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!