Topics o'plenty...

Oh, married life...how I must learn to balance all of your different facets. Would you mind possibly putting a few more hours into my day? Maybe that'll help me tackle everything without the weeks flying by and me failing to accomplish it all...I'm sure it would. Or maybe I should just give up my hobbies for a while, that could help - I haven't completed anything hobby-wise lately - I'd have a lot more time for home and wifely things that way, right? Oh, married life...give me your wisdom.

Music
Right now I'm listening to Craig Lyon's new album, Goodbye You. I met him through Dan, who met him through our friends, and we saw him play in Cincy a few times. He moved out to LA so we obviously can't see him play, but he just released this album and is up for some awards. Very cool guy and mucho talented, so go check out his myspace or buy his new album for only $10. My fav song is Change, listen to that one first . ;) If you go listen or buy, let me know what your fav song is.

Books
I've been on a book craze lately. In the last few years, the most I've read included Harry Potter one and two, and some Chicken Soup books. Easy reading. But after reading about different book reviews in the blog world, and getting a book to read for our small group, I was kick-started into an obsession. Here's my list lately - holding myself back from buying more until I can finish what I have (flashbacks to being a child and not finishing my dinner, ick).

I know, I'm WAY behind the times here. Harry Potter THREE. But what can I do? I was on chapter five in this one from a couple years ago, but I decided to re-read those five chapters before moving forward. I was toying with the notion that I had already seen this movie, because I remembered it SO vividly, but now that I've read more I'm sure I haven't seen it. I'm halfway through this book - switching between this one and our small group book.

This is our small group book, and one that's really helping me to see what marriage was designed to be.
[This is no ordinary self-help book on the Christian family; it focuses far less on how to improve one's marriage than how one's marriage can improve one's Christian faith. Author Thomas even goes so far as to suggest that "God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy," an idea that may shock romantically inclined Americans.]

I read a few pages of this one on Google book search after seeing it on Gina's blog. I was immediately pulled into the story and HAD to buy it. It has a longer description than I want to post here, but check it out here. I won't be reading this one until I finish one of the first two...drats.






Disregard the "search inside" thing on my pretty picture. This one is from the same author as above, so I read a few pages of it and was SUCKED into it, too! I also won't be reading this one for a while either, but I'm darn excited to start it. It has a similar murder theme like The Lovely Bones, but is based on the author's life.



Kitty babies
I haven't shown any pictures of them in a while, so I have some today! Our babies have gotten so big and have such different personalities. Merry does this thing now where Dan will open our bedroom door in the morning, while I'm still in bed snoozing, and she'll bust through and jump up on the bed to lick my face and nudge her head into my hands. For some reason she won't do this when the situation is reversed. If I open the door and Dan is still in bed, she'll still jump onto the bed, but doesn't bother waking up Dan or licking his face. Dan says he's trained her well. Right now, Merry is laying under my desk and licking my TOES every so often. Gotta make sure they're clean, I guess!

Urpel is still very independent. She likes to lay on the couch with Dan, but must approach the situation herself. If you try to approach her she's more keen on running away.

We bought them a blue feather toy because the last feather toy we bought them only had three or four actual feathers in it - they had them ripped out within a few days. They're in love with this thing. One day Merry tried to get it up on a dining room chair with her so she could lay/play with it. Hilarious! Oh, and see my little clown there... Merry with the circus collar? We thought that was too funny at the pet store so we picked it up with the blue toy. The girls didn't think it was as funny, and kept looking around every time the bells on it would ring.

Urpel and I, after she got the collar treatment... mwa-haha. She looks happy, right?

And LOOK! The first one was Merry at Christmas time, and the second was Merry today! My baby is as big as the sink! And unlike her younger days, I had to put treats in the sink to bribe her into it.

Ch-ch-ch-changes
Because Dan is SO awesome, he made some changes around the kitchen...

And I decided to switch up our bathroom a little... and there's Urpel taking the last of Merry's bribery treats.

Dan put a couple not-in-use monitors into storage so I could have some extra desk space for CRAFTY things. Now I just have to figure out how I want to arrange things in the baskets we have, and get rid of the mess in here. Sounds easy, right?

Other random things lately...

• We bought Fla-vor-ice popsicles at the store yesterday and I've had three already. I forgot how GOOD those things are.
• Website work is moving sloooowly with the combination of life - see discussion at beginning of post. I'm also not sure what direction I want to take in displaying samples, and that zaps time trying to figure it out.
• If you have some room in your prayer life, throw in a good one for a family in our small group. They've been going through a very rocky time and have so many things to deal with every day. Much appreciated.
  

Irie mon...

In Jamaica it's ALL good. Loved being there and just getting the "relaxed" feel from everyone and everything. Not just because it was a resort and we were there to be pampered, but because Jamaicans are really just like, "No problem mon... whatever." We were in quite a few taxis during the week for different excursions, and there were many times I thought, "Holy cow, if someone did that at home fingers would be flying and horns would be honking!" But they didn't care, that's the way they roll.

Thoroughly enjoyed having a pina colada with ALMOST EVERY meal, laying in the sun with my new hubby, and listening to the reggae beats. Let's see if I can remember the highlights...have you grabbed a snack yet?

Day 1: Monday the 28th

• Our flight left Cincinnati airport at 7am before the SUN was even out of bed. We woke up and got there at a time that's just TOO early for any human being to be hauling around luggage and comprehending the phrase, "Do you have any liquids in your carry-ons?" The hotel breakfast didn't start until 6am, but they were nice and let us choose some fruit and cereal to eat before taking the shuttle to the airport, so I at least had some sustenance.
• Upon landing at the Charlotte airport, as soon as the wheels hit the ground and the breaks were applied, we SWIFTLY turned to the left as if we were a race car in the Indy 500. Everyone was shoved to the right and the right wing must have been INCHES from the ground as we veered around the curve! The flight attendant came over the speakers to say that we had landed in Charlotte, yada yada yada, and she started laughing! She said something like, "There seem to be complaints from the cabin about the driving...please stay seated and we'll try to get everyone off the flight without whiplash." HAHA! Apparently our pilot was in training! As we were walking off the plane, the attendant said that no matter how long he's been flying he still thinks he's driving a car. Good thing we arrived safely, and found out that he was in training after we landed!
  
• We had bagel sandwiches for lunch in Charlotte, and I felt like I was eating at Bagel Cafe again. Memories of jobs passed...
  
• After arriving at the Montego Bay airport and making our way to the luggage belts, we were in for quite a treat. Since the conveyors were so small, whenever luggage would come in it was put in rows on the floor. Dan searched all over the place for our bags. After a while of searching we figured our luggage was lost and went to the service desk. As soon as Dan mentioned that our luggage didn't arrive, they pointed behind us and there were our bags! What the?! Long story short, our luggage came in on an earlier flight.
  
• We were offered drinks by the Couples representatives and took a shuttle for two hours to the resort. By the time we got there, I think Dan and I were the only ones who hadn't fallen asleep - there were three other couples on the shuttle.
• We checked in around 3pm and found our room with a garden view. We took pictures and made reservations for a few things during the week. Once dinner time rolled around, we headed out to the buffet and remembered what it was like to eat all the food we wanted! Oops, there went those Weight Watcher points...it's our honeymoon, who CARES! I think there were as many desserts displayed as all the dinner food combined. :)

Day 2: Tuesday the 29th

• We caught up on SLEEP!
  
• We did the buffet for lunch (everyday because it's the only thing open for lunch), and only a couple hours passed before it started to storm. Man! It didn't last long, but the sun hid behind the clouds for the rest of the day. We talked to another couple and realized that it wasn't just us and our horrible luck with weather when we travel. Apparently it rains everyday in the afternoon. This was the beginning of a learning experience - if you want to do anything regarding the sun, you must get your lazy behind out of bed at SIX IN THE MORNING before the afternoon rains come along. Pish-ah, as IF! On vacation, let alone in the real world, six in the morning does not exist to me. Okay, so maybe on Wednesdays it does when I have to work early...but I digress.
• This may have been the day I discovered the free-flowing soft-serve ICE CREAM machine! Not like a fountain, since that would've been weird, but it was free just like everything else...the food, the pina coladas (and other drinks, but who cares about those), everything. Yummmm.
  
• We had reservations for the French restaurant, Le Gourmet, that night. It was odd to go to a restaurant and order five different courses without batting an eyelash about the price, or whether or not you could actually eat it all. It didn't matter. The appetizers were very cool because they were served how they SHOULD be served - small! Here in the good old US-of-A, when you order an appetizer you have to bring along four or five friends to eat it with you. But these appetizers were juuuuust right, single portions.

Day 3: Wednesday the 30th

• Another day of sleeping in...oops. We took an hour snorkeling lesson around 11am and a boat left right after that to take us and other snorkelers out to the reefs. We were equipped with our waterproof camera, but didn't end up with very clear shots. Still VERY cool. Note to self: while snorkeling DO NOT turn your head to look at something to the side of you...inevitably, you will end up inhaling salt water.
  
• Even though we had some light afternoon showers after lunch, we took out a kayak. No problem! We learned to kayak in Maine and have been hooked since.
  
• My wedding manicured nails were chipping beyond belief, so we made an appointment for Dan and I to have pedicures together and I had another manicure. I was quite impressed that he wanted to have a pedicure and actually enjoyed it.
  
• We had reservations for the Italian restaurant that night, Bayside. Very good meal and equally delicious dessert. Beautiful view also, since the restaurant was literally ON the water looking toward the resort and ocean. Our photos didn't turn out too well since it was in the evening, but we managed to get some good ones.
  

Day 4: Thursday the 31st

• The one and only day that it didn't rain...that morning before lunch we took a sailing lesson and I let Dan be the captain. He rocked.
  
• Horseback riding on a plantation! I had never been on a horse on my life, so this was a new experience for me. Pretty fun, though kinda scary when my horse would lose its footing on a muddy hill, but no one fell! My horse's name was Easy King, and Dan's was Charlie. And we had a guide that looked like Snoop Dog. In the middle of the ride, they stopped us at a clearing and a guy climbed one of the coconut trees... a Jamaican monkey... and then told us about all different types of Jamaican fruits and flowers. In case you didn't know, for the men, coconut water will "put lead in your pencil." Who KNEW?!
  
• We tried the remaining restaurant at the resort because it didn't require reservations. Delicious as well! Loved the decor also, with fabric draped across the ceilings and everything in pink, red, and white.
  

Day 5: Friday the 1st

• That afternoon we got to take a shopping trip into town. A taxi van dropped off a group of us and came back after a couple of hours. We were told to barter with the store people and to watch out for followers and drug dealers...awesome. We had a good experience overall, and I think we Dan bartered pretty well. We shopped in two different stores, only bought a little drum from one of them, and from the other store we got quite a few t-shirts and souvenirs for only $45. Go Dan!
  
• At the end of the shopping trip it started POURING. We got into the van just in time. We were scheduled to have a Catamaran Cruise (why not just call it what it is - a booze cruise) around 3pm, but it was rescheduled because of the rain. Boo-hoo.
• Since we didn't know what else to do back at the resort, Dan went to the bar for a few to-go drinks, and we ran through the rain to take advantage of a forest hot tub. Good way to spend a rain shower - in a hot tub listening to the rain on the roof and trees.
  

Day 6: Saturday the 2nd

• The Catamaran was rescheduled for 3pm this day, but was gosh-darn canceled for good because of a rain shower that didn't last very long! By 3:00 we could've been boarding the boat in the sunshine - with pina colada in hand.
  
• Instead, we just relaxed the day away laying on the beach and taking pictures.
  

Day 7: Sunday the 3rd

• Dunn's River Falls. No need to say anymore, but I will. Our video guide for this was hi-LAR-ious! Also looking a little like Snoop Dog (I'm noticing a trend here), he called himself Big Poppa...or Big Papa, not sure. Anyway, he gave us a little pep talk beforehand, along the lines of "I'll be your camera man and I like it SPICY, YEA?! We are a TEAM! We hold hands and stick together! All for one and one for all! If somebody falls, what do you do? (Enter group here saying, 'We fall too!') HELL no! You let them GO!" We had regular guides for the walk climb UP the falls, and then we had Big Poppa following us around motioning for us to do different things on video because he liked it spicy. And every once in a while he'd look at a girl and touch his chest real quick to motion like her top had fallen down...just for good video measure. On the way back out to our taxi van we were able to check out some of the "shops." This was where we really got sucked in - people coming up to us from every direction telling us they had free things for us, or that they would follow us back to the resort if we didn't have money with us, etc. And when you would ask where the exit was, they were super sneaky in telling you the WRONG WAY! We finally found the exit and got our booties out of there... after we bought some cute dolls.
• We also had a half-hour couple's massage since it was our last day. It was heeeeeavenly and complementary.
  
• After the massage we walked around the resort to take more pictures. When we were about done taking the shots we wanted, I remembered that we saw a Hard Rock on our way back from Dunn's River. Hard Rock means collectible bears and I really wanted one from Jamaica. I mentioned the idea to Dan and we went to guest services to see how much a cab would be. We also had them find the phone number for us to see how long the shop was open on a Sunday. It was about 5:20pm when we called and the shop was going to close at 6:00! We weren't going to make it if we had to wait for a cab to get there and take us. By some funny chance a van had just pulled up with new guests to the resort, and the guest services lady asked the driver if he would take us. She would call a cab to pick us up from Hard Rock. Awesome! We jumped in the van and were taken to get a precious collectible bear, along with some t-shirts and a pair of drumsticks for my rockin' little brother.
  

Day 8: Monday the 4th

• Our nice, relaxing, reggae-filled vacation had come to an end. Again, had to be up way too early and have our bags outside the room door by 6am. Tried to eat some cereal before getting on the shuttle at 7am. Two hours and we were at the airport, going through security and checking the shops for last minute souvenirs and gifts - including some Jamaican Rum, can't leave without that.
  
• Our flight wasn't scheduled to leave until 11am, so we had an early lunch at Jimmy Buffet's airport restaurant. The flight to Charlotte was pretty good, but somehow we were delayed getting in and had to RUN to get our luggage and get through customs. We made it to the gate on time, with time to spare actually. Just a matter of time until we were back in good old Cincy. Or not. The pilot took us off the runway and said that a bad storm in Cincinnati wasn't letting planes fly in or out. And he would check back with us in a half-hour to give us an update. WHAT? A half-hour, water and bag of pretzels later...we get to wait another half-hour. Another half-hour later...we get to wait one more half-hour and see what Cincinnati says. Our flight was supposed to arrive at 7pm... and it arrived around 9pm instead. Never a dull moment!
• My dad waited for us the entire time. I told him in Charlotte to go home and we would get a cab. We only live five minutes from the airport anyway. But he refused. Tear-jerkingly sweet. It was good to see him when we got off the plane.
  
• Upon getting to our apartment and Dan trying to unlock the door, he dropped a bottle of Rum he was carrying in his arms. One down, three to go. Luckily they were still wrapped up and in a box somewhere. And we got our last whiff of Jamaica for the night, right outside our front door.
  

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is my final installment of these crazy long wedding posts! I'm glad to be done and moving onto new things - but what could be more fun than daily novels of my wedding? Right...

Photos are still up at photos.rye-designs.com!

P.S. Who's watching HGTV's new season of Design Star? Why did they put that long, blond-haired guy on there? (Todd?) Honestly. He's going to have Eiffel Towers and glitter all over the place, no contest with him!

Next in line...

...is the reception. But before that, let's talk about this BIG thing in the works. Did you figure it out yet? Dan and I started our own website! We bought the domain on June 18th after Dan got back from his boys' weekend. I was in limbo on where to post the honeymoon photos and wedding photos so friends and family could download them. Back and forth... It was just the PUSH we needed to get our butts in gear on the site/business and server space ideas we had rolling around. After checking through quite a few domain names that were already taken, rye-designs.com was it.

So a lot of designing has gone on around here. I'm pulling up the designing end of this show, and Dan is obviously taking care of the programming end (with some surprising design work from him also.) We'll learn him some Photoshop yet! That's about it on the big news... things just coming together, looking cool, and will be up soon. MUCHO exciting! Still a lot to do before we're really "in business" like more samples, contracts, documents, documents, and more documents.

Little funny from the other day:
Dan: I'd like to have the first phase of our site up by Friday...
Vicki: Friday?! Yikes, you run a tight shift!
Dan: You mean a tight ship?
Vicki: Yeah, that too...
Dan: You remind me of the foreign girl from NCIS...

[Back to your regularly scheduled program.]

I don't think I mentioned anything about our guest book in the wedding post. Instead of a traditional book for guests to sign, we wanted something different there as well. We found a white wooden wishing well on sale at Hobby Lobby and decided to make cards out of metallic paper that said, "Wishes for the couple..." The guests wrote special messages and tossed their wishes into the well. Loved it. To save the cards and display them, we're going to take each card and match it up (hopefully) with the corresponding photo from our photographer, and put them all together in a 4x6 album.

Another special touch was our wedding favors. I looked and thought for months to come up with the perfect wedding favor. Since our theme included storybooks and happily-ever-afters, things like bookmarks and personalized candy tins (just because I liked them) topped our list. One day at church we were talking to someone about our favor dilemma and she mentioned the charity ideas she had seen at weddings lately. Dan and I had never discussed charity ideas, but it started to make sense. And it must have been the direction we were supposed to take, because soon Dan came up with the best idea ever. We decided to buy one children's book per guest... bought post-it papers... and asked guests to stick a special message inside each book. The best part of all - the books would go on the next mission trip with our church to Mamelodi, South Africa. For those children. And they would read the special messages. Soooooo precious!

If you've seen the photos already, there really isn't much extra to explain of the reception. It seemed to fly by in a flurry of music, food, dancing, talking to guests, and more dancing. As hard as I tried to really stop and take in the special moments, we were paraded from one event to another. Totally fun, but has left us looking at photos saying, "Wow, were we really there?!"

We had a limo for us and our four main party members (no juniors), and started the festivities with champagne. Once we got to the reception hall, our wedding party walked in to U2's "Beautiful Day" and we walked in to Duran Duran's "Sunshine." Such a fun song. The entire wedding party lined up on the dance floor so guests could take photos if they wanted. The rest of the night unfolded as follows...

1. FOOD - I inevitably dropped asparagus and sauce on my dress and Sheri used a Tide-to-go pen on it. We should've had our video camera making a commercial out of it.
2. Toasts - Best Man (Mike), Matron of Honor (Sheri), and my dad. I think Mike and Sheri had the audience laughing, while my dad had them crying.
3. Love Story - Too cool how Dan included a clip from our proposal video into the slide show
4. Cake Cutting - (Sarah McLachlan "Ice Cream") cut to ("Hit Me With Your Best Shot")
5. First Dance - (Jimmy Wayne "You Are")
6. Father/Daughter – (Heartland "I Loved Her First") At the end of this dance, my dad motioned for Dan to come to the dance floor so he could give me away. Such a tear-jerker when they hugged...there's a photo of that.
7. Mother/Son - (Taylor Hicks "Do I Make You Proud")
8. Garter Toss - (Justin Timberlake "Sexy Back") Had to put this song somewhere, and it was perfect! Dan gave me a personal dance, too hilarious. His friend, Alex, caught the garter.
   
9. Bear Toss for boys - Dan's little brother, Kris, caught it.
   
10. Bouquet Toss - ("Girls just want to have fun") Rob's girlfriend, Amy, caught it. My mom said, "Uh oh, Rob!"
    
11. Bear Toss for girls - A friend's daughter, Madison, caught it.
    
12. Money Dance - ("If I Had a Million Dollars") A ton of fun dancing and twirling!
    
13. Anniversary Dance – Multiple songs, Dan's grandparents were longest married!
    
14. Get the PARTY STARTED!!!

Once the reception was over we had to collect the things we wanted and divide them between parents. Our cake top, extra cake, charity books, our wishing well, whatever. Rob and his girlfriend drove us to our hotel near the airport. About halfway through the drive I seriously thought Rob would have to pull over, and I had Dan undo and pull out my bra so I could breathe! I felt better after that. Once we got in the room, I also had Dan pull out my zillion bobby pins so my head could breathe too!

All in all, it was a wonderful day and I wouldn't have asked for anything different (except the addition of more time). We have all of the video and photos to remember our big day forever, quirks and all. Just perfect. And if I've forgotten anything, I'm sure I'll hear about it from Dan or in the comments. ;) Can't thank our wedding party and families enough for all they did, for being there, and for making our day that much more memorable.

Another little funny - Dan told me the morning after that the reception was a huge blur for him... he didn't really hear the music or people talking to him, nothing. But while he was sleeping the entire reception played in his head. All of the conversations he had, all of the songs, our first dance - it all played back like he recorded it as he went along. I think his addiction to DVR has finally gotten to him. ;) At least he got to experience the whole reception, even if it was hours later, lol.