Friday, June 29, 2012

Sorry For The Delay

Just wanted to pop in real quick. I know that I said that I would have the second half of the Candy Buffet post up today, but with everything that happened this week with the fires in our town, I didn't have access to the computer that had all of my pictures on it. Hopefully, I will be able to access that this weekend.

Good and bad news on the fire front. Good news, they have lifted most of the evacuations and we were able to return to work for the first time today. Bad news is that as of now there are 347 homes lost and one life lost. It is sad to see all of the destruction. It is just a lot to take in all at once. As of today they have it at 15% containment and is estimated at 18,500 acres.

On another good news note, we had the inspection done on our house this morning and everything came back great!!! I am so relieved by that. So now we just have to wait on the appraisal to come back and to sign some more paperwork and who knows what else, but it is that much closer to being ours!!!!

Welp, I have to get back to work now. Two days off makes me have lots of work to catch up on. Thanks everyone for all of your concern and for sending your thoughts and prayers this way. Everyone out here appreciates it, I am sure of it. Have a great weekend everyone!

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Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Commenting Challenge: Day 3

Today is day 3 of Jenna's commenting challenge. I have quite a bit of down time today so I figured I would post on the topic today even though I have already done two posts for today.

Today's topic is social media and which ones you use for your blog. I use Facebook and Twitter for outlets for my blog. I have an actual Facebook page that I have created specifically for this blog and I use my own personal Twitter account as another outlet for the blog as well.

I think having other ways for bloggers to contact you is great and especially with Twitter, it makes it very easy to talk with someone. You can find my Facebook page here and you can find my personal Twitter account here. I also use Pinterest, but that is more for my own personal use than for my blog. It really is just an outlet for me to waist a TON of time, haha!

Today's topic also included a question about what websites you visit on a daily basis. I have quite a few that I visit on a daily basis. They include Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, TMZ and E! Online. I also look at ESPN a lot especially the NFL page, I mean Fantasy Football is right around the corner and I need to start looking at what is best for my team this year :)

That's pretty much all I have for today. We have a lot going on here that is really taking my mind elsewhere so sorry that it isn't very long. If you are wanting to know what is going on, you can read about it here. I hope everyone is doing well though and I will keep you updated on the craziness going on here as best as I can.

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Candy Buffet: The Favor Box

Months and months ago, I told you guys about our Candy Buffet and what we were thinking and wanting to do with it. We started by deciding what we wanted to use for our guests to put their candy in i.e. a box or a bag. 

We had originally purchased these small cardboard triangular boxes from Michael's that were in the clearance section. They were the perfect colors and everything. One problem though, they would only be able to hold two or three pieces of candy, so they wouldn't have been very efficient for what we were wanting them to do. 
So after searching the internet for a few days, I found these adorable miniature popcorn boxes from Oriental Trading Company. Not only were they very affordable, but they were the perfect size.

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A few of them once we received them

I figured they offered a little bit more room for customization too! So the creative wheels started turning for what I could do to these boxes to give them that personal touch that I really wanted them to have. I wanted to put some sort of decal on the boxes that had our names and maybe a cute saying and the date of our wedding. I figured the easiest way to do something like this would be a stamp, especially since I would have to make quite a few of them. So of course, I turned to Etsy to find the stamp I wanted.

After some searching I found a very cute rubber stamp that had everything on it that I wanted. And it was very affordable. 

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I found this stamp from the Etsy seller stampoutonline who specialize in custom stamps. They were very easy and quick to work with. I placed my order and once I approved the proof, I had it within a week. And the stamp was great! It worked exactly for what I needed. If you are at all interested in using a custom stamp, check them out because they have a great selection of different stamps and are great people to work with. AND they are offering my readers free shipping on your purchase when you use the coupon code ILOVESTAMPOUT so definitely go check them out for all of your custom stamping needs!

Once I had the stamp in hand, I went to Hobby Lobby and bought brown and cream shimmery paper to cut circles out of. I cut the brown circle a little bit larger than the cream circle so that I could layer them. I used a circle cutter to cut all of these out. This was a serious life saver. It made this task a lot easier and a lot quicker.

Once I had all of those circles cut out, I took the custom stamp and an embossing pad and stamped the cream circles. Once I had one stamped, I would sprinkle brown embossing powder over the stamped area and then take an embossing gun to it so that it would raise the embossing powder. This is what it looked like once I had that done.




Once I had all of the smaller cream circles stamped and embossed, I affixed them to the center of the brown circles. Once those were done, I affixed them to the pink popcorn boxes along with a teal bow and voila!! They were done! 




These boxes turned out so cute and so amazing! We had so many compliments on the boxes. Everyone loved the personal touches that we put on them. And they worked perfectly for what we wanted them for. If you loved these boxes, make sure to come back on Friday. I will be doing the second half of this post on how the rest of the candy buffet turned out and you will be able to see how these looked on the table with everything else.  

Mandatory Evacuation

Hey everyone! I hope that you guys are having a better week than we are here in Colorado. I wanted to fill you guys in a little on what is going on where I live right now. I live in a town called Colorado Springs, CO. It is the second largest town as far as population goes in the state of Colorado. I have lived here my entire life and I love how beautiful this place is.

This past Saturday a fire started that was just West of the town. It wasn't a huge concern for our part of town at the time, but today that changed really quickly. As I was sitting at work, I could see the smoke climbing higher and higher into the sky and it was really starting to worry me. The sky along with the smoke kept changing colors. It would be gray, then it would be orange and then it would be black. It kept doing this all afternoon. Around five o' clock when we were supposed to be leaving they started issuing mandatory evacuations for the neighborhoods West of where we work. I really started freaking out at this point, mainly because we know at least three people that we work with that have homes in those areas. My boss was one of them and he has actually been evacuated from his home since Saturday night.

This was the fire when it first started on Saturday

As I was waiting on Aran to finish up his work, the smoke started rolling in and making it difficult to see and breathe and there was ash falling from the sky. What we had been fearing all weekend and in the start of the week had happened. The fire had crossed over the one canyon that was in it's way and started spreading down the foothills of our town and into city limits. And things only got worse from there.

They started putting more neighborhoods on mandatory evacuation including the neighborhood that our place of work was in. At this point, our IT department called and told everyone to sign off of the systems because they had to do a back up of the system to take with them just in case the building went up at some point. They also told us that our COO of the company pretty much told us to get the heck out of Dodge. At this point, again, we were completely freaking out.

The smoke outside my office this afternoon

A different angle but same place

Now, Aran and I don't live far from work. We actually live on the other side of the interstate from it. So after discussing it, we decided that the mandatory evacuation line was far too close to where our apartments are for us to feel safe staying there. So we rushed home, packed up everything that we felt was necessary(legal docs, wedding photos, our kitties of course, clothes, my wedding dress, Aran's guitars, etc...)and we booked it down to my big brothers house. He lives on the south side of town and at this point, the fire is not really a threat to that area. We figured that we would rather be safe than sorry and we are going to be moving in with him in a few weeks anyways, so everything seemed to work out in that area.

This fire has become absolutely out of control and has now burned over 6200 acres since it started on Saturday. And as of this morning, they hadn't lost any structures or lives that they were aware of. However, because of the change of events this afternoon we have now lost quite a few homes and a historical landmark. I am in complete shock as to what is going on and I have been having a hard time finding the words to express the emotions that are going through me. I am watching the town that I was born and grew up in and that I love so much, just go up in smoke and to tell you the truth, I am not handling it well. I have cried a few times. So many people have already lost their homes and many more might lose theirs as well. It is the worst feeling in the world just having to sit back and not be able to do anything.

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Things like this make you realize just how unprepared your are for something like this. I can tell you that we were very unprepared. All of our legal docs were in different places. We were running around like mad trying to find them. We have renters insurance, but have never bothered to catalog or take pictures of all of our higher valued items. We have now realized that we also need a fire safe box, just in case anything were to ever happen and we weren't able to get in and get our stuff. And lastly, that we need to have some type of sign or sticker indicating that we have animals inside.

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This whole experience has been a huge eye opener and hopefully we can now better prepare ourselves for if this ever happens again. We are hoping that the fire steers clear of the interstate tomorrow so that we can go back and possibly get a few more things. We are actually thinking that if it is possible that we may just move completely out of our apartment this weekend. We were going to be moving in a week or two anyways, so why not try and get it done just in case this fire does jump a six lane interstate. You just never know.


Thanks for reading this incredibly long blog post. I hope that you guys are not dealing with anything ridiculous like this. I would also like to ask that you send your prayers and positive thoughts this way for all of us that are affected by this horrible fire. Especially those that are out trying to fight it. Thank you in advance everyone and hopefully I will have some better news for you tomorrow!


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Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Commenting Challenge Day 2

Today is Day 2 of the Commenting Challenge going on over at Jenna's Journey. If you aren't sure what I am talking about you can read about it here or here. Today's topic is tell us about your blog.

I started this blog about a year and a half ago. I had a lot of friends who were blogging and I loved how they were meeting new people and finding great ideas online. Then my bestie, Lou showed me that there were a lot of wedding blogs out there that I could get ideas from and so I took the plunge. I mean, all the cool kids were doing it so I had to as well.

The blog started off as kind of an everything blog and I guess that it still is. At times it has focused more on the wedding that I was planning especially in the couple of months leading up to our wedding and again now that I am trying to finish all of our wedding recaps. I've posted recipes that I love or that I have found from others. I also talk quite a bit about trying to lose weight and my struggles with eating healthy. Like I said, it is kind of a life blog. Whatever I am going through in my life at that point, I write about.

The title of my blog is something that I struggled with for a while. I wanted it to really have some meaning. Hopefully making a long story short, I lost two of my Grandparents within the last five years and they meant everything to me. They had such big dreams that they wanted to see me achieve and were some of my biggest supporters and inspiration. The day of my Grandfathers service as we were putting his urn into the wall, a small orange butterfly flew right by his spot and then over to where my Grandmother and I were standing. We knew instantly that it was him letting us know that he was okay.

When my Grandmother passed away a similar thing happened with an off white/yellow little butterfly. I knew right away that it was her. Especially since my Mom who was on the west coast of the United States saw the same exact butterfly the very next day. So the title of my blog is a dedication to my Grandparents and the dreams that they wanted me to achieve that I am now trying to accomplish.

Me and my Grandmother at my College Graduation


I am pretty much an open book when it comes to what I will and will not share on my blog. I mean I showed pictures of me in a sports bra and shorts for a fitness link up and that is not usually something I am willing to do, but I decided to use it for inspiration. I seem to have an easier time stepping out of my comfort zone with this blog than I do in my real life. Hopefully that will carry over into my real life one day.

Well, that is all that I have about my blog for today. Thanks for stopping by again today and I hope to see you again tomorrow for Day 3!


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Monday, June 25, 2012

Blog Commenting Challenge

Hey everyone! I hope that you had a great weekend! I know I did, it was busy but great! Today while reading the always hilarious K from Down at Fraggle Rock's blog, I saw that she did a post about a Blog Commenting Challenge that is going on. It is being hosted by Jenna's Journey and is a way to find new friends and new blogs. It looked like a lot of fun, so I thought I would join in. So thanks K and thanks Jenna!

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Here is how you can participate:
-Go to Jenna's blog and link up your post.
-Write a blog post for each day of the challenge. Jenna will be providing a topic every day, which can be found on her blog at 8 am central time. You can choose to write about the topic or you can write something else. The choice is yours.
-Comment on 10 blogs every day. 
-If you find a new blog that you love, put it on your blog roll.(I should probably get one of those, huh?)

Today's topic is "About Me" so here goes my post;

If you are new to my blog, my name is Megan and I am a 20 something newly wed. My husband and I married in January of 2012(Almost 6 months ago) and are currently in the process of buying our first home together in Colorado where we were both born and raised.

Aran and I on our wedding day

The snow made for some beautiful pictures

We have two fur babies that we love to pieces! Our boys, Sheldon and Beckett, have us wrapped around their little paws and they absolutely know it and use it to their advantage. We are hoping to add to the fur babies in the next year once we have our house and a yard for a dog. 

Sheldon when we first got him

Beckett about a month after we got him

My husband Aran and I both work for an association that is responsible for the coordination of thousands of Rodeo's around the country. He actually works in the department that is responsible for putting the rodeo's together while I work in the Accounting department. 

Family and friends mean absolutely everything to me and I am beyond blessed to have such amazing people in my life.


Thanks for stopping by and I hope that everyone has a great day and can stay out of the heat! 

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Friday, June 22, 2012

Foxy Friday

It's time for Foxy Friday with K from Down at Fraggle Rock!



I missed last weeks Foxy Friday but I am back again for this weeks. So let's just dive right in. I still have not lost any weight. I am still at the same weight I was two weeks ago. Does this surprise me? No, not really. Even though I have made some changes to my diet, the whole exercising thing hasn't really been happening so, yeah.

I have given up Diet Coke! I quit cold turkey about two weeks ago and I haven't had one since. I can't believe I am not having withdrawals considering that stuff was like crack to me for a couple months. So I've got that going for me.

I have also started the no bread thing again. It's going pretty well, not the greatest but it's going. The hardest part is determining if something is considered bread. Like take a tortilla for example, is it bread or is it a tortilla?

The good news is that now that we have found a house and we are starting the process of closing on it in the next month, we are going to be able to get back in the gym a lot more often. The whole hunting for the house part was consuming a lot of our time so we will definitely be getting a lot of that time back now. 

I have also set a goal for myself as far as my weight loss goes. As a lot of you know, Aran and I aren't taking our honeymoon until October. So I have decided that I want to lose about 25 lbs before we go on our honeymoon. That gives me about four months to lose this weight. I know that I can do it. I just need to stay focused!

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Pinky and the Brain anyone?

Sorry that I don't have amazing results to report but hopefully next week will be better! Hope everyone else did great this week!


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Speech, Speech, Speech

Once dinner was over, it was time for the speeches to begin. First up, the Best Man, Bret. His speech was absolutely amazing and had all of us laughing and awwwing. There were a few mentions of our kitties in his speech along with him reciting a note that Aran wrote to me from our whiteboard at home. Interesting part about that note is that Aran actually wrote that note to me when we were still in College. That note has stayed on my whiteboard since 2010. I could never erase it because it was the sweetest note and I wanted to be able to always look at it. Needless to say, Bret did a great job with his Best Man speech and we are so lucky to have such an amazing friend in our lives.
















Next to take the stage was the Maid of Honor, Lacey Lou. Her speech was also amazing. She talked about how we met and our time spent together as friends and of course how happy she was for us. I did a good job of holding back the tears during hers. There were a few moments that I thought I might start crying, but we both held it in. I love her to death and I am so lucky to call her my best friend. I love you Lacey Lou!








Jon, the Father of the Groom, speech was pretty amazing. And I'm not just saying that because he made fun of his son and gave me high praises. Well actually I am, haha! I kid, I kid. He of course welcomed me to the family and spoke of how proud they were of us and that they were excited to have me in the family. It made me feel amazing that they wanted me in their family. I hit the jackpot as far as in laws are concerned. I couldn't ask for two better people to have as my in laws! 











And last but not least, in a surprise appearance was my Mom! I had told her that she didn't have to say anything because she isn't usually comfortable getting up in front of people, but she did and I was so excited that she did! She of course welcomed Aran to our family and told him that if he ever wanted to be heard that he would have to speak up because our family is notorious for being very loud! And Aran is a very quiet person. My Mom did a great job with her speech and I am so glad that she got up there. Love you Mom!



We had some great speeches by some of our best friends and family. We could not have done this whole thing without them so we were very lucky and happy to have them by our sides throughout all of this.

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Need to catch up?

Arrivals
Hunting Down Tuxedos
A Morning of Getting Beautified
Venue Set Up
A Rehearsal & A Dinner
Bridal Party Gifts Part 1
Bridal Party Gifts Part 2
Bridal Party Gifts Part 3
Getting Ready-Hair & Make-Up
Getting Dressed: The Groom & His Fellas
Getting Dressed: The Flower Girls
Getting Dressed: The Bride & Her Ladies 
The Ceremony 
Formal Photos 
Photo Fun: The Groom & His Fellas 
Photo Fun: The Bride & Her Ladies
Photo Fun in the Snow 
A Girl Needs Her Accessories
With These Rings We Wed
Table Decor
Wishing Tree
Our Entrance
 
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