I'm alive and well!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Okay let's just cut straight to the updates.


MY WEDDING DRESS CAME IN AND THANK THE LORD ALMIGHTY IT FITS! I went with a dress like.... 4 sizes smaller than what the seamstress recommended and I'm glad I did because it fits and might even be a touch too big in certain areas. TAKE THAT TURKISH SEAMSTRESS! I think I'm only allowed room for ten more pounds of weight loss -- any more than that and I think I'll have to make major alterations. But the important thing is, the dress fits. And I love it!!!!




As of March 26th, I am officially a REGISTERED NURSE! Check it out y'all!

Thank you Delaware.

Gina, R.N. Ready for duty!

An oldie. But goodie. Nurse Gina -- in action!

Okay, this is obviously me giving CPR -- in style. :P

So yes, one hurdle down, two more to go! (GREs and the Canadian Boards!)


Back to wedding updates:
Invitations have gone out and RSVPs have been flooding in! Now I know that I can't expect EVERYONE to remember to RSVP on time so I'm going to wait until the beginning of May before I start stalking all those non-replyers. Le sigh. Not looking forward to it.

My bridal shower is set for APRIL 14th! My bridesmaids have been scheming away behind my back and I cannot WAIT to see what they've hatched up for me! I already got my invitation in the mail and it was everything I dreamed of and more! I believe the theme for the shower is French Boudoir. So. Freaking. Me. My girls know me so well. :P

The bachelorette party will take place July 14th, in Atlantic City, New Jersey and I am SOOOO looking forward to a spa/beach day and then partying the night away with my ladies! It'll be good to come back and see everybody before the wedding!

SO I OFFICIALLY SHIP OUT IN LIKE THREE WEEKS!!! AGHHH!!!!! It's been such a whirlwind year so far and I can't believe I'm so close to leaving the east coast! I'm ready for it though. The current tentative plan of action is to DRIVE ACROSS THE COUNTRY with my girls, Grace and Shirin. Quarter-life crisis roadtrip! Hollerrrr!!! We're thinking about taking 10 days to hit up Chicago, random cities in the middle that no one ever thinks about going to, Yellowstone, Portland, and then shimmy our way up to Seattle where we will part ways. I'm super stoked and I know that there will be TONS of planning required but I'm ready to take on the challenge and hope that everything works out for the best! I'll keep you all posted on the deets!

Brian and Mama Gregg are coming out to spend Easter on the east side! They'll be flying in on Saturday and then the plans for the next week include a trip to Amish town in Pennsylvania, NYC for a couple of days, Baltimore, and then DC. I know. It's gonna be a crazy ass week.

Meanwhile, Brian and I are still looking into the music details of our wedding. We're probably going to go with some basic party DJ who can't possibly f-up playing a list of songs over the speaker but we're also trying to incorporate some live music into the mix.... possibly during dinner time and for the first dances? I've been seriously loving this particular group Side One. Check them out and let me know what you think!

Okay I think I've covered all the important, major news/updates. Now that I've passed the boards and have only one job (I had to quit my hospital job at Christiana because you can't extern there once you pass the boards), I'm going to strive to blog more! I have tons more to write about!


Love you all!

Hello blogging world!

How I have missed thee.

But there's been significant progress in our wedding planning so I have much to update you on!


THE DRESS HAS BEEN PAID FOR AND ORDERED!!!!! EEEEKKKKK!!!!!! Needless to say I am pretty darned broke at the moment. I was still 4 pounds away from my target goal weight when I ordered the dress last Wednesday but I didn't think it would be too much of a big deal. But. It kinda was. The sample dress they had me try on was technically a size 12 (meaning it was a 6 in real life) and the zipper couldn't make its way up my back for the top two inches, which I thought was fine. Then when the lady measured me, she told me that while my bust and waist were around a 12/14, my hips and thighs were a size TWENTY so they would have to order a size 20. In addition, that was considered el nacho grande so they would have to charge me a bit more money. Um. What? Yeah I don't think so. There's no way in HELL I was a size TWENTY and they better damn well recognize I ain't paying a single cent more for this dress that literally cost enough to feed the entire country of Lithuania. I said that I was never a 20 in my entire life and I planned to lose 100 pounds and I was happy for settling for the size 14 thankyouverymuch. The lady tried to convince me to go bigger but I stood my ground. I can see why the boutique wanted to make sure that the dress ordered was on the bigger side since you can always tailor the dress to be smaller but SIZE TWENTY? That's ridiculous. I think they're banking on making SURE that they get to charge me for some additional tailoring.... But whatevs. Little do they know I got my Korean peeps who run the dry cleaning kingdom who'll be taking care of all my alterations. Stickin it to tha man feels oh so good!!!! ;)

wedding invitations have finally been decided on!!!!! Brian was here last weekend and I dragged him to a few paperias and we sat down and looked through about 300 invitations and we found the magic one! Let me rephrase that: I found the one while Brian begged for me to just pick one already since they all looked the same. I will say the invitation I picked is like 98% me and 2% Brian. All you lucky ones will know what I mean when you get your invitations in Decemeber/ January! :)

The menu proteins have been decided! All the honorable guests will have the option of picking either fish (most likely halibut), beef (possibly sirloin), or vegetarian (which will be either a pasta or noodle dish). Yummy! How exciting is that! Brian and I have booked another tasting in December so I'm happy to see that all these major deets are well underway!

So..... I've hit a diet plateau. I haven't lost any more weight since my last weight loss milestone and Brian's visit didn't help. But! I'm ready to up the ante and add some actual weightlifting and workout sessions into my weeks now that I'm whittling down my shifts at the hospital. I'm hitting the gym tomorrow with Gracey for a heavy duty ass whooping at a fancy shmancy place in her neighborhood. Bring on the pain!

I think I've covered all the major points. I'm trying to brace myself mentally for this week since it's my all time favorite holiday -- Thanksgivingggg!!!! Must. Resist. Seconds. :)

Wedding Samples and Quickie Update

What an INSANE MONTH.

I've been working my ass off like CUH-RAYZEE. On top of that, I was sick as a dog all last weekend and continued to work through it all (When I go hard, I go hard.). I'm finally on some antibiotics, feeling better and am still putting in 38 hours at the hospital/CIGNA on top of my full time school schedule. I go to work early in the morning, grab some lunch and head straight to clinicals til 9pm and then I come home and pass the eff out. And do it all over again the next morning at 5:30am. All in the name of a particular dress..... that I SAID YES TO! :D That's right! I found THE ONE! I had a rare afternoon off a week or two ago and on a whim just shimmied myself up to Conshohockon, Pennsylvania and found the dress of my dreams. I had seen it advertised before but wasn't really a fan. I am telling you brides out there: You just don't know until you try it on. SO. FREAKIN. TRUE. I had grabbed this one off the rack with doubts and BAM! Fell in LA-HUV. Butterflies, magical moment, my girlfriend getting teary eyed when the veil was on -- the whole nine yards. It's a bit steep on the price (still way cheaper than I would expected) but I'm still doing the sleazy thing and price shopping at several boutiques. I have not put in my down payment for two reasons: 1) I want to have the money in cold hard cash -- no credit card thus my recent bout of workaholicism and 2) most boutiques will measure you AS IS at the time of down payment. Which I completely understand. But I have every intention of losing 620 pounds so I want to hold back for a few more weeks. Speaking of weight -- I am back on my dieting trend and am shedding pounds again! Woo hoo! It helps that I have two part-time jobs now along with a non stop schedule in general so I barely have enough time to consume any legit calories. It's called the working-yourself-to-death diet. And it works like a charm. :P Anyways in more wedding news, I got some more wedding invitation samples! They are from an Etsy vendor called Beacon Lane and their stuff is adorbs! Here's a little teaser:

Okay, I guess it's not really a teaser because I'm pretty much sure I'm not going to order either of these samples. While I think they're quite cute, I just don't think they capture the "essence" of the wedding. I have a few more samples coming in the beginning of next week and I am SUPER excited about one particular vendor's.... I know! The suspense is killing you guys! Can't wait to finally get the invites out!

Brian just bought his plane ticket out here in November (I told him October would be a crazy one) and I'm excited to take some time off from all this madness and spend some fall times with the lover. I know that he's been feeling pretty neglected with me working like a maniac lately. But he's been keeping pretty busy at work lately (which is good because I told him he should ask for a raise/expect a bonus) so I know he understands. :)

Next week I'll be working most nights til 11:30pm so I'll do my best to at least put some short little posts up during the week. Please forgive me for my lack of bloggerism. I promise things will slow down and I'll be back to my blogging self shortly!

Peace and love.

Eat Your Heart Out, Jessica Rabbit!

Holy Moley.

Seriously. I'm gaga over this Zuhair Murad dress.

This red dress makes me wish I was Chinese so I could incorporate a red dress into my wedding wardrobe. Curse my kimchi-infused veins!

He even has Japanese kimono inspired gowns!

I guess I could still swing it. People wouldn't know the difference, right? :)

Victorian weekend and Wedding Dress Shopping with the In-Laws!

First and foremost: RIP Winehouse. You were so talented, no doubt about it. But my dear, you should've gone to rehab.


Had an AMAZINGGGGG time in Victoria! The weather in combination with the scenery was.... nothing short of breathtaking!!! Mucho sympathies go out to my loved ones on the east coast that have been hit with the heat wave. You survived the weekend and now you're experiencing more pleasant 80 degree weather.  Don't forget the sunscreen my friends!

Glorious view of the mountains en route to Victoria

So far, the mumsie and I have been blessed with an abundance of beautiful weather and I'm hoping that it will continue during me and Brian's (Brian and my? Mines and Brian's?) camping trip down the west coast next week.

So I was SLIGHTLY nervous about the meet-the-parents weekend but it couldn't have gone any better (Not that I really had anything to worry about in the first place)! Brian's parents were gracious as always and my mother was delighted by the beauty of the town.

While in Victoria, Brian's mother and sister joined us for brunch and a little girls' outing to the local bridal boutique. Although nothing was bought, it was fun to try on the dresses with the in-law input.

For your viewing pleasure, some snippets:

At Blush Bridal Boutique!

Mom being a ham

Waiting for me to pick out dresses

Heather and I oooing and aaahing over the gowns.

Mom's little sneaky attempt at snappin' some photos. This dress was ha-YUGE.

In the end I was extremely sweaty and my left nip was severely chafed from having to pull scratchy dresses on and off. OUCHHHH. So I was much obliged when the last dress was off. All the dresses I tried on were beautiful and it's getting more and more difficult to pin down a dress since I've tried on about 70 now. WHEW! They all start looking the same at this point but I'm hoping that once we narrow down a venue (Which is a whole 'nother post) I'll be able to narrow down my selection. It was starting to get crowded in the shop anyways so we moved on to bigger and better things... like getting ready for DINNER AT PAGLIACCI'S! :)

After dinner, we did a small tour of downtown Victoria inner harbor just so the breadsticks would settle and they were having a lovely busking festival and street market going on. It was a perfect night for a walk around town.

Pre-dinner walk

Post-dinner walk.

The Parliament Building

The ladies.

Mom and her statue fetish.

The monument that may or may not have always been there.

Blurry view of the Empress Hotel

More statues

Brian reppin' the awesome balloon I found.

On Sunday, we all went to church and had communion and while my mother had a little bit of difficulty keeping up with the readings and singing out of three books, she had a wonderful time (It was her first Anglican experience). She got a bit teary-eyed during communion because she was so moved and overwhelmed by the service (Our communions aren't quite so elaborate) and she thanked Miss Carol (Brian's mother) for inviting her to the service.

After church, Brian's dad made yummy yummy waffles and then we all packed up the car and said our goodbyes. Waffles are always a great ending to an amazing weekend.

We're back in Vancouver now and the mother is gettin' ready to leave for the airport. I'll miss her company but I have a Holistic Nursing final on Wednesday and I know NOTHING. If there are any hypnotherapy, reiki, or acupuncture experts out there, I am totally willing to pay for Skype lecture sessions!

I will probably spend the next few days studying and finishing this Stephen King short stories collection (Which is ehhh.... entertaining enough) and then early Saturday is when Brian and I will be embarking on the great outdoors! I'm excited and nervous and slightly scared. I just read an article on CNN on how four teens got mauled (While in WILDERNESS SURVIVAL CAMP) by a mother bear and her cub. Eek! Gotta brush up on my playing dead technique.

Of course pics will be amply provided for those who wait. :)


Viva la summer!

More Bridal Gowns

Today was a good day.

I got the best fortune cookie fortune I've ever gotten in my entire life.

Check. It. Out.

Major.

Pretty gangsta is what that is!

Anyways, I dragged the cuzzo to dress try-ons and here's a couple we had fun with...

Beautiful Maggie Sottero Vintage style gown

The back was lovely!

Maggie Sottero Destination gown.

So soft and flowyyyy

Loved the details.

Modified train included. :)

Wow. So I think that makes the count..... approximately 65. SIXTY FIVE DRESSES HAVE BEEN TRIED ON. Insane! I gotta admit, a lot of the dresses are beginning to look the same. I have kept a top three count in my head and I think I'll be getting close to narrowing things down shortly since the venue is close to being booked.

Brian and Mama Gregg are going to check out the Terminal City Club tomorrow (last week did not happen due to an appointment confusion) and maybe check out The Vancouver Club as well. They might even consider checking out some other yachts while Mama Gregg's in town.... I'm just glad she's coming out to help with the decision making process. I can't wait to finally have this thing booked and underway!

As for job hunting/volunteering in Vancouver, I am back to square one! :( I was offered an interview yesterday but they would want me in Vancouver to do the interview by next week..... and that's not happening unfortunately. Sighhhh.... It would have been amazing to be able to work with the Monarch House and the Children with Autism Summer Camp but I guess that just wasn't in the cards.... I'll continue to look but if anyone has any leads, please pass them my way! I'm dying for a summer position out there! Anything!

Anyways, I'm out to join some friends to watch the Canucks vs. Bruins game... Kinda nervous since the Canucks have seriously been choking the past two games but I'm not losing faith just yet. I still think the shiny cup is well within reach!

Go Canucks! :)

Dresses that didn't make the cut

Here are just a few snippets of dresses that found themselves in the "reject" pile":

Alfred Angelo "Belle"

"Belle"

"Belle"

Alfred Angelo "Cinderella"

"Cinderella"

"Cinderella"

Vera Wang's "White Collection" at David's Bridal

Vera Wang's "White Collection" at David's Bridal

Pronovias

Pronovias - too small

Sottero & Midgley

Sottero & Midgley

I tried on some other Maggie Sottero dresses and found that I really like her line a lot! I think that Brian is getting closer to making a venue decision and then I can finally make some REAL progress on my dress search -- I've only tried on like 60 dresses! Haha!

Full-blown Demetrios Kick!!!

Totally tried on four Demetrios dresses and I. AM. IN. LOVE.

I have completely changed my ideal dress. No more poofy ballgown. No more extravagant 20 feet long train.

Here's the dress I tried on today and LOVED.

Pretty drastic change in style, eh? Still got some bling to it though. :) My change of heart came when Brian and I decided to have a more modern, rooftop, cocktail style wedding venue. I just couldn't picture having a big, heavy, obstructing (however glorious) dress in a cocktail setting. Ya dig?

Here are some other Demetrios dresses that are fabulous (Can't wait to try these on!):

Best part about them? Demetrios dresses are 100% within my budget!!!!!! :)