A New Year

Last year was a great year for Loda and my family and I'm sad I didn't blog about it so I've promised myself 2012 is going to be the year I get back into it (ok I know I'm 2 months behind already). I loved blogging and sharing with the world what I was up to and it made me sad that last year I didn't find the time to do that. This blog is not just going to be about flowers, however I'm sure there will be a ton of that but I also want to share what it's like to be a stay at home-working mom, raising an almost 2 year old all while trying to keep the house clean and have dinner on the table. I left my job as an Architect last April because I wanted more balance in my life and I felt like 2011 was a good transition year to get me to that balance. I feel good about 2012 and the direction my family is headed, my business is thriving, my daughter is amazingly smart, adorable and most of all happy, our new house is starting to feel like a real home and I have a great husband who works incredibly hard at everything he puts his mind to.

To make myself feel better about my lack of posts in 2011 I'm going to briefly showcase what we did last year.

I started out the floral season with an event at the Newseum for the University of Southern California, their new Dean was touring the country and made a stop in DC. Of course the flowers were in their school colors of yellow and red.

In late April it was off to Portland Oregon for JSConf2011, an event that my husband and I spend all year planning. My husband is a huge JavaScript fan and for all us non geeks out there, that is a coding language that is used a lot in website design (he may correct me when he reads that part)

Portland was beautiful but I needed a little sunshine so my mom, sister, daughter and I took a girls weekend to Amelia Island Florida.

After a relaxing few days on the beach it was time to kick off wedding season. My first wedding of the year was for a bride that loved irises and jewels tones and insisted on no white.

Heading into June I did a wedding with a bride who collected 22 antique candelabras, each one being different and unique. She was also in love with purple lilac which I got extremely lucky in getting since it was the first week in June.

Quickly came my sisters June wedding, something I was very nervous about since she's very picky and was being vague about what she wanted. It turned out to be a wonderful night and we are so happy to add her husband Steve to our family.

My baby turned 1 ! How did that happen! I had a great time planning her forth of July themed first birthday, she was born the day before the 4th so she will forever always have fireworks to celebrate her birthday.

August brought relaxation, we spent a week at Nags Head with my in-laws.

Labor Day was spent relaxing along with a small royal purple and green wedding.

Mid September Chris and I put on Capitol JS and DojoConf of which both had a Spy theme complete with a top secret envelope with their mission.

Mid September Chris left for Ireland and Germany for FunConf and JSConfEU while I stayed to work on 7 weddings in two weekends.

Mid October rolled around and I had to switch gears from flowers to conferences. Chris and I were off to Miami to run Pycodeconf. Waiting in our room at The Epic Hotel was a Miami specialty, the mojito.

I had one last wedding to do before my season came to an end. This classic Washington DC wedding featured fall colors and an iconic view of DC.

October finished up with a great neighborhood Halloween Parade and my adorable daughter trick or treating as a her favorite fruit, a strawberry.


November brought my best friend's "Milkoholic" baby shower for which I provided the flowers of course.

Thanksgiving was at our house this year, getting 15 people around the table was the biggest challenge.


As a Thank You to all my 2011 brides I delivered each one of them a fresh Christmas wreath.

We barely made it to go see Santa but I am so glad we did, Virginia is wearing a handmade smocked dress made by Chris's mom and her favorite red glitter shoes.

Christmas Day was here before we knew it and we enjoyed every second watching Virginia open her gifts.

Bringing in the New Year in Style

CHEERS TO 2011!

It was the day before New Years Eve and I got a voicemail from my good friend Ashley with two suggestions on what we should do for New Years, option 1 was to come over to our house and make dinner and option 2 was to research going out somewhere, and at the end of the VM she said, but I like option 1 better... and how could I turn her down since she offered to do most of the cooking.

Since I wasn't going to be cooking I used my time to pull out my china and crystal. I haven't used it in a while and I was getting the itch to pull it out, and why not it was New Years Eve after all!!

It was a small intimate group, just the 4 of us and Virginia. It's hard to see but Virginia helped her dad pick out the yellow flowers from Whole Foods when he went to go buy the craft brew, I love having a daughter!

While picking up the beer Chris picked up a dozen oysters and shucked them himself, I made him crush the ice in the blender to make it look pretty, he wasn't too happy about that extra step.

As the main course Ashley wanted to make Lobster potpies from a recipe she found in her Cosmo magazine. The only thing Ashley asked me to make was a salad but I wanted to make it a 4 course meal so I also added a soup.

For the first course Chris picked up clam chowder pre made from the deli section, it was very tasty and so easy, just heat and serve!

For the second course I made a pear and brie salad with candied pecans with a white balsamic dressing.

The yummy finished product! In Ashley style she monogramed them, only the "H's" turned out, the W's were unrecognizable.

For the finale of the night Ashley saw these desserts on Oprah and really wanted to make them, champagne cupcakes with champagne frosting and strawberries soaked in champagne. YUM!

Happy New Year

....and now it's time to take down all the Christmas decorations. Decorating my new home this year was a lot of fun.

Although my sister thought I was crazy, I knew when we purchased the house in April that I would be hanging wreaths in every window. I found these red glitter bows at Michael's and I loved how they sparkled in the sunlight.

We had these stocking from a few years ago but this year I added our initials by cutting out the letters from felt. I couldn't find a matching stocking for Virginia so we got the "my first christmas" stocking instead. We also enjoyed a fire for most of the holiday season.

Our tree came from the famous Sextons in McLean, fraser firs are my favorite...and now I'm sad the holiday season is over and we have to take it all down. From our family to yours, we hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and cheers to 2011.