Happy Two Year Anniversary

Today, October 2, 2012, marks the two year anniversary with my wonderful husband(our cotton anniversary). Our wedding day was such an amazing day, I wish we could do it all over again exactly the same. I know everyone thinks their wedding was the best they had ever been to and I am one of those people. (but I think there is something wrong when you don't think your own wedding was the best) A room with so many important people in our lives, all our family and friends sharing in this speical moment where we commit our lives to being one. 

We both did so much planning into so many of the little details of the day, and it came out perfect. Exactly how we planned. Every year we hope to relive it a little with a speical diner and viewing our wedding photos, guestbook, and video clips. Since we aren't home with all our stuff, we have to postpone some of that till we're back. But in honor of our speical day that brought us to who and where we are today, I'm going to post some of my favorite pictures from it. Some you've probably seen a lot already due to facebook, but I wouldn't post them, if they weren't my favorite! I'm sure I'm missing a few too...

I like to say that this one was one of my favorite days in my life because it really was the whole day that I loved. It was actually the whole weekend. From friday morning, primping and getting pampered in the Hotel 1000 spa, and bridesmaid lunch at the Four Seasons, to the minute we left on our honeymoon to Ireland. 

Here we go!

Friday, Oct 1, 2010

Getting ready for the big day! At the nail salon with MOH Courtney! Nails and taming of the eyebrows, CHECK!

Bridesmaid luncheon at the Four Seasons. (missing Auny!) after getting my hair done at Swink in Seattle. Love how my hair turned out.

The rehersal where I fubbed the vows....

Rehersal Dinner at Sip in downtown Seattle with my MOH Courtney and Bridesmaid Tany! During the rehersal I remember messing up the vows. Yes, at times it's hard to repeat words when there is so many eyes on you! hahaha

Rehersal Dinner with my Mom and Grandmother. Three generations of Baik women.

My bridesmaids and I at the rehearsal dinner.

Awesome reaction to bridesmaid's gifts. HAHAHA MOH Sharon. Timeless face, must send to Ford Models ASAP.

Saturday, October 2nd, 2010

Details, Details

My MOHs getting me suited up!

One of my favorite photos to show my Seahawks pride! (also to add to the Seattle themed wedding)

Ready to go from Miss to Mrs! Meanwhile...the guys are:

Spraying cologne where deodorant goes.....and

and drinking. Just kidding, all empty bottles in this phto. But clearly, picking up the room for the photos wasn't on the adgenda. 

Group photos!! ( pretend you haven't been up since 5am!! woo hoo!)

Another all time favorite, if I could see Kevin and Matt more and if the dogs where looking at the camera. But really a fav.

my babies.... I miss them so much right now. Taylor was here usual angel self that day. I remember Brody was a butthead though. It's like he didn't know he was getting a dad that day!

There was a jogger going by. Another favorite.

Slug bug!

This photo got us into Seattle Bride Magazine :)

The program that matched our invites. I wish I had remembered to bring an invite to get photographed. I LOVED our invites! We spent so much time with the designer(the daughter of a friend of Cole's) designing the invite to be so personal to us. Seattle themed(the rain drops, and us under the umbrella silhouette) , wedding colors(eggeplant and mango), library book-esk(the booklike style and return card was like when you rent a book from the libaray), and us (our doggies). We even planned the invite color to the orange bakers twine we wanted.

This is the moment I had a little trouble getting Cole's ring on since he was burning up in his tux. I always feel bad for guys at weddings. They usually end up in 3 peice tuxs and having to run around all day taking photos and getting hott. While the bride and bridesmaids are in dresses, usually strapless, sometimes cold. I would take cold over hott anyday. 

We're Mr and Mrs Coulston Van Gundy!! There were so many bubbles, I couldn't believe it. It was SO beautiful from our view. This picture is great but it doesn't do it justice to all the bubbles that our friends and family put in the air to welcome us into married bliss :) This was a very fairy tale moment for me.

It's time for the party!!

The Cake. Although it was kind of a miss-matched mess, it describes a part of our personality. We love so many things, its hard to chose. So we chose everything.(three different patterns, 2 cake toppers... 2 cakes) The cake stand was a nice, last minute touch. I painted the hair on the topper to match mine and Cole's too. I was so happy with how it all turned out. Seattle themed(umbrella and rainboots), but still us. It was delicious too!!(at least to us it was!) A traditional vanilla white wedding cake with orange and purple sprinkles, so it was confetti cake (cole's favorite) with cream cheese frosting (my favorite). Perfection.

We also had a small sheet cake to accomidate everyone. At the end of the night, the whole sheet cake was still there... this made me VERY happy to eat later.

The reception room, was later transformed to the dancefloor while we cut the cake in a different room to move guests around. The chairs(thankfully) came with the venue and worked well. The table cloths, chair ribbons, and centerpieces were perfect. Designed by Aria Style in Seattle. When we went into the consultation, I had no idea what I wanted. All I said was "our colors are eggplant and mango. I don't prefer hydrangeas at my wedding, so please avoid those. I want a modern, not traditional centerpeice." and this is what we got. I was thrilled! They looked like mini gardens!

The amber uplights were done by my fantastic DJ from good times DJ in Seattle. I was so happy with him too! He was young and had a great personality! Perfect for the dancing. He also played "teach me how to douggie" for me even though it had bad words .

My MOH Sharon had designed the menus and photoshoped the table "numbers". This really helped us a ton!! Now everyone could know what they were eating. Lastly, they aren't in the photo, but the place cards matched the invites and programs. There was bakers twine on the top of each which depending on the color of the twine, signaled the waiter as to what was ordered :) 

Wedding favors! Most people don't know what to do about wedding favors, so I say... eat it! Thanks to my MOH for helping me bake and ice every single cookie! The icing ended up being alittle runny so they kind of look like horses and sheep. But it's suppose to be Taylor and Brody!. Also Thank you to my friend Amanda for hooking us up with the wedding colored myjones, Jones Soda! These were a hit! When I go to visit relatives, I always see one of these bottle in their house somewhere! We didn't even end up with one of each, but Im happy to have at least gotten a pictuer of them! I think it really helped everyone has a night of drinking and dancing :).

Our first dance - You and I by Michael Buble. We took months of dance lessons, and I'd say it turned out pretty good! I could tell cole was very nervous. Thankfully, dancing in front of people makes me feel like I am in my element so I did a pretty good job of slowing him down. It was so much fun :)

Father daughter, mother son dance. I wish there was a better picture with us dancing and Courtney singing. That was seriously one of the best things. I felt so honored that she sang that song. I only wish I could have watched her sing :(

and now... time to get down!I was a sweaty mess at this point. 

After all the food, fun, drinks and laughs, it was midnight and the party moved to Fado, a bar a block away. 

Ended the perfect day with a Seattle hotdog. 

Thank you to everyone reading who helped make this day perfect by being there, or if you weren't able to make it, for being apart of our lives. We love you!

Here are my last two all time favorite pictures:

All this lead to this: (my happily ever after)

 

 

 

First Celebrity Sighting

This happened a few weeks ago, but it was so exciting for me that I wanted to blog about it before I forgot. 

Since we've been on the east coast, I have been hoping we would run into a celebrity somewhere! I was thinking we would definitely see one in NY. We had stayed in the upper west side were quite a few celebs were suppose to have lived. But no luck. I guess to be honest, this isn't my first celeb sighting actually. Just first in awhile. 

I guess the first real one was Tyra Banks in Ralphs in Granite Bay while she was dating Chris Webber on the Sacramento Kings. She was buying make up with a friend. I was with Tany and I we were soo surprised to see her there! Chris Webber was there too, but Tyra was more important to us haha. Second time was in San Francisco outside of Japantown, my cousin  Michelle and I were walking back to our grandmother's house and right past us walks Robin Williams. I am an extremely giddy and star struck person, so I was overly excited everytime. I leave them alone though, because I assume they are wanting to have that "normal" life for a few minutes and I didn't want to cause a scene. 

This time we were in Boston. This was our second trip to beantown since we've been on the east coast. This time we wanted to make sure Elyse was enjoying her time, so we went to the Boston Aquarium, also known as the New England Aquarium on the Boston waterfront. My aunt, Cole, Elyse and I were waiting in line to get tickets and the line was kind of long and wrapped around like an "S". We were in the last row and I see about 2 feet in front of me, a woman with a child in line in the row in front of us, facing me. Her sunglasses were off (mine were on thank goodness) and I realize her face is really familar, and so my first thought was... "I know this person.."

Then it clicked, I don't know this person, I just know her character. Meridith Grey, from Grey's Anatomy.  She sees me looking at her, (fail.) and she immediately puts her oversized glasses on. Now im not sure if I was right, but just to validate that I was, the girl in front of her in line randomly whips around and says something to her, and Ellen(Pompeo) smiles and brings one finger up to her lips and nodds. (making the "shhh.. quiet" signal). Then I feel validated that I was right! I tell Cole, and he wants to go up and ask for a picture, and all I can think is "no, I don;t want to be the person to ruin their trip to the aquarium."  I eventually convince him its not nesscary and I can just stare at her for awhile from a distance. :)

(Terrible picture, but I was snapping a picture of Stella, Ellen's daughter, next to the red stroller. You can only see the a little bit of Ellen next to the older man in the white shirt. You can see her sunglasses. The woman with the jean shorts was with her. She's not the random person.)

So I snap a few pictures like a creepy fan and a little jealous cause I see her pose for a picture with the girl that was in line in front of her. I don't think much of anyone else noticed though. The reason this was so exciting for me was because when I moved to Seattle, Courtney got me hooked on this show. It was a little depressing but so addicting and interesting. Plus,I had the added interest that it was based in Seattle. So It was fun to notice the little things they did to make it more "seattle like". Since then (7 years ago), I've been hooked on the show. Although it got a little weird with Izzy was leaving then came back, then was having sex with a ghost, but other than that, I loved the show. (oh and the season premire is tonight so I figured this post was appropiate)

(here's my best picture. I am still in line and they are buying their tickets. Ellen is bending over Stella.)

So this particular sighting was the most exciting for me since I am an actual fan of this actress. Later while we were in the aquarium, we ran into them one more time. I sound like a such a dork, but I was RIGHT next to her!!! It was in a small room where you can see the samllest penguins in the world. Stella and Elyse were standing next to each other, looking at each other then looking at the penguins too. I was kind of hoping they would talk to each other, but I guess Elyse has to talk for that to work out haha. It was my oppourtunity to ask for a picture because it was a small room, and it was just us and them, but again I didn't want to ruin it for them.

We saw them again as we were leaving, but that was it. I didn't do it. It was an exciting day though 

Since we're in Philly for a few more weeks, we may run into someone!! We've seen quite a few movie trailers around town, but no actors. When we first got here, we saw teh trailers for the movie Paranoia, which is starring Liam Hemsworth. He would have been fun to see :) Then 2 days ago, we saw more trailers for a TV show called "do no harm". Maybe we'll see someone else

Longwood Gardens

                                  

Recently, while my mom came to visit us in Philadelphia, we went to Longwood Gardens. It's a about 45 min from our place but it was worth it. We went in the evening so that we could see a recent display of light installations at the garden. When my mom first mentioned it, I was thinking it was going to be kind of cold and boring and that we would be the only ones there. I was very wrong. 

When we got there, there were tons of people there ready to see the light installations as well. Also, to make us feel a little less out of place, there were a lot of strollers too. Elyse loved it. She could walk were ever, and didn't have to worry about holding our hands or cars or bikes. We got there a little before sundown and saw parts of the garden early. As soon as the sun was gone, it was even more beautiful than I would have realized. 

When I think of light installations, the first thing I thought of was when Carrie Bradshaw dated "the Russian" and how he was worried he would be the "crazy old man with the lights". I realize this is  extremely girly and  a little dumb that  I reference Sex and the City when it came to art, but it's what I thought.

So here's a little of what we saw that evening!

Elyse and her freedom

Part of a clock in a garden that made you felt like you were in Alice and Wonderland.

More Elyse and Freedom! With Cole and my mom in the background

                                     

Elyse and I as it got dark. She wasn't thrilled that I was getting in the way for her freedom.

In the conservatory

More in the conservatory

Orchids in the conservatory. There were sooo many and so beautiful!

Water Lilies in the pond

Lights!!!

There were professional photos done of the installations. Here is a photo of one of the photos. You will see later that I added this photo because the photo we got of this installation was TERRIBLE!

More in the conservatory. This one was one of my favorites. Looks like a perfect place to get married :)

This one is the only one I remembered the name of. It was called Forest Walk and it was definitely a long walk. But worth it.

Ok, heres the terrible photo we got. They were pillars of 2 liter bottles with water and lights inside. Also, weird music playing. It was fun!

This one looks like Forest Walk but is a different one. It was REALLY hard to get this photo because we didn't have a tripod. But there is a little pond in front of this and it was so pretty they way it all reflected.

There were in front of the main entrance. It was a wonderful night :)

Till next time!! 

The Jersey Shore!!

Last weekend we went to Seaside Heights, New Jersey. Also known as the Jersey Shore, made popular by the MTV show. Turns out Seaside is only about an hour away from Philly, so why not check it out! It was a beautiful day and really fun. The drive there felt long though. It wasn't a highway really. There were a ton of lights and had to stop a lot. Elyse thankfully fell asleep. 

Although lately, her new favorite thing is to dance to the youtube sensation "gangnam style" by psy. It's a newly popular Korean song and every time she hears it, she smiles and dances. So above is a picture of how she was sleeping... a few minutes later, gangnam style comes on the radio and her little eyelids burst open and she starts smiling and dancing in her carseat! It was hilarious!!

We finally get to the boardwalk and the first places we found parking was surprisingly right near theJersey  Shore cast house! SO before we go to the house, we check out the Shore Store. This is where the cast worked while filming. I was worried it was going to be stuffy or crowded. But it wasn't. We got there around noon on a sunday. So I assume most people in the area hadn't rolled out of bed from their previous night at Karma. haha jk

 I got a shirt from the store just because I did enjoy the show and felt we came all this way and I might as well. There's a selection of shirts, pants, shorts that you can pick from. Then you pick from a HUGE wall of decals they put on it. It;s nice you can make it anyway you want. The downside, it's pricey. I got a longsleeve shirt with decals for $40!!! But it was nice go. Also the whole store is Jersey shore quotes. It's fun that they play up their popularity from the show :)

 Also, all the yelp and foursquare tips told us we "HAD" to try the deep fried oreos. Although its not on the diet.....

We had to give it a try. I wasn't entirely thrilled about the amount of calories we were about to ingest.  They weren't bad though. We definitely didn't eat them all. It was good, but I don't think I would have it again. It was like a warm oreo in a funnel cake haha

 Last stop on the "Jersey Shore" tour, we went to Rivoli's. An Italian restaurant also made famous bThis is a picture of Cole and Elyse waiting for their food at Rivolisy the cast in Season 3. The portions are HUGE! We had to take home all the left overs.Inside they have a huge painted mural of the cast as well. I guess they are grateful for the publicity from them.

After lunch we went back to the boardwalk for some walking around and the beach. Elyse really enjoyed strutting around and checking out all the sights and music. She was mesmoried by all the rides that she was not tallenough to ride. you had to be 36inchs tall.

Here's Elyse drawn toward a ride blaring music. She started dancing of course.

First time for Elyse walking in Sand! Last time we were at a beach it was hawaii, and she wasn't walking on her own yet.

Still at the beach! (with my new small diaper bag :) ) and new hair cut! Although, I didn't straight iron it that morning.... whoops!

She loved the sand... unfortunately, she loved finding the strange things in the sand too. I.e bottle caps, cigarette butts, shells. 

Family foot prints in the sand.... 

I had never been to the Atlantic Ocean before, so now I've touched both! Although the water felt exactly like ice water.

Best way to spend a Sunday. Beach, Sun, Family, Fun :)

NYC

Last weekend, our family went to New York City! It was the first time for both Elyse and I, so we did all the tourtisty things. Well, not everything but as much as we could. It was great to see so much history and of course, all the things I've seen over and over in some of my favorite movies and Tv shows. It's a city a could see us live in very comfortably. (as long as we stay far far away times square. That wasn't fun.)

The only thing I didn't like, is the subway isn't very stroller friendly. That makes things really difficult to get around with a baby. We didn't get to see everything we wanted too. Someone needed naps and couldn't sit through long historial movies... and then there's Elyse. haha just kidding. :)

So we plan to go back and see Ellis island and the 9/11 memorial. We tried 2 times to see it, but you need to make prior reservations, and if you go without reservations you can't pick the time you go see it. So we are thinking of going back while my mom is in town  and can watch our little baby.

She did like the New York harbor cruise though! That was definitely a hit with Elyse. She was also a fan of Central Park and the Zoo!! She also REALLY like roaming around Tiffany's and getting all the "aww.. what a cute baby! Does she want crayons?" haha

On a different note, we're going back to Boston this weekend for a game at Fenway!!! Can't wait!