One Night In . . . . .

THAILAND!!!! 

Or should I say fourteen? With several nights in Bangkok. ;) 

Honestly, getting to this point was a challenge. Josh and I could not agree! I had really wanted to go to Europe, but my most important thing was to have a long honeymoon. I really wanted two weeks, but the lowest I would go was 10 days. 

Josh said we couldn't do that--he was looking at one week deals. We kept going on Groupon--we couldn't agree on any of them. None of them were a good enough deal for us, nor could we agree. Josh kept suggesting "7 Days in _____" and I would be like "Too short." 

I explained my dilemma to my sister, Julie (MOH), and she said "Why don't you guys try Thailand? I've heard it's super cheap to go there." So I started looking into it. I knew Josh had always wanted to go to Puckett (because of the way it's spelled... it looks like one of his favorite phrases...), so I wondered if this might work. I was willing to consider it because I really wanted to go to a place where I could make a music video to a song about a place (Worst Pies in London, What's New, Buenos Aries, etc.) This worked for me thanks to the song "One Night in Bangkok," from the musical Chess. I immediately started envisioning our music video. I got this idea thanks to the amazing music video to "Africa" that Kristen Bell and Dax Shephard made. 

I loved this video! I had several thoughts about it:

1. What a cute couple! I totally think these people are people Josh and I could totally be couple friends with if we ever met. They're so cool. 

2. It's a really amazing way to document your trip! 

3. I bet all their friends were jelly of their coolness. I know I was. 

After months and months of not agreeing on a honeymoon, Josh saving, and me finally feeling the pressure of running out of time, we sat down one night and decided to figure it out. Fortunately, Groupon had an incredible deal at the time for 14 days in Thailand! We also found a good one for Dublin, London, and Paris that we were considering. It came down to these two. Josh was willing to consider Europe, but when I told him that I could totally do "Worst Pies in London" and videotape myself chasing him around, trying to get him to eat a pie while we were site seeing, he was not interested. He said that our time in London would be too short and there's way too much to see to have any time to make music videos. I tried to make him see that my music video plans could be done during our site seeing, and it wouldn't interfere, but he was hard set against that. He said that he REALLY doesn't want to do a music video, and there is NO WAY he would do both the place I wanted to go (Europe) and my CrAzY mUsIc ViDeO idea. At least, if we went to Thailand, it would be going somewhere he always wanted to go, and he could deal with the music video, so that is what we decided on. It's official! We paid for it today! 

THAILAND, HERE WE COME!!! 

Flowers and Invites

Student teaching has been so busy! The good news is, I'm finally done with my one long paper I have to write for student teaching! I'm actually on the downhill part now, but I still have some classroom management skills I need to work on. At the end of the month, I'm going to a job fair at Flagstaff and the TARIAT (There's A Reason I'm A Teacher) conference, so we will see if that yields any jobs. I would really love to get a job at a middle school close to where we live, but we will see. :) 

Flowers

Last Saturday, Gage (one of our amazing groomsmen), Josh, and I finally sat down and put together the remaining bouquets, boutonnieres, and corsages. It was a lot of work, but I did enjoy doing it! I watched a YouTube video on how to create a cascading bouquet, but that used real flowers, and their technique didn't really work for me, so I tried something different, and I must say, it was pretty successful! My bouquet is HUGE and beautiful. I asked our friend Ben how much he thought it weighed and he said 50 lbs, so that's pretty awesome! I'm excited about that. I looked up pictures of Princess Diana's bouquet, and mine is even bigger than hers! Crazy. 

Here are some pictures of us putting together bouquets on flower day! It seriously took all day to do this, and this wasn't even the first time we worked on it! It was when we got it done though, so I'm excited for you guys to see the results! 

I swear, I am getting so much experience with everything regarding weddings! It makes me want to be a wedding planner/bridal gown designer/wedding bouquet-corsage-boutonniere maker/wedding cake maker/calligrapher/anything and everything to do with weddings doing person! I seriously think I could do all of these things, and would love doing it. 

Invites

We deliberated on which invites to get to best save money. We ultimately decided on purchasing several designs from an Etsy artist, then printing them ourselves. In the end, we didn't actually save money, but I am still exceedingly happy with the results, and Josh is too! Our invitations are BEAUTIFUL!!!! There are three different designs. I would have done all the Disney couples, but Josh was not a huge fan of some of them, and I let him pick his three favorites. They are very nice, and guests will all be receiving one of three different Disney couple themed invitations! 

Last night, we had an invite packing party--which was actually a lot more involved and a lot more work than I had imagined it would be... You have to stamp our return address on the back, then take an invite and RSVP card and put them in an addressed envelope, then put a stamp on it, then use the hot wax and press the seal in, then rub the silver on the seal. This activity took four people all evening (Daniel and Cynthia were helping!) 

I thought it was fun though, and today, I FINALLY MAILED THEM!!! It took us so long to actually get them out, I was worried we weren't going to give our guests enough time to RSVP! We are asking for RSVP's by mid April (that's what Josh wanted.) Ultimately, most of our guests should have a little over a month to RSVP, so I hope they do so! :) 

Here are a few pictures of the invite packing party! Things are really starting to move faster. It's a little scary! 

My sister, Julie, says that we should consider having a bouncer at our wedding because she says everyone she speaks to says they really want to go, and she can imagine people trying to come who weren't invited! That is a little nerve wracking. We are considering doing this to keep people from coming who weren't invited, because that's not cool. We are paying for this ourselves and weddings are expensive! Imagine if someone did that to you! It is causing us a bit of worry, but we will handle it. I'm sure it will be fine. :) 

It's Spring Break, so hoping to accomplish more wedding stuff this week! :) So much excitement, but I'll sign off for now.

My Big Fat Stressful Wedding

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile. I've started my student teaching and that has been pretty time consuming so far. I'm in a 7th grade social studies classroom and I really like it so far, but Friday was my first day teaching solo, with my observing teacher strictly observing me, and it was harder than anticipated. I also have this big paper that I've been working on that I have to do over the next few weeks that's also pretty heavy.

Anyway, that's not why I got on here to write! So much has been happening--it's actually a lot more stressful than I thought it all would be.

To start, I have switched out a Princess in Waiting. I have one friend who has become very busy with her own life and it kind of felt like we were drifting apart. It was hard to do, but I think it was the right choice, and less pressure. My brother Daniel's girlfriend, Cynthia, is going to be taking her place. This does mean that I need to make another dress, and get everything set up for her, but she's going to be helping, so that's good!

There's also all this unanticipated stress for other aspects. There are a lot of ways to offend people when having a wedding unfortunately.

I have come to realize that organizing a wedding is one of the most stressful things I think I will ever do in my life. Quite possibly, the most stressful.

We haven't even ordered our invitations yet! We need to get on that.

Josh and I have different opinions on a lot of things. It's been hard finding ways to compromise. We've been reading this book, "Things I Wish I'd Known Before I Got Married," by Gary Chapman. We need to follow that, it has some great suggestions.

I've been trying to do Uber on the weekends sometimes to make a little extra money to help pay for the wedding, but after a long week of student teaching, sometimes I'm just not up for it.

I keep telling myself that I just need to get through this semester. I hope I can do this!

Bridal Party Bouquets

If you're in the bridal party, please don't read this post--I really want to surprise you!

If not, proceed. :)

So, I started making the bouquets and boutonnieres for the bridal party! They look SO GOOD!!! I've gotten great deals on flowers from Walmart, Dollar Tree, and wayfair.com and making your own bridal party actually seems like a really great way to go! I found this amazing video on how to do it on youtube.

I've been following this to make mine and they've turned out really well! They're super cute and I'm very excited! I've only done three so far, but I love them all so much! <3 <3 <3 

Me making the handle for one of the bouquets! 

I've been super excited to do this for a long time, so when I finally got to start this weekend, I was super pumped! Can't wait for everyone to see them! 

Groomsmen Proposals (Josh Post)

Groomsmen Proposals

Adam

Joel

Kyle

Daniel

Gage

       Well I've been promising Tina for a long time I would participate in the blog and I can no longer find a decent excuse to hold her off with, So hello everyone :-) This is Tina's groom Josh speaking. And I would like to endeavor upon today the grueling journey towards securing all the necessary 8 groomsman. As you can see by all of the wonderful photos and faces in said photos that have been provided above all of us had a lot of fun with it. From hanging out and drinking to smoking to white water rafting and maybe or maybe not smuggling drugs through customs at the border it has been quite the adventure. I have to say that I couldn't have found a better group of groomsman than Zack, Tommy, Kyle, James, Gage, Adam, Joel, and Daniel, I'm looking forward to going through all the craziness with you guys!

Winter Break

Winter break was really great--and busy!

It started with my mom coming to visit. It was wonderful to get to see her and spend some quality time together. We did a lot of things while she was down--she took a dance class at the dance studio Josh and I have been going to, Fred Astaire Dance Center in Chandler. We went to several of the bookstores she loves to go to when she comes out here, we saw Moana at Studio Movie Grill (we love that place. You can eat food and watch a movie at the same time!) and we played the board game Ticket to Ride a lot! She was reluctant at first, but soon learned to love it. We also went out to eat several times.

I posted this picture on FB and I got more likes on it than I did on my engagement pictures! Mom wants to learn to dance and get good for my wedding! <3 

L-R
Daniel, David (Josh's Dad), Cherri, Dale, (Cherri & Dale are our friends. They're together.) Cynthia (Daniel's girlfriend), Me, Patrick, Karen (Josh's Mom), Sharon (my mom), and Josh.
At Baffled Escape Rooms, about to do the Nuclear Meltdown escape room. 

They gave us a little extra time and we eventually made it out... :) 

We played a round of Catan while mom was here--she loves that game, and so do we! 

We went to see Moana at Studio Movie Grill! It was wonderful! One of the things mom really wanted to do while she was here. 

 Also, Cynthia proposed to Daniel! 

......

Just kidding. I posted the video on Facebook to try to get everyone to believe it... some people did. It was just a Christmas present though. :/ 

Mom doesn't have an IHOP in PA, so we took advantage of visiting the one near us while she was here! 

Right towards the end of mom's visit, my cousins, Nathan and Madison came out for a visit! I then rode back with them for a few days to CA for a visit out there. It was so nice to see my friends and family out there for a bit.

I took Madison to go get her first Boba Tea! 

When we got to CA, dad took me out to eat at one of my favorite restaurants from my childhood, Chris n' Pitts! I have so many memories there. 

Got some Starbucks with Aunt Amy! 

Hung out with the family and made a video of Susanna's dress for the woman who is going to help finish it up! 

Hung out with my dear friend Lynae for the last time in awhile as she is going off to Minot University. :( This picture was taken right after we both realized that we are both obsessed with James Franco. <3

We went and had some Boba Tea at my childhood haunt, Bobaloca. 

Had a wonderful dinner at the Lozano's house!
L-R
Aunt Lizy, Madison, Uncle Angel, Sarah, William (Sarah's boyfriend), Nathan, Dad, Nga (my stepmom), me, Vy, and Darian. 

Nga treated us all to massages and facials! It was a wonderful, relaxing experience! <3
L-R
Sarah, Aunt Kathy, Nga, Madison, me

Before leaving, had a nice dinner with Aunt Lizy, Dad, and Darian. 

We wanted to go see a movie, so we saw the new Jack Reacher movie. It was a good action film. :)

Took this picture before racing off to the airport to make my flight! 

 I then took a flight back to AZ, for the remainder of the break. We hung out with Josh's family almost every day! It was wonderful to get to spend time with some who we so rarely see!

We did a Saw themed escape room with Josh's family that was a lot of fun! We made it out with around 20 minutes to spare! They said we weren't the fastest to escape that room, but we were the 2nd fastest! We were super impressed with our mad skills!
L-R
Back Row:
Adam, Kyle, me, Styles, Daniel
Front Row:
Katelin, Joelle, Josh, Nadia, Chris (Daniel's friend)

In the parking lot, we took a pic of everyone who was in the bridal party who was present! It was so nice to get to hang out with so many of them at once! 

We went to Culinary Dropout after and Daniel, Chris and I played giant Jenga! 

Josh & I's Christmas Eve pic!
We spent Christmas Eve at Josh's sister Joelle's brother-in-law and his (now fiance, as of Christmas!) Jenn's house. We did a white elephant exchange. My present was a "Seduction Kit." It was a big it! I could tell because no one wanted it... lol
We also did a gingerbread house competition. The "Trump Wall" was a major theme this year. 

 We spent Christmas at Joelle's in-law's house. We had a nice dinner, and then we went to go see Arrival, since it was Nadia's birthday.

We got to go out for a nice dinner with Joelle and Adam! So nice to have some quality time with them! 

In the name exchange we did with Josh's family, Adam got our name! He got me Beauty & the Beast on blue ray, and Josh a new game called Dominion. I was very reluctant to play at first, and then I figured it out! We have all been obsessed with it ever since (especially me!)

In other news, I quit my job with the call center on Friday to start my student teaching, which I did today! I had been at the job for four years. I had my good times and bad, but I did feel a little sad leaving everyone. I had given my two weeks notice, so it was ok. 

Today, I started my student teaching in a 7th grade social studies classroom. I can't begin to explain how terrified I was before beginning it to you! Today was pretty chill however, which was nice. I mostly just observed, and walked around, talking to students. It's a very student centered, hands on learning classroom, so I'm going to have to get creative this semester with lessons! 

It might not be so bad though. I already have some ideas for lessons I can do! 

One thing that is super daunting is this insane pile of paperwork that I have to read! Seriously, it's like a novel. Sadly, it's not very interesting and not very informative. So much of it is filler info, about how this is a learning experience, what not to do (dress inappropriately, or have inappropriate relationships with the students), how we can get kicked out of the program, etc. I have not yet found the page that explains what we need to do (assignments), details on the assignments, and when they are due. Not entirely sure I will find this, it's pretty confusing, but I have to conqueror reading this beast sooner or later, so yeah...

Wedding!

Everyone asks how wedding planning is going... slowly is the answer! Josh and I couldn't agree on what to do about centerpieces. I wanted to hand make all of them, he wanted to just have the ones that are included in our all inclusive package. We decided to table (ha!) the issue. 

My childhood friend, Lynese, got engaged a month or so ago. I got her, my friend Jennifer, who also recently got engaged, and myself all really cool "Bride-to-be" memory books so that we can keep track of the experience of being engaged. I think that's pretty cool. 

I found so many things on Etsy that I just love! A Cinderella carriage card holder, a "Be Our Guest" Beauty & the Beast guest book, adorable Cinderella garters, and ring bear pillows. Ug, but I shouldn't be telling you all this! 

Also, I have been SUPER EXCITED because I have an AMAZING IDEA for the Princess in Waiting bouquets! I can't tell you, you have to be surprised, but I am brilliant.

I started working on what I hope will be the program for the wedding! Something else I shouldn't tell you, but I'll give you a hint: It's musical themed! :D

Anyhoo... Josh just got home, so I'm going to get going! TTYL!

Thanksgiving, Cake Toppers, and More

Thanksgiving

I know, it's practically Christmas already, but I've been so busy with everything, the semester ending, preping for student teaching, etc., I haven't had time to update you about Thanksgiving! We went to New Mexico with Josh's family like we do every year, only this time, we took my beautiful, amazing cousin Nadia! She recently moved out here to AZ with us, got her life set up, and had a wonderful time celebrating being thankful with us and Josh's family. 

Here are a few awesome pictures from the trip! We did an Escape the Room, which was really cool! 

Getting Starbucks with cousins! 

The guys vegging out with Grandpa watching TV. 

Groomsmen Tommy and James scrap-booking! 

Sarah and Nadia

It was so nice to have so many of our Bridal Party in one place!
Left to Right
Top Row: Nadia, Adam, Me (Tina), Josh, Tommy, Kyle, James
Bottom Row: Zack, Joelle, Madison, and AJ

Afternoon nap--guy love! Awe! 

Playing Speed Over Beethoven with my future brother-in-law! 

We all went to go see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them!

We made it out of our escape room! 

Had a delicious London Blue hot tea at the Starlight Diner! So good!

#cousining at the Starlight Diner after escaping the room! Good times!

Cake Toppers

Here is another topic that Josh and I couldn't quite agree on. :/ I thought it would be cool to have an elaborate cake with all the different Disney couples on it, Josh didn't... we agreed to three. Then, he was saying I could spend $120 on all three, well, that's not going to happen! The nicest cake toppers I liked were from Lenox and were around $150 each. 

Well, I have now bought two of the cake toppers I want--both are absolutely gorgeous! One has come in the mail already and I LOVE IT SO MUCH! 

These pieces are so beautiful, they are definitely something I am going to want to display in my house for the rest of my life! When you see them, I am sure you'd agree. Fortunately, I did find them for discounted prices, so that's awesome. 

I won't show you them, because I do want to have some level of surprise when the wedding actually happens, but here are some of the pictures of Disney cakes that other people have done that I really love! 

Other Stuff

In other news, my friend Jennifer from my teaching cohort got engaged! Her fiance Anthony proposed to her with a heart shaped ring of her favorite gem--amethyst! 

The engaged girls of the cohort!

 

She asked if I would do her hair for her wedding (because I love doing fancy hair!) and OF COURSE I SAID YES!!! 

Nadia started dance lessons with the gentleman she is dating, Styles. 

Nadia and Styles learning to dance--so cute! 

I'm so proud of her! They look super cute together and it will be nice to have dance class buddies for Josh and I! 

I just finished my final assignment for the semester right before I wrote this, so I'm excited about that! I also found out where I am placed for my student teaching! I was given the wrong e-mail address for the teacher, so I had to call and get the right one, but hopefully everything will work out! Excited and nervous to start the student teaching on January 4th! 

We finally decided on a photographer! Now we just need to speak with him and get set up! We have e-mailed and left a voice message, so we are just waiting to hear back. We are going with KK's Photography! His website is http://www.captureproductionslv.com/. He has some great pictures and really reasonable pricing, so we are happy about that! 

We asked Julie to ask her friend Taylor to do our videography.

I've also decided on Hair'z Melinda to do my hair and makeup for the wedding! She does airbrush makeup, so that will be interesting! We met her at a bridal show we went to a few months ago and she had great rates and beautiful pictures! 

Excited to be lining up our vendors! 

Everything is making progress!