Today's The Day

Today's the day of our engagement party. I can't believe it's here! I am so fortunate to have all of these friends and family who love us to be a part of such a special day. I am nervous because Derek and I have to do a little speech but I am sure we will be fine. I will do a full party recap after because we are having some great eats I know some of you will enjoy!

Like I said, I took yesterday off to spend the day with one of my sisters and get ready for the party today. I woke up and had two Trader Joe's Whole Wheat Waffles with some TJ's organic maple syrup.

Then I was off with my sister... we got some relaxing pedicures and the went on the hunt for a dress for me to wear to the party. This took FOOOORRRREVVVER. I was being so picky because I wanted it to be perfect. I guess the problem was I didn't know if I wanted to go fun and colorful or pretty and romantic. Most of my guest are wearing fun and colorful dresses so I went the alternate route. I can't wait to show you my dress. I bought it from Anthropologie, which you will learn is another obsession of mine :)

Since we were runing around I didn't eat a substantial lunch. This hurt me because around 3 o'clock I crashed. I had a horrible headache and all I wanted to do was sleep. All I ate in the middle of the day was a few dried apricots and some pita chips with salsa.

I was in the worst mood from 3 p.m. until 8 p.m. I met Derek around 8 p.m. and the minute he saw me and my sad face he knew I needed a good meal. He could tell I had a long day. We were actually scheduled to go to a birthday party at night, but when he saw me he said, "Forget the party, tomorrow is an important day for us... let's relax and get you some good food." I couldn't ask for a better fiance. He knows me sooo well. And he knows when I go to long without food, I become... well... HANGRY! He took me to my favorite Thai place in Ridgewood, NJ called Taste of Thai.

We started with Ka-Nom-Jeep (pork dumplings)

And veggie spring rolls

For my main course I had Mixed Vegetable Pad-See-Ew. This is just mixed vegetables and wide rice noodles in some kind of brown sauce. It was delicious! I loved that the vegetables still had a crunch to them. That really was a nice contrast to the soft noodles. I cleaned my plate in five minutes... guess the lack of food all day caught up to me.

As soon as I finished this meal I felt 1 Billion times better! All I needed was my fiance to put the smile back on my face! All a girl needs is to be fed!!!!

We came home and passed out shortly after this!

Well I am off to my moms now to help set up for the party- All the fun stuff starts now!!!! I have a hair appointment at twelve and the caterer comes with the food at 2! So excited.

Thank you to all of you who have commented wishing me luck today, I really appreciate the support :)

I also want to say congratulations to Heather & Mark over at Hangry Pants on their engagement!  I have been a long time reader of their blog and I could not be happier for them! My advice is to enjoy this time because it flies by!!!!


Since today is the day of our engagement party, I thought I would share some photos of Derek and I through the years.

<3

Tre Voce

One of my students looked at me yesterday while I was filing away their report cards in my classroom and said, "Ms. Perez, take a deep breath. Everything will be fine." I guess my face and body language said it all haha and it took the wise words of a six year old to actually make me realize I did need to take a deep breath.

Yesterday was a great day with my students. We got to watch the second grade put on a great school play, then we organized our classroom, then ended the day watching Shrek 3! I told them I was taking off today (Friday) , it killed me to see their disappointed little faces. But I assured them that next week since we only have three half days left, I will make it a party week to end the school year! That cheered them right up!

When I woke up I was short on time so I did a quick P90X Ab Ripper DVD. This is just 16 minutes of intense abs. Actually as I sit here right now typing this, my abs hurt every time I breathe. Good sign right?
Yesterday morning was one of those mornings where I woke up starving.. when this happens cereal is my best bet! Nothing is faster!

At school lunch was a Trader Joe's find. TJ's baked zita and I thre in some snap peas on the side... it was actually very tasty! My only complaint would be I prefer my tomato sauce a little thicker than this - it was a tad watery. For a frozen meal it was good.

While watching Shrek 3 with my students I ate a peach. My afternoon snack was small because I had made plans to go out with two coworkers after work for an end of the year dinner.

Our early dinner started at four at a BYOB in Ridgewood, NJ called Tre Voce. It was very good and I would go back.

The table was served a bread basket with three different kinds of homemade bread. I chose a piece of the honey raisin bread. It as delicious and just the right amount of sweet.

For my main course I chose the grilled vegetable brick oven pizza topped with arugala and goat cheese. This was amazing!!! I loved everything about it!

I ate about three slices at the restaurant and two more later in the evening at my moms when my appetite returned.

The three of us ordered three desserts to split. This restaurant has an in-house pastry chef so the desserts were very fresh tasting.

Tiramisu

Italian Cheesecake

White Chocolate Tart

I had one bite of each. Tiramisu was my favorite. Just the right amount of soaked cookies at the bottom and just the right amount of creaminess. Delicious. Cheesecake was good too, I prefer NY style cheesecake vs. the Italian ricotta based cheesecake, but this was good. The White chocolate tart was gross. Not sure why but it tasted like candle wax to me. :(

After my lovely early dinner I went to my moms to finish some last details of the engagement party planning and to finish the favors with my sisters (we only got 37 done the other night and we needed 63).

Here are some fun photos of that process. Don't mind how tired I look :P

I am off today and I have a lot to do. My sister is on her maid-of-honor duties all day as she will be traveling with me to get pedicures, dress shop (yes I still have no idea what I will be wearing tomorrow!), wait for the table rental people to come and set up the tables, and make the centerpieces! AH craziness.

TGIF

Al Dente

Do you ever just wish life would slow down, that it would just stop for a second so that you can take in what's going on around you? That's how I felt all day. So many things happening at one time make me want to capture every second of it. I only have five days left with my class at school and I get more and more sad as I near the end. My party on Saturday is coming together, but I still have not one thing packed for Italy ;) Oh well, one step at a time I guess. I want to make sure I really enjoy Saturday first. Not sure how I feel about the fact that the party is all about my fiance and I. I am nervous about the attention being on us the whole time- just not used to that :)


Work was quick today because I took a half day to get to some appointments I had made. Before it was time to pick up the kiddies I had another juicy peach and organic yogurt from TJ's for breakfast.

Lunch was another organic mac-n-cheese bowl with carrots on the side.

I left work at 12p.m. so that I could get some errands done and I had a nail appointment. After I got my nails done, Derek picked me up and we headed down to Piscataway, NJ to the place where he bought my engagement ring so that we could get it resized and cleaned. The ring has been a bit big for the last few months but we just have not had the chance to make the trip to get it fixed. With the party Saturday and our engagement photo shoot coming up in Italy, we thought it would be smart to make fixing the ring a priority. On our way there I had an apricot.

My uncle owns and is the head chef at a restaurant in Piscataway called Al Dente. My uncle is the best chef I know! So since we were in town we could not leave without grabbing a quick bite after my ring was done.

Finished nails and ring tightened...

Whenever we go to my uncle's restaurant he always sends out appetizers for us to try without us even ordering them. So my the time your entree comes... your stuffed!

Last night I started with a piece of very crunchy bread dipped in olive oil, balsamic, and salt. I was starving at the point!

The first thing my uncle sent us out to try was pan-fried shrimp stuffed with crab meat with arugala, over a lobster creme sauce. I had one. This was amazing. Tasted like shrimp wrapped in a crab cake.

Next, he sent out balsamic glazed figs over procuitto with shaved parm cheese on top. This was one of those savory/sweet dishes. The cheese was my favorite part.

Then, if all that wasn't enough already, he sent out a very interesting risotto. This risotto had fresh strawberries and marscopone (prob spelled wrong) cheese in it. It was also a very interesting savory and sweet combo. I would have never thought to put strawberries in risotto. But it was fabulous. Even Derek was blown away and he is not a fan of fruit in his meals.

Luckily I know how my uncle is and I now know to pace myself when I come to his restaurant. I only eat a very small portion of every dish he sends out. It takes a lot of will power, but it needs to be done.

Next was a citrus salad. This was baby mixed greens, with toasted pistachios, orange wedges, goat cheese, and beets, all tossed in a citrus vinaigrette. It was extremely refreshing.

   
Then, finally, I received the main course in which I ordered. Grouper over swiss chard and baked beans, and topped with a cherry tomato and onion straw salad. This was delicious and light, the beans had this smoky flavor that complimented the fish perfectly. I couldn't finish it though. Barely, made a dent actually.

Today will be another busy day of work, dinner out with coworkers, and finishing the favors for the party with my sisters. AHHH! All good things though. Have a happy Thursday!

Engagment Party Favors

I cannot believe it is already the middle of the work week! I knew this week was going to be crazy, but I never expected it to go by this fast! The last two days have been so busy, but as I approach the weekend, I am defiantly feeling better about the engagement party on Saturday. I just want to play catch up on this post... So let's start with Monday....

Monday was rush rush (as always) But I was very productive! I got all my report cards done at school, I bought my students their end of the year gifts,  I scrubbed the apartment clean (and I mean deep clean!), and then I ran to Trader Joe's and picked up some fruit and veggies because we had none left in the apartment!
We are trying to eat everything we have in our fridge and pantry because we leave next Thursday for Italy and I hate wasting food... but I couldn't go a whole week without buying some fruits and veggies ;)

Monday eats....

I know this is not a complete breakfast at all... but I was super late and had no fruit in the apartment :(
Lunch was a new find at the grocery store that has been sitting in my pantry for about two weeks already. And in the effort to eat everything I have I chose to bring this to work and try it. It is an organic mac-n-cheese bowl. You just add water and the cheese sauce in the microwave and you get a healthier mac-n-cheese! I thought it was delicious and very filling because the pasta is actually whole wheat pasta. I had carrots on the side. 

I had to run around after work so I grabbed a bag of pretzels...

After shopping at TJ's Derek stopped and picked us up dinner from a local pizza place. I had half of an eggplant parm sub.

Derek also made me buy this lovely pie at TJ's. I am not a big pie eater at all. I would much prefer chocolate cake or a CUPCAKE!!! but Derek loves pie's and this one caught his eye.
It was a multi-berry pie with cranberries, raspberries, cherries, and blueberries.

See that big piece missing? That's all Derek ;) At least it's organic!


Tuesday was a fun day! I woke up and right away did P90X Legs and Back DVD. Here is Tony Horton on my TV.

That is a great workout! You alternate doing two leg exercises then one back exercise. You do that the whole video so you really never get bored.

Breakfast...

Juicy peach and peanut butter crunchy granola bar.

Lunch was fabulous... turkey, swiss, baby spinach, and honey mustard wrap. YUM!

After school on Tuesday I got my hair cut and colored. I'll try and get a pic of the new do up today :) I had a vivanno smoothie as I got my hair did.

Last night four of my bridesmaids came over and helped me put together the favors for Saturday. They were a huge help! There is nothing like good friends ;)

The engagement party colors are orange and green, so the favors are orange and green M&Ms with our names on them and our wedding date. We wrapped the baggies of M&Ms with an orange ribbon and then tied a piece of paper to them with a love lyric from our favorite music artists. We used all love song lyrics and every bag has a different lyric. The fun part is that one of the favors has a lyric from our wedding song on it... but we are not telling anyone which one it is :P

I can't wait to show you the decor for our engagment party. It is so modern. I read that your supposed to do your engagement party the opposite decor of your wedding so that's exactly what we are doing. Our wedding is very vintage and classy, so the colors will be more muted. We decided to go modern, bright, and bold for the engagement party. Here are the engagement party invitations.  The ring is on the tree because it ties in with how he proposed (see Wedding Stuff page). The top of the invite says "He popped the question, she said yes! Now, we're having a party, so be our guest!"

Here are my bridesmaids Kara& Daniella helping me last night...

All finished! Ugh that feels good! I'll get a better picture of the favors at the party in the daylight.

Unpictured is a glass of Riesling and two slices of broccoli pizza I had with the girls while making the favors. 

Happy Wednesday! Be back a little later.