Entertainment Weekly released a list of the top movies of the last 25 years.

1. Bold the ones you have watched.
2. Italicize the ones you love, and will watch over and over.
3. Strikethrough the ones you will never watch or sicerely wish you'd never watched in the first place.

( The List )

Today is our first anniversary! Yay! The year just flew by, it's hard to believe it's been that long already. Tonight we're having dinner at La Fondue, yum!

Happy Anniversary, Josh! ^____^

Yesterday Josh's aunt and her three daughters came up to the barn to see Jackson. I happened to still have my cameras with me because I had just come from the anime convention, so I asked them to take some photos of me riding. Yeah I know I suck, I WILL go back to taking lessons as soon as I have some extra money for it. ;_; Right now I haven't had any formal training in a good 6 years, and up until now I was only riding very sporadically at work for fun and doing no jumping whatsoever. So yes, I am aware I am very rusty and in need of a tune up.

( On to the pictures... )

It's fricking HOT here. This heat wave is breaking temperature records and everything. I haven't ridden for the last four days because it's just too hot to move; I barely have the energy to clean Jackson's stall. The power went out at work for about an hour on Thursday probably from all the increased energy demand for A/C. Our townhouse is actually too warm upstairs even though it's almost always too cold in here, although the downstairs stays cool no matter what. Unfortunately both bedrooms are upstairs, and the master bedroom has a vaulted ceiling, so there's no good way to cool it down. We put out A/C unit in the much smaller guest room and have been sleeping in there.

When my friend and I were getting ready to leave the stable on Friday, I heard a loud screech and turned to see Duchess, the barn cat, running by with a struggling bunny in her mouth. We followed her into the barn where she had dropped it; apparently it was still alive enough to run and hide. We caught it behind some feed bins and were going to give it to our office lady since she likes to take in needy wildlife, but she wasn't home. I took the bunny home and figured I'd bring it to her the next day, assuming it survived the night. It was alive early the next morning, but when I was ready to leave later I found it had died. =( The cat must have landed a good bite, in which case it had no chance to begin with; we'd been hoping maybe she'd just grabbed it but didn't break the skin, since we couldn't find any fang marks. Poor little thing.

Saturday night Josh and I went to see Iron Man. I was hesistant, although I'd heard nothing but good things about it. I didn't know what it was about really other than some comic book movie, which for the most part I am not a fan of (like the Spiderman movies? Ugh). I didn't know what the Iron Man comic was or what it was about; from the little I'd seen of it I thought it looked sort of like Robocop. I was pleasantly surprised to find out it was actually a very entertaining action movie! I love action movies. It had a lot of amusing parts as well, which was cool, because I didn't expect it to be funny. Robert Downey Jr. also turned out to be a great actor, another surprise to me because the only thing I knew about him is that he's some drug addict who's been in and out of jail a lot; I'd never seen him in anything before. I'm now looking forward to the sequel. The next movie on our list is Indiana Jones; I just seriously hope George Lucas didn't fuck up another great movie legacy like he did with Star Wars.

The movie turned out to be pretty long, so I didn't get much sleep last night before going to work early this morning. It was hot and awful, but at least that meant we weren't busy. And we were having a vaulting show, so there was something to watch. Also, there was a lady from a magazine called Horse Connection there who was doing an article on wine and horses, so she came to a pretty appropriate place considering we're both a stable and vineyard. Anyway, she wanted to get some pictures of someone riding by a plaque we have next to one of the barns (I've never read it, actually...I think it says something about the history of the farm maybe). All the other staff were already out on trail rides, so I agreed to do it. I jumped on our most "photogenic" (i.e. spooky; his ears are always pricked forward!) horse and posed for a few pictures. Don't know if they'll use any of them, but she said she'd let me know if they did. So maybe I'll be in a magazine, haha. Later in the day she came back again to talk to us and took a few notes. I'm curious to see what she writes.

Last night when I got home I was ambushed.

Josh and his bike were out in the driveway, with an extra helmet and set of gloves sitting on the trunk of his car. Panic set in as soon as I saw those. I asked him what he was doing. He said it was a beautiful night and he'd been out riding. I asked why Deanne was here (it was her helmet sitting on his car), and he said she wasn't, he'd just borrowed it. Then he said we were going out for a ride!

Please note that while I think motorcycles look cool and everything, I am *terrified* of being on one. It's not so much the bike itself that scares me, but rather all the other drivers on the road. I have the same fear with regular bicycles - I like riding them fine, but if anyone or anything gets near me (pedestrian, car, another bike, fire hydrant, whatever), I panic and usually crash. So I don't ride bikes. Why don't horses scare me? Because they can't go 80+ mph, and if something is on a collision course with them, they'll get out of the way!

Anyway. This wasn't the first time I'd been ambushed and tried to be forced onto the bike, but I guess last night after more than two years of fighting it I just cracked. I was in a good mood after hanging out with some friends at the stable, and I guess I finally decided to face the inevitable.

I think I only screamed two or three times.

I don't know how long we were out, 30-45 minutes maybe. I had my eyes shut for much of the time in the beginning so I wouldn't panic, but it turned out to not be so bad; it was a little like being on a rollercoaster what with the wind rushing by. I just tried not to think about how fast we were going and to not look at the ground. Most of the time I was fine, just when we took some sharper turns and he sped WAY up it freaked me out.

So while I got through it and it wasn't horrible, I'll stick to horses, thanks!

And because most of you don't seem to be on Facebook, otherwise you'd have already seen all of these!

( Some random pics of Jackson )

Tonight I won a radio contest!

While this is my mother's favorite hobby, I've only called in to them every once in a great while and have never gotten through, much less be the right number caller. But tonight I was out extra late (thanks to waiting for over half an hour to get gas at Costco), and on my way home was still listening to KRTY long after I would have normally no longer been driving (which is pretty much the only time I listen to the radio).

Anyway, earlier in the evening they said something like "be the 12th caller when you hear this song on the Hot 9 at 9." I thought there'd be no way I'd still be driving by 9pm, so I didn't pay much attention. Well it turned out I was still driving when it came on, so I thought "what the heck" and called in. I was shocked immediately because not only did the phone ring, someone also answered it! "Caller number 3" she said. I hung up and tried again, and was surprised once again to get through and be "caller number 6." At this point I'm figuring not much of anyone is listening (why else would I have been able to get through so easily twice in a row?), and I probably had a pretty good chance of winning. Third time's the charm, right? So I tried one more time, and this time it was "Hello caller number 12!" =D

So I won a CD I get to pick from whatever selection they have (I assume from the artists in the Hot 9 at 9, I didn't really pay attention when they were describing the prize earlier). Not a huge prize or anything, but hey, I'm pretty amazed I won anything at all!

Time for a new icon, hehe. =)

I'm now the proud owner of Dublin Your Change, aka Jackson! ^o^

Tonight I went up to pay for him and finalize everything. He'll be moving down to Garrods on Sunday. I'm so excited! I've been waiting 27 years for a horse of my own, and now I finally, FINALLY have one!! My life is complete. =D

Hmm, now I won't know what to wish for anymore when I blow out my birthday candles...every year it was always the same wish, to have a horse!

While I've decided I'm fed up with not having a horse, Josh has decided he can no longer stand living without a motorcycle. He sold the two he had about a year and a half ago because they weren't doing his back any good. He'd been looking at a more ergonomically-friendly blue Suzuki V-Strom sportbike, and went out with his friend last weekend to get a good deal from a bike dealer his friend knows. Instead he came home with ( this )

On Saturday I did one final round of horse shopping. Now I have a tough decision to make because there are FOUR really, really good contenders.

( Horses seen on 3/15 )

( So who are the finalists? )

I was absolutely NUTS and tried to see 9 horses in one day yesterday. I actually managed to see 8 (one had to cancel due to timing conflict); rode the first one at 7am and the last one a little before 10pm! =O And drove about 400 some miles between them all...left at 6am and got home at 12:30am. Remind me not to do that again. Thankfully my mom came along to drive me home because I would have been too tired for it.

( On to the evaluations... )

I was supposed to go see three more horses today in Petaluma (I even took the day off work for it), but when I checked my email this morning, two of the three had cancelled! Oh well, I guess it's a sign. I'm not driving all that way just to look at one horse. I have 7 more to see next Saturday, and then I'm giving up; I've found three good possibilities, so that's plenty.

But it's looking more like I won't find a horse I like as much as Chance. I looked at six more this weekend, plus a revisit to one I had already ridden (Mystery).

( Evaluations )

I am accepting donations to the "Give Christy a Chance!" Fund for my birthday (March 13th) ;)

Someone has stolen my yogurt from the fridge TWO days in a row now! This makes me MAD! >:( Bring your own damn food, theif!!

And at my other job, the keys I left for the girl who worked for me on Sunday are also missing! That one really ticks me off; the only people who should even know I leave them there are the ones who have subbed for me in the past. Now I wonder if someone else happened to stumble across them and take them. That would be bad.

Here's a photo the girl who's selling Chance sent me of him from the summer when he's not all fuzzy with his winter coat. Handsome boy! I hope I can work out a way to get him; he's priced a bit higher than I was looking for, but she said the owners would most likely be willing to work out a payment plan because they just want him to go to a good home.



I'll have to rename him if I get him. A friend of mine at the stable already has a horse named Chance, and he even looks a lot like him!

Looong weekend. I am so sore. I don't think I've ever ridden this many horses consecutively before; I rode 8 this weekend. Oh I've guided up to 5 trail rides in one day before, but that's just walking, no actual real riding involved!

( New Horses Seen )

At the moments my favorites so far are Chance and Mystery. Good contenders would be Silvy, Grace, and Caesar.

I'm going to use LJ to chronicle my horse search; it'll help remind me what I've already seen.

( Cut for those who aren't interested )

That's all of them so far. Out of this group Mystery and Grace are my top choices so far, but I really want to ride May and see how she is as well.

I'm lined up to see about 8 more this weekend, so I'll try to have more updates when I get back Sunday night.

That's right, I am now actively searching for a horse of my own to buy! ^o^

My requirements: at least 16 hands high, age 6-15, trained for hunter-jumper, dressage, and trails, no more than $5,000.

I've come across ads for about a dozen or so horses that meet my requirements, and I've made plans to see them. Today my friend Tracy and I looked at two horses, a 10 year old 16 hand paint named Confetti and a 15 year old 16.3 hand Thoroughbred named Eddie.

Confetti was pretty much right out. She was extremely pig-headed and marish, wouldn't be caught, hadn't been ridden in ages, danced around in circles and kicked out when we attempted saddling her, and even after a good 20 minutes of round penning would not show any signs of submission at all. She also had a peg leg and it showed when she cantered on the right lead. So yeah, we passed on her.

Then there was Eddie. He's an absolute doll, incredibly sweet and friendly, completely easy-going and not fazed by anything. He's trained in something like 2nd level dressage and jumping, and is a nice ride with huge gaits. He's a bit on the lazy side in that it takes some work to keep him moving at a good pace, but part of that may be that he hadn't been ridden in a while. He'd probably be a perfect first horse if it weren't for my main concern, that being his age: he's the absolute highest age I'm willing to look at, and I'm worried about how many good years I could get out of him and what old-age medical issues might pop up in the not-so-distant future.

I'll be taking a day trip to see another 4-6 horses next Saturday, so we shall see what else I can find out there. Wish me luck!

In other news, we bought a new bedroom set and mattress today! Levitz, a big furniture store here, is going out of business, so everything was 25% off. So we got a good deal and we've been needing this stuff for a while. The bedroom set is our wedding gift from my parents, and Josh's family helped contribute a lot to our bed fund as well. We pick up the bed tomorrow and the rest gets delivered on Saturday. Once we have everything set up, the spare room will finally become a guest bedroom! Yay!

( One photo of the bedroom set we're getting )

Also, I just realized I never posted pictures of the new dining room furniture we got a while back.

( Seen here )

What's your guilty pleasure? I indulged in mine today while I stayed in bed sick with a cold: Project Runway.

I find it difficult to rationalize why I like this show. I have no interest in clothing design, fashion, sewing, modeling, or anything else related to these.

So why do I find it so damn entertaining? The fact that the contestants are all crazy characters? That the challenges are so ridiculous? That the clothes they make would almost certainly never be worn in real life? (although I suppose you could say that about all fashion shows). How they complain when they have to design clothes that will fit "real people" and not models? That they get into near catfights when they have to work together and don't agree with each others' ideas? Then comes the fun at the end when I start shouting at the TV because the judges inevitably choose some of the lamest/ugliest clothes or worst designers to win. Or the fact that Heidi Klum is a judge and her outfits are always hideous.

There's all this and more, and when it comes together I find myself glued to the screen. And then I feel embarassed for having not only watched it, but having thoroughly enjoyed it! I guess I just like all the drama involved in finding out who will be IN and who will be OUT. Thanks a lot, Bravo! =P

So, go ahead and fess up! What's your guilty pleasure?

Stolen from suspi

( Because I'm stalling going in to work )

Just got back from finally seeing The Golden Compass. All I can say is it was FANTASTIC. This trilogy is bound to be my Star Wars or Lord of the Rings.

They managed to do a truly amazing job adapting it from the book; I was really, really impressed. This is probably the best book-to-movie I've ever seen. Pretty much everything important was in there, the things they changed and/or left out were insignificant, and I could easily understand why they changed the things they did. It did not piss me off the way book adaptations usually do, at all.

Like most movie adaptations of books, I was afraid they were going to totally butcher it and get all kinds of things wrong or leave out all kinds of important things. Plus there's everything I've heard about purists being mad that they removed too much of the Church-bashing to appease a wider audience, but I didn't see this at all. There are more than ample references to the "Magesterium" and how they tell people what to think and how they fear free will/thought and any authority other than their own. There's really nothing subtle about it, so I don't see where the book purists are getting the idea that it's been toned down too much. And as an agnostic I obviously don't care what religious folk think of it. I think that part of it they got just right.

What I'm not sure of is why they switched the order of two major scenes in the book, and I wish they had told the story of Iorek's banishment better. Those are about my only big complaints, though. That and the guy playing Lord Asriel needs to be meaner; he didn't strike fear into me the way he should. On the other hand, Ian McKellan did a better job than I expected as Iorek (he's so not at all how I imagined his voice), and Nicole Kidman is absolutely *perfect* as Mrs. Coulter. Lee Scoresby and Hester are totally perfect as well, exactly as I imagined them!

All in all this movied gets a huge THUMBS UP! from me. I can't wait to see the next one!

Anyone watching Shion no Ou? It's like Hikaru no Go with a girl instead of a boy, shougi instead of go, and a murder mystery instead of a ghost. It's awesome. XD

Yesterday was my dear husband's birthday. Happy 27th, ibanix!!! ^_^

Anyway, a long time ago he had mentioned how he would like to have a surprise birthday party sometime. I've never planned a surprise party before, but I thought I'd give it a try. How hard could it be, right?

He had already asked to go out for sushi for his birthday dinner. I thought "well that's easy, I'll just invite a bunch of other people to dinner and be at the restaurant to surprise him!" So I made a reservation with the sushi place next door to us we haven't been to yet and sent out a bunch of online invites a little over a week before his birthday. Unfortunately I don't really have any email addresses of his friends, so I had to see what I could hunt down off of lj/wedding guest list/past evites/his cell phone. I think I managed pretty well, except a number of his friends either don't have their email addresses anywhere or he doesn't have their phone numbers. So it was kind of a crapshoot as to whether or not they'd even see the invitation/I could call them up. Most of his friends were unable to come. =( But I did manage to round up 8 people (friends/family) to make it on Friday night.

But then! Two days before his birthday he emails me at work and says "hey let's go to this other sushi place I like instead"! So I have to rush email/call everyone and let them know that the location has changed!! Thankfully they were all able to get the message in time, so they knew to go to the new restaurant. But it doesn't end there.

On the day of his birthday, he emails me again to say he'll be working late, "I'll meet you at the restaurant right at 8." Okay...no problem, I had told everyone to get there by 7:45 in order to be early enough to surprise him. And since I didn't want to drive all the way home then all the way back up to the restaurant if we weren't going together, I just stayed at work late as well.

I left work a little after 7 so I could get the restaurant really early and have plenty of time to make sure things were taken care of before he was supposed to get there at 8. But then disaster strikes! As I'm driving over there, Josh calls me and says "hey traffic wasn't as bad as I thought, I'll be there in about 10 minutes"!!! What?! It was only 7:20!! And since I'm completely incapable of lying on my toes, so the only thing I could think of to say was "ummmm...okay..." We were both already on the road, and I couldn't think of any excuse that would delay him long enough for the guests to get there before he did.

I ended up getting to the restaurant a little after 7:30 and was shown to our table set for 10. I put my present down and went back to the entrance to wait for Josh, who got there about 5 minutes later. So it was only 7:40, and I tried to stall around by saying our reservation was for 8, but he could easily see that there were plenty of open tables and there shouldn't be any reason why we couldn't be seated. Finally I gave up and brought him over to our table. Of course that was when the light went off when he saw all the chairs "Oh!!" That was also when our guests started arriving and he was surprised and happy to see who all came. So it was a sort of success in that he was definitely surprised, just not in the way I had wanted! Oh well. =/

The food was delicious! And they had all kinds of awesome rolls to choose from. I had my favorite, a catepillar roll, plus their calamari roll and tamago roll. Josh had the crispy dragon roll, tuna roll, and then one of their specials, the Pirates of the Caribbean roll. This thing was HUGE, and by that time he couldn't finish it. The chef also made a sort of "birthday cake" out of stacked California rolls to share with everyone. It was all really yummy! All in all I'd have to say the dinner was a success. =)

( Pictures! )

ARGH. I haven't had a cold this bad since January, I think. My head is all stuffed up and hurts, I can't hear or taste anything well, my nose is running like a faucet, my throat hurts, I think I'm even running a bit of a fever, and no medicine I take seems to do anything. I've already missed two days at my regular job, had to stay home from my weekend job, and now I'm going to miss another day of work tomorrow. I can't get any sleep and I'm keeping Josh up at night with all my nose blowing and hacking. I'm going to see the doctor tomorrow, but I don't know if there's anything they can really do for a nasty head cold. Bah.

Stupid cold, just go away already!! I want to sleep!

I'm in need of a new fantasy novel to keep in my purse and read on my lunch breaks. I just finished up Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy (loved it), but now I don't know what to move on to. Some recommendations would be welcome. Here is a list of series/books I've loved and those I've hated, to give you an idea of my taste:


Books I Love
The Belgariad by David Eddings - still my favorite series of all time; I also really enjoyed his Mallorean, Elenium and Tamuli series. The new stuff he's written with his wife (The Dreamers? or whatever), on the other hand, is awful.

The Liveship Traders by Robin Hobb. Also enjoyed the follow up Tawny Man and prequel Farseer series, although not nearly as much as Liveship. Unfortunately her new one about the soldier son is really very lame so far.

Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling - loved by one and all with any sense. =)

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman - parallel universe hopping kids with talking animal companions? Woohoo!

The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice - well, the first four at least. Memnoch the Devil got WAY too religious and I quit after that.

Xanth by Piers Anthony - enjoyable up to a point. You can only take cloned books with lame puns for so long before you tire of them, but they were fun to read for a while.

Dinotopia - people and dinosaurs living and working together, yay!

[shameless plug] Sword of the Guardian by Merry Shannon - a most enjoyable Rose of Versailles-esque novel with a totally awesome crossdressing main character. Lots of good fun!

Books I Hate
Anything by G.R.R. Martin - I tried to read that first Fire and Ice book or whatever and nearly threw up. I threw the book away. Author writing violence toward animals = automatic SICK FREAK BASTARD I HOPE YOU ARE TORN TO PIECES SLOWLY BY RABID DOGS thoughts from me.

The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan - Mr. I-have-50-million-characters-and-plotlines-so-you-have-to-read-a-guidebook-just-to-keep-track-of-what's-going-on-and-by-the-way-everyone-in-my-books-are-complete-assholes-so-you're-sure-to-hate-reading-about-them-for-the-rest-of-your-lifetime-because-that's-how-long-the-series-will-take-to-complete Jordan can kiss my ass. The story was good for a while, but I couldn't get over the fact that I completely hated every single character, and I got sick of reading 700 pages of NOTHING HAPPENING so he could milk the series for all it was worth until he DIED without even finishing it. Way to go.

Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey - I read the first book and liked it until the dragons started traveling through time. Um, WTF?? Keep your sci fi out of my fantasy thanks. Magical creatures are supposed to be plenty magical without giving them superpowers!!

Recluce series by L.E. Modesitt - oh my GOD. How can you create a fantasy world with powerful wizards and make it more boring than watching paint dry?? UGH!

Small Gods by Terry Pratchett - all religion. Enough said.

Wicked by ...some dude. I wanted a book about the Wicked Witch of the West. Instead I got 300 pages of political and religious ranting/preaching. Not my idea of a good time.

Lions of Al-Rassan by ...some other dude. You took medieval Spain and wrote a fictional story set there. Wow. Aren't you creative. How this got listed as "fantasy" I'll never know. Also, way too much religion and historical crap for me. I want to read FANTASY books dammit.

Edited to add:
Glory Road by horrible yet somehow famous author whose name I'd prefer to not remember (as I'm doing since I can't remember it). Oh, Heinlein. Probably the WORST BOOK EVER WRITTEN. This guy has got to be the most sexist pig on the face of the planet, as is his main character. Apparently the most powerful person in the universe is a drop dead gorgeous woman, except it turns out her only purpose in life is to grovel at the feet of this deadbeat who for some reason is the only one who can complete some important task. And if she dares to disagree with him or voice her opinion on something or not love him, he'll just walk and not do the thing he agreed to do. Oh, and then he's given all the power and money and loving in the world, and he's unhappy about it because he's bored from not being in charge of everything! I nearly put this book through a paper shredder, I was so disgusted. I probably would have except it didn't belong to me, thank god.


So if that helps you get any sense at all about the type of books I like, please help me find some new ones to read! I would appreciate it! =)

I haven't been getting any comments emailed to me for a couple of weeks now. Is anyone else having this problem?

LOL

My whole friends page is one long list of posts titled EARTHQUAKE right now. Pretty funny.

PS - Josh is home now; he was at the grocery store when it happened. He says everything fell off the shelves. I wouldn't want to be working at Nob Hill tonight!

Well that was a pretty good earthquake just now. The report says it was a 5.6 about 15 miles north of here. That's the first time I've actually gotten up and gone underneath a table for an earthquake in many years. Heck, I think the last time I actually took cover from one was in Loma Prieta in 1989! The cats all totally freaked out, and one of them (most likely Serenity) looks to have peed all over the hallway and kitchen as she ran off. Poor kitty. I heard some crashing, but it turns out the only stuff that fell over were some of my horse decorations on top of my bookcase upstairs. Oh and some of my picture frames fell over as well. I can't get a hold of Josh; the phone just keeps giving me a busy signal (I assume from everyone else in the area trying to call people). Wonder if he was nearby.

Time to clean up...

Today after work I went with my friend Melissa up to visit her horse at the barn where he's getting trained. It's called Williams Ranch, and they specialize in training and breeding draft horses.

( Read more )

I didn't get a chance to mention this earlier due to the move and everything, but we did finally have to end good old Smoky's suffering on Saturday, September 22nd. He had cancer in the entire upper part of his mouth and could no longer eat; we kept him on pain meds for a while, but it was obvious he was in horrible pain even with them. He was born in May of 1994 and was 13 years old.

( More )

Because I do! ♥ ♥ ♥

Tonight he took apart my computer and installed a wireless card so I could use the internet again, even though it was already 11pm. So happy to be back online at home!

Tonight after work I went riding, which was lots of fun, then I went to my parents' to pick up the cats and bring them home to the new place. Rembrandt started exploring everything immediately; Serenity hid under the bed and Cricket hid in a corner. But a little while ago I heard a sort of crashing sound and got up to check it out (which is what I'm doing up at 6am on a Saturday!). Turns out it was just Serenity playing on the new cat tree. All three of them are now out and about checking everything out; I think they'll like it here as much as we do. =)

For future reference: to get grease out of carpet, apply rubbing alcohol with cotton balls until completely absorbed.

With any luck I won't need this information again. Once we move and have a real garage again, hopefully my husband won't be bringing any more greasy car parts indoors!

I had a lot of fun posting the pictures from my wedding, so now I'd like to post the pictures from the weddings of my friends who got married before me (which I never got around to putting up when I took them many months ago, ehehe ^^;)

( Cindra & Justin - March 5, 2005 )

( Jennie & Jani - May 13, 2006 + July 8, 2006 )

( Laura & Mark - January 13, 2007 )

So yes, my husband and I were married on July 7th, 2007 (yeah, I was one of those ^_^ ). I could not have asked for a more beautiful, wonderful, fantastic day. Everything was just amazing, and aside from a few very minor snags, pretty much perfect! I actually was very relaxed and at ease for most of the day; the only time I really got nervous was right before I walked down the aisle.

( The Good, The Not As Good, and The Advice )

( And now what you're really here for, pictures! )

Well I think that's about enough of that. Check out our Picasa album for pictures from our honeymoon cruise to Alaska! =)

I've now uploaded my pictures from our honeymoon in Alaska as well. Check them out here!

The main gallery page where you can see all the pictures on our Picasa account is:
http://picasaweb.google.com/thomasweddingpix

And the links to other people's galleries are here:
http://christyandjoshua.weddingannouncer.com/ctext-650822.html


In other news, we have an official move-in date for the townhouse we're moving to, September 21st. So the last two weekends of September will be spent moving and clearing out/cleaning up our current apartment. Volunteers welcome! =)

We have our wedding photos back from the photographer. You can check them out here.

My next task is to upload the photos I took on our honeymoon...Josh has his up right now, but they're mostly of me! =P I took more of the scenery and whatnot.

Enjoy!

Today I went to have my foot x-rayed and re-examined to see how it's doing. I fractured it on May 31st, so it's been about 10 weeks since then. I am happy to report that the x-rays shows that it is completely healed and I no longer have to wear my brace! I can finally wear normal shoes again instead of flip flops all the time! ^_^

Josh took me out for my first manual transmission driving lesson tonight. It didn't turn out to be as scary or difficult as I was expecting. We went to the junior college parking lot where I had learned to drive the first time and just went around in circles while I tried to get a feel for shifting. We stayed for about an hour until the campus police came by and shooed us away. But by then Josh felt I was doing well enough to drive us home, which included going on the freeway! =O I was pretty nervous, but we made it home in one piece. I need to practice, practice, practice, but at least now I'll be able to move his car if I need to!

Hey I just noticed today is our one month anniversary. ^_^ I can't believe it's already been a month since the wedding!

So in the midst of all the wedding craziness, I've neglected to mention a couple of new things we have around here...

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Quick note: if you were at the wedding, please email your pictures to thomasweddingpix@gmail.com Thank you!

The long and short of it is it was the best day ever! There were only a couple of minor snags that were quickly fixed and/or easily ignored, and everything else went beautifully. It was truly wonderful and I couldn't have asked for a better wedding. =) Everyone did a great job; I really am lucky to have such amazing family and friends.

So without further ado, here are a few of the pictures I got with my camera. Many more to follow in the near future!

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