Our Ceremony Slideshow!

We cannot thank Lauren Natalie Photography and Lisa Conrad Photography enough for being a special part of our wedding day. Here is a slideshow of some of the pictures from our wedding ceremony and family dinner on 11-11-11.

RIP Steve Jobs

Chris and I are nerds.

We are Mac enthusiasts, who, after keeping each other updated (via our iPhones) all day about the iPhone 4S announcement yesterday, debriefed and shared our opinions over dinner.

We use Macs almost exclusively in our home and even registered for an iPad on our wedding registry. (Dream big, or go home.)

Today Steve Jobs passed away, and for me it was a rough realization. Look, I have never met the guy, but his dreams and passions affect many parts of my day. If you've met me, you know that I am never without my iPhone. Also if we've hung out for a few minutes, you'll know that I love all things Pixar. This man and his work gave me Monsters, Inc. AND Facetime... come on, that's huge! He was a man who changed the world, I believe, for the better, although others may not agree. He is a man who left us too early.

I hate cancer. I have had to say goodbye way too early to way too many. Steve was only 56 years old. That's younger than my dad. My thoughts and prayers go out to Steve's family and to a company that needs to pick up where he left off. That's a big load to carry without your magic man to lead you.

I think this video gives you a good window into what he would like to leave us each with.



Stay hungry. Stay foolish.

A Love Affair

One of the things that Chris and I enjoy about each other is our mutual love of food. We also share a hatred of the evil food, that shall not be named here, but we truly, madly, deeply love (almost all) food.

So I thought I would tell you a little story about two people in love... with their food.

We fell in love gazing into each other's eyes over plates of yummy sushi.



Now we live together and share our organic CSA veggies at home most nights. (This is roasted eggplant, heirloom tomatoes, basil, mozzarella, a side salad and naan.)



Sometimes we make homemade wholesome desserts with our fruit.



And sometimes an innocent trip to the fair can lead to this...



and this...



and this.



Which all led to this...



Which makes it a very good thing that we registered for this...



Because the truth of the matter is, we will forever be in love with food (and each other) so we better keep these temples in good enough shape to stay around long enough to feed our grandchildren yummy desserts way after their bedtimes!

Iron Chef: The secret ingredient this week is leftovers!

We joined a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) this year and we are loving Be Wise Ranch and all of the food they provide us with. It's been a challenge to use all of the new yummy fruits and veggies we get. Last week we had some cauliflower and routabega that we didn't get to. I cut them up and froze them so they wouldn't go bad. This week we decided that cauliflower would work with curry and the frozen chicken I already had in the freezer... So I decided to make up my own Chicken Curry slowcooker recipe.


Ingredients:
- Two large chicken breasts
- Two(ish) cups chicken broth
- One head of cauliflower, chopped
- Five medium routabega, chopped (I used routabega because we had it, next time I would use potatoes because they tend to break down a bit more and would make it more "saucy" than this was.)
- Five medium carrots, chopped
- One cup steamed spinach (I always steam and then freeze spinach when it is near the end of its life... just for such emergencies as this.)
- Curry Seasoning (Feel free to be generous, I spilled WAY more than I intended to, and it wasn't very spicy, just had a hint of curry.)
- Thai Seasoning (I just added a bit to give it a little more dimension.)
- Salt and Pepper to taste.
- I also added some parsley just because I had it. I'm not sure it added anything special.

Then I threw it all in the slowcooker on low for eight hours. I stirred it a few times to break up the chicken.



I steamed some jasmine rice and we had dinner!


My honey said it was yummy. :-)


The recipe isn't perfect... BUT the whole point is just to try, right?

Crafty Bridezilla = Failure

My new addiction is Pinterest and via this latest obsession of mine, I found this awesome "easy" craft that I wanted to do for the wedding.



Sooo cute. Right!??!! And so simple according to the blog that originally posted these sweeties.

Chris and I headed out on a date night to Walmart to buy some decorating supplies. I was so excited to use my new yarn in all of it's glorious colors...



I (literally) wrestled with the balloons for more time than I will confess in a public forum to get them all blown up and ready to coat in yarn. I diluted my glue and jumped right in...



It looked promising... until I lifted the balloon off the towel. The yarn slid right off. I am not a faint-hearted crafter so I tried again... and again, wrapping yarn around itself and trusting that once it dried, all would be well... The picture below is what I found in the morning.



It looks EXACTLY like the original! Right?!?



Turns out the yarn needed to be 100% cotton. Mine wasn't. I'm not in the mood to go buy more yarn... so I'll take a breather and use the yarn for something else. The dream of a crafty bridezilla might be slowly dying.

Come to our wedding!

We set up a group rate at a local hotel. It's a very convenient location and a pretty reasonable price. Check out the Out of Towners section of the blog for more details.

We are getting soooooo excited to have so many special people in our lives ALL TOGETHER for our wedding weekend!

Jaramillo Brewskies - The bottling has begun!

So the Honeymoon Hef has been doing it's magic in our official FIESTA brewing closet (formally known as the hall coat closet) for two weeks and it was ready to add some sugar to it and bottle it up.



We cleaned and sanitized the bottles. Note: My honey left some out of this stacking of bottles so that I would "get a better picture for the blog." We apparently needed a perfect square to be blog-worthy. I love him.



Then we filled 'em, capped 'em and they are doing some more magic boxed up on the shelf of the official FIESTA brewing closet... that closet is getting a lot of action!



All of the equipment was cleaned and drying... getting ready for the next day when we brewed Kenny's Kiltlifter, which is fermenting in the official wedding FIESTA brewing closet as I type this.



I'm pretty proud of us! I think we're gonna get all of this brewing done. :-)

BUT we need your help. We need your empty Sierra Nevada or Lagunitas bottles!!! We're already running out and we can't drink fast enough to keep up. Help!

We've Registered!

We prepared with notes...















and caffeine because we didn't want to see Bridezilla!















We got to use lasers.
















We got free gifts! Macy's gave us a bag. Crate & Barrel gave us a vase. (The rest is stuff we bought for FIESTA decorations.)






We've registered. Check it out!

Jaramillo Brewskies is open for business!

The brewing has begun...

We've decided that for the Wedding Fiesta we want to brew our own beer. We have A LOT of people to serve, so the brewing has to start early and happen often. Our first batch started two weeks ago and this weekend we get to start bottling. I'm excited to learn more about the process with my honey (he's kind of an expert!) and I'm super stoked to be able to give this gift to our family and friends. Beer #1 is Honeymoon Hefeweizen.

Here is a picture of us on a tour of a brewery on a trip to visit the Jaramillos in Colorado. It was my first brewing experience. Lesson #1: Safety first in the world of brewing!

My honey woke up extra early two Saturdays ago to start the brewing process. We had a house full of people (Yeah for family time with my sister, brother-in-law, and nieces!) and he was quiet as a mouse. Here is my beau working hard on the first batch.

Today, after drinking a case of Sierra Nevada from Costco over the past month, I started with soaking the bottles to remove the labels. The key is to add OxiClean to the hot water. (A great tip from my love!) If anyone has extra Sierra Nevada bottles hanging around, we're happily taking donations!

Now the bottles are drying on our version of a Christmas tree! We'll fill them up with booze this weekend and then I have to start designing our labels and order them online. :-) This fiesta is going to be a blast!

Current Wedding Details

We are still working on the details, but this is the place to check everything out.
Bookmark our new blog.

Wedding Ceremony
11/11/11
Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California
Immediate family and wedding party only

Wedding Fiesta
11/12/11
Solana Beach, California
Save-The-Dates will be sent out the first week of July with invitations to follow

:-)

Our Rico Dog

This is Rico, or as we like to call him Pinche Poochador... it's a term of endearment, I swear!

He is the most handsome and most intelligent dog you will ever meet. He is the king of our neighborhood. No walk to the mailboxes with this canine wonder doesn't elicit a response from everyone walking by...

"He's soooo cute!" (Ummm yeah we have eyes, therefore we already know this, but thanks.)

"What breed of dog is he? His coat is gorgeous!" (Our answer to the breed question is Awesome, because it's a fact.)

"Oooooh!" (Accompanied with that squishy face people reserve for babies and this most adorable of dogs.)

"Awwwww man I just want to hug your dog. He's the most precious." (Editor's note: We do NOT recommend attempting to hug Rico without his explicit permission. He is fast, like superhero fast, and you'll never catch him.)

He brings us tons and tons of joy AND we can blame all farts on him, so that's handy. (Editor's Note: If Rico, in fact, farts you will KNOW IT because it will be silent and the foulest stench you've ever experienced... BUT it rarely happens so if we say it was Rico, it was probably us.)

We are currently in the market for a Rico-sized bow-tie since he will be serving as King of Adorability at the wedding.