dirty thirty. like dirt.

So yes, maybe I have been working on this post for the past 12 months. But I really just couldn't handle how special my 30th was. So get ready for a LONG post with LOTS of pictures, which were taken exactly one year ago.

Last year, leading up to my 30th birthday, I painted my nails dark red and realized that my hands now look like my mom's. Not as much as my sister's do, but that's because she got Mom's craftsman skills and uses them every day. I had gotten my hair cut short again while I was visiting Justin in AZ for his/Todd's birthdays at the beginning of October, and his stylist told me my grey hair was "perfect." It's not so bad being 30, I thought.

I was feeling good about my birthday weekend - but also apprehensive. Like, excited nervousness. You see, many years ago I showed Todd a cake and said, "Todd, this is the cake I want you to buy for my surprise 30th birthday party." And that was sort of the end of it. We joked about it a couple times in the following years (i.e. I dropped not-so-subtle hints about my "surprise" 30th birthday), but I gave him no direction whatsoever. Just a cake. Earlier in the year, I knew he was starting to plan something because I straight up asked him, "Are we going to Disney World for my birthday? I just have to know so I don't make a disappointed face, even if I'm not actually disappointed with what we are doing." He said no. So I made the disappointed face. But he said it was because he wanted more of my friends to be able to come. I was sad we would not be celebrating at The Happiest Place on Earth, but I was also really excited to know that he was actually thinking about it and trying to make plans.

And then I started to psych myself out. I always pictured seeing my best friends' faces and laughing and drinking and smiling all night. But all my friends had just come to Chicago in May (you know, for our wedding), and I would not, could not, be mad at them for missing a birthday party after just traveling to be a part of another super special celebration. So I was mentally preparing myself for something smaller than I had originally pictured, and was practicing my "happy-face". I knew Todd was working so hard to plan something special, and whatever it was going to be would be just right. When it came time to pack, he said, "Pack for Wisconsin." I said, "Wisconsin? Like inside, or outside?" And he said, "Yes." Cool. Thanks for the help.

On the eve of my birthday, we left work and drove to his parents house. I had been texting with Justin all afternoon about how Todd was taking me to the woods for ritual sacrifice on my 30th birthday. Todd was stressed out because there was traffic and "we had dinner reservations." I really knew something was up when we pulled in his parents' driveway and the kitchen window shade was closed. (It's never closed. Something was happening inside there!) We walked in the front door, and his parents were sitting in the living room, very suspiciously nonchalant. I gave them hugs and kisses, and then as I walked past the kitchen, I hear "SURPRISE!!!" in two of my favorite lady-voices! I turn around just in time to be jumped on by Shay and A, who flew from NYC and DC. Oddly enough, the first face I actually saw was Matt - Shay's new bf, who I had not yet met - and I remember thinking... "Oh hey, Matt is here waitaminuteWHAT??" and then I was tackled.

My mother in law had prepared quite a spread - as usual - so we sat down to eat and give my heart a rest, and Todd went out to the car to get our bags. When he came back in, I turned around and following him through the door was Justin. That jerk had been texting me all day in airports. I covered my face with my hands and he teased me with some profanity not fit for in-laws. When I looked up again, there were Brandon (brother) and Shane (bf) right behind him. They all flew in from Phoenix just for me.

After things settled down, I asked if this was it. Like, this is plenty. So many people I love - (and I knew Dom and Kristen were joining the next day from Chicago) - just hanging out all weekend in Milwaukee. I'm good. This is so good. But no. One more surprise tomorrow, and no one would tell me where we were going. So the next morning, we packed up again and hit the road. It was a beautifully sunny day to turn 30. We drove west from Milwaukee into the depths of Wisconsin for about 45 minutes and got off the highway in the middle of nowhere. We went down country roads, and I was pretty sure the ritual sacrifice was becoming a real possibility. We turned down a residential road and I saw a lake and thought "Aww, lake house! Yay!" When we got to the end of the road there was a very cute old sign for "Wandawega Lake Resort" and I said "Todd, look at that cute sign! Did you see it?" And then we turned into a gravel drive. I saw an open field with archery... and a tire swing - omg... and a TREEHOUSE... and then I screamed at him, "WE'RE AT CAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMPPPPP!!!!!" I was grinning from ear to ear, jumped out of the car and ran to the tire swing shouting "Somebody push me!" Yep. That's how I turned 30 years old. On a tire swing.

In the last year, Camp Wandawega has blown up in the media. They have been all over the blogs, in the news, on an episode of Tree House Masters. It's incredible. But at that point, I feel like it was still relatively under the radar - except I had seen it before. I had pinned this image of my dream grown-up treehouse. And there it was. Right before my very eyes. And that evening, after Kristen and Dom and Leah and Dianna had all arrived to join us for archery, tire swinging, treehouse mimosas and dinner at a "Friday Night Fish Fry" (which is apparently a thing in Wisconsin), we sat at that very table under those very lights in that very treehouse and Todd brought out my birthday cake. Not only did I open my eyes and shout "MY SPRINKLE CAAAAAAKE!!!" but when we cut into it, the cake was a Golden Delight. Just like the ones at every single graduation party from high school. You know the ones: light angel-food style cake with whipped cream style frosting layers that have sliced strawberries laid in them... My mouth is watering. It was a deliciously happy-accident on his part. (See what I did there?) My mother-in-law was in charge of the cake, and I believe his main instructions were just "Covered in sprinkles. Like, no icing should be visible." They nailed it.

The rest of the weekend included bunking in the old "hotel" building (aka "house of ill-repute") with incredible lake views, hot whiskey-ciders made on the vintage stove, hikes (yes, a couple friends got briefly lost), one exhausting canoe/row-boat outing, hanging out in tee-pees, bonfires, dirty-catch-phrase, and spending 4-5 straight hours taking turns on the rope-swing over the lake set to the weekend anthem: "Wrecking Ball" by Miley Cyrus. It really is the perfect rope swinging song.

I want to go on and on. But this post is already approaching 1,500 words. That's probably longer than any college paper I ever wrote. (I didn't take very many hard classes, obviously.) I honestly could never say enough about my 30th birthday weekend. Todd pulled off the most unexpected surprise, and the most incredible weekend I could have ever imagined. If I hadn't just married him a few months prior, he would have been a shoe-in at that point for sure. I rode the wave of that joy for 12 solid months. To be honest, I still am. I can't wait to celebrate 31 with some of my Wandawega campers this weekend. I just feel so blessed. (Not like, #blessed. Like, actually blessed.)

Long live Wandawega. xoxo

the luckiest.

One year ago, I was in full pre-wedding-stress-mode. The dress had to be picked up from the seamstress, the menus and programs had to be picked up from the printer (the first batch was ALL WRONG, I tell you!), I had to check into the hotel, I didn't have a bra for my rehearsal dinner dress (that I just picked out THAT WEEK! Because NOTHING WAS RIGHT!), my original make-up artist cancelled at the last minute, it was unseasonably cold (and WE ARE GETTING MARRIED IN THE GARDEN DAMMIT)... FULL ON PANIC MODE!

Thankfully, I have the best friends/family/husband in the whole world. Everything was perfect, even the parts that weren't. We partied forever. And I would do it all over again every year. I will say it forever: May 11, 2013 was the happiest day of my life. It was an incredible day, filled with the most special people from every special moment of my life so far. I know that as time goes on, you lose touch with people. It's the natural way of things. But I feel so fortunate to have had so many people from so many places come to celebrate and send us off on this new adventure. It was especially important to me because of the absence of one most important guest. Who was there every time the clouds parted and the sun shined into the courtyard. Which it did at the most wonderful times.

this ring is part of my mom's wedding set. she had three bands, too.

some may remember this as the second best moment of the night.

Full Disclosure: Marriage isn't easy. The first year of marriage has been tough, but that could be said about any year of any relationship ever. You work hard for love and happiness. And when you are in love and happy, even the hard work feels easy in the end. We are still so happy. So in love. So hilarious. So lucky. But I'm the luckiest. (Don't tell Todd!)

the square is a circle.

I moved to the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago seven years ago, somewhat relunctantly actually. I was coerced by my sister and an apartment on the circle with a garbage disposal that was half a block from the train station. You see, Logan Square is actually a circle. A wonderfully confusing mess of staight/curved/diagonal streets that allow you to weed out intruders to your neighborhood simply by observing who does or does not know how to properly navigate said circle.

I wasn't so sure about the West Side or the Blue Line at the time. It was "FAR!" from my friends (South Loop/Lincoln Park) and my school (South Loop) and I would have to take TWO TRAINS to get anywhere! (UGGGHHH! So hard!) Stefanie said, "Just wait. In five years, this area is going to start growing like crazy." To which I said, "FIVE YEARS?! But we live here NOW!" (P.S. I love reminiscing about how whiney I was to my sister all the time.) Well, obviously, she did not lead me astray. Seven years and three apartments later, I've gotten to experience the changes to the neighborhood first hand.

The Logan Theatre was renovated back to its original glory and then some in 2012.
(Instagram stolen from A.)
The downside of living in the new "hot" neighborhood is that rent just keeps going up. And the property managers don't seem to care about making any improvements to their apartments because there are one hundred new tenants just waiting for you to get sick of your shitty place so they can move in. Immediately after the honeymoon, Todd and I had the super-fun task of looking for a new apartment, effective immediately. Not the most relaxing way to start your life together as 'newlyweds', but it was necessary.

At this point, I'd like to note that getting married can really skew your priorities and outlook on life. Like, "We're married now! We need to have two bathrooms, a garage, a fancy kitchen, a yard, and LOTS of closets!" We were ready to shell out hundreds more dollars a month to try to meet this expectation. We were open to any neighborhood; anywhere that we could check off as many of those boxes as possible. The more places Todd emailed to me to take a look at, the more discouraging the search became. How far do we go - geographically AND monitarily - to try to get the "dream" apartment? How many more places can we see before we just settle for something we don't love? Even in the perfect apartment, would we really love it as much as we love living in Logan Square? Have we gone about this search all wrong?

Our last day at our first place. That was our window right above our heads.
If the smiles above didn't already give it away... Surprise! We officially moved into my fourth apartment in Logan Square (Todd's second) on June 22nd; exactly six weeks after our wedding day. We found a great place in our favorite neighborhood for way less than the places we were looking at elsewhere. How did we do that, you ask? I'll have to get editor's notes from Todd because, honestly, he did it all. Including forcing me to make up my mind about what was most important. Our new place doesn't check all the crazy boxes we had dreamed up, but it checks enough of them. And we realized that the most important box was actually a Square. (Which is actually a circle.)

We appropriately chose to shoot some of our engagement photos last year
by the 'Home' mural outside of the Logan Square Blue Line station.

Welcome (back) Home!

insta gratification.

It really happened. I'm a married lady. Holy moly. And we've made it five and a half whole weeks already! So far, it's... pretty much the same. Don't take that the wrong way; it feels incredible to be married! But when you have been together for five years, lived together for almost two, and known each other for about eight, the marriage part is really a formality. He's been my husband for a while now.

The wedding, though... Best. Day. Of. My. Life.

Honestly. And not because it was "my day" or because every last detail was perfect and sparkly and white and every little girl's dream. It wasn't. It was our day. And every detail was not perfect, there were very few sparkles, and the whitest part was the dancing. But it was perfectly us. It was our dream. (There you go. There's the cliche.) It was the best, most amazing celebration of family and friends. I just wanted to drink in all of the love and joy and laughter that started the moment the first guests started arriving (read: Justin. On Wednesday.) and continued until the moment the last guests departed (read: Us. Because Justin was asleep in our apartment when we left for our honeymoon. Yes, Todd knew what he was getting into before he proposed).

Another thing I loved was getting to relive it all immediately, and peruse the hastags on instagram the next day. Here are a few favorites from #garciaganza2013 and #lovetoddandstacey.

heart breaker at hooters the day before. sorry fellas. this prize has been WON.

post-rehearsal-dinner drinks. post-post-rehearsal-dinner-drinks hair fix.

hs bffs. there's a baby in there!

clones. my hubba and my nuzzle. she knew before we knew.

oh yeah, and then it got real.

and then i got to dance with my dad.

best buds.

todd and his mama got the party started.

photo. booth. mania. (+ unicorn.)

best day of my life.

These instas are courtesy of my wonderful friends and family, whose social media links I will keep private. But many thanks to all of them for capturing such perfect moments and letting me steal them because I'M THE BRIDE. xo

soon-to-be mrs.

In four days, I will be getting married to this little guy:

Chicago, Summer 2008 That is the first know photo of the two of us together after we started dating. Todd was 21 (finally) and I was 24. Ah, the good ol' days. We started dating on May 15, 2008 - we were engaged on May 13, 2012 - and we will be married on May 11, 2013. Almost five years exactly. It's amazing how much people change in five years. Who are those tiny people sitting on that couch?

Seattle, Spring 2009 We have had a lot of adventures together, and I can't wait to see what else is in store for us. The first trip we ever took together was by train, from Chicago to Seattle. No internet access or phone service for two days. It was incredible, and stil one of my favorite trips we have ever taken.

Puerto Rico, Summer 2010 Todd will try anything. He is so brave. He works hard and dedicates himself to everything he does, even if he has no idea what he is doing. He figures it out, and then excels at it. He helps me realize that I can do more than I give myself credit for. If he can face his fear of sea monsters and get his scuba certification (on our honeymoon!), then I can probably find the courage to do the things that scare me, too.

Glacier National Park, Summer 2011 One of the greatest things about Todd is how well he gets along with everyone. That, and his cute behind. But more so, because of how effortlessly he takes to people. He makes everyone feel at ease. And he lets me be silly and ridiculous and sad and mad and out-of-control-excited and whatever else I feel like being whenever I feel like being it. You might not be able to tell by how calm-cool-and-collected I look in all of these pictures, but I may have been voted "Biggest Mood Swings" my senior year of high school. (Thanks, Justin.)

Chicago, Fall 2012  In short, I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. I have found my match. Or is it "met my match"? Either way, it's true. We have so much more life to experience together. It won't always be easy. "But at least it will be always."

Always,
Soon-to-Be Mrs. Garcia