a Year in Review

I cannot believe it has been a year since my last post! In an effort not to bore every reader, I've only posted a few highlights of fun engagements we've had and job/school updates! Here goes -

Allyson and Brian Got Married!!

From the rehearsal dinner...

To the Friday night BBQ...

To our mini bachelorette party...

To the Wedding Day...

I've never seen a more beautiful wedding and it was made perfect by the fact that it was for the world's nicest and most caring couple in the world. I'm glad I was able to share this experience with the both of you!

I turned 26!!

Kyle and I took a trip to the world-famous Gilroy Garlic Festival...

Then came payback for my surprise party for Kyle, I got a surprise birthday crown and cake with all of our favorite San Jose friends...

A weekend trip to Lake Tahoe with Drew and Michelle!

We raced to beat traffic to make it to the Rascal Flatts concert...

Then fished for our own crawfish and had a delish dinner, among casino visits and tanning by the lake...

Oktoberfest, Santa Clara U style!

Stein holding competition...needless to say, I did not win.

Halloween fun with the family! (And a visit from my dear friend Cassidee!)

Clara dressed up as a dinosaur...

We traveled the neighborhood like celebrities...

And managed to have time to give back to the Boys and Girls Club by helping make signs for their Halloween Carnival...

Work Christmas Party!

Tara and I spent all night making these beautiful sweaters for everyone to wear. Our team was definitely the life of the party...

Fast forward through a whole season at my new job...I finished off the academic school year with a bang. I brought lots of new ideas to the table and had loads of fun doing it. Our trip to Vegas to culminate basketball season left our standing down to the last few seconds of our game against Gonzaga. Never a dull moment at Santa Clara University Athletics!

Dance Team...

Our new Spirit Squad...

I "met" (loose term) the Dalai Lama!!

Took a few weekend beach trips with family

Visited Tennessee for Michael and Deanna's Wedding and then traveled to Nashville with the family to sight see!!

Memphis sites...

The Wedding...

Nashville sites including downtown, the NFL stadium, Grand Ole Opry, and more!

Kyle turned 28!!

Wine tasting in the hills of Los Gatos...

And a fun dinner with friends...

I'd say our last year hasn't been too bad! Too many fun events to remember and Kyle is almost done with school! He is finally spending more time in the clinic working with real patients and is studying up for his last two board tests. He hopes to finish his patient hours before his Christmas break, where he will then move back to Colorado for his internship. I'll be sad to be away from him, but happy knowing that he is pursuing his dreams and getting close to graduation. 

With more fun summer plans and by birthday coming up, I'm sure to have more to post soon! We're at that point in our lives where all of our friends are getting engaged, so we'll have lots of fun weddings to go to and we'll be able to help our friends celebrate their special days. 

Allyson's Bridal Shower

Allyson and Brian's wedding was a month long event that I will never forget! Bachelorette party in Florida, helping plan for the bridal shower in Denver, and then five AMAZING days in Lake George, NY. Although I could sit here and post photos all day that would take up screen after screen, I should probably just recount the highlights. The interesting thing about this wedding, unlike others I have been to in the past, was that everyone I met was so caring and wanted to sit down, chat, and learn about your life. I met more nice, thoughtful, and caring people during this last month then I feel like I've come across since I moved back to California! What a great experience.

It all started with planning the Bridal Shower...

We first decided that since Allyson loves mexican food (and tequila) that the semi-outdoor patio at Tamayo would be the perfect place for the shower (http://www.richardsandoval.com/tamayo/gallery.php). This led us to our mexican bright colors, almost day of the dead, type theme and color scheme.

My co-worker Gabi, so generously designed personal invitations for Allyson's shower. Didn't they turn out fabulous?!

If you want to contact Gabi for any design work here is her contact information. She came up with this design all by hand and it enabled us to keep up with a similar theme for floral arrangements, flags and other decorations throughout the party!

{phone}

650-267-1111

{website}

www.gabriela-silva.com

{etsy paper goods shop}

www.etsy.com/shop/gigigallery

{twitter}

tweetgabriela

{blog}

gabrielasilvadesign.blogspot.com

{pinterest}

pinterest.com/gabrielasilva

Here is how the party decorations turned out. Beautiful center pieces, fun tissue paper flowers, flag party banners, succulents, cactus and more!

Gabi also helped with some of our games for the guests including "Wedding Libs" and "How Well Do You Know the Bride?" She kept in the theme of the invite and they turned out pretty cute!

Leslie came up with this great game, "How Old Was Allyson." It was a cute idea to showcase some embarrassing photos and get all the guests involved in the guessing work!

Fun tequila party favors! (Leslie found this idea on Pinterest!)

Thanks Leslie for planning this awesome shower, I'm so sad that I wasn't able to make it, but hope that my contributions helped just a bit :). I know Allyson had a great time and loved every minute of it!

*Photo credits go to Leslie - great work!

Kyle's 27th B-Day Weekend

Kyle's 27th birthday was a fun, long weekend. We began with a surprise BBQ with a bunch of his friends from school. Weird that he didn't ask me why I was cutting an entire watermelon or two onions for just our burgers? Seems like studying for finals distracted him from figuring out the surprise!

Cheers to the birthday boy!

Thank you Lindsey and Chris for decorating the space before we got there! I wish I had a picture of all the cute decorations! But at least you can kind of see Kyle's chair and accessories!

Even Clara was in the hawaiian/tiki spirit!

Even though Victoria couldn't be at the party to help celebrate, she still made Kyle some yummy cupcakes. She knew he doesn't like sweets, so she made angel food cake with cool whip and berry 'frosting.' So delish!

Blow out the candles!

 Roasting s'mores by the fire pit. Love our Palmer Family!

Sunday Fun-Day!

Joe and Victoria were SO sweet and bought Kyle and I tickets to the Tim McGraw concert at the Shoreline for Kyle's birthday. It was definitely an interesting/enlightening/fun experience! We decided since we had leftover BBQ from Friday night that we would tailgate in the parking lot before the show. Turns out, no grilling and no alcohol allowed in the parking lot! Now we know for next time and it still ended up being a very fun night!!

Thanks Joe and Victoria for a fun concert! We need to do it again soon.

Happy Birthday Kyle! I hope you had a great weekend and are now enjoying your 3-week break from school. Love you!