Tag Archives: wedding plans

Early night

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Busy day at work today.  Progress on some fronts, but more delays on others.  We stopped at the grocery store after work and picked up a few things, and when we got home, I made my apple, ale and cheddar soup again.  It was good, but not quite as good as the first time.  Too much apple cider this time.  And next time, some chopped apples would be good.

No writing tonight, but I think I have the gist of the first scene fully worked out.  Maybe tomorrow.  I’d been reading Uncertainty, but I no longer need it for where the story is going.  An interesting book, still, but I’m setting it aside of the time being.  I started Jack McDevitt’s Cauldron tonight and got through the first chapter.

Spoke with Mom today.  Also spoke with strausmouse  tonight, who called as promised.

We got our wedding pictures today.  The photographer is mailing us the DVDs, but in the meantime, she made the pictures available to us online.  I looked through some but there’s something like 700.  I’ll look through more when we get the DVDs.

Off to bed now.  I was practically falling asleep on the couch. 

Under pressure

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Boy, we had planned everything out so well for the wedding that I was certain that these last few days would be calm and relaxed; they are anything but.  Lots of last minute errands, lots of people in town, running around.  I can barely catch my breath.  Not in a bad way–it’s just busy.

Despite having 7 people stay at the house last night and most of the day today, we still managed to get a lot done.  Kelly and I were up early and took care of a few errands and chores.  Later in the morning, Doug, Rachel, me and the kids went over to one of the playgrounds here and let them play for a while.  I called the restaurant for the rehearsal and confirmed everything with them, so we are all set for tomorrow.

Kelly’s parents went to run some errands of their own and we headed over to Clarendon for lunch.  Chili!  Yum!  We took Kelly’s laptop to the Apple Store to have it looked at for a fan problem.  They couldn’t fix it under Apple Care because of some physical damage to the machine, and it’s not worth paying what they were asking for to fix it.  Oh well.  After that, we ran errands.  We picked up our tuxedoes and made sure they all fit.  (There was a minor issue with my jacket, but it was resolved quickly.)  We ran to Target to get an idea of price and availability of Rock Band.  (We didn’t buy anything.)  We went to Shoppers to get some beer.

By then, Mom and Dad had arrived into town so we headed home.  Doug and I headed up to Pentagon City to pick them up.  We got them back to the house and at that point, we really had a full house.  9 guests!

stubiebrother , Doug and I headed up to Lucky Strike for two hours of bowling and drinking.  It was a lot of fun.  I did good the first two games, two 114s.  Three strikes in one game.  But I tanked after that.  Jason ended up with the highest score of the night, breaking 170 (I think he finished with a 174).  We finished around 9 PM and headed back home to play Rock Band, which we borrowed from a friend for the evening.  (Thank you, Kevin!)  I played until about midnight, when I needed to call it quits.  Busy day tomorrow and I was tired.

Doug and Jason continued to play into the night.  I have no idea when they finally gave up.

We’re on vacation!

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Up and into work this morning.  It was one of those days that seemed to grow steadily more hectic as the day progressed.  I kept an eye on Doug’s flights, and I headed home around lunchtime to wait for him to arrive.  They got here shortly after noon, and it was really good to see them.  The kids had gotten sleep on the plane but Doug and Rachel hadn’t gotten much sleep.  I gave them a quick tour of the house and then showed them their room.   Doug was very happy to see that the kids had their own place to sleep and that he wouldn’t have to sleep on the floor.

I headed back to work for a couple more hours and then around 3 PM, after my last meetings were over, I headed home.  I stopped at the library to return my "overdue" book, but as it turns out, I had my dates mixed up and the book was not overdue after all.  I also found out that I could return the book to my local branch, which is very convenient.

Kelly’s parents were out most of the day but were back before 4 PM.  Doug, Rachel and the kids were up shortly after 4 PM.  And were the kids ever hyper!  It was a lot of fun.  We gave them the gifts we got them.  Doug and I picked up Kelly from the metro station, stopped at Starbucks, and then headed back home.  We all walked up to Shirlington for dinner, where Kelly’s parents treated us to a nice meal at Capital City Brewery.  Both Carson and Ruby fell asleep at dinner.  I carried Carson back home the entire mile-plus walk.

I got an invitation to join Will’s writer’s group today, which I accepted happily.  I can’t do much there until I get back from vacation, but I’m looking forward to working with the group.

I got a card from a bunch of people at work today.  It was very nice and included an extremely generous gift.

We’re on vacation!  I still feel so busy with wedding stuff that it hasn’t sunk in yet.

stubiebrother  arrived tonight, as scheduled.  We picked him up around 10:15 PM.  Stopped at the grocery store on the way home.

Mom and Dad get into town tomorrow.

Where guests begin arriving

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We drove into work this morning and as we pulled toward the parking lot, I realized that we forgot the parking pass. We had to come home to get it. Fortunately, we live close by.

Busy work day today. Trying to wrap stuff up before I head off on vacation. I worked steadily until 2 PM (when I had to leave to run an errand) and then it was back to work from 9 – 11 PM to do some deployments. I just finished that up. (I watched the debate while I was working.)

After work today, I raced out to Annapolis to give the Inn a cashier’s check for the remaining balance for the wedding. Then I raced back home and was at the house at about 4:15 PM. Kelly’s parents arrived minutes later. After Kelly got home from work, we all drove out to Tyson’s Corner so that Kelly could pick up her wedding dress. We had dinner out there and then came back to the house.

I didn’t get a chance to return my library book today and so I will return it tomorrow, one day late. It cost me a quarter, but I still feel bad since someone has the book on hold, and I know I’d be annoyed if I were waiting and it was late.

Off to bed. Doug and family get here tomorrow morning.

Wedding prep

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We’re one week away from the Big Day, and this weekend is all about wedding prep.  We were both tired last night and went to bed around 10 AM.  We were up shortly after 7 AM, after a good night’s sleep.  I had an appointment at Saturn this morning to get the alignment on my car adjusted.  It had been pulling to the right ever since Williamsburg and it was about time to get it fixed.  We are both skeptical about major repairs to our cars these days, both cars being well over a decade old.  Nevertheless, the price was as reasonable as such things can be so I had the work done.   Part of the work involved getting 2 new tires, but my car is so old, they don’t make the size anymore.  I had to get larger tires and that meant 4 new tires.  Only 2 were sent over so I now have to pick the car up on Monday.  When all is said and done, it’s not a big deal.  I don’t drive the car that much anyway.  But $700 seems like a lot to pay for a car that is slowly on its way out.

Back home and Kelly went off to some spa appointments.  I climbed on my bike and road down to a park just south of the Wilson Bridge.  Since the bike computer is still not working, I checked Google Maps and my best estimate is 6.5 miles one way, or 13 miles round trip.  I took just over 1-1/2 hours.  It was a good ride, a good workout, and this time, it didn’t rain.

When I got home from the bike ride, I worked on wedding itineraries for the wedding party.  I called the restaurant for the rehearsal dinner and gave them the final count.  I called all of my credit card companies and the bank and let them know I would be traveling out of the country for 10 days so if they saw activity on my account in, say, Cartagena, Colombia, the would know it probably wasn’t fraudulent.  When Kelly got home we ate some lunch and then headed to the grocery store to stock up on groceries for the week.  We’ve got a lot of company coming into town beginning on Tuesday and we wanted to be prepared.

Kelly has been doing laundry all day and tonight or tomorrow, we are packing for our honeymoon.  We’re doing it now so that we don’t have to do it when we’ve got a houseful of people.

In two-and-a-half hours, we’re heading over to a friend’s house to play Rock Band, or Guitar Hero, or one of those games.  The fun never ends.

I sent the next draft of my story to the workshop.  It had a bunch of changes that were suggested by the group.  I got comments back today, and sure enough, the comments are helping.  We’ve got a good group, and I’m anxious to work in the comments and get a final draft before I head on vacation  I’d like to get the manuscript in the mail no later than a week from today, if I can.

Very little time for reading these last two weeks.

On the other hand, I’ll I’m looking forward to seeing Andy and kruppenheimer  and strausmouse  and rmstraus  and stubiebrother and he11o_sunshine  and everyone else coming into town for the wedding very soon.

First of all, it was October, a rare month for boys

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It’s hard to believe that it’s October already!  Harder to believe that we’re only 10 days away from our wedding.  Still lots of little things linger around to do, but we’re getting there; and at least there’s nothing major–at the moment–that’s overly stressing either of us.  I’m trying to dig up my travel checklists from the trip to Europe last year.  We’re sending in our meal counts today.  Little things like that.

Thunderstorms last night helped usher in October.  Kelly had a hair appointment after work.  It was just a trim.  She told me to pick her up at 6:30 PM and she was actually done at 7:15 PM.  Turns out it was, as she put it, "the longest haircut ever."  Her hair came out looking good.  The problem,apparently, was the combination of the facts that (a) the stylist was new and (b) Kelly mentioned she was getting married.  I think the guy was just being extra careful.  I’m getting a haircut Thursday or Friday and you can be sure I won’t mention the wedding part.  I don’t like it when my haircuts take more than 15 minutes.

I’ve got 6 full work days left (including today) before my vacation starts.  I’ll be on vacation from Thursday, October 9 through Sunday, October 27.  With all of the wedding plans we’ve been focusing on, I keep forgetting that there is a vacation that immediately follows.  That will be nice.

I started reading Robert Silverberg’s The Stochastic Man last night.  Hope to get through some more today.  There have been three workshop stories submitted so far, including mine.  I read one last night and should get my comments out by lunchtime today.  I’ll probably read the other during lunch today.

House elf

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We started the day with various errands and tasks.  We ran over to Home Depot to look at grills, but decided to wait until we got back from our vacation before buying anything.  We also wrapped up several wedding-related tasks.  (Only two weeks to go!)  Kelly made us grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch.  Yum!

Then it became a lazy day.  I went to go read and instead, fell asleep on the living room couch for something like 1-1/2 hours.  Kelly, meanwhile, fell asleep in the family room.  When we had finally woken up, it was close to 5 PM.  We decided to walk over to Shirlington and make use of more of our "date night" goodies.  We had dinner at Capital City Brewery.  After that, we went to the 7:10 showing of Burn After Reading.  Very well written, funny, and well acted.  But it’s what you’d expect from the Coen Brother’s in terms of how it all ends.  We walked back home slowly after the movie and it was a very pleasant walk.

This evening I discovered that we do not, in fact, have a house elf.  It turns out that Kelly is the one who has been emptying the dishwasher, cleaning out the litter boxes, doing the laundry.  I had assumed it was the house elf.  I thought Avalon included that with all of their "luxury" rental town-homes.  Kelly said that I was mistaken.  I checked the lease, and sureenough, she’s right.  Section 7.2 specifically says that "even-numbered town-homes are equipped with fireplaces and ceiling fans, but do not include house elves."  You can imagine how bitterly disappointed I was.