Coming Home

Awww yea! Back in the Midwest!!

I have a TON to share with you all, but you've gotta be patient with me. I have tons of photos to wade through and lots and lots of reviews to write and stories to tell.

I haven't had reliable phone or Internet service (shocker - I've been on a train in the middle of mostly nowhere for 3 days!!), so if you've sent me a text or a Facebook message, I'm not ignoring you.

I'll answer everyone as soon as I get home, hug my pets, sleep in my own bed and USE MY OWN PRIVATE BATHROOM OH MY GOD.

Holy Moly!

Sorry for no updates thus far. We have not had much time!

The wedding was wonderful, and a great success. We feel very loved and blessed to have had all of our friends and family around us like that!

Our train ride was long, but the scenery was gorgeous and it sure beats flying any day.

Upon arrival in Emeryville, we hit the bank to deposit our wedding checks (thank you everyone!!!), then found our hotel. I'll be reviewing all the places we stayed and the things we did a bit later, but we have had good experiences so far!

We went to IKEA, hehe, then the next day ventured into San Francisco. We spent most of that day at the Embarcadero, Fisherman's Wharf, and Golden Gate Park.

Thursday we went back into town via BART, which is the way to do it, man. We went to a Giants/Rockies game. It was the most fun baseball game I've ever attended!

Next we went over to catch our Segway tour, which turned out to be just us two and the guide! Very cool, and totally worth the money. I highly reccommend it.

Today we are staying out in Alameda for a bit, then we'll hit the city for some for random adventures and wandering. Wish us luck!

5 Days And Counting

Predictably, I've come down with some sort of viral infection due to a combination of factors.  It's probably a back-to-school bug, passed on to Super Fiance from someone he was in contact with, which he then in turn passed on to me.  Couple that with me failing to take my vitamins or exercise or eat well for several days last week, my stress level becoming elevated due to my boss taking maternity leave a week early, and running around like mad all weekend and, well, the results speak for themselves.

Actually they sneeze and drip and ooze and hurt for themselves.  I've got the sore throat and nasal symptoms, plus fatigue.   Bleh.  It's making it hard to do those final activities on the checklist!

Of course now you're asking "And those final activities are??"

• Print ceremony programs
• Pull together a reception playlist
• Finish compiling the script/agenda for Mike, our MC
• Finish the ceremony puzzle
• Put together 3-4 kids bags
• Box everything up for travel

All of this needs doing by Friday, but of course being sick slows me down.  Tomorrow night we're going to a Brewers game, for free, and we get to have dinner and sit in the Dew Deck (courtesy of a generous family associated with the Young Adult Oncology Group), but I'm hoping we don't have to stay for the whole game.

Wednesday night we have our usual Team Trivia, which we would never want to miss, but it's another chunk of our week that can't be spent tying off loose ends.  Thursday night Nick bowls in his league, but I can accomplish stuff around having dinner with my parents, and Friday is FRIDAY.

Yikes.  There is a silver lining though!  We had our final walk-through at Country Inn & Suites, and they (awesome, as ever) are making the room available to us for set-up as early as Friday morning.  Sweet!  So now we don't have to stress over getting all the decorating done in the one- to two-hour time frame before the ceremony starts.  Hooray!

Countdown Mode Enabled

We are getting freaking close to this wedding thing, people!!

A few things have transpired.

Super Fiance had his bachelor party, which looks like it was a pretty good time!  You can see more pictures from their outing to the Brewers game here, but I will show you a few shots:

Super Fiance tossing bean bags...

... into this awesome bean bag board his dad made for us!

They tailgated and there was fire, they took in a game and some random dudes gave them awesome tickets 3 rows behind home plate, they got to the hotel and discovered the awesome snacks and beverages that I left there for them, they went out on the town for drinks!  A good time was had by all.

Meanwhile, I drove down to Chicago to visit my sister and her husband Mike, who will be our MC.  We discussed the particulars (sorry Mike, I know I still owe you that script and timeline and a playlist...) and went shopping for fun.

Once the weekend was over, it's been all about scheduling a final walk-through of the reception venue, getting a final guest count, and finishing up all the final stuff.

I feel like I've been repeating that last sentence for the last 3 weeks, but I'm in this weird Jell-o time-space thing where future events simultaneously seem to be coming up too fast and taking forever to get here.  Ahhhhhhhhhh!

The obvious solution is to buy patio furniture, watch Dexter, and otherwise do nothing.

I'm kidding, thought I have done all those things.  I've got a list that fits on one page now, of things left to be done!  I will try to tackle some of them this week. 

I did buy our tickets from Milwaukee to Chicago on Amtrak, coach, which were free with points.  So there's something!