Post #1,000

In good news, this is officially the 1,000 post I've published on From L.A. to LA! In not so good news, we're expecting a hurricane tomorrow.

Now I knew when I was planning this wedding that Labor Day weekend didn't have a good history with hurricanes. It's when Katrina hit. It's when Gustav hit. It's when Tropical Storm Lee hit. But clearly no hurricane would be so inconsiderate to hit the weekend of the wedding. Except I guess Isaac is one rude fellow.

But it could be worse. We could be expecting to have a hurricane hit the day of the wedding. But since it's hitting several days before, I'm hoping that by the time the day arrives we'll have beautiful weather and it all goes as normal. I've talked to all our vendors in the past few days, and I'll be checking in with them after. I'm trying not to freak out because there's really nothing we can do at this point.

While I'm confident the wedding will happened as planned, it will be difficult for people to fly in. Anyone who was supposed to fly in our Wednesday has already changed their flight. And hopefully the airports are open on Thursday. We already received one completely expected call from someone who made the decision not to fly in.

The other major concern is electricity. I spent most of last night printing off programs, maps, welcome letters, and escort cards, and plan to do the same as long as we have power. Tomorrow I'm planning on putting everything together during the storm, although I'm guessing most people won't be too concerned about the details considering.

So I guess I should start printing now, and depending on our internet access I'll try to check in. But who knows, the next time I talk to you guys I could be an old married lady!

Back to Bourne

The Bourne Legacy
Yes, I realize this came out a few weeks ago, and we pretty much only see new movies. But there wasn't anything released we were really into this week, and we'd heard good things about this one, so that was the decision we made.

And it wound up being a good decision. I thought it was enjoyable and the boy did as well. I was a little confused at parts, although think if I had been more up on the past movies that wouldn't have been the case. And I do think some of the chase scenes were a little too long. But even so I had fun, and thought it was a great escape. It's not necessarily a movie that's groundbreaking, but it's still fun to watch.

My Two Moms

Where We Belong by Emily Giffin
I've read and enjoy every single one of Giffin's books. Some more than others obviously, but still I would recommend each one. There's just something about the way she writes that just different then most other chick lit there. Of course then, I was excited to pick this one up, and expected to enjoy it. But I more than enjoyed it, in fact I think it's probably my favorite of all of Giffin's books so far.

While I still love all her other books, it's hard for me to relate to her characters. Too often the you're supposed to identify with someone who is (or is considering) cheating on their spouse. And while I understand there's people out there who do it, it's not something I can really relate too. Then her one book that doesn't really deal with infidelity instead is one whose source of conflict is that they don't want children. And for someone who wants kids, that was also hard for me to understand. Just a lot of times too, you're not sure who you want to root for, and it makes it a difficult, but still enjoyable read

But with this one I didn't feel like I had to choose which character to root for. I was able to wish the best for each one, without feeling like another character had to loose out to do so. And while I never had to deal with getting pregnant as teen or being adopted, I still was able to identify and relate to the moral decisions made.

In some ways this book feels a little like a YA book. It brings you back to the emotions you feel falling in love for the first time. I could see how some readers might not be wanting this, but as a big YA fan, it was something I enjoyed.

Again, I'll say this is probably my favorite Emily Giffin book. I couldn't stop reading this, which in a way is disappointing because I wish I was still reading this. If you've enjoyed Giffin's past books I'm sure you'll love this. And if you've yet to read anything by her, I think this would be a great one to start with.

5/5

Today I'm linking up with Blonde Undercover Blonde for Book Club Friday!

Wrapping Up Details

With the wedding barely a week away I've been completely wedding task after wedding task. In the past few days I've put down final payments with the DJ, the cake baker, and the florist. I've submitted our list of songs to the DJs. We've met with our wedding officiant. I've firmed up more of our wedding day timeline and sent it to our coordinator. I've started boxing up the candy bar pieces and the centerpiece items. I've sent everyone evites to the rehearsal dinner. We finished buying presents for our attendants. I've bought the items I'll be wearing under the dress. We bought our cake topper

But there's still so much that I have left to do. I need to make our programs still. I need to wrap the presents for the attendants. I need to make the escort cards. I need to print off labels for the candy bags. I need to buy wine & wine glass for our ceremony. I need to buy another wine glass to smash at the ceremony. I need to put together our welcome bags.

Then there's the items that I really wanted to do, but am thinking they might not happen. And at this point I'm ok with that. Things like bathroom baskets, or cute signs labeling all the candy for the candy bars. Things I really wanted to happen, and yet I'm ok with that. I guess I'm starting to put priority on the things that are really important to me and the other ones just aren't going to happen.

I'm guessing in the next few days I won't be posting as much or commenting on yours posts. And if I am, that probably means that I'm wasting time on the internet when there's tons of stuff I really should be doing. I'm sure I'll be stopping by a few times though, but from here on our things are going to be crazy I'm sure.

How were you feeling in the last weeks before your wedding? And did you have any projects that you originally planned on doing but had to let go over as you got closer to the wedding date?

I'm at Table Number e

Last week I was complaining to the boy about all the stuff I had left to do for the wedding. And as I started listing them off, he asked, "Do you want me to take care of writing the table number descriptions?" Of course I was more than happy for him to do so, and I love what he came up with. I was just planning on using wikipedia for most of these, but I love how the boy was able to come up with personal and easily understandable descriptions. Since I know you're curious know, here's some of my favorites.

א_o - Aleph naught - The first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, א is used to represent the countable infinity. Imagine that you start counting
1,2,3,... , when would you stop? Well, never, but we do know how many
counting numbers there are... א_o.

δ - delta - This greek letter has many uses in modern mathematics. It is most commonly used to represent the smallest positive number when observing an infinitesimal change. A use more relevant to the newlyweds is the distinction of the degree of a vertex in a graph.
And now that I had the descriptions ready I could make a final mock-up of our centerpieces. Just as a reminder, here's what it looks like during the last mock-up. You can see I've since that last post not only have I added the table numbers, but the blue rocks in with the candle.

From the BackSince the mock-up I've boxed all of the wine bottles which have each been stuffed with flowers. I've started filling all the candle jars too but still have a few more to finish.

Under CandlelightI am really happy with the way these turned out. I had some mild freak-outs along the way with the idea of diy-ing my centerpieces, but I think they wound up looking not half bad.

We're Licensed

The past week the boy and carpooled into work. He dropped me off and the way in, and then picked me up at the end of the day. And once he picked me up we were off to the Clerk of Court's office to pick up our wedding license.
This is me with our unofficial license, aka the pretty one we get to keep and display or scrapbook. We were given two official ones to mail back, and this one means absolutely nothing, but I guests brides were complaining about not having an heirloom version of it.

The whole thing was pretty harmless. We went in and gave them our birth certificates to make copies off. Then had to type our contact info into their computer systems. From there we had to waited a few minutes while they created our documents. But once they were finished, and we were about $30 poorer we were ready to go.

The workers at the office seemed to be awfully impressed with how patience we were being, granted we were both playing with our phones so it was easy to stay entertained. When I mentioned that to the boy (after a 2nd employees thanked us for being patient) he pointed at the man at the desk with a file of folders who was being told he still didn't have the right documents for what he wanted to do. He seemed pretty calm as well, but I'm guessing they deal with people all the time who aren't happy with the government's process.

But again, we had no issues with it, and now we're officially ready to be married.

Who is The Expendable One?

The Expendables 2
So there really isn't much of a plot to this, it's more of action scene after action scene with cameo after cameo. Not necessarily my type of movie, but I'm not the intended audience.

There was one plot twist I wasn't a huge fan of. But considering they aren't marketing this movie to 20-something girls I understand why they did it. But just because I understand it, doesn't mean I like it.

For an action movie, it's actually pretty funny, and it looks like all the actors had a blast making it. You can bet if an action is associated with a specific line, or even a theme song, it's in there. So not a movie I'd be dying to watch again, but for what it is, it's pretty amusing.