my week in pictures 87 the frace wedding & a few extras...

I am playing some major blog catch up right now, and definitely have some big posts to get to before I am done, like my two trips to California for example. In the meantime, I am going to try to get to the present with a few My Week posts, though there may be some holes in the dates, so bare with me...

monday 2/9 - sunday 2/15

First off, I have a few random pictures from the night before I flew our to San Jose. Me and Pat decided to grab dinner downtown and ended up scoring a giant seafood tagine at Joolz for the special price, score! It was delicious. Obviously I spent two weeks in and out of California... which I will get to soon, and we FINALLY got our Save The Dates out, which made me very happy.

[[ pat and the giant seafood tagine. dinner at joolz. flying over mt. hood... several times. our save the dates back from the printer! ]]

Now then, on to the post... The week was mostly spent playing catch up from California, but on Thursday night we headed over the pass to Portland for our friends Alex and Drea's wedding. Our friend Molly and her boyfriend were nice enough to let us stay in their awesome apartment, right up the street from the venue, which turned out to be perfect for the whole weekend.

Pat was one of the groomsmen, so on Friday we met up with everyone at Bridgeport Brewery for the rehearsal, and then headed to Lucky Lab for lunch. Afterward, I hung out with Drea for a bit while the boys picked up their tuxes, and then met back up with everyone for drinks. 

Saturday morning we grabbed some brunch at a little cafe below her building, relaxed for a bit, and then Pat went off to do groomsmen stuff while I got ready. 

[[ beautiful sunset on the way to portland. enjoying our new moscow mule mugs. friday morning. rehearsal dinner. portland through drea's hotel room. delicious saturday breakfast. my awesome gift wrapping job. ]]

Since the wedding was on Valentine's Day we finally got to spend one together and I was really excited! I even bought a cute new dress for the occasion. 

The venue was a private event space inside Bridgeport Brewery, and it was perfect for their intimate wedding. The ceremony was so sweet and I am super happy for the two of them! My absolute favorite detail of the wedding was the Voodoo Doughnut "cake" display, though their gold "Best Day Ever" backdrop was pretty awesome as well. 

After the reception was over a group of us headed downtown to Boiler Room for a few more drinks and some dancing slash karaoke before calling it a night.

I didn't get a ton of great pictures myself, so I grabbed a few from Instagram and Facebook as well. 

[[ a few shots from the wedding from the interwebs. us taking silly pictures at the reception. my valentine's date. fun with bubbles! boiler room. ]]

Once we finally got up Sunday morning we walked up the street to Brix Tavern to grab brunch with Molly and ended up running in to the bride and groom at a coffee shop on the way. They both seemed super happy and glad to have a day (mostly) to themselves after all the family craziness from the few days before. We said our goodbyes, grabbed a delicious brunch (complete with more free doughnuts), and then headed back over the pass for home. Though it was hard to leave such a beautiful Portland day behind. 

[[ a beautiful portland day! our yummy brunch at brix, complete with free doughnuts. the sunny drive home. ]]

san jose :: part 2 :: the wedding

saturday (9/14) :: day 3 :: the wedding
The ceremony was not until 4pm so we had quite a bit of time to kill during the day. My parents were heading over to my uncle's house so that they could swim for a bit and me and Pat decided that we would meet them after grabbing some breakfast. We quickly got ready and then started hunting around for a place to eat along the way. Pat read good reviews for a place called Scramblz, so we decided to take our chances. From the outside it looked a bit like an iHop, and I was not impressed. Inside, I don't even really know how to describe the inside, sensory overload! It was like Red Robin, Chuck-E-Cheese, and Elmer's mixed together, but it smelled delicious, and their portions looked huge, so we decided to stick around. Among other things, we ordered the 49ers French Toast (when in the Bay Area, right?) and everything was delicious, extremely inexpensive, and very sharable. After breakfast we headed to my uncle's place briefly and soaked up some sun before heading back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding.

[[ breakfast of champions. lounging in my uncle's backyard. ]]

I was totally convinced that I was going to wear a different dress, but for once I listened to Pat and went with the blue one. He of course looked very dapper in his get up as well.

The wedding ceremony and reception took place at the Eagle Ridge Golf Club in Gilroy. Me and Pat headed over to my grandparent's home to grab my little sisters and meet up with everyone before making our way to the venue. Once we arrived we caught a sneak peak of the bride a groom finishing up their pictures and grabbed some hugs before wandering around for a bit, and then eventually making our way to our seats. It was such a gorgeous day and a beautiful venue with rolling hills in the background.

Ashley looked extremely beautiful and during the ceremony I couldn't even look at my cousin Nicole (Ashley, the bride's older sister) because she was tearing up and I seem to always cry at weddings now. After the photographers took a group photo of everyone from up above, and then we all made our way in to the club house to grab a cocktail and find our seats. There was also a photobooth set up that my entire family made several visits too. I wish I got to keep all of our silly snapshots, but they were used in place of a guest book, which I thought was a really cute idea. Of course me and Pat took some extremely cheesy pictures to contribute.

Dinner was great, the speeches were full of emotion, the dance floor was full, you know, the usual. I even convinced my dads cousin Noah to come dance with me, haha. One funny thing about the wedding is that my little sisters (who are 19 and 20) were seated at the children's table. Poor Meagan and Jenna, we were all extremely entertained by this at their expense.

After everything was wrapped up, the wedding party and close friends headed to a hotel near by to continue the festivities. Me and Pat went along to spend a little more time with my cousins and Jake, which was nice. They totally took over the hotel lobby and threw a dance party, it was pretty awesome. I wish that we could have stayed later, but we had a long drive back to our place, so we eventually took off, although I don't think we actually got to bed until around 3:30. It was definitely a really fun wedding.

[[ me and my handsome wedding date. silly sisters. adorable flower girls. mother walking daughter down the isle.  the ceremony. husband and wife. some of the reception tables: dad/patty, aunts & uncles, great aunts & uncles, cousins. part of the kid's table with meagan and jenna. part of our table. me and the bride. sunsetting over the hills. dance dance. just a couple of our silly photobooth pics. ]]

amy & steven's wedding

On Saturday me and Pat attended my coworker Amy's wedding at Rock Springs Ranch in Tumalo, Oregon. 

The weather had started to get a bit stormy, but it completely held off during their vowels, and the lighting with all of the fall colors was beautiful. This was my first (in memory) Jewish wedding, and it was definitely a lot of fun. Once the bride made her entrance, she circled her groom seven times before stopping under the chuppah so that the ceremony could begin. I previously knew about the chuppah, but had no context for the circling ritual, and sensing that there were many with me in the audience, the Rabi began by saying "I am sure that you noticed the bride circling her groom seven times as she approached the chuppah... It is an old old tradition, and as far as why she does it... well, we don't really know why..." (or something along those lines). He was very entertaining.

The rest of the wedding was pretty modern... dinner, dancing, toasts, the usual. Although they did do the Hora (chair dance) to Hava Nagila which looked like so much fun!

There were definitely some unique personal touches worth mentioning as well. Steven, the groom, is a chef who owns his own restaurant in Bend called Barrio (I sometimes pick up some freelancing for them), so him and his staff were able to provide the catering themselves. It was hands down the best wedding food I have ever had! Steven's very talented daughter also baked the wedding cakes herself. I don't know what my problem is, but I have successfully forgotten to try to the cake at three of the four weddings we have attended this summer. However, Pat tried the spice cake and said it was delicious. Another item of note was the decor. The bride and her friends did a great job customizing the space with DIY projects that really fit her personality. My favorite aspects were the centerpieces, which were composed of colorful fall fruits, cactuses, and flowers in antique wooden crates. Finally, along with a DJ they also hired a band to play at their wedding, which was a lot of fun. They even learned a few new songs just for the bride and groom.

Alright, enough of that, here are some pictures from the wedding. Not all of mine turned out great, so I did have to grab a couple off of Instagram to really showcase everything. Below you will find a mix of my and other wedding guests photos.

[[ the wedding ceremony. newlyweds. venue decor. the delicious spread. the band. dancing. cutting the cake. me and the beautiful bride. this guy... ]]

my week in pictures 26

monday 10/7 - sunday 10/13

Last week it definitely felt like fall with the leaves changing, and a chill in the air. I worked, went to the gym, ran some errands, explored World Market, and met Sierra for Bingo at Cascade Lakes on Wednesday... yes, actual Bingo. It was pretty fun! On Friday when I finished work I got a wild hair and decided to start painting the kitchen, which was decorated with two different shades of green. Since the previous owners left a ton of tan paint behind, I just grabbed something that we already had. In the future I will probably adjust the colors room by room once we decide what we are going for in terms of decor, but for now I wanted as much of a blank slate as possible without going all white (which would have been a lot more work). The kitchen was kind of a pain and took me a good 3.5 hours, but luckily the paint was so thick that it only took one coat! I still need to post a LOT of before and after pictures and do a "house tour"... one of these days...

On Saturday me and Pat relaxed in the morning and then got ready for my coworker Amy's wedding at Rock Springs Ranch. I am going to put the wedding pictures in to their own post since I ended up writing a longer narrative about the event than I originally intended. I will post these tomorrow.

On Sunday me and Pat finally gave ourselves a (mostly) lazy day. After some delicious pumpkin waffles with fresh strawberries, we took a little trip to Target to pick up a few things we needed, and of course, pose with the ridiculous "wigs" in the Halloween section of the store. The rest of the day was spent relaxing.

[[ beautiful fall colors outside of my office window. silly things at world market. locals night bingo. painting the kitchen. me & pat all dressed up. amy & steven's wedding preview. delicious breakfast. being awesome in halloween wigs from target. ]]