And they lived happily ever after, without end, Amen.

I'm very happy with how the pictures of the wedding turned out. There's a bunch of them, so dial-up beware!


Getting ready -- Mimi did a great job on the makeup!




I think Elisa looked amazing in her dress.




Stephy, my flower girl/niece, spent most of the pre-ceremony time admiring her "pretty princess" dress in the mirror. She also called me a pretty princess for days. She's smart; she knows to butter up the adults right before Christmas!




She also spent a lot of time cuddling "Baby Duck".




The girls posed and looked pretty and helped me get ready:




And the guys tried to help Dave keep his rose on:




But John spent most of the time before the ceremony begging Dan, his 'heterosexual life partner' to not abandon him:




And then they all laughed and fenced with roses. Ahem.




Alex managed to take some good pictures of me (a rarity for me, I assure you):




And I showed off the pretty back of my dress.




Also, here are Min and Caleb. Aren't they cute?? They actually matched my color theme, so extra credit for them.




I managed to get up to the altar without falling flat on my face. Go me!




We prayed, took communion, listened to a mini-sermon and did the old Spanish arras tradition. My favorite part was when the minister improvised the sermon and based it on Dan's bad knee, and likened marriage to joints and ligaments and cartilage. So is he saying that all you need for a successful marriage is a good joint??




And then he let us kiss:




And we're finally a Mr. and Mrs.!




We recessed, followed by the others. Christopher, my "ring man"/nephew, picked up all the petals my niece had thrown on the way in. What a tidy little guy!




Corey and Chris looked especially spiffy:




Then we celebrated the fact that we made it back down the aisle without tripping over each other:




Dan took pictures with the guys:




I took pictures with the girls:




And it was hectic and we were being pulled in 50 directions, but we never forgot what this wedding was all about:




(Just a tip: The title of this post is usually not a good way to end your history final's essay, even if you DID run out of time. Its perfectly ok for an entry with wedding pictures, though.)

I love Christmas cards!

My sister gave me a Christmas card the day of Dan and I's wedding. I threw it in a bag and didn't think about it until I started to unpack last night. I found it, opened it, and "awwwed" at the cute picture of the kids that graced the cover of the card. I also thought it was really cute that my sister used both Spanish and English in the text of the card, since her husband is Cuban. I read it once, stopped, and read it again. Apparently my sister forgot that I'm a bilingual editor; and I know next year she'll ask me to read over her card before printing them up and mailing them out to everyone she knows. This year's card read:

Merry Christmas and Feliz Ano Nuevo!

Apparently the card place wouldn't let her use foreign characters. The difference between "n" and "ñ" in that sentence is crucial. So...

Happy New Anus to you too, sis!

LOL

Wedding checklist

How important is it to have something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue? Because my dress is new, my Grandmother's jewelry is borrowed AND old, but is that cheating? And I have nothing blue. Maybe I can get new cute blue undies? I've no idea. And I have two weeks to figure it out. Hmm.


My wedding checklist:

Venue - church booked
Officiant - booked (old friend!)
Dress - bought and being altered as we speak
Shoes - bought
Necklace - arranged to borrow my Grandmother's jewelry for the wedding (so is that something old or something borrowed?)
Makeup & nail polish - bought
Dan's suit - arranged
Wedding rings - bought and paid in full (YES!)
Flowers - decided upon (roses and poinsettas. Yay!)
Invitations - never got sent out. Oops. People will show up, though.

And most importantly, I have the groom. In the end, that's all that matters :-)

Pictures!

Because I'm still astounded by the stuff snow does after a week of it, have some pictures!










And my kitties are prepared!

Fly-by update

Things have certainly been busy since moving to Cleveland! Work often keeps me twelve hours (or more... eek!), and then there's that whole "getting settled" thing, which never seems to end. We're down to just a handful of boxes, though. Yes, I know we've been here a few months, but you have NO IDEA how much stuff we came out here with. The fact that everything else has been taken care of is rather impressive. So there.

Dan and I moved up our wedding, and it is in three and a half weeks. ACK! Most of the planning is done, though. And my dress? Gorgeous! I love it. So that's going well, though it has been hectic. We were going to get married in 2007, but a variety of factors came up and we decided to go with December 23. A Christmas wedding! Yay! It will be down in Miami, so I get to see all my Miami-based friends again, which is much-needed and I'm looking forward to it.

My best friend (Elisa) came to visit for Thanksgiving and it was lovely to have her here. Dan and I were both ready to adopt her. Or kidnap her and force her to live with us in Cleveland. I haven't given up that plan yet, actually!

So life is good. That's about all I have to report.

Dan is back in Cleveland after being gone nearly a month!

My world is right again :-)

Minus the fact that President Bush is still in office and the Pope is a moron, but I'm not thinking about that right now. Argh.

I never knew I had such power!

I just want to say that I'm terribly amused at the idea of someone I know downright detesting me. Not that I'm unhuman and haven't done my share of pretty shitty things, but I'm overall a good human, so the shitty things I do usually affect myself, not others. Even acquaintances describe me as "such a nice girl," or, barring that, "such a nice girl with such thick hair!"

I always knew this person acted very strangely and artificial towards me, but then, she acts that way towards everyone. I always felt that it was more pronounced towards me, but would dismiss that idea as crazy because honestly? I never spend time with her and in the grand scheme of things, barely know her. She always comes off as trying to act tougher and more out-there than she is, or could ever possibly be, so it seemed impossible to get to know her, and I gave up trying after awhile.

But now I know I was right, and she DID treat me differently. Because now I've been told that, to her, I am one of the most frustrating people on earth, and she just lets out a great "HARRUMPH!" whenever my name is mentioned. And why? Because the person she's now been dating for years had a week-long schoolboy crush on me before they started dating. I guess he never told her how I turned him down. Again and again. And again. Because frankly, he's a little on the gross side.

Perhaps I'm being hypocritical; I get that same reaction when I see Dan's ex, but there ARE a few differences. Namely, she actually dated him, and she also happens to be a lying bitch. And I don't let her existence make me feel insecure about my relationship; I felt the same way about her before Dan and I even thought of dating.

I always thought I was too nice and bland in some ways to have anyone hate me, but this girl does! And in a weird way, maybe that is a good thing. Can you truly live a full life, packed to the gills with sheer living, without having a single person resent you? Because if you can do that, you probably never said a bad word about anyone in your life. And probably nothing else worth listening to, either.