Ihilani Weekend Recap

Okay, nearly 1 week after we left for our Ihilani anniversary weekend, I think I'm finally ready to give you all the rundown of how it went. BUT, it's going to have to wait until tomorrow. I'm actually feeling pretty tired right now and think I will actually attempt to get more than 5 hours of sleep tonight. :P Here's a little teaser photo in the meantime:
What we saw when we went out on the balcony upon our arrival

Ihilani, Here We Come!

Yay, we're checking into the Ihilani this afternoon! I still need to finish packing! I'm still feeling a little under the weather, but it could be worse. I just can't seem to get rid of the congestion. Maybe the fresh air out there will be just what I need. See you all in a couple of days!

I'm Sick :o(

Ugh. It has finally happened. I haven't been sick in a really long time. Aside from that stomach bug I had last July, I'd say it's been over a year. Brian is finally getting over being sick for 2 weeks.

On Sunday, I woke up with a sore/itchy throat. I took Monday off of work (planned vacation), in celebration of our anniversary. I still had the sore throat, loaded up on Benedryl, and took a nap. When I got up from my nap, the sore throat was gone, but I had some sinus congestion. Aside from having plugged ears, I felt better on Tuesday and went to work.

Yesterday morning, I woke up feeling worse than Tuesday with a sore throat and headache. I decided to stay home since I really wanted to get over this (whatever it is) before our Ihilani weekend! I spent much of the day sleeping. By the time I went to bed, my nose was running and I had a bad headache.

I woke up this morning not feeling much better than I did yesterday. Ugh. My ears are plugged, my nose is stuffy, I have a headache, and I'm feeling a little light-headed/dizzy. I'm thinking I feel dizzy because I basically slept all day yesterday and now I'm up and about. At least my nose has stopped dripping. :P

I feel like going home and resting some more, but, sadly, I don't have a whole lot of sick leave. I'm pretty much right at my lowest comfortable level of sick leave since I took yesterday off. I could burn some annual leave, but, again, I want to keep that at a certain level. *sigh* We'll see how the rest of the morning goes. I think I'm stressing myself out a little since I really don't want to be sick this weekend while we're at the Ihilani. :(

Our Anniversary Cake!

(This is the follow-up to the previous post Our Upcoming 1st Anniversary: Cake.)

Our cake was wrapped up in this pretty pink bow

Cake (before)

Cake (after)

Yummy!

In honor of our anniversary (and since we didn't bother saving our top tier), we contacted our cake vendor, Tiers of Joy, and had Leigh make us a little 6" round anniversary cake in our wedding day flavor. It was White Chocolate Raspberry, complete with fresh raspberries, whole white chocolate chips, and white chocolate mousse. Mmmm, it tasted just like how I remember it 1 year ago! We picked it up on Monday.

Oh, and it was only $15! We've cut it into 8, decent-sized slices. By my calculations, that should last us until Thursday. Definitely worth the price. Waaay better than anything we would have normally picked up at Zippy's. :P

Surprise Anniversary Gift: Revealed

Brian bought me an anniversary band, so now I have a 3 ring set! He's very sneaky. I didn't even know he had bought it and had been hiding it in our tiny townhouse the week before our anniversary. I was actually looking for something the other day in our "office" and Brian actually got kind of irritated, asking why I needed what I was looking for so badly. It all makes sense now. He didn't want me snooping around and accidentally finding this little box! :D He's the best!

Cute little wrapped box with a pretty blue bow

The ring on the right is my surprise gift!

This is how it looks all together. The ring on the bottom is my wedding ring and the ring on top is my anniversary ring.

Our 1st Anniversary!

I need to get a post in for today! Today is our 1st wedding anniversary! We spent a quiet evening at home, after I got home from work. I hoped we would be able to watch our wedding video and slideshow, but there just wasn't enough time tonight.

I made a big pot of spaghetti, one of Brian's favorite dishes I make. We watched some TV, had a slice of wedding anniversary cake, and that was pretty much it.

I'll post more about our cake and my surprise gift tomorrow. Must head off to bed now!

Surprise Anniversary Gift!

Any guesses?

Dry Embossed Butterfly

Another friend of mine at work is getting married early next month. Her theme is butterflies and her color is a nice Carolina/Cornflower blue, which is one of my favorite colors and was also one of my wedding colors.

I decided, once again, to try out another design and get some exposure. I'm going to give her a set of these as a surprise gift. Who knows, maybe she'll be able to use them as Thank You cards!

The light blue background is "Blue Bell", the dark blue shimmery accent paper is called "Lapis Lazuli", and the embossing is done on "Virtual Pearl" which shimmers in a blue color.

A different color combo for the butterfly. The possibilities are endless!

Dry Embossed "Ai"

I made this for this girl in my office who's getting married at the end of this month. My boss asked me to plan a surprise luncheon for her and get a card to pass around the office.

Although I really am not close to this girl, no one else would do it. My other co-workers are all guys and the only other female in my office and this bride-to-be don't like each other.

Anywho, I saw this as an opportunity to try out a new design and sort of advertise my services. I suppose the more exposure I can get, the more opportunities might come along.

My little brother pointed out to me that in the Japanese culture, black cards are normally used for funerals. I had a feeling this might be the case before I made the card, but the girl's wedding color is red, she's having an Asian theme, and kanji is always written in black ink. So, a black card background worked out the best. Oh well.

White Chocolate Decadence

I had this at Chili's the other night. OMG. It was heaven! I think I nearly made myself sick from all the sugar, but it was so worth it! I've had the regular chocolate one before, but most of you may know that I absolutely LOVE white chocolate. I was even lucky enough to have a white chocolate raspberry wedding cake! I really hope they keep this dessert around permanently.