Pumpkin Carving

Last weekend Darren and I met up with Rob and Jen and two of their friends to do a little carving. Although ours have since disintegrated into goopy heaps of yuck, our kitties' baby pumpkins are doing just fine (as we did not have to gut them and stab pictures into them).

Punkin carvin' tonight!

Wednesday Words

We've been tossing around soundtrack possibilities lately for the big day.

It's going to be tough to break down the perfect mix of funky, lovely, groovy, 80seey, breakdancingly, rockingly fresh tracks for the reception, but it's exciting.

I cannot say whose made the cut quite yet but I can however tell you 2 bands that will not appear on the set list: Yello (oh yeah!) and Katrina and the Waves.

Wednesday Words

It's that time of year again. The air cold, the streets get wet and before you now it it's trick or treat time. I've got some ideas for this years costume. Lets just say it involves people of the dead variety.

Speaking of the dead. We got a chance to see Paranormal Activity last night. It definitely had the chills factor cranked up a notch. I recommend it. It's gotta be up there with one of the cheapest movies ever to make. I bet it's going to make a "killing" in the box office. Sorry.

Darren

Wednesday Words

Ah October. One of my favorite months. When it's February, I look forward to the heat of June. When it's August, I look forward to the cool of October.

It's almost time to retire the flip flops for the season. They will have one last hurrah at Cameron and Jens wedding luau. We're looking forward to it.

The 2009 wedding marathon starts this weekend and continues with many of our friends through 2010. This is a great time to celebrate commitments and we're stoked to see so many of our best pals finding their best pals.

Nine months until our big day, and there has been new developments. More later.

-Darren

Wednesday Words

I love this. Simple yet powerful. Procrastination holds us as people down far too often. Be it political or personal, it's hard to really do what needs to get done before it's too late.

On a design nerd side note, I've found over the years that Nike, as much as I disagree with their business choices, have some of the best advertising in the biz. Their commercials are always amazing and inventive. Their billboards powerful and moving. I've always wondered if they have these great in house advertisers that they use as secret weapons or if they contract out to some firm. Whatever they are doing, it works.

The Catalina Wine Mixer

This past weekend, Darren and I had some friends over to drink, be merry, eat, and play games.

It started with the fixin' of food. Yum!

Then there was eating...

and more eating.

Soon after eating, there was the excessive alcohol drinking.

Ugh. Gin and Juice is not good, Rob.

After a bit, there were a few drunken chat fests

And posing.

Then came the games!!!

The games got so crazy, some of our friends had to stay the night in our guest rooms!

The next morning we had lovely pancake breakfasts at the OG Pancake House. It was delicious.

All in all it was a successful night. Can't wait to do it again.

Girls Trip...Finally

I have not had the chance yet to explain how much more fun I had than Darren when we went on our separate trips this month. I drove my three girl friends up North to check out the Gilroy Garlic Festival, Carmel Wineries, Solvang breakfasts, and some sweet beaches. It started off like this:

We hung out in Garlic town with lots of garlic shaped and garlic flavored things.

Not sure if you can tell by my expression but the Garlic ice cream was disgusting (but apparently only to me).

We stayed in a lovely hotel in Salinas our first night.

The next day we went to Carmel to check out some wineries. After about seven, we stopped to eat and pose for this shot.

Later, we drove towards San Luis Obisbo (to our second hotel). Before we went, we stopped at another winery.

This is somewhere in Carmel. It was quite cool.

The next morning, Becky points out that we are in Solvang! We ate beautifully.

We ended our trip with a stop somewhere near Santa Barbara. The weather was perfect!

Do the stingray shuffle!

So it's been a few days since we've done much of a blog update. Seems like it's been a busy start of the month. A lot going on. Here's some Wednesday words on Monday...

First off, we did return from our excursions alive. Lisa survived the road and I survived the nerd fest we call Comicon. I think Lisa returned with more interesting stories and photos. All I have to show for my adventure is a couple of pics with Ugly Dolls. I got a little sandwich action.

All and all, it was kind of underwhelming. Saw some cool art, but it's hard to find reasons to go more than a day or two. Instead of taking the trek down there Friday, Rob and I decided to hit the surf. It was actually quite insane out there. Except for the Stingray part. Yea stepped on one of those, again. In surf camp, we'd sing the song "Do the stingray shuffle!". Who knew 20 years later I carry that tune with me whenever I hit the water. I'm enjoying my new (old) hobby a lot.

Lisa and I have enjoyed our little break from wedding planning. Thats the positive thing about starting early. In another 8 months or so we can expect the onslaught of planning to commence again.

Girly Northern Country Fun v. The Southern Nerd Special

This morning Darren left home, not for work as usual. but for a giant nerd fair called Comicon. He will spend two or three days looking at comic books, posters, toys, artwork, eating fried food, chatting with other "Con" enthusiasts (perhaps Ralph again), posing with scarcely clad women warriors, and costume rating. I, on the other hand, will leave tomorrow morning for a girls only! road trip up North for Garlic Festival food, wine country savoring, and beach/pool swimming fun. I think that I can say with confidence that I will be much better off than Darren will this weekend. I suppose it will depend on the photos and stories we return wielding.

Hooray for vacations!

Wednesday Words

Fun in the Sun

Summers here and it's officially time for sunburns. We started early Friday morning. Packed up the RV and headed to La Jolla shores in hopes to score a fire pit. No luck. I stepped on a surfboard for the first time in probably 15 years but it's like riding a bike. A bike that I never really took the training wheels off of. 

We hit the surf, Q'd up some dogs and caught some rays. 

Then it was back to Ms. Burns' crib for some pool action. . The view from Kathys yard never ceases to amazes us. At nightfall the coyotes come out and do their tribal chanting. Gerard, Michelle and Kathy always give us the special treatment. 

It's like a little vacation when we visit. 

We headed back North in the evening and topped the night off with a little Luau to celebrate Cheris birthday. Good times had by all.

Wednesday Words

Beirut Rules

I took Lisa to see Beirut in LA a few months after we met. She instantly became a fan. It was our first show. Everytime they come on the ipod, we talk about how cool it would to have them play our wedding. Rob seems to think that indie bands are fairly cheap and for roughly $1000, many will come out and do your gig. I might have to look into that but I won't get my hopes up. Check out this recent live show. Definitely good stuff.

Fourth of July Weekend Fun

In order to celebrate our country's Independence, Darren and I took a little trip to Alpine to spend the weekend with some friends. We had good eats, swim time, and plenty of sun tanning. Our vacation only lasted a couple days, but was so refreshing and relaxing, we can't wait to visit again (this weekend!).

A new hue

Doing some color experimentation on our domain today...

Hands dirty

Today I planted some of the left over scraps from our Save the Dates. 

I am hoping that they become the majestic and colorful wildflowers that 

I imagine them to be.

Lisa

Time to spread the word...

I’m beginning to establish a taste for (tame) sushi. 

Even though we are a year away from our big day, it seems like the planning is in full swing! Save the Date cards pretty much done and going out soon. The website is complete, and I can safely say that my computer and I have a more intimate relationship. I’ve been so inspired lately with different design, themes and ideas. I seriously need to do more freelance.

Our photo session with Ian was awesome!  We had a blast trotting around town. It seemed like all the great spots just kept falling into place for us.  I knew Ian would have a good eye for what we were looking for and we’re stoked on the results.  If you’re looking to get photography done, check him out here. Highly recommended.

Darren

Well, last Friday, Darren and I took a million pictures around Temecula. We were exhausted by the end of the day but excited about the possible “awesomeness’’ of our shots. Today I was able to see a few of the pictures and I am (so far) very pleased. We will be getting the rest of the photos by the end of this week and, hopefully, we will be posting them on our site....that will be up for people to see!

PS. The picture above is not from our shoot. It is from the Sizzlin’ Steer, where we went to lunch with our moms and Marty on Sunday.

Lisa

Today, Darren and I have some work to do. Although he has been working hard on this lovely website, we still need to add information and pictures to make it dazzle. We have a photo session planned for later this afternoon and we are excited about what great things could come of it. Hopefully both our eyes will be open for the photos...and we won’t look stoned.

Lisa

Let the website creation begin!