Wedding Recap – Festivities

Brandon and I got married on Sunday, December 29, 2013. It was a beautiful, simple ceremony and was everything we wanted.

We had planned on taking pictures together before the ceremony, but it turned out there was too much setup to be done beforehand. So after the ceremony, our photographer snapped a few pictures of the newlyweds.

We hadn’t planned on having a long reception (we just served cheese, meat, and cupcakes for dessert), so we wanted to squeeze in some time with our guests before beginning the after party.

Me with my girlfriends Noelle and Roseanne.

Brandon with Jaime and David.

My coworker Jena (who was so kind to offer to do my makeup for the big day!), her boyfriend Sean and their adorable daughter Avery.

After making the rounds, we sat down so the Best Man, Brandon’s brother Michael, and Maid of Honor, my best friend Sera, could make their toasts.

Brandon’s Dad also said a few kind words. I look terrible in this picture, but love that our photographer captured this special moment:

 It wasn’t long before we were saying our last goodbyes to the guests who wouldn’t be joining us afterwards and taking last minute pictures. I especially love the below picture of me with my two best friends, wearing our significant others’ jackets to stay warm.

After we had cleaned up, we headed to the Hopmonk Tavern with a smaller group of close friends for an after party. Besides the ceremony, this was actually my favorite part of the whole day! Everyone was in such a fantastic mood and our group had a great time savoring the moment!

I’m so grateful for our friends and family who made the day truly special. The love and support of our friends and family mean the world to us!

Hamm Party of 2 – The Ceremony

Our ceremony was unique and sentimental, and I know I will remember the feeling I had during it the rest of my life.

We chose our venue because it was a beautiful and intimate location for an outdoor ceremony. The church resembles a Spanish mission, and it has a courtyard in the middle covered in trellis’ and flowers, with a gorgeous fountain in the middle. Since we wanted only our closest friends and family there, we knew the fountain would be a perfect place to have our ceremony and fit our 20 guests.

When we decided to plan a small ceremony, one of the venues we were considering was San Francisco City Hall, which is absolutely beautiful. It was while I was looking through their website that I saw a person who is not a member of the clergy can apply to be “deputized” and perform a single ceremony. My dad is not a member of the clergy, but I knew it would be very special to have him perform the ceremony. I asked him a few weeks before the ceremony, not knowing if it was something in which he would be interested in doing. I could not have anticipated how excited he would be that I had asked him to perform the ceremony. He wholeheartedly agreed and put hours of effort into making it flawless and special.

Since my dad was marrying us, I asked my mom to walk me down the aisle. It was such a nice way to incorporate both my parents into the special day. Two of my musician friends, Claudia and Scott, lent their talents and played the guitar and viola as my mom walked me down the aisle.

My dad began the ceremony by telling stores from our childhood. He talked about how I was adventurous, energetic, and spirited as a child, and told how Brandon was a bundle of energy and curiosity. He then told about the early days of our relationship and read statements we had written about how we knew we had found the right partner.

 

My reflections:

My favorite thing about our relationship is that we’ve taught each other how to be better partners. Every day we learn from each other, and we’ve worked hard at creating a beautiful relationship. I know that Brandon will continue to be committed to working at our relationship which gives me great hope for the future. We encourage and support each other and are true partners.

I love that Brandon is thoughtful, caring, and sensitive. His affection is always heartfelt. He is intelligent and driven. He is endlessly entertaining and makes me laugh at least 15 times a day. He has an optimistic outlook on life that balances my own. Oh, and he’s definitely not hard on the eyes!

Brandon’s reflections:

After our first few dates, I soon realized this relationship had what I had been looking for. She saw past my quirks and was very understanding and supportive of my goals and hobbies. Everything was so natural, we could be ourselves together. She even laughed at all my jokes. I never wanted to be away from her. I feel this is what love should be like. I look forward to making her happy for the rest of my life.

Then, we repeated our vows:

I promise to always treat you with kindness and respect.
I promise to be faithful, honest, and fair.
I promise to listen carefully to what you are saying.
I promise to apologize when I am wrong and to repair any harm I have done.
I promise to cook and clean for you.
I promise to be your partner and best friend in the best and worst of times.
I promise to bring my best self into our relationship.
I promise to live these promises as a daily practice.

 

We chose vows we felt represented a realistic marriage goal – to try to be the best partner you can be. I felt each word deeply as I spoke my vows, and I believe Brandon did the same.

Before we knew it, my dad was pronouncing us husband and wife and telling Brandon he could kiss his bride!

I couldn’t have asked for a sweeter, more perfect wedding ceremony. It was simple, personal and completely reflected Brandon and I as a couple. The fact that my Dad performed the ceremony and told personal stories from both sides of our families made it that much better!

Getting Ready – Hamm Party of 2

As Brandon and I prepared for our wedding day, we knew we wanted the day to be relaxed, fun and stress-free. We wanted to enjoy the day! We didn’t even really discuss our plans for getting ready before the ceremony but instead just went with the flow.

My best friend, Sera, and her boyfriend flew in from Las Vegas late the night before the ceremony and stayed with us for the next few days. Sera and I woke bright and early to fuel with coffee and head to the hair salon. We relaxed and enjoyed each other’s company while at the salon and I really enjoyed sharing that special time with my best friend.

After we got back to the house, things became a bit more hectic. My other bridesmaid, Allison, arrived to get ready with us. A close friend of mine offered to help with makeup (which was such a help!) and the four of us relaxed and drank champagne while doing our makeup.

The boys returned to the house (they had been picking up a suit for one of the groomsmen…nothing like doing things last minute!) and we all hung out together for awhile. The hubs and I aren’t superstitious, so we didn’t mind seeing each other before the ceremony.

Eventually the boys headed to the venue to start setting up, and I prepared for an exciting moment – stepping into my dress! Sera, Allison and Jena helped me get into my dress. We were actually SO relaxed while getting ready we didn’t realize we needed to get dressed until about 20 minutes before we had to be at the venue. There were a few hectic moments trying to pull last minute things together, but soon we were on our way to the venue.

Once we arrived, we went around the back to the bridal suite. The photographer met us there and began taking pictures of my mom and two bridesmaids.

I love this picture with my bestie –

 

And this one with my Kindergarten friend –

And of course, the picture with my mom. She’s so small, I feel like I tower over her!

Meanwhile the boys were also getting ready.

And doing very important things like this:

Eventually, the two girls headed out to check on the setup progress. My mom called my dad into the bridal suite so he could see me, and he seemed blown away which was very touching. He told me I was the most beautiful bride he’d ever seen. I think he may be a bit biased, but it made me feel beautiful nonetheless! Pretty soon the girls came in and told me we were ready to go. I felt nerves start to creep up – I was about to get married!

Learning to Be Alone

I love scrolling through articles on Psychology Today because almost daily I find an article that I find thought-provoking and especially applicable to my life.

This morning I stumbled upon When You Can’t Stand Being Alone with Yourself. This article caught my eye since I had just been discussing this topic with a friend of mine. She and her husband recently entered couples counseling, and one of the issues they’re working through with their therapist is her inability to be alone. She avoids being alone by keeping a busy social calendar and alone time is actually painful.

I think this is an issue a lot of women can relate to, and this article discusses how women are socialized to hate being alone. We’re not only wired for empathy, but as we’re growing up we’re encouraged to care for others. While this has its benefits in adult life, it can also have a detrimental effect when we become so committed to keeping a connection with others that we lose our sense of self.

Our self-esteem begins to stem from feedback from others, and when we find ourselves in a situation where we’re alone (i.e. we usually have a packed social calendar, but one weekend remains empty), we feel a sense of failure and the alone time can be downright painful.

We come up with strategies to avoid alone time, by working overtime or packing our social calendars with activities but inevitably, we all have alone time at some point.

Growing up and throughout college, I was constantly surrounded by people. I’ve always been social and thrived off connecting with others. I also had a tendency to base approval of myself off feedback from others, and in relationships have not carved out time to be comfortable with myself.

In the year before I met Brandon, I learned to be comfortable with myself and to embrace alone time. I even came to love spending time alone, and having someone around all the time when we started dating was an adjustment.

While I still don’t shy away from alone time, I’ve noticed that since I’m used to having someone around all the time, when Brandon’s gone I tend to feel lonely and don’t 100% embrace the time spent with myself. My goal for coming months is to spend the 10 minutes a day that article suggests alone, with no distractions, to learn how to love being alone again.

I’ll be sure to track my progress and write on how it goes.

Do you love alone time or avoid it? What strategies do you use to love your alone time?

A Productive Weekend

Happy Monday! I had a great weekend, and have to admit that I was a little sad when Monday crept up again.

The silver lining is that next week is Thanksgiving and we’re going to Arizona to see family and friends. Brandon will be visiting my hometown for the first time, and I couldn’t be more excited to show him around! I also can’t wait to see my three best friends from home (two of them live outside of Arizona now, but they’ll all be home for the holiday).

We kicked off the weekend with a party for a friend’s birthday at Boathouse Sushi in Rohnert Park. I didn’t take any pictures since we were both starving by the time the sushi arrived. The rolls were delicious, but I thought it was a little pricey for what we ordered ($70 for four rolls and one drink each).

Saturday morning I got in a killer cardio and legs workout by following the routine my personal trainer created for me. I used the foam roller at the end of my workout, which definitely helped my legs recover. I left the gym feeling very accomplished. Weekend workouts are my favorite since I don’t feel rushed at all!

After my workout I met a few girlfriends in Petaluma to each lunch and walk around. We had fun chatting a checking out a few stores. I’m so thankful for my girlfriends! They’re so supportive and help me feel balanced.

Sunday morning Brandon and I spent the day doing errands…we finally planned meals and went grocery shopping and stopped to get my oil changed.

A few of the errands were more fun than the others! We stopped at a few jewelry stores to hunt for wedding bands. I have a unique engagement ring which makes it hard to match, but I did find a few options. Brandon ordered some samples to look at ceramic rings (he wants a black band) and we’re excited to look at them when they come in. Making progress!

Our really fun errand of the day was stopping at the Marin Humane Society to make a few new, cuddly friends.

Axel and Abby, quite possibly the cutest kitties on the planet. We’re considering expanding our fur family, but we want to make a very careful choice since adding a cat to our household will be quite an adjustment for Harrison. We visited the shelter to get an idea of what age would be ideal for introducing a cat to a home with a dog. While it was tempting to take both of these sweet babies home immediately, we want to be 100% in our decision so we decided to wait and think it over.

After making some new fur friends, we stopped at Dempsey’s in Petaluma for lunch. I think I’ve mentioned this restaurant before, and it’s definitely a favorite. Dempsey’s is known for creating dishes with unique flavor combinations and their menu changes frequently.

Brandon ordered the Chinese Chicken Salad.

He gets this every time we eat here, since it’s delicious and relatively light.

I decided to try something new and ordered an appetizer as my entrée, the Polenta Trio.

It was difficult to get an appetizing photo of this meal, but I can assure you it was delicious! The three toppings included blue cheese and caramelized onions, butternut squash and sage, and mushroom ragu all topped in a balsamic glaze. I loved the unique flavors of this dish. Delicious!

We ended the evening relaxing at home. It was a fantastic weekend!

Last Personal Training Session

Earlier this week I completed my final free session with my personal trainer. I left the last session feeling like I had a solid background for weight training on my own.

Our last session involved chest and back exercises (with a little core work mixed in).

Resistance Training Exercises
Chest Press
Chest Fly
Incline Chest Press
Incline Chest Fly
Lat Pull
Seated Row
Back Extensions

Core/Balance/Stability Exercises
Exercise Ball Crunches
Exercise Ball Twists
Hanging Leg Lifts

My personal trainer supplied all the basics, and thinks these will help get me started for the first month or so of weight training. I made a follow-up appointment for a month out so I can pick up some new techniques and check to make sure I’m on track.

I was excited to apply my knowledge yesterday morning and went through my roster of leg exercises. After I did legs day with my personal trainer last week it was difficult to walk for two days. However, after my workout my legs weren’t really sore at all so I need to make sure I’m doing the exercises correctly or up my weight. Good thing I scheduled a check-in!

Hiking and Hunting (for Arrowheads)

Last Sunday I was itching to get out of the house and go on an adventure. Initially, I suggested we hike Mt. St. Helena, but after hearing it was a 5-6 hour round trip hike, Brandon suggested something a little more low-key.

We headed out to Petaluma because I’ve been dying to take him to Wild Goat Bistro. Since we arrived before the restaurant opened for lunch, we walked around downtown Petaluma.

I absolutely love Petaluma…it is one of the few cities in Northern California whose buildings survived the 1906 earthquake so the downtown riverfront area looks very similar to how it did at the turn of the century (lots of great Victorian architecture!).

We walked downtown and wandered through a few stores before heading over to my favorite downtown area, the waterfront.

We’ve had some great evenings sitting on the dock watching the boats pass by on the river. There are also a lot of great riverfront restaurants. I saw this little guy hanging out in front of one of my favorites, Dempsey’s:

After grabbing lunch, we headed up to Annadel State Park in Santa Rosa. Brandon remembered a great hiking spot from when he was a kid that is covered in Obsidian. He’s found a few arrowheads there and wanted to see if we could find one. I was definitely intrigued!

The hike was beautiful, but though we searched for nearly an hour through the mounds of obsidian, we didn’t find any arrowheads. A few that looked close, but none that were the real thing. Brandon suggested we stop by his Grandma’s house to check out the collection of arrowheads he found when he was a kid.

It was so cool to look through the collection of arrowheads! Some were tiny, and all of them were amazingly precise. So cool to think of people using these tools many years ago!

After looking through the arrowheads, we headed out to hike at Brandon’s favorite “secret” hiking spot.

The path is overgrown, so it was really more like bouldering than hiking. There’s a beautiful creek running through though, and we had a great time climbing over rocks until we reached a point where they were too big to scale.

I loved every bit of our “adventure” day! I used to go hiking every weekend, and have gotten out of the habit. Sunday reminded me why I love it so much!

First Session with a Personal Trainer

This past Monday I had my first session with a personal trainer.

Exercise is one area in which I’ve shied away from putting myself in situations where people push me to work harder. I usually prefer to work out alone for this very reason. When I ran my first 5K last weekend, I realized why having people to push you can be really helpful. Running is an activity that I have always disliked and I tend to give up easily. But as we were running the 5K my friends pushed me when I wanted to walk, and when I had a second wind I pushed them. I realized that avoiding situations where I’d have to work harder was holding me back from reaching my fitness goals.

My gym offers three free sessions and after signing up I was really nervous to meet with the personal trainer. My first two sessions were on Monday and Thursday, and both were fantastic! In the first session, we took my measurements, worked on shoulders and arms, and I met the foam roller for the first time.

Below are the shoulders and arms exercises we went through:

Shoulder Front Raise
Shoulder Side Raise
Shoulder Rear Delt Fly
Shoulder Press
Biceps Curls
Hammer Curls
Triceps Kickbacks
Triceps Press Downs
Reverse Grip Triceps Press Downs

In the second session we went through several legs and core exercises:

Decline Bench Crunches/Twists/Leg Lifts
Lunges/Crab Walks
Leg Press
Calf Raises
Leg Curls
Leg Extensions

I can’t wait to incorporate these exercises into my regular routine!

Meeting with the personal trainer was just what I needed to gain the confidence to step up my workouts to the next level.

Wine Tasting in Sonoma and New-to-Me Foods

Sunday afternoon, Brandon and I had the best “day date” in Sonoma. I woke up still a bit sore from the race and decided to forego a morning gym trip. I always get excited when Brandon has a weekend day off with me, and we decided to go all out on Sunday to make the most of it.

After getting ready we headed grabbed coffee at Dr. Insomniac in downtown Novato. We also grabbed a pastry for the road, a blueberry cream cheese scuffin (scone/muffin) which was amazing. I can’t believe I’ve never had a scuffin until now! Genius.

Next, we headed to Toast for breakfast. Brandon got the Huevos Rancheros, which is delicious, and the dish I usually get when we eat there. I decided to branch out and ordered a Lasagna Frittata, which was basically an egg frittata covered in mozzarella which gave it a lasagna taste. I mentioned to Brandon this might be a good alternative to lasagna (since he has Type 1 diabetes, we try to limit carbs for home meals), but I’m not sure it would become a breakfast staple for me.

For our daytime activity, we visited a few wineries in Sonoma. Since they’re less than 20 minutes from our house, it’s really convenient for us to visit these wineries and they have incredible views. Our first stop was at Gloria Ferrer, a winery that specializes in sparkling wines. A visit to the winery is worth it for the view from the patio alone. Check out this view:

Amazing, right? We felt very fancy sitting on the patio gazing out on the vineyards.

Always classy! Next, we visited Jacuzzi Family Vineyards which is our favorite winery in the Sonoma area. They give free tastings (most tastings are at least $5 per flight), and the wines are incredible. They have a great family history, and a great Italian-style patio in the back.

Standing in the vineyard.

We had to cut our visit short because Brandon’s sister, who lives in Tennessee, was in town briefly and wanted to see us.

It was my first time meeting her since she doesn’t visit often, and I was happy she had a chance to stop by and say hello!

We ended the night with another new-to-me food at a sushi restaurant in San Rafael.

This was a vegetarian roll that was featured as a special called the ABCG roll. In it is avocado, basil, cream cheese, and garlic and it’s covered in pesto. Brandon was really skeptical, but I was intrigued and insisted we order it. It was delicious! A nice variation from our standard Spicy Tuna Roll.

Our day of delicious eats and wine tasting in Sonoma was incredible, and Sundays are quickly becoming my favorite day of the week. Can’t wait for this Sunday!

Run or Dye 5K Recap

Over the weekend I ran Run or Dye so my first 5K is now done and in the books!

I woke up at the crack of dawn to get ready, drink coffee and meet up with four of my friends to carpool to the race. We arrived at the Santa Rosa Fairgrounds around 7:30 a.m. to make sure we had enough time for race prep and packet pickup. We didn’t really need to get there that early, and it was freezing cold so we waited in the car until the start of the race.

At 9 a.m. we lined up with all the other runners. They sent around 500 runners off at 9 a.m. and then waves of runners every 5 to 10 minutes after that. They had fun music playing and were throwing out goodies to the waiting runners so the wait didn’t feel too long. We were sent off in the 5th or 6th wave, and my only regret for the race is that I didn’t look at our starting time.

Our plans had been to take the race easy but we ended up settling into a relatively quick jogging pace and ran the entire race! I took about 3 20 second walking breaks, but other than that ran steadily the entire time. I was surprised at how easy the race was (I guess all the time at the gym is paying off!) and I really wasn’t even winded. We finished strong and I was really excited that we ran the entire 3 miles.

Along the race route were four stations with volunteers throwing dye. We all got hit with color at every station so by the time we crossed the finish line we were well saturated with purple, blue, green, yellow, orange and pink dye.

There was a stage setup and people pumping the crowd up to get us ready to several dye tosses. I caught one of the dye tosses from afar:

So much fun! We made sure to join one of the tosses and came out completely covered in color.

After the race we were all starving so we went to The Redwood Café in Cotati for breakfast, which specializes in healthy meals. I had the Huevos Rancheros and either due to the fact that the food was really good or that I was starving, it was one of the best meals I’ve had in a long time.

By the time I got home, dye was everywhere (in my car, all over my phone etc.).

The aftermath.

I ended up jumping in the shower fully clothed to wash everything off and I still had color coming off everywhere until I took a second shower the next day.

I’ve never considered myself a runner, but finishing the race strong really made me want to run more and look into other races. With the added fun component of the dye, this race was absolutely perfect for my first 5K!