Wedding Weekend

*All pictures were stolen off Facebook. Also, this got rather long.

The wedding weekend was a ton of fun. But no one told me how utterly exhausted I would be by the end of it. They told me that my face would hurt from smiling too much, that I needed to focus on eating enough and not drinking too much, that the entire thing would be over before I knew it. But no one told me that I would basically collapse as soon as it was all over. At least it gave Kevin and me a chance to catch up on all (and I do mean all) of the television we missed last week.

We're so glad that so many people were able to come spend the day with us and celebrate our marriage. It's especially impressive because 80% of the guests were from out of town. Since so many people were traveling so far, we tried to plan some extra events to give us more time with everyone. We invited our extended families to the rehearsal dinner, organized after parties for both Friday and Saturday nights, and arranged for breakfast to stay open an extra hour on Sunday so we could see everyone one last time. It worked out really well, and I'm glad we got to spend some time with our family and friends outside the incredibly hectic formal events.

My mom and I arrived at the venue just before noon on Friday and quickly discovered that it was far bigger than either of us has realized when we toured it a year ago. We almost got lost on the way to my room, and we definitely got lost when we went in search of the dining hall to meet my dad and some friends for lunch. But by the time I finished unloading the car, I'd more or less figured out the layout of the place.

I'd planned to plant myself in the lobby to greet people as they arrived, but I found myself too busy to really hang out there. By the time I was finished running around it was just about time for the rehearsal, which actually got rained out. We were able to figure out the processional order and go over the ceremony with our officiant, Alex, though.

Then it was time to head out to the rehearsal dinner, where the bar service was a little slow at first, but the food was delicious. And thus began the process of flitting from group to group, making sure that I got to say hi to everyone. This was sort of a theme of the weekend. There are so many people there to see you that it's hard to make enough time for them all. You have to settle for some time with everyone instead. At least we stuck to a fairly small guest list.

Enjoying the Rehearsal Dinner

Nearly everyone else that we invited made it to the after party, which meant a lot more running from group to group to say hi as people arrived. There were also a few too many shots that evening. And while I was sure I made it to bed by midnight, my Fitbit informs me that I was out past 1 AM.

On Saturday morning I woke up with a hangover, unable to go back to sleep because of the too bright sun and the million things I needed to do. Kevin and I were at breakfast almost as soon as it opened. Then we went back to the room where I showered and did my hair while Kevin napped.

The bridesmaids, the best man, and I had a 10:00 appointment to get our nails done. It was a lot of fun to hang out, although the process of getting fake tips is way more involved than I remember it being. Of course, it's also been over a decade since I got fake nails, so perhaps my memory is faulty. The spa was on the small side, which meant that our appointments were staggered and it took a little longer than I'd expected. But we made it back to the venue for lunch. Then we had just enough time to drink a couple of mimosas and get pretty for pictures at 2:30.

I'm really glad we decided to take all of the family pictures before the wedding, and they all showed up early to see the first official look of the dress (and the tux, honestly). Our photographer had staged a nice entrance that we messed up when Kevin turned around too early and I tripped on the stairs. Oh well. It will make for more spontaneous photos, which are always more fun.

Kevin and (some of) his guys

After the first look we cycled through pictures with parents, siblings, extended families, and finally the bridal party. We finished up right around 4:00, and went to hide while the rest of the guests arrived and sat down. By that point my feet were killing me, so I welcomed the opportunity to sit down for a bit. If I had to get married again, I probably wouldn't try to wear new shoes for the wedding. I really wish I'd had time to break mine in some more so I could have worn them for longer.

The wedding party

The ceremony was short and sweet and lovely. I believe our sense of humor came through, with the Calvin and Hobbes and Isaac Asimov readings we picked. And I may have slightly improvised my vows, but it all worked out. I'd figured out most of them before hand, but then I wanted to add a couple of things when I heard Kevin's and ended up flubbing a bit. The good news is that no one heard them anyway, thanks to the wind that decided to gust right during our ceremony. And I must say that although I've walked down the aisle as a bridesmaid three times, walking down it as a bride is an entirely different experience.

Resting our feet

After the ceremony we signed the paperwork, took a few pictures with just the two of us, and it was time to party. The most stressful and overwhelming part of the entire day was arriving at the cocktail hour. There were suddenly a million things to do, and everyone wanted to congratulate me and say hi right away. But I ignored everyone and ran to the bar to get a bottle of water and handed my shoes and flowers off to our wonderful coordinator. Then Sarah and I disappeared to tie up my bustle, and I was finally able to go say hi to the guests. We also got some fun pictures with the Mudders next to a North sign that I'm really excited to see.

Signing the license

Dinner was delicious, and I'm glad Kevin and I decided to sit apart from all of our guests at a sweetheart table. It gave us a few precious minutes to eat and be together and decompress slightly from the crowd. It also made us feel like a king and queen ruling over our court. I'm also glad we had a coordinator to handle all of the details on the day of. We didn't need to worry about herding people or finding the cake or favors or anything at all except enjoying ourselves. I highly recommend hiring someone to deal with all those details. I can't even imagine how stressed I would have been if I'd had to juggle all of that on top of everything else.

We were seriously far away from the rest of the tables

Zach and Sarah's combined Best Man/Doctor of Honor toast was absolutely perfect. They compiled a top ten list of the reasons "we are gathered here today", which was a lovely callback to a college tradition. Then we started dancing and running around to visit with as many people as we could. For all that I was worried about getting too drunk, I found myself with barely enough time to drink. Then again, I wasn't carrying around a bottle of champagne, like Kevin.

Champagne

We skipped the bouquet toss, and I handed the flowers off to my cousin instead, when she asked for them. We also, by happy accident, included a song on our playlist that my cousins had choreographed a dance to. So they taught that to Chev and me and we had fun dancing together when Pharrell's Happy came on towards the end of the night.

She carried the flowers around forever

Designing the playlist ourselves ended up working out really well. People seemed to enjoy the music. And although I'd been worried that we wouldn't have enough music, we ended up having to cut some songs out. I'd forgotten to allot time for toasts and cake cutting. The only thing I might change is to go back and include Garth Brooks' Friends in Low Places. I'd toyed with adding it, and ultimately decided that not enough people would appreciate it. Then my aunt remarked on its absence, because it had been such a hit at my cousin's wedding a couple of years ago. Oh well.

Happy!

The best picture of the night

The evening was capped off by a game a Dr. Killebrew, organized quite effectively by the Doctor of Honor, Sarah. Then Alex and Chev performed a rap for us at the after party, after which Kevin and I escaped back to our room.

On Sunday morning I slept in longer than I have in weeks (7:00 AM, woo!). Kevin and I were the first ones at breakfast, and it was a while before people really started arriving. It was really nice to see everyone one last time before the weekend ended, and we found ourselves making plans to see most of our college friends again soon. We're going to have a very busy June.

After breakfast I took off for home to walk the dog and feed the cat while Kevin dealt with all the details at the venue. Our parents came over for a bit while we opened the presents that people brought to the wedding, then they slowly trickled out. I attempted to go out and run some errands, but soon realized that I was way too tired.

Seriously, I did not expect to be as exhausted as I was. But I guess I'd been running on adrenaline and caffeine for longer than I realized. Kevin's mom mentioned that the same thing happened to her, and they ended up pushing their honeymoon back a day because of it (it helped that her husband piloted his own plane, so their plans were fairly flexible). I'm really glad that we decided to wait before taking off on our honeymoon, otherwise I may have slept straight through Barcelona. This way I'll have rebalanced somewhat and be able to actually enjoy our trip when we leave at the end of the week.

It was completely fantastic to see everyone who was able to come to the wedding. I wish we lived closer to a lot of people, especially family. But with my brother moving here in a few months and my cousin headed to Boston, that may start to change slightly. In the meantime we'll have to find more time to visit Colorado. And more ways to convince people to move to the East Coast. Especially writers and people who own their own businesses and can technically work from anywhere.

Engagement Photos!

This is the rare post that I'm putting here and on Facebook. But since the two places don't have 100% crossover, I think it makes sense. Kevin and I took engagement photos in late September, and now I can share them with the internet! Gotta love the modern age.

Reorganizing the Library

As Kevin pointed out on our wedding website, I reorganize my library a couple of times a year. This is mostly because I accumulate books constantly and occasionally need to move everything around so it all makes sense again. And sometimes I need to get a new bookcase, which is what happened this weekend.

I try to wait to get new bookcases until I can mostly fill them. Empty bookcases are just too tempting for me. I have to fill that space as quickly as I can, which results in me buying far too many books to quickly. This time I waited too long. Even with a fourth bookcase, my library is overflowing. Just barely - I found space for all my books except one. But I certainly didn't expect to fill it that quickly.

I am pretty proud of the organization, though. There a few oddballs, but almost everything makes sense. So I'm sharing it with you. Because this is my blog, and what I say goes.

Here's the first bookcase:

This is essentially the children's bookcase. It has a bunch of my books for kids, along with tons of books that Kevin's mom recently took out of storage. That sudden influx is why I filled up a whole bookshelf so quickly.

Starting at the top we have children's poems, fairy tale anthologies, and mythology

The next shelf has Shakspeare, Nancy Drew, old scout handbooks, and comics

Then we get to one of my favorite shelves. I know there are a lot of duplicates here, but I don't really care. I love that this section takes up an entire shelf. We have Laura, Jo, Anne, and Alice giving way to Jane Austen and Margaret Atwood. Literature by and about women for all ages!

The next shelf is lots of little kids books. A lot of them are falling apart, but this is where you'll find Dr Seuss and Winnie the Pooh. Again, there are actually a lot of duplicates here, including three copies of The Little Prince.

The last shelf is the "Grab in case of fire" shelf. I grew up in Colorado, and the fire seasons there taught me that I need to know what I would take if I needed to evacuate quickly. The answer is this shelf. It's closest to the door, and it has all of our yearbooks and photo albums.

The second bookcase is off in the corner, so it gets a lot of random things and books I'm slightly less excited about. It's sort of the catch-all case

The top shelf has my grandfather's books, Kevin's dad's Garrison Keillor collection, and miscellaneous literature that didn't fit anywhere else or warrant its own shelf.

The second shelf is "Crime, Autobiographies, and Memoirs". Okay, those don't really go together, but the number of books makes it work.

Then we get to sexuality, psychology, and history of science. Feynman probably belongs up with the biographies, but I like him on this shelf. Also, he fits better here. On the far left are the playbills of all the plays, musicals, and ballets I've seen.

Next comes history and historical fiction. Also books I had to read for school. It's sort of a theme.

Finally we get to Kevin's college textbooks.

The third and largest book case is basically science fiction and fantasy. I have a lot of that.

First comes science fiction. Plus a little bit of leftover historical fiction, mostly because Mary Doria Russell writes in both of those genres, and I didn't want to split up her books.

Then we come to the first of many fantasy shelves. If I had to grade it, I'd probably give this shelf a B. I liked these books, but they aren't among my favorites. We'll get to those later. This shelf has A Song of Ice and Fire, The Lord of the Rings, and anything pertaining to King Arthur.

Then we come to children's and young adult fantasy. Here you'll find Narnia, Tortall, Earthsea, and Oz.

Then we get to the "C" shelf. I like these books fine, but they all have their problems, too. Or they didn't fit anywhere else (that's a common theme). The bulk of this shelf is The Dresden Files, which I do intend to finish, and Sword of Truth, which I gave up on years ago but can't quite bring myself to get rid of.

The bottom shelf is my college textbooks. It's really similar to Kevin's college textbooks because we took so many classes together. I held on to a few more than he did, though.

Finally we get to the favorites bookcase. This is the one that probably sums me and my interests up the best.

The top shelf is Neil Gaiman with bonus Patrick Rothfuss. It's a good thing Rothfuss isn't too prolific yet. He can still fit here.

Then we have the Discworld shelf, which is something every good fantasy fan ought to have. There was a time when Gaiman and Pratchett shared a shelf, and I thought it was impressive that I could fill an entire shelf with only two authors. Of course, that was back in my first apartment when I only had one bookcase. I've come so far since then.

Here we have Discworld overflow, because there's a lot of those books. They get to share space with my horribly mismatched Harry Potter collection.

Then we arrive at the true display of my geekiness: The Whedon shelf. This has everything pertaining to Buffy, Angel, and Firefly. It also has my Middleman comic book, because it seemed to fit here. Also Of Human Bondage, which makes sense if you've seen the fourth season of Buffy. And if you're as obsessed as I am.

Finally there's the vampire shelf, with bonus zombies. Yes, Twilight made it onto my favorites bookcase. Don't judge me.

Then there's this small and completely random bookcase, which does double duty as a cat bed.

The top shelf has my "stack" of books to read. I'm actually impressed that it's not completely full at the moment.

Then there's all this random crap. I barely even know why I own any of these books. But there they are.

And that's my library! None of you are half as excited about this as I am, so I'm impressed if you made it all the way down here. Have a gold star. I'm just going to sit here and delight in everything having a place, because that's not going to last very long.

Soup 1: Chicken Stew

This is the recipe that came with my Dutch oven, so it seemed like the perfect place to start. They wouldn't use anything too complicated for an introductory recipe, right?

Here's everything that goes into this soup

Stew ingredients. The owl (Hedwig) holds salt

Actually, the recipe only calls for 1.5 pounds of chicken meat, which is supposed to be two bone-in breasts. But they don't make chickens that small anymore, so I ended up with nearly 2 pounds of chicken.

First you sauté the veggies for a bit.

Carrots and onions. And it didn't even take me forever to chop them

I was surprised by how little basil I ended up needing. The recipe calls for 1/2 cup, which is less than half of what I bought. I even added a little extra, because why not? I'll need to find a way to use the rest of the basil before it goes bad.

1/2 cup of basil...if you smush it down

When the veggies are tender, stir in the tomatoes, tomato paste, broth, basil, and bay leaf.

It's starting to look like stew

Then add the chicken and try to submerge it. Bring it to a boil. Then reduce the heat to a simmer for about 25 minutes (until the chicken is cooked through). Since the chicken breasts are too big to actually be submerged, you need to turn them occasionally. One of my breasts was big enough that it needed more than the recommended 25 minutes. So I covered the stew and cooked it for five more minutes.

I got the smallest breasts at the store and they were still too big

Once the chicken is cooked, take it out. Fish out the bay leaf and throw it away. Add the kidney beans and let the stew simmer and thicken while you cut up the chicken.

It's all coming together

Discard the skin and bones from the chicken and chop it up into bite-sized pieces

I didn't get quite all of the bones out, but it all worked out

Toss the chicken back in the pot. Salt and pepper to taste. Simmer until you're ready to serve.

Stew: Officially a success

This smells so good, and it was a perfect accompaniment to the football game.