Saki Jane

Today is the lovely Saki Jane's birthday. I met Saki through my brother when I was a freshman in high school. She quickly became my fashion icon and even quicker than that, my friend. I was completely enamored with her! (I mean really, how often do you get to be real life friends with your fashion icon?!) She introduced me to lovely things like Modest Mouse music, leather boots and blogging! (Maybe at some point I will reveal the URL of the blog I had in high school, but it's pretty embarrassing..) I remember sitting on her floor when I was 15 as she taught me how to sew buttons and I thought she was the most fabulous person in the world. I still think that! I simply adore this woman, she is the epitome of adorable and has impeccable personal style. She is polite, sweet, a loving friend and an amazing artist! She has sewed and created many incredibly pieces for me, but of course, my all-time favorite of her master pieces was my wedding dress. She took a few ideas that I had in mind of what I wanted, put together a few sketches, created a pattern for herself and sewed the most beautiful, silk dress I've ever seen, complete with cascading ruffles down the back. The picture below does not do it justice! She is an amazing seamstress. 

Here's a picture of Saki and me from high school. I had just walked in a fashion show she was being featured in when she was around 19! So talented!

The gorgeous dress I had the privilege of wearing! 

Happy birthday, Saki! I love everything about you and just adore everything you do. You are hilariously unique, thoughtful, fun and joyful. Thank you for coming into my family's life and never leaving! Whether you are showing your support at the auction, sewing something last minute for my mom or keeping up with my crazy brother, you feel like family to me. I love you! We all love you. 

Thanksgiving

We spent another wonderful Thanksgiving with our church family at the Clother's house. After sharing the good news of fried turkey with them last year, Matt was once again nominated to provide the bird for our feast. Although I had my camera strapped around me most of the evening, I didn't really end up taking pictures so the ones below are borrowed from my friend Louri:

Here's us parading one of the turkeys down to the 400 degree oil...(I would like to take a moment to remind everyone that I was a vegetarian at one point in my life. However, fried turkey is the most moist and flavorful thing I've ever tasted in my life! And only takes 40 minutes to cook; everyone should try it at least once!)

A very happy southern man.

Lots of hungry men gathered around the birds while Nathaniel and Matt slice and dice.

Getting caught sneaking more pie...

It was really easy to remember how blessed we are as we enjoyed a warm, delicious meal amongst friends who have truly become family to us. We definitely missed our blood families a lot though! The next day, we were both off work and spent it hibernating away from the Black Friday madness. We had a hilarious time trying to take our Christmas card picture by ourselves without a tripod (imagine stacked stools and books) and cooking up all our favorite Thanksgiving meals together to have leftovers for the next week. We made a big batch of spiked cider and invited a few friends over to watch Christmas movies and eat pumpkin pie (still trying to perfect the family recipe....).

Welcome, Christmas season!

Happy birthday, my lovely Brittney! 

There is so much to celebrate about you, it can hardly be contained in a day. You are kind, loving, generous, hilarious, patient, creative, smart and one of the best friends I have ever had. I can completely be myself around you and still be completely loved by you (which is no small task, people, I am a handful). You always pick up my calls and know exactly what type of pep talk I need in a crisis. You are the best wing-woman a girl could ask for and the classiest lady I know.

I love you very much and I'm so thankful for your life; thanks for letting me be a part of it!

Snaps

Here are a few pictures I rediscovered on my computer this weekend that made me smile:

This was the first picture ever taken of "us". Matt's brother took it when we were visiting the set of The Office during my second visit down here. Those are our "Jim & Pam" faces.

This picture was taken by my sister the day she helped me move down here. We ate lunch at what is now one of our favorite local spots and couldn't stop smiling and staring at each other. 

This one was taken by our friend Dan a few days after we got engaged. 

Snuggling during a family camping trip in Oregon, just a few weeks before the wedding.

I love finding old pictures!

Halloween

 Although I was a little bummed I wasn't scheduled to work on Wednesday (and make lattes in a costume), I did enjoy having the day to myself because I was way behind on Halloween decorations. I'm not a huge fan of orange, spiders or cobwebs, so in general I stay pretty low key until the day of. I watched reruns of Halloween episodes of Boy Meets World, cut out some paper bats to dangle from the patio and spray painted a pumpkin. (A full tutorial for that can be found on this blog.) Even though Halloween has come and gone, I'm going to use my pumpkin as a centerpiece for the rest of autumn! 

I got some of our favorite candy, lit some candles to light the steps on our porch, put on my mask and let the madness begin. We had a really fun night! A few friends came over to watch Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo with us. It's one of my favorite movies and Matt had never seen it! I'm way too much of a wimp to watch scary movies, especially at night, so this thriller was the perfect Halloween pick. It's not very often that I get to show Matt a new movie (that he actually likes), so it was really fun to sit back with our friends, drink hard cider and hear them all try to guess the outcome of the plot. 

 

 

 

I can't believe it's already November! Only a few weeks until I can shamelessly & exclusively listen to Sufjan's Christmas albums. And oh man, am I going to be taking advantage of it this year since he came out with a new one!