disneyland (our first trip together to the happiest place on earth).
Now that we've returned to normal life, it takes more of an effort to get out of the damn house. So, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Giant Spaghetti Monster for LivingSocial and Groupon. Every time I get an email with a deal that intrigues me, I email it to Tim and most times, we end up buying it.

Our first escape from the day-to-day (as officially married folks) came courtesy of LivingSocial and Chef Lance Corralez - a Tapas cooking class for two, Cooking with Corralez! I bought this deal a couple months ago knowing we wouldn't be able to take the class until after the wedding. So tonight, I picked the dogs up from my parents (they've been playing there during the week due to our lack of yard and desire to keep our house clean), met Tim at home, and together we drove back out to Encino to learn how to make delicious tapas. It was a lot of fun. We learned a ton, have the recipes to try at home, and Chef Lance was just a really cool guy - very down to earth, easy to relate to, genuinely excited to have us there, and a pretty good teacher too. We left with little goodie bags full of tiny whisks, lindor truffles, a huge discount to have Chef Lance come to our house and cook a private dinner for two in our kitchen (we probly won't do this, but its still cool),  and a certificate for a complimentary wine tasting at Flask in Studio City - yet another reason to get out of the house!

So far, Operation Get Out of the House is a success. I'm looking forward to all of our adventures to come!

1 Week Into Real Life

As of this past Saturday, Tim and I have been married for 3 weeks. It's still kind of surreal. These last 3 weeks have gone by so fast.
Here are a handful of pictures from our wedding. I didn't think we looked any happier than the normal happy couple, but all I keep hearing is how incredibly happy we seemed and how affectionate we were, so hooray!

Sisters during pre-ceremony photos

I just like the face Timmy's making in this one

Getting by bouquet back before being introduced as husband and wife

After exiting the ceremony as husband and wife

Deedee thinks champagne and flowers are awesome

Dancing and kissing and stuff

The Tuesday after the wedding, we left for our honeymoon in the Canadian Rockies. It was basically awesome...except for Calgary, which was totally lame. It's possible that we didn't try hard enough to find awesome things to do, but we certainly did not find any.
We did so much hiking and adventuring around in Banff/Yoho. I'm trying to post some different pictures from the ones on facebook already.

Laughing Falls

Twin Falls

Lake Louise

Takakkaw Falls

Our lodge and its mountain

That's all for now. The real world calls. If you need me, I'll be here, thinking about my next vacation.