I'm back!

I'm back! We're married! We moved! We went to Hawaii and back! And now we're finally connected to the internet again!  It feels good to have the keyboard under my fingertips once again (and not just at work!).

I'm married!  Can you believe it!? As much as everyone tells you that the day is just going to fly by, you really don't believe them fully until the day has passed and you look back thinking, "did that really happen?"  I still can only recall snapshots of the wedding day, but fortunately they are beautiful pictures, and even more fortunately, our friends and family capture some moments for us. I am so looking forward to seeing the professional photos from the big day!

It was such a beautiful day full of family, friends, tradition, and love. I couldn't have asked for more, except maybe to remember it all or go back and live it again... but I guess that's why we hired a videographer!

I feel like there is so much to say. So much has changed and is different in my life. We had a blast in Hawaii, and then we came back from paradise and it was "back to life, back to reality." Which is still really fab, but now we're juggling getting married and getting used to living together, cooking, cleaning and all that, with work, and wanting to spend time with family too. That's the hardest adjustment, just like I knew it would be. Being away from home, away from my routine, things the way they were. Don't get me wrong, I am so totally happy, but it's still a really tough adjustment to make. And then trying to juggle time around so that we can still get time to see everyone and go home for visits and still have time to unpack and furniture shop and get used to being at home too. It's tough, but it's all a part of the change I guess.  It's nice to know that I am going through it with someone who gets me and what I am going through. 

And you still make time. We are both working nights tonight. E just left and now I am going to head off to meet my mommy for a nail appointment before I have to head off for work tonight! It's not a lot of time together, but I am learning to cherish each moment, long or short. And I am so looking forward to seeing her!

But married life has been super fun. In fact, it was 4 weeks ago today that it all started! We still have a pile of boxes in the living room and a futon for our couch (thanks Pops!), and presents to unpack, and things to rearrange, but it's good. It's sort of an exciting chaos. To be able to decide together where to put things, or where not to put things, to cook dinner before E comes home from work, or to take a trip to the market together and come home and whip something up for dinner. It's fun. A lot of times I feel like it really hasn't kicked in yet, it still sort of feels like we're playing house. But then I get to introduce E as my husband and it all sinks in again, and I remember that it wasn't all just a dream. This really happened. And it's pretty amazing. 

I have so much more to tell, but right now I need to get ready to see my mama and then head off to work. But it's so fun to be back online! 

XO

1 day left

Can you believe it? I can't! It seems like all the months leading up to now dragged on, but once the end of September hit, it's been a speed race to the 13th! It's been a crazy, fun, up and down sort of week. Seeing family, moving, getting emotional, getting excited. It all comes down to tomorrow.  I'm excited to share all the details here, but chances are I won't be posting until we're back from our honeymoon and settled in to our new home a bit. But I'll be back - as a married woman!

Until then, hugs, kisses and happy wishes!  

XOXO

8 days

Back in 2005, this handsome fella was my prom date. We'd been friends for a while, and this was the night that changed it all.

And in 8 days, we're getting married!

It's been a crazy 10 months since we officially picked our wedding day and went full steam ahead with planning and coordinating. Now the crazy pre-wedding dreams are starting up... being late, my dress looking like just a few layers of tulle that are falling apart. I'm anxious, and nervous yes, but I know it's all going to be amazing.

For all the months and even years (we've been engaged since 2010) leading up to this day, I don't think it's REALLY completely sunk in that I'm getting married and moving out and leaving home and becoming a wife, until these last few days, and it's a lot to take in. I know it's going to be different, but it's going to be awesome.

There's a lot of wedding prep this week, making the daros (favors), the rehearsal, and of course, moving in to our new home! I'll try to keep posting if I have a chance. Wish us luck!

XO

in my life: i'm going a bit crazy, but it's for a good cause

So my post is a day late. Things have been super busy here, and every time I sat down to my computer, blogging about it was somewhere along the last thing that I really wanted to do. But here I am now, with my weekly update.

Loving:  My wedding shoes. I am wearing them right now to break them in and let me just say, they are stunning. I can't wait to show them off!  Also loving the memories of my bridal shower this weekend. It was such a fun day, despite the ridiculous heat. We had delicious food, fun games, yummy drinks, and E and I got a lot of the gifts off of our registry. Let me just say, we're going to have a pretty shnazzy kitchen! Here's a shot of most of my bridesmaids and I with my massive bow-bouquet.  And according to the number of ribbons I cut, I will be having 7 kids.  Oh goodness. 

Reading:  Not too much. Still working on "Tigers in Red Weather."  I got a bit further in it and I really like the style of her writing. But I haven't had much time to invest in it, so I don't have much else to say on that matter.

Watching:  Season 6 of HIMYM. Still fabulous, still love the show. I watch when I can't sleep at night, and when I'm taking my break at work. Most of the nurses sleep on their break, but I can't usually get myself to relax enough to sleep, so I sit down, put my feet up and watch and episode or two to allow my brain to "break" a little bit.  

Listening: to a bunch of new music my brother sent me on Dropbox. I've got new No Doubt, Green Day, RHCP, The Killers, and a bunch of other stuff. It's nice to hear some new stuff from some great bands. 

Thinking:  (still) about all the stuff I still have to get done. And though the list is dwindling, it's all still there and all still not checked off of my to-do list.  Also thinking and trying to figure out where all the time went. There are 23 days till the wedding!!!!!  WHAT? When did that happen?  I'm excited for sure, but still in a bit of shock that it's all so close! 

Looking Forward: to this weekend's Avon Walk for Breast Cancer! This will be my 5th year participating in the walk some how. I walked in '06, crewed in '07, and then walked again in '10 and '11. It's finally here! I love walking this walk every year. My mom is now a 2 time breast cancer survivor and a colon cancer survivor as well. Last year when we walked, she'd just finished her treatments a few months before, and when we crossed that finish line it was an amazing feeling!  This year my mom is leading a team of 17 of us and we're called Team In Her Shoes.  If you want to know more about it check out our team page here!  If you'd like to make a donation, you can visit my personal page here!  The money raised goes to help fund mammograms and programs to help women undergoing treatment, as well as programs that help find a cure! This is such an amazing and empowering walk, I can't wait to get out there and do it again!

All right. I've got my music, and a bag to pack for this weekend, and thank you notes to write, and a nap to take all before work tonight.  Until next time!

XO

Recovery: Sleeping the day away...

This is the view from our hotel room this weekend in Huntington Beach. Gorgeous right?  This weekend my future sister-in-law and my closest friends threw me an epic bachelorette party weekend with this amazing view. It was such a blast, I'm sad it's over.  The details remain a mystery to the rest of you. What happens at the bachelorette, stays off Facebook, and off Blogger for that matter!  Sorry!

But what an amazing time, and what a fabulous feeling being surrounded by your closest friends and just having a fun time.

We got home yesterday and I fought off taking a nap to enjoy the last bits of Sunday since I will be working the next two weekends in a row. After that it's my bridal shower, then the Avon Walk, and then we'll only be three weeks away from The Big Day! Hard to believe.

So in coping with all of this, and recovering from a weekend of fun in the sun, I slept. A lot. In fact, I think 'a lot' is an understatement. But to keep you all from judging me and my sleep habits, I won't tell you exactly how long I slept for. I could have kept sleeping too, but forced myself up so I wouldn't judge myself about it too. But you know what, I have work tonight and I'll be up and awake for that, so sleep is my friend today, and I'm grateful for the time I had to enjoy it today.

PDS 8: Will you be my bridesmaid??

It was definitely a crafty sort of day, and the weather outside made it even nicer to be warm and toasty in my sweater, inside, with the heat on, Pandora playing, and a nice cup of hot coffee.  So, like I promised yesterday, today's blog would bring back Project Do Something and tie in some fun wedding stuff as well, which is how Bacheegs and Love originally got started.

So, ever since Eric proposed back in April of 2010, I've been thinking about my bridesmaids. I am very fortunate to have some very lovely ladies in my life, and I wanted to ask them in a very special way to make this a fun experience for  us all.  I looked around online and got inspired by this blog post on Wedding Chicks. I loved that it made asking the girls something special, but since I didn't have the details to write about yet (I have yet to pick out dresses and shoes, etc.), I wasn't sure what to put inside the box.  So I just decided to get started and go with it. Soon enough, I thought, "Why not give each girl a "bridesmaid" shirt?" I'm still not sure when we'll all wear it (I suppose when we go dress shopping, or maybe on the day-of, when we're getting ready?), but I thought it was super cute.

Here's what I did to make a special treat for my girls!

The supplies.  Everything sort of evolved out of several trips to Michael's and the paint came from our paint drawer here at home. The box idea was mainly from the previous blog - and such a good deal at Michael's. The hard part was finding enough good quality boxes (sometimes they don't open/close just right) for all my girls - and I don't even have that many! I did a smaller version of this box for my lovely cousin Madi, who will be my Jr. Bridesmaid.

So basically there's the box, some white and purple paper for the interior, paint and brushes, the shirts (courtesy of the amazing Terri and her Etsy Shop Rhine Designs!), some sparkly lettering (also from Michael's, and then embellishments. I used purple and white flowers and yellow gold tinted sticky pearls, as well as purple and white glittery dots.

Step 1: Painting

I went with purple because I am hoping this will be the color of my 'maid's dresses (like I said, we're still looking!). The bracket design was traced from a stencil, and I hand painted it in. 

Step 2: The outside

I was able to ask my first few girls right around Valentine's day, so I thought I would surprise them and play up the whole Valentine theme. It totally worked! Some of the girls just thought the inside would just say "Valentine!" Mission Accomplished!

Most of the embellishments are stick-on so there was minimal glue required for the outside (YAY!). I just went with what I thought looked best!

Step 3: The inside and putting it all together!

I lined the inside top and bottom with a textured purple paper, and then re-traced the bracket design on the inside on a textured cream paper and glued that in. Using the same embellishments and letters, I finished the inside.  Once folded and wrapped in tissue paper, the shirts actually fit perfectly into the boxes. I bought some pearly white stationary and wrote each girl a special note about our friendship and asking them to be in my wedding, Sealed it up and placed it inside of the box.

It was absolutely so much fun watching (or hearing) everyone's reaction as they opened up the box. One of my best friend's was living in San Francisco at the time, so I had to mail her package up and told her something was coming, but that she couldn't open it til I was on the phone with her. It took about a day's coordination after it arrived, but it was so awesome. It's such a neat feeling to know your friends are excited to be there to support you on your big day.

To all the brides-to-be out there, I totally urge you to be crafty and do something special for your girls, it makes the memories even more exciting to make and they will be cherished forever!  What other ideas have you seen out there? What are you planning on doing?

The Khoskgab

The word "khoskgab" (pronounced kh-ohs-gab... if that helps any) actually separates into two words in Armenian: "Khosk" meaning "speak" or "words," and "gahb" meaning "to tie." So literally it means "to tie with words."

Back in the old country, men and women weren't going out on Friday nights to take a moonlit walk along Lake Sevan and watch some sheep grazing. Ok, well maybe they did, but the groom certainly did not go about popping the big question in the same way our grooms do today. Weddings were very much a union of families. In some cases, the bride and groom may not have even known each other. There was no down on bended knee, and no blingy diamond; it was more of an agreement between two families, joining them together, growing their village, and continuing on with the traditions of the past.

The groom's family would journey from their village to the bride's home, offering gifts of livestock, bedding, pillows; nice gifts that the couple would share once they were wed. These would be offered and if the gifts were worth the price of their daughter (this was way before women's lib!), an agreement would be reached, and the proposal would be tied with words.

Maybe this is where "tying the knot" came from?

But this is not the old country, and this is a blog about a MODERN/TRADITIONAL Armenian wedding. So this is how it went down in 2010.

After 5 years of dating, and two weeks after his incredibly romantic proposal to me, Eric and his family came over for a modern day Khoskgab.  The difference? Well for one, we obviously had a lot of say in what was going on. We didn't have to settle on an agreement (Eric already got permission from my parents), and there weren't any real  animals.

Our families were gathered together, and there were beautiful arrangements of flowers, stunning gifts from the family, and lots of love to go around.  We jokingly kept with the traditions, talking about how long their journey must have been from their village; they told us that Eric had to ride on the back of his dog to get there, and the poor dog was tired out.  I even had to pass a "test" where Eric's dad would ask for a glass of water, and I would have to bring it to him balanced neatly on a tray, without spilling.  It was all in good fun, but I actually got nervous and almost spilled the glass!  Thankfully, they love me anyway.

In the end, our families had come together to celebrate, to tie with loving words the proposal between Eric and I, as a proposal that ties our two families together. It was a beautiful night of celebration, happiness, and tears of joy. It was a night of love, a night of family.

Us looking all giddy and excited (and young! amazing what 2 years will do...) Check out all the flowers!

The Proposal

Eric proposed to me in April of 2010, at Huntington Beach, where we'd had our first "official" date then almost 5 years before. In fact, he took me to just about the same spot (between life guard towers 15 and 17). And let me just tell you - I had no clue!

We were planning on going to the beach that day, but he'd cancelled plans the night before saying he wasn't feeling well (unbeknownst to me it, was pre-proposal jitters) and so when he called the next morning and I saw the cloudy sky outside, I told him it was definitely okay if he didn't want to drive the nearly 50 miles to my house to pick me up and then back toward Huntington since he still wasn't feeling well (did I mention he has the chivalry of a knight in shining armor?). I told him it was  cloudy and probably would be cold, so it was really OKAY. But, sweet as he was, he drove over and picked me up - still with an upset stomach and after much debate he said, "well I already packed up the picnic (::swoon::) so we might as well go, we don't have to stay too long."  And so on we went.

We laid out on the sand, munched on a sandwich and cracked open some lovely sparkling pink lemonade he'd packed and toasted with our new glasses from Medieval Times. He started taking pictures of me and the (amazing) sailboats off in the distance, and then he said, "let's unpack lunch."

Naturally, I thought he was nuts because we'd just eaten, but he said we'd unpack, not eat. That's when he handed me Tupperware labeled "pasta" and told me to "open it." That's odd, right? Like, why can't he open it? Why did he pack pasta? and wait, why does it look like there's dry pasta in this Tupperware?  That's what I was thinking.

So as I opened it I saw raffia, not dry pasta, (what is this!? I thought, very very confused) and then, in the middle of it all, a small blue velvet box. WHAT IS THIS!?  I still thought. Aww, he's surprising me! Maybe it's EARRINGS!  I kept thinking. It's times like this I wish I could go back and say "Shut up brain!"

I pulled it out and when I opened it up there was the most amazing eternity band I had ever seen. And I STILL didn't get it. I was in shock (I'm guessing??) It wasn't until I registered (slowly) in my brain that there was a box and a ring and sparkling lemonade, and there was Eric getting down on one knee, that I thought, OHMYGOD THIS IS IT!!!!!!

After some beautiful words from him, and a lot of "Really? Are you serious?" from me, and shaking out the nerves for him and crying out the tears for me, and a lot of hugging, we finally tried to take a picture, and randomly, a surfer was passing by, had witnessed the whole glorious scene and took our picture.

And there you have it... not the beginning of our story, but the start to an incredible journey. We worked off the adrenaline and joy of it all by calling family and visiting family, and taking cognac shots and then finally heading back to my house where my mom had picked up our favorite wonton soup to enjoy and unwind (along with a lovely bottle of wine)... and then the phone calls to more family and friends commenced.

Oh! I forgot where the "tradition" bit ties in. It may seem kind of small, but to us, it's HUGE. One month before he proposed, Eric called up and met with my mom and dad to formally ask their permission, discuss his plans with them and  make sure they knew what was coming. He could have proposed without doing this, and my parents would have still loved him, but the fact that he respected them enough as my parents made them respect him on a whole different level as well. So first he asks permission, then he proposes, and then his family has to come ask for my hand in marriage....

Stay tuned to hear about the "khosgab" (which literally means "to tie with words").

Until then -Share your "she said yes" moment - What did your man do to woo you on that special day?

<3 Ani

Us as Us

I realized that while you may think the potential of this blog is cool (ok, well at least I do...), you still know very little about me. So here's a post to give you a bit more info on who I am, who I'm getting ready to say 'I do' with a little bit about what makes us...us!

ME

Name: Ani

Age: 24

About me: I'm a new graduate pediatric nurse! I work on a general pediatric unit with newborns through 21 year old kids and I love my job! I also write for a nursing blog - ScrubsMag.com - and share my insights into what it's like as a new nurse. I'm an Armenian American - born and raised in Southern California... and yes, I am third generation on my mom's side. Which means my mom was born in this country, and my grandmother was born in this country. I grew up with Armenians very similar to myself, until I went to high school with many who had recently emmigrated; who believed, and made it very clear to me, that I wasn't really Armenian because 1) my dad wasn't Armenian, 2) my family didn't recently move here, 3) I don't speak the language.

I may not speak fluently, but I understand quite a bit. And I know a lot (I mean A LOT) about our culture, traditions, and heritage. But because of feelings like this, I've always felt like I fall sort of in between. I'm not one or the other. 

I'm not just Armenian, and I'm definitely not just American - I'm both and that shapes a lot of how I live my life and, of course, how I plan my wedding.

US

Fiance: Eric

Age: 27

About us: We actually met over 10 years ago at church (our families go back even further - my grandfather used to work for his grandfather over 40 years ago! Flash forward and...).  We attended our youth group together, and while we were friends, I was always a bit closer with his older sister. As years passed, I eventually needed a date to prom, and one night as I was talking it over with my now, future sister in law, she said, "why don't you just take my brother? You know you'll have a good time!"  And... well... the rest is history!  (More on our amazing engagement later...)

Eric comes from an Armenian-American family as well, and for us, family comes first. We value the time spent with our parents and grandparents, especially when that time is spent in the kitchen cooking delicious dishes. We're homebodies in the sense that a movie night at home often sounds a lot more

fun than going out clubbing, but we still know ho

w to have fun. Our Christian faith, culture, traditions, and values are the ribbons that help tie us together in this beautiful relationship.

We want traditional... but not this traditional. This is a typical wedding picture from back in the day, Armenian

Our wedding style: Traditional meets modern. What does that really mean? That's what I am trying to figure out.  We grew up in the church, and it's part of our culture to have our wedding in the Armenian Orthodox Church. It's a ceremony that takes you back centuries and really gets down to the purity of a marriage. There are other little traditions that we do as a part of the wedding and leading up to it, but since we aren't quite a man an woman of the old country, there are some areas I'd love to modernize and make it about US. What will those parts be? That's part of what I want to work out on this blog.

So that's just a glimpse at who we are, what we're planning, and how we might start to get there. For now, we're focusing on making sure we've got everything settled and ready to go before we really hit the ground running with all the wedding plans. Until then, I hope you'll follow us on our journey!

Bacheegs (kisses), Love Ani