Finally!

I have been keeping my hair long for most of my life. When we got engaged, I told Max I would grow it out as long as it would go until after the wedding and then I would chop it off. Well I finally got to cut it all off and I love it!
















It now takes me less then ten minutes to do my hair from out of the shower to ready to roll :) It used to take me over then minutes just to blow dry it!

Wisconsin Reception After Party

I had my wedding reception on December 13 at Faith Community Church. It turned out really well, I think. They decorations that my family and I worked so hard to put together turned out beautiful (did anyone get a picture of the centerpieces? I wasn't able to take any pics myself since I was talking to everyone but I would love a pic!) Dinner was delicious, complements of Max's stepmom Laurie. She is an EXCELLENT cook. I really enjoyed seeing everyone and spending time. I was so surprised at the turn out! Max and I know a LOT of people!

After the church reception and the takedown of the decorations, a medium sized group of us went to City Limits for a little drinking and celebrating. It was a lot of fun!

Here I am with my Aunt Darcy on the left and my Aunt Tonya on the right. Both were incredibly helpful with my reception. Thank you so much guys!
My sister and I... usually Caitlin is the one looking weird but we switched it around I guess!
This is Ashmonkey and her boyfriend Nate. I met Ashley in college and became fast friends! She is hilarious!
This is another college friend of mine, Sarah. She came down to the wedding in St. Croix and did the photography for the wedding! She's super good at what she does I'll tell you that right now!
A group of us... we were getting so camera happy! Actually anything dealing with the wedding had a million funny face photos. We are a crazy bunch my friends, family and I!
John and Kristi.. I haven't spent a lot of time with them since I was a little, little girl! Thanks so much for coming out guys! It was like a blast from the past seeing you and mom hanging out!
My momma and her boyfriend Brian. Love you Mom!
My brother Nathaniel and I.
Caitlin with her bridesmaid gift... a personalized harmonica! For those of you who don't know Caitlin, she tends to whip out her harmonica in the oddest moments but someone had just stolen her last one so she was quite happy about it!
My husband and I. This is kind of a weird photo of us but oh well.
All of my siblings minus Ame who obviously couldn't come to the bar with us. From the left we have Nathaniel, myself, TJ and Caitlin.

Caribean Part Two

So, finally I am blogging. The title of my blog is part 2 because part 1 is still on JW computer from when I had to unload my card. It was too full for any other photos. So here is a slight photo slideshow from my vacation... I can't put all the pictures on here, that would be crazy!

This is the view from the pool area to the left...

This is the view from the pool area to the right...

Max and I after enjoying a small dip in the ocean. Actually he was snorkeling and I was walking around the waters edge. This was when both of us got stung by sea urchins... he got them in his hand when he fell over trying to get up with this snorkel fins on and I got them in my feet from wandering around. They hurt and are very hard to get out of your skin!

Max and I went into town with Dad, Cathy, Ame and Sarah to get some souvenirs and to look around.

I thought this was kinda funny because it's like those corona commercials or whatever but if you look closely at the picture it has a sign saying you can rent the chairs for 5 bucks. Typical.

Dad and Cathy. We ferried across to another small island where a resort was having a beach BBQ. They also offered some entertainment along with it. They had a dressed up guy on stilts dancing around (this was more for the kids I think) and then they had a fire-eating/glass walking guy that was actually really cool! Some of the things he was doing made me cringe!

Here he is stomping on his glass shards but he lit them on fire too... crazy guy. It was pretty funny when he would reset up him little blanket... he would have to bend over and pick out a giant piece of glass out of his foot like it was a tiny little sliver or something!

A multi talented fire eater/ glass walker... he also did the limbo.

This was our last day... Max and I went walking along the beach to enjoy our last stroll :(

These little guys were around everywhere! Not as little as this guy but small.

Our fancy upgraded room they gave us since we were the wedding couple ;) The tub was a whirlpool tub too... very nice.

Waiting for our cab to come bring us to the airport.

This funny guy was the main cab driver. He pretty much drove most people around. Day or night you could call Houston up and he would come for you. We left kinda early for the airport so Houston took the long way and gave us a tour of the island.

This was our little nine seater island hopper that brought us to the island and back to Puerto Rico. Max's mom was seriously freaked out by these little planes and called them flying Taurus's for how small they are.

The ocean from out the plan window.

This was our view out of the plane from Puerto Rico to Charlotte, NC. The sun was setting and it was so pretty the way it looked on the clouds.

HOLLA

Shout out to my work buddies! I will miss you but not as much as you will miss me I bet!

Coletters... I hope you wear some chaps to my reception! :)

Golly Jolly Molly... I can't wait to give you a big ole hug and squeeze you so tight you might get a temporary buttcrack!

Nicoli Garden... You just remember that chat that we had about being mean... tsk tsk! Make sure someone scrunches your hair everyday so you don't forget me!

ErinAnn... I better be getting an email everyday from you ;)

(all inside jokes... sorry to the people who are on the outside)

The time has come

I wrote a long blog about all the things going on in life, about how stressed I am, about how excited I am but I am in such a weird state of mind that I was rambling and nothing made sense. So I am leaving you all with a small little something.

I am getting married in 4 days :)
I am leaving at 330am to go the airport to fly to St. Croix Virgin Islands.
I finally get to say the vows that we wrote together to Max.
I will be an Arco very soon.
I am very excited for the reception and to see how all the hard work we did to put it together turns out.
I am going on vacation with 24 people that I love very much that are so wonderful that they spent the money to come to our wedding that is so far away.
I get to get out of this cold, cold, cold weather to enjoy 80 degree sunshine:)

Another thing, after things calm down a bit I will for sure be blogging a bit more :) I will put up pics of the vacation when I get home and Sarah will put up the wedding pics very quickly would be my guess for everyone to see.

Next time I write I will be Jessie Arco!

Tick Tock

Eleven days.
Two hundred and eighty seven hours.
Seventeen thousand two hundred and fifty six minutes.

This is why I haven't been able to blog much lately... too much to do!

Baby it's cold outside

I am sitting here at work, like usual, going about my day of helping the grateful customers of Hudson while researching wedding stuff on the Internet and I happened to look up and see the snowflakes. The good kind with the big ole' fluffy balls of pretty falling down and melting right away. These types of scenes bring about two thought in my head.

Number One: I love the way Wisconsin looks when covered by these pretty snowflakes. I always want to break out my camera and take photos of the pretty landscape and the trees dripping with the fluffy white. It seems all the really good snowfalls happen really late at night or really early in the morning so I can't get to my camera before it melts because as most of us now... I am NO morning person.

Number two: I dislike the cold. I dislike it so much I would happily pack up our house and move a couple states down to experience a less frigid winter but my other half has a problem with the warm seasons so here we stay. I don't like the bills in the winter when the propane guy comes and fills up our tank, I don't like how we keep the heat at 62 and I think that this is WARM. Poor Luca freezes his butt off in our house, I had to get him a little sweater to wear. I don't like how in the morning I have to go and start my car early so that the frost wears off the windshield because as I said before I am NOT a morning person and those couple precious minutes it takes to get outside and back really causes havoc on my morning.

It may seem like I am complaining but it just happens that my dislikes take over my likes of the cold and winter. I was thinking about this because this morning was the first time of the winter that I did have to go start my car early. It also reminded me that I need to get a long leash line to hook Luca up to in the mornings because it is too cold for me to go chasing after him anymore. Doggone dog takes forever to go the bathroom so I think I will just hook him up the clothesline and he can take his doggone time. :) Clydey is wonderful about running outside, getting down to business and running as fast as he can to the front door to be let in. In taking in my dogs personalities, they are completely opposite and Clyde acts like a small dog who needs to be cuddled and babied while Luca acts like a big dog who needs no one and can take anything on especially the cold. Too bad I couldn't be more like Luca!

f.i.n.a.l.l.y.

One small step for weddingkind, one large step for... me. Whatever, you get the point. After weeks of searching at work I have finally picked out my bridesmaid gifts. Now, this may not seem like a very big part of the wedding but I wanted to be sure I got my girls something they would use again and that would show how much I like them ;) This took quite a while for some reason, probably because all my girls have such different personalities. I started thinking of the whole matching gift thing but that just didn't work. So over the course of time, I found each of their gifts individually which stinks shipping wise since they are all coming from different places but oh well. I hope you like them girls! I put a lot of time and effort into these! Love you lots!

Now, on to the other parts of the wedding I need to get to. Its 3 1/2 weeks away!

back from the dead

Holy moses, it has been quite a while. You know how I know that? Erin at work has been on my case for a week now about not having anything for her to read. Also, because since I've had so much going on, I've been putting off blogging about it since there is so much. I am at work now, so I won't be able to put up the accompying photos but I will... evenutally :)

The main focus in my life right now is the wedding. It is coming up very quickly and those little details are needing to be tended too. I hate little details, I immensley dislike planning things especially big events it seems. Max and I are more of a "go with the flow" type of people and it seems to work with us. I guess weddings and receptions are just not the "go with the flow" type of deals. Sigh.

If we go back a couple of weeks wedding wise, we got the invitations made and out. I have been receiving all of the reply cards back which is very fun... I love getting the mail knowing there is fun stuff in there and not just bills and junk! For those of you who have not sent it back yet... GET ON IT!! haha, I didn't spent 27 cents on that sucker to not have some fun in my mailbox. Plus I have a very intricate system for entering who is coming and how many. Max's stepmom Laurie is cooking for the reception and she is a WONDERFUL cook. I'm sure she would like to know how many are coming to the most accurate count possible.

My bridesmaids and I also made our shirts for the bachelorette party. SUPER CUTE and way cheaper then buying those premade shirts that say bride/bridesmaid/maid of honor. Plus this way we were each able to put our own personal touches on the shirts that reflect our style. Caitlin couldn't come tho to make her shirt... I made it for her and then texted her a pic of it before I glued anything that way she could decide if she liked it or not. They are so very beautiful and we will finally be able to wear them next weekend! I'm very excited about my bach party! It will be so much fun hanging out with the girls all day, dressing up for dinner and then of course, going out afterwards ;) My girls and I know how to party I'll tell you when we actually get out of our houses and go out. We have only had one "girls night" before and if that was any indication on how the night will go with many more girls, we will DEFINETLY have a great time.

I had my first wedding shower on the 26th with Max's family and with my moms side. It turned out so nice! It was a big turnout... or so I thought anyway. We had about 30 girls there and everyone was very good about chatting with everyone and not sticking in little groups. We had the shower at Angels house because it's ginormous and because it is so purty! They had it decorated in an island theme and had some good grub. Max and I made out with some great gifts... mom had on the invitation that it was a kitchen shower so all the gifts were related to the kitchen. One of my favorite presents was our new silverware... it's so pretty to eat off of! Don't get me wrong, I love everything. Max is having lots of fun making food on our new goodies. We got a magic bullet, a new griddle, a george forman, baking stuff, lots of utensils, glass bowls, decorative holders for stuff, a fancy silverware holder, and ect. See, lots of good stuff. My family and my new family is very good to me. My friends too :)

Lets see, what else am I missing... dryer still isn't working after about 3 months. It's not technically the dryer which we didn't find out until AFTER we bought another set but its the electric in the basement. They are attempting to fix it today. The boys are putting in new wiring and putting in a circuit box since everything was run off fuses before. Hopefully this works because I'm pretty sure that people are sick of us bringing over wet laundry to get dried. I hope it gets fixed also because since the electric is totally down now, the sewer pump is currently not working. There hasn't been any overflow of nasty stuff but it would probably come pretty soon if something doesn't get done.

Otherwise things are fine. Puppies are good other then their little issues. Clyde still jumps on people which we are going to try to fix by borrowing a friends shock collar. Now people, I don't like the idea of a shock collar but we have tried everything else with this dog and unless you want to get mauled everytime you walk in our door by an overfriendly 75 pound dog that also likes to love clamp on your arm, the shock collar is necessary. Luca is still messing in the house. I love that dog very much but sometimes I would like to rip off his little head! He knows to go potty outside, he does. He was completely potty trained until Max went back to work. Then he started pooping in the house and then once we got him fixed, he started peeing in the house too. We have started giving him "time outs" when he makes a mess. He goes in a tiny little box in our closed off office where he can hear whats going on but he gets no part of it. Any suggestions on this particular problem?

Max is good, he is still searching for a job so if anyone knows of anything in the accounting business, he has an associates in accounting and is very willing to do pretty much anything. I am still at the bank, enjoying every second of it... (saying this sarcastically of course) I do work with really cool people tho, they have fastly become good friends. They won all the prizes at my shower for the games related to who knows me the best.

That's all for now folks... work is getting busy! I'll try to put the pics up tomorrow after my second shower at Grandmas house!

creepy

I just watched a scary movie... something I RARELY do. Now I am at home alone. Smart one Jessie. How about you NOT do that again?

Wedding Registry

As you all know, or maybe don't know... Max and I are procrastinators. I am much more of a procrastinator then Max but we both have it in us. Wedding wise, we've kind of waited until the last minute to do things. We shouldn't have, but we did. We didn't however, put off our wedding registry. We went a couple months ago and registered at Target and Bed, Bath and Beyond (which was a terrible experience I might add. Our "helper" was a big wench *sorry about the language*). We actually had to back to Target again and add things to our registry because we didn't think we had enough.

So now, we have the wedding invitations out (or most of them anyway) and people are starting to comment on our registry. Now that I go and look at it, we really don't have a lot of stuff on there compared to the amount of people invited. The problem with this though, is that Max and I had a REALLY hard time just coming up with what we have on there. I think we are too practical. We know that we don't have a lot of space in our house, we know that since we've lived together for about 3 years now that we have a lot of basics that other couples normally wouldn't have, and we also know that we are pretty down to earth people and just don't need a lot of stuff.

While this is a good quality about is I think, it doesn't provide a way for our guests to have options while purchasing gifts (which I appreciate so much! A PRE-thank you!) and I don't want there to be issues or anything. I feel weird enough that people are buying us gifts and talking to me about it. I kind of looked up online what people usually register for and some of it just doesn't fit Max and I. Does anyone have any helpful suggestions on what things we could get on that registry that would bulk up our list a little bit while being something useful that could have forgotten about? I would be incredibly grateful for any help. Apparently Max and I have problems with this.

On that same note, can anyone think of something wedding planning related that I wouldn't think of? Haha, I just want all my bases covered and no surprises later.

COLDPLAY

One month from today and I will be going to a COLDPLAY concert! For those of you who don't know, I've been obsessed with COLDPLAY for years and have been waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting (ok, you get the picture) for them to come to Minneapolis so I can see them and finally they are! Technically their concert was scheduled for June 6th or something like that and then they rescheduled for Nov. 14. First of all, that is like 6 MONTHS! You can't just reschedule a concert like that but since they are COLDPLAY I guess this is allowed. Second, my coworkers had to hear about it for 6 months that I was going to COLDPLAY... they will be quite happy once I go and am done with it. It is sort of a running joke at work with us, that and the fact that I'm balancing my drawer 3 or 4 times a day. Inside joke.
There are just so many things going on in my life in the next 2 months that they should fly by. I feel excited but also sort of scared... maybe freaked out. Beats me.

No TV= Wasted Evening

5pm- Max leaves for poker
5-530pm- sat on my butt... on the computer
530ishpm- JW came over, took the dogs for a nice long W.A.L.K (a W to my dogs)
615ish- sat on my butt... on the computer
645ish- was so bored decided to take a drive during which I called a bunch of people
7pm-got a hold of Caitlin and talked to her for about 45 min... partly while still on a drive
745pm- sat on my butt... on the computer
830pm- Josh called... talked to him for about a half an hour about random things
910pm (now)- decided it's not too early anymore to go to bed.

Ten Things

Ten things to know about... Jessie Jewell (aka Jewells)

1) I extremely dislike cooking, and doing the dishes. Pretty much anything kitchen. That's Max's domain. He's very excited about our registry :)
2)I HATE cherries. No if ands or buts.
3)Pulling on a new pair of socks is one of my favorite things
4)I love to play with my camera... I'm quite grumpy today because I can't find ONE person to let me take their pictures with this beautiful weather.
5)I have a Yorkie who refuses to be potty trained. Any suggestions with this?
6)I am a procrastinator to the very core... example: with 2 months to go until my wedding, Max and I are finally starting to really plan it :P
7)I LOVE to read! I have 2 completely packed bookshelves and books in bags on the sides of them. My favorite book of all time is Fortunes Rocks by Anita Shreve. In fact, I have almost every single one of her books.
8)My favorite candle smell is Carmel Pear. You can get this smelling candle at Kohl's for a pretty decent price.
9)My fiancee is a Texas Hold'Em addict. He would play it all the time if I would let him and in fact, that is our only far shot at winning lots of money as opposed to playing the lottery. Don't worry, I keep him in check.
10)My mom is one of my favorite people :) Love you mom!

YOUR TURN!
-JW
-Rachel
-Sarah
-Erin

FYI

Invitations take a lot longer to make then previously thought... remember this for next time.

Partner in Crime

When I first started college at DCTC, I was a nervous wreck. While I am outgoing around my friends, alone, I am very, very shy until I get comfortable so starting a college without anyone I knew was a very scary thing for me. Of course I got over it and my first semester when by just fine with unexciting generals other then my basic Photoshop class. During my second semester, I finally got to be in a photo class and that's where I started hanging out with Sarah. She is also very shy but a great, great photographer. She is my partner and crime and unfortunately, my partner in crime lives like an hour away :( I rarely get to see her with our busy lives and I don't like it. We sometimes get together to have a "photo weekend" which consists of us stealing my friends to be our models, shooting for hours and then staying up super late (haha, 11pm for me, 4am for her) to edit the photos. Every time I see her I try to convince her to move up here but it doesn't seem to be working. Boo... Boo. Boo. Boo. The point is that I don't like her living so far away.

I miss you Sarah! You need to come live in Wisconsin... it's great over here! We have higher gas prices and we tax on clothes... what could be better!

Wedding Invitations

Today Angel, Max and I (with Audrey of course) went into Woodbury to get the stuff to make our wedding invitations. After searching the internet for a "Jessie" sufficient amount of time and finding NOTHING I like for my budget and the very few things I did like that was OVER my budget, I called upon Max's trustee older sister to see if she would be interested in making the invitations together. She is quite a scrapbooker and has many, many, many little tools and gadgets and always makes the cutest little cards herself so I thought that she could put together something quite nice for the invitations.
We started at Achievers to get some ideas. I had no idea what they should look like or how to piece together something like this so I told Angel she had full rein on what they would overall look like. Holy Moses, I had no idea all the stuff that you can do! We sat in Achievers forever it seemed looking at stuff.
I am a fussy person anyway when it comes to the little details and so it took quite a while to get a general idea of the invitation and then to get the details. A little card stock here, a little stampage there, some jewels thrown in here, oh how about some ribbon? Agggg, not my cup of tea.
To make a long story short, 5 stops, 5 bags, 4 hours and $150 dollars later, we have everything we need to make the invitations for the wedding reception. :) They should be pretty easy to put together which we are doing this weekend with the trusty help of two of my bridesmaids ( Caitlin! I wish you could come and help us and that you were over here and not all the way over in Milwaukee!) we should get the invites done and sent out on Monday! So watch your mailbox for some cuteness and think about all the time it took me to just pick out the stuff! Not even put it together! All I have to say is SOMEONE BETTER remember these invitations in 5 years! haha, I'm just kidding.

Blogless

Whats the word to describe having a very, very, very busy life but having nothing to blog about? Oh yeah, I'm there.

Countdown

My wedding is 80 days away... oh my gosh!

Puppies to dogs to nasty

My beautiful little babies are all grown up now. *Sniff sniff* They are so grown up now that they get into nasty things. These nasty things tend to have other nasty things on them and then my dogs think it's cool to get the little nasty things that other nasty things leave behind. I can't even say it.... nope. It's like my dirty little secret, my little secret that my beautiful little babies forced on me and their dad. Ok, I think I can get it out, this nasty little detail I'm leaving out, the nasty little detail that's leaving everyone wondering what the devil I'm talking about.

My dogs.... have fleas.

OOOhhhh, who knew a sentence could be so embarrassing! Oh my gosh. Nasty nasty nasty! You can't even fathom how disgusted I am by that. Why oh why couldn't we have a Fleet Farm in my tiny town so I could run right over there and get some flea shampoo, flea powder, Frontline and about everything with FLEA REMOVAL written all over it. Nasty, nasty, nasty.

I thought I was done with nasty blood sucking vermin for the year... I guess not.

Senior Photos

It's about that time again, that time where all photographers get to photograph the smiley, happy faces of new seniors. Seniors who are so excited for their last year of high school, these photo sessions being one of the first steps toward being done. I remember mine quite well. I looked like a little kid in mine. I think after I graduated high school, I really became more comfortable with myself and therefore grew into myself more.
Tiffani has been my only senior thus far but hopefully I can get a couple more. I really like taking senior photos.
A. They are very easy photos to take and you can generally get the personality of the senior pretty well involved in the photos.
B. You have so many options for backgrounds. Inside, outside, formal, informal, portrait, artistic, etc...
and C. well, I just like them, OK!
Tiffani was very fun to work with. She was not shy and was very good about putting in her input. Her mom and her brother came along with her and was helping to get a "natural" smile. I just LOVE red hair. I love how it pops out in photos and in real life. Here are some of my favorites.