Month Eight of Marriage: Wild Fires

Thank you to everyone who has called or contacted us to check on how we are doing.
We are fine and never in any real danger from the fire in Malibu.

If you look at this map you can see where the fire was. And our apartment South of Topanga Canyon about a mile.

My usual commute has been effected since I usually take Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu Canyon and both were closed on Monday and Tuesday. This morning PCH was open but Malibu Canyon was not so I had to take another route. I did see some of the burn areas in Malibu on my way to work this morning.

Tim and I are also both suffering from sinus problems due to the smoke and other junk in the air due to the many fires.

Everyone we know in LA is also fine and no worse for the wear aside from similar sinus and other respiratory issues.

The city of Malibu states that the fire is in 75% contained which is really good and likely it is higher at this point.

Thank you to everyone for your love and concern about Tim and I.

Month Eight of Marriage: The very unpumpkin Pumpkin Festival and uWink

Tim and I both love pumpkin flavored items. Two weeks ago I even made pumpkin bread (It was good!)

So each day on my drive to work the past few weeks I have seen a banner for The Calabasas Pumpkin Festival. And I thought, "I like pumpkins." So Tim and I decided to go after I did some work in the morning at my office.

Tim and I invited along our friends Sophia and Steve to check it out with us today. The first minor problem for Tim and I was it was not exactly pumpkin weather to us former mid-westerns



And there was a definite LACK of pumpkin items. It was more just a plan old festival. We did have fun seeing Sophia and Steve. And I did get pumpkin poppers which were basically deep fried pumpkin doughnuts. Still tasty.

Last weekend we went to uWink uWink with some friends which is the modern version of an automat. It was fun if not a little expensive. It was fun to attempt at win lose or draw but my drawing skills were not quite up to par. It was amusing though.

Month Seven of Marriage: Festivals

So this weekend is apparently the Festival Weekend here in LA.

T and I got invited to an Oktoberfest in Orange County too but it was Friday night and we were feeling rather sluggish after work.

T and I got up this morning and didn't have much going on so I suggested we go check out Abbot Kinney which is this area in Venice with cute little shops and eateries, which T had never been to before.

When we got there we realized we had stumbled onto another festival. Which was okay with us.

We wondered around looking at the vendors and the shops. We really liked a lot of the furniture places and are thinking that Abbot Kinney may be the perfect place to finish off our apartment decorating.

We finished our jaunt at Jin Patisserie with some high tea. Which was the perfect amount of food and took us back to the high tea service at the hotel we stayed at for our honeymoon.

Life seems to be mellowing out a bit as we head into the Fall months.
Which is how we like it.

Also tomorrow marks the one year mark in our apartment in Pacific Palisades. It has been a good year but I still think of our place as "the new place." I guess at the year mark, it stops being "new."

September Already?

Well, August wooshed by us.

We haven't been up to much besides work unfortunetely .

Last weekend we traveled out to the City of Industry to watch Derby Dolls Roller Derby.

Our friend Trish aka Sniperella made it into the big league team the Sirens. And they kicked butt last weekend. :) We convinced some of our other friends to come as well. And hooked others on the roller derby.

Tim put up pictures from our honeymoon in Hawaii up online. Check them out!

As for Labor Day weekend. We have be playing it low key.
The rest of the weekend will likely be more of the save.

Six Months of Marriage: Wedding Photographs

Married Smoochin'
Originally uploaded by cebread

We have had our wedding photographs for a long time but we have had no time to spend putting them on the 'net.

Until now

Now you can see what an awesome job our photographer, Danielle did.

Vegas, Baby, Vegas!!

When people in LA want to get away from it all they pile in the car (or sometimes fly) to a place which is even crazier than LA...Las Vegas.

I have been wanting to visit Vegas forever, because it is something everyone in LA has done but it was never the right time. Until now...

I happened to see that The MGM grand had great rates. And it didn't take much (read: any) convincing to get Tim to agree to go for the weekend.

After work Tim and I drove to Vegas, arriving at the early hour of 11:30 p.m. The party was just starting. We peeked into The Tropicana, New York New York and Monte Carlo before we headed back to the MGM for the night.

After sleeping in the next morning we headed to Paris for a breakfast buffet. My jaw dropped at how much food there was. And Tim told me it wasn't the best he had seen.

We then hit Bellagio which was beautiful inside. And is on my list of hotels to try in Vegas. And then we hit the Forum Shops at Caesars which were amazing. We got to see one of the only Vosges Chocolate boutique stores and try Mo's Bacon Bar and Naga Ice cream.

We then treked back to the MGM in the unbearable 107 degree heat. Where we promptly jacked up the a/c in our room and conked out for a while.

As our trip was very spur of the moment we couldn't really get decent reservations at any of the fancy resturants we would have liked to try i.e. we would have had to eat dinner at 10:30 at night. So, we had some in room dining before heading down to the MGM floor to try our luck some more. Luck was on our side apparently. I actully won some of my money back (I still came out behind but less then I would have been) and Tim came out WAY ahead due to some awesome luck at roulette.

And this morning we shoved off around 11am. And are now safely back in LA and recharged for the week (though thankfully it is a short week. :)

Viva Las Vegas!

Angel Party

Tim and I are big fans of public radio. And the local public radio station, KCRW has captured our ears in the last few years.

Tim took it a step further and pledged money to the station , which comes with all kinds of benefits, including attending a party that we went to tonight.

It was at the Hammer Museum, which is just a lovely location in Westwood. And we got to see the current art work of upcoming and coming LA artists.

We got to partake in tasty food and beverage and do lots of people watching.

And best of all,we got to meet and shake hands with our favorite personality on KCRW Warren Olney. I suddenly became very very shy when Tim spotted him but Tim dragged me over and I smiled liked an idiot while Tim told him how much we enjoyed his shows.

In the end, a good time was had by all, including I hope, Warren Olney.

A Quiet Weekend

We finally arrived at a quiet weekend. No major plans.

Yesterday we went to Home Depot for new floor lamps and plants for the patio. We got lamps and two Zebra plants. We also got a Venus Fly Trap because we are geeks.

We did other adult things like cleaning,paying bills and doing laundry.

Today, we went down to the beach and flew a kite. And then went to Starbucks for a replacement espresso machine to replace ours that no longer functioned properly. Tim has made the first latte with it. And I give it an A+.

Later we are going to dinner with our friends, Steve and Sophia.

The next big plans...Tim goes to see The Police next weekend with his friend, Brad. And likely geeking out on drumming stuff.

In July we will go see our friend Trish aka Sniperella fight it out at the Roller Derby.

28 Part II

So June 6 rolls around and it was my turn to turn 28.

The weekend prior there was a party with our friends down in Orange County because a few of us were having birthdays around that time.

And then on my birthday I did the exciting going to work and working all day thing (hey! its what adults do on their birthdays sadly). But I came home and Tim brought me Chinese food and cupcakes. And the gift of laughter with lots of Garrison Keillor media (two CDs and a book) and let me watch whatever I wanted on TV.

Tomorrow, Tim is also taking me for a special brunch.

We have had a lot of birthday dinners and gatherings as of late. We even went to a birthday party tonight for our friend, Mike. I think we are winding down and soon we will be able to get together with our friends for other reasons and not just because we are all getting old.

Next big thing...nothing amazingly enough. I am sure that will change soon. Its hard to keep us down for long.

Becoming Mrs.Tim

After Tim and I got engaged a lot of people asked if I would be changing my name. I joked that I was planning on taking Tim's first name instead of his last name so we would be The Tims.

I have finally gotten on the ball to changing my name. I have gotten the social security stuff underway. And yesterday I went to the Thousand Oaks DMV which is close to my office and applied for a new license. Which I should have with a new picture in 2-4 weeks. Thousand Oaks DMV is the fastest DMV in the known world. From the time I got out of my car to the time I got back in only a mere 10 minutes lapsed. I will totally be going to that DMV to get my name changed on the title of my car too.

The next big hurtle is changing my name with The California State Bar. Unlike everywhere else where you can change your name simply by showing your marriage license, the state bar requires 2 forms of ID with your old name and 2 forms of id with your new name. I will have to wait for my new license to arrive before I can do that. Until then I am Ms. Tim in private and Ms. Cecilie at work.

28..

Last night we celebrated my 28th birthday at a few LA spots.

First on the agenda was Some Assembly Required, an exhibition on prefab housing. It was pretty cool, although the exhibit was pretty short. (Seemed like there wasn't much more room in the gallery than our apartment). It also seems like to have a prefab house, you need a slightly sloping hill to build on.
Nevertheless, it was a lot of fun very interesting.

At this point we had several hours to kill so we started by grabbing coffee and crummy cookies at Urth Caffe (on Melrose).. which is about 5 times as busy as our Santa Monica location, but the coffee's still as good as you'd expect.

We started getting the hairy eyeball from some of the patrons and waitstaff after a while so we trekked back into the old neighborhood and hit Amoeba Music and Groundwork. I didn't pick up anything, but Jared and John picked up stuff (Jared picked up a couple movies, John mined the vinyl and got a collection of Bruce Willis's smash hits. Or something.

At this point, it was off to the dinner location: Cobras and Matadors (sorry, no direct link... they don't have a website apparently). In attendance were Mike & Jessica, Steve & Sophia, Remco, Paul, Jared, John, Aaron, with a cameo by LaDonna & Robyn. Food was as good as ever, and in great abundance. But mostly, the conversation ruled the night. And the books. Did you know microwave ovens cause cataracts? Well, according to the medical information on the bookshelf behind us, they do.

Not much else to report - it was a relaxing birthday and fun to spend it with close friends. Next week I fly to St. Louis for memorial day and to ship my drums out to LA.

And in 16 days... it's another birthday!

Month Three of Marriage: Coachella

Tim and I have been married a little over three months now.
Marriage is great!
Except we have both been super busy! I guess we were silly to think our lives would calm down after the wedding. Since when have either of our lives ever been calm?

We have gotten *most* of our thank yous out in the mail. A few left to do, but we ran out of thank you note cards. We just have too many genrous and wonderful friends and family to thank. Soon, soon.

This weekend we are going to Coachella . We are only going for Day 3 because we are both fans of Rage Against the Machine and since they have not played together in 6 years we really couldn't pass up the oppurtunity. Even if it is going to be 100 degrees in Indio.

We will also be seeing bands like CSS and Damien Rice.

It should be a lot of fun.

Right now we are chilling out in our motel room in Palm Springs after getting some eats and coffee at koffi. And picking up the ever esstential sun block.

Next big thing on our agenda: Tim's birthday!!

Mystery Gifter

We received LOTS of awesome gifts for our wedding. All of which we plan to write thank you notes for (because our Mamas raised us right!) but we have one problem...

We have one gift that has no gifter attached to it.
We received the fabulous Kone
from someone who attended the wedding, but the shuffle, a card was either lost or detached from the gift. And we don't know who gave it to us. I am going to try and call Target this weekend and see if they can give me any clues to who gave it to us (we do have a gift receipt) but if you are the mystery gifter, please send Tim or me an email. We have already used it so much (our apartment gathers much dust) and would love to properly thank you for it.

In case, the wondrous kone is from someone who doesn't want to come forward, just know whoever you are, we really appreciate it!

UPDATE: Mystery solved! Our friends (and engaged to be wed) friends Greg and Angela got us the Kone however, the card must have gotten lost.

ハワイ

Currently sitting in scenic-but-otherwise-awful HNL: the first-world airport with second-rate facilities and third-world policies and procedures.

But HNL is covered already. Honolulu was amazing, very relaxing, and very little was done: which is exactly what the plan was.

We swam in the ocean for a while, got a ton of sun.. trekked from our place on Waikiki to a bakery on Kapahulu to get some malasadas, a local treat (by way of Portugal), we were told. Good, but not worth the two and a half miles walking.

We also had a ton of great food and drink, watched a bunch of bad TV (Top Model season 7 nearly in its entirety; a bunch of Juvies and The Agency, and the perennially unwatchable My Super Sweet 16...), explored some of the local scenery.

Now, my quick sum of the area for those of you who read the blog:
Honolulu is..

• A bizarre fusion of East and West. Our hotel had literally every sign in Japanese and English (except for the signs at the breakfast buffet... oops!), and it seemed like every other sign had a ton of katakana.


• A further collision of Hollywood, Vegas, and Rodeo Drive. Kalakua Ave. has about 40 Coach, Cartier, Le Sportsac, etc. stores in five blocks... and they're right next to the ubiquitous ABC market (tourist-trap meets 7-11 with a hawaiian flair) and near the 18-shirts-for-$10 stores.


• Really relaxing


• Apparently facing a dire crisis of pedestrians getting hit in intersections. I can't speak to this one, as our slice of waikiki had ongoing construction on the road. (To which I lost $3 on cab fare as we sat and waited for the construction crew to clear out of the road).


• A surprising mullet-per-capita density.


• Ultimately deemed "civilized" in spite of the blight that is HNL -- multiple Jamba Juices were spotted, in their customary next-to-Starbucks location.

Not much else to say at this point... a thrilling flight over the pacific ahead of us and then a return to the real world. Fortunately, HNL has brought out the less-than-polite Angeleno in myself and Cecilie.

Maholla!

Honeymoon Hangover

Tim and I are in the Honolulu International Airport waiting to head back to LA. Everyone who came out to LA for the wedding can complain all they want about LAX, you don't know annoyance until you have to pass through HNL. Combine together lots of tourists who don't know what they are doing with airport employees that don't know what they are doing and you have HNL.

But we had an awesome time in Waikiki! Our time was spent relaxing, swimming, eating good food and sleeping. And on occasion catching up on bad reality television. Yes, we could have seen things and done exciting things but after a year of being on the go we both needed time not be on the go. It was perfect!

A little tired and a little sunburned, we head back to the real world.

Mahalo!

And they lived happily ever after...

We're married!


The wedding was perfect (I'm a little biased of course). There were a few minor snags but nothing that wasn't fixable.

We had perfect weather in Los Angeles, which is not always a given in February. It was a clear and sunny day all day, in the 80s and by 4:30p it had cooled a little and everyone was comfortable even in suit jackets (or so they said.) And everything was beautiful from the flowers to the food.

Tim and I both had lots of fun and loved seeing friends and family, some of whom we had not seen in a long time.

Afterward, we headed to Hotel Angeleno to unwind form what was a very busy day. We even got room service this morning for added luxery.

Now we just have to prepare to leave on Wednesday for Hawaii.

Thanks so much to everyone for your love and support!

More pictures after the honeymoon...

48 hours +16 hours

So we are in the home stretch.

Tim is currently fine tuning the wedding play list.
I have called or emailed the vendors to ensure everything is kosher with that stuff.

We have a few minor things to handle. Other then that we are ready to go.

If we could, I think Tim and I would do it today. (But I think everyone who is getting in on Saturday would be upset!)

FYI: any one staying at the Hilton in Calabasas, the shuttle will be running between 4 and 4:30 (just two runs) up to the Malibou Lake and then it will have two runs back to the hotel between 9:30 and 10p. I am trying to get in contact with the Van service (its called Lincoln Limos) to see if they will put a sign in the van window that says Read-Gerlach or something. But if not its probably going to be the only 15 person passanger van pulling up to the hotel around that time. Spread the word!

For those of you who can't be here on Saturday, I suggest buying yourself a cupcake and eating it to celebrate.

For those of you who will be, see you Saturday, I'll be the one in the ivory dress. ;)

Licenses!

Monday morning, we shuffled off to the Van Nuys Courthouse/Government Center. It wasn't because I had an apperance at court either, it was to get our license to get married.

And the wait was amazingly short! We had to raise our right hands and promise everything we said on our application was true. And then we were told we had to get married by April! (Because the license is only good for 90 days) Though there was the brief thought that we could just get married right then, we realized we both had to get to work so there wasn't really time.

Then today, I went to the Calabasas Fire Department to get a fire permit for candles. She felt a wee bit silly getting a fire permit for tea lights, but rules are rules right?

So now we are licensed and permitted, and only 18 days left until the big day!

Take us the the wedding, driver!

On top of all we have gotten done lately we hired another person for the wedding. A driver for our guests!

We thought especially for our many out of town guests a shuttle to and from the wedding would be very useful and also put our minds at ease if someone "celebrated" a little too much.

I know a limo would be nice but not very practical as far as number of people who could fit in it. So instead we ordered a 15 person van. Which I think should be enough since we have about 75 guests total.

It will make two trips to and from the hotel before the ceremony and two trips toward the end of the reception. (Times for pick up and drop off TBA).

Now we just have to figure out for real, how Tim and I are going to get to our hotel that night and we'll be set.

35 days until the BIG day!

We haven't posted in a while because the holidays (and my new job) kept us rather busy!

Last weekend we did our final walk through at our venue. It was the first time Tim and I had been there since Spring 2006 when we first booked it. It was just as awesome as we remembered it. And the pinning down all the details made Tim and I much calmer about the next month. Then we ate lunch at Brent's. Mmmm!

Yesterday, we met with Reverend Brock and again were pleased with our choice. He is an extremely nice person and has so many great stories about weddings he has performed both touching and hilarious. We probably could have sat and talked to him for hours. We were a little disappointed that he said he doesn't usually stay for the reception, we both would have liked to talk to him more but we did suggest a great place in the area as he said he usually takes his wife out to dinner after weddings he performs.

And despite thinking we would be crazed the last month before the wedding we both feel calm and actually don't have that much left to do. *knock on wood*

We are looking forward to it being February 17 so much now since most of the heavy lifting is complete.