dogs, designs and dreams

perfect pair

2009-08-20T12:10:00.009-05:00

...of frames, that is! I was at Target with Kevin a couple months ago just picking up some essentials - you know, toilet paper, toothpaste, candy ;) We were headed to the checkout (always a dangerous time, because you know you haven't possibly found everything you need, right?). So I scanned the aisles for that one thing that I was sure I had forgotten to put on the list, but was absolutely necessary at that moment in time. And, then, there they were - on the end of an aisle, just so I wouldn't miss them - perfect little 4x6 frames in the exact colors I never knew I needed!

Obviously, the first one matches my sister's outfit in her senior pic perfectly! It sits on my desk at work - look at the adorable details:

And the second matches the decor in my living room (or at least what I hope it will be eventually):

So, that's my excitement for now - I just need to find another photo to put in the one in my living room. Maybe a vacation photo? Don't worry - multiple posts about Mississippi and Jamaica coming soon :)

nicky

our first anniversary - camping

2009-07-12T15:53:00.017-05:00

After all the cake action on July 2nd, we got ready to go camping and floating. Late Friday morning we began the 2-hour drive down to my grandpa's 96 acres in Lesterville, Missouri (you may recognize the town as the location of many float companies servicing the Black River). He cleared a spot on his land for us to camp with two other couples, just a couple minutes down the road from his house, near the smaller pond he built himself. There is a much larger pond right next to his house, which he also built himself. Here is a photo of his house:

...and his large pond, stocked with fish, including huge catfish (notice Loki in the distance, running along the pond trying to get in while my dad shoos her away because she's scaring the fish off):

Loki didn't get in the large pond, but she sure enjoyed stirring up the little pond by our campsite:

and begging for food from J.C., just after shaking off all over him, of course:

Doesn't my puppy look like she belongs in a Land's End or an REI catalog?

After an afternoon of throwing frisbees and sticks for Loki, we made some yummy burgers and hot dogs, toasted up gooey s'mores, and snapped a group pic:

The next day we went floating with my parents and my little sister and her boyfriend. We don't have any pictures on the river because I didn't want to take my digital camera, and we forgot to pick up a waterproof disposable - oh well :( After we floated, the two other couples that joined us headed home, my sis set up camp next to us, Kevin and my dad fished, and I took a nice long HOT shower... ahhh... Loki was worn out:

When it got dark, we headed back to camp, armed with bottle rockets and sparklers. Loki didn't care much for the bottle rockets - she barked at them and tried running off into the woods multiple times, while I yelled at Kevin to stop shooting them. "She just needs to get used to them," he said. No, I don't think so.

Anyway, after that fiasco, we had some fun with sparklers. I found out that my camera is very good at capturing "sparkler art"! Here's one of my faves from my sis:

And of course, a nod to our anniversary date:

Here's to year two,
nicky

our first anniversary - cake

2009-07-10T15:25:00.010-05:00

So, our first year as a married couple has come and gone. When thinking about how we would spend our first anniversary, we knew it wouldn't be a big trip or fancy dinner. As some of you may know, we booked a trip to Jamaica for our honeymoon last year, but shortly after we found out that one of our good friends was going to be competing in the Beijing Olympics. So, we immediately researched plane tickets, hotels and logistics; only to find that there was no way in heck we would be able to afford it! Enter Lady Luck - through our research and brainstorming, we found that some of our friends wanted to go as well. We also found out that one of the parents of one of K's little league wrestlers does business in China several times a month (what?!?). Fast forward a couple weeks, we have discounted plane tickets through K's brother-in-law's job with American Airlines, a condo to stay in in Beijing, a driver to take us anywhere we want to go, and a translator! What the?! Yeah, exactly my thoughts...

There you have the story of how our honeymoon trip to an all-inclusive resort in Jamaica turned into a once-in-a-lifetime trip to the Beijing Olympics. We couldn't get a refund on our Jamaica trip since there were no deaths or travel-prohibiting injuries (only fabulous plans for another amazing trip), but we did get it postponed for a year (actually within 15 months from the cancel date). Therefore, come August we will be lounging on the beach in Ochos Rios, Jamaica - ahhhh...

With that trip in our future, we had to come up with some fun, relatively cheap way to celebrate our first anniversary. And what better way to celebrate the Fourth of July than by camping, floating and playing with fireworks? But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Our anniversary celebration began on Thursday, July 2nd (which happens to be the date of our rehearsal dinner - perfect, no?). My mom had been telling me that she had a surprise for me, but that it wouldn't be "ready" until Thursday, so she was going to bring it to our house that evening. I love surprises, so I was beyond excited about what it could be. She said that I would probably like it more than K, but he would like it, too. Huh? So, come Thursday, my mom calls to say she's on her way down, but has to pick up my surprise and then she'll be over to our house. I was pacing back and forth, so excited, with Loki following me everywhere whining and moaning - and FINALLY my mom arrives with this:

A replica of the second tier of our wedding cake! Isn't it beautiful? Here's another look...

Now, if you've seen our wedding cake, you may say "I don't remember it looking like that." or "Something's different, but I can't put my finger on it...". Well, you'd be correct! When I arrived at the reception after taking pictures between the ceremony and reception, my wedding coordinator approached me just before we entered and said "OK, I don't want you to be upset, but the cake isn't exactly like we'd planned. Your mom's already seen it and she isn't happy." I said, "Oh? What's wrong?" and Sabrina proceeded to tell me that instead of the cake being covered in ivory icing, with chocolate brown details, it was ivory on ivory. So, while this definitely wasn't what we'd ordered, I knew in the big scheme of things, I (and my mother and wedding coordinator) were the ONLY people in the room that would have ever known. So, I said "OK, no big deal; nothing we can do about it now!" and entered my reception, cut the cake, and ate several pieces (even took some back to our wedding night suite!). It was as delicious with ivory on ivory as it would have been otherwise! Here's a picture of it at the wedding:

Pretty, huh? Well, after the wedding hoopla died down a bit, my mom called the bakery and they were sooooo sweet about the entire thing, apologizing up and down, and sending the nicest letter stating that they completely understood the importance of a mistake such as this on a wedding cake and were truly sorry. Needless to say, my mom had no qualms about returning to order an "anniversary cake" from that same bakery. And this time they got it right!

As for the real top tier of the cake? Well, we'll find out how that tastes this weekend. My sister was supposed to bring it to Lesterville on the fourth (it was still in my parents' freezer), but she forgot; so we'll eat it when we go out to Saint Charles on Saturday. I can't wait - french vanilla cake with raspberry filling! Mmmmmm...

For now we'll just deal with the pounds of red velvet cake in our freezer - I don't know how we will possibly deal with this hardship...

Now that I've spent an entire post talking about cake, I think I'll save the camping, floating and sparklers for the next post. Until then, we'll be having our cake and eating it, too!

Thanks, mom!

nicky

maybe i'm amazed...

2009-07-04T17:03:00.000-05:00

Today is our one year wedding anniversary. So much has happened, but it's gone by so fast! The wedding day was beautiful, our trip to Beijing was unforgettable, and raising a puppy has brought out the best in both of us. I can't wait to have many many more years just like this one, and better. I'll have more posts coming up this week about how we celebrated our one-year anniversary, so stay tuned...

Until then, here are a few of my favorite pictures from one year ago.

Happy Fourth of July everyone!

nicky

our wedding invites - one year later...

2009-06-22T12:37:00.011-05:00

So, almost one year after we got married, I've finally gotten around to taking pictures of our wedding invitations and now posting them online.

Below you will see our invitations - I designed them and we ordered the materials and printing from alaunbydesign.com. The pockets are chocolate brown, and the inserts are ivory, with an apple green matte behind the invitation and the name card on the outside of the pocketfold. By the way, the mattes we originally ordered from Alaun by Design were supposed to be the "limeade" color which was close to the apple green that was throughout our wedding. However, when we got the package in the mail, pulled out the inserts and the mattes, it was the **brightest** highlighter green I had ever seen! So, needless to say, we had no time to send them back OR wait for new ones to be sent to us, and we ended up going to Archiver's and buying a beautiful metallic green cardstock, getting it cut at Kinko's, and finally assembling them.

The other snafu I ran into with Alaun by Design was that I had completely designed the invites, map and inserts, front and back, and had sent them all the files completely finished - all they needed to do was print them. However, ABD uses some sort of program to design with, where they enter in the text and upload graphics and specify the layout, then the invite is sort of "generated" by the software. For this reason, they could not figure out how to create the invites with the fireworks graphic in the background and the text on top of it (basically, this program was "drag-and-drop into a template" and that's all the customization they could do). Grrr...

But, a year later, and many compliments received, I have somewhat forgotten and forgiven. So, here are my wedding invites - enjoy!

Our invite in my wedding scrapbook:

The inside of the pocketfold (main invitation):

Invitation and the pocket holding the inserts (for R.S.V.P., reception and map/directions):

The backside of the inserts:

The map, which I did by hand (the printing was a little off-center, but other than that, I'm really happy with how they turned out!):

So, I hope my invites aren't too out-dated one year later :) And hopefully they can provide some inspiration to at least one girl!

nicky

caitlin

2009-06-12T09:26:00.013-05:00

My little sis turned 18 yesterday...

...and now that little girl has a tattoo! I can hardly believe it myself (but don't worry, it was a memorial tattoo for a few of our family members, so I'm pretty sure she won't be regretting it anytime soon).

The photos above are a collection of school photos and others throughout her short 18 years here on Earth. And in those 18 years, I've got to see her grow up every step of the way (I was almost seven when she was born). She's become my best friend, confidante, tickle-taker, clothes-swapper, laugh-inducer and partner in crime. I've been able to see her try her hand at acting, become a cute little dancer, make her own music videos, cheer for her middle and high school, find love, and graduate with a Standard of Academic Achievement Award.

I can't believe she's starting college in the fall, but I hope that the future holds great things for her. Whether she be a clothing designer, lawyer, actor, broadcaster or anything else, I know she will succeed (even if I do help her with a few papers, haha). I'll gladly support her every decision, and help her however I can - because she is my sister, and I am her "Ninny".

Love you sis - happy 18th birthday.

the title - dreams

2009-05-22T11:55:00.016-05:00

Now for the most difficult and complicated portion of the title explanation - dreams. Many of my dreams have already come true:

Getting to attend college and be a collegiate athlete

Graduating college

Getting a job with people I love, in a field I enjoy

Meeting and marrying the person who can make me laugh no matter what

Getting my very first dog of my own (hopefully twelve more will follow, hehe)

and living in a neighborhood that feels like home

Being young, I have still yet to fully visualize and set goals for all of my dreams, but there is one thing I have had a small taste of - and can't wait to get more...

Traveling! I have been to many states in the U.S. while traveling for gymnastics and diving meets; traveled abroad to England, France, Italy and Spain with my best friend; vacationed in Mexico; and most recently have literally gone to the other side of the world - Beijing!!!

My and K's honeymoon was a trip to Beijing for the Olympics. We mainly went to watch our friend compete for the U.S. Wrestling Team. But, while we were there, we saw so much more - Tienanmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, silk markets, and amazing food! Some day I'll do an entire post on Beijing (maybe a few), but here are some photos to tide you over, for now :)

So, here's to much more traveling, many more dogs, and countless laughs... those are my dreams.

nicky

photoshop before and afters

2009-04-30T10:11:00.009-05:00

I have a girl-crush. This is the first time I think I've ever admitted, or even felt, that I have a full-on girl-crush. Who is it, you ask? Ree Drummond, Pioneer Woman, of course!

I know, a lot of you have probably heard of her and already fallen in love with her, especially if you love photography. And while I do love photography, I haven't had the fortune to be able to afford a fancy-dancy camera yet, so I kind of just stalk photo blogs, dreaming that I will one day take photos like that :)

Well, thanks to PW and her super-cool way of explaining photoshop editing that doesn't make you want to curl up in a ball somewhere, I have ventured out into the post-processing world, full-on!

Now, just a reminder, I use photoshop all day, every day - so I should be pretty good at this stuff, right? Wrong. I use photoshop to layout websites and cut out products, blah, blah, blah. But I rarely use photoshop for, well, photos. Now that I have been forced to choose photos for my wedding album that will please all sides of the family, I have been working more and more on choosing the photos I want to include in my and K's own album. The "family-pleasing" album will be edited and laid out by my professional photographer, but my personal album will be edited and assembled by yours truly ;) Not to mention the 2,473 photos I brought back from our Beijing honeymoon (that's not an exaggeration, that's exactly how many photos I took)!!! So, after that long explanation, that's why I've been trying to learn more and more about photo editing for my own personal use.

So, below are two before-and-afters, done by following this PW tutorial.

My sis on my wedding day (yes, she only has on one set of fake eyelashes in this pic, lol):
I wanted to smooth her skin, sharpen her eyes, bring out her highlights, and blur the background a bit to give the illusion of a "depth of field". Oh, and a boost of color doesn't hurt ;)

And me in Hooter's in Beijing (yes they have a Hooter's, no the girls don't have hooters):
This one's a little more subtle - with the background blurred just a bit, my skin smoothed, and eyes sharpened a touch.

before

after

As I mentioned, both used the same "techniques"/"process", but the second one is just a little more subtle. I still wanted it to look like a snapshot, just not with my shiny face distracting the poor viewer, lol. The first, of my sis, I wanted to "stylize" a bit more because, after all, she is a drama queen (if you couldn't tell by the photo).

So, not too shabby, huh? I'm so excited to try more and more editing to take my "eh." photos to "oh!" photos! Yay!

nicky

the one with the birthday

2009-04-28T09:32:00.015-05:00

This past weekend was K's 29th birthday (Saturday). Yes, he's gettin' old (just kidding, honey ;) ). Anyway, everyday this weekend we celebrated K's birthday with each of our families and each other.

Friday we had dinner at K's parents' house. K got lots of cash (which came in handy the next day at the market), and we got to spend time with this cutie:

The next morning (K's birthday), we headed down to the Soulard Farmers' Market. It was gorgeous weather out, so it seemed like everyone was at the market - including Mike Shannon!!! Yes, as we were buying our steaks for dinner later that night, Mike Shannon was in the meat market picking out some steaks as well, just hours before the game! I know - you're asking, "Where's the picture?". I'm a bad blogger and didn't take my camera with me that morning, so no pic of Mike :( But here are some pics of a few things we picked up:

Fresh-cut flowers with some PW actions (the first is after running PW's boost action with a little tweaking, and the second is the vintage action - love!):

Since we got back around noon, we decided to use our thick-cut, rind-on bacon for BLTs - mmmmm...

After lunch, we walked up to Pets in the City to get Loki a late birthday present - we got her a UFO-type toy that you put treats in then screw it shut so she can try to get them out, and some treats to put in it. And since it was her birthday, they gave us a free food bowl, an extra bag of treats, scoop and frisbee! Here is Lok enjoying her new toy (which she subsequently shredded that same day!):

Then, I decided to make some yummy cupcakes, even though K isn't a huge cake fan (or desserts for that matter). After one batch of plain cupcakes, I thought it'd be fun to stick some of the strawberries we got at the market inside the cupcakes. It was delish! (If I do say so myself ;))

Later, we enjoyed our steaks, sweet corn and sweet potatoes - all from the market and all cooked on the grill on an absolutely beautiful day:

Then we hung out on our patio underneath our super cool candlelier - it puts off just the right light (please ignore the fluorescent light on in the picture, lol):

So, that wraps up Saturday. On Sunday we had my cousin's baby's baptism to go to. Afterward we got to meet their new puppy, Hamilton!

After stuffing ourselves with chicken kabobs and chips and dip, we headed home to Soulard. We met up with my parents at Nadine's after the Cards/Cubs game and had some more yummy food (I had a spinach and mushroom quesadilla and my mom had a feta burger - mmm mmm mmmm). Kevin got more presents, including a gift cert to Lucky, his favorite jeans. We headed back home and cut into the "small" ice cream cake:

Ok, well, after writing this post, I feel even more full than when I ate all this food, so maybe the next post needs to be about exercise? LOL.

Happy birthday, babe!

nicky

the title - designs

2009-04-24T11:30:00.012-05:00

Alright, I've finally gotten to the second part of the title of my blog - designs. As some of you may know, I am a web designer. I design basically anything you could see on the web - websites, e-newsletters, banner ads, blog templates, etc. I work for a company that has mostly agricultural clients, which feeds great into my degree in agricultural journalism. I started out in animal science (pre-vet) in college, then switched to ag j later (it's a long story - maybe I'll tell you some day ;) ).

Anyway, back to designs. As I said above, my job consists of designing things for the web, but as a creative chica I like to design lots of things! And I started this blog as a way to not only share the goings-on in my life, but also as a creative kick-start. A place to create outside of work :)

So, here's just a preview of things I've designed, for work and for myself:

Here are some sites I've worked on (keep in mind - agriculture = not the most cutting-edge/adventurous clients, but we try, haha).
unitedsoybean.org
sfp.com
chooseavail.com
royalcanin.us

and some banner ads (there are a million I have worked on, so here are just a couple I could find):
asgrow
roundup powermax

and some fun stuff of my own:

placecards and menus for the wedding (i also designed the invites, painstakingly, but don't have a good pic of them right now).

my parents' 25th anniversary party invites and map (done with a cool embossing technique from Martha).

and my latest diy project - the jewelry tree, made from the branches I used for my parents' 25th anniversary party wish trees.

Well, I know that wasn't very exciting, but that's why I'm bound and determined to jump-start my creativity and make more things for myself. The things I enjoy designing the most are the things I am doing for people I love or for which I have total creative freedom. Hopefully I will be posting more of those types of things on here in the future!

nicky

Loki's 1st birthday!

2009-04-23T13:17:00.006-05:00

No, I still haven't finished the explanation of the title, but while we are still on "dogs", here is a look at our puppy's 1st birthday!

Loki turned one year old on Tuesday, April 21st. The week before, we got a flyer in the mail from PetSmart about a "pet birthday party" they were having, and guess when it was - on Loki's birthday! So, I took that as a sign and decided we HAD to go. K had to coach that night, so I braved it alone, Loki in one hand and camera in the other. However, as soon as we got into the store, Lok went nuts trying to play with every dog and lick every person, so I only got a couple pics while we were sitting waiting to play "musical sits" (more on that later). Here's Loki standing guard at the entrance to the party so she can get the first sniff of every dog coming in:

After about 10 minutes, we got to play "musical sits". This is basically musical chairs for dogs - you walk around in a circle with your dog, when the music stops, the last dog to sit is eliminated. This goes on until two dogs are left and the first to sit wins! The funny thing is, as crazy as Loki was, she won the first round and got second in the final round, hahaha! Loki cleaned up, taking home a $5 PetSmart card and $20 in Purina certificates :)

So, we left with a party favor bag, gift cards, and a very happy dog:

I thought Loki would be worn out from all the playing, but she enjoyed the open window all the way home, complete with a beautiful sunset:

And of course, when we got home I wanted to see if we could get some One-Year-Old portraits (ha, we'll see how this goes). So, I took Loki to the little garden area next to our building to have her in front of a tulip backdrop (my fav flower). She was cooperative enough for me to get a photo with everything still except her tongue :)

Then she started doing this:

So, all in all, I think Loki had a happy 1st birthday. Oh, and of course, she also got a messy cake to devour:

Happy 1st Birthday, Loki!!!

Love, Mom.

the title

2009-04-20T09:11:00.022-05:00

OK, so yes, I've started a blog. When thinking of a name for my blog, it really didn't take too long to come up with one. I just thought of all the things that I love and that bring joy and passion to my life.

First up is dogs. I LOVE DOGS!!! I don't think there is one dog in the world that I would not walk up to and pet and say silly "doggy woggy" things to :) My mom always told me that one day I would get my face eaten by one - well, I've still got my face, so I still love every dog! Here are the dogs of my life:

Honey was my first dog. We got her when I was about 11 or 12, I think. She was the sweetest (albeit, very vocal) dog ever (I say that about almost all my dogs). One of the things I remember most about her is taking her to the vet. She would lay on the floor and just moan and moan - everybody thought she was growling, but she was actually doing a kind of dog purring! We had to put her to sleep while I was in college. I made sure to come home for the weekend so we could all be with her when she went. When we got to the vet's office, though, my dad and I couldn't stand to be in the room with her. So, my mom, sister and aunt all sat in the room while she fell asleep for the last time; and my dad and I held each other, crying in the waiting room.

OK, now on to the dogs that are alive (sorry for the tear-jerking story above)!

Above are Molly and Izzy. Molly is a Lhasa Apso, and we got her when Honey was about 5 or 6. Molly loved to chase Honey all around the yard and nip at her heels (one of the causes of Honey's hip dysplasia). She also loves to sit on my Dad's lap in his chair and growl at Izzy as she walks by or even if she does nothing at all. Molly is a very good guard dog, if only she were bigger than 15 pounds ;)

Izzy is about 2 1/2 years old. We got her from a family that found some stray puppies out in the country near my and my sister's high school. The family got the dog for their son, but he decided he didn't want her, so we convinced my mom to let us surprise our dad with her. My dad was somewhat hesitant to get another dog since Honey had passed (it had been about a year), but he was done the second we shoved Izzy onto his chest. "Awwwww, she's soooo cute!" (yes, actual quote from my softie-for-dogs dad).

And, finally, my very first dog of my own - Loki :)

We got Loki from a family friend of ours, half off (as a wedding gift)! My husband has never had a dog and I was worried that the hair and drool would be too much for him... but he has fallen head over heels for her! Loki's name was something we thought we made up, meant to poke fun at how she would plop down on the floor after playing for 5 minutes (low-key). However, when we looked it up to see if it actually meant something, we found that it was the name of the Norse God of mischief! She definitely grew into that part of her name quickly! She loves laying on the couch and bed, but gets off when we tell her to; loves to tear up empty paper towel and toilet paper rolls, but doesn't chew up our shoes; and has the shiniest, most beautiful black coat, but rolls in the dirt whenever she can. She's our baby-dog :)

Ok, well, I think I've written enough for ten posts (give me a break, I'm just starting). So, I will leave you with dogs, for now, and pick up with designs next time!

nicky