October 1

October 1 and I have an interesting relationship. It seams that I do a lot of heavy traveling and/or have life changing experiences that begin on this date.

October 1, 2006 12:05am (or something really close)
My one way flight from Portland, OR landed at Boston Logan just after midnight. The flight attendant came over the intercom and announced our arrival, ending with "Welcome to Boston" and "Welcome Home!" I had to fight back the tears that were starting to well up in my eyes. With this one single cross country flight, I had left my life behind in Oregon to start a new on in Massachusetts. Happy anniversary to me!

October 1, 2010
Jake and I boarded a plan bound for Rochester, NY. We were on our way to a friend's fabulous wedding weekend.

October 1, 2012
After a crazy and slightly hectic experience, I made my flight and was headed off to London for a week with my BFF J.

October 3, 2013 
OK, so it's not October 1. But had things gone smoothly (apparently they never do), we would have closed on our house and been homeowners on 9/30-10/1. Instead, we will be signing the thick stack of papers this afternoon (I hope). Keep you fingers crossed for us. We are totally ready to be done with the home buying/building process and ready to move on to enjoying our home.

Worst. Blogger. Ever.

Remember how I threatened to flood you with blog posts, oh I don't know, like 2 months ago? Yeup, clearly nothing but an empty threat. I think what is keeping me back (in additional to a) being lazy and b) having a love-hate relationship with blogging), is that I never finished my Paris recaps. At least, that's what I'm going to blame it on for the time being. 

Anyways, we're alive and well and we have lots of new adventures to share, like house hunting! For now, I'll leave you this this (because I prefer posts with photos):

Instagram: @_celiamhung

Jake and I returned to our wedding venue for the first time in almost 2 years to take a quick stroll through the grounds while it was still light out, plus the weather was superb on Saturday.

Hi

Oh my, I've been neglecting this blog. Things have been REALLY CRAZY with my day job (11 hour days and skipping lunch!) for the last month (although it seems like forever). The last thing I want to do after getting home is sit in front of my computer. I guess having a busted laptop doesn't help the situation either, right? I've had issues with my Ultrabook for awhile, it is finally at the point where I have to send it in. Boooo.

Anyways, get ready for an influx of posts. Has anyone counted the number of times I've said that? We'll see if I keep my word.

The to-do list on my chalkboard has been there since last March.
Instagram @hungc

August 2012

Instagram: @hungc

1. Impromptu date night in Boston brought us to Brewer Fountain on Boston Common. I just HAD to get into the city to pick up a skirt that I saw on Wendy's Lookbook. Since I was there, might as well grab a bite to eat, right? (The red skirt was more maroon in person, so I grabbed it in beige-pink, I'm having mixed feelings about it.)
2. We spent some quality time with the family at a summer picnic. I thought dirt cake in "terracotta" cupcake molds (a christmas gift from Jake's aunt) would be the perfect outdoor treat for all. 
3. I FINALLY got my lazy bum to the bookstore to do some research on my upcoming trip to the U.K. 
4. My car finally decided to tell me why it has been sputtering on and off for the last couple months. As it turns out, the exhaust valve is either broken or needs to be cleaned out. No biggie, but I need to get that fixed so that I can pass inspection at the end of August. Oh wait...
5. I started working on my next sewing project: soft baby blocks. I have completed 3 of 6, and then realized that I should put a cat toy inside to make it more interesting. 
6. Can you spot the point of failure? Hint: this Asian is not good with chopsticks. We do not dine in Chinatown much. Part of it is because Chinatown is sketchy. And part of it is because I don't know who's who and what's what. But, when my townie-Chinese friends say, let's eat in Chinatown, I'm all over it. 
7. Randomness spotted at Dave and Buster's.
8. My car hit 161,616 miles! 12 years and counting.
9. Fabric for quilt number 2 purchased from the ubber talented Holly at Bijou Lovely. 
10. (not pictured) We celebrated our first wedding anniversary by stuffing our selves silly with food. OK, maybe that was just me. 

July 2012

Photos 1-15 taken/edited with Instagram. Photo 16 taken with dSLR. 

This month, I finally joined the masses in the Photo a day challenge. So the update for July will have random photos peppered into it.

1.      Photo a day July 2: Busy. My printer was working hard on our thank you cards. Speaking of which, I should really finish up the last of them!

2.      Photo a day July 3: Best part of your day. Lunch, at least it was that day.

3.      Craft project for our first anniversary photo shoot.

4.      Festive by accident. I was making a quinoa fruit salad and the fruit I picked up just happened to be red and pink (it's close enough to white) currants and blueberries..

5.      Photo a day July 5: Floor. Sunset over Waltham from our 3rd floor apartment.

6.      Cute center pieces at C and A's Vermont barn wedding.

7.      First dance. Congrats to the newlyweds!

8.      Road tripping home after the epic wedding weekend in VT.

9.      Photo a day July 10: Favorite color. If caffeine had a color, it would be my favorite. In other news, my Starbucks habit has returned.

10.  Photo a day July 11: Letter. A handwritten note, aka our thank you cards.

11.  Photo a day July 12: Texture. Gears in my steampunk camera pendant. A present from C and A! (I must be the worst bride ever, I gifted my girls their hair and make-up; what kind of a present is that?)

12.  A photo session with one year old H. I can't believe she's one already!

13.  Photo a day July 23: Mirror. I was trying my hand at an artsy reflection shot. It also happened to be the one day I've had to wear my glasses in months.

14.  Photo a day July 24: Stranger. This 20mm/f2.8 lens "magically" appeared on my desk. I had been talking to my camera resource about a wide angle lens for traveling .

15.  Husband to the rescue! Once again, one of the "automated" scripts that I managed at work broke. Jake helped find the source of the failure and put a fix in place for me. Coding is so not my thing.

16.  My first quilt! Finally finished the sucker after hours and hours of sewing. It's been shipped back to Quilts for Kids headquarters where it will be dispatched to a child in need.

June 2012

I probably say this every time, but seriously, how on earth is it mid July already?!?!?!?!

June was another whirlwind of a month. I kick started it with a little International travel/partying. OK, so Canada isn't the most exotic place to visit, but I had a blast during a joint bachelor/bachelorette weekend extravaganza in Montreal. It was fun hanging out and getting to know the wedding party, trying poutine, searching for the bars, and exploring the train museum. Oh yea, there's a pretty epic train museum just outside of the city.

Counter-clockwise from top left: Group deciding on what to do next, Smoked meat on a salad (I managed to stick to my dairy free and gluten free diet the entire weekend), Train ride in the train museum, 950 ml of beer.

I'm still not sure why they received straws in their beers.

September couldn't come around soon enough. I was planning to bring my mom's old sewing machine back with me, but I'm not sure if I could do it logistically. I got ansy and bought my own. Thank you Craigslist and a sweet quilter on the North Shore for fueling my need for instant gratification. Within 48 hours of obtaining Bessy (that's right, I named my machine),  I started my first quilt. I should probably finish that.

I will call her Bessy.

We hosted a joint Bday party for Jake and our good friend A. A was a few weeks out from his wedding, and I figured it would be one less thing for C, the fiance, to stress out about, I put something together quickly. It was meant to just be friends, games, and food. By the time I pulled all the random party stuff out of the closet and had collected mylar balloons from work, we had a fully decorated party.

There were two different games going.

I went home with 18 balloons! Free!

I FINALLY got my lazy ass to sit down and design post wedding thank you cards. I'll show them to you in another post, some day.



Done and ready to be mailed.

Last but not least, I rounded the month out with a jack-and-jill baby shower for our friends E and G. They are expecting a baby boy! The parents-to-be surprised everyone with gender reveal cupcakes made by me. I've said it time and time again, I am truly blessed to have such amazing people trust and share these milestones with me. I have to tell you about the onsie painting party that took place during the shower. I can't even begin to tell you how much fun it was. People are crazy creative when given the opportunity. I wish I had taken pictures of the other onsies. 

Cupcake onsie designed and painted by moi!

**All photos taken by me via Instagram or dSLR.

May 2012

Bah! I meant to have this posted on May 31st, but I totally failed at that didn't I? Well at least it's technically the first full week in June.

My friends and their families have been keeping me busy with cupcake orders the last couple of weeks. I kicked started May with a bridal shower order for 5 dozen cupcakes.

Follow me on Instagram @hungc.

We attended our first wedding of 2012 (we were invited to 4 - at least for now). I don't know about Jake, but I got a huge kick out of seeing the props from the photobooth at our wedding reused.


Congratulations to the newlyweds!

Steampunk Festival 2012! Every year, our town hosts a steampunk festival. I remember wanting to check it out last year, but we must have been out of town or doing something wedding related. It was small, but there was a lot to see. A full day of people watching if you will. There was also an abundance of tiny top hats and goggles! I had to restrain myself from buying a tiny hat that I'll never wear.

Blimp!

I had my first photoshoot! Our friends asked if I would be willing to take 6 month photos of their darling baby girl. Um, YES OF COURSE! I'm still blown away and humbled that they trusted something so precious to me. After spending half a day together, I ended up with 606 photos! We had to stop because I ran out of space on my memory cards. 

The money shot, taken either during a diaper or clothing change (right).

Cross eyed babe! (left)

Baby M and I hanging out during her playtime.

Such a beautiful family! We <3 you!

For the last month, I had been frantically working on a baby blanket that I can FINALLY talk about. Let's start with the inspirations first. This colorful combination used for wedding ceremony decor caught my eye. It was pretty perfect since the mom-to-be was trying to decide between either a grey/yellow or a grey/red scheme for the nursery. The aqua-teal color added a nice punch and was gender neutral enough that I felt it would be safe to run with.

Ceremony decor via Style Me Pretty.

Following mom-to-be on Pinterest was also helpful. I was able to see that she was gravitating towards chevron patterns. So I started looking for a chevron baby blanket pattern and came across this beautiful blanket by Good Knits:

Chevron Baby Blanket by GoodKnits


Put the two together and TA-DA!

Baby Y's blanket! Guess I didn't take any shots of the whole blanket.
Red Heart Soft (red, grey, and aqua) and Vanna's Choice Baby (yellow) resulted in a super soft blanket.

April 2012

Hi everyone. I'm so sorry for being away so long. I can't thank you enough for your patience!

Whew, what a whirlwind April was:

We finally went on our honeymoon! We spent a week in Bora Bora (Tahiti). It was GLORIOUS. I will have to do an ultra long blog post to tell you all about our adventures getting there, being there, and the trip back. Let's just say, there was never a dull moment.

Rainbow after a rainstorm.

Three days after getting home from our honeymoon, I was back on a plane and headed for Boulder, CO. I spent three days in Boulder at a crafting retreat called The Makerie. Much like Bora Bora, I will have to do a separate posts to tell you all about how it changed my life and introduce you to some new friends I made.

Crafting books galore!

Are you exhausted after reading the previous two paragraphs? Things didn't stop there. After the retreat, I came home and made cupcakes for a baby shower and then jetted off to VT for a surprise bridal shower.

The bride was very surprised.

**All photos by me**