I had many doubters, including myself.  But I had a great time camping this past weekend!  Yups, it was Toby and I's very first camping trip in our lives, tents and all!  Here's a pic of Toby staring out from our tent.

Mr. BAW, Toby, and I joined our friends E & S along with their new dog, Kibbles at a weekend of camping in Death Valley, CA.  Literally, we were driving til we hit the middle of no where, in the middle of the desert 30 miles from the California/Nevada border.   But there are some pretty spectacular scenary, which we spent a day exploring in our car. 

There was a threat of rain all weekend, but we were extremely lucky.  The only rain we got was a couple of drops after we all snuggled into our respective tents for the night.  In fact, the daytime temp was a warm 70deg!

Our friend E is actually a gourmet camp cook!  He brought a fancy stove to make us fancy chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast and made us marinaded beef fajitas!  So we ate extremely well for a camping trip!  And we of course made smores by the camp fire for dessert. 

The camp site did have restrooms and there were several running water faucets near us for cleaning out our cooking gear.  But other than that, I "ruffed" it with everyone and didn't bathe for two days!  But I must admit, I don't think I do week-long camping trips.  A weekend is the perfect amount of "ruffing it" for me. :-)  Enjoy the pictures.

Our camp site and our little blue tent.

E cooking up some yummy pancakes.

Guys and fire, even Toby's pitching in to help.

With a good fire, the fajitas are cookin'!

Artists Pallet, a scenic region at the park.

At Devil's Golf Course, clusters of salt deposit.

Us, at the lowest point in North America.

Toby and Kibbles, chillin' in the car.

I was on dog duty while the others went for a
quick hike.  You can tell I was in doggie heaven.

Poor Toby didn't get his normal 9 hours of sleep
during our camping trip.  He was completely
exhausted and slept the entire way home!

After finding my wedding dress I was extremely relieved.  However, now the other stress comes...accessories.  What do I pair with the dress?  Just earings, just necklace, or both earings and necklace?  Dangly, studs, middle of the road?  Do I wear any jewels on my hair?  Should I wear silk flowers?  HELP!  Bling can be very complicated. 

Speaking of bling...check out these doggie bling!  If Toby was going to be my ring bearer I would get the little jewelry poop bag holder.  We saw these doggie bling at a Malibu pet store last year.  I didn't ask how much the poop bag holders cost.  But I'm sure it was beyond what we'd spend on poop bag holders.  :-)  We have one in plastic. :-)

We did end up getting Toby a little treat from the store.  Tak a look at the goodies!  Yeah, these are all doggie treats.  They look too yummy to pass up!  Those are not real chocolate by the way.   We got Toby a little paw cupcake.  He swallowed the entire cupcake in one bite!  :-) 
We have also started thinking about wedding cakes.  Since we will have a dessert table for our guests, we're only going to order a small cutting cake for the reception.  We hope that we can get away from "wedding cakes" and find a cute and yummy cake at a fraction of the cost.

Happy Valentine's Day!  I hope eveyone had a wonderful day with your loved ones.  I thought this is a good day to share my Martha Stewart tip of the month. 

Felt fortune cookies, how adorable!  In February's issue of Martha's magazine, she printed instructions on how to make these adorable little fortune cookies out of circles of felt fabric in various shades of reds.

Wouldn't this be the perfect little trinket for my wedding?  The colors go great with my wedding colors.  I can print out our names and the wedding date on "fortune."  I can put each one on a plate at the reception.

The only thing I worry about is how time consuming will it be to make ~200 of these.  I already have a wedding favor (CDs) to give our guests.  But these are soooooo cute!!  Maybe I can spend one weekend on the project and if it takes longer than that, I'll abandon the idea.  I can get all the materials from Michaels for cheap.  I can print out the texts on regular sheets of paper and then cut them up into slips with a paper cutter.  I may forgo the candy inside.  Shouldn't be too bad right? 

I'll let you know whether I succeed or not. :-)

Fire or water?  Which do you prefer for a centerpiece at the wedding reception?  I love the frosted glass look and I've always wanted candlelight at my reception.  Imaging, instead of little snowflakes, little cherry blossoms on the glass hurricane.  This idea came from Martha Stewart.  But then I saw this design, submerging flowers in water, from In Style.  What a gorgeous idea!?  And the Cherry Blossom branches are perfect for our wedding theme!

I would like to give away the centerpiece at the wedding to our guests.  So the water-filled vase idea might make it difficult for our guests to carry.  The frosted hurricane might be a better take-home gift for our guests.  What do you think?  Decisions, decisions...

Early on, I decided on my wedding theme and color.  I wanted to use Cherry Blossoms and I wanted my wedding colors to be various shades of reds and pinks.  So the search was on for my three bridesmaids for that perfect little red/pink dress. 

Since my three bridesmaids all have very different body types and skin tones, I wanted everyone to be comfortable with the dress they have to wear for a whole day.  So I told them that they can choose their own colors (any shades of red/pink) and their own style (strapless, V-neck, halter, etc) as long as all the dresses are the same fabric.  After going dress shopping with my bridesmaids a couple of times, they all decided that they prefer a deeper shade of red and they all prefered strapless! 

The only other constraint I had was that I wanted the dresses to be reasonably priced.  I just can't expect my friends to spend over a hundred dollars on a dress they likely won't wear again.  I was met with skepticism from my own bridesmaids!! None of them thought that a good looking dress under $100 would exist.  So the challange was on.  I HAD to be creative.  Traditional places like JCrew and Ann Taylor were not going to cut it.  And forget about Bridal places, all their dresses are at least over $150 for anything decent.  Well after a week of searching, I found the dress!

So here's the dress I found online and everyone LOVES it!  And it was under $30!!! (Not joking!)  Plus, they had sizes ranging from 2 to 18!  The color is absolutely beautiful and the cut is flattering on all body types.  Where did I find this dress you ask?  Are there more dresses?  Yes, this site is a little gem!  They have tons of other styles that you wouldn't guess they would carry that will work great as bridesmaid dresses.  They also carry wedding gowns!  Ok, here's the site...shop away!  Thank you for the affordable designs Isaac Mizrahi!

Happy Chinese New Year!!  This is the year of the Rat...or as I would like to call it, the year of the Mouse.  In Chinese Horoscopes the Rat is highly respected as a resourceful person, courageous and smart.  Heh, can you tell which sign I am?  Yes, this is my year.  This means that this year I will turn 36.  Since there are 12 animals represented in the Chinese Horoscope, the Rat being the first on the wheel, People who were born under this sign are either 1, 12, 24, 36, or 48, etc...years old.  You get the pattern.  So what does 2008, Year of the Rat hold for you?  

My friend got me a plant for Chinese New Year.  He told me that if it blossoms on New Year's day, I will have good luck all year.  So I've been extra careful to water it daily.  The red character on the flower pot is the character for wealth/money.  There are also gold coins all over the pot.  :-)  This follows the Chinese tradition of giving out Red Envelopes to children.  What's in the red envelopes?  Money of course!  But only people who are married have to pass out red envelopes...which means I don't have to this year yet!  :-)  Read here for all of the fun Chinese New Year traditions.

This is it, this is our wedding site.  I know it doesn't look good right now, but imagine a flower arbor and white chairs.  This is the patio at the UCLA Faculty Center where our out-door ceremony will take place.  A while ago, we went to UCLA to sign our contract for the venue and I brought my camera with me.  I figure pictures will help my florist to plan the decoration. 

We will have the entire place for our event.  Our event will be the only event of that day.  Besides the patio, we will also have the option to hold the wedding indoors if weather decides to take a bad turn.

Next to the patio, there is a seating area outside for the cocktail hour.  I will be decorating this area with red glass candle holders.

The bridal room is a HUGE dining hall.  On the day of the wedding, the staff will turn the dining hall into a bridal room by removing all the tables and chairs and replacing them with couches.  They will even serve appetizers and drinks in the room. 

The foyer to the Faculty Center is where we will set up tables for the guestbook signing, reception table cards, and gift area.  Guests will then be led to the patio area for the wedding ceremony.   The main reception hall is a huge dining hall equiped with a baby grand piano!  They will lay down a dance floor and replace the small tables with large round tables.  There will also be a large area for the dessert table and cake table.  Yup, we will have a Viennese dessert table.  We never particularly like wedding cakes and the desserts that was included in the reception package looked so yummy that we decided to just get a small cutting cake for the reception but allow our guests to select from a variety of yummy desserts. 

I need to start looking into getting a florist.  But our house-buying has been consuming all of our time lately!  I'm getting stressed!

The main reception hall.  A dance floor will be laid down at our reception.  I will also decorate with twinkle lights and red paper lanterns over the dance floor.  We will dine with our bridal party at a large round table instead of having a long bridal party table or a sweetheart table for two.  This way, we'll get to spend more time with our friends.