Another thing I came home to

Because it's not enough that I have my own grownup kitchen to cook in. Sometimes I just wanna use a light bulb to cook tiny cakes and cookies.

I love how much Dustin really gets me. And when he gets me Easy Bake ovens.

I like food

Have you noticed that I take a lot of pictures of food?? Cause I just did recently. I'm slow sometimes. But I really like food. Especially pretty food. Here's some pictures of food from this last month in NY. I would've had a lot more if I didn't have a crappy camera and the lighting was better at certain places.

Burger at Max Brenner. Those waffle fries are actually sprinkled with cocoa powder. I'm convinced Jesus lives at this restaurant. More on it in a later post.

M&Ms!

Back up bitches! Hooray for NBC!

Chocolate rhubarb scone anyone? More on this wonderful place later as well.

A NY trip isn't complete without a trip to Nathan's for hot dogs (not pictured cause they're not exactly impressive to look at) and chili cheese fries.

Diarrhea Castle. Dustin never had it so he felt like we needed to go.

He was a little too happy I think.

I like tea in old timey grandma china teacups as well.

Hello gorgeous salad! You live in the same place as the tea and scones.

This is another gorgeous salad. But this one Brittany made on Mother's Day for our Nana and it was very yummy.

Oh Lordy. Mini cupcakes. Peanut butter & jelly, red velvet, and cookie dough. How could life get any better than this???

"Come to Max Brenner and I'll show you," says Jesus, King of the Jews.

That's all you get now. I hope you're hungry.

Growing up

This is something I grew up always seeing. Polka dotted sidewalks. It's a typical NY thing. I was used to it so I always just accepted it without a thought.

But I remember one day I actually thought about it and questioned my mom about it.

And my tiny young brain could not believe that those black dots covering everything were actually gum.

"But gum isn't black..."

I was very confused.

Now that I'm a big bad grown up, I can look at those same sidewalks and think to myself,

"New York is so poopy disgusting."

Tara's Wedding Tips & Things You Should Be Aware Of

-First off, don't attempt to plan a wedding that is all the way on the other side of the world. It just makes life that much more difficult.

-If you don't have boobs, don't expect any dress to fit right and totally don't expect any bra to stay up.

-Have a backup best man because your first choice may decide to ruin your life when he tells you a week before the wedding that he may not be able to make it. Then tell you 6 days before the wedding that he's totally gunna be there because it's your special day and he really needs to be there for you. And THEN he'll tell you 5 days before the wedding, that he wasn't able to find any plane tickets in his price range and (surprise surprise) he actually cannot make it to the wedding.

-Expect most people to be late to the wedding and even totally miss the whole dang ceremony.

-People will assume you know what your doing and will want you to tell them what to do and where to go. Appoint your mother-in-law to take control of such things. She handles large groups better.

-If you have people flying in from outta town, make sure they know what they are getting themselves into. Maybe send them some travel books beforehand. Or find a youtube video of people driving in New York.

-If you decide to have a day of sight seeing with both families, be sure to bring a friend along to keep you partially sane. Make sure her name is Kelly Braun.

-Expect chaos no matter what.

-Write things down. Make lots of lists of things to do, people to call and things you still need to pay for. It helps. A LOT.

-Don't kid yourself with the idea of a "bride diet". You'll start restricting sugar and then totally cave and eat more desserts than you ever have in your life. Just don't bother.

-Arrange to have an all night open bar at your wedding. Your guests will adore you for it. Plus, you'll need it.

-There will be at least one thing you'll regret or be disappointed about when you think back on your wedding day.

-Be prepared for your flower girl to have stage fright and almost back out of her duties.

-Heh...duties....

-Don't get your makeup professionally done unless you honestly suck at that kinda thing. Just go to a Sephora and buy Urban Decay's Eye Potion, Smashbox's Photo Finish, Benefit's Benetint, and a few Sephora brand eyeshadows and you're set. Then cry cause you just spent hundreds of dollars in one shot.

-Take multiple breaks from planning and go to a few BBQs and bars. Also, go see Star Trek. I insist.

-People won't RSVP because they are THAT damn lazy and want to ruin your life.

-As the big day draws near you will start to really lose your mind. You will hate everyone and think that everyone is out to get you and ruin your wedding on purpose. You will begin to compose a list of all the family and friends that are adding to the stress, and how you will kill them. Then you will laugh manically at the thought as your husband(fiance) tries to rub the knots out of your back.

-You will break down at least once. And it will not be cute.

-Buy the Bridal Bargains books. Oprah likes them and so does Tara.

-Buy an accordion folder to put all your important papers in.

-Expect members of your bridal party to not hear a word you say. Ever. You will have to repeat things over and over and over.

-Maybe avoid putting people with ADD in your bridal party.

-Appoint one of your ginger sisters to help you go to the bathroom without her knowing beforehand. Then walk over to where she's sitting and announce that she needs to hold your dress up while you pee. She'll be ever so grateful.

-Expect peeps that RSVPeed (hehe) to not show up. But don't be mad because they'll have valid excuses such as, "My grandfather just passed away" or "I was in the hospital with pneumonia".

-Your British "Spare Dad" will make everyone nearly cry with his amazingly personal and heartfelt speech during the ceremony. Hold it together girl!

-You will step on your wedding dress too many times to count. Other people will step on it as well and you will yell at them no matter who they are.

-Wedding day is actually Sigh of Relief day. Once the ceremony is over all you gots to think about is having fun and drinking vodka cranberries.

-Day after wedding day feels weird. You'll have nothing to think about. Your brain will actually be empty. You'll wake up feeling refreshed and awesome for the first time in over a year. Your muscles and joints will miraculously be healed. Your head will stop throbbing for the first time in a week. You won't hate people anymore. Life is good again.

One thing I came home to...

Yup. And the funny thing is, I didn't even notice until last night.

Back on Asian soil

I got back to Okinawa two nights ago and I am happy to be home. It was a sigh of relief when we realized that we actually missed this place. It's pretty damn wonderful here and it totally feels like home. Our house, on the other hand, doesn't feel right. It doesn't suit us and just doesn't feel exactly homey. Kinda depressing but we'll get over it. We don't plan on living in this place the entire time we're here in Okinawa.

I blogged a grand total of ONE time during my trip. I was too busy and stressed to be bothered at all. So I will try to blog as much about the trip (that I can actually remember) as possible in the next couple of weeks. I'll probably just do a bunch of short-ish blogs about various things. And then a giant post about the whole reason we went to NY in the first place. Our wedding. I have quite a few pictures as well that I need to upload.

Besides all the stress of the wedding, I had an amazing time. It was so nice to be in New York for over a month and see basically everyone. I got to see people I haven't seen since I got kicked out and I got to hang out with some friends that I've kept in touch with the most. I learned how to ride the subway(finally) all by myself and did some majorly touristy things that us New Yorkers usually don't bother to do. I got to spend time with both my families and see them meet and interact with each other for the first time.

I guess I am glad we did this. I still don't wanna ever do it again and I still don't think planning a wedding is worth all the stress I went through. I ended up hating so many people in all of this as well. I even got to that point where I completely broke down and was screaming and hysterically crying at Dustin in the car, saying that I totally regretted my decision to have the wedding. It got that bad. The ceremony was beautiful and the reception was a total blast but had I known ahead of time all the crap I would go through to get there I wouldn't have had the thing at all.

But it was nice to see all of our friends and family together in one place and having fun. My main goal for the wedding was for it to be the best party I've ever thrown. And I think I accomplished that. Only little bro Brandon had a crappy time because he was overly tired and the music was making his head hurt. :( I felt pretty bad for him but I wished he had at least danced with me once.

Since we've been back:

-I scolded Dustin for leaving the house a mess and then proceeded to stress over how gross things were
-We found that, in our absence, ants AND ticks have taken over our house
-We haven't gotten Apollo back from the kennels yet because they have retarded hours. But we will be reunited in about an hour and I cannot wait!
-We bought a set of orange Rachel Ray cookware and I also passed out from the excitement
-We opened the gifts that people sent us from our Target.com registry and then I totally passed out from the excitement of even more brand new kitchen supplies
-It's waaaay more humid here than I could've ever imagined
-I've been waking up early and then getting sad because I miss the Littles and my Idahomies
-I've been having spurts of overwhelming excitement over the thought of our Tokyo Disney honeymoon (we may take a cruise as well!)

Now I gots to do some laundry and get ready for my Apollo to come home to me. Until laterzzzz.

I totally suck

I've been obsessed with this blog since starting and couldn't get through a week without posting at least 4 or 5 times. All that has changed since I landed here in New York two weeks ago. I have been busy with wedding plans and seeing friends and family.

I've also been too lazy to post. It never seemed like the right time. I have so much to write about and don't even know where to start. My brain has been all over the place since getting here and my anxiety and stress is through the roof. Things will get better once Dustin gets here in 6 days. He's good at calming me down just by being in the same room as me. I've been counting down the days until his arrival since I walked away from him at the Okinawa airport to go through security.

My flight here wasn't too bad. The first two went perfectly well and my neighbor sitting next to me from Tokyo to Washington D.C. was a delight. Thank goodness. But once I got to Washington D.C. all that changed. They cancelled my flight and I had to spend the night there. I was fine with this since I was deliriously tired from not sleeping for about 30 hours. When Dustin called me at the Sheraton later that night I kept telling him that I wasn't even tired and that I was thinking about going down to the 24 hour gym downstairs. He assured me that I was actually tired and needed to sleep. He turned out to be right. I was asleep as soon as I laid down.

The lame thing was, the flight from D.C. to NY was only 30 freakin' minutes long!! Lame.

Wedding plans are almost complete but until it's over I will not be calm. This wedding business is just too much for me. After this week I will feel a lot better since the seating chart will be handed in along with the final payment for the Astoria World Manor. Then we will be poor. But at least I'll be able to finally breathe. Maybe I'll even get excited for the wedding. Maybe not.

I'm more excited to see family. And to observe how my family and Dustin's family interact. I will be spying on them from a nearby bush.