We’re going to take more in a couple of weeks because many of them just weren’t quite right. But overall, we’ve found a few we like. Our photographer wanted more time with us because as we loosened up, the photos got better. We’re both super critical of ourselves so it’s hard to find something we can agree on!
We did our engagement photos today and I think they turned out really nice. I love love LOVE our photographer and the wedding is going to look amazing on film. We ended up having to change our location from the country club to my parents’ backyard. Our photographer called the event coordinator yesterday and she informed him we couldn’t use the course until 4pm, even though we told her our appointment was at 10am. Nice. So thank God for my parents again because their yard looks wonderful and they let us do the shoot back there. Rob wore khakis, a belt and proper shoes. I have never seen him look so handsome. I found a nice khaki dress with embroidered hem. The proofs should be ready on Tuesday. Stay tuned for evidence that Rob can wear more than jeans!
Speaking of photography, I decided to do Project 365 because several friends of mine are doing it and they are doing some amazing work. The idea is to take a photo every day, something to signify the day or just something that catches my eye. So far, I’ve taken a photo every day for the last week and I’m liking what I’m doing. I hope I can keep it up for an entire year, especially since this year will have some exciting changes. Even just the last 6 months has brought a lot of change. The link to my Project 365 site is on the sidebar or you can find it at p365.robandkristi.com.  Go have a look and tell me what you think.
The revamping of the house continues. We moved from the backyard into the bathroom because it was really the only room in the house that didn’t get a major overhaul when I moved in. We started with the shower and bath. It was a nasty fought battle because there was no way the bathtub was giving up without a fight. We bought a new showerhead, handles for the tub and a curved shower curtain. But then the fun began.
The showerhead required a new stem which is an easy fix. It’s easy if you have the proper pipe wrech. Which we don’t have. Ok, set that aside and we’ll borrow the wrench from my dad. Right. Onto the knobs on the tub. 3 knobs, 2 of which refused to budge. Fine. Do the one that will cooperate. Reading the instructions on the package didn’t help all the much and 2 hours later and lots of taking things off and putting them back on, we had one new knob. The knob for the hot would come off after some WD-40 and gentle persuasion. But the cold was stuck in. We attempted the hot but after all the work we’d done in the yard the day before and our growing fatigue at 9pm, we gave up.   I was afraid the bathroom would win the battle. Bernard and Eugene must’ve left special instructions to be impossble.
We put in an emergency help call to my dad and waited. He came round and got the hot working but the cold? Yeah, not so easy. We got the showerhead installed with no problems and hoped my dad could get the screw out of the cold knob. He couldn’t. He and Rob tried for ages. Two evenings after work, input from a plumber and one trip to the hardware store, they fixed it. The turning point of the Battle of the Bathroom was ours.
The curved shower rod is amazing and has added a foot of width to the shower. We had to buy 2 though because the first one was too big and a bit flimsy. Another trip to Bed Bath and Beyond and we had success. Finally. The bathroom fought valiantly but we won.
Next steps? Painting. Improved storage. New sink tap. Possibly new lighting.
** 100TH POST! **
Sorry for the delay on these, guys. We’ve been so busy working on the yard that we haven’t had time to take photos and put them up.
Since we last wrote about the yard, we’ve gotten the rest of the sprinklers done in the back and a lot of general work done in the front. We’ve planted two maples in the backyard and three rose bushes with trellises. We’re now to the point – especially in the back – where we’ve run out of small jobs and now face doing either the resodding or the patio overhaul next, both expensive jobs that probably won’t happen until 2009. Everything else is about small plants growing into big plants.
Photos:
This is the Almighty Garden Cart Long May It Reign In Peace. Best ninety bucks at Home Depot that we’ve yet spent on the house and yard. It was a royal pain to put together, but the thing has a load yield of over a ton. It’s perfect for hauling anything that needs to be hauled.
Front of the house, as of this morning. This weekend, Greg mowed the lawn while Kristi and her parents did some serious landscaping work on those shrubs. At the time, I was in backyard, hoeing up weeds around the rose bushes.
Front yard #2, closer shot of the front porch this morning.
Backyard, this morning. The orange tree is blossoming, so we’re getting an orange-scented wind blowing through the house all day and night now. You can see the Patio Which Must Die. At the back left of the photo you can see the rose trellises; that wall behind them was the one we scraped and painted a few weeks ago. I took this shot from the kitchen stoop that you can see in the background of the garden cart shot.
Backyard #2, far right corner. Roses on the right, maple sapling on the left, and that’s the patch of ground that had to be rototilled. That’s also where we did the second round of sprinkler work this weekend. There’s now a head on the fenceline behind the tree and one at the wall, between the second and third trellises. The roses got their first blooms this morning.
Backyard #3.
And here’s the big lug. We can’t ever be out in the yard without Sam wandering out to see what all the fuss is about. He’s poking his head through the electronic dog door that Tuck’s still working on defeating.
We’re regularly getting the “is everything settled down yet?” questions now. And most of the big wedding details have. Everything is planned and set at the country club, guest lists are done, food is decided, we’ve met Andy (who will be officiating the ceremony), colors and clothes and pretty much everything else is now ready to go. We still have a few small points to iron out, the most significant of which is probably the cake – we have our design but haven’t settled on a type yet. And next weekend we do our engagement photos with Aaron Draper.
The invitations took some time. When we began this whole process in December, one of the toughest challenges we faced – if you can believe it – was just settling on a design for the invitations and RSVP cards. Do you have any idea how many stock designs are out there? Seriously: after you’ve looked at a hundred or so wedding invitation layouts pulled from a catalog or website, they all start looking the same. All the same scripts, all the same looks, all the same paper. And they all look terribly overdone and generic.
After looking through what seemed like a million cheesy wedding invitation catalogs, we finally decided that we didn’t like any of the stock designs. Luckily I knew a good graphic designer – my good friend Jennifer Duarte, a freelance designer in Sunnyvale who has been creating custom invitations for a living for almost ten years. Jen and I have worked together for years, on both client projects and work for my own business; I knew we could rely on her to come up with something stunning. And she did.
When we got the design comps back from Jen, Kristi just stood there looking at the invitation in silence for a minute. “Oh my God,” she said. “I love it. I just love it.” I could tell that she was about two seconds away from tearing up. The design, the fonts, the layout, everything. Perfect down to the last detail. And nothing less than I’d expect from Jen Duarte. We’ve just sent them off to her printers in San Francisco.
I thought for a bit about putting a scanned image of the invitation up on R&K, and then thought better of it. Good design like this, you need to hold in your hands. You need to feel the paper and enjoy the full experience. So since most readers of R&K will be receiving one in the mail in a few weeks anyway, I’m not going to ruin it for anyone. Just wait and enjoy.
(In the meantime, if you’re currently looking for custom print/graphic design – invitations, business cards, letterhead, brochures, or pretty much anything else that can be put on paper – give Jennifer Duarte a call and tell her that Rob and Kristi sent you. You won’t regret it.)
Thanks, Jen. We both appreciate everything.
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