Sushi Night

Although Alaska doesn't have the best mexican food in the world--they do have pretty amazing sushi! After work a bunch of us from the Arc went out for sushi...besides my occasional california roll I am not a seasoned sushi eater. I haven't tried a whole lot of it and it always makes me nervous to eat a bunch of raw fish. My co-workers were nice and tried to help me order something maybe not so "fishy". I ordered the 'Spider Roll' I thought I was safe with that since it was fried crab but little did I know it was those little baby crabs that have the soft shell and sticking out of my sushi roll was these little crispy legs that looked like a giant trantula deep fried. I ate one (with a bunch of wasabi). It was really creepy so I ended up trading with everyone around me. I got rid of all my crab but I gained a lot of weird things, raw eel and tuna which was actually really good! One of them was rolled in little tiny fish eggs. It was a very interesting experience. Below is the picture of the eel...it looks like a big slug, nasty! --but surprisingly tasty!

"My wife thinks i'm trash cuz I eat a lot of ketcup....on my sushi! I find it gets rid of the fish flavor" ~ Jim Gaffigan

It sure beats my frozen hot pocket!
"HOT POCKET!"

TONS OF PICTURES!! (Sorry everyone else!)

This is mostly for my family so sorry to everyone else who reads my blog! It is just a bunch of pictures...it is easier to direct my mom and dad to this rather than having them try to down load emails. So Mom& Dad here you go!
Jed's friend Matthew Parry took our engagement photos. They turned out better than I imagined! I don't want to be too vain but I think they are the cutest engagement photos I've seen in a long time! They have a lot of our personality in them and we love the bike! It really looks great in the photos!




Jed got a little bored with pedaling me around...so he had to have some fun with my poor bike! Just kidding he didn't hurt it, and he didn't even get dirty!











I am not sure I have ever ridden on the handle bars of a bike, or at least in the last fifteen years...it was a little scary and kind of difficult in a dress. But by round two I was relaxing a little bit, I was glad Jed was pedaling!




I tried to pedal Jed around a little bit, but it was a little too scary I couldn't see around him very well.
we had a lot of fun with these pictures! We have so many that we love it is hard to pick from them because they are all really awesome! Let us know which are you favorites!

HIking Flat Top

I went on a hike this morning with a few of my co-workers. We tried to make it to the top of 'Flat Top'. Unfortunately we did not make it to the top--one of the girls (the youngest) didn't think she could keep going, so we stayed together...for bear-safety reasons. It was okay because the higher we got the colder it was! The wind was really bad.

Unleashing The Bridezilla

Well I've been engaged now for almost a month. It is amazing how much can happen in such a short amount of time! Thanks to my mom and sisters we have tons of fun unique ideas planned. I feel confident that everything back in Utah is being taken care of...Of course it took me about three weeks to realize that everything was going to be okay. However, the inner Bridezilla has ventured to the surface a few times and I am doing my best to restrain it from coming out. Planning a wedding in Alaska has been very stressful. All of this madness is nothing like I imagined. I have not been close to my friends or family so I often feel like I am missing out on the fun that comes along with wedding planning. It can be complicated to communicate over the phone and through emails...on the positive side my mom has had the opportunity to learn more about computers, emails, links and uploading pictures! Dress shopping is the what brings out my bridezilla the most...it just goes crazy!! So originally I thought I would just go to Utah and find dress while I was visiting in August. Then I heard from people that it takes a long time to have a dress ordered and have any alterations done to the dress. So, I figured buying a dress in Alaska might be easier, less of the hassel and rush of trying to find something in just a two day time period. I started looking around and found that all the dresses were strapless and would have to undergo severe reconstructive surgery to come out Temple Ready. So I continued looking both on line in UT and at the TWO bridal stores in Anchorage. I tried on over fifty dresses and they were all beautiful. After a week I found a gorgeous dress at David's Bridal, it fit me perfectly and I had the option of buying it off the rack right then. However, because David's is a big Coorporation they are allowed to do only certain modifications on the dress. When we finally agreed on a possible style, they found out they couldn't order matching fabric in Ivory...they could in white, but the dress isn't white. To order a white dress would take 16 weeks. I'm getting married in 12 1/2 weeks. So I asked if I found fabric if they could do it, and they said no because it was not approved by the designer of the gown. So then I asked about a private seamstress....well she could do it for $50.00 a panel...the alterations then would cost MORE than the dress it's self! I still considered it and went to look at the fabric store...the semi-matching fabric would have to be special ordered and takes 8-10 weeks.!!! That is when the straight-jacket needs to brought out! Well, after all of this I will be dress shopping in Utah Aug 6-12! I have one mission while I am there...to find a dress with out releasing Bridezilla!

My Awesome Saturday!

Today has just been a very busy but awesome day! I started early by sending Jed home to Fairbanks. It is always sad when he leaves, so I tried extra hard to have a lot on my to-do-list just to keep me from being bored! So I went to the gym, then I went to the local farmers market. I loved the farmers market because they had some awesome produce that was really inexpensive! I got some sugar snap peas for only two dollars! And Broccoli for only 75cents it's great to feel like I am supporting the local economy.

After the Farmers market I went downtown to the infamous Saturday market. It was so much fun I walked around for a couple hours.
It was like a mini fair! I had a lot of fun looking at all the booths. I listened to the local artists perform. I even bought a funnel cake for lunch! I seriously had so much fun!

After the Saturday Market I hit Nordstrom's Half Yearly Sale! I found a dress for our engagement photos! I think I've tried on 40 black dresses in the last week. I found only a couple that were modest enough for me to wear! It was very frustrating...I just wanted a simple black dress! But most of the dresses needed something underneath...then over the shoulders...blah, it is amazing how different our standards can be compared to the world's!While I was out and about Nicole called me and asked if I wanted to go Wedding dress shopping! I was so glad that Nicole came with me! We had so much fun and laughed so hard. First of all--David's Bridal had some specific rules...and we got in trouble we were scolded more than once by the consultants. I made an appointment for 5pm and we arrived 30min early. So Nicole and I thought we might as well start looking and pull out some dresses that I wanted to try on. We pulled out like 10 dresses when on of the employees came over panicky because of it. (we just thought we would save some time!) So she told us that we could write down the style number. Nicole had a clip board helping me write down the style number and then became my professional wedding planner....at least that is what the consultant at David's Bridal assumed.

We tried on TONS of dresses and after all of that Nicole and I learned a few things: 1) It always helps to unzip a dress before trying to fit into it. 2) Trying on dresses is quite a work out! 3) don't mess with the David's Bridal's consultants--don't go against the Davids Bridal rules! 4) Trying to explain Garments to a non-member can be challenging 5) You can't judge a dress on the hanger and finally! 6) Magic can happen! This dress above was okay...a little too cookie cutterish, had nothing to it but it was cute and fun...and cheap!I think I found Courtney and Sandy's Bridesmaid dress! Sparkly and taffeda!

Nicole and I did run out of time and I didn't find anything I absolutely loved but feel like we have a better idea of what I want. After trying on dresses we went out for a little Moose's Tooth which is the best food in Anchorage. I loved going with Nicole, it was how I imagined dress shopping! It was so much fun Thanks Nicole!

Let the games begin!

Okay! It is on! Wedding planning has officially begun! This is the start of a crazy week! I feel like I have a check list a mile long to do. I felt like we had plenty of time to get all of this wedding planning done but the more and more I get into it... the more I realize that we are already behind schedule and we've already wasted too much time! On the schedule this week is to
A) find out what exactly we are doing for engagement photos, what we are wearing, and who is taking them?
B) I need to go wedding dress shopping! I found a girl in my ward who just bought one and said it takes up to twelve weeks to order a dress...well shoot that won't work if I want to get bridals done in August. DANGIT! So I am not going to be able to wait, I think I am going Wednesday with this girl to go look at dresses. I invited Nicole to go with me, and I hope she can still go, because I don't want to buy a dress the first time I try it on! But I don't know... 12 weeks?!?!
C) I don't like the colors I picked! I need to find new ones...suggestions? I need something brighter...I will decide sometime this week so don't panic!
So I went driving around looking for a place to take our engagement photos...and I don't know if we have decided anything yet but I took some really fun pictures down by the train depot. I thought they were kind of fun, and we could do some fun things with the cruiser and us. It was a nice break from shopping. I was trying to find something to wear for our engagement photos but the shopping here is not what I am used to.