marcel and paula get hitched

new room

2007-11-14T19:30:00.000-05:00

(reposted from woolarina)

The past few weeks have been crazy busy. First trying to figure out how to get some hideous bookcases down from their perch on the wall (these things were bolted in with 6" screws!) then repairing the damage that some previous owner did...

Here's with one of three of these ikea bookcases down! We actually couldn't get the main bolts out. We had to enlist the help of a super strong guy! (thanks, mac!) and even then had to break off the screws!

And a dozen or so of the seventy holes left behind! Um? These people apparently did not use the technology of a STUDFINDER! Boo.

So after a week of patching and prepping, we painted... nearly every night last week! We managed to avoid dripping on the other furniture in the room (and it was tight)! My husband was pretty diligent at finishing it, even when I was superbusy at work or feeling sickish.

(with a fancy sewing machine + cabinet I need to find time to play with!)

Now we have to go find the artwork to stick up! :)

Orange you glad?

2007-07-02T21:10:00.001-04:00

This is where we started Saturday morning:

After an entire roll of tape!

Then after a lot of this from Marcel and I..

and overnight plus another coat, it looked like this:

Today we put all our furniture back in the dining room:

Dinner was so much better today!

whoa!

2007-02-05T21:07:00.000-05:00

It's been a week almost and our excitement is still building! The more we see it the more we like it! Several other condos are coming on the market now in the same area, and this one seems the best, and for slightly less money. We did the home inspection Saturday and didn't find much at all wrong with it, aside from a couple minor things. Yippee!

So more about it... it's on the 3rd floor (only drawback, really), actually has a separate dining room (only dining room we've seen in our search), has a fireplace, a tiny bathroom (circa 1950s they were all small!), two bedrooms, both with large closets, including one large closet along the wall in the second bedroom with sliding doors - perfect to hide/store my wooly stuff. Kitchen's got new appliance, and the rest is in good shape, though we'll likely replace the oldish cabnets and formica countertop and the linoleum. And washer and dryer! (the main requirement.) Windows are on the front and back of the building, so light should be around much of the day. And there's a pool outside the back of the place! Woohoo!

What we really like about it, though, is that it's a neighborhood of youngish people like us. There's a little strip of shops nearby with a couple restaurants, a deli, an organic food coop, a bike shop, and a gym. The place is right next to Rock Creek Park, so there'll be even less of an excuse to not get out there and run and bike and hike! It's on the bus line and about a mile's walk to metro and food/shopping/movies.

We're ecstatic!

photos and more photos!

2006-06-23T16:57:00.000-04:00

We keep getting more and more photos to pore through! I can't believe that was US at the wedding!

Here are a few shots from the photographer!

home improvement

2006-05-29T08:05:00.000-04:00

We've been working on fixing up my dad's house for months and months and months now. We're *finally* getting to the point where it's almost there.

-new carpet downstairs and upstairs
-new deck out back
-new walls just about everywhere
-new paint to go on fancy new walls
-new dishwasher
-new kitchen, really! cabinets, counter, etc.

Few more days. So much to do still!

An option for before the wedding

2006-05-22T20:46:00.000-04:00

The Takoma Park Jazzfest is happening on June 10th. They have a bunch of different musicians out, as well as craft vendors and food. Might be nice to relax for a couple hours and enjoy the music! About a mile or two from downtown Silver Spring.

summer has begun!

2006-05-14T08:50:00.000-04:00

Congrats to Jen and Matt, for kicking off the Summer of Weddings! They had a lovely ceremony on the Chesapeake Bay... only a few setbacks, and a few lessons learned (eat food!)! ;) Definitely a great dry-run for June!

carpet and paint

2006-05-03T11:09:00.000-04:00

By now I think we've painted just about every reachable painted surface at my dad's house! We've had tons of help from family and friends (thanks SO much!!) and it's really starting to get done. Next week we will have new carpet and will be able to start moving furniture back downstairs! Then we can attack the living room and dining room!

As far as wedding planning, we're starting to take care of the last few details - cermony, readings, music, etc. And favors and programs! I hope to get out my printer again some if we have time!

Don't forget to book your hotel room soon - the cut-off date for the $119 a room rate is the 9th of May!

7 weeks to go

2006-04-25T08:30:00.000-04:00

Wow- we haven't updated in a month almost! Life is too busy. Flying by! Agh!! Anyhow, things are coming together slowly. Checks are going out, things are getting organized. Dress is out with the seamstress being taken in and shortened. Barongs have been received. Plane tickets and hotel rooms have been purchased. Ready to go!

What isn't yet ready is my dad's house. We've spent the last few months just tearing it up, and are just now starting to put it back together! With my dad we have replaced a ton of drywall, added tile downstairs, painted the kitchen, tore out ALL the cabinets, took down the deck, tore up half the carpet in the house, tore down part of the carport, planted a flower garden, moved loads of material around, gotten rid of old furniture, etc etc etc. Neverending fun! But- it is good practice for that elusive house we may someday own.

Why are we spending every weekend of our last few months of non-married life working on this? We're having a big old party the Friday before the wedding. Instead of a rehearsal dinner, we thought it would be way more fun to have a party that we could invite everyone too- even all our friends we can't invite to the wedding. Even our coworkers. Even our neighbors from back in the day.

So. 6 more weekends and the house will be finis! I hope! :)

cake and shoes

2006-03-28T08:45:00.000-05:00

After some strange dealings with an awful cake vendor (kids serving cake, being bombarded with non-CAKE vendors at the cake shop, pushy employees, crummy cake) we've found some awesome cake, and for less money to boot! We decided on chocolate cake with raspberry filling for one layer and yellow cake with strawberry filling for another layer. yum and yum! Fittingly, from the Yum Yum Shop!

And- all of us girly girls have shoes. The boys are as of right now still clothesless, so hopefully they will hop to it with the clothes buying.

shoes!

2006-03-14T08:48:00.000-05:00

I have shoes!

They seem to be super comfy as well, though winter seems to have come back with a vengeance before I could wear them much!

Now we just need to find shoes for all and pants and shirts for the men.

And cake and rings and hair and makeup and fittings and licenses and and and!

hotels update

2006-03-04T12:04:00.000-05:00

hotel information is up, and up to date!

We recommend staying in downtown Silver Spring, if possible. If you have a car, Bethesda has slightly cheaper yet still nice (we think!) options, and is only 15 minutes or so away. It's still on the metro, so it's convenient for sightseeing.

The hotel we've blocked rooms at needs to have the rooms reserved by May 9th, so don't forget if you want to stay there! Information on how to reserve a room is here.

our new toy

2006-02-27T20:55:00.000-05:00

To save some money, we decided to make our own invitations.. the gocco was a bit of an investment, but I'll be able to use it for other things in my shop as well...

Here's Marcel working his printing skills:

Here are some of the cards we made last night:

And a close up. I found this line drawing of a lily (a wood lily!) on the nearctica website. so many pretty images!

hotels

2006-02-03T13:05:00.000-05:00

We've had our eyes out for hotels for a while now, and none are standing out so well. You see, hotels in Silver Spring are either very expensive or sketchy. We don't really want to subject guests to either! The hotel we're likely going with in Silver Spring seems pretty nice (we're visiting it soon!), and has just been remodeled. It has all the usual amenities, fridge, pool, and fitness center. They're giving us a rate of $119 a night, from their usual $200-300 (!!!) rate..

The advantage to being right in Silver Spring is not needing a car, and thus- not spending $10 a day parking, like many hotels seem to have! And the nicer hotels all have free shuttles within 3 miles of the hotel. This covers metro, the wedding, and all of downtown Silver Spring.

The disadvantage is the cost. It's really a bunch of money. and breakfast isn't even included!! And parking.. though there's free street and garage parking evenings and weekends, so maybe that's not an issue?

Soooo.. we're looking elsewhere as well. The city of Bethesda is maybe a ten minute drive away, and also has a metro stop (though it's a looooong ride to get to Silver Spring!) and a huge downtown area with tons of restaurants and shopping. There are a couple of hotel options there, and one has free parking. It looks to be a bit cheaper on weekends- I think mostly business people stay in Bethesda. So I'm hoping it turns out to be a viable option for those with cars... or willing to cab it over to the fun!

The common denominator: tastee diner! Where else can you get a great diner breakfast for under $5? Both are pretty close to hotels in downtown Bethesda and Silver Spring!

slow progress

2006-01-22T14:46:00.000-05:00

We're at a bit of a standstill in terms of progress... starting to get panicky at how much important stuff we have to do (music, minister) and how many people are on the invite list!

We do have a couple more people in the wedding party though... flower girl is paula's cousin JianXia and ringearer is cousin Yusheng. Still have a few more people to ask to help us out.

We've been ogling invitations we can't afford, hoping to get some ideas.. I am really hoping we have time to be crafty and make them ourselves.. It's hard to decide on a design, though... and my drawing skills aren't super!

website is coming along...

2006-01-04T08:45:00.000-05:00

website will be here shortly.

to do

2006-01-03T19:08:00.000-05:00

- write check and mail contract to fotog
- listen to a few music samples
- start doing the website already; people are asking wedding questions that would be best left to an FAQ
- invites? come up with some sort of idea on design. gocco?

got some time to kill?

2005-12-30T13:17:00.000-05:00

there are some pretty funny stories here!

bridesmaid dresses

2005-12-29T13:18:00.000-05:00

I ordered the bridesmaid dresses today. From Jcrew, of all places. They have wedding stuff... who knew!?

Anyhow, dresses were on sale, and have a chance of being worn again. This makes me happy.

Next up? Shoes!

how do you choose?

2005-12-14T14:52:00.000-05:00

photographer #1 had great photos. the minions that would have actually photographed our wedding had great photos. they cost a lot though, and since our wedding is "high season" (whose isn't these days?) they would add $400 to the total. more if we went with mr. soandso. but they were great! Even if #1 had an attitude. And insisted that average albums really do cost on average $1300. leatherbound, archival, blahblahblah. not happening here, thanks! he sort of looked at us funny and said he'd charge more when we asked if he'd be willing to also take fotos of guests maybe and print em out onsite for a guestbook. They would give us negatives, but...

photographer #2 was super nice. his website was too. in person? he showed us a few albums that were just. not. us. with blurred backgrounds, fancy effects. lots of posed centered shots. blah. his prices were okay, and he had a nice enough album for reasonable. (is $500 reasonable, even compared to $1300 average?!) He was nice, though, and even willing to give us helpful hints on our special day. we'd get proofs, I think. and a CD if hi-res images I think. still not the one though.. our speciaaaaallll daaaaayyyy wouldn't look super great ten years from now.

photographer 2.5 and 2.75 were booked already, but politely wished us the best.

photographer #3 is looking pretty darned nice right now. very nice. helpful. reasonable even. (and we aren't looking at his bottom tier package, unlike with #1) His pictures look nice, though he showed us the same ones we saw online. He *can* do an album for us, but said we could do it way cheaper ourselves online. like, $400-1000 cheaper than the other guys. He even suggested we go buy a photo printer at sams/costco when we said we might be interested in photographing our guests on the spot and printing. no mention of extra charges. no looking at us crosswise. And we get 200 proofs. And we get high res-negatives. And and and. He looks great. Not super tech savvy, but I'm not looking for that.. I want pictures!

so #4? has a lot to live up to. if she ever writes back.

countdown is on.

2005-11-23T17:00:00.000-05:00

months until the party:

"Silver Spring Day"

2005-11-21T21:06:00.000-05:00

Read more about Silver Spring over here.

Why does Silver Spring have a Big Acorn?

201 days

2005-11-21T20:14:00.000-05:00

June 10, 2006 @ Mrs. K's Tollhouse.