Megan and I got married on June 20th, 2009. It was a beautiful ceremony and reception with photos, video, etc. to follow later when I get all the pictures back from the photographer.
Megan and I took our engagement pictures a couple of weeks ago while we were in Wichita at Lasting Memories. After filtering through all the stiff and awkward pictures, we picked out 15 that I posted here.
I think we will probably use some form of this one for the papers:
This one I requested to take as a joke but it actually turned out pretty good:
Wow, I haven't written on here in more than 3 months. I've been crazy busy with my Google Summer of Code project and spent most of my free time on this. Quite a bit has happened since then and I'll try to catch up in the next couple posts.
So, at the beginning of the summer, my dad and I started the project to fence in the backyard with a privacy fence. We chose treated lumber for the posts and rails and used cedar for the pickets.
All the pictures from the project are here, but I'll highlight some in this post.
Here's the holes from the post hole digger next to the neighbor's chain link fence. Annoying neighbor wanted to keep his fence so we ran the privacy fence right next to it:
Dad and I starting on the concrete work to get the posts in the ground:
The next picture is my favorite. While dad and I were making the holes for the post, we ran into what we thought was a gas line. After closer inspection, the end of it had a U-joint! After almost 2 hours of messing with it, we pulled out an 8 foot drive shaft that was buried in the back of the yard more than 3 feet at the deepest point. Here we are posing with our "trophy":
Setting the posts:
Got the rails up:
Dad pre-built a nice steel tube gate that we braced with extra lumber and concrete and hung:
After a good 5 or 6 days, we had the whole fence framed out. I spent the next month or so hanging up the pickets:
The dogs have certainly been enjoying running around the backyard with no supervision. However, I've recently started redoing the entire backyard since there's virtually no grass so the dogs are no longer allowed. More on seeding the backyard later...
Many, many, many thanks to dad for making this happen!
For Valentine's Day, I got tickets for us to go to Wicked. This is the musical that we wanted to see on Broadway while we were in New York but weren't able to get tickets. Well, the Broadway show is coming to KC and tickets went on sale two days ago on Friday.
The musical is based on the book Wicked which is a prequel to the Wizard of Oz. Megan actually got me the book for Christmas but was still reading it when she gave it to me. So, it was pretty much me unwrapping my gift and giving it back to her to finish reading :)
Anyways, the tickets were going super fast as soon as they went on sale. There are about 25 shows but I was focusing on a Friday or Saturday date. The best tickets I was able to get was on Friday the 16th of May. All the other dates had tickets up in the balcony or crappy floor seats. I've highlighted our seats in red on the Kansas City Music Hall diagram below:
The Black Bean Salad was just ok, but the real star where the quesadillas. I highly suggest making these. I thought the idea of BBQ sauce in salsa was weird but it was really good. I even cleaned up the left over salsa with some tortilla chips.
When I was in Wichita a few weeks ago, I got to check out the muskrat that dad has been trying to nab for quite some time. It's been living in the lagoon and muskrats are known for damaging lagoons hence the hatred for this little creature. Anyways, he used a trap that looked something like this to snap the little sucker's neck:
I took a picture with my phone of dad next to the kill (you can see a little post sticking out of the lagoon which is where the trap is attached to):
Here's a nice closeup where you can see its nasty yellow teeth:
Last Friday, Megan and I went down to Wichita to check out venues for the wedding reception. We made reservations at 3 different places to check them out and Megan, Megan's mom, Morgan, my mom, and myself went and checked them out on Saturday.
The first place we went to was the Airport Hilton Hotel (map). This place was just average to us and the location of the place (right by the airport) wasn't very desirable.
The next place we went was the Hotel at Oldtown (map). The cool thing about this place is the location in Oldtown and the rooms that you can stay in. Here's a picture I snapped on my new Blackberry Pearl of the lobby area that shows the rooms:
However, their conference area was across the street and away from the look and feel of the actual hotel. One thing that was nice was two large patios connected to the conference area.
The final place we went was the Petroleum Club (map). The club is on the 9th floor of the Bank of America building. Their main reception room has windows on two sides overlooking Wichita. The other side overlooks the large indoor atrium. The vaulted ceilings, scenic view, and overall layout was exactly what the other places were lacking. Here's the only picture I was able to get with my phone (it's a pretty bad picture):
We all liked the Petroleum Club and that looks like where the reception is going to be. We just need to hammer out a few more details and look at reserving this place for a specific date.
As usual, I made my pilgrimage to Wichita for the Christmas holiday. It was definitely a nice and needed break filled with sweet treats and gifts.
Here's a clip of Megan (my sister) and I making Christmas cookies:
One of the low points of the trip was the crappy weather on Saturday. It was snowing and the wind was blowing so hard that you couldn't even see the street from my parent's house:
It pretty much did this all day until the afternoon. Since the weather had calmed down by the evening, I had planned on going out and seeing friends that I never get to. I didn't even make it a mile from my parents house when I ended up in the ditch on Webb road. I was traveling North bound when I gave the accelerator a tiny push. This whipped my back end 180 degrees and I ended up bumper deep in the snow on the other side of Webb. Luckily, within a few minutes, a Durango with 4WD stopped and helped pull me out. I was stuck really good and it took around 5 good tugs to get me out. The amazing thing was that my Pathfinder nor myself sustained any damage.
Christmas Eve we had a big dinner with smoked pork and all kinds of desserts with the grandparents. Needless to say, I put away at least two plates and 7-8 Christmas treats. On Christmas day, I think I ate an illegal amount of food. Seriously, if over-eating was against the law, I'd be serving 40 to life for the obnoxious amount of food I ate on Xmas. Starting in the morning, we ate breakfast casserole at my parents like we usually do. I headed down to Megan's parents around noon where we had a very tasty crab leg lunch served with baked potatoes, green beans, and jello salad. I then made it over to my aunt and uncle's house, Jean & Archie, around 3PM. They were serving authentic Mexican food of which I ate at least two plates full. The selection ranged from deep fried tacos to tamales to tostados, all of which were so good. I grazed on and off for the rest of the day and felt pretty crappy by the late evening.
I definitely made out well with the gifts this year too. Among many things, I received 3 new Wii games, several books, new tools, tailgating grill, and much much more. As always, I'm grateful for all the great stuff I get every year.
Yesterday, Megan and I took advantage of all the sales and got a crap ton of Christmas lights for next year at Target where all their Christmas stuff was 75% off. Megan had already bought us a tree and a few other things, but we picked up a bunch of icicle style lights and other lights to drape over the bushes.
Santa didn't get Ember the FURminator. I've been getting more and more frustrated with the amount of dog hair in the house, so yesterday I splurged and bought her the $45 medium size FURminator. I can't believe I spent this much on a damn dog brush, but it ended up being a worthwhile investment. The propaganda accompanied with the FURminator always has a picture of the dog next to all the hair extracted from the tool. So, I had to take my own FURminator picture the first time I used it on Ember last night. The one on the left is a picture of a Shiba from the FURminator website and the one on the right is my Shiba Ember:
I could have gotten more hair off of her, but after 30+ minutes she was starting to get pretty pissed and wouldn't let me do much more brushing. I put all my pictures from Christmas here. Here's to having less hair in the house in 2008!!
I'm pleased to announce that as of yesterday, Megan and I are engaged to be married!
Because Megan loves Christmas so much, she has been on my case to open presents early (like she does every year). So, last Friday, I told her that she could open one present on Sunday and she agreed that I open one as well. I hosted a poker game at my house on Saturday night, so I was less than ready when Megan wakes me up after 6 hours of sleep on Sunday morning to make breakfast and open that one promised present. I should also mention that she stole my pillow and I was forced to sleep straight on the mattress all night.
I finally managed to get out of bed as the smell of bacon brought me down to the kitchen. She was working on our traditional Sunday morning biscuits and gravy. While we were waiting for the biscuits to bake, Megan convinced me to go ahead and open the one present each that was agreed upon. I opened my first which turned out to be a new Wii game: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.
It was her turn to open the huge box that she had been eyeing and periodically shaking throughout the weekend. She unwrapped it and saw that it was a large printer box with another wrapped box in it. She opened this box to find another wrapped box. She opened this box to find yet another box while I am nervously laughing the whole time. She looks and me and says "I've seen this in a movie". She unwrapped this box to find an even smaller box and than another even smaller box. Now, this part takes a little background explanation. A couple of weekends ago, I went to the Chiefs vs. Raiders game and won an iPod nano. I already have an iPod nano so Megan has been dropping subtle hints that she wanted the one that I won. So, with that said, the last wrapped box turned out to be an iPod nano box. She gives me a nasty look which I later found out why. She was think that I had just totally cheated and gave her the free gift that I got as her first present. She opens the iPod nano box and starts digging through the red tissue paper to retrieve a small little white box. I'm getting on my knee during this time and snatch the box from her, open it, and ask her if she will make me the happiest man alive and marry me.
Megan claims that she had no idea what I said, but was pretty overwhelmed by the whole situation and managed to utter out a response of "Yes". She grabbed the box and the rest is a little hazy for both of use. I later had to explain to her what I actually said, but she knew enough to say "Yes". I think she might have blacked out :) Megan is sometimes hard to surprise, but I think I definitely surprised her this time.
Needless to say, Megan called absolutely everyone in her cellphone and never actually ate the breakfast we made. I, of course, enjoyed the biscuits and gravy and the overwhelming sense of relief. I have known Megan for about 10 years but that was still the most nervous I have ever been in my entire life.
My Dad has always made these delicious homemade cinnamon rolls. I copied the recipe down the last time I was in Wichita and took a crack at making them. Basically, I made a huge mess in the kitchen, but the end results were some pretty damn good cinnamon rolls. They didn't turn up as fluffy and big as Dad's, but they were good nevertheless.
I'd also like to mention that I probably would have never been able to make the rolls without Megan's help. I was somewhat of a retard when it came to kneeding and making the mixture into dough. She came into the kitchen with me trying to make the dough by mixing it with a little fork. She just laughed, took over, and used her hands to do the mixing.
In true nerd fashion, I took pictures along the way to document the process. This shows them right after the dough was rolled up and cut into individual rolls:
Here they are after letting them raise for almost 3 hours:
I finally got the pictures developed from the underwater camera we used in Cozumel and posted them on my gallery here. They are all mainly from Xel-Ha but there are a few from snorkeling near the resort we stayed at.
