Let's chat about the OTHER big news story of the weekend...

The Royal Wedding!

There were SO many photos that I would love to talk about, but I had to narrow it down. 

Alright, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, I thought, looked awesome. The British are known for extreme "pomp and circumstance" and these two were the definition of that. I was DYING over all of the fashions. And all the shades of blue. *GASP!* I loved every minute and I soaked in every second of fashion candy that walked onto the screen. 

 

Posh and Becks! Looking as stunning and British as ever! I loved her facinator. I thought her dress was a bit matronly, though. I know she's pregnant, but there are many, MANY dresses she could have had made that looked more flattering. OK and David Beckham- WOW. He 100% wins best dressed for the male guests. He looked like a prince. But the day did not belong to Posh and Becks. 

Queenie looks so adorable in her matching dress and hat. Look at her showing off her ankles. I loved the pleats at the top. Very fashion forward for a Queen of her age (85!). 

 Here is the moment we were all waiting for......the world's first glimpse of THE DRESS! A Sara Burton creation from the House of Alexander McQueen. Alexander McQueen is known for doing some crazier fashions on the runway, so compared to those, this was elegantly understated. On a scale of 1-10, I give this dress a 100!! It was beautifully constructed. Hand stitched lace flowers. A daring and plunging neckline. Sweetheart shaped bodice. A beautiful veil and tiara (on loan from the Queen. The tiara was given to the Queen from her mother on her 18th birthday). The train was 9 feet long; a stark contrast to Princess Di's 25 foot long train! The dress seems to be throwing a nod to Grace Kelly with she was married to the Prince of Monaco. She looked absolutely lovely. Regal and vintage yet modern.
I also loved Pippa's white dress. It's not usually customary for the bridesmaids to wear white, but all of the little girl bridesmaids were also wearing white, so it was only natural for Pippa to blend in. This was also a Sarah Burton creation. She looked incredible. What a body! Along with Kate's dress, Pippa's will be heavily copied in thousands of weddings across the globe.

It is British Royal custom that the Bridegroom (William) not see the bride until she is at the altar. When he did, he whispered to his bride, "you look beautiful". Here in the photo above he is whispering to Kate's father, "this was supposed to be a small occasion". LOL what a great sense of humor in such a tense moment. During the whole ceremony, William and Kate exchanged happy and loving glances at each other. It was so romantic. The ceremony was beautiful. The choir was amazing. Just everything was perfect. Absolutely perfect. 

After the three minute walk back down the aisle, the new Duke and Duchess of Cambridge emerged from Westminster Abby to thousands of waiting Brits cheering them on. 

 They looked so amazingly happy as they took the open carriage ride back to Buckingham Palace. It was that same open carriage that Prince and Princess Diana rode in back in 1981. I would like to note Kate's signature wave...slight side to side wave with her thumb tucked in. I thought that was interesting because I have seen the Queen as she waves and it is worlds different from how Kate waves. Just a thought. I also noticed that during the carriage ride, every time William would salute, she would bow her head in respect to whoever William was saluting.

And there we have it, ladies and gents! The first kiss! And we got to see two! William and Kate's marriage marks the first time in three hundred some odd years that a royal has married a commoner. One day, he will become King and she will become his Queen. Though, it seems, she is already the queen of his heart. A true fairytale. Best of luck to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge! May you have many happy years together!

p.s. FYI, if William and Kate do not conceive within the first year of marriage (which I suspect that they wont because they are so modern and would like to enjoy each other first), they will be breaking 200 years of tradition. Fun fact!

Osama Bin Laden is dead!

 America's most wanted and most hated is DEAD! May he rot in hell!

Thank you to our awesome Navy Seals who carried out the dangerous mission.

Thank you to all of our brave men and women in uniform overseas.

Thank you to all the brave fire fighters and police officers that lent a helping hand and lost their lives on 9/11. 

To the 3,000 that died on 9/11: you did NOT die in vain, and we will never forget you. 

The death of Osama does not end anything. We are still very much in this fight. What we need to do now, as Americans, is band together and support one another. 

As Obama recited in his speech last night, "One nation. Under God. INDIVISIBLE, with liberty and justice for all".

p.s. yes, I do believe that we should be able to see the photographs. We deserve it.

Trying new things

So since we don't have a "go-to" activity {the beach or harbor} anymore, we decided to branch out and do things we don't normally do.

This past weekend, it was HOT, so we went to the coast. Carlsbad, to be exact. We visited the Carlsbad Flower Garden. It was SO beautiful. *tip* sign up for the VIP shopper club to get a discount on "surrounding discounts". Go here. At the garden, it's usually $10 per person. With the coupon, it's buy one get on free. Good deal.

There were also a bunch of cute little crafty vendors there.

 So soft looking.

 This is honestly the most perfect flower I have ever seen.

The sweet peas smelled incredible. It's really unfortunate that it's too late to plant these in my backyard. Next year! 

Fairy Pathway

How adorable are these little buds? They look like mom and dad buds, then we have the baby bud on the bottom. 

Oh and by the way, most of the photos were of the lovely flower that I am now obsessed with, the "ranunculus" flower. I CAN'T WAIT to plant some of these. 

Bridesmaid countdown...

57 days left to lose an undisclosed amount of weight ;) My brother-in-law and {soon to be} sister-in-law's wedding is on June 11! My dress is a gorgeous mermaid style{ish}, Tiffany's Blue dress with black lace around the bust area. So as you can imagine, it will be pretty tight. I need to lose a good chunk of my "stress weight" as I like to call it, by then. I say stress weight because once Aaron got home from the hospital, I began to totally stress eat. Getting through what happened to him in Afghanistan was a year long process. And it's still ongoing, and will forever be. BUT I am at a good place now to where I want to not only better my mental health, but also my physical health.

annnnd what better than a wedding with a tight dress that I have to wear to get me going?

what am I doing to get the weight off and tone up? 
running with the dogs at least a mile a day. Sometimes twice a day.
stretching
push ups {girl push ups for me}
leg lifts
squats
7 lb weights for arms. I do regular lifting and then punch the air with the weights in my hands. SUCH a good arm workout, by the way.
When my knee is hurting, I'll go on our elliptical for 30-40 mins instead of a long run with the dogs; don't worry, I do still take them to the dog park in that instance.

what am I eating?
From now until the wedding, I am cutting out bread and soda. I don't want to limit myself too much because that never works for me long term. So I am just giving myself two simple things to cut out. NO BREAD AND NO SODA. Oh also for the last two months I have been CHUGGING water everyday. It's sooo good for you, helps to curb cravings, AND gives you great hydrated skin.
One more thing I am going to do at home is anything that I make can't be bigger than one of my small tupperware containers. No, I'm not going to eat out of tupperware; just use it as a measurement. It's all about portion control people!

Anyway, this plan is specific for me personally. Everyone is different and everyone's body is different. You just have to find out what works best for you and try to stick with that. Although, implementing a lot of water into your daily routine is good for anyone. {another benefit to drinking a lot of water, is that it clears bacteria out of your urinary tract, so if keeps you from getting a UTI. yay!}

Have a good weekend everyone!

Meet Kane!

Finally I have had the time to actually sit down and write about our families new addition. This is Kane. We adopted him from the Coastal German Shepherd Rescue. He is about 4 years old, and he is the sweetest boy. Kane was a little shy in the beginning, and didn't have too much confidence. But day by day, he is opening up more and more and seems to be gaining his confidence back. 

Kane, Miley, and I all go on morning walks on a nearby trail. Then usually later on in the day, we take them to the dog park. At home, Kane love to patrol the house every few hours or so. And he LOVES a good game of fetch in the yard. The poor guy has a pancreas condition called EPI. Basically, he can't process his food correctly, so he has to have two different powders in his food everyday for the rest of his life. It's expensive, but how could you deny this face?

He's very affectionate, and him and Miley love each other. They're are long lost brother and sister that just found each other :) 

Alright well here he is!

Kane's lookout spot {the window in the guest bedroom}

 Catching the ball and playing fetch is one of Kane's favorite things to do. 

 Kane and Miley, hangin' out

 ???

 I think a treat was promised here. 

 Kane loves hugs!

 And, of course, Miley is the typical little sister {copycat!}

 *will sit and look adorable for treat*

 "KANE! Play with me!"

Sweetest face. Welcome to the family, Kane.

before and after pics fail

So we're redoing the guest bedroom. It had one bright pink wall and the rest were stark white. yuck. I really wanted to show the before and after pics....but we got so excited to start painting, we forgot to take a "before" photo. Home renovation blog, FAIL. haha I will definitely post the "after" pic. It will be the only room in the house fully finished.

Alright, got to get back to painting...

my secret garden

So we had hidden roses and a giant lemon tree all on the side of the house. I guess we just never had walked over there because it took us a month to discover these. 

 Do lemons bloom year round? There are literally hundreds on this tree. YES!