Boy, that blew the budget.  I really, really did plan on ordering my dress off of eBay from a seller in China.  It was going to save me hundreds of dollars.

I had narrowed my selection down to a few dresses from sellers that I trusted. With a preference for one dress in particular, I called a few bridal shops in the Bay Area while I was home for Christmas, hoping to try it on before buying it overseas.  

But, I didn’t find the one I was looking for—I found one better. 

Still confident about buying the other dress straight from China, I emailed the seller to get pictures of her work.  All of the dresses that she had posted on eBay were glamour shots of American and European designer dresses.

I asked to see photos of the dress I had my eye on, and she kindly sent some over. The dress appeared to be of good workmanship, but the fabric just wasn’t what I was hoping for…

** Jeremy: stop reading this! **
** You aren’t supposed to know anything about my dress! **

Feel free to click the ‘Read More…’ link if you’re not my fiance.  :)

I’m so excited about the little apartment I found for us to stay in during our time in Paris! The Saint-Martin apartment is right on the edge of the Marais area of Paris in the 3rd arrondissement, which I think will be a great location.

It comes with a tiny kitchen, washing machine, and a computer + Internet connection.  This will be perfect!

http://www.parisrendezvous.com/

 

Saint-Martin apartment

Jer and I have started planning our honeymoon, and it’s so fun!

After the wedding, we’re hoping to spend the night in San Francisco before flying over to Frankfurt.  From there, we’ll spend a couple of weeks exploring various places in Europe!

We’ve already got our flight booked and a couple of hotels—and so far, it has cost us hardly anything.  Hooray for rewards credit cards!

On the agenda:

• The Netherlands ::staying @ Hotel Pulitzer – Amsterdam
• Belgium ::staying @ Hilton Antwerp Hotel
• Paris  :: haven’t booked anything here yet, but maybe one of these places…
• Switzerland ::staying @ Sheraton Neues Schloss Hotel – Zurich

Our hotel in Amsterdam (The Netherlands), Hotel Pulitzer

Our hotel in Antwerp (Belgium), the Hilton Antwerp

Our hotel in Zurich (Switzerland), the Sheraton Neues Schloss

Anthropologie is such a fun store.  I love going there when I need inspiration!  It’s all about lots of texture and fun prints.

cute robes!

Gypsy Rose robe, right

Cathedral Hall robe, left

...and cute tops!

Pick-a-Peck blouse, left

Echo Flutter tee, right

A sweet dress

Hanging Gardens dress

The cutest cami

Peek-a-boo tank

A fluttery silk skirt

Backdrop Skirt

Fun aprons!

Lime Tree Festival apron, left

Toile apron, right

And we thought we were skiing the next morning? Ha!

The festival was great. Here’s some of what we tried:

Taste Count	Brewery & Location	Beer	% Alcohol	Style/Description	Tasting Notes
1	Avery, Boulder, CO	Beast	18.1%	belgian, brewed with 6 sugars	Great flavor, fruity, alcohol is too strong
2	Avery	Fourteen	9.5%	hoppy, dark belgian	Generic, but nice sweetness
3	Avery	Mephistopheles ‘07	15.1%	belgian imperial stout	Really good! Would never guess 15%.
4	Avery	Maharaja	10.5%	double ipa	bad
5	Avery	Oak Aged Reverend	10.0%	belgian quad aged in opus one oak	Good – tangy, surprising flavor, reminiscent of a lambic (but stronger!), fruity, wine-y
…starting to feel it…
6	Bear Republc, Healdsburg, CA	Batch 1092	9.5%	bourbon aged barleywine	Did we get the right one? This tastes like an IPA.
7	Boulevard Brewing, Kansas City, MO	Long Strange Tripel	9.5%	belgian style tripel	Good!
8	Bull & Bush, Denver, CO	Legend of the Liquid Brain	12.0%	imperial stout aged in bourbon oak	Really good! Not overdone—not too sweet, not too much coffee. Tastes of caramel and roasted marshmallows.
9	Cambridge Brewing, Cambridge, MA	Om	9.4%	belgian golden, aged in chardonnay barrels	Pretty good. Complex, but you couldn’t drink much of this in one sitting. Jer liked it a lot.
Really starting to feel it…
10	Deschutes, Bend, OR	Double Black	10.3%	imperial porter infused with coffee	Mild
It’s getting awfully warm…
11	Dogfish Head, Rehoboth Beach, DE	120 Minute IPA	18.0%	super huge double ipa	Super huge. Like a Christmas tree. Maybe a bit too sweet, but very good.
12	Firestone Walker, Paso Robles, CA	Parabola	13.0%	barrel aged imperial stout	Good flavor. Caramel. Lots of alcohol.
13	Full Sail Brewing, Hood River, OR	Imperial stout	8.5%	just like it sounds	Too bitter
14	Green Flash Brewing, Vista, CA	Grand Cru	8.7%	belgian, two yeast strains	When it warms up, banana flavors. Generic, but good.
15	Green Flash	Le Freak	9.0%	tripel meets imperial ipa	Exactly what it describes. Good. Janine likes this one more than Jer.
Jeremy: "My face is losing feeling."
16	Ironworks Brewing, Lakewood, CO	Misfit	9.0%	sardonically irreverent wit	Janine does not like. Jer – not that good.
17	Mountain Sun Brewery, Boulder, CO	Miscreant	10.1%	oak aged belgian	Not that good.
18	New Belgium, Fort Collins, CO	Cojohhny’s Voodoo Al	8.6%	yerba mate grand cru trippel	Banana nose, watery flavor.
19	New Holland, Holland, MI	Night Tripper	10.8%	imperial stout	Good nose, OK taste
I lost my pencil…
20	Odell Brewing Co., Fort Collins, CO	The Hammer	12.0%	english old ale on steroids	OK
21	Pizza Port, Carlsbad, CA	None the Weisser	8.0%	weizenbock	Too bitter, flavors are too flat.
Jeremy: "I can tell I’m trashed because I have lots of things to say about the sky."
22	Pumphouse, Longmont, CO	Oak Aged Imperial Stout	8.6%	in the name	Decent/good. Similar to Great Divide’s "Yeti."
23	Redstone Meadery, Boulder, CO	Black Rascal	8.0%	blend of blackberry mead and WR wit	Light, refreshing, palate-cleansing (even though surprisingly low carbonation). A little watery.
A lady at the bar: "You aren’t driving, right?"
24	Ska Brewing, Durango, CO	Dragon Ass Doppelbock	9.1%	licorice and carmel	OK
[as I lift chairs over the table for someone] The same lady: "You haven’t had enough to drink."
25	Smuttynose Brewing, Portsmouth, NH	Wheatwine	11.0%	american style wheat wine	Good nose. Couldn’t drink much of this at a time. Other people loved it!
Started forgetting to make tasting notes at this point
26	Stone Brewing, Escondido, CA	Russian Imperial Stout	10.8%	title says it all
27	Trinidad Brewing, Trinidad, CO	Wee Heavy Lassie	10.5%	whiskey barrel aged strong scottish ale
Can’t taste anymore…
28	Victory Brewing, Downingtown, PA	Old Horizontal	11.0%	american barleywine
Jeremy: "I can’t understand words anymore."
So trashed!
29	Wynkoop Brewing Co., Denver, CO	Double Barrel Barleywine	10.8%	aged on american oak
Who cares anymore?
30–?	[insert unknown beers here]

Gumbo’s

When our friends Kevin and Emily were here, we visited some happy hours in Denver (LoDo) before taking them to the airport.  I forgot my camera so I don’t have any photos, but we found a couple of really great places!

Gumbo’s has a really long happy hour (3-7, I think) and is a great deal.  I think we paid $3 for vodka cocktails (straight, dirty, or cosmo only, but whatever!), $3 for wine, and $2 for a bottle of beer.  The drinks were all good; the martinis were strong, but didn’t taste like alcohol.

Gumbo’s blows their competition away just based on the fact that when you buy a drink you get a free bowl of seafood or chicken & sausage gumbo, fresh bread, and great flavored butter!  The food was good, and especially welcome on a cold and dreary day.

Samba Room

Next, we headed over to Samba Room, a Cuban bar and restaurant.  Samba Room offers discounts on mojitos and sangria and $2 tapas.  The mojitos were very good and came with a stick of sugar cane to nibble, and the sangria was excellent—not too sweet or juicy (it still tasted like wine).  We ordered some arepas, which were excellent, and we were happy campers.

Jer and I went around Livermore today with his parents and my mom to look for a place to hold our wedding. Finding a venue has been really difficult. First, it’s been difficult because we were trying to pick out a venue online from Colorado. It doesn’t really work when you can’t go look at the place. Second, it’s been difficult because each venue imposes different restrictions and includes different things in their prices.

Today we went to several wineries and a local historic home; there’s several contenders, but we’re going to have to sit down together and decide what we like and how much all of the pieces of this puzzle will cost.

I’ve also been thinking a lot lately about what style I’d like the wedding to be. A lot—okay, most—of that has to do with the venue, but another big factor is the decorations. So I’ve been looking at pictures of flowers a lot lately. Jeremy says that’s what girls have to do when they know they’re getting married, look at a lot of flowers. But it’s fun, and why not?

Below are some things I’ve found that I like. I doubt I’ll be able to do anything this complicated if I do my own decorations from the FlowerMart. We’ll see.

Jeremy and I just filled out our bracket for March Madness.  We’re totally going to win 5 million dollars.  So cool. Check it out.

Long time no post… I finally got to pick up my ring a couple of weeks ago, and I just got a chance to take a couple of pictures. If you haven’t seen it yet, enjoy!

As if cleaning innards out of a chicken isn’t gross enough, imagine pulling stuff out of the rear end of a chicken and finding this in your hand!!

It was hard to find information about this slimy little thing online, but I think it might be a gallbladder, in which case I guess you can just throw it away and eat the rest of the chicken…Which we did.

I really didn’t want to, but what else were we going to have for dinner? And I couldn’t throw the whole chicken away…I think Grandma Mary (who never throws anything away!) would be proud.