Dave & Laura 5/24/09

Last weekend, Chris and I went up to Berkeley, California for the wedding between my good college friend David Flink and his bride, Laura. It was a beautiful day. (Thanks for the photos Dave!)

As with all these Brownie wedding weekends (mine included!), the reunion portion is as much fun as the festivities themselves! It was fun to see the usual suspects of this particular crew, plus a few other Brown peeps I hadn't seen either since graduation or the 5 year reunion.

Before we got to NoCal, however, we stopped for an evening with Chris' cousin Jeff and his wife Mia (you may remember them from my Thanksgiving post, but here they are from our wedding...[I forgot to take a photo with them this trip.]) Anyways, we got up to Jeff & Mia's about dinnertime on Friday night, having taken the coast up to their place in Monterey, which is a really cool drive! I'd never been up the coast past Hearst Castle in San Simeon, and it's amazing! The water is so blue and you're driving right along the cliffs. I tried taking some photos in the car but it was too hard. they didn't really come out very well.

Anyways, we had a very yummy dinner and a lot of wine and beer afterwards, sitting outside by their outdoor fire pit! It was a great night, and their cat Simon snuggled up with me during the night, so I didn't feel like I was missing Butch and Sundance too much.

By Saturday mid-morning, we had had a big breakfast and were on our way up to Berkeley, where we met up with Beth and Andrea (and her new beau Josh!) for some lunch. Then the whole crew met up at Dave & Laura's reception to welcome out of town guests.

That night was the rehearsal dinner, during which Dave, his wife Jaime, Evan and I got up to give a joint speech. Since Flink is very into projects via his Eye-to-Eye non-profit, we decided to do something different - a Madlib speech, where the audience filled in words that we left missing from the speech. It was really fun and while I don't think everything totally made sense to some people, it was fun to get everyone laughing and participating.

Then Sunday was a group brunch and then the wedding, for which I was an usher, which was fun. I was rocking a new hairdo for the wedding (Cut me some bangs last week!) and I'm hoping that it doesn't look ridiculous in Dave's photos.

The wedding was beautiful and the reception seemed to fly by. The day was a bit blustery outside, and as you can see, Laura's veil was going nuts during the pre-ceremony photos! They had a very pretty outdoor cocktail hour, and the backdrop were these gorgeous hills you can see in these photos.

Both the bride and the groom are dancers, so you can imagine, they were tearing up the floor all night. And it was really wonderful to see them both so happy- they were beaming at each other all night! So sweet :)

Here are a few more of everyone:




Monday was the post-wedding breakfast, and we had to say goodbye to friends far too soon. The weekend seemed to zip by and I was reminded how quickly our own wedding weekend flew by almost 8 months ago! Holy cow!

Anyways, to all my peeps, I miss you guys and loved seeing you! I'm working on our Summer 2010 reunion plans!

Happy Birthday Chris!!

Yay! Chris is 29 today! old man that he is...haha. Okay, he's not actually old but he is older than me. woohoo!

Anyways, we had a low key evening after work tonight since we are leaving for Berkeley, CA tomorrow for David Flink's wedding this weekend. Chris wanted ribs so we grabbed a casual dinner and then came home to hang out, play with the cats and pack.

Love you honey!

Oooh- this looks awesome

Check out the trailer for NINE - new movie directed by Rob Marshall (CHICAGO), starring Daniel Day Lewis, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Sophia Loren, Kate Hudson and Fergie. Lots of peeps!

Click here to check it out!

Ooh La La!

Sunday Night Pictionary Man

On Sunday night, Sage & Jeff invited Chris & I over, along with our friends Leigh & Ward for a little game night and dinner. We started off with some wine and a first round of Girls v. Boys playing "Pictionary Man". It's sort of a new version of the classic game. But instead of drawing on a board, you get this little dude to draw on (he's made of the white board material) and two props to go along with him. Naturally, after some wine, it started getting a little dirty. As you can see, Leigh and I were having way too much fun in between rounds with the little man!











The boys won the first round, so the women were naturally happy to adjourn for dinner. Sage has this fun Rachelette (sp?) thing where you cook your own meat and veggies, and then melt cheese on them at the table! Yum! It's essentially a grill and a broiler in one.


The little trays make bite size portions and the whole thing is perfect for a group dinner so everyone chats while we're cooking our food. It's the same kind of party idea as fondue, you're just not dipping anything...you're cooking it instead!


Anyway, after dinner we played a second round until it got a bit late and we called it a tie...so I suppose the men kind of won...boo!

Kitty Post

It was so hot one day last week that the cats were lying around with no energy. The upside, them being super cute and laying on each other.

Run for the Boobies

This morning I participated in the Revlon Run/Walk for Women again! (I can't remember if it's my third or fourth time running it!) It's an annual 5K race (or walk) in NY and LA that Revlon sponsors, the intent being to raise money for women's cancer research. Sony sponsors a team each year and the past two years, my friend Darcy and I have done it together. So much nicer to have someone to walk around with at the expo before the race and also to meet up with afterwards. I remember doing it on my own and it's really not as fun.

Anyway, I digress. I love the event because you see men, women and children - all ages too - participating. Many of them wear signs clipped to their shirt, declaring who they are running/walking the event for - many survivors and many victims. It's a pretty emotional event and I always get a bit choked up through the course when I see a young kid with one of those signs on.

I have to say, I haven't been running very much lately b/c of an issue with my knee, and man- 3.2 miles felt a lot farther than I am used to! It made me sad as I crossed the finish line to realize that back in the day, this would have been a warm up for my long run, instead of being my whole one. But the good news is that I am seeing a doctor (finally, I know, I know!) this week about my knee. Hopefully I'll figure out what the issue is and find a way to fix it so I can be running again. I love spinning and the stairs, but it's just not the same as a good run!

Warning: This post may contain massive amounts of Nerd

Space...the Final Frontier.
So the new STAR TREK movie doesn't start out with these words, but rather wraps up an amazing action adventure movie set in space that is the new installment of the STAR TREK franchise. The movie is awesome - let's just start with that. JJ Abrams and writers Kurtzman & Orci continue to amaze me with their talent, and essentially, I want to be them. I went with Chris and Marlene (a friend and a HUGE Trekkie) to the midnight showing last night. Hoo-ah!

The movie opens with a great action sequence, showing the demise of the U.S.S. Kelvin and sets up our Romulan bad guys. Eric Bana plays our bad dude and it's insane how unrecognizable he is! The shaved head and facial tattoos really help. Anyways- we set up our big problem and see how Kirk was born, what happened to his family, etc. Cut to the future and we get to meet our fabulous crew as teens. (Well, there's one time chunk in the middle when Spock and Kirk are kids.) My favorites are definitely Chris Pine as Kirk, Zoe Saldana as Uhuru and then eventually, when he emerges much much later in the movie, Simon Pegg as Scotty.

The movie feels like it's really a story about Spock, more than anything. While we're setting up Kirk and showing how he takes control of the Enterprise, his story has less emotional weight than Spock's, which is of course the intended irony since he's the stoic Vulcan. Kirk drives the movie forward, but it's Spock that we feel for more than anything. Though, I actually think that we're supposed to care more about Kirk and Spock finding their way to the live-long friendship that has been memorialized in STAR TREK for so many years.

Other good news is that the production value is AWESOME. It makes you want to strangle George Lucas when you see how much of this movie is CGI and how GREAT it looks. It feels real and it's exciting! It's not some bizarre background - it just looks like space!

I have really nothing to complain about. I am going to see the movie again on Sunday on the IMAX screens, so maybe a second viewing will show me a thing or two that I'm not pysched about. We shall see.

p.s. The Arclight Theater in LA is awesome - they had themed cocktails for the opening weekend (I had the "Captain's Cooler" and my friend Marlene had the "Warp-tini". They also gave out free t-shirts, and I wore my to work today. NERD ALERT!!)

Hello again

I know it's been awhile....sorry! Life's been busy and stressful. Nothing new I suppose, but I've been very bad about blogging...even reading others' blogs has fallen by the wayside the last couple of weeks.

But I'm back and I thought I'd come back with something amusing...So last night, I'm leaving the lot around 7pm (early considering how late I've been here lately!!), and this is what I see as I leave my building...

These cute little ducks wandering around the lot...and just the two of them. So weird! I'd never seen ducks on the lot before...a stray cat or two, yes. Ducks? No.

Anyways, life's pretty good. Saw STATE OF PLAY and 17 AGAIN recently. Is it sad to say that 17 AGAIN was actually more entertaining than STATE OF PLAY? Both movies are miles apart, but I felt STATE was just a bit too long and dry. The performances were excellent but there wasn't a lot to get excited about. In terms of 17, I gotta say it was loads of fun. Zac Efron did a good job of showing that he can do a bit more than just HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL, though the first 10 min of the movie are him playing basketball and dancing. But then he's flirting with Leslie Mann for a good chunk of the movie and you're like, "Hey- he's doing it. And doing it well." Okay bad 90s music reference.

See both on DVD for sure!