Wedding Pictures

Thanks, Jesse!

As of Friday, he's finished putting up pictures from every part of the wedding day.
http://picasaweb.google.com/jmcg.wedding

The three smaller albums are selected shots from the official photographer's collection. The older, larger album contains pictures taken by family and friends.

A Scavenger Hunt

From Darren & Sara

* A Shoe
From The Blue Ridge Thunder Cloggers Updates

* A Tooth
From Through the Gates

Well, this is the last of any wise thoughts (and wise-cracks). Tomorrow morning at 7AM, my wise-teeth are being extracted. They made a not-so-wise decision to be mezzio-angular impacted. Have a mezzio-angular impaction. Impacted mezzio-angularly. Something like that. I guess this just goes to show I don't have much wisdom to lose.

* An Odd Name
From A Librarian in VA
My name is so odd, Google can't find it in the phrase "Charlessa needs"

OK, people are asking Google what they need:Olivia Heidi Angel Kelly Will and Christian Jesse DMWhen I ask, Google says, "No standard web pages containing all your search terms were found."

* A Car (fancier the better)
From Ireland and Back Again

15) I hope we didn't alarm the owner if he saw us all posing with
his car. SWEET!!!

OK, So I hadn't visited this particular special event blog within the last two weeks, but had visited his main blog - Karate and Whatnot from PA.

* A Frightful Dilemma
From Wilhoite Prayer Blog

Especially hard right now is the unknown in my near future. I have an appointment with Barnes in St. Louis next Friday at 1:30 p.m. with their transplant team. My oncologist went from saying one day that he's pretty sure they will just tell me to go home and live my life to "you're 25, and it would be a cure, you might as well." I also have no idea what is in my future if I don't have a transplant and just have follow-up care. No one has told me if I'll have consolidation chemo treatments. I think overall they are just not quite sure what to do with me yet. I'm 25 and have AML. People my age don't get AML to begin with. I have yet to hear of anyone who is 100% clear after two chemo treatments. That just doesn't happen. My doctors have never come out and said I'm a miracle, but when I have commented on the number of people praying for me they have said, "Well, obviously prayer works." So I am unusual, I am a sign of God's hand -- the result of your prayers. I am learning once again to just trust my Savior.

This is from Brandon Wilhoite (PHC Alum) and his wife Amy who had leukemia. Things are going well - transplant seems to be doing REALLY well! PTL!

* A Discussion of Childbirth
From The Main Event

~I’ve suddenly lost my ankles! I can’t find them anywhere; my mom says I’ll find them again soon. Thankfully, I only have a little over 3 weeks left. The dr’s office made me 2 more appointments, and said they should be my last. It feels scary and exciting, all at the same time! Dr said baby’s head is down, but she hasn’t dropped yet. :( Jumping jacks?
~I think we are ready..got the room ready, my bags are packed, and I’m in a cleaning mood. Gotta get the house in order. :)
~Speaking of feet, I managed to get one coat of polish on my toes yesterday. Gonna try to get the second coat today. I have to wait until the baby is sideways, or else I can’t reach my feet.

* A Theological Discussion/Debate
From Transformational Conversation

Take your pick!

* A Funny Line, Joke, or Short Post
From My Bulletin Board Called Life!

After a visit with the head of the primary department a bit before Christmas, Petey walks through the door with a candy cane and hands it to the teacher.

"Why, thank you, Petey*. But, where did you get this?"

"Mrs. Sussex* had them out in her room for free," he responded.

"Are you ssshhhhure it was free?" the teacher questioned, suspicious.

"Yeah," Petey said confused, but confident. "It was in a box that said 'sugar free candy canes'..."

* A Train (the engine and cars kind)
From Karate and Whatnot from VA
(I had to decide whether to submit this one for "train" or for "green.")

Jeremiah has been getting more and more elaborate in his imagination and play. Where he used to be perfectly satisfied with pushing the trains and cars around, he now has large scenarios that get played out! It's is so funny to hear him saying 'Help, help" for one of his trains and then switch over to another train saying 'Here I come! Choo, choo, choo." I haven't been able to decypher which trains are the good-guy trains, which are the bad-guy trains, and which are the ones in need of help. Whenever I start playing, he spends more time correcting me than playing:

Don't you know that the J train doesn't go over there?!? Duh dad! And you moved the green train out of position! No, no! That train can't go any further than here!

* A Hairbrush
From the thoughts and adventures of ben, kyrie, and their mom

Seven Travel Essentials To Take in Your Carry-on (pre-kids):
1) water bottle
2) moisturizer
3) toothbrush/paste
4) book or magazine
5) hairbrush
6) lip balm
7) ear plugs or ear phones so you don't have to hear the crying children

Seven Travel Essentials To Take in Your Carry-On (post-kids):
1) baby wipes
2) diapers
3) sippy cup
4) baby food
5) blanket
6) toy or book (or more than one of each)
7) Baby Tylenol

* An appeal for money
From Through The Gates

We just finished up a Gift Entry work party.
....
Check it out - anybody want a water buffalo?

* A Hobby
From Karate and Whatnot from VA

Clogging tip # 172
Don't practice flatfooting in the shower while shaving with your eyes closed.

* Green
From One Song, One Glass, One Man

Travis and Katie threw a winter wedding that could only be pulled off in Florida. After the ceremony, they smartly shipped the families and friends (including my wife) onto the swampy waters of Tallahassee in a riverboat to look for alligators. (Alligators are human-sized hairless lizards that lie on banks and think about their greenness. I don't have a high opinion of them, personally.) We got all the party pictures taken while they were gone. I ate half the stuffed mushrooms and Micah and David polished off the shrimp.

Our Christmas Tree

BEFORE

AFTER

Invitations

This confession may not have a good effect on my macho reputation, but as the big date gets closer, I'm getting sappier. All the stuff I knew I would never do, I'm doing. I've got a picture of me and Charlessa for my computer background, and the next time Pat walks up and says "Wow, pretty girl, but who's that big ape holding her," he's going to get a fat lip! Actually, it just makes me grin like an idiot. I'm doodling hearts and C's on my notebook during meetings. I'm re-reading old emails from her. I'm doing that whole staring-into-her-eyes stuff. And of course lots of daydreaming.

The wedding had better hurry up or I'll be a complete mess! 64 more days!

As it is, I feel really lucky to have Charlessa. She's doing all the hard work for the wedding while I get to do cool stuff like plan the honeymoon and find housing, and Charlessa even did plenty for those. If any of you married women out there have stories about how your husbands were wonderful and so helpful with the wedding, please keep them to yourselves - I don't want to feel bad. :^D

The big thing that made me realize all this - invitations! I was going to be really nice and helpful and go address and fill out invitations last night.

Einstein, Bohr, and Planck together couldn't have figured out all those envelopes and inserts!

This gets folded like that; that only has the guest name on it; this has the guest name and address; make sure to follow proper standards for writing names and addresses; little (%$&*#!) piece of gauzy paper goes inside that (I'm skipping that!); and have an ID system for all the response cards so that if they leave off their name, you still know who it's from.

Steven Hawking couldn't develop a more complicated Superstring theory!

And as I'm fumbling around with them, Charlessa seems to know which piece goes where almost without looking. The only salve to my ego - God must have put a special set of "Wedding Invitation" genes into women and left them out of guys.

Here's my background picture. Can we all say WOW!

A big thanks to Chris for taking some pictures of us on Saturday!

From the "1,000 Places to See Before You Die Calendar"

The Las Vegas Strip
Where Megawatt Crass Marries Nouveau Class
Nevada, U.S.A.

The 3 1/2 mile stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard known as the Strip is the world capital of glitter, festooned with pleasure palaces, quick-hitch wedding chapels, and cheap, all-you-can-eat prime rib buffets--and, of course, it's alive with gambling, anytime, any kind, and everywhere. This is where Bugsy Siegel laid down the law and the Rat Pack laid down the style; where Howard Hughes hid out and where Elvis made his last stand; but, maybe sadly, maybe not, all that is changing. In an attempt to promote itself as a cultural and haute dining destination, Vegas is hell-bent on attaining bourgeois respectability, trading in its seedy Sin City image in favor of a luxury future that's more about indulgence than naughtiness. That said, visitors will still find their fill of female impersonators and splashy dinner shows galore.

Tuesday, August 29, I responded to a radio ad on a whim. Now we are booked for a stay in Las Vegas immediately after the new year.

Together times

It's been a bit of a running gag that as soon as we got engaged Charlessa left the country for Greece and I flew a couple thousand miles even further away to Arizona. And then we've got my karate camp coming up and Charlessa has her library conference that's going to take a week. Just when were we going to spend time together now that we're engaged?

Well, we've managed to squeeze in a few hours here and there. Just not enough of them! But in spite of the tens of thousands of miles that have pushed between us recently, we're still slowly making progress on wedding plans.

We're going to look at a church on Wednesday, we've got our pastor, we're starting in on collecting the contact info for the invitations, Charlessa has gotten some cool tools to help with the wedding planning, and of course, we've got books about planning weddings! (What else are a couple of bookworms, one of whom is a librarian, going to do?!)

But until I get back from karate camp and Charlessa gets back from her conference, things probably won't have much progress. Anybody got any good wedding tips - things to avoid, things to do?

Here's remembering times together!

Whose cake?

I didn't notice the coincidence of initials until this week. Honest. :)