Bridesmaids gifts

So, being on a budget but also wanting to stay true to my theme, it was hard to find a gift that I thought could be useful and nice.  After much searching on Etsy (doesn't it always take a little longer on Etsy with all the sidetracking?), I found a cute makeup bag from Brighter Day.  Whitney, who owns the shop, was willing to do custom orders, does wonderful work, and was great to work with!  Here's her pictures of the final products:

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I liked the colors, the fact that Whitney used vintage lace, and that each one was different.  I ended up not only giving these to all 5 of my bridesmaids, but to the moms as well (My hubby's mom, my mom, and my step-mom), and my friend, Seyoung, who helped so much with my invitations and save the dates among other things (and who also just got engaged, btw!!!!).

Along with these, I included a thank you card, and a cute ivory oversized ring from my etsy shop, BumbleC:

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What did you get for your girls, and how did you decide what to get?

Invitations

So...I will be posting my own pictures soon, but I thought you'd like a peek at the invitations before "soon"...

My friend, and very talented illustrator/designer, Seyoung, blogged about the invitations.  See her blog post:

Seyoung's blog post on my invitations

Clamming obsession

So during my time away from school and blogging, I spent a couple of days at the Oregon Coast with Craig and his parents, and a couple of their friends.  The tide was low on Wednesday and Thursday of June 15/16, so we spent the mornings digging for razor clams, and the evenings drinking, chatting, cooking, and having fun.  I'd never been clam digging before, but am now OBSESSED.  It was a lot of fun procuring food for the dinner table, and the fact that my shellfish license had been bought and unused (a whole $7 for residents in Oregon), it was well worth the money.  The clams were delicious, and I couldn't wait to go back out...now to just wait for a super low tide!

Craig's dad even bought me a brand new clam gun! And it's blue!!  How awesome is that?!  Being that I couldn't wait to go back out, Craig and I went to the coast yet again to harvest anything we could...this time, it was mussels.  We went out for only one night in Warrenton, OR and stayed at a cute little beach house.  It was our friend (and my save the date/invitation designer extraordinaire), Seyoung's, birthday the day before, and she and her boyfriend let us tag along for the trip.  Craig and I harvested mussels on Saturday afternoon, and we all went back to the house to clean them up and make some yummy chowder.  I will admit, it was quite a chore, as the house was equipped with wood stove (seriously) to cook on, and an couple of low-heating separate electric coiled cook tops.  We probably cooked a total of 6+ hours making that chowder, but it was such a blast!  We drank wine, ate cheese, crackers, and chips, chatted, and overall just had a blast.  We also made a nice little fire in the backyard and had some smores (which Seyoung had never made before!!!), had more libations, and finally tried our "chowder" at around 1:30am.

We ended up eating the chowder the next day for...brunch?  It was a great trip, and I was so happy to be able to do this before rotations started up for me (this week).  Thanks, Zach and Seyoung! We had a blast!

Phone picture--the chowder with crusty garlic-Parmesan cheese bread! Yum!

From my phone--the mussels all cleaned up:)

Me, being a turd in the kitchen.

Seyoung and I in the kitchen cooking up a storm...and drinking;)

Craig and Seyoung cleaning mussels

Enjoying the smores, beer (from chalices), and the awesome fire.

Just as a side note, invitations are coming along slowly, but surely.  My friend, Seyoung, really is super talented.  She's also an awesome writer.  READ/SUBSCRIBE TO HER BLOG!!  She does a lot of makeup reviews and writes funny comics:)  You can also check out her artwork here.