New York Trip, part 1

Ok, so it may be a little late, but we're finally posting about our trip to the city. This was Audrey's first time, so we did a lot of the touristy stuff, but also had a good mix of neat things which we did with family and friends who live in the city that were a bit off the normal beaten path.

I'm going to take the first portion of the trip, then make Audrey log in and finish it off.

We flew in on Wednesday, September 2 to LaGuardia and took a cab into the city. As this was Audrey's first NYC cab ride, she spent most of the time nervously watching the road as the cabbie sped in and out of traffic, rather than checking out the sights. We went right to our hotel, Flatotel, which was at a great location right at the North side of Times Square.

We started off with a quick walk to Times Square and lunch at a nearby deli. As we were walking around, a couple right in front of us turned around and asked if we wanted their tickets for one of the (unabashedly touristy) double decker tour buses for $20. Considering the tickets are normally $55 each, we jumped on the bus, which took us all around Manhattan. That is a great way to get a quick overview of the main attractions of the city.

Wednesday evening we met up with my cousin Corinne for a great Italian dinner and then her boyfriend Cameron joined us for drinks afterwards at a local bar. We also stopped by their apartment because we found it very interesting to see how people actually live in the city.

Moving on to Thursday, we did a boat harbor tour that was actually included in the tickets that we got for the buses the day before (thus, included in that whopping $20 price tag), which took us right up to the Statue of Liberty and had some great views of the skyline.

Next, we made our way to the Ed Sullivan theater for a taping of the Late Show with David Letterman. When picking up our tickets, we were pulled aside, and told that we got "special audience upgrade" tickets. I was freaked out that we might be on TV, but it really just meant we got into the front two rows of the theater, which were great seats. The guest was Billy Crystal with music by John Fogerty. We had a really good time, but Audrey was of course chilly in the theater, which Dave likes to keep at about 60 degrees.

After that, we met up with Audrey's friend from college, Matt Kane. We took a subway to Brooklyn - and were lucky to make it, considering Audrey couldn't remember if Matt said to take the F, V, or B line. We ate at Grimaldi's pizza, and it was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. Absolutely delicious, and it was right by the water and Brooklyn Bridge, so views were great. We walked back over the bridge, which was the first time I'd done that and helped to burn off some of the pizza grease :-)

Friday we spent the early portion of the day doing something I've always wanted to do.... we just relaxed and spent time in Central Park. I've never really gone into the park more than right around the edges, but we went through and saw most of the major sights (Sheep Meadow, Bethesda Fountain, turtle pond - of course, for Audrey, Belvedere Castle, etc), and just relaxed on a few park benches and people watched. It was amazing how quickly the city sounds disappear once you get into the park, and is a nice break from the busy streets of the city.

Ok, now I sign off for Audrey to pick up the remainder of Friday, Saturday & Sunday. Stay tuned...

Leaving for NYC in like 5 hours...

Quick, Twitter-esque update.... we fly out for NY, NY at 6am tomorrow! That will be painful. This is Audrey's first time to the big city, so it should be pretty fun. We have plans to meet up with my cousin for dinner tomorrow, some school friends, a show, going to a Letterman taping, sightseeing, etc.

Should be a great time. I promise a post including pictures when we get back!

Pictures... finally!

I know we haven't posted since the wedding, but I think I'll try to get back to it.

It took us long enough.... but we finally got our favorite wedding pics posted! A huge thanks to Audrey for getting that done. She had some free time today, so she was able to narrow down the 750ish pictures to her favorite 150. I know it's still a ton to go through, but it's better than 700+

I'm trying this for the first time... but you should be able to view the pictures on Facebook externally, even if you aren't on Facebook. Try this link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2712335&id=7903770&l=896de7fcbc

Here's a little preview:
If you have any problems with that, I think we have them on Picasa as well, so let us know and we can shoot you that link.


As for current happenings - Audrey started up a new position at Dell. She hasn't figured out yet exactly how to describe it, but the gist of it is that rather than placing the orders, she helps manage the customer relationship a bit more, and makes sure that the people on her previous team place all the orders as needed.

For me - nothing too much is new. Work has been fun; I've been involved in some really neat new projects around the office, which is fun for me. Gives me a chance to do something a bit different from time to time.

We're taking a little road trip this weekend to Coushatta to do a bit of gambling. Should be a fun little road trip, with a fun crew of people. Gotta love the random road trips.

We also booked a trip to NYC for the first week of Sept. Aud's never been to the city, so it's one of those trips we've been looking forward to. The fact that we got free flights from our airline miles makes it even more attractive. Looking forward to doing the usual touristy stuff, a few shows, and I'm sure some other random excitement.

More to come....hopefully

Nothing new....

Yeah, nothing much has happened since our last post..... well, except for the whole wedding thing. After all of our prep, we finally had our big day! Everything went great - we had a whole lot of fun throughout the whole day. I don't even really know how I could begin to describe the whole event because as everyone warned us, the day flew by.

The ceremony only took like 15 minutes, but it only felt like 5 to me. Audrey looked pretty damn hot. From there we took a bunch of pictures, then headed to the reception. It took us almost 2 hours to eat (quickly) then circle the room to say hi to all of the tables, and that was even moving quickly from one to the next. We obviously wish we had a lot more time to spend with everyone that showed up. Then we moved on to the cake cutting, dancing, etc....all of which was a lot of fun.

We're so glad that so many people were able to come. Our photographer, Shannon Cunningham, just posted our pictures online this past Friday. As soon as we get the DVD, we'll pick our favorites and post them on our picture site. If you just can't wait, you can check out all of the pictures here, but as a word of warning, it's something like 700 pictures. You'll have to create an account, and enter our password of "0314" to get in.

We went straight to our honeymoon at the Excellence resort in Punta Cana (Dominican Republic). That will have to be a whole post on its own, as well as bunch of pictures, so that will be up next!

Also, if you happen to want more frequent, shorter updates, you can check out my Twitter feed on the right side of this page or via my site. Audrey hates that I spend time on this, but she spends more time overall on Facebook, so I guess we're even :-)

Kinda married

Got our marriage certificate!

Redneck in training

I decided today to watch a full Nascar race just bc I never have before and none of my usual sports were on. I figured I had to do it right, so I cracked a Miller Light and put on my camo hat.

Ethan came over after a while and wanted to wear a camo hat also while he watched with me. He'll need to wait a bit longer for the adult beverage :-)

Celebrating Danielle's 21st in Ft Worth

Enough said. :-)

The prototype

I told you they're artsy! Pretty cool looking. I like it

My girl's a programmer

The artsy girls are working on the programs and favors. Down to those little details. I'm quite out of my element here, but try to offer an opinion when asked. :-)

Time for the details

(Trying to post from my BlackBerry - we'll see how this works)

We're getting close! We have our River Place tasting tonight which should be a lot of fun - supposedly we get piles of good food to try.

We also need to finish up favors, programs, flowers details, ceremony schedule, etc, but it's just down to the minor details.

I'm getting very excited each time I hear about more family and friends who can come, so I'm really beginning to look forward to the whole weekend of fun with everyone. Oh yeah, and then we get a week on the beach in Punta Cana!!

My turn

I will just add to Ryan's previous post with some pics of the house and stuff.


This was our Christmas present to each other. I love it, and it has a cool Butterfly leaf that is stored in the table, but you can extend it out to a square to provide extra space.


Just a kitchen shot.


Living room, pre-clock. Ryan's parents got us a really big clock that we now have hung over the tan couch. It looks really cool.


Ryan and Dad digging a hole. As Ryan mentioned, we decided it might be best to pay to have the other trees done.


Our beautiful Cherry Laurel.


I know it just looks like sticks right now, but in the spring this will be our pretty Crepe Myrtle. Not sure what color dad ended up getting us. Hoping that this guy will give us a little bit more privacy from our neighbors kitchen window.



The tree on the right was previously in the planter bed right up against the house. Dad brought one of his guy's over and he transplanted it into the yard where it should be happier! :)


Our Christmas Tree


Didn't our lights turn out cute? As Ryan mentioned, we had to go to about 5 different places before we found everything we needed. Guess one week after Thanksgiving is already late to be xmas light shopping, which we now know.


Ryan and I at my Cedar Park Reunion Christmas party

Catching up....

Wow, we haven't posted in forever! Let's see if I can get an overview of what we've missed....

Thanksgiving was great, although we always are so busy around that time with my family, Aud's mom, Aud's dad, and grandparents each having gatherings; but it's always a lot of fun to hang out with everyone. We actually hosted the meal with my family at our house since my parents were still in the middle of the renovations, so it was great to really break in the new kitchen, fridge, etc.

Christmas was fun, of course, and full of much more family time. We had a fun time going to every store in the area trying to find Christmas lights, but it looked great by the time we finally got everything up. This time we hosted Audrey's family's Christmas at our house, so it was another opportunity for everyone to come over together.

We did a bit of landscaping - Audrey's dad got us a new Cherry Laurel and Crepe Myrtle for the backyard, and also transplanted some trees from our front flower bed out in the yard, rather than right next to the house. He & I (and Audrey, as much as she could) dug the hole in the back yard for the Cherry Laurel, and after that, decided it best to pay someone to help finish the job :-)

As for wedding stuff, we are moving right along. We are in progress with envelope stuffing & addressing for the invites, Audrey's ring just came in (picking it up tomorrow), we have our tasting scheduled, and extended family are starting to make travel plans. Left to finish are picking tuxes (this weekend), favors, order sparklers, and tell the florist we need flowers for the cake. We're pretty much just down to those types of details, which is great. I'm sure things will start to get stressful as we get closer and closer.

The house is still great, we're really loving it. We got a new grill as a housewarming gift from my parents, so we've been grilling out about every other night. I also had a few projects to fix things up that had been bothering me like fixing some doors that swung shut by themselves (wouldn't stay open), and I also rehung our closet door to swing from the other side of the door frame because the builder obviously did that wrong (the light switch was behind the door when it was open).
We've been finally putting things up on the walls also, which is helping the house feel more put together. All in all, we're sure we made the right decision to go with this house, which is a great feeling.

That's about it.... I'll make Aud post about anything I missed :-)