Planning our anniversary

Paul and I are still in awe that nearly a year ago THIS happened!!

Over the past couple months we had been pondering on what we should do for our one year anniversary. We were thinking big...Jamaica may have been spoken of, i'm just sayin'. Paul even wanted to book the getaway all on his own and surprise me, so sweet...Well, this was also before my car died, forcing us to use the money we had saved up for an elaborate destination anniversary vaca for a down payment of a new car. Such is life it seems. So we scratched any out of country plans, or even any out of state plans and stated budgeting for a cali getaway.

First of all, we LOVE San Diego! We were both born and raised in good 'ol SD and even spent the first two nights of our honeymoon in San Diego before departing for Hawaii :) So while brainstorming one evening, Paul brought up the idea of staying in the same hotel we stayed in during our honeymoon. Boom. Loved it. We budgeted it all out, the price was right and we are really excited to spend time in La Jolla for our anniversary weekend. Since then, we've been making a list of "things to do" while celebrating June 17th - 19th.

1. Explore San Diego! - I say we were born and raised in San Diego, but really it's Valley Center where cows and chickens are raised. It's time to explore the cittyyyy!!


#2. Enjoy a delicious fruity drink/cocktail...and for Paul, a beer.



#3. Beach it up!!!


#4. Gorge ourselves at The Melting Pot - We promised ourselves we would go while we were on our honeymoon since it was walking distance from our hotel...it never happened.


#5. Eat our anniversary cake!! -Okay so this is pretty neat. The bakery we got our wedding cake from will bake you a petite sized cake for your 1 year since they know a cake that has sat in a freezer for 365 days will be not so good.

That's what is on the list for now :)

if you live in a cave...

If you live in a cave (like me) you probably just found out a couple days ago that Kim Kardash. is engaged...say whaaaat?!? I know right..this is her rock.

Leave it up to the Kardashian sisters to have a "battle of the bling" contest.



Also if you live in a cave you haven't seen the newest videos we have been blogging like hot cakes!

Hanh + Don!!



Amy + Chris!!



...and last but not least, Becca+Jeff's love story...which we've really proud of and excited with how it turned out!

A good friend

I wouldn't call myself an animal fanatic, but I guess you could say I'm an animal lover. Being a veterinarian's daughter I think that just comes with the packaged deal. I grew up with animals my entire life, maybe that's why I don't quite understand families that don't have any pets because my childhood was filled with hamsters, guinea pigs, horses, ponies, cats, dogs, birds, and chinchillas (i'm serious).  P.S. Don't ever have a chinchilla as a pet, they are horrible. I won't go into the details of each pet but Humpty Dumpty was my first hamster, Tilly was my first dog, and Red was my first pony. When Tilly was attacked and killed by a neighbors Rottweiler when I was in grade school, I was heart broken. A couple years later when I was 11, my mom let me get another Welsh Corgi which I named Lilly...I know Tilly, Lilly, so original.

Well on Tuesday I got a text from my mom saying that she was taking Lilly to the vet, she had been throwing up blood all night and it seemed like she may have cancer. Although Lilly was originally my dog, my step dad kind of took over the owner label while I was in high school and when I moved away to college. I didn't think I would be THAT heartbroken over it, but I was. I texted and called my mom all that day while I was at work to find out any news I could as the vet ran tests on my little Lillers (nickname). I was just waiting for the call when she would tell me that they would have to put her down. My immediate response would be to walk in the door when I got home and burst into tears telling Paul, "Lilly is dead!" I obviously don't cope with death very well...

Luckily, Lilly didn't die that day. The vets did find a mass in her stomach which is unknown but they supplied her with various meeds to help boost her immunity. I am so happy she is going to stick around for a little while longer. I love this dog!

life {in the now}

Tomorrow will mark 2 full weeks as a college graduate. I've been probably boasting about this more than I should, but it's truly wonderful!! The whole "training for a half marathon" thing hasn't quite happened yet, but I'm working on it ;-). I've actually decided to take it one step at a time and train for a 10k first. What is even more great is that Paul finished his finals yesterday meaning we are school free for 4 whole months, (well Paul is). I'm school free for however long I want to be (muahaha...), grad school just isn't looking too appealing at this point. Who knows?

Well before I was officially post grad I wrote this blog post about what my plan were after school..you can read them here if you missed it. I tackled the question, "what are you doing with your life?" by addressing what my plans were exactly. Well, I guess I didn't succeed because I am getting the question non-stop lately!

"So Kelley what are you doing with all your time?"
"What do you do with your day?"
"So what are you going to do now that school is over." etc, etc...

lol to be honest, I kinda feel like people think I just sit on the couch watching re-runs of Dr. Phil and eating bon bons all day. For the record, I did watch Dr. Phil for the first time 3 weeks ago and I don't even know what bon bons are...Confession: I do watch re-runs of teen mom though..it's a great form of birth control and limits my baby fever (not that I have it or anything...). I'm actually quite productive, I would drive myself crazy if I wasn't. 618 is picking up now that wedding season is upon us and it's just going to get more and more crazy in the months to come. We are even contemplating hiring an intern to help us out! This is our schedule for the next 6 months.

May:: 2 weddings, 1 love story.
June:: 3 weddings, 1 love story, 1 promo
July:: 6 weddings, 1 love story
August:: 3 weddings
September:: 6 weddings
October:: 4 weddings.

Whew!! Basically my iMac and I will be spending a lot of time together this summer! So to answer the question, "what are you doing with your life?" I'm still babysitting 15 hours a week on the side and maintaining 618 when I'm not :) I recently was texting with a friend who asked, "So how does it feel to be in the real world?" I responded with, "it's great, except I don't feel like I'm in the real world because I love my job too much." She wrote back, "that's the way it should be!" and she is exactly right ;-)

blessed.

The goodness continues as the photo booth pictures from Cait's grad party have arrived! :) Looking through these makes me feel so blessed to have such great people in my life to call friends. I can truly say that at my 3 years at Vanguard I have found lifelong friends. It always amazes me how God places individuals in your life and sometimes also takes people out in His specific timing. Ok, trying not to get all mushy here ;-) hope these pictures make you chuckle (yes, I just said chuckle).

Also!! Fun news, Paul survived his finals week :) I'm excited to have a husband again. I have been sharing him with engineering and math textbook lately. Let summer begin!! 

It's been awhile!

So I have survived my first week as a college graduate. Rough life, I know. Needless to say post grad life is everything that I hoped it would be :) So much has happened in the past two weeks!

1. We celebrated Cait graduating!!

With friends...

....and there was cheesecake.

SCORE!

#2. The month of June has suddenly filled up with promo shoots (I always triple check that I don't accidentally mistype promo and type porno instead, that would be bad) and love stories :) Which is really exciting because 618 is going to become full-time for me!! God has blessed our business more than we could ever imagine. With 22 more weddings this year, we are stoked on life.

#3. We also just booked our first 2012 wedding at Strawberry Farms :) We are a fan.

#4. We leave for Portland in 3 weeks!! Besides shooting a rad wedding, we get to spend quality time with this lovely lady! 

p.s. if you haven't already...go see Bridesmaids. That's an order. ;-)

To my main ladies!

To my two wonderful mom's in my life.

1st my mom, a.k.a "Lady" which was her nickname during my high school years, which then became her nickname to all of my friends, which she is still sometimes called.

photo by Color Me Rad

She is pretty much the greatest lady I know!!

#2. My second mama, mama Gilster. She loves me like a daughter of her own and for that I'm forever blessed!

I thank these two women for all the love, support, and guidance they give me each day :)

Remember to thank your mama today!!!

read.

My current read at the moment::

First 5 hours as a college grad.

So we came, we walked, we conquered. The class of 2011 made it!!! Special shout out to all my fellow COMM majors who feared that Tom Carmody would never allow us to make it to this day, I'm so proud of you all! It was such a special thing to cheer you all on as you strutted (not walked) across that stage. We COMM majors strut because we wrote a 50 page paper and passed Media Crit! Holla!

For some reason I felt the need to be super productive after graduation. Yes, I was 4 hours fresh and ready to concur the world! So this was my agenda..

1. Meet family at The Cheesecake Factory and begin by stuffing my face with endless amounts of "brown bread" (you know what I'm talking about!) and white chocolate raspberry truffle cheesecake. Wow that's a mouthful, and it was. I was just about to make an innappriate joke, but realized i'm a college grad now so I should keep it classy (We'll see how long that lasts). 

2. Drive home rocking out to Rihanna's "Rude Boy" ...I'm off to a good start.

3. Go into Cheesecake food coma, which then resulted in a nap.

4. Woke up, wrote some thank you cards.

5. Uploaded graduation pictures onto Facebook, an obvious priority!

My first 5 hours as a college grad has been aw-some!

Ok, enough with the jokes. On a more serious note..I am so blessed to have such a wonderful family who always show me endless amount of love and support :) The best moment of the day was Paul finding me after the ceremony, giving me a huge hug, and saying "I'm proud of you." For those of you who know my husband, he is not a very serious guy. I would say about 80% of the things that come out of his mouth are jokes so to hear him genuinely say those 4 words to me was a big deal!

Another highlight of the day was receiving this hand written note from Paul's family. I think that we all can take a little bit of advice from these words, it said:

"Dear Kelley (college graduate),

We are so proud of you! You have set a big goal and achieved it. Your commitment, handwork, and perseverance have paid off. God has great plans for you and your future. Keep walking with Him and He will guide your steps. God will bless you and Paul as you live for Him.

The Gilster family is so fortunate to have you as our daughter and sister! We love you!"

My last day of school.

I cannot even begin to explain how much I have looked forward to this day, the last day of school ever. You know in grade school you have your last day of school which is usually filled with year book signings as you promise people that you will hang out with him then in it never happens. Instead of pretending people should just write, "well, see you in September!" Let's be real. Well, this last day of school was actually bittersweet. I remember thinking back when I was in middle school and high school, "I wonder what it will be like when I don't have school anymore?" I mean, it does consume roughly 16 years of your life, who doesn't wonder that?

I woke up and went to my computer, checked the usual sites (my 4 email accounts..don't judge, twitter..again don't judge, and Facebook). I blame my professors for making my last week of school completely anticlimactic (not really, I secretly love that I only had 1 final). Basically the only thing that was holding me back from graduation at this point was 1 powerpoint slide to complete/upload and pressing Control-P to print off my senior project, a full length screenplay. Boom, done. I could have been done early this week, probably even last week if I REALLY wanted to. But to be honest, I think I put it off for so long because I kind of wanted to hold on to the idea of being a student, I couldn't give it up.

Unlike my husband, I love school. I love learning, always have. Since grad school is not particularly on my life agenda at the moment (who knows..) my life as a student has pretty much reached the end. To be honest, I'm not really sure how I feel about it. Tomorrow is graduation practice and on Saturday @ 9:30am I will officially be a college grad. Life is so funny, and so fast. I can still remember my first day of high school getting picked up from my friend's mom and riding to school with my closest friends as we braved the high school world. Now, things are different as I leave the safety net of Vanguard and move on to another chapter of life.

Sorry for all the mush lol I'm probably going to cry at graduation. I'm such a baby these days!!

What are you doing with your life?

With graduation only 5 days away, I literally cannot believe that this is my last week of college. No more midterms, weekly projects hanging over my head, study sessions that end in the early morning, endless papers, and finals. Can I get an amen?!? One girl in my class asked me, "So your graduating soon, is it bittersweet?" I replied, "No it's just sweet."

The 3 years I've spent at Vanguard have been filled with great memories, wonderful friendships, and unforgettable experiences but honestly, I'm so ready to begin a new chapter. However, I only have myself to blame for getting burnt out. Ever since I graduated from high school in 2007 and started my life as a college undergrad I was go, go, go all the time everyday. When I got to Vanguard it got worse, I was taking 18 units, working no less than 30 hours per week, and riding my horse at night (that was actually fun). I was always on to the next thing. Here was a typical schedule my 1st year at Vanguard.

Class from 9:00am - 1:00pm
Work from 2pm-7pm
Barn from 7:30pm-9:30pm.

12 hour days, 5 days a week. But like I said, I only have myself to blame. The next year was very much the same (minus the horse). But the "go, go, go" me I had to fill up the loss time with another job. So my days turned to this.

1st job 9:00-12:00pm
rush home for lunch/maybe catch up on some homework
2nd job from 2pm - 5pm
class from 6pm-9pm.

Everyday. This year was the same routine except for minus the second job and add in an internship, oh and a new business. After 3 years of this, I'm tired. I can't believe I'm saying those two words because as my mother says I have the energy of 10 people. I could never say no when my bosses asked me to work extra hours, even if I knew I have 3 tests and a paper due that week. I envied the students who spent their afternoons studying at the beach, taking late night trips to Disneyland, and going to school events/games because they had nothing else to do. I always had something to do and I made sure it was that way. For 3 full years.

So as the my college career comes to an end I've been getting these questions a lot, "So what are you going to do with all your time?" "What are you going to do with your life?" This is my answer:

REST.

I'm going to:

-Train for a half marathon.

- Spend time in the sun.

- Actually spend time with my husband.

- Cook more.

- Vacation.

- Read my Bible more.

- Find my inner Martha Stewart

- Have an actual beach day.

- Go get a manicure/Pedicure

- Have time for a haircut for gosh sakes!

Okay, I know you're probably thinking, "wow this girl is such a bum!" :) I'm also going to devote more time to 618. I created 618studios in hopes that it would someday become my full time job. My goal is that in 2012 it will be. With a total of 27 weddings this year we are so blessed to work in such a creative industry and to work with people we love!! I only hope that 618's success continues to grow. So there it is, that's my life post grad.