The wedding of all weddings

 

I don't know about you but I am over the top, crazy excited about the up coming nuptials of two of my most favorite faux friends Prince William and Kate Middleton! I am obsessed and will definitely be "attending" the wedding this April.

I remember trying to stay up with my mom to watch Princess Diana and Prince Charles get married in 1981. My mom was so into it that her excitement filled the room and pervaded me. Of course I fell asleep, periodically waking up to catch glimpses of it but the one thing I do remember in full detail is that dress. That legendary, perfectly awesome 80's dress with a mile long train!



So funny that now, all these years later, here I am with the next generation of royals, waiting and anticipating the grandeur that is sure to be. A sort of full circle moment.

I just love the royals, the entire spectacle of it. The pomp, the circumstance and most importantly... the hats! I mean come on, who doesn't love a ridiculous hat with a fabulous outfit? I'd die to attend events wearing some of the hats that Kate wears. So posh, so avant-garde, so... only appropriate for royals to do. Anyone else and you just end up looking like you got a dead bird sitting on your head.

Deux chaise redux

Sorry about the title (Two chair redux), trying to work in the French wherever I can. I know that it doesn't really make sense but I like the way that "deux" and "redux" look together and how the whole thing sounds (with a French accent of course). Anyhoo...

Design Sponge has been one of my favorite websites for the last couple of years. I love that people take old, out of date things and turn them into cool, usable current pieces. It's fun to do, good for the environment and good on the wallet too! We recently dabbled in a chair makeover experiment ourselves, here's what we came up with.

I found this little gem for $11 at my local Good Will shop.

This chair was Dave's grandmother's and had been sitting in his parents basement for years. 

They were kind enough to donate it to our chair experiment.

A few behind the scenes pics:

After getting it home I ripped it completely apart throwing away the seat cushion and fabric. Next I had Dave sand and prime it and then paint it with black flat satin paint while I cut the new foam cushion, batting and fabric to fit. Upholstering the seat cushion was super simple, just align the fabric, batting and cushion and staple away. The seat back required me to make 5 covered buttons which I picked up from the craft store.



Voila! One cute, simple cane barrel chair perfect for the bedroom. Not too bad for first timers...

Truth be told though, I think the contrast of the black and the light fabric I chose is too much. I think we should have painted the chairs white like this chair from Navy Bean or I should have choose a colored fabric or fabric with black accents in it like this chair from Little Bits of Bliss. All in all I think it was a good first effort, perhaps in the Spring I'll transform them again. That's the great thing about free/Goodwill furniture- you don't have any reservations about experimenting with them!

My kind of town...

I ♥ Chicago!

We took our first trip to Chicago last June over my birthday weekend and just loved it. It was urban yet professional and very clean, I mean really, surprisingly clean! Of course we rode our favorite red double-decker bus which took us everywhere we wanted to go.

Me and Dave on the Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier. It was really 

windy that day so the cage was blowing from side to side! :(

The famous corncob towers (Marina City)! These towers have condos on the top 2/3, a spiral parking garage on the lower 1/3 and a boat dock and marina on the bottom, river level! You can store your boat, car  and live all in the same building. The building also contains restaurants, a concert hall, bowling alley and other retail shops.

The bean! Love this thing. It's so random. Love the juxtapostion of its smooth, flowing and shiny surface against the rigid angles of the buildings behind it. It's official name is Cloud Gate and it is located in Millennium Park.

At the top of the Sears Tower (known nowadays as Willis Tower but everyone still calls it the Sears Tower) is the Sky Deck. Dave is not a happy camper when it comes to heights but he was a good sport and went with me all the way to the top- 103 floors, 1353 feet in the air!

I might look comfortable but I'm pretty freaked out! I slowly shuffled my way out to this position. Notice the little girl just hanging out, not afraid at all.  Kids were the only ones who didn't freak out or at the least take a moment before stepping onto the glass. No inhibitions at all, they were jumping up and down on the glass, laying or sitting  down and staring straight down to the street. Guess they didn't have the same visual in their minds of the glass ripping away from the building and plunging to the ground that I did. Ignorance is bliss.

Dave mustered up enough nerve to shimmy part way out onto the glass. 

(His left arm is holding onto the wall.)

Of course we had to have some Chicago style deep dish pizza. It was... different. 

Very much more of a casserole type dish than pizza. We both prefer thin crust.

La femme boit du café.

It's been a month since I started my Rosetta Stone French lessons (read my first post about it here) and I thought I'd post an update on my progress or rather lack there of. After such a great start I knew that I'd eventually hit a few bumps in the road.

I have to admit that I have not diligently done an hour a day as is recommended by the program. I miss a few days and then cram a few lessons all in one day and end up somewhat confused. But that aside I'm still just not sure if I'll ever be able to hold a normal conversation with someone. Oh I'll be able to state the obvious like- "The boy wore a blue shirt." or "The man drove a green car.", something that will come in handy if I witness a robbery but for my intended purpose I just can't see an actual conversation emerging out of these sort of declaratives.

I know that I need to give it time and that I'm not even half way through the first level so I have no basis to even start to complain but I just feel like the method of teaching might not be the best for me. I took Spanish for four years in high school so I'm used to learning the nouns, learning the verbs, conjugating them and then putting together a sentence. I think because I learned in this way I am complicating Rosetta's "learning the way you learned your own language as a child" method by trying to break every word down instead of just putting the given phrase to the action and picture.

I Googled Rosetta Stone the other day to see what others had to say about the program. Most said that they found it effective as an introduction to a new language. That it's easy to use and easy to pick up on and learn vocabulary. But most expressed the same concern that I have and a lot of people said that they recommend using Rosetta as a side tool to a book and workbooks. (I am going to look into this, I am very much a workbook type person!)

With all that said, I can positively say that I have learned and retained a ton of vocabulary in my short time using it. It's surprising how much I can re-call and how much the image-word association really works. I actually see those pictures in my mind when I'm saying the words. I will keep plugging away. I plan to finish the entire level and then assess whether or not to purchase the next level or try something else. For now I leave you with this- La femme lit et écrit en français. (The woman reads and writes in French. Sorry, stating the obvious is the best I got right now!) Au Revoir!

Location, location, location

As I mentioned in this previous post about our Save the Dates, we have three weddings that we'll be attending this year. One in Las Vegas in June, the next in Tahoe in August and then finally one in Cincinnati in October. With each of those weddings in full planning mode I've found myself offering what little first hand advice I have on all things wedding. Recently wedding locations have been the topic du jour. Since we had initially planned on a beach wedding most people wonder how we ended up at a vineyard. It was definitely a process and here's how it all went down.

In June of 2008 we flew to L.A. to begin our search. I had always pictured myself having a beach wedding but after calling around to the two places we were considering (Shutters and Casa Del Mar) I quickly realized that we would need to look elsewhere for a site. The venues had Food & Beverage minimums of $30,000- just for the food and drinks! We planned on having a small wedding, estimating about 60 people in attendance so getting to $30K with 60 people was not going to happen, not to mention that we had not even planned on spending that much for the entire wedding much less just the food!

 

 Shutters on the Beach in Santa Monica.

Amazing high end, beach hotel right on the sand.

 Right next door to Shutters is Casa Del Mar. Built in

the 1920's the fully restored hotel is amazing with

its Art Deco design and decor. So fab! Love it!

From L.A. we moved down the coast to Laguna Beach, hoping that a smaller town meant smaller venues and more affordable pricing for us. There were a few really unbelievably gorgeous venues right on the beach (Occasions at Laguna Village) but unfortunately most of them we deemed too "public", meaning that the actual ceremony sites were in public view or spaces therefore leaving no control over random people viewing or walking through the ceremony. If there was one thing we knew for sure, it was that we didn't want to have the ceremony anywhere where that random "fat, hairy guy dressed in a Speedo" could wander through or ultimately get caught lurking in the background of our wedding pictures. Of all the places we looked at in Laguna there was only one that we seriously considered, the Surf and Sand Resort. Ultimately we decided against it, deeming the private terrace that overlooked the ocean to be too small to hold our anticipated 60 guests. With no time left to look at locations in other cities we headed back to Ohio without a wedding site.

 Located in the middle of town, Occasions at Laguna Village

has an amazing view of the beach and ocean.

 Also at Occasions is this side terrace, to the left of the deck 

in the above picture. Unfortunately, both are attached to a 

restaurant that has a deck where they serve guests on a patio

that overlooks both of these areas. Basically, you'd be getting 

married in public and in front of anyone choosing to dine 

al fresco that evening, which in Laguna (or anywhere

in L.A.) is everyone.

The view from the terrace at Surf and Sand is incredible 

but definitely would be a tight squeeze for guest lists over 40! 

It is also located right off of 6 privates suites so you and your 

guests must book those rooms in order to have your 

ceremony there.

On wedding overload and a bit discouraged, we took a break for a few weeks. After one last round of scouring the shores of Southern California, from Santa Monica to Huntington Beach, Dave finally suggested we look elsewhere at something completely different, something away from the beach. I conceded and left the image of a beach wedding behind, opening my mind to all the possibilities. I was actually excited at that point because anything was possible!

Firestone Winery in Los Olivos, CA (45 minutes north of Santa Barbara) was one of the first venues I came across and seriously considered. I found a few other possibilities but basically Firestone was the "one" from the first time I saw photos of the variety of ceremony and event areas they had. (Read about the trip we took to Santa Barbara after we booked the venue in this post.)

Ultimately, two things sold me on the venue: the giant, old oak tree that we'd be getting married under and the gorgeous, amazing Barrel Room where we'd have dinner. So unique and different!

Dave and me under our tree!

Dinner in the Barrel Room.