A nice weekend...

You know, sometimes you just have a nice weekend.

No frills.  Nothing super fancy or different.  But just a nice weekend.

We need more of these.  Desperately.  With the exception of our perfectly lovely wedding - 2022 has been another rough year.  For all of us.  Truly seems pandemic fatigue, politics, our society, our economy is just not getting out of this ugly rut we're in.  Many friends and family and ourselves included are going through some really rough personal stuff.  We've had more loss.  It's been damn hard. 

But - we keep trekking.  We keep our heads up.  I wanted to take just a moment to remember and to share - just a good weekend.

Friday night our little adventure group hit up the Ghost Tour at the Heritage Museum in Santa Ana.  This was extra special because my dear friend Darcy has just started leading these tours!  She's amazing at it.  She loves ghosts, and history, and is a theater kid so she nails it.  And she did on Friday night.  Such a lovely tour of a really cool house and story!

We all arrived at our tour time of 8pm and got to wander the grounds a bit.  They're truly beautiful and I plan for us to come back in the day sometime to explore even more!  We chatted a bit about the Gospel Swamp Farm and the Maag Farmhouse, then into the Kellogg House we went!

Unfortunately my triggers and moms vertigo do not like houses that move.  Since this house was moved from a prior location it's a bit unstable to us sensitive folk.  Luckily neither of us got ill, but mom had to stay downstairs and listen to the upstairs tour rather than join us on the 2nd level.  And as long as I was leaning on a wall or a door frame I seemed to fair ok.  Sigh.  Stupid conditions.  Anywhoo - other than that it was so much fun and so full of very cool historic history!

 

The neat circular dining room (mom had those chair, and noticed she seriously had so many of the same things that were in this house...LOL)

The Kellogg House at dusk

Helen Kellog

Hiram Clay Kellogg put a ships mast through the middle of the house!

Creepy Dolls

The kiddos room

Creepy stroller in the attic, which was really interesting and all open

Mom listening from below

That's my friend!

Well this is just beautiful

Pretty walkway

Kellogg House

We had such a great time!  

The crew!

On Saturday Pat and I decided to do a new hike!  It was a bit of a drive, but we had no plans whatsoever so we had all the time in the world!  So we headed down to SJC (Almost Lake Elisnore) to Sitton Peak.  This is a very long windy drive down Ortega Highway (I never knew it went so far!).  Pat decided we'd hike to the 4 corners and then turn back rather than go up to the peak since we were out of hiking shape and it's a good thing we did just that, because the almost 6 1/2 mile hike we did do, kicked our asses!

It was a perfect day to hike.  Overcast most of the day.  The trail was so pretty!  A steady slow up hill pretty much the whole time (I guess we hit 1700 elevation) and just lovely.  I only found 1 geocache at the trailhead, which I forgot to take a photo of, but at least I got one!  The trail was green and there were lots of different pretty flowers scattered about. Even though we were pretty beat up afterwards, it was well worth it!

Never seen a sign in for a trail!

1st hike as husband and wife!

Just so pretty!

Water droplets!

Then on Sunday morning I had brunch with one of my favorite humans.  We tried a new place that just opened called Mimosas Kitchen and Bar.  Bottomless Mimosas of course.  Then we got a dozen oysters - delicious!  The little ones from Canada.  Then I got an Ahi Avocado toast with a mango salsa that was just delightful.  Now that Julie has officially downloaded the geocaching app - we of course hit up a couple in the parking lot!

So there ya have it!

Just a lovely wonderful weekend of fun!

Baseball...

I haven't been to a ballgame in quite a while.

No reason really, just never get to them.  

My family usually hits the Cubs game once a year when they play down in San Diego.  It's been a few years thanks to COVID, but yesterday we all got to go again!

I forgot how much I really do love watching live sports and how much I get into the game.

I found myself cheering, and screaming and jumping out of my chair in excitement every time the Cubs did something right.  

I used to play softball among other sports, and even though I'm not playing anything now, I do try to stay active.  I am - whether I want to admit it or not - competitive.  I like to win.  And I like my teams to win.

It's probably better I'm not super into sports since I'd probably give myself a stroke getting wrapped up in the games like I did yesterday.

It was so much fun though, and I wanted to jot it down here to remind myself - I friggin love live sports!

 

Pat and I hit the road about 9:30am for the 1pm game.  We planned to meet up with Shane and D for lunch before the game.  This was the 1st Cub game I've gone to since Grandad passed and I wanted to make sure to represent him.  So Pat wore his hat and I wore his jersey in honor of him!

 

Making Grandad Proud

Turning him into a Cubs fan

 D had got us parking passes for a structure right by the stadium, so we parked then met up with them for a delicious brunch.

The rest of the fam (Dad, Lori and Jon)  met up with us and off to the game we went.  After one little snafu - (they said my purse was too big which was total bullshit because I measured it, but since it was full it was too big which is really just those assholes wanting more money because I had sunscreen and water bottles that I now had to fucking buy inside so fuck you Petco Park on that one) - we headed to our seats.  Great seats I may add!

Nice seats!

We then had a wonderful hot day (although the shade graced us about half way through the game) of yelling and cheering and chatting and drinking and just enjoying the good ol' sport of baseball!!

The fam

Daddy and Daughter Cubbie fans!

I did find a wine bar at one point so that made the game a lot better for me!  The Cubs were up and down as per usual but pulled it out and won 7-5!  It was so cool!!  I love Cubs fans!!  Everyone was cheering and high fiving and I swear there were more Cubs fans than Padres fans!

I love Cubs fans

A truly wonderful fun day away!  I really do love hitting up these games every year!

 

I'M MARRIED!

I did it!

I got married again!

But this time I did it right!  I've married a wonderful man and we had the perfect day!  See below for all the fun and fun leading up to it!

So - my sis in law threw me a last minute little brunch/shower one Sunday which was just lovely!

Julie made some amazing desserts!

Such a cute set up!

Love it!

The ladies

Yummy!

Robin refused to get another fork after hers broke

These two....

The laughter never stops

My beautiful mama!

I love Libby.  But she still - to this damn day-constantly fucks with me like a child.  She had untied my dress as I walked by.  Our lives...always.  LOL

Love this girl so much

I look fat as hell here, but I thought it was funny -  must be saying something very interesting...

As the big day got closer, I started to get quite anxious.  It's been a lot of work even though we wanted to keep it low key.  Pat pretty much paid for everything.  I pretty much put the thing together myself since Pat was busy with some unexpected family drama.  My mom and Stacey made the Post Nup Pop in happen.  But it was just us.  It was a lot!  I had to scale back the invite list because I just have too many wonderful people in my life and I couldn't invite everyone.  So we decided on a very intimate ceremony at Santiago Oaks Park followed by a Post Nup Pop in at my moms house.  Since it was at mom's house and low key this shit is still expensive - I basically had to look at my large list of beautiful people in my life and say - "Welp - if we haven't had a relationship other than social media in the last couple of years, I'm sorry."  So I did my best and we tried to keep it under 100.  My dear friend Cori and her husband took our wedding photos and the Pop in pictures are a gathering of pictures people posted, shared, text me.  We had a taco guy, ordered a shit ton of booze from BevMo, had some other snacks, our friend Tim handmade delicious chips and salsa, Libby's sister in law made the most adorable desserts, Shane's buddy has a rental company so we got some high tops and chairs scattered about and then of course mom did her fucking magic and made the place look like a fairy tale.  

This would not have happened without my magic mother.  She has the perfect house and the perfect yard (that everyone kept oooo'ing and awww'ing over.) and she got it all to come together.  Stacey busted her ass and helped out and made the most adorable wooden hearts, box and frame to replace a boring old guest book.  Terri, Robin and Julie arrived at moms during the ceremony to accept deliveries and get everything set up and ready.  My dad pitched in to pay the guitar/violin duet that played beautifully at the ceremony and my dear friend Nancy married us.  Pat's best friend Adam came out from AZ and took care of my boy all weekend.  Talk about coming together.  I could not have made any of this happen without all the help and love and support we had.  I am so damn lucky and grateful I could just burst!

And most importantly I married a wonderful man.  We've been through a lot of ups and downs but we are stronger now and will only get stronger.  We have a beautiful love for each other and I'm so happy we found each other!

So - leading up...

Got pedis a couple days before

 

 

Had dinner with these lovely ladies

Got the table ready for the "In between ceremony and wedding crew" nosh

Pat's best friend was here all weekend and it was so great to have him here!

Got my hair blonded the day before

 The morning of I was really having the nerves kick in for some reason.  Not even sure why!  But I wasn't getting changed until we got to the venue, but Pat got ready at our place and we even had some ducks greet us that morning - so random but I took it as a good sign.

My loves

We arrived at the park and Adam and Tom had already set up all the chairs!  I came trucking up with our ladder and the wreath got hung and we were ready to go.  So I slipped back to the little bridal suite and got ready!  Pictures were being snapped away

My get ready crew

Maid of Honor

Mama!

Love this girl!

Daddy's Girl

PS Danelle made my gorgeous little bouquet I carried!

Showing off the bestie Tats!

Brudders

 

Jeanne & Ted

Love this guy

Taylor and Jaden

 We then heard the music!  Oh my goodness it's time!!!

Shot by Cori

The ceremony was perfect!  Weather was perfect!  Everything was perfect!

Then the ceremony crew went back to our place for a little nosh/chill time before the big party!

 

 
The Post Nup Pop in Begins!!!!  The 1st set of pictures are how beautifully it was all set up!  Then scroll ALOT for some fantastic pictures of love and fun on what could not have been a more perfect day!

 

The set up crew!

About to be packed!

Mom & Keri

Jen!

April and Jen with their pretty colored hair!

I made sure I ate my fill of the most amazing tacos

Jen, Maria and Rosalinda

The Chapman Girls!

Carol

Nick

And soon to be wifey Gabby

My bowling crew!

Violet, Anna, Sergio and Jesse

She has the best laugh

Gorgeous desserts!

We have arrived!

Jules

Robin

T

Terri, Angela and Dave

Throw Angel into the mix

Renee

The play area

Rick and T

Dave with the Gallos

My peeps!

No pictures please!

Pat teaching life lessons

Keith

This girl!

Adam!

Pat and Isaiah

Soon to be mama and dad!

Susie and Kim

The Shouse's

Orange High School Peeps

Handy Elementary Peeps!

Kisses from Kristina

Sean, David, Dea and Jules

Mel, Ber, Jules and Jen

Da Boys

Pat and I then sped away for a one night stay at the hotel we celebrated our 1st anniversary at!  It was a perfect way to unwind and bask in the glow of a wonderful wedding day!

Heading back home as Husband and Wife

We split a yummy dinner

Setting on a perfect day

Done and Happy!

The room was sick!

And there you have it.

Mr. and Mrs. Patrick and Jami Avery (although I am keeping my name...) married May 1st, 2022.  

Cheers to many years together!