Table setting

Here's a blue and gold table setting that I love.

The best dog

While I eagerly await a photo of my sister Liz to post with her bio, I thought I'd skip to one of the other attendants at our wedding-- namely, Catch. I wanted our beautiful Bernese Mountain Dog to be part of the festivities and was trying to think of a good way to integrate him.

I thought about ring-bearer, but I really have unbearably cute nephews to do that job. I also thought about flower dog, but without an opposable thumb, he would be severely limited in that regard.

But Catch is a pack dog. He loves wearing his backpack, and we often walk him around Greenlake with his red pack ladened down just because he enjoys it. So I thought that my nieces could walk down the aisle with him with two baskets hanging at his sides. The girls can grab and throw their petals from the baskets that Catch carries. I envision belt-loop berry picking baskets strapped to his backpack frame.

Besides, wouldn't he look completely sweet with a collar of flowers around his neck?

Catch:


He's a working dog, through and through... Here he is swimming on a mostly frozen alpine lake. He's so tough! That water was just at the melting point. My toes went numb in seconds, but he chose to submerge himself and swim in it! He got in repeatedly over the course of the afternoon. He always came out shivering and then went back for more!


So what do you think I should call him in the program? Flower dog? Best dog? Bride's best buddy?

Chris's engagement ring (with mine)

We just got Chris's engagement ring (and wedding ring) in the mail! We looked high and low for something that we both liked, but everything seemed completely ordinary. We finally found Rob and Leighanne on Etsy--and their rings are anything but ordinary. They have been amazing to work with too.

This is a sandblasted titanium, and it hits all the right notes. The sandblasting gives it a flat appearance, but also a bit of sparkle. I've been calling it "boy bling".

Too bad my photography with my broken camera doesn't reflect their craft. Since I dropped my camera when photographing my engagement ring, it has had some problems. Add camera to the list of things that need to be replaced!

Here is a better picture of it, from Rob and Leighanne's Etsy site. Hopefully they won't mind that I'm sharing it!

A hair thing I like

I think this is a really cool headband, especially in light of the fact that I'll probably have short hair for the wedding.

Back in the land of the living!

I'm cradled in the arms of society again in a few different ways.

I finally finished attending on the wards. I love doing it, but it means 12 hr plus days of putting your heart and soul into some very sick kids and their families. It is so draining, but also hugely rewarding. For those 2 weeks, I did essentially nothing related to the wedding (minus the pear trial) and had no inkling of what was going on in the world. Its nice to be able to read the news, watch Keith Olbermann and have time to read my favorite blogs.

But the real way that I've come back to life is by getting a new cell phone. Not just any cell phone, but the i-phone 3G. You all remember that fateful day in March when my phone broke. (Well, I accidentally crushed it with my foot, but that's a whole other story). I've held out and dealt with a dysfunctional screen for months. For a while, I could at least see the phone number of who I was calling. That was great, because I started memorizing numbers... Good thing, too, because eventually the screen died altogether. If I didn't know your number by heart, I couldn't call you. In the past week, it no longer told me when I was getting calls or if I had messages. Old slider phone was giving up the ghost :(

I finally went to order my new toy. I was nervous, and my palms were sweaty. I had no doubt about what I wanted, only whether I would be responsible enough to care for her appropriately. She was on back-order, so I had time to think about my choice. Well, she came in yesterday and she's everything I could have hoped for. She's smart, sophisticated and funny... and I love her so. She's so sleek that I've already dropped her once. I'll try not to repeat that trick!

Now, I can finally get your calls and call you again! We can plot and scheme to our content. (Limited only by i-phone's battery life).

Here she is in all her glory!

Centerpiece work

Still working on centerpiece ideas. I wonder if we can somehow meld these 2. (and its too bad I can't link to the other picture of sugared pears. Maybe I'll just link to the image. You can go to:
http://www.usapears.com/lifestyle/decorating.asp
and then click on sugared pears.

New inspiration board

Meet the minds (behind the bride)

The name of this post could have been "Meet the Maids", but that would have just been cheesy! I realize that most of you know a lot about each other, but don't know each other so much... and I figured it would be fun to do a little "get to know ya". Let's see what I can put together.

I'll go in order of the length of time I've known you.

Yup, that means you Sandie.

I've known this girl since she was in utero. I talked to you before you were viable on your own, and I have to say, I always credit the fact that we can be singing the same song in different states at the exact same time or decide to call each other at the same moment to the fact that we've shared our pre-natal environment, home, and experiences since day #1.

Facts:
I have a tape of Sandie singing in made up foreign languages when she was about 5. It is one of the cutest things that I have. We should definitely burn it onto a CD!

I've never seen someone so scared as my sister when I fell out of the Gumm's accelerating truck and almost got hit by another car in the middle of a busy road. That might be the first time I knew how much she loved me.

Sandie adores most things Japanese, and is more fluent in Japanese than she lets on.

She used to love the Julianna Hatfield 3 and Pizzicato 5. (Maybe just a fetish with bands that have numbers in the name?) Sandie has seen Madonna live in concert in Japan. (Which I made fun of at the time, but now think is *way* cool.) Sandie has a great fashion sense.

She has 3 adorable kids and one husband who is pretty cool. She's got 2 dogs (Cavalier and a Lab) and a cat named Omaha (think Counting Crows). She used to have a cat named Julianna (named after the aforementioned band) and now, even better, has a daughter named Juliana (not after the band)... Note the different spellings.

She's an ESTP on Myers Briggs Testing... which might have had an impact on me. Chris is also an ESTP. But when it comes down to it, she has the biggest heart and is the glue that keeps our family together!




*next up-Liz

More dresses

Love this dress, although the neckline would have to be altered (its plunging!)

Dress Madness

Jen brings up the infamous dress question... which I've been putting off. Here are some options, most of which you guys have probably already seen. This is sort of one grouping I've been looking at. Some days I like other stuff, so when I'm in a different mood I'll post some different styles I like.

A cool vintage inspired dress

BodiceBack
Front

My very own inspiration board

By the way, making these sucks!!! I definitely do not have the gene that predisposes me to all this stuff!

Inspiration boards

I didn't know they had these things called inspiration boards. It kind of helps you see how your colors will go together. Here are a few that I've found using the colors I like.

I love the color of my diamond so much that I wanted to do champagne colored accents. The dresses are blue, and I love the idea of making our very own Lake Tahoe in the middle of the forest!

I'd really enjoy comments and ideas on the scheme!

So why exactly are we pirates and pears?

The obvious question has been asked...

The answer is simple. Sort of.

When Chris and I got engaged, we decided that we wanted to start a wedding website. We thought of the obvious names, "ChrisandVicki" or "VickiandChris" or "ChrislovesVicki" or vice versa. Well, all of those were taken and seemed kind of weak anyway.

So then we decided that we would try "Catch's parents"--because we're such loving dog-parents. We googled it (stop now... don't do it) and we got lots and lots of porn sites! We had to think of something completely different.

Chris always calls me a Pirate because of my family's pirate lineage. Did you even know we had pirate lineage? I didn't until last year.

Turns out our ancestor Jose Tomas de Boves (originally named Jose Tomas Rodriguez--bet you didn't know that either!) spent 4 years in prison for piracy on the high seas, long before he went to pillage in Venezuela and then went on to become Viceroy of Venzuela under the crown of Spain. (Did you know he was an amazing horseman too?) Come to find out he wasn't a very nice guy though, and he was eventually killed by Simone Bolivar (the George Washington of South America). I've got some pretty interesting articles about our red-headed, cowboy, pirate ancestor if you want to learn more... but I guess Chris hooked on to the fact that he was first a pirate, and so always calls me a pirate girl.

Also, another little known fact is that on some of my first weekends specifically visiting Chris in Tahoe, we saw Pirates of the Carribean 1&2. And did you know that Pirates of the Carribean was my favorite ride at Disneyland when I was little? I had no idea how politically incorrect it was at the time! It was stunning to go back and check it out a couple of years ago and see how awful it was, but deep down I still loved it.

And the pear, well you can probably figure that has to do with Chris's last name (and not his figure), I've always called him "Bartlett pear". As soon as he said we should name the site Pirate and something, I realized the aliteration was perfect and so we must be Pirates and Pears. We bought the domain name and we're milking it for all its worth ;)

Did I just make a simple story really boring? I think our website name is hilarious!

A bridesmaid dress?

My sister, Sandie found a dress that could be the bridesmaid dress. At first I thought everyone would just wear something different in similar colors, but I wonder if this dress might work for most of the girls.

I can't copy and paste the image, but here is the link. Let me know what you think. Other suggestions? I'm open.

Do you like blue? I think it will photograph well and look good on most people. Given that we're doing this in the wilderness, I think green and brown and other neutrals are out.

Dress

Yup, its for real!

So, I think I was probably the last person to think it would really happen. As tough as I play it sometimes, I'm really psyched to be getting married to Chris. It took 34-35 years to finally find a guy who would put up with me and who I could put up with. But Chris and I don't just put up with each other, we laugh and have fun every day... and that is the best thing ever!

This might be the sappiest you ever see me, so enjoy! (And keep the teasing to a minimum)

I figure this is a good place to garner the opinions of people who are my assigned opinion givers, and to minimize my mass e-mailing of pictures and "stuff".

Try not to throw up too much, and I'll do the same!