Growing up is exxxxpensive

Wedding Countdown: 11 Days!!!



What is the point of flowers? Seriously. You walk into a florist shop looking for pricing quotes on the bare bones essentials for your wedding party members and ........it's the scariest thing in the world to see them pull out the heavy dust-covered books with OUTRAGEOUS prices in them!!! The way I have always looked at flowers is: "What is the point? You spend bundles of hard earned money and they die the next day!?! No thank you." I hate flowers! There was NO way that I was going to fork over the estimated $600 for something who's smell gives me a major headache and who's going to wilt! No way. So instead I turned to silk flowers. Less expensive BY FAR and they will last. I have found someone on-Island who can arrange them for me however I like. So 1 bridal bouquet, 6 bridesmaid bouquets, 1 grooms boutonniere, 5 groomsmen/Fathers' boutonnieres, 2 Mothers' corsages, a tossing bouquet, and a few arrangements will cost me less than half of the cost of real flowers.


As of my wedding day I will be getting my first ever french manicure and pedicure. That seems pointless too because Wesley and I will probably do something way-awesome like go fishing or play softball soon after we're married. I guess as long as I can try to keep 'em nice for photos.......


And hair!?! One word. Girly. I was looking online for some ideas and here's what I came up with:

Wesley tried on his tuxedo today. It looked so good on him! ....Yes mabey I did get some fog in my eyes...... I also gave him a haircut yesterday. He'll never have to pay for one again as long as he's with me. Lucky guy saves around $20 every month!

I really like this picture.

Look at his beautiful haircut.....stunning. I've got to admit,............ Wes lookes HOT in a tuxedo.............I'll keep him.

There are still so many details that we need to take care of before D-Day, however, we're pretty on top of it and not stressing out to badly. Most of the bridesmaid dresses are in, the rest are on the way. I've still got to finnish altering my own dress. Silk flowers have started arriving and as soon as they are all here they can be arranged. We have to think of awesome gifts for our bridesmaides and best men. I need to draw up decorating plans. The menu needs to be checked over (I still need to fix it) and finalized. And on and on and on.......

Fishing in Mermaid Lagoon

Every year my family (or members thereof ) takes a 1-3 day trip out to an extension of our Island called Pasagshack. Here is where we have participated in subsistence fishing for the past 7+ years. According to Alaska regulations each Alaska resident of one year or more can supply themselves with 25 salmon for that year. This does not include sportfishing such as trolling or bottom fishing. So really, you can catch 100's of fish in a year if you wanted to. Anyways, this year my Dad, Wes, and I were the chosen crew to make the journey.

My preparation began Monday night while my Dad was at work. I needed to get a lunch cooler made up, gear brought out and checked over, fillet knives sharpened, fuel put in the boat's tank, net coiled and stowed properly in the "cradle" then pushed up into the gully, anchor lines coiled, life jackets present, and on and on....... So anyways, not much sleep was achieved that night.

We left the house around 3 a.m. It was a pretty Quiet drive all the way out there (except for Wes' snoring). Launching the boat went very smoothly and fairly quietly. You have to be quiet so as not to wake the competition that's camping out on the beach. It was totally a piratical feeling....like you were a boarding party or something! We made it out to claim the #1 set net site and sat on that claim like a mother duck. As time passed more set-netters came and claimed the next consecutive "hot spots". While we were waiting we also got to enjoy watching a pod of whales feeding at the other end of the Bay.

6 a.m. was Go Time! My Dad maneuvered into shore and let me off to lodge the shore anchor into the sand, then I hopped back in and we pulled away from the surf and shore leaving lead and cork in our wake. Not a bad set, but not good in my opinion either. The next couple of hours were speckled with a fish or two here and there but NOTHING like what my Bristol Bay experience was like. That's OK, we didn't need 100's upon 100's of fish.

I must say it was fun to watch Wesley work his first fish out of the net, I think it was a good experience for him and I hope he had some fun.

Around 3 p.m. we decided to wrap it up and call it a day, we had only 28 fish at the time. My Dad and I dropped Wesley off at the beach and picked up the "cradle" (big tote for the net). Then we headed back to haul in the net. We ended up getting 13 more fish when we took up our net along with 8+ Dungeness Crab, 2 flounders, and a very interesting rock..........

Our days' work yielded 40 Red salmon and 1 Pink. Not to shabby. But really, the work was just getting started again. Now it's time to unpack and clean everything, not to mention fillet those fish! :) Aren't they beautiful!

I was pleased to find that my skills were in no way rusty when it came to that task. I was afraid that my Dad might tease me about that, but really.....my fillets were prettier......then again, that's just my opinion. Wes did and awesome job with cleanup too, he also managed to get some pictures:

This sockeye is a female, I'm pulling out 1 of the 2 egg sacks. The seagulls at the cleaning station really liked me for it, they like caviar too!