Don't clean your house

Have company coming over?  Don't clean your house.  Seriously.  This is one thing I'm truly convinced of.  Tidy, yes.  Pick up your clutter (or at least arrange it in an organized way), throw away your trash.  But don't deep clean.  Because what really happens?  You spend hours dusting and sweeping and mopping, making your house look perfect... it's exhausting.  Then your friends arrive and you're too tired to enjoy your time with them.  Or you're too busy "tidying" while they're there.  It's not worth it.  You lose out on an enjoyable evening with friends.  Trust me, your friends won't care.  Your friends won't notice if your house has been mopped or not.  They'll notice if there are poop stains in the toilet (clean the toilet before they come, because ew germs, but that's it, just the toilet), but they won't notice if the blinds haven't been dusted.  Assuming they've been dusted at some point in the past...

And if your friends do care, maybe they're not the type of friends you need to be having over.  Real friends don't care if you cleaned your house.  They just want to have a fun evening with you.  Now, if your house is a total pig-sty, well then I don't know what to tell you.  Maybe hire a housecleaner to come before your company arrives.

Don't clean your house!

So you had a lovely evening with your friends, they enjoyed your spaghetti and ice cream... now what?  Don't do the dishes. Sit, enjoy your time with your friends.  Play a game, talk for hours, laugh and have fun.  DO NOT ruin the evening by disappearing into the kitchen for an hour to "clean up for just a second..."  The dishes can wait.  Savor the moments with your friends.

Don't do your dishes!

The point is this: HAVE FUN WITH YOUR FRIENDS.  Don't worry about if your house is perfect.  Don't stress and exhaust yourself before they even arrive.  The people who matter won't care, and the people who care don't matter.  

Ok so that's my life advice for the day.  What do you think?  Do you agree or disagree?

4th of July || My first vlog!

My first official vlog!  We traveled down to Florida to visit my sister and her family.  My parents flew in from California and we got to see them, too!  We had a fun time keeping ourselves entertained during the drive, and we loved spending the 4th at the beach.  We gorged ourselves on yummy food and desserts.  We are still here until Monday, and today we're looking forward to BBQing ribs and making s'mores, so I might take some more footage if you want me to make another video.

Please let me know if you enjoyed this vlog and if you'd like me to do them more often. 

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Ice Cream Sundae Trough

Would you eat ice cream from a trough?

Gotta be honest... I wasn't too thrilled about the idea...

At least we had spoons...

I suppose it's a good way to feed a lot of people without too much cleanup... and the kids enjoyed it.  

What do you think?

If I could do it again, but just for fun

I'm taking a break from posting about Rio... trying to get back into the regular swing of things.  Or maybe I have wedding on my mind because a) I've only been married 3 weeks, or b) my best friend is getting married in November and I won't be able to make it to her wedding.  :(  But this post is about weddings - if I could do it again, but just for fun!

I was never the typical girl that sat around and dreamed about her wedding dress.  I did, however, dream about the wedding venue and decor.  My first-first choice would be to elope on some tropical, exotic beach somewhere... Ok, maybe not elope completely, but considering the location, probably very few people would have come...

Image from here.

My second-first choice for a wedding theme was "garden tea party."  I suppose my wedding kind of fit that description, although we had to sacrifice some things due to location and budget.

(I will post photos once we get them from the photographer.)

My third (first-second?) choice would have been an evening garden party, something you'd find in Sabrina (1995), with lots of strung lights, live big band, black coated waiters, champagne fountain, and gorgeous evening gowns.  There is no way we could have afforded it, but it is still fun to dream, right?  

Scene from Sabrina, from here.

Something a little more quirky, but still beautiful:

Image from here.

Or I could have combined my first-first choice with my first-second choice and had this:

Image from here.

Well overall I was happy with how it turned out, and since it wasn't in some exotic location, all of my (immediate) family members were able to come!  I enjoyed spending time with family and friends at such a special event!  I'll post pictures as soon as I get them!

What is/was your ideal wedding?

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Birthday and Bachelorette

This past weekend I had my birthday... I turned old.  I also spent the weekend with my friend for her bachelorette party.  We spent the weekend in Santa Barbara.  It was so beautiful.  Before that, like literally the day before, I moved to San Jose!  Here are some pictures I took with Instagram along the way!

THE MOVE:

Getting ready to pack all my belongings into the car...

Road trip!

Mid-Road Trip Nap @ Mission Bay

One of the nicest bathrooms in a WALMART I've ever seen!

Remembering the beautiful flowers Peter sent me for my birthday last year.  They were soooo beautiful!  Peruvian Lilies, I believe.

THE BACHELORETTE WEEKEND:

The future bride and I

Driving in to Santa Barbara (that's the ocean in the background)

Pelican, brief...

Awesome ceiling fans at a winery near Santa Barbara

OMG this restaurant/cafe is amazing.  And it's adorable inside.  If you're ever in Santa Barbara, this is a must!

This was the cutest succulent, and I think the photo turned out pretty good!

School starts tomorrow!  Aaaah!  

Not alone with my tea

This year is the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.  Which means we, all the way in California, had to celebrate with a tea party brunch!   I invited a few people but only my mom, Laura, and Shannon showed up.  That's ok, we still had fun!  :)

The food:  

Fruit salad - separated - per Laura's request

Almond-Pomegranate Green Tea Muffins (recipe coming soon)

Almond- Regular Green Tea Muffins 

Spelt-flour Pumpkin-Cranberry Bread 

Gluten-free Shortbread (from Gluten-free Bisquick) 

Gluten-free Ginger Snap Cookies (store bought)

Apricot-Coconut bites (from here) 

Shannon brought yummy finger sandwiches

The Tea: 

We shared a few pots of 

Caramel-Rum black tea (sooo good) 

English Breakfast tea

Pomegranate Green tea

We started out with English accents but quickly lost them (I'm horrible at accents).  It was really fun to have an excuse to use beautiful china dishes, eat yummy food, drink yummy tea, and hang out!