Wednesday, 29 February 2012

Planning, planning, planning

Nicky had her two grown-up bridesmaids and her mum to stay last weekend, and they went shopping for Nicky's wedding dress! One bridesmaid's boyfriend came too, to keep me company. We went into town, drank ale and watched a bit of the rugby, which was so much more fun than looking at dresses!

In wedding-related planning so far, we've:
- picked our best man, bridesmaids and ushers
- booked the venue (ceremony and reception)
- booked the wine merchant
- bought the dress! (Nicky and co. came home on Saturday with a big white dress bag that I'm not allowed to look in!)
- chosen the tailor for the best man, ushers and me
- booked the flowers
- had the save the date cards designed (they're at the printers now!)
- pre-reserved hotel rooms nearby
- chosen a theme and colour scheme (our theme is board games! Colours are dark red and teal)
- arranged a room for an evening get together
- rang round a million caterers and photographers for quotes (decisions need to be made ASAP!)

It's not going too badly so far - only 5.5 months to go!

Sunday, 12 February 2012

A blog of her own

We're really pleased with Milly's progress over the last six weeks, she's like a completely different dog! She no longer gulps her food, pulls on the lead, whines when one of us leaves the room or chews anything she's not supposed to. We have discovered a few things that are perfect for her incredibly strong chewing jaws - the Bionic Bone (purchased in Vancouver on our Christmas holiday), the Kong Extreme, and our most recent discovery - Stag Bars made of antler!

We couldn't imagine life without her now, and we feel so guilty that we're going away and leaving her for 2.5 weeks when we go to Japan! The holiday was already arranged when we agreed to take Milly on, and we've spent the last six weeks discussing options for her as we don't want to put her into kennels. One of our friends has kindly agreed to come and stay at our house with her for the first week or so, and after that we will need to employ a house sitter or arrange for Milly to go to one of the local home boarding services. It's stressful trying to find the right fit for her!

My mum who had Milly before we did gave me a diary that she had written of all the funny things Milly did, and we've decided to carry it on. I've started a blog, and am typing up mum's old entries before starting on our new ones. She's done plenty to write about already since she's been with us!

You can read Milly's blog here - I've got quite a lot of old entries still to type up!


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Saturday, 11 February 2012

Challenges!

I don't think I've mentioned this here yet, but Nicky and I are going on a round the world trip in a mere 6 weeks' time! My best friend Greg (who is also the best man at our wedding) is getting married at the end of March in Nagoya, Japan. It took a LOT of research and working out, but we eventually got a travel agent to work with us on producing a round the world plan to include both Japan and Canada, so that we could combine the wedding trip with a visit to my Dad and his family on Vancouver Island. We will fly direct to Tokyo, spend a few days exploring there, take the bullet train to Nagoya for the wedding, fly to Shanghai for a touristy two days, and then spend a week in Canada skiing with dad before flying back to the UK via Los Angeles. We can't wait, it's going to be amazing!

Plus, as though going on a round the world trip the same year that we're getting married wasn't enough, we've also now moved the wedding date four months forward, from December to August! Challenging! Essentially, Dad and Sue had looked into flights and accommodation for the five of them to come over for our previously planned date in December, and found that it would cost almost as much as the wedding. As they are helping us out, we thought it would be only fair to try and move the wedding to a date that would be better for them financially. It had to be in the school holidays because of the children, and we didn't want to postpone it until Spring 2013, so we called the venue to check their availability for the summer. It turned out that they only had two Saturdays free between June and September, so August it was! It couldn't have worked out any better really, as the Registrar had had a cancellation for our exact wedding date, and our preferred florist also only had that exact date free for the whole summer! There have been so many coincidences, we think it was just meant to be.

Basically, our every spare waking minute at the moment is spent researching some aspect of either our Japanadian Extravaganza or the wedding, but thankfully Nicky has created a very organised folder for each to keep us in check!

Here's a gratuitous photo of Milly with a dog chew shaped like a toothbrush. Look at that adorable scrunchy cheek!



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