Morning Call

When I was in elementary school I loved volunteering for extracurricular like class plays, recitals, stutdent council (I was co-president in the 6th grade!). And although the best part about participating in all these activities was getting ready for the big ta-da show, I always dreaded having to stand up in front of people. No matter how prepared I was or how small or big the crowd was, I would always be scared. In kindergarden I had the starring role of a class play and instead of showing off potential Academy Award winning skillz I shuffled through the play without looking at the audience while mumbling my lines. My teacher was mortified.

This fear I have has lasted through my adulthood. I graduated high school thinking I would never have to worry again about presentations and public speaking. No one told me that was what college and graduate school was all about! I took a public speaking class hoping it would help me overcome my fear. I just learned really cool vocal exercises and that I make weird faces when I speak.

Anyway throughout this whole planning process I have been relatively cool about the whole thing. Not nervous or overly excited, but more happy in a less overt manner. In fact my only real freakout was when I bought my dress and had a case of buyer's remorse (i.e should I have picked a A-line dress with straps over the strapless ballroom gown I chose?) Yesterday driving to the gym to lose the 4 pounds that mysteriously crept up last week I started to have the shakes. "Holy crap!" I thought, "I have to give a toast in front of a lot of people."

I don't want to talk too long, be too sentimental cause I have been known to cry on occasion, have those "ums and uhs" creep in or pull a Hilary Swank and forget to thank someone, although if I was married to Chad Lowe I would probably forget to give him a shout out too.

The whole day is going to be a blur I'm pretty sure. I just don't want to replay the video and shield my eyes from the horror.

Post Script: I haven't gotten a hair cut yet which is another reason I am totally buggin'. I don't have time. Wah.

Aw geez

I need a couple more days-no, not to plan silly! I need a couple more days to hit the gym! My body looks how I feel like: a pulpy mass of mush. There is so much going on, more inside my head than anything else. Everyone keeps asking me how I feel, if I have a lot left to do...I don't have a whole lot to do for the wedding itself. I only have to finish making escort cards. I keep running out of adhesive! Oskar is busy with work and decorating the favors. But I think we will be done by Tuesday night. Well we HAVE to be done by Tuesday.

Today on my agenda is:
1. Watch the kids
2. Pick up dress
3. Go to Michael's again.
4. Make dinner, for other people cause I'm not eating solids for the next days.
5. Gym gym gym.
6. Send timelines to bridal party and directions to places and assign duties.
7. Get a haircut
8. Buy swimsuits for honeymoon.
9. Wash the car
10. Thank you notes!
11. Screw it, I'm hungry.
12. Find a nice guest book that isn't white or lined with satin.

Oskar and I have taken two dancing lessons already. I thought he was going to be the one that had trouble but it turns out, I am the one with two left feet! In high school I was in a modern interpretive dance troupe and I liked it cause I was the one that did the choreography and two, you could basically do anything and it would be fine. Ballroom dancing is nothing like it. Posture, arm positions, that's fine. What I have trouble with is letting the guy lead (I literally have to close my eyes so that I'm not tempted to steal the lead) and making turns. You should have seen Oskar last week. He was getting SO frustrated with me. I have to give props to our instructor, Kimberly for not strangling me either. I think though, Oskar secretly liked the fact that he was better than me. Actually it's not that much of a secret.

For the first dance please feel free to join in after like 2 or 3 minutes into the song. We don't want to dance to the entire song we picked. Quite a few people have asked me if we have a quirky routine like some of you have seen on YouTube. The answer is a resounding "No."



Well, it's noon and I'm still at home knee deep in diapers and cranky toddlers. Ciao!

Time for a countdown...

Yeah, I know it's nerdy. But look at it another way. it's only ...





... or that much time until you don't have to worry about hearing about our wedding plans anymore.

What's running through your head?

I think I'd be thinking, "I wish Big Bird were here."



On another note, Maryté and I just signed up for dance lessons. This should be ... interesting. At least neither of us have two left feet, but I'll admit, I'm a far cry from "Dancing With the Stars."

Attention Future Brides

Quick shout out to all my homegirls who just got engaged! Congratulations! Good luck with the planning hahahhaaha! Nah it'll be fine. But check this out. Santa Barbara Bridal is closing. I so wanted to go shopping there back in January when I was searching for my dress. Anyway the store is closing its doors so that means discounts! They are located in 15 W. Figueroa Street in downtown SB. They are having Bridal Sample Sale all this month. So, if you are coming to our wedding, which you should anyway, then you can use the rest of the weekend to go dress shopping. 40-80% off! Vera Wang! Reem Acra. Also, they are offering a free cocktail gown when you purchase your wedding dress.

Happy dress hunting. And no, they have not asked me to promote their business. I wish right?

The bachelor party (Or, what I remember of it)

The bachelor party was pretty simple: They came, we drank, ate and did guy stuff. The end.

Here's a picture of us at Hooter's on Saturday night. Not pictured is my brother Pablo, the best man, who got hungry before dinner and ate, then went to go hang out with his buddy Ben who was coincidentally in town. This was a fun night. I know because I remember.

Such was not the case on Friday night, when I was determined to drink whatever the guys told me to, and I think I pretty much did until a switch came on in my head that said xXxdrunkxXx...
... the next thing I remembered was waking up in my bed, all the guys in my room talking really loudly about how drunk I was.

And thank God for Pat, for damning me for not having a hangover, despite how apparently trashed I was.

Among the great stories: Chucking a bottle on accident at a security guard. Throwing up within five minutes of entering a strip club. The guys navigating back to the apartment by the light of the stars (I'm three parsnips under Orion's belt).

On Saturday: guns. casinos. hooters. rhino. Lots of fun, not many pictures. I guess that's what a bachelor party should be...

Thanks, fellas!

Update

Okay so far...
1. Got the cake. Finally! We got two flavors and I hope they are as delicious the day of the day as they were when we had the tasting. We went with Decadence Fine Cakes and Confections after sampling baker Dawn's six most popular cakes and, I'm not going to lie, after being quoted a price that was extremely reasonable. Dawn was also really great at designing what I think will be a fun and different cake out of my whack-a-doo crazy pants ideas and photographs. Cross your fingers it turns out photographable.

2. Found my hairdo lady. Although I realized that I am going to need a lot more product and an emergency ponytail holder in case the coastal moisture makes my hair frizzy throughout the day.

3. FInally, finally tracked down our florist. Oskar and I couldn't get in touch with her for a while. She was never around when Oskar would call, and she didn't send the contract like she said she would. We thought maybe she was trying to dump us by ignoring us but as it turned out, she just had a really really old computer and as we discovered when we went to visit her, she didn't really know how to use it. But the contract is signed, the deposit paid so flowers we shall have.

4. Oskar and I are getting married in the church and because of that we were required to go to "Catholic Engaged Encounters" a seminar for couples. We had the option of going to a one day, all day lecture or a weekend retreat. We went to the three day retreat in Montebello, Ca. I didn't think there were going to be sooo many couples. I envisioned that Oskar and I would be with maybe 6-10 couples at the most. There were 60 couples.
The seminar was led by two couples, one that's been married for 45 years, and the other for 10, as well as a priest, Father Gerry. The women stayed in one dormitory building while the men were housed in another.
The setup was pretty basic: the moderators gave a lecture about a topic. They would talk about their experience as a couple, the conflict they experienced, how they worked through it, and what they learned from it. The priest would then chime in about something spiritual and then we had to write in our journals about our thoughts. Then we would join our partner to talk about what we had written. That was the structure of the whole weekend. At the end of the day we would go to the campus church and celebrate Mass. We didn't really interact that much with other couples because the point of the weekend was to focus on our partner. Oskar was of course disappointed with that because of course, he loves talking to people. We did get to chit chat during meals, (cafeteria food bleh) and met a couple who were from Ventura, Karina and Yovani. She was a former Gaucho (class of 01 ) and he went to Cal Poly SLO.
I felt really tired by the end of the weekend, turning 27 that week didn't help either. We are glad we went though. We got to open up about a lot of topics that we are uncomfortable talking about day to day and saw firsthand that there are still people who aren't so cynical about getting married, much less get married in the Church.

5. Oh! We got our wedding bands. That was fun. It took an hour but I gotta say we were both really happy with the service we got and the rings we left with.

6. When I went to Ventura to get my hair trial I went with my mom and my aunt Norma. On a spur of the moment we decided to go to Santa Barbara. I took them to see San Roque and Cabrillo Pavillion. They were impressed and really happy. My mom was super stoked about the reception hall being right on the beach. We also got to see vendors setting up the room for a wedding that afternoon. A party for 200 is going to be a tight squeeze, but I don't think Oskar and I are going to have to worry about that many guests so we will definitely have a lot more room to spread out.

Lastly I know I have been neglecting my pet blog. The last couple of weeks have been pretty overwhelming and fun in a stressful way. I still have to write about my bridal shower and Oskar said he was going to write about his bachelor party which I am a little skeptical about since he doesn't recall half of it.
Have a good Tuesday party people.