Michelle's Doppelgangers?

We've been watching a lot of the Olympics the last two weeks. (As an aside, we really wish we could watch CBC coverage, but we have to live with NBC refusing to show many events until many hours after they've happened. Usain Bolt's world records would have been much more exciting had I not already known about them.)

Anyway, during the gymnastics coverage, Michelle thought that one of the chinese gymnasts looked like a "little Michelle". To be honest, I don't really see it, but you can decide for yourself. (Just in case you're wondering, Cheng Fei is the only gymnast whose age is not being questioned.)



Of course, she's not really serious, but since then, she's also found "big Michelle" on the Chinese volleyball team.



Who knew Michelle was so self-centered?

Scott's Country Bacon - July 2008

I have to apologize for taking so long to write about the July bacon. The last month or so have been quite busy with trips to Toronto (conference), Ithaca (Scott and Sonya's wedding), and Tucson (Michelle and Jesse's wedding). In the middle, I also attended a 4-day workshop that included a couple 12 hour days. All that being said, I probably would have posted sooner had we been more excited about the Scott's Country Bacon.



This was another example of overly salty bacon. Unfortunately, Michelle also detected a relatively prominent metallic taste. I didn't notice it at first, but after she pointed it out, it started to dominate the flavor. Needless to say, this quickly became a bit unpleasant.

We've also received the August bacon, but the packaging was broken, so they are sending us another package with the September selection. Stay tuned.

Bacon ranking:
1. J. Samuel Whiting Hickory Bacon (Apr 2008)
2. North Country Cob Smoked Bacon (Oct 2007)
3. Vande Rose Farms Applewood Smoked Bacon (Dec 2007)
4. (tie) Hudson Valley Smokehouse Smoked Country Style Bacon (Feb 2008)
4. (tie) Burgers' Pepper Bacon (Mar 2008)
4. (tie) New Braunfels Smokehouse Comal County Smoked Bacon (June 2008)
7. Jim Oliver's Hickory Smoked Bacon (Jan 2008)
8. Tripp Country Bacon (Nov 2007)
9. Loveless Cafe Country Smoked Bacon (May 2008)
10. Scott's Country Bacon (July 2008)

Good Things Come in Threes

... or is it, good things come to those who wait? Eh, either way, it works.

Happy three monthaversary, hubby!

OFT No. 13 - Two Weddings and a Little Waterfall

The first two weekends in August meant two weddings at opposite ends of the country. The first was Scott and Sonya's, in Ithaca, NY. Sonya was my labmate at USC, and we've kind of led parallel lives over the last little while. We defended our dissertations within about a month of each other, got engaged around the same time, and were planning our weddings at the same time too. Neither Brian nor I had ever been to Ithaca, so it was neat to be able to go out there and see Cornell and the area. It was a beautiful wedding, despite the threat of thundershowers all weekend. The rains did come down, but not until we were safely in the tent at the reception (and then they made for some fun moments, like seeing Sonya and Scott running through the grass under a big umbrella). Here are a few pics from the weekend:

The new husband and wife!

Us with Mr. and Dr. Lundy/Negriff at their Sunday picnic.

The suspension bridge connecting the north and south parts
of Cornell campus.

The view from the suspension bridge, one of many gorges around Ithaca
(whence comes the saying, "Ithaca is Gorges" on all those T-shirts).

Congrats Sonya and Scott! Welcome back from Belize!

On the way to the Buffalo airport on Sunday, we stopped at Niagara Falls to check out the natural wonder and gaze longingly at Canada just across the way.

The view looking East (Canada is just across the bridge!)

And now we've moved West. All that white behind Brian is mist

coming up from the falls.

So then we were home for a short 4 days before heading to the airport again, this time on our way to Tucson, where the temperature in August is usually a pretty unforgiving 105 or so. It ended up being a bit cooler than that - but it was really humid as it was 'monsoon season,' apparently. This time, the happy couple was (Brian's cousin) Michelle and Jesse, and it was fun to see some of his (my!) family. Their ceremony was in a new-ageish Catholic church which had a neat set up that had the guests facing toward the center rather than the front. I don't have a really good picture from it because I tend to be too shaky when I'm excited or emotional, but here are a few from that weekend.

The beautiful bride!

The hubs doing the honors of ordering at Sonic between the ceremony
and reception. I love Sonic! Word on the street is that the first Chicagoland
outpost opens next week, near the outlet stores, no less... sweeeeeeeet!

The couple and the bride's parents on the grounds of the Tucson
Country Club, where the reception was held.

The fam! Aunt Wendy, Donald, Peggy, Yeye and us.

A pretty desert sunset.

And after that, we ate cake, lost a jacket, and danced till dawn. Ok, more like midnight or so, but it was a really fun night. Congratulations Michelle and Jesse! Hope you are having a wonderful time on your honeymoon in Italy!

That's it for Wedding Season 2008, the BEST wedding year ever (I say with only the slightest of biases). No more trips planned till October, when we return to old stomping grounds and head to San Francisco. Frankly, all the travel we've been doing lately was getting a little tiring! But one of the things I took away from planning our own wedding was how meaningful it was that people made the effort to come, so it is was definitely our pleasure to be able to attend these two lovely events.

Missing something?

Brian just told me that I never posted the third installment of the wedding recaps, skipping straight from the ceremony to the dinner (whaaaa?) So I've just published the post, but it got inserted way back among the June entries - if you want to go back and fill in the gaps, you can check it out HERE.

Sorry it's been a bit quiet on the bjourn front lately, but never fear, things will pick up again. In the last few weeks, we've attended two wonderful weddings, so look for an OFT post about those soon. And yes, more bacon is on the way (only 2 shipments left) ...

Wedding Recap Part IV

After a small bjourning hiatus, we have collected almost all photographic records of the wedding (yes, including the much-awaited professional shots!) so I am ready to finish up the recaps.

I'll post a bunch of photos in this entry, but if you want to skip the narrative and go straight to the photos, you can find them by clicking here. We posted our favorites from both the professional batch and the ones collected from friends and family. There are many pro pics (287, to be exact), which, trust us, is just a subset of what we got. It was hard enough paring down to what you see - we still have to pick our favorite 80 for our album! Any suggestions?

Now on to the conclusion of my wedding thoughts and memories. All photos in this post are from Lee Simmons, our photographer. I believe we were last seen heading into dinner...

11. It's really difficult to eat when you're constantly grinning ear to ear. Despite swearing up and down before the wedding that I was going to eat my fill at the reception, and being ecstatic that we were able to do the "Night at the Castle" food stations (we weren't sure we'd have enough space at one point), I barely touched anything the whole night. There were too many people to hug, too many happy tears to shed, and too many songs to dance to. All accounts of dinner were highly positive - there were a lot of compliments for the cheese, the lambchops (I did have some of those, they were excellent), the risotto, the shrimp, the sushi (which got snapped up faster than tickets to a New Kids on the Block concert in 1990) and the desserts. It's no secret that food is important to us (if you don't know that, you should get the idea by reading through this bjourn), and hotel banquet food is always a bit of a gamble, so we were really glad that everyone enjoyed it. (That may be my largest regret of the whole wedding, not enjoying the food more! I can live with that.)

12. It's nice to get toasted. No, I don't mean *that* kind of toasted. I mean, it was so amazing to have people who know us so well and love us so much get up and say all sorts of nice sweet things about us. (Once again, my trepidation at being the center of attention went right out the window on the actual day.) All of the toasts were full of memories and good wishes, and they just may have brought a tear or two to my eye (who are we kidding). I think the pictures capture a lot of how we felt while we were listening to them.

Jon's toast contained some slightly scandalous but fully hilarious stories

(that's right, we were spanked for being bad as children):

and a heartfelt acceptance of Brian as his own brother:

Donald's told of contrasts between our two sibling relationships ("not so much play fighting [as Jon and I did], as Brian chasing me angrily up and down the stairs"), and how Brian had changed and opened up with his family over the course of our relationship. I was just laughing at how hard Brian was laughing the whole time:
Heather's toast was a funny reminiscence of our elementary and junior high school days together, including her brilliant turn as campaign manager in my successful run at the student council presidency (what did I do in office that year, anyway?!):

Mike talked about his friendship with Brian throughout grad school and how important it was to both of them. Hoo boy, I am getting a lump in my throat just thinking about the toasts again:

13. We successfully avoided kissing to clinking glasses. Brian and I may have disagreed on many things about the wedding, but one thing that we absolutely were in sync about was that we did not want to give in to this wedding tradition. I was worried people would be disappointed when we announced at the outset that we would not succumb, and there were a couple of respectable attempts to make us do so, but somehow we avoided it all night. It likely had a little something to do with the mad skills that Jon displayed as emcee of the evening. He creatively made everyone work for our kisses. Among other things, he had people suck on super sour candies he made magically appear, and he had one couple from each table show us how it's done.

As long as it wasn't at the clinking of glasses, we were happy to oblige:

14. All the time and effort that went into the details was worth it. At some points, planning this wedding felt like it would be my early demise. If I didn't bleed to death from a thousand x-acto knife pricks or papercuts, I thought I would surely go blind from all the time I spent on my laptop researching flower wholesalers, cardstock suppliers and labware supply stores. It might be a bit surprising to some, but I really had very few concrete ideas about the wedding itself before we got engaged (ok, yeah, except for the favors. Yes, it's true, I decided to make candles for the favors many many years ago, and as Heather said in her toast, I began stockpiling supplies as early as 2005.) So a lot of what ended up in the wedding was the result of much consideration, and even more trial and error. As the wedding neared, I also started to worry about how it would all come together - so much was done piecemeal and at a distance, I didn't know if it would truly work. And I wouldn't know, until the wedding. Yikes! But looking back on pictures like these, I would do it all over again. The scariest thing? I would probably do even more. (But only if I once again had the help of my amazing friends).

15. People dig a dancefloor. Though we don't go out dancing very often (ok, like never these days), we used to be pretty good at shaking our groove thangs at our college formals and the odd club outing. More recently, weddings seem to be the only place we really get down, and it's always so much fun because pretty much everyone can be convinced to get up and dance. In case you're trying to deny that you were there, here's some photographic evidence:

And, finally...

16. The night ended too soon, but the rest of our lives had to begin sometime... Yes, we were exhausted from a week of sleepless nights leading up to the wedding. Yes, we had been not only on our feet but also on our best behavior for 15 hours. Yes, our faces were sore from smiling, our eyes were tired from tearing, and our lips were dry from kissing(!) But if I could have, I would have willed the night to go on forever. Getting married in the midst of our friends and family was the happy culmination of not just 15 months of planning, but the last 12 years of our lives. 12 years of living apart but learning and growing together, filled with some downs but so many more ups. We had been looking forward to the celebration for so long that I wanted it to last forever, though I also knew that the wedding was just the start of things, or really, the continuation of what we had already started. May 17th, 2008 was the best day of our lives so far. But in the end, what we did on that day - marrying each other - was just setting us up for bigger and better things. The wedding may be over, but we have so much to look forward to. For the rest of our lives, we will have "best days," days that break personal records and days that compete with our memories of one amazing weekend in Banff. The very best part of it all, though, is that we will have them together...

So, dear friends and family, that ends my public recap of the wedding (because you can bet that I will relive it over and over again in my head for eternity!) Thank you for being there, whether in the flesh or through these posts. Be sure to flip through the new photos (linked again here so that you don't strain your wrist scrolling all the way to the beginning of this novel :) ) and let us know what you think. Here are a few more teasers for your viewing pleasure:

We will now return to our regularly scheduled bjourning about more normative events in our lives. OFTs, bacon, not-so-deep-thoughts and general silliness in the Windy City and beyond.

Two down...

Happy two month anniversary, hubby!

Note to everyone else: We finally got our professional photos last week, and are in the process of paring them down and annotating them. So, we're looking forward to posting those, and finishing with the wedding wrap-ups so we can move on to everything else. (Yes, we've been doing OFTs lately, just haven't been writing about them!)