Summer Kick-off 2011

We spent a very lovely three day weekend kicking off summer at our favorite B&B in our favorite Jersey shore town.  Several years ago we were approaching our first summer living in New Jersey and, being beach lovers, figured we should take a trip to the shore.  We found a campground to use as a home base, and spent a weekend exploring various towns described in our guidebook. 

We fell in love with one town in particular, called Ocean Grove.  It's chock full of gorgeous Victorian homes and cute little shops, has a non-commercial boardwalk all along the ocean, and the whole town smells like beach.  Ocean Grove quickly became our getaway place, and we go down for daytrips several times each summer.  We found an adorable B&B that serves delicious hot breakfast (the specialty is cream cheese stuffed French toast casserole!) and has off-season rates and a 3-for-2 deal in May.  Last year we weren't able to go due to the cost and time of wedding planning trips (though we did haul a friend there to take our fake e-pics there last April and spent a week there with my family in July), but this year we continued what has become an annual May tradition.

Last Friday we later calculated that we walked nearly eight miles, as we checked to make sure that all of our favorite places were still there.  The shore was abuzz with people getting ready for the summer.  Beach storage bins were freshly painted and lined up to be set out, lifeguard stands and playground equipment were piled and awaiting beach placement, and everyone seemed to be out and about getting their summer homes set up for the season.  I'm happy to report that no one pulled out the plug on the ocean in the last several months of our absence:

A wave surprises Becky.

Happy hour by the ocean!

The only disappointing change is that a bakery closed, but I do suppose time marches onwards.  Thankfully our favorite ice cream shop is still thriving.  Here's Becky with a peanut-butter-twirl filled waffle cone:

On Saturday we tried out a new activity: horse racing.  We had never been before, as I'm fairly certain that Midwesterners do not partake in this sport.  But we're almost always up for new wacky adventures in sporting so we decided to give it a shot.  I hope we weren't inadvertently supporting animal cruelty, although Wikipedia tells me that unfortunately we may have been.  I honestly had no idea that there would be so many people.  Apparently large groups of friends/families/co-workers/who knows who rent out whole areas of picnic tables and bring in picnics and barbecues and coolers of beer and settle in for the whole day.  We purchased a program to try to get our bearings, and ended up placing $14 worth of bets.  We won back $2.60. 

There was a bit of a marital snafu when Becky wanted to bet on a horse that would have won us a few dollars and I instead insisted on betting on a horse that won us nothing.  But overall, the horses were sleek and the hot dogs were familiar (at one funny point I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with not knowing what we were doing and I declared that we needed hot dogs because I had eaten a hot dog before).  Becky declared that her favorite moment was when, after we had been at the track for about an hour, we finally spotted a horse and I said a bit too loudly "look, there's a horse!" 

We also spent plenty of time relaxing in the B&B, including reading Harry Potter (yes, the treasured books fresh from the Harry Potter trunk!) on the porch:

Becky claims she's "having fun in my mind."

And plenty of time wandering on the beach, sticking our toes into the still frigid water:

Although we somewhat jokingly agreed to call this the start of summer, I am eagerly awaiting the warm summer weather and the warming of the ocean that will allow us to return to Ocean Grove to swim!!

Wedding Wednesdays: Dress Shopping Surprises

I wasn't feeling particularly inspired to write a regular recap post this week, but fortunately Carrie's mom suggested an idea for a post related to wedding dress shopping. For those of you who only had/have one bride in your wedding, be glad that you get to avoid this issue!

Carrie and I decided that we both wanted our dresses to be a surprise. Given that we normally do and choose just about everything together, keeping our opinions on dresses secret was no easy task. There were many evenings of both of us sitting on the couch with our computers angled away from each other so that we could look at dresses online without the other seeing. In addition to that, we both did much (in my case, all) of our dress shopping the weekend that we were in Minnesota in May. With the whirlwind of things happening that weekend, we also had to schedule appointments at some of the same stores in a way that we were sure to not run into each other in the process.

We had considered the possibility that we might fall in love with the same dress but figured it was unlikely since there are thousands of dresses out there and we are different people after all. But just in case, we agreed ahead of time that our moms could compare notes on dresses and at least warn us if we were picking the same one. I don't even want to think about what the negotiations would have looked like if that had happened...

Fortunately, we did not choose the same dress, but we did come rather dangerously close! In retrospect, our moms must have been cracking up when they were comparing pictures after our crazy day of dress shopping.

For your viewing pleasure:

This dress was my back-up plan in case Carrie happened to pick my first choice.

Carrie, sporting the same dress

Another dress I tried on

Carrie's actual dress (so pretty!!!)

This was in Carrie's top 3 (she actually had the consultant convinced enough that she was going to buy it that they let her take pictures despite a no-photo-unless-you're-buying policy.

My actual dress. Yes, the neckline is literally the only difference.

That last one was definitely our closest call. The store that I bought it from (Wedding Shoppe in St. Paul) was my last stop of the day but had been Carrie's first stop. I explained to the consultant that Carrie had been there earlier that day, so after I tried on this dress, tried on a few more, and then went back to this dress and declared it the one, she went and grabbed Carrie's paperwork from that morning. She then came back into the fitting room looking sort of stunned and dragged my mom out into the hallway. She tried to pretend like they were doing a good job of hiding it from me, but I'm not an idiot and knew that Carrie had either been interested in the same dress or something shockingly similar. But the advantage I had over the consultant was that Carrie had already sent me text messages at lunchtime saying that she'd liked a dress there but it wasn't her first choice. There were definitely a couple of tense days while Carrie figured out what her first choice was before I could actually order the dress, but obviously it worked out great in the end. To those of you who know us in real life, I'm sure our similar taste is no surprise, but I'm glad that we didn't both want exactly the same thing!

Auntie Blogging, or choo-choos and school buses

My sister Jen and her adorable sons Mathew and Thomas came to visit us this weekend!  They rode Amtrak in to the city and left Sean at home to work on the house.  This seemed like a great plan for Jen to have an independent adventure weekend with her vehicle-loving children (big truck!  choo-choo!) and for everyone to get to spend more time with the adoring aunties.  What is not to love about riding a choo-choo to New York City?  Well, apparently a lot, when you are an over tired and over stimulated two year old.  Jen had a rough go of it on the way in, and was quite relieved to have help wrangling her toddlers when they arrived.  Thankfully Matthew and Thomas had a much better time during the visit than they did on the trip to get here.

Friday night we all headed to Shake Shack in Madison Square Park.  Jen and I took the boys to the playground so they could run off some of their energy from being cooped up on the train, while Becky took one for the team and waited in the famous line.  You really do have to be a bit patient to be a New Yorker, which I seem to have grown accustomed to, but am often reminded of when people come to visit.  All five of us enjoyed our burgers, fries, and custard, and the weather was absolutely perfect for eating outdoors.  Unfortunately given the aforementioned circumstances on the train, none of us were with it enough to pull out a camera on Friday, so you just have to take my word for it.

Saturday we spent the morning and early afternoon hanging out at home and at another playground much nearer to our apartment.  For so-far childless adults we managed to come up with a pretty good showing of our toys (is it odd that Mr. PotatoHead is part of our normal knick knack selection?), plus of course a bunch of their toys from home.

Auntie Becky plays with toys

Matthew at the top of the slide...

Matthew at the bottom of the slide...

Thomas insisted on trying on Auntie Becky's rain boots.

This meant that we were able to let the boys nap at home, which I think may be key to avoiding two year old meltdown.  Jen also fell asleep in her efforts to get nap-resistant Matthew to sleep, and I decided that the end stages of my surgery recovery would be helped by joining them.  Becky apparently threatened to draw sharpie mustaches on all of us while we slept, but thankfully she thought better of it!

We then headed in to the city for the late afternoon and early evening.  Matthew and Thomas loved the "school bus" that we rode to get in, and also loved watching all of the different types of cars and trucks and buses going by.  They live in a sort of distant suburb/small town/semi-rural area, so the sheer amount of vehicular and pedestrian traffic in New York was extremely exciting but also a little bit overwhelming for them.  Even at our apartment, which is in a neighborhood we think of as very quiet, we can often hear police/ambulance/fire sirens.  Thomas was surprised to hear them and wanted to rush to the windows to watch the "fire truck!" go by.  Unfortunately for him this is often not something visible from our windows.  We also must have sounded like such silly tourists endlessly talking about the subway as "the choo-choo" for the boys, but we were trying to talk up trains for their return journey, and also....they are tourists, so why not enjoy it, right?

We rode the ferris wheel at the Times Square Toys R Us flagship store (no decent pictures, but Becky and Matthew and I were on the other side of the car):

And then we got sandwiches to-go from PB&Company and ate in the park.  Some random strangers actually came over and asked if they could take their picture with the boys because they were looking so cute.  Complimentary of course, but still, who does that?  Odd.  The boys were unbelievably sticky by the time they were done.

We went home and watched part of the first movie that Becky ever saw in a movie theater: Follow that Bird, the 1985 Sesame Street classic.  Still accessible today!  I was a bit dismayed by its less than complimentary portrayal of social workers and much to Becky's dismay playfully threatened that I won't let our kids watch it.  Mathew and Thomas went off to dream land after such a busy full day, and the adults stayed up to chat and drink Asti and eat dessert.

This morning we had an informal Mother's Day brunch (with mimosas!) for Jen, played of course, and then shepherded everyone back to the train station and wished them luck on the return journey.  We haven't gotten the whole report yet, but from a few quick text messages it seems that it was rough but not as bad as Friday.  Poor Jen.  But everyone made it, and we absolutely loved having our very favorite visitors this weekend!

Happy Mother's Day Jen!

We spent the afternoon relaxing, recovering, and of course wishing our own mothers (and my grandmother) Happy Mother's Day!

Random Thursday: Surgery week edition

When I started this I wasn't fully intending it to be a weekly thing, but it seems to be turning out that way.  Apparently even in weeks where I do not go to work things are dragging a bit by Thursday, and it's easier to write thoughts out in random lists than in full blown posts.

1. We finally got moving again on honeymoon planning.  We stalled a bit a few weeks ago when the hotel we picked for Athens was booked for our dates.  But we have picked ourselves up again and are now debating the risks vs. rewards of seedy neighborhoods in Athens.  To be within walking distance of attractions, or to not be within walking distance of prostitutes and junkies... 

2. My ideas about good and bad neighborhoods have evolved a lot in the last three years of doing home visits for a living.  I've seen a lot of things that would probably not make my mother too happy (sorry Mom).  But no one on the internet seems to be able to tell me how sketchy Athens compares to my experience of sketchy New York.

3.  I watched a bunch of episodes of the show Parenthood on Hulu.com today.  It's like Modern Family, but less funny and more dramatic.  I like it.  I think I will put Season 1 on our Netflix queue.

4. The pain from surgery has definitely gone down a lot, but my patience for any pain/discomfort has also gone down a lot.  I'm ready to be fully back to normal now please!

5. Getting new passports in our new name is going to cost us $110 each.  How annoying.  Technically this is just the renewal fee, but we renewed in summer 2009 so it's annoying!  I suppose I should just be grateful that they will recognize our name change (because Massachusetts considers the marriage a legal name change the feds apparently have decided there's no way around honoring that) and not require us to jump through any additional hoops.  But I can think of better uses for our $220!  Like, oh, a semi-private Santorini sailboat tour?

6. Jen and the boys are coming to visit for the weekend, so you can expect Auntie blogging on Sunday or Monday!

7. The cats are really unamused that I have been home all week but not really letting them jump on me and generally maul me the way I usually allow them to do.

8. Today was the first day since surgery I was able to stay awake all day.  I know napping during the day sounds luxurious and/or lazy, but earlier this week I was so freaking exhausted that I couldn't possibly stay awake so it was absolutely a necessity!

9. Somehow our commute seems a lot longer when I'm sitting at home and Becky is doing it by herself...it feels like forever between when she tells me she's coming home and when she actually gets here.  I sincerely hope that we can someday live and work much closer together than we do now.

10. I'll leave you with pictures of the cinnamon rolls that Becky made for me a few weeks back, but then I forgot to include in the weekend recap:

Yum.

Wedding Wednesdays: Planning from Afar

The first decision we made about the wedding was where to hold it.  It was always a given that we would have a legal ceremony in a state where it would be called marriage.  But whether that ceremony would be the ceremony was initially up for debate.

When we got engaged in November 2009 there was buzz around New Jersey that New Jersey would pull it together before Corzine left office, and we dreamed briefly of asking our friends and family to travel to our home state to hold a single celebration of a newly legal marriage.  We also pondered acting politically with our financial investment of a wedding celebration and holding our party in Massachusetts or Connecticut, where same-sex marriage was already legal.  But in the end we decided that the best answer for us was to hold the wedding we would want to have if it were legal, and not let haters dictate where or when we should celebrate our relationship.  Sadly, the Minnesota government is currently seeking to reaffirm their disdain for our relationship by amending the state constitution to ensure that our marriage could not be recognized.

In an acquiesence to political reality, we did conduct a tiny legal ceremony in Massachusetts, which you can read about here and look at pictures of here.   But for the most part, we consider the Minnesota ceremony and party to be "the wedding" and "our anniversary."  (And it was certainly the bulk of the wedding spending!)  I grew up in Minnesota and Becky grew up in Wisconsin, we both have family and friends and family friends centered in these two neighboring states, and we were able to get married in my childhood church.  Initially the decision felt like we were selling out the idea of putting our money where our politics are.  But ultimately I have no shame in financially supporting all of the wonderful, supportive vendors we worked with.

So, planning a wedding in a state you don't live in is a lot like planning a destination wedding.  Except my impression is that when you plan a Jamaica wedding or a Mexico wedding, most of the vendors are geared towards destination wedding go-ers.  Apparently Minneapolis isn't high on the destination wedding list.  So we had to sort it out ourselves.  To be fair, we had a bit of a blue print in my sister's wedding planning from five years ago, but she was primarily willing to allow my mom to be her wedding planner.  In our case we had not one but two brides who wanted to control every little detail, and also not one but two mothers-of-the- brides who also had opinions and needs. 

Our overall strategy was to do big chunks of planning in marathon wedding weekends, during which Becky and I, Becky's mom, on a few occasions other relatives, and my mom had wedding retreats in my parents' house.  This involved some quick bonding for our mothers who had only met for the first time in December 2009! 

Our first trip to Minnesota was in January 2010.  We toured four potential reception sites, were stood up at one arranged site tour, and drove by two other potential sites.  We met with six photographers and were canceled on by one additional photographer.  And even just reading that right now I feel like we were crazy.  But part of the stress of planning from afar was that we had to have lots of options lined up, because we didn't have the luxury of loving one vendor on the internet and then going in person and hating it/him/her and then trying again the next weekend.  This whirlwind approach forced us to do our internet homework and then jump in and do.  I think it was an advantage that we saw everything/met everyone all at once so we could easily compare and choose.  But it certainly felt stressful at the time!  When I got the e-mail from the photographer who canceled (she had a family emergency) I almost broke down crying, because somehow her cancellation solidified for me that she was the one photographer we were destined to love.  Crazy much?  Never fear, we picked ourselves up and loved another.

This is me diligently studying the reception contract, ever cautious to not sign away the rights to parent our first born (I'm fairly certain we avoided this, but I won't be entirely shocked if one of our vendors shows up at the hospital someday expecting that!):

I think the whirlwind version may have been good for our indecisive selves also, because at the end of the weekend....we obviously weren't going to pick a photographer we didn't interview or a venue we didn't view, and thus we had to just freaking make a decision.  And ultimately, those big decisions from weekend one were the easiest.  We loved in person the same venue we loved online.  We both easily agreed that the photographer we thought we loved online was unnecessarily expensive and not a personality click, and that the photographer we did pick was an easy personality match.  Of all your vendors, your photographer is the one whose personality you should like.  Ours felt like she could have been one of our college friends.  Win.

Our second trip to Minnesota was in May 2010.  We managed to connect it to a Wisconsin trip we were planning to take anyways.  We got a private food and wine tasting at our reception venue (special perk of long distance planning!), met with four florists, met with four bakers, took engagement pictures, scoped rehearsal dinner venues, met with the minister, shopped for invitation supplies, and shopped for wedding dresses.  Once again our selection of vendors was probably overkill, but I don't regret meeting with any of them.  I like to make informed choices!  The one thing we really could have done at home was wedding dress shopping, but we wanted to have our moms in on part of it at least.  I ended up buying mine off the rack at a boutique in Minnesota and then conning my mom into shipping it to New Jersey for me to have altered.  Becky ordered hers through a shop in Minnesota and they mailed it to her to have altered here.  Alterations was one of the most stressful parts of the wedding planning, and I would highly recommend buying your dress from a shop where you plan to get it altered.  While in Wisconsin we also went bridesmaid dress shopping with Becky's sisters and made a tentative decision.  Like the colors??

 

We didn't go back to Minnesota until three weeks before the wedding.  Pretty much all of the detail finalizing with all of the vendors we did over phone and e-mail, we hired DJ and limo companies over the internet, we instructed our wedding party to order outfits over the internet, and we worked on all of the paper goods and favors and all the little details from home.  We ordered box after box of stuff to be sent to my mom, who would open boxes on Skype and show us our unity candle or our boxes of dozens of bubbles.  We also asked each of our mothers to take care of buying or doing certain things for us, like sorting out only red and purple Hershey's kisses from dozens of bags, or tying personalized ribbons. Not everyone was equally enthused about ordering their outfits:

 In October the whole gang descended on Minnesota again, and we did hair trials, had a shower, re-tasted our cake (to be sure of the flavors!!), and worked on finishing and folding and organizing all of that stuff that our moms collected for us!

People on the wedding internetz talk a lot about wedding planning taking over your whole lives....  we definitely had lots of days where we didn't really have any wedding related tasks we had to complete, but that freedom was obviously created by these intense whirlwind planning weekends.  I might be a little crazy, but I liked the intensity of being forced to get so much done at once, and of having our families with us in our intense focus for just those weekends.  When my mom first warned us of how many planning trips we would need to take to Minnesota I was a doubter.  Now that we've done it I think it's a miracle that we didn't need more.

ETA: ARGH, I did it again!!!  :(  This post was written by Carrie, despite Blogger's claims that it was written by Becky.

In Sickness and in Health

Well, "in sickness and in health" wasn't actually explicitly in our vows... but trust me, it was there in spirit!
On Friday morning I had my gallbladder removed, and I honestly don't think I could have made it through the last four days without Becky.  She has cooked and cleaned, waited on me, set an alarm to give me pain medication in the middle of the night, and helped me in/out/on/off the couch/chairs/bed/toilet/car/pretty much every surface in our home.  I have no idea how single people have surgery. 

Overall, the hospital staff was really great about not missing a beat when we answered "she's your friend?" with "no, wife."  I didn't really expect anything less from a hospital in Manhattan, but you never know for sure.  Before surgery they took my blood pressure and it had spiked; I attribute this partially to the fact that they made me leave Becky.  (Thankfully they let me have her back again before the surgery, and before she left that time the anesthesiologist gave me some Valium in my IV...haha.)  Before surgery they also made me take a pregnancy test, despite my best assurances that I was 110% definitely not pregnant.  Apparently their results concurred because the surgery went forward. 

As they were starting to think about letting me go home, the volunteer lady (aka meanie head visitor gatekeeper) told me that she was sending "my friend" up.  Usually I am not one to get annoyed about these things, and given that standing up was taking all of my mental attention, it was certainly not my moment to complain out loud.  But in that moment of being seperated from her and really wanting/needing her to come back and take care of me, I was definitely reminded of the profound difference between her being my friend and being my wife. 

My brain is still a little fuzzy, probably from a combination  of surgery fuzz and pain medication, so this post isn't the most coherant.  But I hope the underlying message of how much I love and appreciate my wife is coming through!  Thank you Becky!

On Handwriting

The New York Times had an interesting article about cursive handwriting on Wednesday: The Case for Cursive. Go read it. I'll wait. But if you hit the paywall, well, I'm sorry. And if you hit the paywall and really, really want to read it, email me and I'll send you the article!

Unsurprisingly, but apparently still newsworthy, the art of cursive handwriting is going down the drain as we all rely more and more on computers. In addition, the education system's current focus on standardized testing means that teachers are dedicating as much time as they can to topics covered by those tests, leaving very little time for handwriting classes.

I'm a little torn on how I feel about this. I remember being so excited about learning to write in cursive in second grade. And I remember being quite smug about how good my cursive was and the amount of praise I got from my second grade teacher for my handwriting. I continued to use cursive most of the time up until probably sometime in middle school. (I would give you an exact year, but sadly, my old yearbooks are stashed in my parents' house so I can't say for sure when I transitioned back to printing. Sad, right?) But since then? Printing all the way. And now that I'm not taking notes in class anymore, even my printing suffers on occasion.

Something about cursive still appeals to me though. It's pretty and fancy in a way that my printing will never be. And I like the fact that it looks a little old-fashioned to my modern sensibilities. And I chose to address all of our wedding invitations in cursive for both of those reasons and also because it felt proper to me--like my grandmother would have approved.

Despite the fact that I like the way it looks, it's not a skill that I need in everyday life, so I guess I'd be hard pressed to say that I think it's a terribly crucial skill for children to learn. The article does raise some interesting points though, particularly that kids who don't learn to write well in cursive have difficulty reading cursive, including important historical documents. This sounds a little crazy to me, until I remember that cursive writing looked like a mysterious secret code to me when I was in first grade. Will cursive handwriting become a skill that history students study in college in order to read primary sources?

Do you typically use cursive or printing? Do you think cursive is a skill that matters? Are you shrugging or appalled by the idea of the next generation not having cursive signatures?

Ten Random Things, Take 2

1. I bought a bag of Godiva Gems Truffles the other day (hurrah for half-price Easter candy!) They're decent enough, but they can't hold a candle to my beloved Lindt Lindor Truffles.

2. I scraped my elbow and wrist going down a slide with one of the nephews last weekend. I then tried to be a good girl and keep it covered with neosporin and band-aids, but alas, it seems that I am allergic to some varieties of band-aids. Now I have not just a scrape but also red itchiness around it.

3. I finished re-reading the first Harry Potter book--6 more to go!

4. On Wednesday at 5:00 a.m. one of the smoke detectors decided its battery was dying and it started chirping. I stumbled around in the dark with a chair taking down smoke detectors until I found the right one. And then just as we were falling back asleep, the cats decided to be noisy and obnoxious.

5. I took the day off work tomorrow, and today I suddenly wondered if people think I took the day off to watch the royal wedding. I didn't. Promise. If it weren't for Twitter, I probably wouldn't even know when the wedding is.

6. Honeymoon planning seems to have stalled. Anyone have recommendations on a cheap hotel in Athens?

7. We started scrapbooking the wedding and wedding planning, but that also seems to have stalled. Scrapbooking stuff is still strewn all across the kitchen table though, so we either have to get back to it soon or put it away so I can bake more cookies.

8. Inspired by a couple blogs mentioning kale chips being delicious, I bought a bunch of kale at the farmers market yesterday. I'll let you know what I think after I make them this weekend. But pretty much, I read multiple places about "this vegetable that my picky, vegetable-hating kids love" and figured I had to try it.

9. Our cat Cricket seems to think she's a dog. Instead of just letting us pet her like a normal cat, she insists on licking our hands.

10. One of the things I love about living in this part of the country is all the flowering trees in the springtime. (My allergies don't love this, but fortunately they hasn't been bad at all this year.) Case in point: this is the tree in front of our house right now.

Wedding Wednesdays: Bachelorette & Shower

When we started planning the wedding we weren't really expecting much in the way of a bachelorette party or a shower. We don't have a huge circle of friends (moving around too much combined with being introverts?) and our close friends and family are fairly widely geographically dispersed. For the most part I had accepted this as a sad but true reality, while Becky was privately pining for these celebrations. Blame it on the big evil Wedding-Industrial-Complex (or just theknot.com) if you will, but somehow having a bachelorette party and a shower felt like an important right of passage as brides/further legitimizing force/just plain good time.

Happily, our friends and family came through. And they did it in fun ways that fit us. I apologize for the exceptionally poor quality of some of these photos; we were having camera issues.

Bachelorette

Our friend Kara, who has been featured in several of our bloggy adventures (Staten Island, Superbowl, Dim Sum, probably lots more...), had vaguely hinted that she might do something bachelorettey for us. We even had a suspicion on the day that it might be the day. But then when we confirmed plans it seemed to genuinely be a low-key business as usual meet up in Central Park. And truth be told, Kara is usually a horrible liar, so we took this at face value. In fact, so much so that we called and told her we were running 20 minutes late because we needed to do an errand. We were quite surprised when we approached the appointed meeting spot to see two other friends (Kim and Stephanie) and learn that another was supposed to meet us later!

Kara delivered us goody bags filled with candy and plastic engagement ring shot glasses and dorky bride-to-be tiaras and water bottles filled with Strongbow cider. She even decorated our water bottles in our wedding colors (and apparently also deserves an award for securing bachelorette swag that did not have penises on it!). Here's us in Central Park with the lovely tiaras:

We then started off a whole afternoon/evening full of shenanigans with our friends sponsoring a carriage ride in Central Park. Becky and I started a New York City to-do list before we moved here, after having had tons of fun checking things off of our Boston and London to-do lists. Almost five years settled in to our Big Apple experience we've gotten lax with the tourist pursuits, and there are still items unchecked on our original list. Kara secretly consulted the list, which is scrawled on the back of an envelope and attached to the side of our fridge, and picked an activity to help us complete. I apologize to the animal rights activists and cheeseyness police, but the carriage ride has been a quintessential New York experience in my head since early in my Midwestern childhood! And now I can happily report that we did it on our bachelorette day.

From there we headed to a delicious dinner (and drinks) at Five Napkin Burger. Becky and I try hard to be frugal when it comes to eating out, but Kara knew we had been salivating over the idea of these over-priced burgers and so she put them on the itinerary. And I can tell you they're seriously worth the price. Yum. Definitely competition for the best burger I've had. We followed that up with drinks at a local bar, and then capped the evening off with desserts at Edgar's Cafe. We cannot thank our friends enough for pulling off such a fun-filled surprise day of bachelorettey-ness. And, we especially enjoyed spending time with these lovely ladies, as they were among the young friends who were decidedly unable to make it to the also amazing shower.

Shower

The shower was not a surprise, as that would have been logistically impossible considering that it took place in Minnesota. But initially the fact that a shower was being thrown in our honor was definitely a surprise, as was the content. My sister (and matron of honor) was the mastermind behind the shower, though she also had a lot of help from both my mom and Becky's mom, and from a family friend who is also the mother of my bridesmaid. Neither my bridesmaid nor Becky's sisters (her wedding party) were able to make it, but my bridesmaid did make an appearance on Skype live from her German home!

We managed to coordinate a weekend about three weeks before the wedding for a whole host of people to descend upon the Twin Cities for wedding-preparation-palooza. Becky and I flew in from New Jersey, Jen and her son Matthew (free under-2 flight FTW) flew in from Massachusetts, and Becky's mom and aunt drove in from Eastern Wisconsin. We did hair trials, tied ribbons on favors, re-tasted cakes, folded program parts....and partied! (And yes, you read correctly, we tasted cakes for a second time.)

Our lovely hosts did up the fellowship hall of my church for a delicious English tea, and invited all of the women who were invited to the wedding. There were tables set up with small flower centerpieces in our wedding colors, several kinds of tea, fruit, scones with jam and clotted cream, and finger sandwiches. But most of all, there were three desserts, all cut into scrumptious tea-style bite size pieces. The desserts were designated Carrie's dessert, aka a childhood favorite called Chocolate Indulgence, Becky's dessert, aka pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting, and the joint dessert, aka the cake that we adored at cake tasting but rejected due to the personality and attitude of the baker herself. It was pure caramel apple deliciousness, and for a shower cake the baker apparently did not feel the need to insult our design choices or stuff it full of styrofoam dummy cakes. A few points off for my mom though, who accidentally revealed my sister's well plotted surprise by including Becky and I on a planning e-mail. Oopsie!
Becky's mom planned a fun little trivia game regarding places that we have traveled together, and put together a photo album for us of pictures from many of those travels. She also supplied many of those pictures (y'know, the ones of us with food...because we apparently love to take them!) to my sister for use in an ingenious shower gift, especially for people with lots of long distance friends and family. We received a cookbook filled with recipes and memories, submitted by tons of our wedding invitees including many who were able to attend the shower and many who were not able to attend. It was especially nice to see some of our younger friends represented who both couldn't attend in person and weren't able to send shower gifts - but obviously still wanted to send love! Here is us examining our cookbook with my sister:

And here is an unfortunately blurry picture of our mothers bonding at the shower (note our purple and red wedding colors in the centerpieces!):
But yes, we did also receive lots of very generous shower gifts for which we are very grateful as well. During the gift-opening Matthew entertained himself very well by ferrying gifts to us and used wrapping materials from us to the trash bag. He also did an excellent job helping set out folding chairs and helping my dad load our presents into the car at the end of the event!

Hippity Hop (on Easter... Bunny Cookies*)

Happy (now belated) Easter to all who celebrate!

As any of you who have been following for a while or who know us in real life could predict, we spent the holiday weekend in Massachusetts with my sister and her family. My parents also flew in for the holiday (and of course the grandbaby time), so we spent lots of quality time with my family.

Becky and I lived with my sister and brother-in-law for eight months several years ago, back in their relaxed pre-children days and our pre-grad-school days. I've always been close with my sister, and I have recently been (lovingly) accused of being obsessed with my nephews. They live near enough that we can easily go for a weekend, but far enough that it really does have to be a full weekend. We have their garage door opener, know the security codes, and pretty much get how the place runs. Which all leads to the fact that their home is kind of like our second home. I must say that I am very lucky that my wife for the most part enjoys spending time with my family, and has also become close with my sister and brother-in-law and of course adores our nephews. (And I like her family too, but unfortunately they're a bit farther away!)

And so, yes, we spend a pretty large percentage of our holidays in Massachusetts.

Becky decided last week to get her bake on and whip up a batch of her aunt's delicious sugar cookies, with anticipation of convincing the nephews to help decorate. On rainy Saturday afternoon we stripped them down to diapers and set them to work. The highlights were probably Matthew's decorating technique of biting jelly beans in half, eating half, and using the remaining halves to decorate and Thomas' technique of letting us know he was done by picking up an undecorated cookie and licking the frosting off of it.

The finished toddler cookies:

And some for the adults (haha, we continue the ruse as if we are football fans):

We also had a lovely Easter morning, complete with baskets from the bunny for the little boys. Sadly my mom seems to have declared that we are adults now that my sister has children (it's my blog I get to say it, Mom!) But here's a nice family picture of all their booty:

And here are the boys playing with their new toys. Cardiologist Matthew is carefully ministering to the heart health of his monkey:

And even the doctor needs a check-up now and then:

Thomas invited the monkey to enjoy some tea with him:

And Auntie Becky read the monkey a bedtime story (that is one spoiled monkey!):

We also had a lovely time at the playground and just hanging out around the house. And lest you think that the weekend was entirely focused on babies, Becky and I also got out of the house in the glorious weather on Sunday and had a long walk around a local lake. I actually think I got a bit of a sun tan on my pasty pasty self for the first time since last summer! (Don't spite me with skin cancer for saying that, please?) I dipped my toes in the frigid lake and we wandered in the woods. It was a very nice break from the wilds of NYC, and of course the horrid stand still traffic in the Bronx that awaited us on our trek home.

* Jen - is it Easter... Bunny Cookies? Or Easter Bunny....Cookies?!?!