Barbeques and Bonfires!

How could I forget to post this!?! Being hosts and having guests in our home is such a joy for Josh and I so of course summertime barbeques and bonfires are our favorite. Josh gets an oppurtunity to show of all his hard work in the garden and I get to eat smores. If you have next Saturday evening free, by all means please stop by, we'd love to have you over. It's a chance to see everyone before the wedding madness begins, catch up with those you haven't seen in a while, and meet new faces. BYOB and we hope to see you there!

Two down, one more to go...

Congratulations Tom and Heather! We're so happy for you and your new life together. I had to share the photos from this amazingly beautiful wedding:

Heather and Tom Barry Tilson Photography slideshow

Summertime and the livin's easy

This blog would not be a truthful representation of this wedding process if I didn't honestly discuss how emotionally drained and overwhelmingly stressed I have been lately. I think a combination of focusing all my energy towards the other two weddings and coming to terms with how much work still needs to go into making our wedding a success, has really made this summer a trying time for Josh and I. Also, not having our annual camping trips, beach days, or other usual summertime activity is a bigger sacrifice than I thought it would be. I'm seeing now how important it is to maintain your normal non-wedding life's activities amidst all the wedding planning. So from here on out, the excitement and joy for our Big Day is what will keep us going. We can't sweat the small stuff. And we must remember that despite all the wedding craziness this year...everyday we wake up as the same Josh and Sheila (who happen to be exchanging vows in a couple months). Anyone want to go canoeing?

And so it begins

Zach and Breaha were married this past weekend! Wedding 1 of 3 was quite a success if I do say so myself. Thanks you guys for letting us be a part of your remarkable wedding. Enjoy some photos:

Zach & Breaha's Blaine Siesser Photography slideshow

Our garden-the end results

As I previously promised, here are the fruits of our labor from our first season of gardening together:We had to prematurely pick the all the peppers because of a threat of frost. Hopefully this year we'll be able to yield a larger variety of green, yellow, orange and red peppers.


Our only goal is to grow enough tomatoes and peppers for our annual cooking of Aunt Rena's awesome salsa. But this year we decided to try our hand at carrots and lettuces. Wish us luck!

Easter = baby animals!!!

Josh and I did nothing over Easter weekend. It was so relaxing to just enjoy each other's company...well, and the company of some new furry friends.Josh was so fascinated by the baby ducks that Heather brought over. He couldn't take his eyes of them. As you can see, he wouldn't even look up to get his picture taken. Don't we all look like such a happy family though?
Abby made new friends:
My brother Harold's new pet rat, Rex!

Our garden

It's beginning to warm up around here so I thought I would share some photos I took last summer around our yard.
We have the most beautiful sunflowers growing every year. They started growing when my grandmother lived in this house and had a bird feeder on the back porch with sunflower seeds. They're not as big as the common sunflowers you see therefore they never get droopy and topple over from the weight of their head like most do. This also makes them ideal for cutting to put in floral arrangments (which Josh often does)

The sunflowers have been cross-pollenated so many times we are lucky to have a variety of sunflowers...it never ceases to amaze. These photos don't even reflect the vibrant red coloring in the flower petals. And look at this little white breed that showed up for the first time last summer!
Josh knows I like simplicity so he picked this single flower for me. We had some odd looking Dahlias come up but I really loved the strangeness of them. If you click on the photo to enlarge you can see what an abnormal looking Dahlia it is.
Every year we have one or two frogs that come to live in our little ponds with the goldfish
A beautiful tomato ripening in our garden. I'll have to do another post about the vegetable garden because I have plenty more pictures to share...

Happy Valentine's Day

Did you know... that Valentine's day is actually our anniversary?
Josh and I have been dating for 4 years, but starting next year we'll have a new anniversary - August 22nd!!!

Merry Christmas!

To my family in Arizona who we miss every day that they're away from home.
To my beautiful Nicole in beautiful France.
To Whitney who's spending her winter break in Europe.
To Josh's family who have taken me in for the 4th Christmas now and make everything so merry and bright.
To Will and Kory who spent a whole day after-Christmas shopping with us.
To Sarah for rocking out with me to 80's music.
To TJ and Uriah, congratulations on your Christmas engagement!
To everyone in our lives near and far, thanks for making this Holiday season such a special one! Hope it was the best for you and yours.
Love, Josh and Sheila

Life goes on

What have I been doing with myself? One might ask after noticing how infrequently I've been posting on here.

#1 Belly dancingThe Habibi Dancers had a show at the Riverwalk theater on November 22nd, and 23rd. Beyond the Borders was amazing and I am so thrilled to have been a part of it. We performed many peices that were outside our normal spectrum of traditional Middle-Eastern dance. The picture above is from a fusion bellydance/African number.

#2 ThanksgivingMy future sister-in-law and bridesmaid Breaha invited the family up to her place for Thanksgiving this year. We shared the weekend with her fiancee's family, and I thoroughly enjoyed the time we all spent together. Games, swimming, movies, talking about vampries (see note below) shopping and of course great food. I truly hopes this becomes a long time tradition for our families.

#3 More belly dancingA local Middle-Eastern restaurant, Aladdin's, has troupe members perform during dinner hours on the 1st and 3rd Friday of the month. Yesterday I danced there for the first time and had a blast! I felt nervous and clumsy but loved every minute of it, cant wait to do it again. My beautiful bra and belt set was hand made by the mother-in-law of another woman in our troupe, and that was the first time I've gotten to wear it. Isn't it gorgeous?

*note: I also have not been able to put down Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. So a lot, if not all, of my free time as been spent reading these books. I've had vampires on the brain for two weeks now. If you know me, you know that I don't enjoy reading books (the last one I read was 3 years ago and before that was required reading for a high school Lit. class) see my bridesmaid Heather's blog entry regarding these books.