#1

This is exciting: TripAdvisor (an amazing travel info site -- I don't book anything without checking TripAdvisor first) has selected Seward, Alaska, as the #1 United States travel destination for 2010!

Seward is the closest city/town to our wedding and is a great little place to visit. In terms of activities, there's fishing, wildlife cruises, hiking to Exit Glacier, the SeaLifeCenter, dog sled rides, kayaking, photos ops and TONS more.

Lighter days ahead

Winter solstice was December 21st, which brought us our shortest amount of daylight for the year: 5 hours and 27 minutes. From here on out the days will get longer by about 2 minutes right now and 5 minutes at some point in the spring. Currently the sun rises at about 10:15 a.m. and sets around 3:45 p.m. People wonder how we deal with the dark days -- honestly, you just get used to it. And look forward to summer!

Our wedding is scheduled a few days after the summer solstice and we'll have oodles of daylight for all of you to enjoy: 19 hours and 20 minutes. Which is basically 24 hours of functional daylight -- the sun may set but there is enough light to see and do things by. Most towns have summer solstice celebrations, including Moose Pass, so if you're in town the weekend prior (June 19) be sure to check them out.

Weekend roundup

I can't belive I'm posting this photo, but Risha made me promise that I would. We spent about 90 minutes at a local bridal shop on Saturday and in that time period I was in and out of no less than 15 dresses - that has got to be a record or something.

The following dress is about 4 sizes to big for me and came with a set of detachable sleeves. Soooo not my style! It was also a big poofy ball gown, also not my style. Although I do love the look of a big bustled train.

Yeah, yikes...I know.

This next one was pretty and more streamlined, which is what I'm looking for, but too pageant-like. The beading and crystals were amazing.

The bridal shop discourages photos (they don't want you to take pictures and then have a seamstress recreate a dress) so we had to be pretty sly in the dressing room. We ended up finding a dress that is similar to the style I want and now feel pretty confident that the alterations to my mom's dress will work out for me. Yay!

On Friday, D and I attended his union holiday party at one of the local hotels. It was a good time -- the food was really yummy, but the prices at the bar were ridiculous. $8 for a little cocktail! Afterwards we headed up to the Crow's Nest, a restaurant and bar on the 20th floor. That place is very swank and I would definitely go again, if for nothing else than the views of Anchorage from the big windows.

In the lobby we found a gingerbread village -- created by the hotel pastry chefs. That's A LOT of gingerbread and icing.

Winter blues

Mother Nature has thrown up snow all over us. It just kept coming. The dog can barely get down from the back deck because he can't see where the snow-covered stairs begin and end. I went to girls' craft night at a friend's house on Wednesday and saw 2 cars being towed out from ditches during my 5-mile drive home. It's way slick and the other morning we drove through blizzard conditions to get to work.

Risha leaves tonight -- I think the pets are going to miss her.

Bridal bouquet

Aren't hydrangeas just one of the most lovely blooms? I can't bring myself to pay the outrageous costs associated with retail wedding flowers, so I tracked down a wholesale flower distributor here in town and am putting hydrangeas on my list. Hopefully I can make a bouquet like this one:

Colors will be different of course -- most likely white and green, or some blue in there -- but you get the general idea. I also love that hydrangeas are a hardy flower and they last a while.

Wedding mashup

I promised D that my hair would not see a major cut until after the wedding. Trims are acceptable. Hacking off 2-3 inches is not. The wedding day hairstyle I have in mind is long and flowy -- think loose curls, slightly pulled back. I'm thinking that I do want a veil, but haven't been able to pin down a style. Hopefully that decision will be easier after I decide on the final design for the wedding dress.

Since my sister is up visiting until Sunday, we both figured that this would be a good time for me to try on a few swanky wedding gowns. I have an appointment scheduled for this Saturday at one of Anchorage's few bridal salons. I'm still wanting to alter my mom's dress, but trying on other gowns will give me a better idea of what looks good on me. And let's be honest, I want to get girl-ified and PUT ON SOME PRETTY DRESSES!

Finding hair and make-up people to officially transform me into a beautiful and dewy bride has been difficult. I mention Moose Pass to wedding vendors and they act like I'm getting married at the top of Denali. Our venue is only 90 minutes from Anchorage, people! But my sister has been working overtime for me and is enlisting some of her professional friends to help out. One works for Bobbi Brown cosmetics and we're reserving her for make-up services. I'm hoping to convince my regular stylist to take June 26th off and be my hair guru for the day.

Lately I've become obsessed with finding the perfect pair of apple green heels to wear at the wedding, like so:

I want that surprise punch of color when someone gets a peek at my shoes!

Two Sisters recipes

One of my all-time favorite bakeries EVER is located in Homer, Alaska -- Two Sisters. They serve the most delicious breads and pastries, not to mention the fantastic soups and sandwiches. Seriously, I'm getting hungry right now just thinking about the food stuffs. What makes this place even more fabulous is the bakery's location out near Bishop's Beach in Homer. Just a really lovely setting, looking out over Kachemak Bay.

I check the Two Sisters site every once in a while and on my last visit, found out about their new recipe blog. Um, YUM! I love that the bakery buys local organic produce and products. Can't wait to try out some of the recipes -- the roasted chicken looks delish. I should probably start purchasing free-range organic chickens but like the Two Sisters blog mentions, they are way expensive. Chicken is pretty much the only thing we don't buy organic so I feel like we're doing pretty well on that front.

Save-the-Dates!

About half of the wedding save-the-date reminders went out yesterday morning. I'm working on getting them all out in batches! Save-the-dates are most often less traditional than a formal wedding invitation, so I designed a whimsical postcard with our colors in mind. The polar bear postcard stamp seems very apt (this being an Alaska wedding and all...)

Here's a sneak peak for my blog readers - yours will be arriving in the post shortly (barring any unforseen roadblocks and Christmas delays):

**********************************************

Now that these are completed I can really begin thinking about our wedding invitations. I ordered lovely envelopes and enclosures from Paper Source (a store I'd LOVE to spend a few hours in) and am excited about starting the designing process.

On a related note, only 6 more months with my current last name. I'm planning on dropping my middle name (which I never really liked anyway) to become Audry Whalen Patrick, instead of Audry Sumie Whalen.

Facebook & Craigslist postings

Oh my, some people are not so savvy with the Facebook skills! I got these from HuffPo.

(click to enlarge)

**************

**************

**************

**************

**************

**************

**************

These are pretty funny too: Crazy Craigslist Ads

(click to enlarge)

**************

**************

**************

**************

**************

**************

**************

**************

**************

**************

Wedding ideas

I'm still collecting bits and pieces of wedding fluff, and in the meantime my virtual photo file is getting bigger and bigger. I can't believe we're almost 6 months out until the big day!!!

Ice ice baby

For the past few days we've been contending with a really persistent ice fog. The temperatures are hovering in the mid-teens during the day, but the fog gets into your bones and makes the weather feel so much colder. And more miserable. The streets are sporting a slickery sheen of ice as well.

These photos were taken from my office window.

Almost looks like a horror movie out there! Just imagine a couple zombies or ghosts walking out of that dense fog.

Gift idea

If you love Marimekko stuff as much as I do, scoot on over to Avon and grab yourself a Crusade Tote:

The bags are only $10 each and the net profits go towards breast cancer. I bought two and ended up giving one away during a Chinese (or white elephant) gift exchange. The tote is way super cute and I've already had strangers ask me where I got it. Mostly I use it tote paperwork or my lunch from work to home, and it's holding up pretty well.

Monday update

Sorry about the lack of posts. I feel like Christmas has thrown up all over me at work. Holiday cards, parties, 565 gift baskets, and a Santa visit. The downside of planning all this stuff as part of my job is I get home and am so over anything Christmas. And that means I'm not doing holiday cards for me and D this year. Maybe I'll design something, post it on my blog and call it good.

My sister arrives in Anchorage on Friday for an annual delivery job. She makes a nice chunk of change for 4 days of work, and then gets to vist with me and her friends during the rest of the trip. Now I need to clear out the guest bedroom for her -- currently there are quite a few boxes of wedding items taking up precious floor space in that room.

And for your viewing pleasure, here is a yearling moose that jumped into our backyard yesterday. It got a couple good bites of one of our bushes before D and Drift scared it off.

Pack on the pounds

This Saturday I am attending a cookie exchange, hosted by a good friend from work. I usually don't participate in cookie exchanges because invariably the organizer will ask everyone to bring something like 12 dozen cookies and I don't have the force of will or kitchen space to create that many individual baked goods. Plus who needs that many cookies at home anyway? I can get fat and blobby over the holidays all by myself, no assistance from cookies needed.

My friend says I only need to make 2 dozen which is totally doable, so I signed up. Told her I'd be bringing my new favorite cookies, the chocolate dipped macaroons. I also volunteered to make my hot artichoke and spinach dip -- and THAT always makes me some new friends! Now, I am going to share this recipe with you all because I am infused with the spirit of holiday giving:

Audry's Artichoke & Spinach Dip

14 oz. (1 can) artichoke hearts, drained & chopped
1 cup fresh spinach, chopped
8 oz. package cream cheese, softened at room temp
1/4 cup mayo (NOT miracle whip)
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 clove minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon basil
1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
mozzarella cheese, grated
french bread or crackers

Mix together cream cheese, mayo, parmesan cheese, garlic, basil and garlic salt. Add artichoke hearts and spinach, and mix until well blended. Store together until ready to use. Spray pan with PAM, pour in dip and top with mozzarella cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until top is browned. Serve with french bread or crackers.

This stuff is popular and we rarely ever have leftovers (once I actually saw someone clean the pan with her finger and LICK IT, so I'm confident that it's the bomb diggity) but you can just pop any extra in the fridge and then reheat in the microwave.

Food coma

We had an amazing weekend in terms of food -- hope you all did too! The Thanksgiving meal was very tasty and we're still working on polishing off the turkey. The smallest one I could find was about 13.5 pounds so we were going to have leftovers no matter what. I estimated about 3.5 to 4 hours to cook, and even now I am not sure what happened but that turkey was 100% done at the 2 hour mark.Which is fine but then I was behind on making all of the other dishes! We made it work, but did have to eat at 1:30 p.m.

Last week, D stopped by New Sagaya Market and picked up a couple pounds of fresh Alaska king crab. On Friday I boiled the legs for under 10 minutes in some salty water with a bit of lemon juice and they were perfect with a little melted butter. Nothing else needed and it was SO GOOD.