Tahoe here we come!

Tomorrow we're going to Tahoe for my bachelorette party. Woo hoo!! Looking forward to it. Road trips are fun, especially with a bunch of girls. Deb, Rhonda, Suzanne, Kelly, Tiffany, Heather, Lisa, Lisa D and me! That's a dangerous group.

The boys are staying home and spending time together. I think they are planning on going to Bonfonte Gardens and Chris's mom's house this weekend.

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Wedding related:

Chris and I wanted to go check out the house (our reception/party house) in Pacific Grove. Granted, we should have done that long long long time ago. But we didn't. Just didn't think it was necessary until now. Well, we're running into a couple of glitches. Nothing that we can't figure out of course.

I sent an e-mail to my contact at Monterey Rentals. Someone else called me back (I thought that was odd). She tells me that there is a family renting the place right now so we won't have access to look at the house until October 10th. We wanted to go down there the weekend of October 8 - 9. So I guess we can't do that. The other thing is that the rental office is only open from Mon - Fri. So we'd have to take a day off of work to go get the key from them and look at the house. Plus there is a deposit for the key.

We can't really avoid not going down there to look at the house either. We need to be able to tell Wildon and Dave the caterers what they have to work with. We need to know how big the back yard actually is because of the party and the food we're going to spread out. I have to know how much lighting I need to purchase to be able to elluminate the whole yard.

No wonder brides become bridezilla(s).

Chris took care of the rehearsal dinner invites. There was an ordeal with that, but I'm not going to get into it. I just have to accept the fact that other people around me don't have the same sense of urgency as I do.

Today marks 30 days til our wedding day. WOOOOO HOOOOO!

Reese quote of the day

"Mommy, can I get married with you?"

me: I love you Reesey
Reese: I love you too mom
me: Do you know what love means?
Reese: It means we take care of each other mom.

Happy Monday!

Yesterday was my shower and it was so much fun. Kelly did a great job setting it all up and cooking and cleaning.

Chris and I made out with so many cool gifts from where we registered. Rhonda was a great host. Her house is amazing. ...complete with the heated toilet and everything. lol

On a side note....

Funny Reese saying of the day:

We were sitting watching TV last night and I'm trying to explain to him why the baby on TV died. He couldn't breathe anymore, you need to breathe to live. So he looked at the pictures of Suzanne that I had on the coffee table and said 'Suzanne has a baby in her tummy because she ate too much food mommy' .... Chris and I almost died laughing. So we sat there and contemplated whether or not to tell him the truth.

Nahhhhh.........

I told him that I will have a baby in my tummy soon too. He said... OK, I'm gonna tell all my teachers!! NO NO NO don't do that! let us get married first!

Scrapbooks .... Shower ..... and the Court System

My good friend and bridesmaid Suzanne is about 21 weeks pregnant. I decided to make her a scrapbook to record the 9 months of her pregnancy. No baby book yet... not until the baby comes out at least. We know that she's having a girl and Suzanne loves flower pattern, so I made her first few pages in pink stripe and flowers. Now I want one for myself!! Well, I'm sure the minute I find out that Chris and I are pregnant I will run out to the scrapbook store and buy them out!

This Sunday is my bridal shower. I have been a bad bad girl and checking my registries often every day. Why? Because I'm excited. This is one of many things that remind me that I will get to marry the love of my life.

Today I did some research on how Chris can adopt Reese. I found the paperwork online and it's really easy to understand (as supposed to some of the more complicated situations I guess). I filled it all out and then what? I called the phone numbers to the courts of Santa Clara County and got transferred 4 times before someone told me that the person I needed to talk to is away from her desk and I need to leave her a message. I left her a message and 6 hours later she called me back.

I told her what we wanted to do and she tells me this:

• Since we're not married yet, they won't even consider starting the paperwork on us.
• We have to be married for at least a year before Chris can adopt Reese.
• They wait a year because they need to make sure that the marraige will last. (and how would the court determine that our marraige will last, that is so stereo typical)
• I have to get the other birth parent to give up his parental right completely even if I already have full custody and he hasn't seen Reese since he was 1. Something about CA courts doing things differently than MN courts.
• Department of Social Services will need to have that first year of our marraige to do an investigation on our family and make sure that we are compitant parents.

That last part is what I don't get about the whole process. There are so many people out there who aren't fit to be parents at all and we have to be investigated. Ok.. that makes a whole lot of sense. Chris is the best dad this kid is ever going to have and he will be with him his whole life. He already treats Reese as if he is his own kid. We share responsibilities when it comes to the boy. Dad is what Chris was born to be. No questions. But we still need to go through the process to make sure that we are good enough parents so Chris can adopt him.

We are already a family. All we're asking is for the courts to let us change Reese's last name.

Our goal for the next year is to become: Christopher, Kanika, and Reese Clavejo. (and more than likely one more little one by then)

::Rant off::

Parent/Teacher Conference.... and a trip to the County Building

Whenever I heard 'Parent/Teacher Conference' when I was in school I would just cringe. Oh god, now my parents are gonna know that I don't really pay attention in class. lol. So here's the synopsys of Reese's progress so far in school.

20 out of 26 uppercase letters
12 out of 26 lowercase letters
can count up to 12 on his own
knows 6 of 7 shapes
he identified a target as a 'store' and an oval as a 'smashed circle' .... both of which were correct.... can't really argue with him there.
and there's a bunch more things... this is all I remember off the top of my head.

His teacher says that he's a great listener and he follows the rules to a 't'. He raises his hand when he knows the answer as supposed to some of the other kids who scream out the answers. He takes his time with a lot of the projects in class, especially writing 'workbook' projects. We discovered that he's extremely hard on himself and he must have do everything perfectly before he can move on. Which makes him the last to finish (or sometimes not even finish) his work in class. The other kids want to play, and Reese will write and erase the same letters until he gets them perfect.

He knows how to write his name and he likes music and movement with music.

He's a LEFTY!! This is what gets me. Chris and I are both right handed. We will have a hard time helping him with his work. He writes with his left, but he does everything else with the right hand. Eats, cuts, etc. So who knows, we might have an ambidextrous.

Chris and I both think that he might be obcessive compulsive. He's very into schedule and if you go off the plan he will have a cow. He loves to play with things that gives him a sense of order. Like trains for example. All the little cars are the same size and the track goes the same direction. He loves to clean and make things orderly. He dresses really well because he can't stand having a spec of dirt on him.

Wonder where he got that from........ =P I loved the fact that Chris was there with me and he's ready and willing to be a parent. It's like it was his ultimate goal in life... to have kids and be a dad. I love it.

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So after the parent/teacher meeting Chris and I went down to the County of Santa Clara building to get a marraige license. Bing Bang Boom.... it was so easy. Maybe because we were prepared and filled everything out ahead of time. We were so excited when we left the building. Butterflies everywhere. We are so ready to be married. Just waiting for the day to come....

37 DAYS!!

The Blue Mermaid

Tonight Chris and I had dinner with our favorite Australian residents Veronica and Chuck Simchick. Veronica is also my bridesmaid and one of the closest chicks to me. I love her dearly and I really wish she wasn't so far away. Over the last couple of years in the Renegades she has been like a sister to me. I was psyched when she told me she'd be my bridesmaid. It means a lot to both Chris and I. I am so looking forward to having her here and celebrating our special day together.

Met with our Officiant

9/19/05 Chris and I met with Brandon Wilson aka B-Money at Chili's in Pleasanton. He's the man who will marry us on October 29th. We went over all the details of the ceremony of which he plays a part of.

Now that we have talked to Brandon... the day is becoming more real by the hour it seems. We went through the whole ceremony from top to bottom and things seem to be coming together beautifully. Brandon talked about some of the ideas he had for our vows and wording of the ceremony itself. He brought up the idea of doing a theme of 'coincidence and fate' ... which is basically what brought Chris and I together. Then he will talk a little but about dad. Then he will go in to the vows, which he will also adjust the wording slightly to veer from the ordinary 'do you?... and do you?' style. I can't wait.

Butterflies in the tummy...... woo hoo!!

Ahh.... a child-free evening

Today Chris and I went up to Hayward to drop off Reese to my mom. We asked her to watch him while we go out to have dinner tomorrow night. She said to just bring him up today... that left us an evening to do whatever we wanted to do as if we didn't have a kid. lol. So we went to go see a scary movie, The Exorcism of Emily Rose. I don't think I could be left alone ever again after seeing that movie. Holy crap.... is all I gotta say. It's not a gory scary movie... just one of those movies...

So earlier today I went to go get fitted into my wedding dress. :-)

And then I stopped at 2 scrapbook stores and did some damage to my wallet. But it was all worth it because scrapbooking is a hobbie that keeps me sane.

Well, Chris keeps me sane... because he loves me. :-)

Smarter than the average bear

So I'm sitting here working on our wedding program with my lovely fiance. Well, he's not working on them, he's playing poker.

Our busy little boy was helping me clean the kitchen earlier. Of course he got distracted and went to go watch tv in his room. I told him that he needs to come back to turn off the lights in the kitchen and put the rugs back where they belong. He said "No mom, these aren't rugs, they're called MATS' ....... Note the day when I got corrected by my own 5 year old.

Dress and Flowers

So I'm crazy.... or so I've been told by many people. There are quite a few random crafty things that I'm making for this wedding. One of the biggest projects is the bouquet. It's made entirely out of seed beads. Tiny little beads...

1340 beads per flower - times about 18 - 20 flowers. Math is not my friend, but that works out to be about 24,000 beads.

And then there's the subject of my dress. Everyone was asking what style I'd wear, if I'd just designed it myself, etc. Why would I do that? I found THE perfect dress when I was browsing through a catalog. It's a J. Crew dress (in the picture). Not to mention the sweet price of only $230. Hello?? You just can't go wrong. Then I was looking around on eBay to see if someone was selling this dress. And what do you know? There are people selling this dress left and right from outlet stores. I found the perfect description (brand new, only dirty on the bottom, etc). The seller was really honest with me and told me that the bottom of the dress was dirty from being on the rack and shifted around. Which was fine with me because I would need to take it up anyway. I got the dress in the mail (dangerous way of sending important things like this) I was soooo excited. This is MY wedding dress!! And the price was even better than if I had gotten it off J. Crew. I got this dress for $75.

And now I'm taking it to the seamstress tomorrow to get fitted and have a pink matte satin sash added to the middle. Can't wait.

Shoes? Some flat Mary Jane's since Chris and I are the same height flat footed. :-)

The Location

Here's where we're going to get married. It's Lover's Point Park in the town of Pacific Grove. It overlooks some cliffs and a beautiful sunset. We're getting married at 6pm right when the sun is coming down over the horizon.

Chris told me once that love can be compared to the wide open water of the ocean. You can see beyond the eternity and that symbolizes our marraige. Getting married by the ocean is only appropriate.

Here we go...

I'm copying everything over from Wedding Channel so this will seem like I'm talking in third person at times, but I'm really not. It's an existing journal on another website that's locked. I wanted to make it public. So here goes....
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How we met: Or should I say, How we got to know each other? In 1993 I joined a local youth group, summer music marching band drum corps thing. Something all my band nerd friends were doing, so I thought I'd give it a try. Well, since I danced all my life, I made it into the colorguard. Chris played trumpet there, had been there since 1988. Back then, we knew of each other, never really hung out, talked much unless we were around each other or anything. 3 years later, we're on the same bus every year for tour, but never really paid attention to one another because we were busy with our own thing.

After 1996 I left the activity and had another life with college/work/new set of friends, etc. In 2000, I had Reese and life was rough for me. Things got better after his biological dad left the scene. I picked up my mess and moved back to CA from MN.

In 2002 I found myself with the same youth group I mentioned earlier participating in an alumni activity. It was the group's 35th anniversary. Chris wasn't there, but he was with another group that was a take off from ours but for adults based out of SF which I later ended up joining.

My first day at the new SF group, The Renegades. I pull into the parking lot, parked my car, got my stuff ready.... and there was Chris. We had our first 'Hey, how have you been?' in 7 years at that moment. Nothing has changed with him. He still looks like he's 18. I thought nothing of that meeting that day, but he thought otherwise. He insists that he'd had a crush on me since that day. ....I think that's so adorable Over the next year, his feelings for me grew and grew. I never knew it until one day I get a phone call from a close friend telling me that Chris has a crush on me. He is so painfully shy that he won't speak a word when we're around each other. So, our 2 friends who were trying to get us together kept at it and planned things to purposely set us up when we all would travel together as a group.

Chicago and beyond
It was hard to initialize conversation with Chris being that our friends are always around. But we finally got some moments alone during our trip to Chicago earlier this year. 3 days of nothing but getting to know each other. Oh, and a couple of performances and rehearsals in between. When we got back home from that trip, we made a point to meet for lunch at least once or twice a week. Escape to our beach in Santa Cruz when we can. (Both of us had just had a nasty break up with our significant others and were cutting loose ends with them)

We took our last trip to PA in September. It was truly magical. We spent every spare moment together (again, with a few shows and rehearsals in between somewhere). He's so sweet and wonderful from the inside out. We also found out that we had a lot of things/feelings about things in common. I asked him if I could 'keep him' he said 'yes, for as long as time' ...geez, I still get butterflies in my stomach when I think about that.

One night in October, sometime after my birthday. We were sitting around talking like we normally do every night. He told me that I was 'it' for him. That he could see us growing old together and having children and living our lives out on the beach somewhere when we retire. I told him that I could see that also. So from then on, all we could talk about is getting married somewhere along the shoreline and looking forward to having our baby.

The Proposal
Friday December 17th 2004. Chris is online instant messaging me teasing me about my Christmas present. He said that it had just arrived and he has it in his pocket. It was already wrapped up pretty ready to go, but he can't put it under the tree because I would know exactly what it was as soon as I saw it. I had no idea what the heck he got me. I'm really into scrapbooking and calligraphy, so I thought maybe he got me a set of pens I wanted or something.

That night, we got home at the same time. He couldn't stop being nervous. Finally, I asked him what he's so giddy about. He said he wants to give me my Christmas present now. By then, I was getting nervous too just feeding off his energy. I kept telling him no, I wanted to wait, why would I want my Christmas present before Christmas? We kept talking about it until we were ready to go to bed. He asked me one last time if I wanted it now, I said 'Ok, yes, I want it now' because I knew he wanted to give it to me already.

He put the beautifully wrapped box on my pillow .... it took my breath away. My hands are now shaking. He said 'This is it, this is why I didn't want to wait til Christmas' .... I opened it, it's a floral band with very delicate details all around it. The diamonds are set in the crevets of the flowers and leaves all around the ring. He got it from a place where they make one of a kind jewelry. I'd want to say antique jewelry, but it's not old. But, just like me, he said it's one of a kind. Then he asked me if I'd marry him. Of course, without hesitation, I said yes.

Before he took it out of the box, he said 'It's a size 6, there's only one, so I hope it fits' The ring fits my finger perfectly, like it was made just for me. He said that the nervousness he was feeling was actually from worrying about whether this ring will fit me not because he was afraid my answer might be a 'no' or something crazy like that. There is no way to get this ring sized. So I can't gain weight... lol.

Trying to figure this blog thingy out

Alright bear with me people. I'm still trying to figure this out and actually get through a day of work. How do you post pictures on this thing from internet files? I guess you could but the url was too long from shutterfly. Oh well.

44 days....

Everytime I think about Chris and I at that park on our wedding day I get butterflies in my stomach. Just being there with him and being named 'man and wife' makes me all giddy.

So out at DCA in Pennsylvania, Chris pulled off my patch. The birth control patch. We want to start making our baby right now. I did some research on the effects of the patch and how long it will take before we will be pregnant.... some says 3 months some says days. Who knows... maybe I'm pregnant right now! Just kidding. We have no idea.

All I know is that Chris is going to be an awesome dad. He already is to Reese.

There's a reason this blog is named.....

Bailey Taylor....

Chris and I are getting married. As stated in the profile. Our hope is that we conceive before we even get married so our to-be daughter's name is Bailey Taylor Clavejo. We have been talking about her for the last 6 months. lol.

I am going to transfer all the wedding channel journal onto here. Hopefully all the pictures will post too.

More later!!