Do me a favor

My vanilla beans came in!!! EEeeeeeEEEEEE!!!!!

(please excuse my dirty stove)

And wouldn't you know it, as soon as I opened the box, that wonderful vanilla aroma hit me smack dab in the nostrils. But as I suspected, it wasn't overpowering. In fact, if you ever stick your nose into a bag of vanilla beans, they don't smell like vanilla. They smell like earth and roast... like they've been roasted... I don't know how to describe it, you'll have to try it out.

ANYWAY! I ordered three pounds, plenty for testing on different liquors, making the actual favors, and having a few beans for each place setting (hopefully... our guest list has grown a little since starting the Save the Dates... which are halfway finished BTDubs).

That's a lot a lot of vanilla beans!

Cutting them open was actually a hell of a lot easier than I thought it would be. I must say, I was pleasantly surprised. All you have to do is hold the bean flat on a cutting board and carefully stick the point of a knife into the side of the bean. The skin is pretty easily broken, but strong enough that you won't just crush it with a knife blade.

The flecks of caviar (all those seed things on the inside) got EVERYWHERE, including up my nose which made me smell vanilla and that 'roast' smell for the rest of the day. So beware of that if you want to attempt this.

(Like my mani?!)

I thought I would have cut my finger off by this point... it was something I was willing to consider dealing with. Fingers grow back.

Anywho, here's the booze!!

Captain Morgan's spiced rum, Bacardi Gold dark rum, E&J Brandy, and Absolut Vodka, 200 mL each. 200 mL is about 6.667 ounces, and I almost put in 1 bean per ounce but instead I just put 5 beans in each bottle because I don't need to test run to be super strong, I just want to get a good idea of which booze is going to make the best vanilla. I suppose I could have even used less, BUT I also don't want to wait any longer than necessary for it to be ready, since I still have to make a big batch in time for the wedding!!

So, I cut up all my vanilla beans and put them all in the bottles of hooch, and shook 'em up real good! The caviar had already started to break from the beans and was floating around (not sure if you'll be able to see it, but here's a post bean shot):

The alcohol immediately started getting darker, this can be seen most noticeably in the vodka, being the only alcohol that started out clear... obviously.

Anyway, that's it!! I have to shake them every day for the first few weeks... or maybe every other day, but as I think about them everyday, it's no big thing for me to shake them everyday. I'm so excited yet again just because something's happening... I'm really doing this!! I'm very happy about it too, I think this will make a really sweet favor.

Anyway, on to another bit of very exciting news. My quasi-MOH is pregnant!! Now, Kyle and I are very very happy for Mia and Dan, but as soon as they told us, they got these guilty looks on their faces and told us that the tentative due date is a week before our wedding. So over the course of our most recent weekend with them (it was Mia's bachelorette for her wedding, we had a spa day and dinner and game night while Kyle and Dan and Dan's other groomsman went out to a strip club... I know, no imagination in those guys ;-p ) Mia kind of demoted herself from being maid of honor, which is of course a defense mechanism so that I don't demote her (which I wouldn't do... that's why they call it a defense mechanism).

I was upset pretty much the whole weekend that everyone kept saying they were sorry if it messed up our wedding. Now, I can understand you want to be conscientious, but don't apologize for bringing new life into the world! I am happy for you! Let me be happy for you!!! You're not sorry you got pregnant, you wanted to get pregnant! They kept saying "Well, I just want to make sure everyone's happy." Ummm, you're happy you're pregnant, I'm happy for you that you're pregnant, end of story, our wedding has nothing to do with it. Period! Exclamation point!! If one more person asks me if I'm upset about it, we're not friends anymore.

Anyway, enough with the tirade. The point is, Mia will either have a newborn baby, be in labor, or be ready to burst on the day of our wedding. So I told her if any of those three scenarios is the case, that she can't come, in order not to jeopardize the health of herself or her newborn/being born/unborn child. That's that... literally, and there is NO MORE to discuss. If we can really drop it, like, for real, as in please, then I am incredibly psyched for her and Dan! Kyle's already rehearsing all the curse words and annoyances he's going to teach the poor child in order for said poor child to torture its parents. We all know how much I love Pearl:

Watch out Mom and Dad, Aunt Ashley and Uncle Kyle are bad, bad influences!