"The Help" and how I'm color blind.

I loved the book. It may be my new favorite book of all time. 

Matt and I just rented The Help from Redbox and I cried like a baby again.

So So good!

If I lived in Jackson, Mississippi back then...I would have been just like Skeeter. 

I punched a kid in the face in high school for using the N word (this boy is now a Marine) don't mess.

That story of "The Help" really gets me going. It makes me so frustrated. Coming from the small town of Hartford, Wisconsin, I heard some of the same things in the movie. Maybe not to the same level. But people are definitely prejudice there. It is the dumbest thing in the entire world. When I hear people making racist jokes I want to look them square and the face and ask them, "Are you really that stupid? Do you know how stupid you sound?!" I have said this to people. 

We are all the same. We will always all be the same. Growing up I was always taught that it doesn't matter if you are purple, green, blue, white or black...we are all the same. We all have a heart and that's about all that matters. It makes me so so frustrated that people just cannot understand that. 

I have a relative, an extremely close relative (I don't need to say who because if you know me you know who it is) who had a very hard time accepting my siblings when they were born. Even went as far as to say they were not her family. That's just the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Of course they are family. It makes me want to laugh. I have never seen color. Ever. I have had friends and boyfriends who were Asian, Mexican, Black and White and never thought twice about any of it. I can't imagine it. 

Sometimes I wish I were alive back then. I would have been apart of all the change. I would have been right there in the action. I love knowing that our children will grow up here in a place where there is less racism. What a minute, what am I talking about lol, they'll never know color. Their aunts and uncles will be black. Oh that's so awesome. I love that so so much. I love that our family is a rainbow. It makes us so much more beautiful. I wouldn't trade that for the world. 

Ok, I'm done. I could go on and on about this all night.

It just means a lot to me. I know it's still out there. There may even be people reading this right now who are not blessed to be color blind like we are. I feel so so sorry for them. Not only do they look ridiculous to those of us who are a lot smarter than that, but they are missing out on knowing so many incredible people simply because of a difference in our skin color. We all have different colored hair...how come no one ever cared about that?? Why didn't all the blondes go against the brunettes...it's the same exact thing. At least to me. 

I hope that if you are ever around anyone making jokes or saying mean things in seriousness about race, that you stop them. That you teach them something. I learned something from my Mom the day I punched that boy in the face. Punching him wasn't going to change the way he felt about things. It was the way his parents raised him. Instead I should have taught him why he was wrong. It's something I work hard on now as an adult. When I hear things like that, my first reaction is to throw punches (where does this violence come from??? I have no clue lol), but after taking a step back I usually kill them with silence and zero laughter at their ignorant jokes or comments. That usually does it. Anyone who knows me knows not to say things like that around me. I hope they don't say it around me not just because they don't want me to get mad, but because they believe it's wrong as well.

I wish everyone knew it was wrong.

It just makes me so so mad.

I hope everyone has a safe and Happy New Year. 

Sorry for the picture-less blog. Sometimes I like having lots of words. 

I hope this helped someone. Anyone. 

Xoxo,

Our Top 11 of 2011

2011 was nuts. Wait a minute, every year of our lives together have been nuts. 

This year was a different kind, not a moving all over the place kind....

the Getting Married kind! :)

WARNING: Photo Overload...I tried to put photos in this post that I hadn't posted before...kind of impossible. I tried.

11. Emerald City Dance grew and grew...and grew some more. We hit 100 kids in one session in 2011 and now ending 2011 had 158 last quarter. In 2011 I taught almost 500 different kids. Summer was fantastic doing 5 week-long summer camps. Funnest thing ever!

10. Matt took me to Disneyland for my first time! I grew up a Disney World girl and I absolutely love Disneyland now. I have a different kind of love for Disney World being that I grew up going there sometimes multiple times/year, having competitions there and meeting Matt there. Disneyland has a different kind of magic. I loved learning it's history from Matt while we were there. My top moment may have been getting to ride in the Lilly Belle which is the railway car designed by Lillian Disney. I loved knowing that her and Walt Disney actually sat in there and then we did too. Walt never made it to even see WDW so knowing he actually set food at DL was an awesome experience! We loved every second of those 5 days!

(Matt used to work here)

(Indiana Jones is now my top 3 rides!)

(First time on Disneyland Space Mountain, ha! Matt: Honey are you okay? Me: I don't like it, I don't like it...crying. HA)

(My first time hugging Pluto since I was Pluto. I fought back the tears for this photo and then had to go sit down and had a moment of super sadness. It was hard. I knew it would be. We told the Pluto and they were awesome about giving me extra big hugs and silliness.)

(This is Valentine's Day! We got to the park SUPER early and were one of the first ones to the park. We then conjured up a plan and at the rope cutting we ran through all the shops instead of on the street. We literally ran...got asked to stop like 4 times which switched us to speed walking...until...yes, this couple is amazing....first through the castle for the day! THEN first on Peter Pan for the day! We completed every single ride in Fantasyland in under 30 minutes. No joke. Here we are on Alice in Wonderland!) 

(Here we are on the Lilly Belle. So cool!)

9. We moved into our 2 bedroom/2 bathroom apartment that is meant to be our long term place until we get a house. When apartment hunting I had a blast because we knew this apartment will most likely be where we have our first baby so I had that in mind the whole time and loved it! Our 2nd bedroom is now our office which has been great to have. With both of us working from home it's super important. We love this place and really don't want to move. 

8. I turned 23 in 2011 and Matt turned 25 : )

7. We went to Mt. Rainier on a whim. I had practice one Saturday morning in July until 11am. Matt came to pick me up and said, "Guess what? We're going to Mt. Rainier and leaving right now!" Matt is not very spontaneous like that so it was so so so exciting! It was incredible!

6. My 11 year old little sister, Cylie spent 6 weeks living with us this summer. It went better than we ever imagined it would. Matt and I both enjoyed having her here. She helped with Cogsy and cleaning so much and was really well behaved. She got to attend both of my wedding showers and help me with a lot of wedding planning because she was here the 6 weeks leading up to our big day! We are looking forward to her coming this summer for 3 weeks!

(Cylie played outside in our backyard for at least 8 hrs/day with all the neighbor kids. She would get annoyed when we would actually go out to do something because she wanted to play lol)

(At the airport, her first time leaving Mommy and Daddy...and for 6 weeks! She didn't get homesick once! Uh oh Mom and Dad...watch out, you may have another mover on your hands)

(She did a lot of wedding planning with me. Some things she enjoyed some she didn't lol. Here we went to the barn to make sure the layout I drew was right.)

(She's awesome at the market. She jumps right in and buys stuff just like a grown up. She's not afraid to yell over the people to the market sellers. It's awesome to see her confidence here.)

(Matt and Cylie got along extremely well!)

(One of my best childhood friends, Drea, visited!)

  

(Here we are on the way to my tea party shower)

7. My Mom, Auntie Cyndie and Kaylin threw my WI Bridal Shower and I had so much fun seeing family. I loved it!

(My cousin Kaylin, My Maid of Honor)

(Both of my Grandma's)

 (My WI Best Friends, Micol and Andrea. Andrea is in France now so came to WA before our wedding to visit and Micol came out here for our wedding!)

(Showing my Grandma all the pictures of Matt and I and telling her all the stories)

(My baby sister, Cirrah)

(Drea, me and Micky!)

(I love them so so much and love that we are still friends, since Elementary School! Hehe we used to all be in Brownies together.)

(I love that my Mom printed out the "Will You Marry Me" pictures)

(My Mom and Auntie Cyndie :) )

6. My friend, Haley and my Sister-in-Law, Megan, threw my WA Bridal Shower and it was a real vintage tea party, so cool! Loved that too!

(It was beautiful)

(One of my Dance Mom's made this cake!)

(Megan, me and Haley. Megan is my sister-in-law and I used to nanny for Haley's kids and we are now friends.)

(Maclin Parker and I. I nannied for him from the time he was 11 months until 2 1/2. He walked Haley down the aisle at our wedding and Charlie, his big sister was one of our flower girls.)

5. I was a wedding planning machine! At least for the first 8 months of 2011. August was intense. For the good and the bad. I was ridiculously stressed and then shocked everyone on our wedding day when I was the most calm bride ever! 

4. We had our Rehearsal Dinner at Ivars Salmon House. It was great spending time with our families.

I unfortunately do not have any pictures on my computer from this night. My mom does :)

3. We got married! It was honestly the best day of our lives! Looking back we still cannot find anything that we weren't happy with! Isn't that amazing?! The whole entire day all I remember is laughing, smiling and feeling this intense feeling of love towards Matt. I can still remember how it felt at the moment when we were officially husband and wife. It was the biggest feeling of happiness and relief that we could move on with our relationship. It was a feeling of excitement and calmness all at the same time. I will remember that forever and ever. Our wedding day was perfect. No seriously, it really was. I feel so so blessed that it turned out that way. God, and our awesome families did that. I wish we could re-live that day. We have some exciting plans for renewing our vows for our 10-year, maybe that day will feel super happy like our wedding day did :) I loved every single second of it. It was better than I've ever imagined...that is a hard thing to achieve...I imagine some pretty incredible things lol.

(It was a sunny sunny day in Washington. I couldn't believe it. How did we get that lucky?!)

(I love this picture because you can see my tears and how happy we were at the moment we became Husband and Wife)

(The beginning of forever.)

(My little dancers performed before the reception to get the party started! They worked so hard all summer and now to refer to me before the wedding as "Wedding Miss Chelsea"...like "Oh, you don't want to know Wedding Miss Chelsea! She wasn't nice." HA. I was pretty hard on them because I wanted my family to see what they could do. They did great and I was so so proud!)

(I loved having my friends there. Micky and Jenna. Jenna was also one of my closest childhood friends since 6th grade!)

(Everyone danced. Everyone! It was my dream come true. All I wanted was for everyone to dance, and they did. It was amazing! Matt even busted out the worm. He had to dance for me to get the garter lol. I I believe it was Ice Ice Baby lol)

(Everyone always tells us you will have no time together at your wedding. Well, I remember Matt being with me at least 90% of the time! We were completely about eachother. I loved it!)

(I love this. Both of our families all mixed together. This is huge in our living room now!)

(Matt's friends flew in from all over the country! I was so so happy for him. He hadn't seen any of them in 6 years!! And here they all were. What good friends!)

(I was excited to meet them and be able to know their personalities from all the stories I've heard! I hope we get to see a lot more of them. They're so funny.)

2. Our wedding night was awesome because our room was a suite and was huge and fancy. Just like I've always imagined it being. I loved walking into the hotel in my dress and Matt in his tux arriving in our vintage car. It was awesome! We honeymooned in Sunriver, OR. Arriving there was awesome, the man at the desk said "Welcome Mr. and Mrs. Lanese." Hehe. I still get excited when I get to sign my name or call Matt my husband. I hope that lasts a while more, it's fun. It was such a relaxing week together. We had such an amazing time. I can't wait to go back again in 2012, 2013, 2014......

Ok, I can't do a #1 because nothing beats our wedding and honeymoon. So there you have it, our 2011. There were other exciting things from this year too : ) Matt's brother and sister-in-law, Megan had twins and I got to help a lot when Megan was pregnant and after they were born : ) Mel, Matt's sister, got engaged : ) My whole entire family was here for our wedding, including 2 of my exchange students from growing up, Jan from Germany and Renato and his gf from Brazil. Amazing.

From Left to Right:

Cirrah, Jan (Germany), Cody, Caleb, Dani and Renato (Brazil), Cylie, Me & Matt

This year was awesome. Good luck to 2012 in trying to out-do 2011...you have a lot to live up to...