Category: Wedding

Five on Friday {4.8.16}

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Good morning! TGIF, right?! This week has really dragged on for me- no idea why, but it makes me especially happy that it’s Friday (FriYAY, right?!)! Here are some of the topics going on in my head these days:

  • Personalized Cornhole Bags- Etsy is my new best friend these days, which is exactly where I found these adorable cornhole bags. I opted to go with cream and navy with gold lettering since those are roughly the colors we are kind of going with. I also ordered the boards from someone else off of Etsy so once RM paints those I’ll show them. So excited to bring these up to NH for our wedding!

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  • Wedding Invitation Frustrations- Speaking of our wedding- which, btw, is less than 3 months away!!- invitations have been a bit of a frustration so far. I designed them on the PaperSource website and then went into the store in Lynnfield to have them help me with a few things. They timed everything out and said I would see the proofs in 3-5 business days, however, I did not see a proof until 8 business days!!! Seeing how the 23 business days they quoted me to get the final product already put us at the end of April (need to get these babies out by early May), I was stressing big time! I called the store probably 5 times and emailed with them, but I will say that I love the final proof and can’t wait to get them in. Anyone else have any wedding-related issues out of your control that caused you stress?
  • Shrimp Pad Tai- We had another week of Just Add Cooking meals and it was another week of winning meals! The Shrimp Pad Tai was so easy to make and SO delicious that I have a feeling it will become a regular meal we rotate in.

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  • House of Cards- We started watching House of Cards the other night. So far, even though it’s a little slow I’m enjoying it- no violence, which is a nice change of pace from Breaking Bad 😉 Anyone else watch this? Will we love it?
  • BoxFIIT Certification Update- Ahh! I’m getting there! I have only a handful of videos left to film before I’m done and I’m SO excited. I’ve been focusing on taking more classes to get comfortable with the format and bags and things like that. Eliza’s Tuesday night Bags and Body/Beats is such a fun class- something I could totally see myself teaching. If you’re interested in learning more about this certification, let me know- happy to provide more information!

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And that does it for me! As for weekend plans, RM suggested checking out Pepe’s pizza in Chestnut Hill… and I’m not one to turn down a pizza offer so I think we are doing that tonight. Tomorrow I am going to Nicole’s Bags & Body class at The Club in the morning and then doing some mitt practice before meeting up with a few friends to celebrate my bestie’s recent engagement! Whatever you have on the agenda for the weekend, I hope you take time for YOU!

Questions for you: Wedding planning tips for how to stay sane and not stressed? PLEASE SHARE! Did you cook any good meals this week? What are you up to this weekend? Any good workouts?

 

Weekending: Through Pictures

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Good morning! Anyone else grumpy from this crazy “April” weather?! My birthday is in t-minus 10 days and I really hope it’s seasonably warm by that point. Also, today we are exactly 3 months out from our wedding- EEEKK! With that said, the weekend was filled with a lot of wedding talk and shopping- trying to get things checked off the list as much as possible!

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Opted for the burrito bowl at Buff’s Pub on Friday night instead of wings- so tasty!

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Bachelorette Party shopping at Bebe

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Date night stop 1: drinks and the most amazing hummus & fresh, warm pita combo at Tavern Road. HOLY YUM

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Date night stop 2: Stumbled upon Pastoral and were blown away by how good the pizza (and Brussels Sprouts) were. Two new-to-us spots in one night?! Awesome!

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A post semi-workout selfie… I went to the gym to film some Box FIIT video submissions and did a tiny workout after- realized I was more sore and tired than I thought so I called it quits quickly.

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Another Just Add Cooking delivery- can’t wait to make these Asian-inspired dishes this week!

Not picture from the weekend: After work drinks at the Gaslight at the M Street shops with some girls from the office on Friday, teaching on Saturday, MOH dress shopping with my sister and her friends and then post shopping drinks at Stoddards, shopping for wedding shoes, Sunday morning pancakes, food shopping and visiting RM’s brother and SIL at their new house in Concord.

Questions for you: How was your weekend? Did you do something fun? Visit any new restaurants? Shop at all? How are you feeling about this crap weather? What’s going on this week?

Five on Friday {4.1.16}

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Good morning! And happy April and Happy Birthday month to my fellow April birthday friends 🙂 I could’ve gotten you guys so bad with an April Fools joke (quitting the blog, canceling the wedding, being pregnant, etc.), but I’ll spare you that and just get right to the Five on Friday topics for today!

  • Mary’s Gone Crackers– We are always on the hunt for healthier chip/cracker varietals, so when I saw these on sale at Whole Foods, I had to try them out. The verdict? I am a big fan! RM likes them, but still prefers the Almond Thins we usually have on hand. I like the Mary’s crackers because they are full of seeds and the ingredient list is pretty clean.

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  • Signs of Spring- There may be snow in the weekend forecast, but for now I’m focusing on little signs of spring around our apartment, including these pretty flowers!
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  • Wedding Registry Gifts- With the wedding shower in just about a month, the gifts have started coming in and it’s so exciting. I joked that every day is like Christmas these days! I know we technically know and picked out everything we’ve been getting, but it’s still exciting to see and feel the gifts. I was especially excited to get 2 sets of the “fancy” place settings I registered for since I had only seen them on line. I love them even more in person!!

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  • Book Club- Tuesday night was book club night, which is always a fun time. Our friend Lauren hosted it in her absolutely adorable Charlestown apartment and the theme was “all the dips”, meaning everyone brought a different “dip” to enjoy. Since most people brought appetizer dips, I offered to bring a dessert dip, which was a big hit- we joked it was like we were eating grown up Dunkeroo’s (remember those things?!). I found it here, and chose it because it was SO easy… and because it was called “Cinnamon Roll Cheesecake” dip and that sounded heavenly. I highly suggest throwing a dip party at some point in your life!

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  • Dresses for Wedding Festivities- I hit up Assembly for some shopping before book club because between my shower, bachelorette party and rehearsal dinner, I am in need of some dresses. I found one at the Express Outlet that I liked, but then when I went to Off Saks, I ended up finding this baby that I liked even more. Best part? It was priced at $220, but I got it for $48! What do you think?

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And that does it! This weekend should be much more relaxed than the past handful of weekends. I’m teaching tomorrow and then hopefully going to a deadlift/hinge mini group training at Foster Fitness and that’s it for set plans. I hope to knock out a bunch more of the Box FIIT Certification, have a date night, meal prep and go to church- whatever you have on the agenda for the weekend I hope you enjoy yourselves!

Questions for you: What’s your favorite snack chip/cracker? What’s your favorite dip? Do you have any suggestions for where I can find a white romper or two piece outfit for my bachelorette party? What’s on the agenda this weekend? Get any good sweats in this week?

 

 

 

Weekending: Wedding Update & Double Easter Celebrations

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Good morning! Hopefully by the time this post goes up, I will have already gotten my butt kicked by Eliza at the Watertown GymIt/EBF studio. As part of the Box FIIT certification I’m working on, I’m trying to get as much class experience as I can with other instructors to help better prepare me for when it’s time to start teaching my own classes- eek!!

This past weekend was another good one- lots of family time with both families which is always a nice treat! However, I am looking forward to this weekend since we FINALLY have a weekend with virtually no plans, which hasn’t happened in forever. I have so many general life things that I want to catch up on, so hopefully I’ll be able to get a bunch done!

After work on Friday I went to the Paper Source in Lynnfield to finalize our wedding invitations. I started them online which helped because I went into the store knowing exactly what I wanted and how it looked, but I was also able to work with a super helpful lady who helped me add more text lines and change the layout a bit. They are super simple, but classy- I love them and can’t wait until they come in! Oh, and the best part? All wedding invitations and related things were 20% off, which really helped keep them within my budget.

Once that was done, I picked up a few things at Whole Foods: pizza ingredients for dinner and quiche ingredients for Saturday brunch with my family. I made this quiche which was a big hit.

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The pizza I made for RM and me was also fantastic- the dough from Whole Foods is so good!

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Saturday started off with a sweaty kickboxing class. I don’t know if it’s because I hadn’t worked out in 2 days or if it was because I hadn’t slept well the night before but the class kicked my butt!!

After class we showered up and headed into the city to go to my sister’s apartment for part 1 of our Easter celebrations. So much food, so much wedding talk, so many laughs! I also brought out my biggest of hair for the occasion 😉

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Oh! And my mom washed her vail and brought it down to see if I wanted to use it for our wedding. I think it will be so special having my “something old” (and something borrowed) as her veil. I just need to find a nice comb to attach it to.

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(and yes, I am a giant next to her!}

We stopped at Branch Line for a few drinks on our way home. As good as the drinks are, we REALLY need to get back there for dinner because everything looked and smelled amazing!

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Sunday morning I kicked off the day with a quickie 20 minute bodyweight tabata workout (I’ll share it with you on Wednesday!) and then went to church. I haven’t been to church since we moved, so I figured Easter Sunday was as good a day as any to start. I hope to get back into a more regular church-going schedule.

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When church was over I went food shopping and got wine and flowers for the Easter dinner at RM’s mother’s house. I didn’t get any photos of the food, but it was quite a feast: homemade lasagna (homemade noodles and everything!), grilled lamb, salad, brussels sprouts, potatoes, peppers and so many desserts. My future SIL’s parents came and when her mom walked in with a bunny cake it made me so happy because my mom always made me a bunny cake for my birthday/Easter!

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As much as I didn’t want to food prep when we got home, I knew it would be better if I just got it over with!

And that about does it- the weekend came and went way too quickly, per usual! I hope you all had a great weekend and have a kick ass week!

Questions for you: How was your weekend? Did you do anything fun? What did you do for Easter? Did you get any good workouts in? Do you go to church?

Five on Friday {3.27.16}

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Good morning! TGIF, right?! I’ve felt like this week has DRAGGED on, which I can only attribute to teaching late on Tuesday, which isn’t something I tend to do. Oh, and just feeling really off this week. I feel like I’ve been fighting something for a few weeks now, and finally this week I took a day to just rest… which brings me to my first Five on Friday topic…

  • Taking time to rest- If you know me, you know I’m not good at resting. Whether it’s resting from the gym or resting from work or anything else, I’m not good at it. I have one speed: fast- I’m always going-going-going, and while I can sustain that for a while, there always comes a time where I’ve just had enough. All the signs were there, too: I wasn’t recover as quickly from my workouts, I felt achy, irritable, tired, yet not able to sleep well, diet was off, throat started to hurt. Basically, my body is telling me to SLOW THE EFFFF DOWN! So, yesterday I took a day for me. I felt so crappy as Wednesday wore on and pushed it too much in the class I taught so by the time I got home I was pretty miserable. I NEVER call in sick, but I did that yesterday morning and ended up sleeping soundly until after 9am, which also NEVER happens. I spent the day resting, hydrating, reading and blogging and it was glorious. Being go-go-go isn’t a bad thing, but it’s also so important to pump the breaks every once and a while and just do nothing. I needed that!

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  • Lent– For my fellow Catholics out there, today is Good Friday, meaning Lent is coming to an end. In years past I would give something up, but over the past few years I’ve started adding something instead. I added 10 minutes of meditation a few years ago and last year I did a daily gratitude journal, which was a nice way to appreciate all of the positive things in my life. This year, I planned to do the same but lost steam about halfway through. For a second I felt like I failed, but then I remembered that it isn’t about passing or failing. It was just something that wasn’t working for me right now- and that’s ok! I have been good about not eating meat on Fridays, so I’ll focus on that instead 😉
  • New glasses- I finally got a pair of glasses that I really like! I ordered a pair originally that I thought I liked, but when I got them home, I decided they were just not what I wanted. Luckily LensCrafters has a 30 day satisfaction guarantee so I went back and got these bad boys. While they are similar to my Ray Bans in the fact that they are plastic, they have a different shape and color so it makes them still seem new and fun.

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  • Wedding registry gifts– My bridal shower invites went out last week and it’s been so fun checking our registry to see things get checked off the list! AND, we received our first gift the other morning, which was a super fun surprise. Thanks to my SMC girls, we now have a wine fridge and I’m SO excited about it!
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  • Meal Delivery Services- I mentioned earlier this week how I am a brand ambassador for Just Add Cooking and although I plan on recapping everything for you next week, I have to share with you now that I am SO impressed with the company and the meals we’ve received and cooked so far. It has made cooking and dinner FUN by spicing up our normal meals. Stay tuned for some discounts I’m sharing next week.

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And that does it for me! I’m hoping that by the time I wake up today I feel much better and more like myself. As for weekend plans, I’m teaching tomorrow morning and then we are heading to my sister’s apartment for an early Easter celebration with my family. We will head to RM’s mother’s house for Easter dinner with them on Sunday.

What are you guys up to this weekend? Are you celebrating Easter? Do you give anything up for Lent? How has your week been? Do you ever just take time to rest or take a mental health day?