ducksandbooks

Apparently getting married lets people feel entitled to ask you weird questions.  Like “Do you plan to have kids?” or “How soon are you planning to have babies after you’re married?” or “How late will the wedding go, I want to catch the 6 PM flight out of DIA [which is about an hour away], and I don’t want to miss too much of your party.” Wow, AWKWARD (the first 2 more than the last). Yes, we’re having kids, later. We’ll tell you more when they’re on the way. None will be born in Colorado, Ben has to graduate first so that we no longer qualify for public assistance by having a family of three or more. Yes, leaving at 4:30 to get to the airport means you will miss at least an hour to 90 minutes of party. Sorry. You’ll be leaving right before we parade across the street to the bistro/bar to play pool, eat fried food, and drink beer.

Seriously, who would want to miss this? We’ve got glow-stick bracelets for everyone and there will be pool, beer, board games and fried food! Sounds like an AWESOME party to me. But, then again it’s our party and why would we plan a party that we wouldn’t want to go to?

FYI- Whitney and I aren’t giants, we’re just sitting on a closer bench to the camera than everyone else.

Andrea, Becca, Katie, Miri, Shiri, ME, Whitney F.

One friend drove home early to Boulder from California and 2 friends flew in. Wow. I’ve got 6 girlfriends friends who are all totally AMAZING! These are the girls I call when I’m happy, sad, or need help/someone to talk to. Thanks for being there with me to have some fun so that we can be a little more subdued at the wedding…. That is until the AFTER PARTY!

Whitney Francis (far right), Ben, and I scoped out The Attic Bar and Bistro for an after party and I am stoked. We’re going to have tasty fried snacks, beer, free pool tables, and some giant leather couches to crash on. SWEET!

Well, Whitney might own a red coat, but she’s definitely not British. She’s organized a bachelorette party for me and 6 girlfriends tomorrow night. Two of whom are flying in from Far Far Away, one is driving from CALIFORNIA and the others are locals. I expect to eat too much and try to not drink too much all weekend.

I’ll have to warn them that I’m an idiot and scheduled myself to work on Sunday at noon. Oh well. I need the money and I can do retail 1/2 awake. I’m working the back-to-school rush at the off-campus bookstore on The Hill.

+ = sad

(if you got your invitation already, you’ll know what I’m talking about)

With bells on is a idiom for being dressed up and/or excited to go to a party, I never intended for anyone to actually wear bells! And if you think that awful tradition of ringing a bell or clinking a glass is going to work on us, guess again. My grandmother is going to walk over and smack your hand. In my mind, those traditions are right up there on the tack-o-meter with the money dance and the groom removing the bride’s garter with his teeth. (No, I’m not wearing a garter, nor am I going to toss a bouquet -if I even carry one.)

FYI, jester hats are not appropriate attire for a semi-formal event. And ankle bells are only allowed if you wear a sari or other appropriately authentic ethnic ware.

Ben and I are both 27, as of yesterday.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes for my 7 + 20 birthday party yesterday. Ben and Becca both borrowed some equipment from their research labs so that we could make home made dip’n'dots. Sadly, I forgot my camera. Oh well, we’re going to do it again on Friday for “cookie time” at JILA!

(source)

This is the battle I fight with myself every day.

Many of my best gal pals are coming out to Denver in 3 weeks just to celebrate with me! It’ll be my belated-birthday/bachelorette party! It’s going to be awesome.

The only thing that won’t be awesome is the fact the I feel guilty about going out and having fun while Ben is sitting at home, eating ice cream and reading fan fiction online -obviously by himself.

I know it’s his idea of a relaxing evening at home, but I don’t want him to relax at home, I want him to go out and have pizza and beer with his guy friends! The problem is that most of his guy friends are from work and he doesn’t really want to see them on the weekend unless they’re eating sushi and singing death metal karaoke….. Maybe I’ll email them behind his back and strongly encourage them to go out for sushi/karaoke night while I’m out with the girls. No, I’m not his social secretary. I’ll just keep pestering him to plan something for my sake, so that when my girlfriends ask what he’s doing that night, I don’t have to tell them that I left him home alone, with ice cream and wifi.

Our invitations came in the other day, but I’m still down in Peru (ostensibly to help my mom pack out her apartment down here) and Ben opened them without waiting for me. I’m not terribly upset about that, but I am annoyed with the fact that we got extras for free. If I’d know we were going to get free extras, I would have ordered fewer! They’re printed in batches of 25, and I ordered 150, knowing that we’d need 120 and that 125 was too close a call for my comfort. Bugger. That would have saved us something along the lines of $40!  Grumble….. We could have used those $40 elsewhere in the budget!

Oh well, I’m excited to see the invitations when I get home! Look for yours in the mail some time in mid August. Now, I just have to decide if we’re inviting out friends kiddos or not. I’d really like to, but my mom is against it because then they’ll miss their nap times and might not be the little angles I know them to be when their schedules are not disrupted.

Really, I want photos like this one, from my friend Jennifer’s wedding a few years ago:

cello player friend, her baby, Jennifer & Jonathan

I’m going to be gone from July 3-19, traveling with my bestest gal pal and visiting my mom. Just letting the internets know before I forget to tell you why I’ve fallen off the web next weekend for 2 weeks.

Machu Pichu, from last August's trip to Machu Pichu -this photo looked better before I degraded the image file to upload it faster :(

See more (and better quality versions) of my photos at viola_in_peru.