First let me say, the Mt. Holly Chili Cook-Off runs deep in our circle of friends. Our senior year of high school, the Velvet Elvis’s (Rob, Skip, Ian, & Dags) decided to whip together a chili and enter the competition. They even sang! While they didn’t win overall, they did walk away with the blue ribbon for Best Tasting. We were SO proud. Then college happened and the chili trail grew cold.
Last year, Skip and Rob decided to enter again and try to reclaim their title. Sadly, we walked away empty handed. It was then that they decided to come back with gusto!!
Rob, Skip, Erin, Robby H., Laurel, Karen, and me all got together last Friday and made some pretty fine chili. It was quite the team effort! Friday night the boys chopped, sauteed, and simmered. The girls pretty much just watched and gabbed. But we were there for moral support! The girls were also in charge of the “presentation” part of the points. I came up with the title “Drunken Cactus Chili” and the boys came up with —> R2D1′s Drunken Cactus Chili. (R2D1 = 2 Rob’s & 1 Derek, aka Skip.) In it went diced nopales (a tribute to our trip to Mexico), steak, ground beef, bacon, tequila and SO much more!!
They won BEST TASTING!!!!! YAY!!!!
I’ll try to upload some pictures this weekend. We also reinvented the Banana Poppers/Velvet Poppers/Nana-Penos. YUM!
Well, we’re back into the full swing of things. I started my spring grad classes last night. I’m taking 2; Analytical Methods & Political Economy and Public Administration. Tonight is Pol. Econ. & Public Admin. I hope I can handle class Tues AND Wednesday nights every week, plus homework. I’m optimistic but it’s still early in the semester. We are also working to get the apartment in order. Seasonal decorations have been moved to SJ for long-term storage (thanks Mom & Dad!) and we’re working on re-prioritizing things. We got some new shelves from Bed Bath & Beyond, making room for our new goodies. It’s looking good!!!
Well folks, we’re back to real life in Newark. Jumped right into the work week with 2 feet. It’s been a busy week of catching up and getting settled. We’re culling some old stuff to work in our new goodies. Thank you notes are on the agenda every evening, so we’re hoping to get those out as soon as possible.
Up next: Our Ceremony video. Ken Stillman, our videographer, finished editing our ceremony video while we were on our honeymoon. It’s AMAZING!! I cried. I loved our ceremony and how Ken & his team captured it; esp. the end. I’ll post the link soon.
Then: Our Honeymoon videos. I know I’ve been promising them for a week (exactly) but we’re still uploading. I’ve also got some pictures I’ll post as a slide show. maybe. there’s a lot of pictures.
We’ve seen some spectacular pictures from family and friends. But – THIS JUST IN – the professional’s have posted some teaser pics on their site. Check it out -
It’s Monday, January 7, 2008 and we are at Luna Blue in Playa del Carmen. We made it to beach #2 today. We’re keeping a fun video diary but it’s a giant pain to load b/c it’s so slow. We are contemplating on how to present it to our adoring public. The options are:
A) Post the videos directly onto this blog, new post for each day we were here, several videos per post, days would go backwards from the top (so, newest on top) but the videos would be chronological order from the beginning of each post. (Does that even make sense??)
B) Post the videos directly onto this blog, one GIANT post with all the videos going down in chronological order. = Uber long
C) Post the links to the videos directly onto this blog, one long post with all the links going down in chronological order.
Each option has it’s pros and cons… Keep tuning in to see what happens!
(It’s really not that exciting but the videos are kind of fun. You’ll probably want to see them.)
We made it to Playa del Carmen and are having a blast!! We’re keeping a video diary as we go and planning on posting as much as possible. The videos go in chronological order.
It has literally been weeks since my last update and a lot has happened. After the 14th, we continued head first with the last minute wedding details. Katie’s dress was finished, the copper trees got done, out-of-town bags were assembled, and about 8,000,000 other things. Looking back, I am stunned we got it all done (granted Megan, Erin, Gurp were up until about 1am the night before the wedding making centerpiece raffle tickets) (and Dad was up ’til then assembling the seating chart)(and Mom, the Andre’s, Diggie and I were up finishing God knows what-else). But every production I’ve ever been involved with has at least one day of scramble. However, we never had to pull an all-nighter, which I consider a huge success.
Our wedding day was more beautiful than I could ever have dreamed. The weather was perfect (thank you to the angels watching out for pulling those strings). The colors just all came together. We’d never seen the bridesmaids dresses next to the tuxes with the different ties with all the flowers. Everything looked great holding up a swatch but the final product took my breath away.
First and foremost, we would like to thank our parents. Without them, this day would not have been possible. They are our foundation and went to whatever lengths to make our dreams a reality. What it turned out to be was far and away beyond our wildest expectations. Thank you!!
Thank you also to all our friends, family and bridal party! Spending the day with so many special people all in one room was spectacular. Thank you for helping us get to this point! You were always there to help put together invitations or twist wire or any number of other countless thoughtful things. You made this journey fun and memorable. Thank you for sharing our wedding day with us! Your presence made us feel so incredibly special.
Pictures are filtering in and they look amazing! I just saw that Aunt Carole put some up on our shutterfly account. Uncle Rocky, Mr. Bill & Uncle Keith also sent over their pictures. Some are on Facebook, some we’ll post to the shutterfly account. If you have pictures, we would LOVE to see them. Please feel free to mail us a CD of all your files, so we can have the high res images to print from. Our mailing address is on the back of our wedding day programs. Or just email me.
