Posts tagged wedding
Get To Work!
May 28th
Things I Worked On
The account for our wedding site through eWedding.com was going to expire, and rather than renew a site we do nothing with, The Girl asked if I could convert it to a family blog. I have done so, and she has not used it. Bug her. (Have I already plugged this? I feel déjà vu.)
Things I Am Working On
Running, running, running. Not sure what the next event will be, but something next month probably, and it will be a 10K. I can run that now, but I’m pretty slow. I’m currently at three days a week, hitting a treadmill across the street and following a program I found at Runners World. I was going more than three days a week, but my right heel kept hurting, and slowing me down even more, so the new schedule seems to be giving me the right amount of healing time for my aged carcass.
Worked on cleaning the garage last weekend. Got the garbage and donation stuff out, minus funiture. Have to borrow a truck for that. Now I just need to sell or organize the remainder. Almost there. I can see the ground, at any rate, so that’s a good sign. Hopefully The Girl will be able to park in there by the time the weather starts frosting up windows in the morning again.
Been updating the genealogy site more frequently. Love that new Family Tree Maker!
Things I Want To Work On
Drawing, drawing, drawing. God I’m lazy.
I want to make a Wordpress theme. I feel ready.
My Wittle Blogs All Growed Up!
Feb 20th
Eh, not really, as I’m still the writer, but I did change the theme to something less geek-tastic. I guess I’d rather brand myself these days, rather than Paramount properties, especially when I’m not feeling said properties lately, anyway. Why plug something that hasn’t excited me for some time, eh? Besides, this way I don’t have to pay LiveJournal for the pleasure of customizing my theme and allowing me mucho userpics. Wastes of money in these trying economic times must go. Just ask the news, they’ll tell you!
Well it’s February already, and I almost didn’t post. Whoops! The in-laws were staying at our place for a while. They worked on our place while we were at work. Part of me feels guilty that they didn’t just relax, part of me is happy that there was less laundry and the crown molding got painted. Hey, I didn’t ask them to work, so I guess I’m guilt free!
My birthday came and went. I don’t feel different, except maybe more lethargic, but that’s lack of exercise more than lack of youth. My parents and uncle came over and The Girl cooked everyone a great dinner, then we showed off wedding pictures for the umpteen time. (We should have had a wedding pictures viewing party or something.) On Valentine’s Day, both sets of parents, myself, The Girl and my sister’s family went to a fancy grill across the street from my house. Good food, good booze, a nice time was had by all. Maybe next year The Girl and I will do the more romantic route with just the two of us, but the goal this year was to be thrifty and sociable.
Got money back on taxes this year, so w00t! But daddy needs a new car, so boo. Seems like this is going to be the year of money issues, but then we’re not alone on that front. Just ask the news, they’ll tell you! My goal this year is to be smarter and tighter with the wallet, but then I say that every year, so what do I know?
The Girl is thinking about going to wedding planning school, or whatever it’s called. Apparently planning one wedding created a junky and now she wants to do it all the time, only with other people’s money, so that’s good. I’m thinking about going back to school too, but per usual, am torn as to what I would like to accomplish.
I think I might be abusing the comma.
Here Comes The Groom
Jan 13th
Christmas was a blur. The Kid made out like a bandit, otherwise I remember little. The usual get-togethers, the usual dinners. The in-laws stayed at our place, (I have in-laws now -weird!) so that made it more interesting, but in my head at least, it was all about the impending wedding, and Christmas was just a hurdle to get through, especially financially. Simple, fun, and then done.
Rehearsal was the next day. It went much quicker and more chaotically than I thought it would. For one, it was freezing, (for California anyway), which wasn’t a good sign, since the rehearsal was around the same time as the wedding was going to be the next day. So everyone was shaking and shivering while we did a quick walk through of the “here comes the bride” bit. It was fairly easy, though the flower girls pretty much ran around ignoring everyone. I was surprised we didn’t go over anything else like announcements, food, dancing, toasts, etc., but what did I know? After rehearsal we went home where take out had been ordered from a Mexican place in Morgan Hill, and we ate and drank and then I took off for a hotel, because I couldn’t see the bride on the morning of, and none of my family have allergy free houses I can stay at. (Cats! Lots of cats!)
The hotel was fairly ungood. I actually got my hotels confused when I booked the room online because I thought I was staying at a different place that probably would have been better, but oh well. It was for one night, and after a week of a full house and various family events, it was nice to have a quiet night to myself, where I could toss and turn all night. I don’t think if I was nervous in the “oh man I’m going to be committed for life tomorrow” sense, but more in a “I hope everything goes right and I don’t trip and fall on my face or something” kind of way. Whatever it was, my brain and stomach wouldn’t shut up, so I didn’t get much sleep. Somehow I doubt most people get much sleep before their wedding day.
The next morning, I went and got The Girl’s car washed and then got ready to go in time for check out, at which point I had about three hours to kill before I had to be “at the church” (aka the golf course), so I went to my parents house and chilled with them and my brother and his girlfriend, who had just flown in the night before. My nervousness had turned in to a surreal calm by that point, and it seemed odd to me that all this talking and planning for the last six months was finally going to pay off today.
Went to the golf course, so I could hurry up and wait. The Girl and her party were already their, prepping in their area, and it was really weird knowing she was in the same building as me but we couldn’t say howdy or anything. I hid in the boy’s lounge until it was my time to take Groom pictures, which were as tedious as the engagement shots, but I guess that’s what we’re paying for.
Lots more waiting and pacing and then all of a sudden “it’s time” and I’m on my way down the hallway passing familiar faces who all greeted me and threw words at me I don’t remember and then I was on my way to the alter locked arm in arm with my parents, and flower girls were walking down the aisle looking all cute and behaving themselves, and I got choked up when I saw The Kid come down the aisle for some reason, which wasn’t good since the ceremony hadn’t even started yet and I was already losing it, and then The Girl came around the corner with her father and she looked beautiful and my head started floating about four feet above my shoulders wondering how the heck I suckered her into all this and then I was shaking her dad’s hand and he passed her over to me and I couldn’t take my eyes off her as the minister started saying stuff, who knows what it was, and I caught a look from The Kid who gave me a wink and thumbs up and I found that funny and odd because I didn’t know she knew how to do either of those things, and then we repeated our vows to one another, who knows what they were, and The Girl got all choked up which made me choke up and then we were pouring sand in a vase thing with our mothers and her daughter and then we were man and wife and I was kissing her and she was telling me to slow down as he walked back down the aisle together.
In other worlds, it all happened so fast! After that though, we had a brief moment to breath and talk to each other as everyone went to the bar while we hid in the hall, waiting for the photographer to take more pictures. It was cold outside so we limited the family shots to a few big group shots, and then The Girl and I spent a loooooong time outside taking photo after photo. Ultimately I’m sure we will not regret this, but at the time, I wanted to be in the bar drinking something to warm me up. At least I had a jacket, by the end of the shoot The Girl’s sleeveless arms were going to fall off, I think.
Finally it was over and we got to go inside and have a quiet moment at the bar, get a few drinks to warm up and wait to be announced. Got to watch the photos or our childhood we collected and scanned rotating on the tv screen, which was cool. Then we were announced and inside the reception area and sat down for all of two seconds before we were up going to table to table saying hi to everyone. It’s weird how, despite being the guests of honor, it seemed harder for us to socialize than anyone else. I guess that’s just how weddings work. I want to see the pictures of all the stuff we missed while we were away doing bride and groom stuff.
Got a few bites of food, two great toasts from both dads, and then it was on to the first dance. I don’t dance, never have. We took lessons to get me through this. Five lessons, and we didn’t practice outside of these lessons, so I was pretty nervous about how we’d do. The dance floor seemed much tinier than I thought it was going to be, and the crowd much bigger. I don’t think we took a single step right, at least it didn’t feel like we did, but The Girl was happy with it, and everyone else seemed happy with it, so I’m happy with it. At least it was over quickly. Then off to more dancing with parents, and money dance, and then just general dancing. I think I made up for the “never dancing in my life” thing on that dance floor, and The Girl danced twice as much as I did. Of course, now that I’ve done it, she’ll expect it from me at future weddings and events, but oh well.
After the first dance, it was pretty much all fun for me. It’s still a blur, but I got to see lots of people I haven’t seen in a while, and managed to talk to most of them. It was a much better time than I thought it was going to be honestly, since I usually don’t do these things well. I think neither of us could have asked for a more perfect day. It went off without a hitch…well except for the one.
After that we were off to Carmel for an all too brief honeymoon and then back to reality. Still don’t have the professional pictures yet, but other people brought cameras and my Facebook was flooded with tags when I got back.
Life is now pretty much the same, except I have an itchy ring finger, and we’ll get a nicer tax break this year. And I get to say “my wife” in sentences now, which is still taking some getting used to.
So I’m married now…to the love of my life…two and a half weeks strong…w00t!
BTW, this is the cake topper The Girl surprised me with! Cool eh?
And actually…shouldn’t I be upgrading “The Girl” to “The Wife?” Still weird!
At Long Last
Dec 19th
In which the author updates his blog with personal stuff for the last time as a single person.
The Kid had a birthday party at my parents house on the 6th. It had a bounce house, face painting and a pony to ride. Boy things are sure different then when I was a kid. Whoops, that sentence made me officially old. Oh well. It’s like the standard now to have all that stuff at a birthday party. Back in my day, we had cake and presents and um…yep that’s it. We also walked to school uphill both ways, so I guess it’s better to live in the now rather than the then. The party went off pretty well, though it was a bit chaotic and I had to run a few errands. (My new job position, I guess.) The Girl got stressed out for a little bit, but in the end, I think everyone had fun. The kids did especially, and that’s the important part. I took advantage of the bounce house a few times, and I have to say, kids must be in amazing shape! I bounced about three times and was ready to die. Maybe rebound training isn’t a horrible idea!
The next weekend, we went to see The Nutcracker at the San Francisco Ballet. The Girl and I did this last year, when we first started dating and it was great, so we decided to try it again this year, but up the ante and bring The Kid too. (She could use some culture.) It kinda worked, kinda didn’t. We went on a work day, so the rushing to get read sucked. The drive bored The Kid to tears, so there were lots of “are-we-there-yets. We went to a kid specific show because it was supposed to be less formal and because the dancers were supposed to be in the lobby at the beginning of the show and we thought The Kid would enjoy seeing ballet dancers. But they weren’t there, and “less formal” actually meant “super obnoxious kids everywhere,” so it was hard to concentrate on the performance. The Kid liked the show at first, but after intermission was pretty much done, so we ended up leaving early. So, it ended up being okay, but I think next year we’ll go back to an adults only trip. Also driving up and back in the same day was dumb, so if we can’t afford a hotel next year, we just won’t go!
The Girl and I have been tight on cash because of the wedding, so we waited until the last minute to Christmas shop, and then busted it out in one day. That’s how I prefer to roll come Christmas time anyway, so that was fine with me. Despite being a bit frugal, I think everyone is still going to make out. I sold more geek stuff on eBay to help pay us back a bit, which has worked out pretty well. Course I’m running out of stuff to sell, so that trick won’t work much longer. Next year we’ll have to be tighter about finances if we want to recover from this year’s fun.
Grandma was checked into the hospital for lack of insulin. She’s since been checked out and moved in temporarily with my parents. They watched her take her medicine last night and she tried injecting herself with air because she couldn’t see that her syringe didn’t have medication in it, so that explains the lack of insulin! She really can’t live alone anymore, but is fighting the idea of moving, which I find odd since she’s been telling me her whole life how, when she gets old enough, she’s going to check herself into a home so her kids don’t have to worry. I guess it’s different when it’s theoretical.
The wedding is one week and one day away. I’ll steal a label from stage people and dub the next seven days “hell week,” not because it will be horrible, but definitely quick and busy. All the last minute details have to be remembered and ironed out, and we have to fit in family visiting, Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas day somehow. Should be fun! Everyone keep asking me if I’m ready and if I have cold feet, (one person even asked me if I had wet feet, but I don’t think that’s right), like they’re dying to catch me scared out of my mind. I’m a bit nervous, but not about the commitment. Just about the ceremony itself going off without a hitch, (well except the one hitch but…never mind).
Engage!
Nov 18th
Here are the engagement photos. There were initially about 70+ but these 20 are those that made the initial “yes/no” cut. After that we narrowed it down even further, purchasing only a few for our wall, and as presents for our family, but the photographer was nice enough to include the 20 on a disc as a freebie, so I thought I’d share. I dusted off my Flickr account, so click the photo above if you dare to see more!
Permission to Come Aboard
Nov 12th
Denied! The PTB revealed an image of the new fangled Enterprise and…yuck! I don’t get this at all. Of all the designs related to the Original Series, the ship still looks fairly up-to-date to me. There was no need for such an extreme change. Looks like they changed it for the sake of changing it, rather than an attempt to improve on something. “Pajama uniforms? No let’s keep those! Change the ship? Heck yes!” Dumb.
Obama won: w00t! Prop 8 won: boo! Those are the main two I cared about, so I guess I’m half happy. I haven’t even looked up the other props to see how I did, how funny.
Been working on place cards for the wedding. Done except for the printing, I think. Fancy, eh?
Next up, menus, seating chart and table numbers, oh my!
Bone Daddy
Nov 3rd
Halloween has come and gone and went off pretty well. Luckily the weather changed to gloomy, just like I like. Had it continued to be in the 80s and sunny like it had been right up to 24 hours prior, I would have been bummed. But instead, overcast and cold, with a touch of rain. Awesome. Took The Kid trick or treating around the neighborhood, along with my sister’s baby we were sitting, The Girl, her ex-husband and his (boy)friend, who seemed like the kind of guy who’s been kicked in the head one too many times by a horse. It was a weird cast, four adults escorting one little Supergirl door to door, but she had fun, so that was the important part.
I didn’t dress up as anything this year. I do that more often then not, but didn’t regret it much this time around, as there seems to be enough on my plate. Next year I will go over the top and make up for this year’s laziness. The Girl was supposed to join me in my non-celebration but caved and came up with a horribly perfect golfer outfit to go to work in, complete with clashing colors and argyle socks. I have never found her less attractive, so mission accomplished!
The weekend was otherwise pretty relaxing. We were supposed to accomplish all these things, but instead used the bad weather an excuse to stay in, enjoy the fire, and watch movies. The Girl did get the wedding invitations done, so I suppose I’m the only one who truly accomplished nothing. Go me! And speaking of weddings, our rings just arrived via Fed Ex and are sitting on my desk as I type this, so think I shall stop typing this so I can open the box and check out its prizes. Peace!
Kingdom of Blood
Oct 24th
The Girl and I have gone to the gym a whole two times this week, so go us! We had engagement pictures to pick up on Tuesday and we’re meeting her brother-in-law tonight for dinner, so that cut down the frequency a bit. But we’re riding bikes after work and we have a Kid-less weekend coming up, so hopefully we’ll throw in a few more sessions. I am a bit sore today, so mission accomplished, at least on some level.
The engagement photos came out pretty good. I think there were 58 total, which we narrowed down to three for purchasing purposes. Unfortunately it takes three weeks for him to process the order, which includes some sort of tweaking on the computer. Isn’t that cheating in the World of Photography? Whatever makes me look good though, I don’t care.
I have become addicted to two games on Facebook. One is called Vampire Wars, where you try and get blood through missions and fighting, and you get through missions and fighting by buying abilities and adding to your clan count (through friends). Missions costs energy and fighting costs rage (and hit points and blood if you lose), but like any good vampire, those costs heal themselves. Of course, the more abilities you have, the more blood you need to spend to sustain yourself, so then you have to possess minions to get you blood on a regular basis. My current Blood Flow (income vs expense) is 161,715 per house, so not too bad! The more missions and fights you succeed in, the more experience points you get, which opens up more abilities, missions, minions and people to fight. And the bloody cycle continues.
The second game I am addicted to is Knighthood. This one reminds me somewhat of civilization in that you build your castle, adding defenses like walls and towers, or social things like marketplaces and hospitals, all in an effort to try and be big enough to defend against and attack opponents to get even bigger. If you were invited into the game, you start out as a vassel to someone else, though you still get your own castle. In my case, I am a sovereign, which isn’t much different, except I have no higher person to help me out. I could swear my allegiance to someone bigger than me, but I haven’t yet.
The cool thing is, one way to get vassals is by recruiting friends, but unlike most applications, if the friend doesn’t say yes, I still get to use them in my army, the downside being their power ranking stays at 10. But still, thanks Squire Jenna for your hard work in my Marketplace generating me money, and to my sister Squire Rebecca for patrolling my wall. And kudos to my brother-in-law for actually playing the game and becoming my most powerful vassal so far. I could not build as fast without you!
Now stop reading this and get back to work!
Jaws Was Never My Scene
Oct 20th
I’m having a hard time massaging my brain into remember what I did this weekend. Seemed like it went fast, though it was fairly uneventful. I’m tired this morning all the same.
We had The Kid this weekend. Friday we stayed home and talked about how we were going to start saving money. Saturday we went out and spent a lot of money at Mervyn’s, Target, Trader Joe’s and on a gym membership. Then we went to a birthday party in Salinas for about 40 minutes (a kid birthday party, with face painting, a jump house, trampoline, etc. – so 40 minutes was fine by me) and then met The Girl’s BFF for dinner out Outback.
Sunday we spent more money at Black Bear for breakfast and then went to Santa Cruz to pick up The Girl’s wedding shoes, which were finally delivered. They fit tight so they told her to walk around with them at home with heavy socks on, so that should be entertaining.
Then we returned home and decided to test out The Kid’s new bike (which we got for free via The Girl’s work – woot!) and so I busted out all our bikes and inflated the tires and installed training wheels for the first time, which went fairly well, despite my limited ability to use tools and install things.
It went fairly well, though The Kid of course rides very slow and crashed a lot. Her bikes keep getting taller but the training wheels stay the same width, so are less and less affective, especially when she leans too far to the left or right, which she does often.
I saw some dad riding around with his kid in tow on one of these trailer bikes earlier in the weekend, so maybe I’ll get one of those, and then we can all ride faster and further. Or maybe she should lose the training wheels altogether, though I’m not sure at what age that is supposed to happen, and besides which, I think I’ll let her dad be the one who runs back and forth down the street with her issuing false promises of “I won’t let go, trust me!”
So today we work out. EEP!
Two Rings To Rule Them All
Oct 13th
The Girl and I went to San Francisco and hit up Giraux’s again, to get both my ring and her wedding band. No pictures because we had to order the right size, but I think they looked great. Once again, went a bit over budget, but I have to look at this thing the rest of my life, so I might as well be happy with it. Going to be weird to wear jewelry all the time. I have a feeling I’m going to be playing with my finger habitually for a good while.
Last night, I finally put an end to the Harry Potter series. I’ve been working on them off and on (mostly on) since 2007, so it only took me two years to read seven books. Very sad. An extremely enjoyable adventure that I am more than happy to be done with, because I can’t wait to read something else now that doesn’t have a character named “Potter” in it. It’s been a while! But exhaustion aside, it really was a pretty good series, especially after it got past the first few books and started getting serious about all-out-war. It was a nice transition from boy to man, and I’m glad Rowling wasn’t afraid to kill very important people along the way. I have some objections to the last book, but I’m not sure if they’re legit problems or just fanboy reactions as to “how I would have done things” even though it’s not my book. Probably the latter, and the fact that I’m still thinking about means it was impactful, one way or the other. So two thumbs up for Harry Potter, as if the entire rest of the world didn’t already know that.
Speaking of “two thumbs up,” I also managed to watch between chapters the two and a half hour epic There Will Be Blood. Well uh…I liked it but again, much like No Country For Old Men, it kinda went nowhere and close to three hours is a long time to invest in something that goes nowhere. That said, I give TWBB a much higher mark than NCFOM, and found this review by Roger Ebert interesting, specifically this passage:
“There Will Be Blood” is the kind of film that is easily called great. I am not sure of its greatness. It was filmed in the same area of Texas used by “No Country for Old Men,” and that is a great film, and a perfect one. But “There Will Be Blood” is not perfect, and in its imperfections (its unbending characters, its lack of women or any reflection of ordinary society, its ending, its relentlessness) we may see its reach exceeding its grasp. Which is not a dishonorable thing.
So…NCFOM is a perfect film, but TWBB isn’t, and one of the reasons is the ending? I’m sorry Roger, I like you and junk, but that’s insanity. NCFOM HAS NO ENDING! NOTHING HAPPENS! You sit there for three hours mesmerized by performances and waiting for the big payoff and everyone just walks away to do their own thing. The protagonists death is so inconsequential and random I didn’t even know he was dead for fifteen minutes! The bad guy gets away, the good guy never comes close to catching him, never even meets him; Woody Harrelson shows up to give us hope and is gone ten minutes later. Neither film is perfect for me, but I enjoyed TWBB much more, and even if the ending is somewhat random, at least the squirmy jerkboy gets what’s been coming to him, and that’s satisfying. Okay, venting done. Perhaps I should stick to chick flicks. They always end nice.
I haven’t had soda today, I brought food from home instead of buying something, and I flossed this morning. Go me.
