Our Wedding, Our Way!

I'm taking a brief study-break, so I'll share a little from last weekend!

As forecasted, it rained Saturday, one solid thunderstorm to cleanse the earth and bless the day. Then it cleared up and was nice. It wasn’t oppressively hot or humid at the base ball park, although it was hot enough to pop a balloon in a car with no air conditioning!

Friends and relatives started coming in Friday evening. David and the girls and I met his brother, Ben and family for dinner. Tori was excited about that. I had told them about how wonderful David’s family was when I first met them, how I felt so welcomed. We weren’t sure what the plan would be, if we’d meet with them Friday or see them Saturday. Tori was insistent that we should all have dinner. We went to a local brewery restaurant. The kids seemed to get along pretty well. Ben and I both tried the beer sampler. I ended up liking and drinking two of the small glasses and really that was enough for someone who doesn’t drink often. Rina and Tori thought it was important to get a photo of me with all that beer to send to their Dad.

After dinner, the four of us went home to wait for Doug, who was staying with us. Doug got in and then the cats had enough of all of the people in their house. Baggle actually came back later and made friends with Doug, but surprisingly, Kaline stayed hidden. She pretty much decided that she didn’t need to deal with the house full of people for the rest of the weekend. On Saturday, when David’s brother Peter came in she stayed gone and when his brother Anthony came over with wife Carol and their grandson, well, you wouldn’t know we had cats!

We all managed to get into 2 vehicles, balloons and all, to head to the ballpark. When we got there, Rina and Ben stood near the main entrance with the sign for reception information, giving a niece from one side of our family and a nephew from the other on the home plate corner. Their job was to direct people to Tori and EP at the third base gate. The girls at third were in charge of checking people in and distributing the guest envelopes to our guests. After working on the favors with Rina and me, Tori assembled the name badges and prepared the envelopes with the tickets, wristbands and name badges and check in sheets. The system worked well. Tori was very into the whole wedding planner stuff. She’d done a lot of leg work with Laura’s wedding, welcoming her new Mom to the family and she did a lot to help her “old aunt” too. ;)

The bride and groom with Mudonna

I really didn’t think I was going to actually see a lot of baseball that night. I was however, gloriously surrounded by baseball. What a fitting reception party! I got to spend some time with friends and relatives, some of whom I’d just met, and still, there wasn’t nearly enough time for that. We got a visit from Muddy in the first inning and David and I got a picture with him. I was hoping we might be able to get them both together, but that couldn’t be managed during the game. Anthony brought grandson, JC, to meet Muddy. To say he wasn’t impressed is putting it so lightly. He cried. Big yellow birds in baseball jerseys are pretty frightening when you’re under 2. When Mudonna came a little bit later, David and I got our picture with her, but JC didn’t bother!

Dinner was fantastic! The carved ham and roast beef was a far cry from standard ball park fare and I’m told the mac and cheese was awesome! After we finished eating, there was an opportunity when all of the guests were present and not other places in the park for David and I to do some visiting and bring the favors to everyone. M&Ms won’t do a single letter on their personalized M&Ms. So, I made round stickers with a single letter “d” on them that look like “d” M&Ms at first glance. The stickers have our names and the wedding date on the circumference. Those stickers were on the bags that had M&Ms with our names on half and “d&d 12-23-08” on the others. They turned out to be very nice favors. We also had a newsletter with stories about how we met, our biographies and a word search with “us words” in it the newsletter got many compliments.

Our M&Ms favors

Before the cake was brought out, we invited everyone to blow the party bubbles as we released a group of balloons in memory of the family members who are no longer with us and in tribute to David’s Mom who couldn’t make the trip. The bubbles were a suggestion that Mary made and I passed it on to everyone as an “if you’d like to participate” idea. David and I held the balloons together and released them. As the balloons floated up in the sky a cloud of bubbles floated past us and followed like little angels pushing the balloons to heaven. I really don’t know what it looked like, but it felt warm, fuzzy and awesome!

Coming soon - THE CAKE!

Time to Treasure

Seiko SUJ214 Ladies Dress Watch

Now you all know how I feel about watches that cost a down payment on a house, but I never said that a good watch wasn’t worth an investment. I’m just choosy about where and how much to invest. I think everyone should have one good piece of jewelry, a quality rain coat and every now and then to be spoiled with a facial, pedicure or massage. Aren’t they all great gift ideas?

A good watch is just a classy piece of jewelry, There is an air of accomplishment about it. This is the time of year to think about those things too! What a great gift to a student leaving home for college in the fall! A pair of watches for a wedding or anniversary gift, time together, or to your spouse, the gift of my lifetime. It kinda gives me that warm and fuzzy goose-bumpy feeling!

I found some sweet watches at bluedial.com! I was browsing the Seiko Watches and found one that is just beautiful! Two-toned gold plated braid with a black face, a perfect match for my wedding ring! Seiko is a name that says quality time pieces and the price at bluedial is affordable as an investment is a quality time piece without skipping a few mortgage payments!

If you want to find that gift that says “I’m proud,” the gift that says, “I love you,”bluedial is the place to look first!

Rainy Days and Mud Hens?

Sung to the tune of “Ironic” by Alanis Morissette

It’s like ra-a-ain
on your reception day
It’s a baseball game
but they’re still gonna play,
It’s free food,
so come anyway...

The Toledo, Ohio forecast for tomorrow calls for showers and thunderstorms before noon! Fortunately, the guests are scheduled to arrive around 5, and game 1 starts at 5:30. There is just a chance f showers tomorrow evening and we are under cover in our picnic area. I really do think it’ll be okay. It’s just that the forecast, well, it makes me laugh. Thank goodness I’ll have a baseball cap to protect me and no heavy, 5-mile long dress to drag through the mud! :)

We have everything except the balloons and poster board. The poster board is to make the airport-style sign to let the guests know that Tori and Rina are the ones with their tickets. I’m going to get a mylar wedding balloon and a few latex ones for our balloon release after cake. We’re releasing balloons in memory of the loved ones who aren’t here to celebrate with us and in honor of David’s Mom who can’t do the traveling.

My back is feeling a little weak today, but not sore. Tori and RIna have been awesome for helping me get things ready. We got things picked up downstairs today and are working on laundry. I claimed that I bribed them with Taco Bell for lunch, but that was as much a celebration of feeling back up to driving as anything!

This evening, our friend, Doug is coming in from Maryland. He’s staying here tonight. Kelly was supposed to be in tonight too, but there were a couple things she had to stay in Missouri for. She was SO bummed on the phone, but she’s visiting for a few days at the end of the month and there is a day trip to see Scotty and John already planned!

I’m kinda procrastinating on my chapter 10 homework. I did my first run on the chapter review questions and got eight out of 25 wrong, so I have to probe through the chapter and find the right answers to resubmit them. Gotta love the online part of the class for that. I want to be sure I have the concepts down before I tackle the case projects. No second chance on those. I really do want to try to finish it up tonight so I don’t end up stuck doing it Sunday night!
Okay, but for now I’d better get back to it. Don’t forget 35% off ALL Digitalegacies Designs items at Scrap Bird this weekend!! I’ll likely blog about the weekend very soon!

Remember, rain or shine, it’s up to YOU to have a great weekend!

The Sounds of Summer

For me, the sounds of summer have always started with that first pitch on Opening Day, but there is a full album of summer tones that just make me breathe a happy sigh. I love summer and what it does for all of my senses. I love the sounds of kids playing outside, that momentary rumble of a passing car with the windows down and the music loud, the whir of the spokes on bicycles or even that scraping the pavement noise of a Big Wheel on the sidewalk. I also love the scratch and whir of a skilled kid on a skateboard, especially in a skateboard park where you can hear the sounds change as a ramp gone over or a jump made.

At Warehouse Skateboards they have so many things vital to skateboarding. Whether you’re looking at their huge selection of longboard skateboards or if you’re interested in building your own custom board, there is just some cool stuff there!

I asked Rina if she’d ever tried skateboarding. She’s tried it on a cousin’s board, but she fell. I wondered of a good set of pads and a helmet would fix that. Warehouse Skateboards has those too and some cool skateboarding clothes to coordinate with the helmets and boards. If you have someone who wants to try something a little extreme, or even if that person of yours is you!

Defying Murphy and Stuff

I have a little time to catch up, to breathe, but just a little, so I’ll get right to updating The Chronicles of Nani readers on what’s going on!

2 days until the reception and things are going okay. Well, they’re going okay except a few people that had to cancel on us and my back. I got a nasty knot in the lower back on the side with my bad knee Tuesday night. The pain was awful! I ended up not going to school yesterday because I just couldn't move well enough to get dressed and to the car, let alone get from the parking lot to class. Besides, sitting in a chair hurt. David brought my laptop and books up to me and I worked on the bed. I had a heating pad that when i spoke with my physical therapist later, I was told to switch to ice because heat was bad. It was good advice! Where my pain was, on a scale of 1-10, a 20 yesterday, today it's a manageable 7 or 8. I’ll spend some more time with the ice today and I figure I’ll be back to my normal self by tomorrow. My disposition is much brighter today. Yesterday, I was predicting rain for Saturday. Tori looked at me and said, “Now that’s not the Nana I know, the Nana I know is not negative.”

David says a few people canceling at the last is normal. This is my first marriage, I don't know! Even my Dad told me he might be late. Can you imagine if it had been a regular wedding? I’d be at the church looking at my watch and wondering if I was going to be walking down the aisle by myself!

Okay, truth is that when we were talking about the wedding thing, I figured I would walk down the aisle alone unless it was a big deal to Dad to do it. I have long thought that weddings and the reception events that went with them are for the guests, not the bride and groom. The marriage is for the bride and groom. That being said, my back can hurt, everyone can bail on the weekend and it can rain cats and dogs. I STILL have the dream I wanted out of the deal. It’s just that now that we’re doing the summer reception for our winter wedding, I want to enjoy it.


My First AG!

Tori and Rina have been here for a couple of weeks, We usually take them for a long weekend trip in the summer. Last year Rina went to the Railfan weekend in Altoona with us and Tori came for a yummy weekend in Hershey. This year they decided they wanted to share their weekend and both went to the Mensa AG in Pittsburgh with us. There are more teenagers at the big annual event than there are at the smaller regional gatherings and they even have a track of events especially for the “TeenSIG.” We had lots of time spent with the girls and they also had plenty of things they did on their own, so it was a great combination of aunt and uncle time with independent time too.

Rina's first Mensa event

It was my first AG, David’s too. We’d been to smaller Mensa events, but this was the first time for the big one for all of American Mensa. Yes, ALL of the eggheads in ONE omelet! After so many years of knowing each other by instant messages and email, I finally got to meet Ben, my “smart little brother,” in Pittsburgh! I also got to meet Joan Marie, a fellow member of GenX, several other groups and the M&Ms yahoo list. We talked for a while after David’s presentation of his train slides Friday Night. The presentation had a decent attendance, including two nieces and several members of TeenSIG. Just before David’s trains, Tori and I discovered “The Werewolves of the Pittsburgh Mensa AG.” Werewolves is SUCH a COOL game! The game we played was The Werewolves of Miller’s Hollow. Were were newbies, but you learn and become addicted to it quickly! There’s a link to the basic directions at the bottom of this post! Tori actually left the dance on Friday night to play more werewolves and we used our peer pressure to bring David and Rina into the addiction Saturday.

Tori making Happy Socks

On Saturday, the girls and I went to the Operation Happy Sock workshop at the AG. Operation Happy Sock makes cat toys for shelter cats. The toys are made with donated socks, fiberfill and cat nip. I’d guess the small room of Mensans talking abut their cats made over a thousand collectively in our hour together. Everyone was encouraged to take one of the toys home for their own cats and take some to donate to their local shelter.

Kaline and Baggle loved their Happy Socks! I’d done their “sock puppets” with legs from tights bundled up with just cat nip in them, but the squishy filled ones are even nicer. As much as they liked theirs, I think the shelter cats were even happier!

Our kids LOVED the Happy Socks

Tuesday afternoon, Rina, Tori and I took half of the large box of Happy Socks we brought home to Paws and Whiskers in Toledo, Ohio. Half of the Happy Socks we brought home were for a Toledo shelter and half are going with them to an Indianapolis shelter. Paws and Whiskers is a no-kill nonprofit cat shelter. In many ways, it broke my heart ot see all of those homeless cats in cages.

Paws and Whiskers is a nonprofit, No-kill cat shelter in Toledo

They had so many kittens too! David and I have been reading about pets that have been given up or even abandoned in this economy when families have lost their homes and had to move to apartments that didn’t allow pets or even the ones who just could no longer afford to feed or care for pets. We’ve been thinking that it might be time to look for a new brother of sister for our kids. We’d want to adopt an adult cat from a shelter. Cute little kittens have a much easier time finding a home than adult cats do. When we walked in to Paws and Whiskers, the woman who greeted us took a phone call where she had to say that they had no room for more cats right now. They even have adult cats that were adopted there and ended up back there a few years later because of circumstances beyond the kitty’s control.

We got to put the Happy Socks in the cages ourselves. The “house v=cat” there, who lays on a shelf near to the entrance as the shelter’s greeter, became very interested in the bags we brought! We gave her one and brought the bags to the walls of cages. They must have smelled the cat nip, because as soon as we opened the first bag, they were all meowing and poking paws out to say, “Don’t forget me!”

These kittens at Paws and Whiskers were
adopted and waiting to go to their new home

Most of the cats and kittens there were so friendly and affectionate. They did a really good job of “selling themselves.” I’d have taken them all home if I could! I had suggested foster-parenting cats, but David doesn’t like that idea. He figures he’d get too attached to the foster cats. He’s probably right. We are planning to look into some volunteer opportunities. Hey, they even have a Texas Hold ‘Em tournament with proceeds going to the shelter. David is planning on that one!

Digitalegacies Designs Reception Sale

35% OFF July 11 & 12

One last note for all the scrappers! In honor of our wedding reception weekend, I’m having a sale! If you head over to Scrap Bird on Saturday or Sunday, all and I mean ALL the products in the Digitalegacies Designs store will be 35% off!

Be sure to stop by this weekend! After Sunday when the party mood settles and I realize that exam 2 has been posted for my class, it’s back to business as usual!

How to play Werewolf
Paws and Whiskers
Operation Happy Sock