More Wedding Fun!

Brad Lewis and Amy Worgull got married on Saturday, the second of about ten different couples I know getting married this calendar year. It was a blast, I got a little drunk, did a little dancing, ate a lot of food, and had some delicious pie for dessert! They seemed very much in love and full of joy to be wed. Three cheers for them. As a side note, my date is now only 90 days away. Very exciting for both Alyssa and myself.

Also I was finally able to go on my first bike ride of the season, first since November actually, a nice little 25 mile jaunt from my house out to the summit of Palomares Canyon and back. It was just as much fun as I'd recalled, and competing against both my fellow riders and myself was a blast.

Bachelors!!!!!

Josh's Bachelor Party was this weekend. And that's all I'm gonna say about that.

Easy Rider Was No Easy Ride

It has been quite a while since Alyssa and I last got a movie done from our Top 100 list. She had already seen Easy Rider and was hesitant to watch it again. After seeing it for myself, I can see why.
It was definitely interesting. There was a whole lot of social/political commentary going on throughout the movie, and a lot of attention paid to the very prevalent in 1969 culture clash, of old-timey American values and free loving drug abusing "hippies".
The music was incredible, starting off with back to back Steppenwolf; "The Pusher" and "Born to be Wild" and also featured some Hendrix, The Band and other classics.
While I'd like to think that my cinematic tastes have begun to rub-off on Alyssa, I fear that hers are also beginning to rub-off on me. Before we met her definition of a good movie was one that made her happy at the end and mine was one that made me think. This movie most assuredly encouraged thought, but to call it a happy ending would, in my humble opinion, be completely missing the point.
Overall, I'm glad to have watched it and am even more thrilled to cross one more title off of our list!

More Carmel

Most of my recent Carmel posts have been centered around the work we've been doing there, mainly because every time we go down there it is to work. My last trip included a day of roughing in plumbing drains, vents and water pipe for the new master bathroom. It went pretty well. Not too hard of a day's work all in all. The contractor has finished the exterior of the addition and added the nice new copper gutters with rain chains in place of downspouts. Because of the natural viscosity of water it trickles down the chains and looks a little bit nicer, I think, than regular downspouts.

Honeymoon Plans

Notre Dame

Alyssa and I have finally decided on where we are going for our honeymoon! Our wedding is exactly four months from today and (literally) getting closer every day. haha.

I'm super excited to take Alyssa to Paris for the first time. I've been lucky enough to have gone a few times before, but seeing this beautiful city again will be wonderful through the eyes of a newbie. I think Paris is the perfect place to take my bride to be. She's a history major who speaks french and is Catholic. How much better could it be. Rome will be next of course but definitely not this trip. I had to plead with her to get two weeks in Paris! We've reserved a cute studio apartment literally a block away from my favorite restaurant in Paris, Chez Janou. I figure we'll have dinner there at least five times over the course of our two weeks. I'm hoping to make a trip up to Belgium for the Tour de France on July 5th, but we'll see if it works out.

To say the least we are both very ready to be wed. It's been over a year engaged already and it's time to get this show on the road. The picture above is from my last time in France.

Tahoe Trip + Cave Rock

Went up to Tahoe for the 19th? annual Martin Luther King Jr. weekend with the Palomares Elementary crew this past weekend. It was a total blast as always. We stay in a nice little cabin about 5 minutes from stateline and spend our days and nights drinking and gambling and playing board games and cards and hiking and sledding and dicing and drinking. (I've just been informed I've set a new blog record for most ands in one sentence.) Anyway during a break in the snow storm on Sunday, Josh, Megan or Megosh as I like to call them, my brother Brian and myself took a drive and then a hike to the top of Cave Rock. It was a fearsome show of nature's strength. The wind felt like it would blow us off the top and was actually causing the snow to fall upwards around the rock it was blowing so hard. Here's the video with my Christmas present from my folks, a new Mino HD Flip Camera!

Lot o' Stuff

Let's see... went to Palo Alto with Alyssa a while back to get lunch and cupcakes. Sprinkles cupcakes has these high quality fancy shmancy cupcakes that have a ton of frosting.

My brother took me to the Sharks game with some 6th row tickets that were awesome.

And we rode a holiday train in Sunol.

That about sums up the last couple weeks.

A Night at the Opera

Alyssa and I finally got to the Marx Bro's movie A Night at the Opera. All it took was a long holiday weekend for us to run out of excuses to avoid it. The best thing I can say about it is that Alyssa would (and did) rather wash dishes than watch it. Oh well, it was another of the hundred down. I think this will be firmly ensconced in least favorite position for now.

Wedding Fun Part Deux!

One nice view from our room.

Alyssa and I went to Union Square to begin the bulk of our registering at the Macy's there. Since we were in the city I figured we should go out to a nice dinner and stay at the Westin St. Francis and make it one helluva day. It was awesome. We went to dinner at Fleur de Lys a fine cuisine spot owned and operated by Top Chef Masters contestant Hubert Keller. The food was incredible, Monsieur Keller was a humble and gracious host and the hotel was great.
This is my dessert, the Fleurburger with banana milkshake and fennel ice cream fries.

Oh yeah, the registering was fun too.

Wedding Fun!

The registering has begun! Alyssa and I went to Target the other day and did our first bit of registering for wedding presents. We had such a nice time we've decided to go to Macy's at Union Square to register for the dishes she wants as well as all the other stuff. What do you register for anyway? In addition to whatever kitchen crap we go for we're also interested in one year's worth of netflix if anyone is interested in buying it for us and all sorts of other weird stuff as well. I registered for a PS3 at Target, just in case.

Camera Is Back!

Nicest part about my new iphone? Always having a camera with me. I went down to Carmel last weekend to help install a new door at my parent's home there. My dad and I cut out the wall to fit the new door in while my brother removed the existing flue pipe for the water heater and furnace. I also removed a couple of windows that were in the part of the house that the addition is tying into. (My parents didn't want windows looking into their new master suite from other parts of the house I guess).

On Sunday I went to my Aunt Kathy's for my Grandma Pat's surprise 81st birthday party. She was suitably surprised and was thrilled to have her family together. We played a round of Grandma themed Pictionary, including places she and my Grandpa had met and dated, previous jobs she held, and some of her passions, including gardening and Sunday school teaching.

I took most of today off because of the horrible weather, this is a picture I took while driving across the San Rafael bridge at seven this morning. Safe , I know!

New Phone!

If I haven't returned your phone call or text messages for the last few weeks it probably wasn't personal; my phone just didn't work anymore. So I got an iphone. It's great. I love it. I had no idea how wonderful it was and considering I went from never having a phone anywhere near the capabilities of your standard smart phone to this I'm pretty much blown away. It's only a little bit more than my current phone plan too. I'm really freaking jazzed right now.

The Haps.

I'm feeling blah, blah about the blahg right now. It seems more effort than it is really worth to continually coming up with witticism after witticism. However, some cool stuff has recently happened so I felt like updating. Alyssa had her 23rd Birthday (Yay Alyssa!) we went to the concours d'elegance in Pebble Beach and I finished the job I've been on for the past four and a half months at Stanford. The concours was fun, it was a beautiful day in Carmel and the cars were gorgeous. Jerry Seinfeld, Jay Leno, Arnold Schwarzenegger? and some other celebs were there making it seem very posh. We went out for drinks to celebrate Alyssa's birthday last Saturday at Easy 925, a club in Danville. Everybody wanted to buy her a drink, thankfully she didn't overdo it. We've finally decided on a cake maker for the wedding, which makes one less thing left. Other than that, same old same old.

CFW Throws a No-Hitter!

Alyssa's little bro Christopher threw a no-hitter Saturday morning in a little league tournament. In four innings (the other team got mercy ruled) he struck out 9 had one walk and didn't allow a hit. He also walked, had an RBI double and a single while scoring two runs. In an earlier game he got beaned, thankfully on his non-throwing arm, and scored a couple of runs as well. He was pretty stoked.

Lights, , Action!

The blank space in between Lights and Action would normally include Camera, but my life has been camera free for the last couple of months it seems. Alyssa and I went to Carmel for a four day weekend on the Fourth of July and I forgot my camera. There was a 42 mile bike ride out of Carmel Valley that I didn't bring my camera to, a great hike from the coast in between Carmel Highlands and Big Sur that I left my camera at the house for, and great dinners in Carmel by the Sea that didn't include any picture taking.
I went to Josh and Megan's engagement party on July 11th but didn't have my camera with me. Alyssa cooked me meals that entire weekend and I didn't capture any on film. The Lacks had Alyssa and I over for a BBQ Sunday and I got no new pictures of now 6 month old Ellie. My parents had me over for my birthday Tuesday night and my Mom actually took some pictures, so that doesn't count.
Anyway I've been dropping the ball on picture taking, and without pictures blogging can be B-O-R-I-N-G. So I've been slacking on that too. Alyssa and I whooped up on Ryan & Bryn Sunday in a pictionary game, though it was for my birthday so maybe they let us win. Ellie has really started to show some personality from the previous times I've seen her, smiling and interacting with people and toys, rather than just sleeping and eating. Wedding plans are progressing on schedule, I guess, and work has been going well. Overall, life is great!