Who knew? We somehow managed to plan our whole wedding while vacationing in Florida over the holidays.
Proper invitations will be sent out by mid-January. The date is April 5th, the location is Anderson Park in Tarpon Springs, Florida. We'll try to capture and share the event in as many ways as possible, so if you're not joining us, we'll recreate it on the Interweb.
Ok, this will be brief until we have more info:
Neven Mrgan and Christa Dickman are getting married in April of 2008. The ceremony and reception will take place in Florida, to be followed by a casual get-together with our Portland friends somewhere on the coast of Oregon.
That's all we know so far - dates, places, and other details will be mailed in a formal invitation.
Yay!
They told me summer would be great in Portland, but they didn't tell me spring would be so summer-y. Yesterday and today we've had absolutely amazing weather - high 70s, sunny and bright, without any humidity. The nights are still cool and fresh, so sleep comes easy and stays once it comes. I did some light gardening - very light - but didn't get to bike all day. I'm definitely amending that later this afternoon.
Post-kickball grill-out at Christa & Neven's house on 5/13/07 at 7 pm. The kickball crew is invited and advised to watch this space for announcements and such.
Here's where we are.
And here's what the house looks like:
BYOB is in effect; also, feel free to bring grillable foods and snacks. If you're vegetarian, vegan, or have allergies, please let Christa know. Show up as early or as late as you'd like.
Neven's phone number is (727) 515-3029. See you there.
One thing I'm excited about when it comes to living in Portland are the nearby wineries and breweries. It looks like one could take many a day trip to pretty places with delicious food. This saturday we went on one such quick trip.
Photos here.
We've been here more than a month now and I thought I'd share with you a brief list of our favorite places in the area so far.
Silver Falls Park, about 90 minutes southeast of here, is a beautiful waterfall park. We had a really nice wet hike there a few weeks ago, and I imagine that it's insanely pretty and refreshing in the summer.
Apizza Scholls makes some of the best pizza I've had anywhere. This includes New York, Italy, and other places in Europe. They're known as "Portland's Pizza Nazi" for their strict rules - no take-out, no delivery, 3-topping limit, open 5-9 pm - and crazy popularity combined with delicious pies. You usually end up waiting about an hour for your food, but you can't blame them - at 4:30 on a Saturday, there's a line of people in front of the small shop.
We've only gone to Jimmy Mak's once, but it left an impression. It's a classy jazz club downtown, and the music was surprisingly good.
I've also only been to Movie Madness once, but boy am I going back. I thought video stores were dinosaurs until I saw the crazy selection here, coupled with quite recognizable movie memorabilia crowding the walls.
That's all for now. So tell us, what are we missing?
Here's the thing: I hadn't been in snow in eight years. I had never been skiing. And I could never wrangle a skateboard for longer than 2 seconds. So, snowboarding sounded like a great opportunity for pain and humiliation.
It was actually fun! Obviously, the temperature at this elevation gets pretty harsh, but this means that I get to wear cool layered gear I last put on when I was twelve years old. It's neat to be looking the elements in the face, mocking their attempt to freeze my ass off under snow pants, thermal underwear, several shirts, a track jacket, and a snow jacket.
How did I do? According to Christa, better than expected. By the end of the 4-hour stay, I was able to confidently glide down the bunny hill (i.e. learning place) and get back up. I fell often, but my hands and lungs didn't really ache for long.
However... my tailbone is very, very sore as I type this. The reason is that I took a fifteen-minute break as I waited for the others to join me (they had gone to the non-wimp hill) - as I saw them approach, I cruised down casually and made a pretty neat descent. However, in those fifteen minutes I had stiffened a little and the hill had iced over a lot, so stopping became harder. I stopped in place, the board hit something slippery and flew out from under me, and my tailbone hit the ground punishingly.
Ouch. It wasn't so bad last night, but I'll be feeling it for the next few days.
P.S. Christa tells me that the proper way to describe my fall is like such:
"Dude, I took a harsh turn and caught an edge, I totally ate it. But the board's fine, so it's cool."
