Not Another LA Blonde

Tag: family

5 Things I Learned in 2017
Y’all can we just take a second and let it sink in that it is actually 2018 already. Personally, I feel like my whole month is already booked. I’m busy every weekend and I don’t see any signs of it slowing down! For me, January is filled with basketball games that my girls have to cheer at and competitions pretty much every Saturday and then wedding things every other day of the week.

With all that being said, there are a few things that I learned in 2017:
1. Don’t let the small stuff bother you: In my opinion this is huge. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve had to stop and think about what is worth getting into an argument about. I’ve learned that not everything is worth getting mad about and that some things are just out of your control no matter how hard you try to keep it in your control. This is a constant struggle for me because I let everything get to me ALL the time.
2. Take time for you: Be a little selfish. You only have one life to live, so say no sometimes. Take the time you need to become the best version of yourself.
3. Don’t tell your secrets to everyone: Ah this is another huge one! I’ve learned the hard way that you can’t trust everyone even if they seem like you can. Find your trusted friend, coworker, family member or whatever and hang on tight to them. Not everyone needs to know everything about your life. There are people out there who would love to know every little dirty secret, but they don’t have your best interest at heart.
4. It’s ok to cry: I’m a huge crier ALL THE TIME!! My parents and brothers actually use the phrase “When is she not crying?” when describing me. 2017 brought A LOT of tears. Wedding planning is hard y’all and the tears come easily.
5. Let go: let go of the need to control everything. Let go of the self doubt. Let go of any negativity. Let go of anyone holding you back. Just let go of it all. Learn to delegate. Know that you can’t take on the whole world all by yourself. There are people who want to help you.
2017 was quite a year. I had plenty of self doubt, there were tears (more than I’d like to admit), there were days that I just wanted to run away from everything and say see ya later. I also learned quite a bit about people this past year. Who knew that planning a wedding would be so stressful when people tell you that it’s the best time of your life? I see other people being successful and I wonder when it will be my turn or if my blog will ever be more than just a hobby?

BUT don’t get me wrong, 2017 was filled with soooo many great things and I’ve been blessed to live the life that I have (you can read my 2017 post here), but it doesn’t mean every day was easy. Things take time and I want y’all to remember the 5 things I talked about above and learn with me. I want to keep growing to become the best version of myself.

I can’t wait to get further into 2018 and to see what not only the year has in store for me, but what God has in store for me and my soon-to-be husband AND I can’t wait to share it all here with you!

XOXO
January 10, 2018
Goodbye 2017…

Happy New Year’s Eve y’all! Can you believe that 2018 is only a few hours away! At the end of every year I feel like each of us takes a moment to sit and reflect on the highs and lows of the past year. So as I sit here (not getting ready to leave, aka late as always) and reflect on my past year, I can’t help but think about how there were so many good things to look back on from this past year, but there are so many things to look forward to for 2018.

Let’s recap 2017:

2017 was a BIG planning year for Rob and I. We booked and planned most of our wedding and surprisingly didn’t get into any big arguments about details or anything! Rob got a huge promotion at work which is a great thing for the two of us! AND I also got a little more comfortable with blogging and posting on social media more. I learned how important it is to be engaging with my readers and look forward to learning a lot more this next year.

JANUARY:

I kicked off the new year with a trip to New York with one of my bffs. I absolutely love visiting New York and you can read all about this trip here.

FEBRUARY:

We picked out and reserved our wedding venue!

We also celebrated Valentine’s Day at Skyspace in LA.

MARCH:

We kicked the month off by celebrating Rob’s 27th birthday

And took our engagement photos!

APRIL:

This month always signifies the start of BASEBALL season, so we went to OPENING DAY for the Angels!

We ended the month with our annual trip to STAGECOACH! This year

JUNE:

I bought myself a “happy one year until the wedding” gift and got a new car. I paid for it entirely on my own with just a little bit of negotiating help from Rob.

JULY:

I found my dream wedding dress! i can’t wait to show y’all what it looks like after the big day, but if you’re really curious, you can read all about my experience here.

I also celebrated my 25th birthday in Palm Springs!

AUGUST:

We kicked off the wedding festivities with an Engagement Party!

SEPTEMBER:

We had our official food tasting at our wedding venue (I promise to post about this in the new year!).

NOVEMBER:

With Rob’s promotion at work, came a business trip to LONDON

and then we took a little detour to PARIS before coming home (I will def be posting about these two amazing trips within the first week of the new year).

So as you can see from above, 2017 was quite the year for us. There were so many good things to happen, I would say, I don’t know how 2018 can top it, but I have a good idea of how it will be the best year yet!

To start, 2018 will be a year of big change! I’m hoping to grow my blogging business and become more successful with it. I’m looking to rebrand a little bit and makes a few changes while still keeping true to who I am.

Another big thing will be finding a place for us to live. Since housing in Los Angeles is pretty pricey right now, we’ll be looking at places that we can rent and bring our little pup with us. I can’t wait to find that new home for us and start decorating and putting our own style into it. We’ll be starting from complete scratch, so it’s going to be an expensive start for us, but so worth it in the end.

And the final thing that is most important to me is my wedding in June! I will finally be marrying the man of my dreams and I can not wait to become a wife to this amazing man.

I can already see that 2018 will truly be my year to shine and I can’t wait to grow and share it all with y’all! Thank you for your continued support of me and this crazy life I live!

XOXO

December 31, 2017
The Engagement Party

Happy Monday y’all!! I know that last week I only posted one time but like I told y’all, I’ve been super busy these last couple of weeks. Here I am to tell you what I’ve been up to…the Fiancé and I finally celebrated our engagement with our families this past Saturday. It was a TON of work but the final outcome was everything I hoped it would be.

Ok, so for starters, we’ve been planning this party since about May. It was supposed to be in July, but my future in-laws house wouldn’t be done with their remodel by the beginning of July so we pushed it back to the beginning of August instead. The remodel at the house should have been done around mid-July, but as of Monday of last week, it still wasn’t finished (eek, talk about stressful!). So we were about a week out and the remodel seemed to be never-ending and I honestly didn’t think it would be done in time. I think magic was made because by Friday, the bathroom and living room were about 95% done and the backyard had grass and was landscaped making the remodel pretty much done.

Friday morning my mom and I went to DTLA so that I could pick up the flowers I needed to make all the centerpieces. As soon as we got to my house, I finished the welcome sign that would be hung for people to see as they walked in and then got to work on cutting and arranging flowers. Once we were done with those, we headed over to the fiancé’s house to start setting up (there were still tons of workers there so not much got done). We all worked really hard on Friday to get as much stuff set up as possible.

Saturday morning rolls around and we head back over to the house to finish setting up all the details. Let me tell you, it was not smooth sailing, there were lots of sweat, tears and threatening to cancel the party (what are y’alls thoughts on kids at an engagement party?) Anyway, we got it all resolved and ended up with 100 people over at my future in-laws house for the party. I made most of the decorations used at the party and my parents helped me with pretty much anything I needed. My future husband’s parents also helped us out a lot too. Even though all of our bridal party couldn’t be there, we had such a great time with everyone who was able to make it. I can’t thank everyone who helped out enough for being there for us even when I was being such a pain!

Here are some pictures of the decorations I made for the party:

Here are some shots of us, the bridal party and our parents:

Sunday afternoon the fiancé and I opened our gifts and were pleasantly surprised at how generous people were (any money we got is going straight into the wedding fund account because every little bit helps)! That’s all for my fun-filled weekend. I hope y’all went and did something fun and didn’t work too hard!

XOXO

August 7, 2017