If only I had more envelopes...

It's Monday, 10:27pm, Night #2 of Mission: Wedding Invitations... is this why people get other people to have the envelopes printed? Ok, wait... honestly, it's not even the printing, that's actually the easy part. It's the mail merging, the font choosing, Times New Roman or Arial, bold or italics, the envelope formatting, the spell checking, the proper wedding invitation address etiquette, is it "Mr. & Mrs.", is it "Mrs.", "Ms.", or "Miss"... and in true Annaliza style, after printing about half of our invitation envelopes, we come to realize that I, in fact, had NOT been using proper wedding invitation etiquette. See, with all the stresses of the weekend, I forgot to change over the list of names and addresses that we had used for the Save-The-Dates. Those were very informal... you know, "Cory & Annaliza" instead of "Mr. Cory Smith & Ms. Annaliza Victoria"... (ugh). So, after printing all of my side of the guest list, and wasting almost half of the envelopes, I realized my mistake and almost started to cry. Luckily, Cory, who was also over-exhausted from this weekend told me to stop, go to bed, and that we'd hit up Staples or somewhere to buy more invitation envelopes. So, we went to Staples, no envelopes, so now we have to find them somewhere else... I'm thinking Michael's or some stationary store... suggestions? With some luck and caffeine (oh wait, not allowed to have caffeine), these gorgeous invitations will find their way to a mailbox near you... hold your breath.

Anyhoo, this past weekend was kinda busy. Friday, we went bowling with Ryan, Ngan, and Jenn at the Lucky Strike. Aside from the near miss accident on the freeway and the stabbing in the Block at Orange parking lot, it was actually a fabulous night. I managed to keep my streak of obtaining the lowest score EVER in bowling history, but hey, if you can't laugh at yourself... you better learn, cuz everyone else will. One of my fave parts of the night, besides our lil waiter boy, who thought that the "thumbs up" was the new black, MAY or MAY NOT have been when Jenn was asked by a bouncer to remove her delightful hat that she was wearing because they were "trying to weed out the gangsters"... cuz a 5'5" white girl, with pig tails, a hat, and huge dangling earrings resembles a gang member from Santa Ana. And then, as she politely removed her hat and jokingly added that she wished she would have brushed her hair, the bouncer then decided to add, "oh wash (your hair)? har har har"... moron. Either way, she looked cute, but the request alone was hysterical.









Saturday, we drove down to Temecula with my parents and Jenn to do our cake tasting, check out the rehearsal dinner location, and to show Jenn the winery for the first time... And, since she's pretty much been the best MOH known to all man-kind, she helps with the clutch decisions. So we stopped at our cake place, Sweet Layers in Murrieta. Did the typical Cory thing while my parents are following in another car - got lost. Hahaha! It sounds like I am making fun, but no... it has become a tradition that my family has grown to know and love... and giggle about. But, low & behold, we found it... we tasted... we picked the cake flavors. And for not being the biggest cake lovers on the planet, I have to say, that Cory & I were pretty impressed... and now excited about our choices.

Next we drove to Filippi's Italian Restaurant to have lunch and check out our rehearsal dinner location. There is also a Filippi's in San Diego, which Cory and his family have been to before and loved, so we decided that it would be a good place to have the rehearsal dinner. But when we got there, it looked like more of a pizza joint. Believe me... we're not looking for anything fancy schmancy, more like some place fun, upbeat. We want the whole theme and feel of the wedding to be just that, so, we had to think of some place else. Food wise, Filippi's was delicious, I would def eat there again. But, we both felt like it wasn't the right atmosphere. Early on in the planning, we had suggested some place like BJ's, but weren't sure if it was "appropriate" enough for a rehearsal dinner. Then we remembered that it's OUR wedding, and we can make the rules... so... BJ's it is. We ended up stopping at the BJ's in Temecula on the way home, had a Pumpkin Spiced Ale, talked to one of the managers. He showed us the party menu... and we were pretty much sold. So, FAMILY & WEDDING PARTY... BJ's in TEMECULA - THURSDAY EVENING, APRIL 30th... BE THERE!!!

On our way home, we were rocking out to Rhianna... a lil Rehab, Disturbia, Live Your Life... we were coming up on the 91 fwy from the 15, the oil maintenance light on the Audi flashes... 5 minutes later, the Audi died... in the middle of the freeway, which freaked the hell out of the three of us because of our near miss Friday night. The traffic was slower since it was at a freeway junction, so Cory & Jenn were able to get out of the car to push, and I was able to steer it to the shoulder. Shockingly, another driver had pulled over to help, but soon realized that we were ok with the 3 of us... but I'd like to thank the stranger anyways, since you NEVER see that any more! A little side bar... we had JUST got the Audi back from the shop the day before. Ever since the accident back in August, that poor car has not been the same. The alignment was off, when it rained, it leaked onto the driver side carpet, it made noises... so when we picked it up Friday night, everything felt better, drove straighter, Cory was happy about his car... and it had been a while, so it was nice to see him excited about his baby A4. Back to the freeway... Cory popped the hood and the first thing he checked was the oil. He pulled the dip stick, and there was no dip stick. It appeared as if there was no oil and the engine had locked up. So, we called AAA, got a tow to the Audi dealership in Santa Ana (can you believe a tow to Mission Viejo would have been another $150?!?!?!?!), got picked up by my mom, and headed home. We made Jenn about an hour and a half late for her dinner party to congratulate brother Noah on his new job... Sorry Eckerts! Now, we are just waiting for the final assessment from Audi to see what the damage is going to be. It's heartbreaking that the car will be paid off in a few short months... we're hoping that a new Audi will just show up when we go to pick up the car! (wink wink)

Until next time...Same bat channel, same bat time... http://www.theknot.com/ourwedding/AnnalizaVictoria&CorySmith

PS - last weekend, Travis, Ann and the kids drove back to Cali from AZ... got to hang with them, had some yummy Yamatos. I MISS YOU GUYS DAMN IT! See you at the bridal shower (ANN!) and the wedding! MUAH MUAH MUAH!!!