To Close A Chapter

Last night mom and I went to a book signing for the release of her friends new book: May It Be.  I rushed home after work, mom and I grabbed a glass of wine and snack and then walked over to the local library. We arrived a few minutes late but caught the tail end of Chrissa's book intro. We listened to the other authors talk about their inspirations, sat through some Q&A and congratulated Chrissa on this exciting chapter in her life.
Mom bought a copy and as I was flipping through the pages, reading a few random entries I came across this one:

When the time comes

to close a chapter,

may you honor the ending

as much as the beginning,

just as a hug is an act of

both claiming and releasing.

May you go with integrity,

finish with dignity.

~May It Be, Chrissa Ventrelle

It really spoke to me.

As most of you know, I was married in the Catholic Church. When I separated and then later divorced, I reached out to the priest who married me and was told that I apply for an Annulment with the Diocese so that, in the future, if I wanted to marry again I could do so in the Church. I paid the fees right away; but, I sat on the paperwork for about a year - for no particular reason - more because it was a lot of work that I just wasn't mentally or emotionally prepared for. About a year later, the Diocese contacted me to let me know that the fees would expire if I didn't get moving on the paperwork or I risked having to start over from scratch. So, I submitted the request. 

To clarify, this is all 'in the eyes of the Catholic Church. This has nothing to do with my legal marital status. I am legally divorced. Going through this process will not change the status to annulled.

Fast forward to last fall. After having submitted all of the paperwork and asking several family members and friends to provide testimonies, the Diocese contacted me telling me that my case wasn't 'strong enough' and that the Cannon Judge would likely not approve the request. To say that I was hurt and devastated is an understatement. To be honest, it completely shattered me. It felt like an old wound was being reopened. I was already legally divorced, how could the Diocese do this to me after everything I had been through. After a bit of wallowing in my own self pity (shocking, I know), I picked up the phone and called my contact at the Diocese to figure out what I needed to do to make my case stronger. My contact told me to wait until after the New Year to see if another Judge would see my case and possibly grant me a different decision and if that didn't work, we would present the case in a different way. 

After calling the Diocese to check the status of my case almost weekly for the past 5 months, I received a phone call from my contact at the Diocese last Friday. She told me that the Judge had made a final decision in the affirmative - that my annulment was granted and that "as of today, you are free." (Yes, she used the word "free.") I basically jumped for joy, I told everyone who has been part of this arduous journey with me and toasted a not so great margarita in celebration.

Now, back to yesterday. I received the paperwork with the final ruling in the mail. I felt relieved last Friday, but there was something about reading the words on paper with the Cannon Judge's signature that made it all the more real and sweet. As I was flipping through May It Be, I stumbled upon the above entry, read it aloud to my mom, we teared up, embraced and then I bought my own copy of Chrissa's book. While she signed it, I told her my story and she congratulated and thanked me for sharing about how, in just a few moments, her book touched me.

With all of this said, this annulment was the final string, the final attachment, the final chapter of that part of my life. I want to thank everyone for listening to me, for holding me, for loving me, for supporting me, for celebrating me throughout my life, but especially over the last three years. I truly would not have made it this far and am beyond grateful for the relationships that I have made, cultivated and cherished.

Thank you does not do my feelings justice.

Onward and Upward.  

Sam turns 18

So, I am officially old. The kid that gave me the 'Big Sister' title turned 18 this summer and graduated from high school. This kid had a big weekend. He graduated from high school on a Friday and turned 18 on Saturday. This kid is bright, kind, loving, generous and all around awesome. I am so happy that I get to be his big sister and help him watch him grow up into the cool dude he is today. 

We were supposed to go on a little weekend trip away, just the two of us, but some unexpected scheduling conflicts got in the way, so we decided to go to an A's game instead. I got us some awesome seats behind home plate, and put in a good word to get some fireworks - okay, fine, the fireworks were already planned, but it sure was an added bonus. We ate hot dogs wrapped in bacon, cheered on our boys and had a great night out, just the two of us! 

Can't wait to see what the world has in store for you little brother (who is taller than me). Love you to the moon and always! 

Divorce Party and New Pretties

Alright, so....I had a divorce party. If that bothers you, come back another day for another post. If it doesn't, the party was pretty awesome and hilarious and you should keep reading.

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So...how to write this post?

On the one year anniversary of being final, I threw a little party at my house. If you know me but at all you would know that I wasn't celebrating divorce and I wasn't celebrating my divorce, I was celebrating that I have come a long way since I was separated, since I was married even, and I wanted to celebrate the awesome woman I have become with the awesome people who have been by my side through it all, tears included.  And you know what? I have come a long way and I am better because of all of this and I wanted to celebrate it. Is that so wrong? No, I didn't think so.

Now, since this was my party, I could do whatever I wanted. So, I ordered the same cake that was my wedding cake and had the bakery inscribe "Weir Done" on it, because it was only fitting - I had so much fun with that name, I couldn't let my last chance go to waste, you get it. The cake was a huge hit.

I may have made some off handed comments - hey! it was my party - but all in all, the party was a success full of laughter, lots of love and a stripper. I will say that I felt tremendous love and support and thought I could make it through a toast, which was a joke. If I remember correctly, I pour champagne for everyone, told everyone I was making a speech, got up there and said, 'I love you all' and couldn't make it through anything else. I don't like that kind of attention on me.

Oh yeah, back to the stripper. A friend of mine rented a stripper (wait, 'rented a stripper'? that sounds weird, what's the right way to say this?). He was disgusting and I think everyone at the party was excited for him to GTFO. He showed up in military fatigues (first no) and then he was smelly and gross (all of the rest of the nos)

my friends know me too well!

Now for the second part of this post.  I have been sitting on the diamonds from my engagement and wedding rings for all of this time. I, initially, wanted to sell it but the jeweler I took it all to offered me a silly-low price and my mom was very adamant about me repurposing the jewelry into something that I would wear which gave me a little anxiety. When I thought about it, I thought that it would be too sentimental and I didn't want to spend the money on something that I would never actually wear.  Skip ahead to January 2016, 16 months after we separated. I was chatting about this dilemma with a friend and she showed me this gorgeous tiffany necklace that I could model my jewelry after. I told my mom and she reminded me that I also had the diamond from her engagement ring from my bio dad and that I should try to incorporate them all together. 
So that is what I did. I took the two diamonds, from my engagement ring and my moms, and made them into one necklace that is both white and yellow gold (because you never know your mood) and I had the jeweler make a sideways cross that curved out of the diamonds on my wedding band. I wanted the chains to be on the shorter side because I wanted to be able to layer them with other necklaces since they are so dainty. 
I could not be happier with the outcome. I wear them all of the time and I always get compliments on them. And the best part is that the necklaces were ready for me to wear at my party! It was awesome! 

Tiffany necklace inspiration 

Las Vegas After Christmas 2015

I accidentally this update, oops! I visited Las Vegas a couple of days after Christmas last year to hang with my family. It was a great visit: I had a facial got my hair cut, ate great good, drank delicious wine, planned a run in with Rachel, spent lots of quality time with my family, had a girls night out with the gorgeous Chippendales (Thunder was way better...!) and was once again sad to leave. 

If only this dude was into me, I think we could make each other very happy....

Grand Canyon 2016

Along the same lines as my post about Seattle, I went to the Grand Canyon for the long weekend in February, to expand the United States travels. Can you believe that I have lived on the WBest Coast my entire life and have never visited Seattle or the Grand Canyon?! Yeah, me either. So, in my effort to visit new places closer to home a friend of mine (also a Grand Canyon Virgin) and I decided to take on the Canyon, and we are both sure glad we did.
As I have mentioned before, I have family that lives in Vegas, so Caitlin and I decided to make Vegas our home base. We flew in on Thursday mid day, picked up our rental car, worked for the rest of the day on Thursday and had dinner with my family. Friday, we woke up, worked for most of the morning and then hit the road. On our way to the Grand Canyon, we stopped and took a tour of the Hoover Dam. The weather was beautiful! 
We made it to the Grand Canyon after dark, dropped off our stuff in our lodge - The Bright Angel Lodge and walked around a bit. It was cold, like, snow was still on the ground. We had eaten a late lunch so we weren't too hungry for dinner so we resorted to wine and cheese that we picked up on our way out of Vegas. 
We woke up early to grab breakfast in our hotel restaurant and get to hiking. We decided that we were going to do the Rim Trail which is pretty basic with a bunch of look outs. We were looking for something semi-easy with great vantage points along the way. We walked along and stopped at almost every overlook. We hiked for maybe about 2 miles then turned around and headed back to the area of the trail where the lodges are and we stopped for a snack and drink at El Tovar. We went back to our lodge for a short nap. 
After our nap we hiked the opposite direction to catch the sunset over the Canyon. We packed our bags with cups and a bottle of wine and set on our way. The sunset was freezing cold, mind blowing and we were a little tipsy. After the sunset, we went back to our lodge for dinner then back to our room for some serious Sisterwives binging. (I am serious you guys, once you start, you can't stop)
On Sunday, we woke up before the sunrise, drove over to the bus station, hopped on a bus to
Yavapai Point to watch the sunrise. Wow. Just wow. Like the sunset, our phones and my fancy schmancy camera did not do it justice. We hung out there for a bit, walked around and hopped back on the bus to head back to El Tovar for breakfast, to pack up our bags and head back to Vegas - today is Valentine's Day.

While we were at the Grand Canyon, my friend Amit had sent me a text asking me about a lounge at the Cosmo that went to when I was there after Christmas was a ton of fun. We realized that we were going to overlap by a day and made plans for the three of us to go to dinner on Valentine's Day. Caitlin and I made it back to Vegas mid afternoon, showered and changed and headed to the strip for our triple VDay date (with, I will say, the worst uber driver on the planet; not an important story).

We had sushi at Shibuya at the MGM Grand and then went over to the Bellagio for a snack and cocktail at Yellowtail. After dinner, we went back to my family's house and drank some wine around the fire pit and played cards. 

On Monday, Caitlin and I treated ourselves to spa treatments: facials, massages and pedicures. It was much needed! 
Loved the Grand Canyon and I would definitely go back and hike down to the bottom...well, let's be honest, ride a mule down :-)

France - Paris

We arrived in Paris in the middle of the afternoon on Tuesday. It was hot, as per all of the other locations on our vacation. We were staying at a hotel that was very conveniently located between the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe. It was awesome. We had our first batch of French Onion Soup and it was delicious. We then decided to walk over to the Eiffel Tower to see if we could get tickets for Thursday. Unfortunately, you can't buy tickets in advance :-( We sat in a little park and people watched for a while then headed back to the hotel. On our walk back, we stumbled upon a group of street performers and sat and watched them for a while. We went back to the hotel for a quick stop and then we all walked over to the Arc de Triomphe.

On Wednesday, we woke up and decided to hop on (pun intended) a hop on/off bus and tour Paris. Oh my, Paris is huge. We ended up getting off the bus in the Moulin Rouge district, had lunch and then walked up to the Sacre Coeur for unbelievable views of the city. We got back on the bus and drove by the Louvre and got off at Norte Dame for a photo shoot and for a beer nearby. We hopped back on the bus and got off at the Invalides and decided to walk to the Eiffel Tower and to find dinner before getting in line to go to the top. It was so, super hot and we waited in line for a while to get into the elevator to go to the top. There were tons and tons of people and it was smelly and hot. It, honestly, wasn't ideal, but it when we got to the top, it was dark and the city was lit up and it was magical. After then getting down and it being a nightmare, we went back to the hotel to meet up with my friend Christie. It was so wonderful to see her. We got up to our room and went straight to sleep, since it was after midnight by this point.

On Thursday, we all got up and headed to Versailles. I had been before, but the rest of my family and Christie hadn't. It was so packed and hot, again. We breezed through the rooms and spent more time in the Hall of Mirrors and out in the back on the grounds admiring how much land there was. We headed to lunch and then decided to take the train back to the hotel. Before we got to the hotel, we stopped for drinks and then went back to our hotel to play games before Christie and I had to make our way to the train station to London.

Goof #3.

We arrived at the train station and we noticed that our train is about 10 minutes delayed. We had arrived in plenty of time so we went to the store and grabbed a bottle of wine for the train. We went back to the station and waited at the terminal. It is about 9:20pm and I take out my ticket and my ticket number doesn't match the number on the screen. I double check with Christie, hers matches mine, and then walked over to an agent. He pointed above us and told me that the train had already left. What? We were standing at the arrivals platform, not the departures, and we missed our train. #faaack

We get back on the metro and head back to the hotel. Thankfully, my parents were still there and leaving the next day so we had a place to stay. Christie and I hop on the computer to rebook our train and realize that it was going to cost us about $300 per person. Uh..no. So we look into flights and found the perfect flight. The catch? We had plans for Saturday in London at 12noon and our flight landed at 11, we didn't have enough time. We book the earliest flight, 7am. That means we had to be at the airport at 5am and that means that the metro didn't open in time to get us there, so we had to reserve a taxi. Oh my gosh. We get everything reserved, get up to our room and Christie realized that she booked our Saturday tour for 2:30, not noon, so we could have taken the original flight.

Ugh.

Whatever, we made it to London in one piece. All worked out, even if we were exhausted. Next up...London!!!