One month to go...

... and we will be married!!! This whole time June 21 has seemed so far away, and now it is literally just around the corner. Our living room is packed with vases for center pieces and our spare bedroom is full of tissue paper and ribbon and gifts and much, much more. It is now clear how easy it would be to get wrapped up in all this "stuff" and forget what this celebration is all about - US. So let the day go as it may and let the stuff be stuff. In one month we begin our life as a family and we are soooooo excited we could pee our pants. :) Yeeeeahhhhhhh us!!!

Happy Mother's Day!!!!

This is a preemptive celebration of our mothers. Mother's Day may be on Sunday, but it's Friday night and I feel like celebrating NOW! So here I am and there they are...there's Cheryl, my future mother-in-law on the left, and Delia, my very own madre. Sometimes it feels like Mother's Day simply doesn't cut it. After all, how do you say thank you to women who literally carried you for nine months and then after hours of grueling pain, pushed you into the world? Then, after that, they look at this little thing placed in their arms and fall immediately in love. And then of course there's all the other stuff, you know, like years and years of unconditional giving and support and love. No, Mother's Day just doesn't seem to cut it. It is a day to say thank you, however, and this is my thank you. Thank you, Cheryl, for sharing your son with me. He truly is the most amazing man I have EVER met and the apple does not fall far from the tree. Thank you for welcoming me into your family and for your unwavering generosity. I am looking forward to all the years to come. Thank you, mom, for being my best friend, my confidante,  and my number one cheerleader. I know I have not always been easy, but you have never given up on me, and for that I will forever be grateful. You are truly my hero and I only hope I can be the mother and the friend you have been to my own children. Happy Mother's Day, Cheryl and Mom! I love you both!

Animal Farm

This is a shout out to Andria, the woman from the eastside. :) Your point has been made and you are right...I should have written this blog long ago. After all, what could be more important than my children? Nothing. Let me introduce you to my first born...

This is Norah. She came into my life about 3 years ago, and what an entrance she made.
I found her sitting in a cage all by herself at Pet Smart. Some crazy adoption lady was there
trying to find her a home. I'm not joking when I say this woman was crazy, and I think it may
have rubbed off on my poor little Norah because when I brought her home, she refused to eat...
for an entire week! With the help of Melanie, my animal rescuer, we tried to force chicken broth down her throat with a syringe. It didn't work. To make a long story short, the freakin' cat was diagnosed with anorexia. Apparantly my cat has body image issues. So, I removed all the
mirrors in my house and we have been happy ever since. Okay, not really. What I really had to do was warm up the damn cat's wet food in the microwave for 10 seconds so that she would actually eat it. Unbelievable, I know. Luckily I no longer am required to warm her food, but she still has very strange eating rituals, like attempting to "bury" her food to save it, except THERE'S NOTHING TO BURY IT WITH ON THE KITCHEN FLOOR!!!! She is insane, but we love her.

This one is my middle child, and she fits the stereotype. I should know because I am one too.

This is Olive, but we rarely call her by her real name. She is Ya-Ya, or da-Ya. I got her primarily to serve as a pet for Norah. I thought she needed some company, you see, so I said to myself, "I am going to go get a nice little tame kitten for Norah to play with," except it really didn't happen that way. I found her in the newspaper. The ad said something like "Free kitten" and so I went and got her. The poor baby was not in real good condition. She had mites in her ears and could not stop sneexing. In fact, she sneezed boogers all over Natalie on the way home. It was disgusting, yet hysterical. Somehow, someway, I end up with the sick cats. We got her some meds and in no time she became the cat we now know her to be - FREAKIN' CRAZY!!!!!!! She is obsessed with affection and insists on putting her paw on your face while she lays on top of you. Furthermore, she has no qualms about waking you up at 2 in the morning by pacing on you and purring fanatically until you move. I am pretty sure Trevor has chucked her from the bed several times and yet she still comes back for more. Unbelievable. She also has lost every collar and tag I have ever put on her and I am convinced that somewhere in someone's yard is a pile of all her collars. Apparently she wants to be free, not confined by anybody's shackles or labels. She is Ya-Ya the wonder cat, and that is that.

And last but not least there is the baby of the family, our only boy.

This is Powder Blue. Yes I know he is not white and I know he is not blue but Powder is his name and it is fitting because he LOVES the snow. He came into our lives about 7 months ago and we have truly laughed our asses off ever since. I desperately wanted a Corgi since I saw one in Portland last summer, so I did all my research and found a Corgi breeder in Benton City and off we went. He has been with us ever since. He loves to demolish stuffed toys by going for their plastic eye balls first. It's totally creepy but he loves it. He also enjoys spilling his water all over the house in one of two ways: 1) By dipping his entire snout in the water bowl and then running around the house to drip the excess water EVERYWHERE or 2) By stepping on the side of the bowl to cause an immediate flood. It's fabulous, really fabulous. In all seriousness, he truly is such an easy dog. His temperment is perfect and he loves to cuddle, which makes me very happy.

So there you have it. As much as I grumble about the cat hair everywhere and the stuffed animals stuffings flung all over my house, I adore my animals, my babies. They bring me such joy and are worth every little sacrfice, be it warming food in the micro, spending millions on collars, or watching my stuffed animals be obliterated into thin air. I love them deeply and truly am forever grateful for their company and affection.

Happy Birthday, Trevor!

We celebrated his 32nd year in style. We made a dump run, priced flowers for the wedding, ate bagel sandwiches, visited a friend in the hospital who just had a baby, and then went home where Trevor worked in the yard and I slept on the couch. Yes, it was indeed a perfect day. The best part was meeting up with our favorite friends Tony, Melanie, Aidan and Nadia, along with Trevor's parents and my mom for an awesome dinner at a new restaurant where we all ate way too much. This is, in my opinion, how all birthdays should be celebrated. I love this man, and am so thankful he is in my life and that we get to celebrate all of our birthdays for the rest of our lives by going to the dump, working in the yard, sleeping on the couch, and eating way too much. Life doesn't get much better than that.

We have grass!!!

I never thought I would be this excited about growing grass. And for those of you who have naughty, dirty minds, I am talking about the legal stuff here, so let's not even go there. This, my friends, is our grass:

Isn't it cute? Isn't it fuzzy? Don't you just want to hug it and kiss it? I do. It has taken an entire year for this fuzz. It's sort of like giving birth to a child, except the gestational period last 12 freakin' months! Perhaps I am being a little dramatic. I suppose if I was going to be really accurate, the gestational period has been about 3 weeks when we finally had our dirt hydro-seeded, but getting to this point literally started a year ago when Trevor and his brother Gavin ripped out the crabgrass with some fancy, schmancy machine. Don't ask me why we waited so long to actually lay the seed - maybe we're subconsciously afraid of commitment. The point is, we have fuzz! And I love fuzz! I want to hug it and kiss it, yes I do! 

Ode to Dianna

I have been accused of being "mushy" by my darling sister-in-law. She's right there, the blonde one stuffing her face while my brother looks at me as if taking a picture is the MOST ridiculous act on the planet. Aren't they endearing? Well, Dianna, this one's for you! Let me remind you that "mushy" runs in the family. Have you met your husband, the mushy-mushiest person on the whole planet? Well, let me introduce you to him. His name is David, and he remembers the EXACT moment he saw you for the first time. He also told me once that every time he kisses you, it is like the first time. Nope, I'm not joking. He said it. And, I'm pretty sure he calls you "baby" and "lover," and stares longingly into your green eyes ALL THE TIME. My point is, it's not my fault I'm mushy. It's genetic. Some people like to call it being Cuban, but we know how you Americans are. :) So, yes, I'm mushy and David's mushy, and my mom is mushy...I'm not so sure my sister's mushy, but that's besides the point. I am sooooooo mushy I have no problem saying this - you are truly the BEST sister-in-law in the whole world and in marrying you, my brother truly gave me one of the greatest gifts I have ever been given...YOU!!! How's that for mushy? :)

Our Beginning

So, this is us. That's Trevor, and the other one is, of course, me. And as we count down the days to our official start (70 days to be exact), I thought perhaps the best wedding gift we could give ourselves is a journal of sorts, and here we are. This is our story...

Our story began almost 15 months ago, and like most good romances, is full of cliches. Yes, we are THAT couple who met on Match. com and we are THAT couple who knew pretty much immediately that this was it. Okay, okay ... maybe I knew a little bit sooner than he did, or maybe I was just willing to say it a little bit sooner than he was, but the point is, here we are.  

The beginning of our relationship was quite a whirlwind, full of road trips, family, friends, and some really good food. Good food just happens to be one of the perks of dating a man who loves to cook, and there are nooooooooooo complaints here.

Seven months into the relationship, while hanging out on the couch one evening, Trevor casually says, "So, what do you think about getting married next summer?" I reply, "I think that would be good." I know. Very romantic. So, we took the diamond my grandfather gave my grandmother back in Cuba, which was given to me by my mother, and made it into a ring. Then we set a date, made whole bunches of plans, sent out whole bunches of invitations, and are patiently awaiting the arrival of June 21.

Most importantly, though, we continue to fall in love everyday, and as he lays here on the couch next to me, snoring through his nose, I have never been more sure of anything in my life. Yep, this is it. This is what "they" have been talking about all this time, and I can't wait to see what the future brings, or perhaps more accurately, what we choose to bring to the future. 

I love this man, and this man loves me. I think we're off to a good start.