New Roommate & Sent Invitations

Meet my newest roommate: Chiral the Cat! Kate moved in with Betsy, a long-time family friend, on Sunday (and has been spending most of the last couple of weeks cleaning out her apartment). Thus, Chiral has moved in with me on a permanent basis now. Fortunately, we often bring her over so she's pretty comfortable here...and she and Rune only fight every now and then. :-)

Big news: Invitations have been sent out!! We met with our co-workers Lynda, Crystal, and Eileen last week to do the final assembly. (And they look great! We are so grateful to the trio for their help!) Then Kate and I stuffed and sealed all the envelopes last Friday. And I dropped them off on Tuesday! I have to say there is something final about sending out the invites.

Now there's no turning back..... ;-)

Here's a list of what Kate and I think we've still got to get done:

1. Meet with Lopiano's for the final plans for the reception (planned for tomorrow actually).

2. Pick Bible readings and verses to be recited during the wedding ceremony and get them to Father Larry and to Dianna and Aileen (our sisters who were graciously willing to be readers).

3. Buy a unity candle from the Abbey of St. Walburga.

4. Get our wedding bands engraved (just our initials and the wedding date on the inside).

5. Make a final count of flowers needed and place the order with Palmer House.

6. Buy a few good party games or check with friends and family to see if we can borrow some.

7. Assemble reception table centerpieces (this is Kate's gig all the way - she's had a bout of creativity and I don't want to interfere!).

8. Design a program for the wedding ceremony and reception.

9. Make wedding favors for the reception tables. (I need to call my Aunt Karen about this)

10. Create wedding guestbook complete with special stamp. (We're going to see if the guestbook my mother sent me will work out but I think we might need something a bit different.)

11. Write and post a general announcement and invitation to the wedding for the FCPL staff.

12. Add any last minute ideas to the gift registries at Bed, Bath, & Beyond and Sears.

13. Find and buy gifts for our attendents (Bill and Dana).

14. Arrange for fittings for tuxedos (for me and Bill naturally) from Mr Neats.

15. Get wedding dress cleaned.

16. Buy shoes to match dress. (Poor Kate is still trying to decide what she'd like.)

17. Assemble the wedding veil. (Tammy is helping Kate with this.)

18. Buy disposible cameras (for the reception).

19. Make music CDs for the reception.

20. Meet and discuss logistics with the musicians.

21. Marriage license (probably won't bother until late September).

22. Order ice cream cakes from Walrus.

Whew! That's the major stuff, I think. There's probably a bunch of little things yet to do but I can't think of them now.

Hmm, 52 days and counting............... ;-)

New BBQ Grill Assembly

I finally got around to assembling the new barbeque grill that my parents gave me for my birthday. Rather than tell you about it, I decided to play pseudo-creative and weave the tale in photostory format....

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First things first, I had to get the cats off their new favorite resting spot...

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This is the promise... :-)

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Rune helps me verify all the pieces are here.

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Chiral gets into the checking process as well.

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Chiral is actually more interested in the trash than the parts.

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Ready to start!

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Frame assembled.

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At this point, Rune decides that all this is too scary and retreats to the stairs to watch the proceedings in safety.

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Got the side trays started.

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A momentary delay as Chiral decides to "help" with the instruction sheet.

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The side burner (kinda tricky) from below...

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...and above.

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Install the grill racks and we're almost done!

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Chiral inspects the final product...

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...and watches as I manuever the grill outside.

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My new grill in its new home!

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Thanks again to Mom and Dad for the awesome birthday present. Kate and I look forward to breaking it in. :-)

Happy Birthday to Me!

I guess technically my birthday was yesterday but, eh, who cares? :-)

The weekend before last (a week before my birthday), Kate and I went down to the Springs to celebrate my birthday and my sister Dianna's birthday with my folks. It was pretty fun but I think I ate too much. :-) My folks ordered a big meal from Chili's and my Mom did quite a bit of cooking on the side. We had a nice ice cream cake with an old pic of me and Dianna copied onto it.

Biggest present I got? A new barbeque grill!! I still need to put the thing together and fire 'er up but I intend to very soon! I also got a new digital camera (well, one of my mother's hand-me-downs but I'm not complaining) and a half dozen new shorts. Oh, and Kate got me a copy of Donita Paul's Dragonquest. She, my sister, and Donita went out to a scrapbooking shindig on the Saturday of the weekend and Kate took the chance to get the book autographed by Donita! Yay!

Well, the week after that crawled by (not counting a visit to the Union Colony Theater in Greeley to see a performance of the Sound of Music) and then my actual birthday appeared! Kate had to work part of the weekend and I grand plans to get a bunch of cleaning and organizing down on Saturday (in preparation for when she moves her stuff in later this month). Unfortunately I got tagged with the "I-Don't-Wanna's" and ended up vegging out instead.

But that was okay! Then on my actual day of birth, Kate and I got together with our local friends for a light party. The theme was Make-Your-Own-Pizza, although technically Kate made all the pizza dough and the sauce. :-) Everyone brought their own toppings, though, and it was generally a lot of fun. I also had an ice cream cake (picture to the left) that was quite tasty.

Kate surprised me with a second present, namely the DVD collection for the Firefly series! Woo-hoo! Just in time to refresh my memory of my favorite episodes before the movie comes out next month.

And so I'm bushed. :-)

Kate and I are planning a "date-night" for Thursday. We're going to hit Souper Salad for dinner and see the new Sky High movie. On Friday night, we're joining Bill and Tammy in a showing of Othello down at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival in Boulder.

Whew! Another busy week. In my next post, I'll have to show readers the list of minor items Kate and I decided we still need to do for the wedding. Nothing big, thank goodness, but still a handful of stuff.

More later! Thanks to everyone to did anything for my birthday! You're the best!