The Aftermath

So too tired to actually get a post together. Still need to gather pictures from everyone in order to write this post.

Expect this post much later. 

Bachelorette Party Eve

Kaitlin and Kate got into town tonight. Diana rode with me to grab kaitlin at DCA and then we headed to baltimore to grab Kate. While we were out in baltimore we went down to the waterfront. Checked out some of the outdoor bars to find out that no where served food after 10. Finally ended up at the Hardrock restaurant. Our waiter was a little loopy. Had a couple good drinks and then headed back to DC. Dropped kaitlin off at Diana's so that she could ride up with Diana and Kate continued on to springfield with me!

Tomorrow morning, Sketchy's dad is dropping Sapna off and we're heading out early to pick up kristen at DCA and then on to AC!!

Sketchy's dad is going to stay at the house for a couple days to try to get the patio foundation laid so that we have a somewhat functional space for bridal shower. We'll see how that goes.

Very excited for all the AC madness. Will be so excited to write that Bachelorette Party post! 

Bang Bang Shrimp & Outfit Shopping

Well it's officially close enough to bachelorette party to freak out about not having an outfit. Tonight Sketchy and I went out to kingstowne to hit up a few places looking for some sort of pink outfit.

Since we were in the area and realized it was Wednesday, we decided to check out the Bang Bang Shrimp deal at Bonefish Grill. It's 5.00 all day long per order of Bang Bang. FYI they also do bang bang chicken for the same deal! 

=) 

No real luck finding anything pink for bachelorette party. Might just wear the black and white engagement dress since i know i'm comfortable in it. Will wear tights with it since i think it might be cold out!

Tonight was the premiere of Criminal Minds and SVU but we ended up shopping really late and packing and cleaning so we'll just have to watch them when i get back!

Tomorrow Kaitlin and Kate get into DC. Bachelorette party super soon!

Craft Night!

Today we picked up a new piece of furniture from a friend who is moving from DC permanently! Got it for super cheap and hope to spray paint and turn into bar in the mancave. Will probably do the before and after on a later date when i've painted some of it! 

She threw in a few vases that were sitting around her apt. I decided to be crafty and start on the autumn/fall decorations tonight. I've been pinning lots of fall-like vase/candles that seem like easy DIY. The last couple of days i've been buying little bags of pinecones, pumpkins, gourds and various other october items! 

filled the three square vases with these type of things. Think they look pretty. Would be great on a mantle, but alas, no fireplace!

definitely a pinterest inspiration item. I like all the lantern centerpieces when they have seasonal things inside them!

while i was feeling up to it and had all the craft items out, i finally got this engagement ornament made! dried petals from engagement bouquet and a picture of us from engagement with date.

Excited to start decorating the house super festive! More crazy decor to come. Also want to get a wreath situation. Don't think i'm going to DIY this one this time. 

NYC Success!

Saturday morning Sketchy and I woke up on the couch in the basement. We have been so tired from the last few weekends of travel it's not even funny. 

I woke up slightly earlier than Sketchy to make some football goodies for his VT game. As he was turning on the game, I brought down the food much to his surprise. We had tons of frozen items leftover from last football sunday. 

jalapeno popper dip (immersion blender obsession)

bbq chicken pizza for sketchy and fish sticks for me

cheesy tots!

He was surprised to see all the food. =) His game went well, thank god! After the game, we headed down to his parents to spend the night. Sapna and his mom went with us to NYC so we figured it'd be easier to just leave from their place really early sunday morning.

Sunday was super successful in NYC. We went to two areas that are notorious for selling indian outfits and such. I got my bridal outfit wayyyy under budge. If nothing, that alone was worth the trip up there!

skirt/bottom of bridal outfit

bridal outfit. the top is the shawl that goes over my head -- i'm going to get a top made. i love it so much. =)

We were unable to find a reasonably priced outfit for sketchy to match my outfit. Men's sherwanis are much easier to find online though. Sizes are also easier to figure out and such so we should be fine with that!

I got a yellow saree which i'll wear for my pre-wedding ceremony on Saturday.

also got BM sarees. This color looks a little more blue than it is. It's actually a greenish color with gold and copper details. 

We were not able to find groomsmen outfits, mainly because they're done by size and sketchy didn't have everyone's size. Those i believe should be easy to get online as well. Think we'll just go with a general bronze plain kurta for the guys. 

because things were super cheap, i got an extra saree i just thought was pretty! i'm sure there will be some event i can wear this to.

While looking for bm shoes, we happened upon an awesome shoe store. I got the two shoes below and sapna got a couple.

love these ones!

these are a soft suede material in person.

Tonight we stayed home and made deliciousness:

sketchy has been on an asparagus and fingerling potatoes kick lately. The international store by us has these things for so cheap. The lamb was, as always, tastey. Sketchy's getting super good at grilling them to the perfect level!

Sketchy actually ate a lamb chop today! such progress. When i met him, he basically only ate chicken. He's now, on his own, asking for lamb and will totally eat seafood -- sometimes it has to be hidden, but he did fish tacos! we're moving on up.

Nationals Baseball -- Last Game of Season

This year I was a terrible nationals fan. I didn't know their record or that they were even playing more than half of the season. Before the season started we got a partial season pass for 15 games. Spent so much time looking at calendars and figuring out logistics so we'd be able to make most of the games. I think i ended up going to only maybe three! Terrible. Something was always coming up one way or the other. 

Anyways, tonight was our last game in the package. We went with the group we bought the package with. Jacob also came out for the game. It was at this game that we realized that Jacob is Jason Werth. OOC. 

not sure if you can see werth in the background on the big screen. 

No extreme friday night plans -- we came home right after the game to clean and get some sleep and prepare for NYC this wkend! We should be going on Sunday and hopefully getting a lot of items for the indian ceremony. 

Thursday Night with my Chiefs!

Football Thursday! Staying home and watching my new team play tonight. Chiefs v. Eagles. Hopefully people knew i meant the Chiefs and not the eagles! I've been calling them the cinderella story team since preseason. #heartalexsmith.

Made some wings and cheese quesadillas tonight. This time of the year is so fattening but so delicious! 

Little Serow For Catheroni's Birthday

Catherine had been talking about this Thai place she wanted to try out, so Kelsey and I decided to go with her for her birthday!

Little Serow is a pretty neat place for a couple reasons:

-It's a sister place to a very very expensive Thai restaurant (Komi) so it's much cheaper but same chef and same idea (45.00 per person for the tasting at Little Serow. it's more than double that for a tasting at Komi!) 
-They do not take reservations -- there is always a giant line starting at least half an hour before they open. You're then either selected for the first seating or you get a general time for a second or third seating that evening. When your table is ready, the restaurant texts you and you have 10 minutes to get there to be seated! 
-There is no real signage outside so it looks to be just another row house building, but inside is so pretty. 
-There is a set menu with 7 courses. The menu changes weekly and is available online. There are no substitutions or exceptions. You eat what they have if you want to eat there. 

Kelsey lined up about 30 minutes early and managed to get on a second seating list. Once we all met up, we grabbed a bottle of wine and cheese and headed up to kelsey's rooftop (just across the street). Super cute roof!

view from her rooftop.

really neat grill situation.

The weather was so perfect. Once we got the text that our table was ready we headed over to the restaurant. At the door the hostess spoke with me about the menu. I mistakenly told her that i had a peanut allergy and that i did not eat beef or pork. Half of the items on the menu contained either nuts or pork! I kept assuring her that i was well aware of the menu and that i was there for the experience -- i would be fine with whatever i could eat and that we were there for a friend's birthday so it was really fine. She insisted that i know all the things which was nice.

Once we sat down we decided on a bottle of wine (Catherine's choice) to celebrate properly. The waitress was really sweet and awesome. She brought the wine and per protocol poured a bit into catherine's glass for her to taste. When the waitress left, catherine said she had never done the whole swirl and taste when you order a bottle and felt really awesome. lol i couldn't think of a better 25th birthday situation! "welcome to 25, the classier half of the 20s!"

The wine was a great suggestion -- a sweet, chilled white wine. The waitress was so right in telling us to get sweet and chilled to balance the spice that was about to occur!

The courses were brought out in perfect timing. We always had sticky rice and tons of cabbage/rabbit food to munch on to calm our tastebuds when things were too spicy. Despite their warnings that there are no exceptions or substitutions, the restaurant was super super nice about my allergies and food restrictions. The waitress constantly made sure to explain what exactly was on the plate and on one course they even put the nuts on the side! two thumbs up for them being awesome about that even though they clearly didn't need to! 

I got no pictures of the meals or the inside, but trust me when I say all people with a good spice tolerance should definitely check this place out. I went into this dinner a person who does not necessarily like thai food but thought the food was exceptional! So flavorful, and have i mentioned enough, SO SPICY! The service and ambience were also great and well worth the per person charge! 

To top the night off, the restaurant/waitress remembered that I said i was there for a friend's birthday. they brought out a dessert with a candle for catherine! 

Happy 25th Catheroni. May the rest of your 20s be as classy as tonight!

Pinterest Night with Nimisha and Simaya!

Today I came home from work to find Sketchy mowing the grass. =)

I grabbed some crafty items and headed out to Umesh and Nimisha's place. Umesh has been out of town for work so it's just Nimisha and Simaya. Hadn't seen Simaya in a while -- she got so big in just a couple months!

We spent the majority of the time talking. We finally sat down to do crafts and realized neither of us knew what to do. I did terribly with taking pictures. Nimisha ended up painting bottle caps which actually look really cute when painted! Not sure what she'll use them for but definitely lots of options. 

I ended up making something american. Used this google image:

Then i cut out the shape of america in a special american flag i had been saving and framed it:

The american flag was from Obama's first inauguration. I remember so distinctly how cold it was and how frostbitten my feet felt! They were handing out these flags to wave for the cameras. I still have one other. Deciding what to do with that one.

Nimisha made veggie pizza for dinner which "I" thought was really good despite her thinking it was burnt!  In the end we made real game plan for things we'd make for next pinterest night so we wouldn't spend half the time thinking about what to do lol.

Successful pinterest night and was nice seeing Nimisha and Simaya! 

Annual Orlando Trip

This weekend was extremely exhausting. We got back into DC this morning with good intentions of going to work, but decided to both call in and sleep instead! Sleep so necessary in life.

Thursday:

Thursday morning was entertaining. As I buckled my seatbelt and closed my eyes on the airplane, i hear over the loud speaker "is Nalini Prasad here?" My tired brain thinks "oh fml. i probably dropped my ID somewhere. don't want to respond... but need to respond." so i wave my hand in the air. The man who i later find out is the pilot of the flight says "great! nalini's friend in florida wanted to make sure we didn't leave DC without her. Nalini evidently has a tendency to be late a lot." lol he was very entertaining and i got a good laugh out of it. People on the plane definitely had 'wtf' looks all around. 

Anyways, after a flight nap, Sketchy picked me up around noon. We headed to Kaitlin and James's place where I got to meet sadie! She's so cute and super not as hyper as i expected her to be from the stories i've heard.

I think lucy and her would definitely play well together since she seems pretty playful. 

We then headed out to Paradise Cove to meet with the wedding planner and talk about logistics. We saw the space again which i thought was just as beautiful. =) Got a better idea of placement of food, decorations, tables, firepit, dancefloor, bar, etc. Was a very successful trip. 

Then we drove over to the area where our rental homes will be for wedding weekend. We ended up getting three houses. One for sketchy's mom's side, one for sketchy's dad side and one for the us and friends who showed interested in being a loud and ooc house for a full weekend! We were lucky enough to get all three houses in the same community. Unfortunately the community was gated so we couldn't go in, but got a picture of the front which looked really nice: 

Afterwards we killed some time at the premium outlets before our appointment with the caterers. We were able to sit down with the owner of the restaurant and pick out some menu items to taste the next day. We set an appointment for tasting and headed out. 

We grabbed Pollo Tropical (haven't had in so long!) and headed to Dero's place to have dinner with Dero and the kids. We spent the evening there, keeping the kids up way past their bedtime. Then we headed to Kaitlin and James's to spend the night. That's when i remembered that Kristen was going to drive up from Tampa to have dinner/drinks with us and introduce me and Sketchy to her bf DJ! We ended up going out around 11:30 -- ooc. We went to the ale house (a florida fav of mine). Sketchy and I just had dessert:

some crazy chocolate cake but it had layers of icecream!

DJ was super nice. Approval. Can't believe they drove 1.5 hours (each way) just to have a 30 minute dinner with us, but glad they did! Florida trips are always so ooc with trying to squeeze in seeing everyone within a few days1

Friday:

We headed out early to the food tasting appointment. We're going with a place called Tabla Bar. Really liked the diversity of the menu and the owner. They went all out with tastings. We thought we were listing a bunch of items and they were going to pick a few for the tasting. They ended up cooking large portions of each item! 

aloo chaat (which we ended up not going with but was delicious)

Malai Kofta (doing this for dinner)

Palak Paneer (ended up not going with this paneer, although, again, it was super tastey) 

chili paneer (SO GOOD. going with this for dinner and possibly also for a cocktail hour item)

and of course can't forget the naan

they had books with presentation pictures. took ghetto pictures of pictures. these are desserts.

fruit display

We're going to do a cheese and fruit platter for cocktail hour. CHEEEESEEE =) They're also going to make the seating chart display super pretty. I've mentioned before that we're doing pint glasses (personalized) with mango lassis and some caribbean drink as the seating chart. We'll put colorful straws that go with the theme in the drink and tie the name and table number to the straw. This will be the first table people see. The caterer suggested a nice giant round table with the glasses stacked (about 2 or 3 tiers) with a very large Ganesh (hindu god) statue in the middle!

Afterwards we got pedicures =) 

heh.

i went with pumpkin orange. also intended on adding some maroon for VT toes!

After pedicures we headed back towards Dero's house. Niko was having his very first soccer match! We were super excited about this for a couple wks. As we were getting near the field area we were told that his game got cancelled -- no explanation. crazy little leagues! Anyways, we ended up going to a field and just watching him run around and kick a ball. 

Terrible picture but this is Dero and Rolland kicking a ball around with Niko.

After an hour or so, it was time to grab Anjo from dance practice and then we all headed out to the most amazing place ever. Firkin and Keglers. Basically a Dave and Busters but it was arcade games/bar/bowling alley/sports everything all under one room. The bowling lanes were under GINORMOUS screens. There was one screen for every 4 lanes, and also curtains so you could have a private party with four lanes and one TV. That place must be amazing on football sunday!

crazy large screens.

view from second floor.

Friday night we spent with the kids since they had no bedtime. 

Saturday:

In the morning we headed to the Lowe's workshop thing they do every saturday for kids. You get a kit, nails and hammer and build something with crazy instructions.  

kids hammering away -- it was so loud.

people were legitimately sitting everywhere. lots of people!

dero and rolland helped niko

sketchy and i helped Anjo (and by help i mean we hardly did anything lol) We made a firetruck.

After Lowe's I headed to Kaitlin's to go bridesmaid dress shopping for her wedding. Sketchy headed off to watch college football with some of my cousins. 

Everyone but one person was able to make it to dress shopping. She choose to go with the same color and material but different cuts. I think it's going to be super cute. Everyone was able to find a different dress that they liked on themselves. 

I think i'm going with this dress:

Totally something i could wear again in professional setting, or just in life since i really love the cut of it! But it'll be in a pretty purple color, not the brown seen above. 

After dress shopping we headed back to kaitlin's to watch the UCF game and hang out. James made ridiculously amazing buffalo wings in his new smoker. It was seriously the best wing in terms of fall off the bone texture. At some point in the afternoon, sketchy was supposed to come over and hang out as well and we were going to spend the night at their place. My cousins decided that wasn't going to happen. I legitimately got multiple calls from cousins and my brother telling me that they were kidnapping him and he was not allowed to leave. 

Jenna ended up giving me a ride downtown much later on her way home to Clermont from Kaitlin's place. I met up with the guys after the big boxing match that was happening. We went out for a bit and then we spent the night at a cousin's place in downtown orlando. 

Sunday:

We headed out to temple super early in the morning. After service we met with my uncle (who will be the pundit for our ceremony), aunts and Hema (my cousin) to talk wedding details. Hema took fantastic notes and even sent out 'meeting minutes' lol. Very organized and productive discussion. We nailed down mehendi artist, times for mehendi and Maticore as well as food for ceremony! 

Spent some time with my grandma afterwards and then headed out to downtown disney to hang out with Dero, Rolland and the Kids. We had Earl of Sandwich for lunch... MMM. I love that place so much. Their tuna melt taste like chicken salad. After lunch we walked around all the stores so Anjo could go shopping with her disney giftcard. 

I also reeled sketchy into letting me do something i've always wanted to do at downtown disney. I worked there for two years and always walked by this little 'make your own pearl jewelry' kiosk. You pick an oyster, the person opens and pulls out a pearl (diff colors and sizes... luck of the draw) and then you can choose a setting and type of jewelry to put the pearl in/on. 

bucket of oysters

the one i picked

oyster opened -- you can see the pearl!

it was a pretty awesome gunmetal gray pearl

the pearl after shined and prepped

I got all excited and then the piece i wanted was not available and everything else was super expensive. I ended up just taking the pearl home and being happy i finally got the experience of picking out an oyster! At some point i'll get it set in something at a jewelry store, maybe. If not i'll use it for something crafty. Maybe as part of a future christmas ornament or something.

By the end of Sunday we were so beat. We ended up spending the night at Kaitlin and James's place. Headed to the airport super early this morning and then slept the day away! This day of rest was so needed.

Florida, as always, you were tons of fun, but super exhausting!