On the several vacation trips P and I have been on, our photos together are limited, because either there's no one around to take our picture for us, or we don't want to inconvenience others all the time.  And finally I found the solution (while reading Modern Bride): the Xshot.  It's small, lightweight, and best of all, let's us take pictures of ourselves on our own.  With our two week honeymoon in Hawaii not too far off, it's going to get a lot of use.  And att under $20 from amazon.com, it's well worth the price. 




 

Is September really here?  It sure seems like it with the cool weather we've had.  This past week has been a blur as we've been prepping for the closing of our house.  We finally closed on Friday, and as exciting as it was, it was a little daunting too.  We did a walk-through of the house, and it was weird to see it completely empty.  We got to the sellers' attorney's office afterward, and it was intimidating to be in the conference room with so many other parties - there were nine of us altogether.  Numbers were flying back and forth, and we had a stack of documents to sign and initial.  It finally dawned on us that we had bought our first home and made the biggest monetary investment of our lives so far.  After getting into the car, we looked at each other, in a happy sort of disbelief.  P said "We have our house" and tears filled my eyes, but I held them in. 

That night, we jumped into making over some of the rooms of the house in terms of painting.  We had to remove wallpaper first, and I even found myself compounding walls for the very first time!  It's a lot more work than we anticipated, and I can't help but be anxious to get it all done and move in.  I really hope we can get it all done before weekend wedding-related festivities kick in.         

It's so hard not to dive completely into the nesting mode and prep the house to make it a home.  But at the same time, I mustn't lose track of the wedding planning - there are still a bunch of vendors to deal with and payments to be made.  And a whole lot of DIY left too!  There are still the programs, menus, seating arrangements, BM thank you cards, etc. 

Have you dealt with moving into a new place while wedding planning simultaneously?

With so much wedding planning and crafting on my plate, I knew I didn't want to tackle the detailed planning of two weeks of honeymooning.  Our choice of honeymoon destination was an easy decision - Hawaii, a romantic tropical getaway, that neither of us have visited yet.  (I've pretty much known since I was a teenager that I wanted to go to Hawaii for my honeymoon, and purposely held off going for any other reason beforehand.)  We made some decisions together, based on some research and friends' recommendations, like which three islands we'd be going to - Maui, Big Island, and Kauai, but now it's up to P to plan everything out.  (I'm usually the one who has planned out all our vacations, with a multi-tabbed excel spreadsheet listing times of the day and activities we'd be doing.)  He knows that I want to hit all the scenic spots, like the Road to Hana and the volcanoes on Big Island, but it's up to him to come up with our day-to-day itinerary.  At first I was a little apprehensive at the idea of handing over all responsibility to him, but now I'm glad with my decision.  It'll be a nice surprise to see what he's planned for us, on the longest and up until now, most memorable trip we'll be on together. 

Are you planning out your honeymoon details?  Or are you letting your fiance take over?  And any recommendations of what to do/see in the three islands I mentioned?