So, although our honeymoon was about a month and a half ago, we are now going to start bringing you some written accounts of what we did that week. Some of the delay is due to moving, buying a house, etc, and some is because Jake forgot (twice!) to take the book with the notes from the trip with him up to Connecticut. Enjoy, and feel free to ask more details about anything you find interesting!

We woke up on Sunday morning after the wedding and ate breakfast in our room. We did have to a little bit of investigative work, however, since Jake wrote the wrong room number on the room service card. Hopefully our neighbors weren't woken up too early!

 While eating our breakfast, we discovered that cold samosas are delicious. The Sheraton staff had delivered some to our room and while we weren't hungry right after the reception, we did enjoy them the next day. We even packed up the ones we didn't eat to be a snack on the plane.

After breakfast, we packed up all the stuff in our room and drove home, where we discovered a mountain of presents. Monica's mom had taken everything back from the reception and it was piled in the living room.

Although we had packed our luggage for the trip ahead of time, we still had some last minute details to take care of, so we got everything together while Mary helped open presents, yelling up the stairs to us what each thing was. After getting all the luggage in the car, we took off for the airport, where we saw Sudhir and Punam Walavalkar, two of our guests from the wedding.

Although we were trying to keep everything a surprise as long as possible, the agent said out loud “going to San Diego?” as we checked in, so Monica did find out our initial destination right away, but it didn't give away too much!

We had a short layover in Dallas, but long enough that Jake went to another terminal to check their bookstore. Pushing the schedule that tightly was NOT ok with his wife, however, who was quite concerned that they were getting close to missing the flight.

On arriving in San Diego, we took a hotel shuttle to our room. Monica was very excited to see that the toiletries were Crabtree & Evelyn products!

We arrived fairly late in the day, so there wasn't much to do besides eating dinner. We decided on a Brazilian place before leaving the room, but on seeing that the menu consists of essentially a meat buffet, decided instead to go to a restaurant called “The Yard House.” The yard in the name refers to the English (?) style 3 foot long beer glass, and conssist with that theme, the restaurant had an excellent selection of draft beers (well over 100!). Jake enjoyed a fantastically hoppy pale ale, and Monica enjoyed her favorite – Woodchuck Cider.

Keep checking in for accounts of the rest of the trip!

The wedding is finished, the honeymoon is over, and things are sort of back to normal. Here are a couple of pictures from Desiree's blog, you can see more at http://desireephoto.blogspot.com/2009/10/monica-jakes-wedding-day.html.

So I looked at the calendar yesterday and realized we only have 40 more days. We are now on the ark and waiting for the rain to stop! There are so many little projects that still need to be completed. This past weekend Jake and I had a photo session with my mom for our table numbering system. I sent the pictures in to be printed and will post pictures of the final result soon (hopefully this weekend). I completey forgot how much of my life is consumed by teaching!!

Here is a small preview of how we are going to "number" the tables at our wedding:

Last weekend Molly came all the way down from New York to throw me a bachelorette party in DC! The hotel was great, dinner was great, going out was great, brunch was great....a generally great weekend!! Here are a few of the more appropriate pictures from the weekend--I wish I could have put in the pictures of the amazing cupcakes we had for dessert on Saturday.

Thank you to everyone who is so proactive and already RSVPd to our wedding -- you are making my life much easier. Unfortunately I'm still in Hilton Head and the RSVPs are in Maryland!! I will have to wait until this weekend to get my hands on them.

The invitations are out! 

Jake and I took all the invitations (save a couple....the downside of military friends are non-permanent addresses) to the post office in Mount Pleasant. We took the box to the front and said that we needed a stamp to hand cancel them. The employee went to look at the invitation and starting bending it backwards -- and my compulsion got the best of me -- "Please don't bend that..." I spit out. 

I got crap about it from the employees for the rest of the time we were there (this is the one time in my life in my life it's completely acceptable and even expected that I am crazy). I never thought I would turn into one of those brides who treats her invitations like babies. But they are like my babies: I put all of them together, used this crazy method for addressing them because the paper was too thick to print on, used a stamp on the back, and went a little crazy while putting on stamps. I have spent hours, days, with these invitations and all of a sudden I had to let go!!

I hope you get your invite soon! Jake and I look forward to your RSVPs! 


Up next....ESCORT CARDS (another DIY project--they aren't actually cards).

At the beginning of the month Jake and I traveled to Wisconsin to visit his family. While we were there his family threw us a (very informal and low-key) bridal shower. It was perfect, a simple relaxing afternoon with some close family friends!! Enjoy the pictures.

Dad and I picked these out together. I wanted something cute and simple -- and I didn't want to say "eww" 5 years from now.


I felt like we accomplished that task and did it for next to nothing (extra 20% entire purchase that day)! 


Sidenote: Jake thinks that deals just seem to follow me everywhere. I found a cute frame on sale at Pier 1 for $6 -- my total came to $3 and change (apparently sale items were an additional 50% off the lowest price). This same type of sale happened at the J.Crew outlet this week where clearance items were an additional 40% off!! I guess I have gotten so good at finding deals over the years it SEEMS like they find me!!