Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays to you! My friend, Karen, sent this to me and I am not sure how long I was giggling. So, I had to make one for us! See video below...

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1404109256

Enjoy!

Jeff and I will be heading back to my parents in Kansas City for a couple days over Christmas to spend time with my family.

Wishing you all a safe and merry Christmas!

Congratulations to Tona and John on their newborn baby girl!

Where is everyone coming from?

I was working on the invitations and it seemed as though our friends and family are from many different areas. So, I decided to be a nerd and figure out how many of you are coming from where. You live in 20 different US States and 2 countries (US is included as one).

Since both of us are originally from the Midwest, but have been living in California for 5 years (Jeff) and 7 years (me), I wanted to see the regions that our friends and family are living. The majority of you currently live in the Midwest (57%) and a good portion of you live in the West (32%). We still love those of you that don't live in the Midwest or West (and hope to visit you soon!) :-)

Well, this has been my "love football, but can't watch anymore" weekend entry. Have a great Thanksgiving!

Vegas

Went to Vegas this past weekend. Unfortunately, Michelle had to work, so I made the trip solo. I didn't want to drive myself, so I tried out a new bus service called Megabus. (www.megabus.com) I highly recommend it. Had a good experience and the price was right.

I went because Tim Schneider and his wife were there for a dermatology conference that Kathryn was attending. I crashed on the couch in their huge Venetian suite. It was great to see them both and we had a great time.

Probably the most memorable thing was seeing a Beatles cover band called Fab Four Mania at Planet Hollywood Casino. They were really good, especially "Paul" and "John". "Ringo" was pretty good, too. Our favorite, though, was "George" because he looked nothing like the real George Harrison and had this goofy smile on his face the whole time. It's like he couldn't believe he was on stage or something. Definitely a you-had-to-be-there moment, but we couldn't stop cracking up the whole show.

The Tadpoles

Our good friends in Santa Barbara, Tadd and Hava, had twins last week at only 24 weeks. They are doing well, but please say a prayer for them. You can check out the details at www.thetadpoles.com

Ich bin ein Berliner

This past week, I had the opportunity to travel to Berlin for work. It's the headquarters of Bayer Schering Pharmaceuticals, the company whose product I'm responsible for manufacturing.

I left LA on Tuesday, got there Wednesday, had meetings all day Thursday and Friday, spent the day looking around Saturday, and flew home on Sunday. It was a quick trip, but was well worth it, both for work and personally.

Some highlights from sightseeing included touring a 17th century palace, seeing the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag (German capitol building), doing some shopping, and even watching the Marathon that was happening that weekend. As you can see in the pic, it unfortunately rained all day. But I still had a great time.

Booked Honeymoon!

We are going to Anguilla, an island in the Caribbean, for our honeymoon. Here's the website to the place we are staying:
http://www.ku-anguilla.com/

Can't wait!

Wedding Colors/Flowers Chosen

Wedding Planning Update:

We had a tough time deciding on colors and flowers with the bright red carpet in the church and maroon carpet and decor in the reception area, but finally decided on Blue and Cream. And for flowers, we are going with calla lilies among other flowers. Lots of fun!!

Packers or Lions? Greta speaks out!

So Michelle and I recently had the opportunity to ask my niece Greta who her favorite NFL team is. The Packers (her dad's team) or the Lions (my team). I'll let the pictures tell the story.

So first, we asked Greta what she thought of the Packers.

And she gave us her reaction...

And she actually stuck her tongue out! Can you believe it?

So then we asked her to ponder the Lions...

You can tell she's thinking hard! But then her expression told us exactly who she roots for.

Sorry, Pete.

Happy start of the football season, everyone!

Trip to Da U.P., eh.

Michelle and I went up to da U.P. of Michigan over Labor Day weekend to attend the 50th anniversary reunion for my college fraternity. We were in Houghton/Hancock, MI, home of Michigan Tech University. Here's a little breakdown of what we did. I'll add pictures when I have more time.

While the weather was topping out over 110 all weekend here in LA, we were enjoying beautiful 75 and sunny weather. Couldn't have been better.

There were about 200 fraternity brothers in attendance, from those who founded the fraternity in 1957 all the way to active members. I didn't hear a final count, but I think there were about 350 people total when wives, girlfriends, and kids were included.

While we were up there, I got to see all the changes to my old fraternity house as well as give Michelle her first look into the place I called home for 3 years in college. It looks great. They've really done a nice job of upgrading it every year.

We also did some "Copper Country Cruisin'". The area is known as the Copper Country because of the copper mining boom that took place in the 1800's. Cruisin' is just driving around and seeing all the beautiful scenery and quaint little old mining towns. We drove the 50 or so miles up to the tip of the peninsula and went to the peak of Brockway Mountain. Not quite a California sized mountain (only 1000 feet or so), but we could see Lake Superior in 3 directions. Absolutely gorgeous.

We also took a tour of Tech. A lot has changed in the past 7 years. It seemed like every classroom had half a dozen huge flatscreen tv's to display what the professor was teaching. Very high tech. And the library is all brand new. As with the fraternity house, things always get better when you leave, it seems.

I also introduced Michelle to tostada pizza at one of my favorite restaurants, The Ambassador. I really miss that place. We also toured some of my other favorite stomping grounds (i.e. bars) and had a great time.

We'll get some pictures up soon.
Jeff

Puerta Vallarta Trip

We promised to write about more than the wedding planning, so here are pics from our Puerta Vallarta trip. We stayed for 4 nights, 5 days back in July at a resort called Dreams. It was in a private cove south of town. The water was great (surprisingly not too chilly for the Pacific) and the service and resort was wonderful! We can't wait to go back one of these years!

Map Test

Trying to test out embedded maps. This is the location of the church, reception hall, and airports.

Hopefully...



View Larger Map

The beginning...

So we decided to start a blog. This will also serve as our wedding info headquarters. We'll try to keep this up to date as we get more information. Keep an eye on the column on the right.

We also will try to blog about other things. The trips we take, going home to see family, random stuff around LA, etc.

The newest news is that Michelle's mom was here this past week. They went wedding dress shopping and Michelle got her dress! But she won't show me any pictures. So I have to pretend I'm not excited.

Hopefully, we'll get some pictures and more info posted this weekend.

Jeff