St. Patty's Day

St. Patrick's Day is coming up soon and I've decided since I'm approximately 1/18th Irish I should decorate our apartment, bake green desserts, and start practicing my Irish accent.  Here are some Pinterest ieas to get me motivated. Do you decorate for St. Patty's Day?

Second question

You know you think about blogging too much when your husband comes home sick and one of the first things you as him is, "Can I take a picture of you sick for my blog?" If you do that, your husband might shoot a sad stare your direction like this one. Sorry darling. It should have been my second question. We've only been married a little over a year, I'm still learning!

Cruise!

We're back! Our cruise was relaxing, full of laughs, friends and delicious food. We spent our days sleeping in, touring Catalina and Ensenada, eating whatever we wanted, and enjoying every second of it. Why is it that work weeks drag on, but vacations fly by? I'm already asking Phil if we can take another vacation soon. He keeps mentioning that vacations require money. The way to earn money is working. It's a vicious cycle. 


Here are several of my favorite photos of the trip.

Cruising tips

Next week I’ll be MIA on my blog. The reason for that is I’ll be on a cruise! Husband and I, along with 5 of our dearest friends will be cruising to Catalina, and Ensenada, Mexico for 5 whole days! Pretty much all week I’ve been day-dreaming about this trip. When I say day-dreaming I’m including work meetings that I should be paying attention in. “Laura, can you fill us in on the advertisement’s for next month?..... Ummm Laura?....Are you okay?” Me, “Oh yes, the weather is going to be beautiful!... I mean…..” Caught!

Since I can’t think of anything else, I’ve decided to give you a few cruising tips. This will be my 4^th cruise so obviously I’m no expert, but hey I’ll give it a shot!

1. Check the weather at all your stops before planning your outfits. Usually cruises have more than one stop, so one place could be sunny and the next could be raining. For me if it is going to be sunny at one place and pouring at the next, I just pack my whole wardrobe.

2.Check-in online and fill out your Cruise Charge Account. Unless you want to carry cash and your credit cards with you everywhere you go on the ship, fill out the charge account. If you plan to have a soda, beer, or some other non-water drink the charge account is handy. Also, if you want to shop on the ship, Charge it!

3. Pack with rolling luggage. When you embark and disembark you need to wait in several lines. Baggage check line, passport check station, check-in line, etc. It kinda feels like you are at Disneyland but there is no cheery music being played and no one passing out churros.

4. Make 2 copies of your passports before leaving. Keep one copy with you when you leave the ship. It’s better to leave your actual passport in the safe in your rooms. Then leave the second copy at home, in case your passport gets stolen and you lose your other copy.

5. Tag your bags. Make sure each of your bags has your name, address, phone number, and cabin # on it. You can print your luggage tags online after you check-in. It’s worth it! You didn’t just spend 4 hours picking out our outfits for a 5 day cruise, to have someone 3 sizes larger than you try on all your clothes before reporting the luggage to the crew members. 

Have you been on a cruise? What are your tips???

Photo a day challenge, "Something New"

New toy

I received a few comments this week about how great my photo’s were. Thanks everyone! But the secret is that Husband and I bought ourselves a new toy with our tax return. Yes, I’m one of those crazy people that do my taxes around January 15^th. The anticipation of whether we will get money back or have to pay more drives me nuts so we do our taxes right away! Anyways, we did our camera research and purchased a Nikon D5100 DSLR Camera with a 18-55 and 55-300mm VR lenses. With all our research I still have no clue what all that means. To me it says, your pictures are going to make people give you compliments. Yes please!

Photo a day challenge, "Phone"

I'm very attached to my phone, remember this post? 

Photo a day challenge, "Heart"

I totally stole this idea from my friend. What are good friends for if you can't steal a few ideas from them every once and a while? Thanks Katie!


Can you tell which hand is mine? 

Confused on what this post is about? See this post.

Our Valentine's Dinner

Any date night with husband is lovely, so yesterday was no different. We walked to PF Changs at 5pm, because it was the only place that would take our late/non-reservation butts. Apparently everyone wants to go out on Valentine's day. Who knew? We were sat on the patio which was secluded and surprisingly romantic. Throughout our dinner different waiters kept coming over and offering us more food.... "And here is your sweet and sour pork, lobster noodles, wraps...." we would look at them like they were crazy, then smile, because we clearly already had our food, but how do you say no to all that extra yummy-ness? Then the waiters would wise up and notice they had the wrong table....again....and again. Apparently our newbie waiter had no clue there were different table numbers and put our table number for all the food orders being sent to the patio tables. I hope the other tables didn't mind me taking a bite out of each plate before telling the waiters it wasn't mine.

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentine's Day friends! Whether you are spending the evening with your hunny, or with your besties I hope you have a wonderful day filled with love! Here are few links I've loved. I think might enjoy them!

• Photo series of couples from New York that have been together over 50 years. So sweet. 
• Staying in romantic movie suggestions
• Vintage locket
• A yummy V-Day pizza with heart shaped  pepperonis' very cute and family friendly
• Funny dinner silverware 

Husband and I are not sure what we are doing tonight. We might stay in and cook, or we might walk to our favorite café. Either way I'll spend the evening with my favorite person in the world and my darling valentine.

Photo a day challenge, catch-up

Okay I've been terribly behind in the Photo A Day Challenge, but I have been taking the pictures. I just haven't posted them. Which basically means I failed this challenge. Oh well, I guess I can't win all the challenges right? I have to give other people a chance. 

Painting again

Since I wasn't feeling well this weekend I decided I'd try to be productive while I was sitting on the couch, sniffing, and sneezing and annoyed that I was sick yet again. I did managed to get a few little paintings done though! I'm excited to show you them this week and hear what your thoughts are! Do you paint? What type of crafty skill do you possess? Send me a link of your skills. 

Picture from Pinterest

Weekend Weddings

Hello blogging world! Oh man, life has been overly busy this past week. I need to catch you up on so much! Starting tomorrow..... because I have a cold today and don't have the energy to catch you up quite yet. Here is a sneak peak of a gorgeous little girl at the wedding I coordinated this weekend. Yes, it's my niece Chloe. 

Even the bride and groom couldn't stay away from Chloe!

Photo a day challenge, "Buttons"

Confused about why I posted about buttons? Check out this post.

Lunch break at 11am

Yesterday I had a surprise lunch date. My sis and niece Chloe were in my area and decided to have coffee with me! Now, normally I take my lunch break around 1:00pm but yesterday I took it at 11am. My cube-mates all looked at me with surprise. I think they were staring at me that way because I had just finished my breakfast around 10:30am. Hungry again Laura? Is what those stares meant. What... a girl needs to work hard to keep this girlish figure!? And that means eating on the hour and and on the half. I didn't indulge the fact that I was having coffee with my sis and Chloe because I need to keep my co-workers on their toes, and always guessing. Why, you ask? Who knows, but I have to do something to make the day interesting. I sell toner for 8 hours a day people.... TONER!

Photo a day challenge, "Dinner"

Last night I was exhausted and really REALLY not in the mood to cook. Plus we need to go to the grocery store because we are out of the good food. Thankfully husband was in the same mood and decided to pick up dinner on the way home for us. Rubio's never tasted so good.

Confused about this "challenge", see the first Photo a day challenge here.

Road-trip

This weekend was absolutely wonderful. Phil and I drove 7 hours on Friday up to Nor Cal to visit my brother and sis-in-law. They recently (one week ago) moved up to Folsom, and Phil and I needed to see them already! The drive went by pretty fast since husband I and I listened to our favorite music, and chatted about our first year of marriage and what we are looking forward to in the future. We arrived around 10PM Friday night and chatted with Bobby and Becky until after midnight. It was such a good time. Then we spent all day Saturday being shuttled around, drinking coffee, enjoying their gorgeous new city, and even catching up with old friends that live up there. 

Sunday as we were getting ready for church I went to put on my boots and pulled a muscle in my back! Have you ever done this before? OUCH! The rest of the day (including the 7 hour drive home) I walked like the Hunchback of Norte Dame. Thankfully husband was incredibly sweet to me, showed me some back stretches and catered to my hunchback-ness. Overall I had such a wonderful time and Phil and I plan to take another trip up there very soon. Probably by train next time!

Photo a day Challenge, "A stranger" & "10 AM"

Photo a day challenge, "Hands"

Okay so technically I'm cheating on this one because my sister took the picture today, BUT my niece Chloe has the most adorable, perfectly chubby hands in the world. Of course today's theme would have to be her hands. :)

Totally lost about what I'm talking about. See the Photo a Day Challenge post here.

Strolling

Husband and I took a walk last night. I love night walks in Long Beach because there are always people out. Families, couples, groups of friends, and joggers are always running around. Last night we were strolling along and one jogger was doing his jog-in-place-until-the-light-turns, then he started to do his stretches…while leaning on the pole. Bending over, making stretching sounds (which made me throw-up a little in my mouth), twisting and turning, bobbing his head to the apparently epic song playing on his ipod, and bending over again. Apparently the first stretch didn’t get the job done, and sticking his bum in our faces one time in a night just wasn’t enough. Jog on jogger man.

Photo a day challenge, "Words"

Okay so I'm posting two pictures today since I didn't start this challenge until last night. Hope you don't mind, cause you know I won't be loosing any sleep over it. 

Day 2 picture theme is "Words." My sweet co-worker Carol recently bought me this mouse pad, because she’s incredibly thoughtful. Or maybe because my old one was beyond dirty so she was tired or walking past it every day. Either way, I love this new one and it adds a little color to my drab desk. Thanks Carol-ina!

Photo a day challenge

A friend of mine started doing this yesterday and it caught my eye. Take one photo a day for the month of February. There are different themes for each day but the possibilities are endless. I'm going to do this along with my regular posts! Do you want to join me? 

Yesterday was Day 1: Your View Today

Since I was at work yesterday I decided to take a picture of my lovely view. The warehouse. Even though this view is not great, I do witness some entertaining scenes. The other day I was staring out the window and I saw a pallet, filled with toner boxes, about  7 feet high topple over. The warehouse guy that was building the pallet is apparently not very observant and didn't notice it leaning like the Tower of Pisa. At the same moment I witnessed this, the CEO of my company did as well and kinda freaked out. Entertainment.

Cards

Husband and I have decided that this year we are only giving each other cards for Valentine’s day. I like this idea because 1) we are saving for our cruise this month and need to keep those few bucks, 2) I’m not an avid Valentine’s day fan because husband shows he loves me all year long, 3) I read somewhere that it’s a made up holiday from Hallmark. Not sure if that’s true though. Anyways, I’ve been looking for a good card to give Phil and sometimes I like the mushy ones, sometimes I like the funny ones, and often I like the awkward ones that I know Phil will get a kick out of.  What kind of card are you going to give to your significant other this year?

Here are a few ideas I pulled off of Pinterest and etsy…