Wedding Weekend

I hope everyone had a great weekend! My cousin Henry got married on Saturday, he was the first boy on either side of my family to get married. Henry is the oldest of 8 kids and his family lives just down the street from Tyler. We had an absolute blast at the wedding. A highlight was George, the youngest of Henry's siblings, who broke out his dancing moves. Let's just say it was YouTube worthy, hopefully he'll bust them out again at our wedding in November! Great wedding and lots of fun!

Beautiful Bride and Handsome Groom!

Cousins after the wedding at Ernie Biggs in Westport

The adorable favor from the new Mr. & Mrs. Specht!

So speaking of wedding, Tyler and I are getting married in just over 7 months. It's hard to believe that we've already been engaged for 2 months! I haven't posted yet about the wedding/planning because I'm not even really sure where to begin. I guess I should start with our engagement. I need to preface this by saying that I am VERY impressed by my friends and family. Little did I know that a LOT of people were in on the secret, but Tyler managed to pulled it off.

The weekend of Saturday, February 25th, one of my best friends, Samantha, was in town from Arizona. Samantha grew up in Kansas and her whole family moved to Arizona when she started college at ASU her freshman year. She still has family here, so she comes back to visit friends and family whenever she can. Samantha told me she was coming in town to spend time with family but we planned to do something on Saturday night. Tyler also had a few friends coming in town, they were all "going to the George Strait concert."

Now, Tyler and I have been dating for a while now so I knew a proposal was coming at some point. I'm not going to lie, often times I would think, "hmmm could this be his plan to propose?" However, since he was "going to George Strait", I didn't think twice.

Saturday, Samantha and I had brunch at Urban Table then spent the day shopping. We had a really fun day, then decided to go back to my house to get ready for our night out. Janna, one of my other close friends, came over and the three of us went to Gram and Dun on the plaza for drinks and appetizers (I thought I had chosen the restaurant, but apparently it was all part of the plan). We had great food, great conversation, and I was looking forward to a night out with some of my best friends. Tyler texted me and we were planning to meet all of the boys down at P&L for a drink before they went into the concert. I suggested we meet at Bar Louie, and he agreed. We finished up our drinks and walked towards Janna's car to head downtown.

We were chatting away when Janna told me to check out the cute outfits in the J Crew window. That's where I saw a sign that said, "Megan Will You Marry me?" I promptly ask, "Who is Megan?" The next 5 minutes are an absolute blur. I turned around and Tyler was walking towards me with a ring box, he got down on one knee and proposed. I cannot tell you for the life of me what he said. I was too excited, surprised, confused, happy, on and on.... Luckily Evan, Janna's husband, got the whole thing on video. THEN, Tyler pointed behind him at a stretch limo. Some of our best friends were in the limo waiting for us with champagne to celebrate. I thought that had to be it, that was more than I ever imagined. But Ty wasn't finished yet. He had a surprise engagement party waiting at 75th Street Brewery for our friends an family. I can't even explain how perfect the night was. Tyler is so thoughtful and it was more than I could have imagined. To top it off, Samantha was actually in town for the engagement, despite what she told me before. I'm so grateful for our friends and family, and of course my wonderful fiance that made it such a perfect night. Here are a few highlights:

Drinks at Gram and Dun - Janna and Sam acting inconspicuous :)

Tyler beforehand - look at his cute, hand-made sign (the powercat is a nice touch)

Everyone in front of the limo at Tyler's house

All the guys

The sign in the window at J Crew

Tyler hiding

I feel like you can sense my confusion in this one :)

So excited :)

All of the girls

My new fiance :) 

Thank you guys for making it such a special night!

 7 months and 1 day to go!!

Lifestyle Change

Tyler and I are foodies. We love cooking. We love eating out. We love trying new food. Although our "go-to" channel these days is HGTV, we still love watching the Food Network. However, per the recent decision to change our eating habits, our meals including countless baskets of chips at Margarita's, creamy pasta from Habachi Hut and Pizza Hut pan pizza, are coming to an end. We decided to make a change for a few reasons.

1) I've been doing Crossfit since the beginning of the year. If you are unfamiliar with Crossfit, it is a core strength and conditioning program. Rather than spending a long time on an elliptical or other monotonous workouts, each unique session is broken into three parts.

• Warm-up
• Strength
• Workout of the Day

For the strength portion, we work on different lifts or focus on strengthening specific muscle groups. Then there's the WOD or Workout of the Day. An example is:

5 Rounds:

• 25 Double Unders (A jump rope excercize where the rope makes two passes per jump rather than one)
• 20 Kettle Bell Snatches (squat and lift 20lb Kettle Bell straight above your head - 10 per arm)
• 15 Ring Pushups (Rings are just above the ground, put hands on the rings rather than the ground and do 15 pushups)
• 10 Wipers (Straighten legs, move from left side of the body to the right side like windshield wipers)

THEN, rest for 3 minutes, and do the whole thing again backwards

5 Rounds:

• 10 Wipers
• 15 Ring Pushups
• 20 Kettle Bell Snatches
• 25 Double Unders

It is a great workout, and I feel like I'm in the best shape that I've been in, in a long while! But back to the lifestyle change, eating as you please and working out like that isn't exactly conducive. Tyler started Crossfit yesterday and we have decided to complement our workouts with healthy eating habits.

2) Tyler has acid reflux and other stomach issues that come and go. Some days, or even weeks, he takes a Prilosec in the morning morning and he's completely fine. But other times, he is in terrible pain and can't even get out of bed. Not good. We thought that he might be Celiac, or gluten intolerant. While it seems odd because he has always eaten food containing wheat, rye, and barley, Celiac's disease can develop at any point in life. Luckily, Ty got tested last week and the results are in, he does not have Celiac's Disease...thank God! However there are a lot of health benefits that go along with a gluten-free diet, so even though he's not gluten intolerant, we are cutting it out.

So we have our reasons for the lifestyle change, and have decided to try out the Paleolithic diet. It is commonly associated with Crossfit, plus the benefits include decreased digestive issues (great for Ty) and increased quality of sleep (great for me). With the Paleo diet, you cut out dairy, wheat, grains, legumes, processed food and sugar. Paleo stands for the Paleolithic era which was ended approximately 10,000 years ago with the development of agriculture. The diet is also known as the "Caveman Diet" since, in theory, you are eating what those pre-historic hunters and gatherers ate way back when. There are a lot of fans as of the diet as well as a lot of naysayers, but we figured that we might as well give it a shot for a month and then decide what foods we want to add back into our diet (I, for one, am really going to miss black beans, corn, and potatoes.)

We successfully completed day 1 of Paleo.

• Breakfast : Organic Sausage (Regular sausage is NOT paleo, so we chose organic sausage without gluten, preservatives or fillers)
• Snack : Nuts (excluding peanuts)
• Lunch : Chicken Avocado Salad
• Dinner : Steak
• Dessert : Homemade Fresh Fruit Smoothie

 The one thing I've learned about Paleo, is that the key is to plan ahead. Here are a few recipes for meals that I made for the week:

Breakfast "Muffins" (makes 12)

• 8 Eggs
• 4 Organic Sausages, crumbled
• 1/2 bell Pepper (you can use any veggies, this is what I had in the fridge)
• 4 Asparagus Shoots
• Splash of Water (to make it fluffy)
• Desired Seasonings

Heat oven to 350° Crack the eggs into a large bowl and whisk them together until all of the yolks are broken up. Add water, veggies, and seasonings - stir well. Pour the mixture into a non-stick muffin pan. Make sure to evenly distribute the batter between each muffin cup. If your pan has more than 12 muffin cups, fill the remaining cups with  water so that the muffins will bake evenly. Put the pan in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes.

I baked the muffins yesterday and put them in Tupperware, in the fridge. Today I warmed one up and ate it for breakfast - Delish!

Avocado Chicken Salad

• 1 package of "Smart Chicken" chicken breast tenderloins
• 2 Avocados
• 1 Lime
• A pinch of Salt and Pepper
• 1 tbsp of Cilantro (optional, I didn't have add it as I didn't have it in my fridge)

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the chicken tenderloins and cook until no longer pink. Once the chicken is cooked, remove it from the pot and shred using two forks. Move to a bowl and add avocados. Squeeze the limes in the bowl as well, just be sure not to let the seeds fall in the mixture. Add Salt, pepper, and chopped cilantro. Mix Well. 

A healthy version of traditional chicken salad

1 day down, 29 to go...

Closet Heaven

I, like many others, love Pinterest. I have approximately 100 DIY projects that I'm anxious to start and about 3 that I've successfully finished. I'm aware that 3/100 is not a very good completion rate... BUT every time I successfully finish a project, it makes me more anxious to start the next. A lot of "pins" have inspired the projects and design for Tyler's house. The house has 3 bedrooms and 1 bath. Eventually, there will be 2 of us in the house, so why would we need 3 bedrooms? That, my friends, is a great question. We will use one for a master, one for a guest room, and why not turn the third room into a walk-in closet?! With a little bit of convincing (less than I anticipated) Tyler agreed. So I started by "pinning" some ideal closet ideas:

Awesome: Yes. Realistic: Unfortunately, no. :) 

Once I came to terms with the fact that I do not have limitless money, or limitless space, I started thinking more logically. I began to brainstorm on how to maximize space and best organize all of my "stuff". We decided the first step was to install shelving and rods for hanging clothes. My dad is a contractor which comes in handy. He and Tyler went to the hardware store, and within a few hours, the blank room looked like this:

No, it's not a designer closet, but it's definitely a start. My next feat was to organize my scarves. I have to preface this by saying that I love scarves. Winter scarves, summer scarves, bright scarves....I love them all. Because I do love them and wear them quite often, I've collected quite a few. There are a lot of different ways to organize them, but I decided to utilize the space behind the door since it couldn't really be used for anything else. I found a Pinterest idea and went to work. Here is what I purchased for the project:

Shower Hooks (Again I went very basic, there are all kinds of options
but I found these at Walmart in a pack of 10 for $2.00)

2 Towel Bars (Any bar will work, the whole closet is white so I went with a basic, white towel bar that I found at Target)

Tyler installed the towel bars behind the door and I attached the shower curtain hooks. Now I can say that I've successfully completed 4 Pinterest projects and I have a solid start on the closet. Here is the finished product:

Ta Da!

Until next time...

Projects Galore

As I mentioned in my previous post, Tyler moved to Shawnee this past summer. His parents used to be landlords and at one time they owned several rental properties. They sold the majority of them, but had one house that they couldn't seem to sell. With a little bit of convincing, Tyler promised to help fix it up and he moved in. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) I never saw it when the renters initially moved out. They had treated it like a rental, and after hearing Reine (Ty's mom) and Tyler's description of the house, there was much to be desired. To give you an idea, the grass was 3 feet tall and there was an inch of dust on the ceiling. In their quest to sell the house, his whole family pitched in and did a great job cleaning it up and making a perfect, blank slate for someone to make their own. It turns out Tyler and I are the ones who will set up shop. I think we have a knack for finding projects. Since he moved in we have redone the bathroom, repainted the living room, Tyler built a fence, we got a new stamp and stain patio, and installed (with the help of my dad) a new stove, microwave, refrigerator and dishwasher. I saved the best part for last, we are turning the 3rd bedroom into a walk-in closet. That is worth a few posts, so I won't give too much away.

But how did all of this madness begin? We had talked about redoing the bathroom for a while. However, we made the decision when we were wandering around Lowe's (something we seem to do a lot nowadays) on a random Sunday evening. We found a vanity that we LOVED and decided to go for it. And by go for it, I mean paint the bathroom and install the vanity that night. I think it's safe to say that after our first project, we were hooked. We've now switched our loyalty from Food Network to HGTV . We are the ones constantly on the look out for the Room Crasher designers whenever we frequent Lowe's, Home Depot, or Ace Hardware. So far no luck, but we keep finding more projects to keep us occupied. Below is the fruit of our labor, the new and improved bathroom:

Bathroom Before

Bathroom After

Bathroom Before

Bathroom After

Until next time...

Here Goes Nothing...

Ty and I on the Zac Brown Cruise

I've been wanting to start a blog for sometime now, but I really didn't know where to start. Now that I'm engaged, I feel like now is the perfect time to begin. This has been such a fun experience so far and I figure that I might as well document it. The more I put in writing, the less I need to stress about it, and the less I will talk in my sleep about it (that's for a different post).

So, let's start from the beginning. I graduated from Kansas State a few years back and I'm a HUGE K-State sports fan (EMAW.) I absolutely loved college. I made some great, life-long friends and had more fun that I care to admit. Another perk was that I met my fiance, Tyler. We met my sophomore year and his freshman year (yes, I am 6 months older and he looks forward to half of the year when he can call me his cougar.) Ty and I became good friends and started dating at the start of my senior year. I finished in 4 years and Tyler took the victory lap which meant that he had two years in Manhappiness (also known as Manhattan) after I graduated. That led to a LOT of miles on my car and many fun nights where I could continue to act like a college student. In May he graduated and moved back to Kansas City. 3 years, 5 months and 10 days after our first date, Tyler proposed. I will save the details for another post as I was VERY impressed by his proposal. Now I plan to blog about life, wedding planning, house projects, and cooking, among other very compelling things. :) Also, the countdown is on - 234 days til I become Mrs. Shepherd!

Until next time...