New Baby Cousin Ryan

This weekend in Elk Grove was not only super productive in terms of wedding stuff, but really fun!

I got to visit with my cousin Kelly and meet her new baby Ryan!

He is absolutely adorable and makes the cutest noises when he sleeps!

I'm sure Kelly was exhausted after only 10 days with a new baby, but took some time out of her day to catch up with Krista and I, and give us the tour of her new home and baby's room.

So hats off to Kelly who looks great, and doing well as a new mom to a beautiful baby boy!

An Amazing Man!

I flew home on Friday....by myself, to surprise my mom on Mother's Day. Ben had a baseball game on Saturday and wasn't able to come up with me. It's only been a couple of days, but I miss him like crazy!

He knew I was a little bummed to leave him and the babies (Lola, Deuce, and DUI). I was unpacking my suitcase when I got to the house, and inside was a present from Ben. A cute bracelet from one of my favorite jewelry companies.

Ben always does sweet things like this, and I feel so lucky to have such a wonderful man in my life!

Mother's Day!!

It's hard when you live so far from your mom......luckily we still get to see each other often. My mom was asking us to come up from San Diego for Mother's Day. I didn't know if I could swing it after all the things that have been happening in the last few weeks, with the dance show, Disneyland performances, taking college classes, and planning for the wedding.

Needless to say, I didn't want to miss a Mother's Day with my mom...or grandmothers. Krista surprised my mom by flying in on Thursday night, and I surprised her by flying in on Friday night. It was fun keeping it a secret, even though she was giving us a bad time about not coming.

We had a BBQ with the Zehnder family on Saturday night, and then today we did our 2nd annual Mother's Day wine tasting in Plymouth with my parents and Grandma Marie and Grandpa Wayne.

I love our new tradition and can't wait for many more years with all of the new family coming into our lives with 2 new marriages in the next year. It's awesome to have such a wonderful family and a mom who has been there for me through every hard time and happy moment!

Happy Mother's Day!

Dancing About Love!!

The dance show is finally over, and it was better than I could have expected. Over 100 kids took the stage at 7pm on April 29th, and will remember it for the rest of their lives. This dance show was memorable for me as well. This year I choreographed a dance for my seniors who were the dancers who helped me build the dance company and were just little sophomores in my beginning dance class, my first year of teaching. I also choreographed a dance for my husband-to-be.

The dance I choreographed for Ben, turned out awesome! I danced with nine of my dancers in all white costumes to the Plain White T's "1, 2, 3, 4". It was a dance with a underlying marriage theme. It was perfect! Ben sat in a reserved seat right in the middle of the theater, and even though I couldn't see him in the darkness, I knew he was there.

He says it was his favorite dance in the whole show.....as it should be. But it was something of a lasting gift. The next day he sent me a text that he'd heard "his song" on the radio and got a little choked up thinking about me up there on the stage, dancing for him.

Overall it was an extraordinary night! Every year I say I'm going to spend less time preparing for the show (4 months this year), but it almost always seems worth it in the end.