My hubby, the Cirque performer

During our last weekend in the area we per usual decided to get out of the area and head to Orlando. We had two days left on our Disney passes so headed up north from Miami on Friday. We checked into our our hotel by 7... headed to Downtown Disney at 8 then proceeded straight to the Cirque du Soleil ticket box to gain entry to La Nouba. Lucky for us some lady bought some extra amazing tickets and sold them to us at rock bottom prices just before the show began.

Imagine our surprise when we really were seated FRONT ROW, CENTER. I mean FRONT ROW, CENTER!


The show itself was awesome. My favorite was the urban scene when the guys bounced from the trampoline to the side or the top of the building. Both me and the husband were shocked when two of the star clowns stepped down from the stage to pull Terry up to the stage. He hammed it up of course. They wanted him to lay down for a stunt bike rider to do tricks near his head. He of course stepped back and the clowns had to pick him up and carry him to a laying down position at the front of the stage. Apparently the clown next to him on the ground said in a thick French accent, "don't move" in a tone reminiscent to Jean Reno in The Professional.

I don't know what really happened from there on as one clown came down from the stage and flirted with me while Terry was gone. His arm was around me, he drank my chardonnay, and then tossed his legs into my lap. After a while Terry returned with a heart beating super fast and was presented with an "Honarary Performer" certifcate at the end of the show. I can officially say I screwed a Cirque performer after a show now... tee-hee!! So hawt!


The show was amazing. I always thought being too close would not be great since you can miss a lot with the aerial performers. Cirque shows utilize all the space they are confined in. The show I saw was much more inspiring than any show I had ever seen. We saw every sinewy muscle fiber flex from limbs, diaphragms pulse after every movement, and a grace I had never experienced as intimately from other sections. I blame the fate gods for putting me in such a great seat that night. Thank you! Namaste.

he he 2 months

I've been a married old hag for over two months. Woot woot! Playa Punta Uva, Costa Rica!!


I feel like I gotta do a flashback series since I haven't posted in like 4 months.



All right, very brief updates. Went to Disney with my supa dupa best friend from Cali in early November. Bunnyboy and I took off for Cali for him to meet my mom and stepdad for T-giving. That was fun. My dad even came out from Utah for a day to hang with the two of us in San Fran. And then there was wine country... So then we did Christmas and geared up for that last month before the wedding.



The WEDDING... was AWESOME. I had the best time with my nieces, guy, dad, in-laws, bestie friends, etc. It was a busy week. Our photog and his wife traveled and shot us and are totally our besties now as well. I can't wait to see those two later this year. He anticipates over 1400 images for us from a week of shooting. I don't have the images yet, but will get them in due time.



So wedding highlights...

• Our coordinator, Dawn, is the shit! I love that woman. She is the chick I would hop in a rambler to road trip with for weeks at a time without an itinerary. Insane, practical, sweet, brash, and with a wicked sense of humor.
• Bunnyboy surprised me with a live sitar player for me to walk to our wedding arch with as well as a private concert at the reception hour.
• I surprised Bunnyboy with a coreographed fire poi dance in my wedding dress after dinner.
• The food was awesome. We ran into the woman who cooked our jerk chicken two days beforehand when we went to her restaurant. We did not know she was one of Dawn's friends.
• We were so relaxed and got a couple of hours of surfing in before the wedding began.
• We had no idea that people loved dancing to Peanuts songs. But they do.
  
• The night was fun. Our guests had a great time and folks we met during our week in town also showed up. I had no idea the guy with the surfboards from earlier in the day would show. He even tied up his dreadlocks for the event.

After the wedding folks left and our adventures really began. We took off to Panama via a foot bridge at the border with our backpacks. That night we nestled down in our gorgeous over the water bungalow in Bocas del Toro. The next morning we did sunrise kayaking and rested a lot of the two days there. Then it was more adventure back in Costa Rica with a Class IV water rapids trip. Bunnyboy soon went home after that.


I stayed an extra week and had a trip of a lifetime with my dad including a 3 day trip down to Panama to find his homeland. I'll explain later but the mountain he was born on has now been reclaimed by the forest. I went back to Costa Rica with my dad and kicked his arse on a cloudforest mountain one day on a hike. Sadly he went back to the states too and I stayed for a couple more days.





Some nice folks I met a few years ago set me up in a nice room and office in San Jose. I went to the National Museum for a Shakespeare play, visited the modern art museum, and did a serious chill session in Playa Jaco before heading back to Miami and my husband.


So... fast forward to today. We had our first Valentine's Day as a married couple, our first MLB Spring Training game as a married couple, our first St. Patty's as a married couple, our first Easter. We had a small at home reception where Dan, our photog, and my sister-in-law flew in for a few days and it was a blast to hang with them. We just went to the Disney area over the weekend... so much fun. The weekend before last we had a successful garage sale. Oh yeah... we are getting ready to move.

In less for a week we are heading for Colorado. Screw Miami! My husband and I cannot stand this place. While it is great for other people we know we can be happier some place else. So off we go.


Oh yeah. The best news of the last four months. My best friend is expecting. She called me the night before New Year's when she found out. In the last four months we have popped so many bottles of champagne over every little victory. We have drank to her, her husband, and their future over and over again. I am looking forward to meeting my little "Chinew" mix nephew/niece one day. She will be an amazing mother.

The week of our wedding was awesome. We celebrated my niece/bridesmaid's Sweet 16 on the first day, my matron of honor's expectancy news the whole time, everyone's good time on "vacation", a set of friends that never celebrated their honeymoon, and eventually our wedding. There was no shortage of celebration that week nor since.


I wish every bride and groom can have the good fortune we had.

RINGS... D0nE & D0nE!!!

What an awesome day! We took my engagement ring back to Carroll's where it was purchased. It was cleaned in the ultrasonic machine, and I was chastized a wee bit by Anna for wearing it while I dig my hands in my garden. We had my fiance's ring finger sized again. And I handed over my eBay purchased wedding band for them to resize up one-half size. Do you remember that scene from Breakfast at Tiffany's where "Fred" and Holly get a Cracker Jack ring engraved at Tiffany and Co.? I felt like Holly putting in the work request for my internet band today. Unfortunately the band is too small to mount any of the reclaimed diamonds we got from my family. As it is they may not be able to save the inscription, the main concern is saving the design on the outside of the band. Yay Carroll's... as their sign says, "the STORE for BRIDES."


About 12 hours later I placed the order for my fiance's wedding band. After our painstakingly long search we found a business and band he is very happy with. We are going through the robandlean store on etsy.com for this mixed medium piece.


It is a hand milled titanium band that will be inlaid with reclaimed cypress. There will be an inscription (the message is a surprise) and a reclaimed flush mount diamond on the interior. He is really excited. He says the sucky part now is knowing that his ring will be here for a number of weeks and that he won't be able to wear it.

Disney was so much fun!

My best friend came out last weekend and her, my fiance, and myself went to Disney. Downtown Disney on day one and Disneyworld on day two. It was so much fun being around two people I love the most in my life. Here are some pics... there is no order since all three of us had cameras and I can't keep track of all that was going on but here are some explanations of what you will see.

• My fiance's Scottish-descent head was too big for the Mickey Groom ears/top hat. Instead I wore them since I thought the bride ears/veil were not really me and he wore light up ears.
  
• LEGO rocks... we got customized bricks for our cake topper at Downtown Disney
• I LOVE THE TEACUPS!! All right, I LOVE SPINNING!!! FAST!!!!
  
• We were serenaded by a quartet, they sang Bella Notte from Lady and the Tramp
• My best friend is a huge Piglet fan, I learned my fiance is in love with Mary Poppins, and for some reason I got really excited to go into the Hall of Presidents even though all I did was sleep.
• We were too cheap to buy pictures from rides so took pictures of the pictures of us on Splash Mountain and the Buzz Lightyear experience.
• I felt like Mayor McCheese walking around with my top hat and scarf.
  

I'll do another post about all the wedding-related Disney stuff I saw at another time... I gots pictures

Postage Nerd

I am getting way ahead of myself... invites aren't done, we have no idea how much it will cost to send them out... but I am looking at postage. My main stamp choice for years has been the Breast Cancer Awareness one. I have also liked the Reptiles & Amphibians, Dr. Suess, Paul Robeson, and the Ecosystem series. However for the invites... I may want to try something new. I checked out the USPS site and found some beauties in the Scientific American Landscapes series. I love the Okeefenokee Swamp and Hagatna Bay stamps, but have enjoyed my time in the Smokies and Yosemite.

We are straight up CRAZY!!!

This is the weekend for the invites. The weekend of the flowing creative juices. The weekend of actually getting it all done. The weekend of packing a lot of craftiness into about 30 invitations and crossing our fingers that they are at least a little cute. I'm aiming more for fun than anything else.

Here is the insanity process:

• Handmade recycled paper from our junk mail embedded with wildflower seeds
• Creation of a stamp of the four friends to transfer to a block
• Carving of a linoleum block image of the four friends
• Drinking some wine
• Braying water-based print ink then transferring to paper
• Writing the text
• Attaching the pages ... handsewing
• More wine
• Wrapping in brown paper
• Sending out
• Celebrating with some wine

Wish us luck!

who has it easier: rings

Hands down... I do! He picked out my engagement ring with no input from me besides my desire for it to be environmentally-friendly, no diamond, and inexpensive. In actuality we had the ring conversation on one of our first dates and he didn't go ring shopping until over a year later. He ended up picking up something on his own, he asked, I said YES, and I had a ring on my hand. My only decision with that ring was to accept his proposal. I do love it though, he bought a pre-owned piece from an estate sale dating from 1915-1930.


For my wedding band we had planned on using a jeweler that uses reclaimed material so that we could get matching pieces. There were some communication issues with the jeweler and they did not respond to me for a couple of months so I started looking on eBay for something pre-owned. Why not use the material before it has to be reclaimed to be made into something else? I found a piece originally given to someone in 1936, and with that auction my wedding ring shopping was done. Incidentally the jeweler did finally get back to me around the time that I found this little beauty.

But my BunnyGroom has not had it so easy, with less than 75 days to go he is still without a ring. We were going to get matching platinum rings but his jaw darn near fell off when I got my ring for $124. He did not want a band that would cost more than my engagement ring and wedding band. I have been scouring eBay for something vintage for him but it has been hard because I can hardly find rings in his size and the price of platinum has risen more than $400 per ounce in the last six months so people are buying it up for scrap like crazy, including rings that I have been bidding on.


So where does that leave him? He can have anything he wants and that is why I have it easier than him. Newly mined platinum is not an option... look at my post and his posts (post 1 and post 2) on this issue. We have been looking at the popular eco-friendly marketed jewelers as well as lesser well-known stores. At less than 75 days to go no order has been placed but I think we are headed in the right direction. Look at his blog for the ring update and the shout out to RobandLean's etsy shop. I'll post here once I make a purchase ;)