August was unbelievably FUN. Wow, where to begin? I guess August you could say was my little sister's month. Her boyfriend made me be behind the picture since the beginning when we were secretly organizing the proposal and they made me their wedding planner. I was behind line when he came out to surprise her and proposed. I did their engagement pictures for them that day. You can see more on my photography website.
http://seastevensphotography.blogspot.com/ After the proposal they had about 1 month to make the wedding happened. She wanted a DIY wedding so we started on the crafts. See pictures below. Schedules were made for the wedding and Portland temple was the destination due to the Seattle temple being closed for cleaning on the week they wanted to get married in, which was an unfortunate thing since we're 12 minutes away from the Seattle temple but 2 1/2 hours away from the Portland one. The Portland temple is beautiful though so that makes up for it.
I got to take my baby sister through the temple endowment and Dan was able to be there as well. Beautiful day. We were very close even being 6 years apart. She has always wanted to be like me and even told me many times she wanted to grow up to be like me. One of my favorite stories to tell of her was when we were kids. I got ready for church one day with my hair down and had on a dress. She came down all dressed with her hair up and in a skirt but when she saw me, she went right up stairs, took off her pony tail, changed her skirt and and put on a dress. I didn't like how much she copied me when I was a teenager but looking back on it I loved that I could be a role model for her. It was so sweet of her to take the job in Seattle with Microsoft to be out here with me. She could've easily chose to stay in New York with her boyfriend but she chose Seattle. She's a smart intelligent girl and I want to be like her in that aspect also. Will miss her terribly.
Well there was no time to sit around so we all got to work and got
busy. We decided with 17 people coming to our house it's time to up it a
little. We took out stocks and shopped shopped shopped. We replaced
our chairs and bought stools. Unfortunately those stools on the top pic didn't come in time for our guests (they came a couple of days after). Oh well, there's stuff we could still do to change things up a bit. I love wood, dark woods especially, but I do not love dark things. I'm in the process of changing, repainting anything dark to do a more contemporary, more transitional home. So my chairs got white paint on them. While painting I had a fun idea to paint two chairs in my sister's wedding color so we did a mint green. I had my sister pick out the paint and I think they're a bit more pastel green than the mint green I had imagined but it's not bad. She likes the color so we just went with it and they're growing on me. We also changed out our very basic builder's pendant lights and got those fun contemporary lights.
The other upgrade we did in the attempt to make it a comfortable stay for everyone was of course getting couches for our living room. It was time to. We've been without furniture for the living room since November. So here's a lovely picture for that. Thanks to Reena our model (also thanks to her aunt Thao for giving her this gorgeous dress for her b-day)
And of course the plan for having furniture for everyone to have a place to sit and relax didn't come in time either. Also came a little after everyone left. Wish I had gotten down to business a little sooner but it was what it was. What did come in time though was the bench and bistro set for the porch which people did enjoy.
Next, we thought, yeah now would be a good time to put in that terrace rock wall we wanted to put in. So we dug up our yard and ordered a bunch of cinder blocks but soon realized we were not going to have that done on time. So for 2 weeks we have 2 big piles of those cinder blocks and a big pile of gravel sitting on the side of our drive way. Ok so we overbooked. Not uncommon for us. LOL. Oh it gets worse, Dan decided around the same time to splurge on electronics and bought a Nexus 7, a tablet, and also a very huge and expensive computer but since I'm going to get my Vietnam trip so it's only fair. Of course this was over a course of a month but regardless, August was not a cheap month :).
After we realized that we're not super power humans, we settled for just staining our wooden fence which has lost some of its colors. We didn't have any stain on it since Dan built it back in February. We wanted to go to the ward camp out at the church's Ensign Ranch but with so much work we settled for just a camp out in our backyard. We did the whole s'mores thing and the whole cha bang on our fire pit so the kids loved it. The adults didn't have the best sleep though, even in a nice 3 bedroom style 8 person tent.
But all work and no play makes us dull people and we don't want to be dull. I had a nice farmer's tan working on the yard digging up dirt so hey let's go to the beach and tan some more. People started showing up so we took them around and showed them Seattle and ate out, did backyard bbq and had frozen yogurt a few times because it was over 90 degrees that week. Josh, our new Scottish family member, came to our house first and then two of Thuyen's friends, who we also love, Angela and Cathy came next, then my lovely sister Thanh and her boyfriend Alex came also. After a few days, Thuyen's other friend Natisha came, then my wonderful sister Thao and brother in law Alan and brother Mike, and then Thuyen's friends Jenn, her husband Jacob, and her other friend Canda and then my parents. Our house became a very full house, but so much fun. I just love the energy that a crowd like that give out. I'm a people person and I feed off the energy of others in the room very much. The more happy people the happier I am. It's weird. We stayed up late into the night talking and playing games. What a fun group of people full of personality. It was so FUN.
Beautiful Alki beach
Rise and Shine Breakfast with freshly squeezed orange juice and homemade handpicked strawberry syrup.
Alex was Thanh's boy, the whole time to Debrie. They both loved him a lot. We are so happy he's with Thanh.
The kids love Josh and were so excited to call him uncle. Brie especially became such a huge fan of Josh to the point of being jealous of others getting his attention. She said in her own words "I could play with Josh all day and all night. He's my best friend. I love him".
Everyone was such great babysitters. Our kids got a lot of attention. No one has kids so they all loved our kids a lot. Night time routines such as story time were taking cared of by aunts, uncles, or friends. Even teeth brushing and singing before bed. Our daily duties were very easy. My parents did all the cooking and cleaning up with our guests chipping in to help. Of course we were happy!
We
went canoeing and found out that for some it was their first time and
for some it had been years. Fun stuff. We went to Lake Washington.
Seattle is too pretty this time of year.
The Wedding
The day came and the 3 hour drive was long. We had traffic and that
was why it was 3 hours. But the Portland temple is so pretty it was
worth the drive. 2 families united and became one. The Scotish
tradition is very similar to that of ours. When your kids marry into a
family, our families became one. We love Josh's family. They became
our friends so quickly. They are not just my brother in law's family to
us, they are now our close friends. They stayed after the wedding and we got to know them better and loved them.
The Dinner
My parents treated everyone for dinner at a nearby Vietnamese and Chinese restaurant in Portland after the ceremony. I think I would've rather something similar for my wedding rather than a fancy expensive 8 course meal at the restaurant that we did for my wedding reception. But when you're the oldest, you just smile and let your parents have the dream wedding they wanted you to have because you're the first to get married. In a way I loved Vietnamese weddings because how many weddings are there out there where you can walk away with more money than it cost to put the wedding on. We walked away with more than $7000 of cash in our pocket for our wedding so no complaint here. It was a good trade off. But my sister's wedding was very low key, relaxing, quaint, cozy and very intimate wedding. Overall, very cute.
The Reception (Tree House Point)
Thuyen found this cute and quaint tree house place to have her reception. It has about 6 beautiful tree houses that serve as a bed and breakfast place throughout the year and the best part is it's only 10 minutes from my house.
See more pics from my photography website.
http://seastevensphotography.blogspot.com/
My sister requested that I make them a cake for their wedding since I've done cakes for forever now, ok just since college :) It took me a half a day to bake and another half a day to smooth the icing. I smooth the first two layers and decided to go rough on the top. I think it contrasts it a little and looks fun. She just wanted a simple mint green one but if given more time, I would go a little crazier.
We made a lot of paper flowers to fill the jars and made center pieces out of decorated mason jars.
The ceremony was beautiful. Their Uncle Noel said some amazing things. The groom's best man gave a fantastically funny speech. I was made maid of honor so had to give a speech as well, made a lot of people laughed when I told the crazy story of Thuyen escaping to Scotland going after Josh without telling anyone in the family.
Dan told us all to do the Asian thing. Made us all laugh and look at our natural smiles!
After dinner, a beautiful ring ceremony, music and dancing, we had a bon fire and roasted s'mores. Everyone got a s'mores kit as a wedding favor and their talented Uncle Noel and Dan and I took turn playing the guitar and singing various different love songs. Dan and I also did their wedding song"a thousand years" and their Uncle Noel played while I sang "I would walk 500 mile".
BBQ at the Beach
Next day we took them all to one of our favorite beaches in Seattle, Golden Garden beach. We grilled salmon and bacon for burgers. It was so much fun.
Dan grilled Salmon and bacon for everyone. We played frisbe, played in the sand, the water, etc...
The day after my sister's wedding, we escaped for a few hours and went to Matt and Shell's baby blessing. We couldn't ignore them. They're also family and having a special day.
I took my sister Thao on an early morning kayaking at Lake Union before
she left. I have taken my other sisters but not her and we had a great
time together, including some confessions from her about our childhood
;). We had a very bonding date. I love her.
Overall it was such a fun event. Everyone grew to love everyone. Josh's family are all theatrical people and theatrical people are usually known for the friendliest people on earth and sure enough they are the easiest people to talk to and simply the best people I've known. We love them. Dan enjoys having them at our house so much that after they left he started looking for plane tickets to Scotland. I think that says it all.
Our 9th Anniversary
The house was no doubt full, but fun. Every moment, every second, minute, hour was full of laughter. You betcha we missed that. I shed tears when they were leaving. I've always hated goodbyes but man after you have 17 people sleeping at your house and bringing so much joy into your home, it was very hard to see them leave. Thankfully we had our anniversary to transition us a little.
We started off at the Ye Olde Curiosity Shop where we got some mysteriously yummy Seattle Homemade fudge, then we went to Elliot Bay and ate at a restaurant called Elliot's Oyster house, on the pier. Dan had the best salmon he had ever had. Then, we took a little cruise which took us to an island called Blake Island where we toured all the neat stuff at Tillicum Village. We had all you can eat clams, crushed them on the ground, ate another Salmon buffet dinner, then had a show and ate some more clams and celebrated 'til it late. I can't believe
I've known Dan for 10 years and became his
bride 9 years ago on August 23rd. He won my heart with his
persistence and love for me. He has been an AMAZING husband and
supports me in everything I do. To you Daniel Kent, I do.
Crushing the clams after eating them. They made a pathway to Tillicum Village from the pier.
We were so glad my brother Mike stayed an extra week and a half with us. He took care of the kids when we were roaming the town. Thanks Mike!! We made sure he got to do fun stuff. See next blog entry!
Tired and restless uncle Mike :)
Reality is laundry :) Anyone want an early Christmas present? This is all the sheets, pillows, blankets we used. We wouldn't trade this for the world!!!
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