This Thanksgiving I'm thankful for year-old cake.

Much to Bella's joy, my parents drove in from the 'lou for a Thanksgiving-week visit.

Much to Bella's dismay, they were here to see me and the husband.  Not her.  Ok, maybe her too.

And Miles.  Poor, tortured Miles, looking completely dejected in his sweater. 

Being the nice dog parents we are, we let him take it off.  So he could kill it.

Then we started the week off on the right foot with a Pre-Thanksgiving feast.  Italian-style.  'Cause, you know, everyone needs a 3,000 calorie meal four days before a 5,000 calorie Thanksgiving dinner, right?

And then we had cake.  Yes, we are those dorks who adhere to the old "let's keep the top-tier of wedding cake in our freezer for an entire year and eat it at our first anniversary!" tradition.  

Now obviously we missed our anniversary.  But look at the size of that cake people!  There was no way we were going to eat that without some help.  Or without subjecting loved ones to freezer-burned buttercream.

In actuality, the cake wasn't that bad.  The frosting was a bit chalky but the cake and filling tasted just like they did at our wedding.  Or so I'm told.  I didn't get cake at our wedding.  Not sure how that happened. 

The week of my parents visit was, per-usual, jam-packed with fun things to do.  What's a vacation if you actually get to relax, right?

First up was a New York State Restaurant Association dinner honoring my wonderfully-talented father-in-law, Chef Yono, for the Faces of Diversity award he received earlier this year from the National Restaurant Association. 

Here we are looking pretty.

 And here we are in the limo we surprised my parents with.

Remember this?  Because of that, we rode in style for the evening.  For free.  Suck on that, Unnamed Transportation Company.

We look happy, no?  Doesn't mean you're off the hook for last year's debacle.

More highlights of the visit:

Lunch with the Plue-family patriarch, Great Uncle Art.

Lunch with my dad's fourth grade teacher, Shirley, who is now basically a member of the family.

 Mom drinking a Sweet Carolyn at dp.  Named for me, duh.  Mom loves martinis at dp.  I love watching Mom drink martinis at dp.  Tipsy Mom is hilarious.

Aren't we precious?  Please ignore the fact that my shoulders are up to my ears.  I always forget that this is NOT a flattering way be photographed.

 Mom and me, post 5,000 calorie Thanksgiving dinner.  If only I hadn't been so preoccupied with stuffing my face then I would've gotten a shot of the dinner table over-flowing with food so good that I ate leftovers for breakfast, snack, lunch, snack and dinner the next day.

Don't you just love food Thanksgiving?



Finding purpose?

It seems that this, in fact, may be the case.

Lest my blog become any more self-serving, conceited, self-promoting, or however you want to spin it, I'm putting this out there right now:

I'm going to continue writing this blog the way I do (i.e. about ME!) for, um, me. I mean, most people's blogs are about themselves, right? But like previously discussed, most also have a theme, if you will. Mine, not so much.

So to avoid all the "God, this girl's full of herself" and "really, more pictures of her?" mantras rolling around in my (few) readers' heads, know this: I'm enjoying the whole blog thing and can't wait to look back at it in 5, 10 or 20 years and remember.

'Cause seriously, we should all have something to embarrass our future children with, right?

So there you have it. Think of it as a photo album/journal of sorts. Which is probably the definition of the word blog. Go figure. SMRT!

*************************

So now that that's out of the way and you're no longer allowed to yell at me for talking about myself, please enjoy the second installation of "New York's Newest Supermodel".

Once again, I started hearing "I saw your face in a magazine" from random people.

Um, what?? To steal a quote from the husband, "As long as it's not the police blotter, that's fine with me!" He's full of the quippy one-liners, that husband of mine.

The Spirit of Saratoga, which is a publication put out by the Saratogian, did a fantastic article on the ever-fabulous Alayne of Make Me Fabulous. Alayne is the makeup artist who prettied me up for The Wedding of the century. And accompanying the article is a picture of ME!

Now is where I should clarify. The photo is actually a shot of Alayne doing my makeup at The Wedding. Alas, it's not technically a pic of yours truly. Nor did my name appear in the article. But the side of my face does look pretty nice!

So nice of them to use my good side ;)

Photobooth madness...

Yes, yes, I realize that in yesterday's post I said I was done boring you with all the little details of my wedding the greatest wedding in the history of the universe. Sue me. I lied.

I can't possibly go on without ever posting the infamous photobooth pics. And it's really not all about me. This time. I've also included, for your viewing pleasure, some photobooth shots from the wedding we attended last weekend. And for the millionth time, all cred goes to our amazing photographer, because this type of photobooth setup is his brainchild... and it's WAY fun.

So. Apparently I turn into a dancing queen (i.e. clumsy moron) once I step foot in front of the self-controlled camera. Trust me. I only included the pretty ones. You know, to make myself look good* ;)

It seems we follow a theme upon entering the photobooth. For the sake of comparison, you'll see pics from my wedding (black/white background**) and pics from JP and Kris Ann's wedding (blue/brown background).

Shall we?

First up, we have the "let's dance like a fool and snap a million pictures to show our future kids just how cool we were back in the day" shots.



Apparently I'm quite fond of raising the roof.

Next we have the "gee, Carolyn looks rather pick-up-able" shots. Oy. I'm really not that light, people.

And um, being picked up in an uber-short dress was slightly dangerous. I'm pretty sure I gave the band a little peek of my leopard print boyshorts***.

Now onto the "jump" phase of the photobooth series.


Again, dangerous. First I almost lost the girls, second I probably mooned the backdrop. Such is life.

Ah, here we have the "I'm too cool for school" shots.

Nick likes to call this one our "Bel Biv Devoe" look. I guess I'm a bad child of the 80s/90s because I don't really know what that means.

And just for fun, a prim and proper "prom pose".

Wasn't that fun?

*I never said modesty was a strong-suit.

**Because obviously seeing me in a giant white dress wasn't enough of a give-away.
***They liked it. (See footnote 1)****

****If you're waiting for me to tire of footnotes, keep waiting. They amuse me.

THE wedding post. Part 4

The Husband and I attended a lovely wedding this weekend, so it seemed fitting to publish the final of my series of wedding posts. Not to mention the fact that it got me all nostalgic for our wedding again. Probably because it was the first one we've been to since and it also took place at the same venue ours did*... i.e. THE coolest room around.

See? You can't go wrong with the Historic Canfield Casino in Saratoga Springs. Since I'm an architecture geek, I love it for obvious reasons.

Making our grand entrance as Mr. & Mrs. to Journey's "Don't Stop Believing"... We definitely weren't excited or anything ;)

First dance (to Bon Jovi's "A Seat Next to You")

Best Man's toast. Don't really remember what he said... I just really like this picture ;) (Check out the length of our massive headtable!)

Insanely gorgeous centerpieces by Kris Ann.***

I'm seriously drooling just looking at this. We had our favorite sushi roller (chef??) from our favorite sushi restaurant, Koto, come work his magic. We also had a mashed potato bar, a carving station with 4lb lobster tails, a noodle bar, a Cold Stone station and a ton more that I can't think of...

Our amazing band, the New York Players, kept everyone on the dance floor all night long.

It was seriously a kick-ass party.

So. That's it for the wedding posts. (See the first 3 installments here, here and here.)

If I haven't said it before, SHOCK and AWE was the name of the game. Think we achieved our goal?

*...with the same band, the same color flowers and a similar food setup. At least we got ours in 4 months before them ;)**
**I'm so kidding. I love the bride and groom. They obviously have great taste ;)
***Who also happened to be the bride! Who happened to marry our photographer, who gets all the photo credit for these beautiful pics.

THE wedding post. Part 3

As if you haven't already seen enough, I'm going to force you to view a few more wedding pics. Specifically, group shots. Enjoy!

This has got to be THE coolest bridal party pic ever. Right? I especially love the beer can in Rachel's hand. And how you can see the differences in all the lovely ladies' dresses. (Click the photo to enlarge)

A nice respectable (read: boring, but cute) shot of us with our siblings.

Now for some fun...

It's safe to say that I'm obsessed with these columns. Yes, I'm an architecture geek ;)

Doesn't my husband look so cute in this one?

Pretty sure I was laughing here. I don't think I would make that awkward laughy face on purpose. But I like it.

LOVE LOVE LOVE this one! And not because he's checking out my ass ;)

My dress did not seem nearly this large. But apparently it was.

There's a story behind this. When these three, um, men were young and naive, they somehow ended up in this same predicament, only picture a fully nude, nasty stripper with 80's hair in my place. Now it's tradition for the their wives to pose like this. At least I'm not alone.

That wasn't so bad, right? Stay tuned for THE wedding post, Part 4!

Wedding Invitation DIY

*Disclaimer: These pictures were not taken with the intent of being published on a blog. We had JUST moved into the house, which explains the lack of window treatments and the empty picture frames. It also appears as though I had not showered that day. Such is life.

So my sister-in-law-to-be called me the other day asking for details on my homemade wedding invitations. Yes, I made them myself. True story. I really don't consider myself all that crafty or creative, but I gave myself a nice, big pat on the back after whipping these puppies up.

Anyway, future sis-in-law wanted to know how I made them. Then I thought, "Gee, my blog is pretty boring. Maybe I can spice it up by sharing some (money saving!) creativity with the world." Lucky you.

So. (Here we go again.) Here's a brief overview of how to make your own wedding invitations.

What you'll need:

1. paper (we used 32lb linen paper in black and ivory)
2. a rubber stamp (if you're into that sort of thing... I thought they looked pretty boring without some sort of flair)
3. an ink pad in whichever color you fancy
4. spray adhesive (apparently I'm one of the few who has heard of this stuff... I used it ALL the time in college for my design projects. It's pretty awesome. Find it in the glue section of your craft store.)
5. 1" to 1 1/2" wide ribbon
6. wine
7. patience
8. a friend or two (with a little bribery, bridesmaids and fiances work perfectly)
9. did I mention patience?
   

I thought about going through the process of actually creating the invitations step by step, but I'm not very good at that. That probably explains why when trying to follow a recipe, I haphazardly throw ingredients together rather than actually doing what I'm supposed to do.

And seriously... it really wasn't hard.

Measure your envelope and cut the invitations to size. Cut a smaller top layer (we used black on the bottom and ivory on the top).

Print your text onto the top layer (if you're as anal about perfection as I am, this will take you FOREVER. Or maybe it was just the wine.)

Stamp the top layer. Or leave it plain. Be a rebel. Adhere the top layer to the bottom layer (note: Goo Gone will become your best friend. Spray adhesive goes EVERYWHERE.)

I used the same ivory paper and rubber stamp to also make the response cards and reception info cards. I found it was easier to print as many of these as would fit on one full sheet of paper and then cut into individual cards rather than try to feed tiny squares through my printer.

.

Here are the three pieces. Invitation, response card with envelope, reception info card.

And to make even more work for myself, I bundled them together with a complementary ribbon, adhered to itself with double-sided tape on the back of the invitation.

I'm pretty much in love with the outcome. And I saved at least a grand. Which we spent on more important things. Like an upgraded rental car on the honeymoon ;)

Whatcha think? Are they theknot.com worthy?