2009's Knitted Christmas Gifts

Green and Yellow Hat and Scarf Set.

Made for the lovely Jenny of Creative Cooking: Gluten Free and Mia Cara Photography

The scarf is a double rib and I can't remember how many stitches I casted on but it was a lot!  The hat is pretty basic with a double rib at the bottom, I believe I casted on 70 stitches in a round. I used Blue Sky Alpacas Dyed Cotton Yarn.  My absolute favorite yarn out there.

Black Hat With Ear Flaps.

Made for my younger step sister, Casey.

I believe I did 70 stitches in a round for this hat as well.  I started with seed stitch at the bottom and then just knitted the top. I adapted of the Stitch'n'Bitch pattern for the ear flaps   to make them longer at the top and use a knit stitch on the last two stitches on each side to keep a cleaner line.  Then I i-corded down 12 inches and attached little pom poms. This hat was also made from Blue Sky Alpacas Dyed Cotton.

Black Hat With Ear Flaps and Multi Colored Pom Poms.

Made for my future cousin-in-law, Monica

This was 70 stitches in a round and I alternated knitting and purling each row to get the look of the base of the hat and the ear flaps. The top is just knitted. I again, made the ear flaps longer than the Stitch'n'Bitch pattern and either knited or purled the two last stitches one each side depending on which alternating row I was on.  The black yarn is Blue Sky Alpacas Dyed Cotton and the multi colored yarn is Araucania Patagonia Nature Cotton (my other favorite yarn).

My Favorite Wedding Blog

I've been following a lot of wedding blogs since we got engaged.  This may or may not be a good thing.

However, in the case of A Practical Wedding, I believe it to be a great thing.

I just found this post;  Love & Choice & Power.

And it was just what I needed to read this morning...

It pretty much sums up exactly how I feel about weddings.

The Rumors Are True

freckles and blondie (aka Zeke and Adina) are moving to Seattle, Washington in March 2010!

I just recieved my official offer for and accepted a job with the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Region 10.  I will be working in the National Preparedness Division as a Training and Exercise Specialist.

So 2010 is going to be an exciting year with a new state to move to, new jobs for both of us, and of course, getting married!

In Todays Mail

Swatches for my dress and the bridesmaid dresses!





Le crueset mini casserole dish which we recieved as a gift for registering for a certain number of le crueset items at Williams and Sonoma.




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Breaking News Update #1

While amazingly we were able to find contact information for the owners of the Peace Barn thanks to the help of one of our friends, we found out that they are no longer hosting weddings on the property.

It's a private residence and having events with large numbers of guests really takes a toll on it. Totally understandable, but a bit sad :-(.


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Found: The Elusive Peace Barn

Right after we got engaged I saw pictures from a wedding in Bolinas at the Peace Barn. It looked perfect to me, Zeke wasn't so sure, but I've had it in the back of my mind ever since. The only problem was that we had no idea where it was. It's like a secret!

Then the other day we went to bolinas to look at another venue and we drove right by it! Zeke liked it much more in person.

So now we have what we think is the address of the site so we're going to write letters to them and hopefully get some more information!




If anyone knows anything about this place or who the owner/operators are please please please let us know!

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Oh the Venue Search Continues

So we still havn't had any luck with a venue that feels right for us.  We checked out the Historic Sand Rock Farm in Aptos and while their wine cave was very cool and the house itself felt very homey, their fields (which we had high hopes for) were more like glorified parking lots covered with wood chips.

We did check out the Big Sur River Inn and were impressed by the restaurant and decks that we would use for the reception.  The ceremony site was also nice but not quite what we are looking for.  However, since it was a really neat place, we're going to keep it in mind. One thing that was neat was that the Inn itself has only 20 rooms, but right next door and within walking distance is the Big Sur Campground and Cabins, so that would give our guests more lodging options.

Right now we're trading e-mails with Mayacamas Ranch to see if we could have the kind of wedding we want there.  Their ceremony site has the kind of expansive view that we are really hoping for.

I also just rediscovered VRBO today, which stands for Vacation Rental By Owner.  I read about another wedding where someone found their venue on there so I started looking around for large estates or homes with a lot of property around them and found a bunch of things from down south in Carmel Highlands up to Napa and Sonoma. I'll be checking through those more thouroughly tonight to see if we have any potential sites to call!

Also...keep tabs on the updates in the coming weeks and months because I heard a rumor that may be adding some additional non wedding related updates to the blog! :-)

Bay and Harbor Series (The Last Set!)

We started out our day with some photos at the harbor. Both Zeke and I absolutly love boats, specifically catamarans, so Zeke came up with the idea of taking some photos at the harbor in Monterey. 

Here are my favorites;

First Brick House and Garden Series

This site was also unplanned but happened show up when Jenny suggested we go to a garden nearby where we had been taking pictures along the path that goes from Old Wharf to Cannery Row. Turns out it is the First Brick House, which I'm guess the first one built in California, but I'm not sure... There was also another historic site with a garden nearby that often gets used for wedding receptions.  I actually ran across it in my searching for venues.

So here are some of my favorites from this site;

Photos From Pacific Grove

Okay, on to the next site, a coupld of coastal stops in Pacific Grove.  The day we took pictures also happened to be a day with a forcast for some pretty serious waves.  At Asilomar the forcast called for waves up to 39 feet!  We mostly saw waves around the 20 foot height, but it was still amazing to see them crash against the shoreline.  A couple of times we got a bit of mist from the really big crashes.

So here are my favorite shots;

We didn't plan on taking any photos here originally but because the Dennis the Menace Playground was just packed with kids, we had to find somewhere else to wear our matching American Apparel hoodies!

My Favorite Shots From Asilomar

So you may have gotten a look at some of the engagement pictures on Flickr already but I wanted to post some of my favorites from each spot. 

First, my favorite pictures from my favorite spot; the gazebo at Asilomar.  For those of you that don't know this is the exact spot that we got engaged and we wore the same clothes that we had on then for the photos.

Here are a couple of my favorite shots from that day...

What you don't get to see in these shots was how increadibly chilly out it was when we took these.  Poor Jenny had her hood up and was jumping up and down to keep warm.  After each series of shots she would run up and throw our matching hoodies from some of the other shots to me so I could wrap them around my legs to warm up since I was only wearing a pretty small and very thin dress. But it was all worth it in the end, because it was a beautiful sunset and Jenny took these amazing photos.

More to come later from the other locations!

Engagement photos!!!!

Well everybody they're here! We're super excited about them and can't wait to see the rest. Jenny did a great job with them! (it's to bad she's going to be a bridesmaid and can't shoot the wedding :-p)

WOOOOOHOOOOO

Keep checking back, because there are more comin'!!!

Back to the drawing board!

Hey everyone!
So for everyone waiting for a date, so are we! After Jessica Felts the "Group Sales Manager" at Costanoa made a verbal agreement and turned down Stews offer to submit a deposit to reserve the date saying that we had the date secured and that he should wait for the contract she sent us this email...

"Hi Zeke, Adina, and Stew,

Thank you for your email today Stew, I have been in meetings all day and have not had a chance to get back to you until now.

As you all know this is our peak wedding booking season, and September/October dates for 2010 have been booking very quickly.

I regret to inform you that the September 25, 2010 date has been booked for another wedding.

I apologize for the disappointing news ... "

It goes on trying to say that other dates are available but thats not really important because at this point we don't feel like we can trust them with our special day - to many broken promises. So were back looking at venues and have some promising leads including the Seymour Marine Discovery Center and we're looking into renting a big ass beach house and just having it there :-D.

---

On another note we had a AWESOME!!! birthday dinner at Betelnut (great find Jude!) which had a gluten free menu for Adina after visiting BE to design our wedding bands. Were hoping that after we catch up a couple of pay checks :-p we can head up and get them started!

---

A couple of weekends ago we went with one of Adina's best friends and future bridesmaid Jenny Manseau who also happens to be a professional photographer to take some engagement photos and evadentally ended up with around 1000 taken. So we patiently wait as she does her fancy photographer thang and can't wait to see and share them with you all! And if anybody has the needs for a photographer give her a call or shoot an e-mail and if she can't help you out she should be able to provide a good reliable reference.

Other than that we're geting geared up for thanksgiving and the holiday season and can't wait to see everyone!

New and improved wedding website!

Hey everyone!
We weren't really happy with 'The Knot' for our website and made one that we think is WAAAAAAAAAAAY better with google. So click here and check it out!

Coming Soon (Hopefully!)

Exciting discussions were had tonight at our house tonight over yummy and GF pizza from Amici's!  Hopefully we'll have some good news soon on our date and venue.

In other news, yesterday we had a mini-date night and we purchased some silly 80s-esque looking matching hoodies from American Apparel to use for some of our engagement pictures that one of my awesome bridesmaids is shooting.

We are hoping to go to Dennis The Menace Park in Monterey to take some silly shots, so hopefully we will get our turn to play on all the fun things there!  We are also going to go to Asilomar, where we got engaged, to shoot some more dressed up looking pictures.

Updates Coming Soon!

We promise we'll update you all on something fun soon. Althought right now we are mostly doing some waiting to get some answers from our preferred venue...

For those of you marking dates on your calender even before we send our our save-the-dates (which we have an awesome idea for) here are the two prime candidates;

August 28, 2010
or
September 18, 2010

August was our first choice, but our current preferred venue has indicated to us that the prices will drop and the rules will be more flexible in September. So if we end up going with them, we will be chosing the September date.

We Has Colors!

Okay, today's wedding accomplishment was colors!

Moss/Olive Green
Navy Blue
Chocolate Brown (apparently blogger has no brown font color, but think somewhere in between milk and dark...)

And maybe we might throw in some Orange here and there, but not sure yet about that.

Still Planning

Found some interesting color combos and some other fun ideas :-)



-- Posted from my iPhone

The Search For Venues

Today we went to look at our first possible ceremony/reception site!

Costanoa is located in Pescadero, just about 30 minutes from where we live in Capitola. It's sort of a "luxury" camping lodge/resort type place that also happens to be a "green certified facility." They actually recycle and reclaim all of their water, they have a kitchen farm, and all of their seafood purchases are based of the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Sustainable Seafood Guide. We were so excited while we were on our tour, we forgot to take any pictures :-(. But we came away absolutely in love with the reception site, a field looking at the hills, and the after hours site, the resort restaurant. Another high point was that they were very much willing and happy to work with us on the many food allergies I have and they also make pie! The lodge was also really beautiful and if we decided to go with Costanoa we would have to buyout the entire lodge for our guests. This is probably the only thing that might prove to be difficult for us as there are 39 rooms and we are trying to keep our guest list at no more than 100. So the next step is for Zeke and I to look through a packet they gave us, pick out the things we would want, and then they will do an estimate for us!

We are still planning on looking around a bit more, but we do want to settle on a site and date as soon as possible. We might check out Cornerstone Gardens in Sonoma, because we love the Garden Barn for the reception. I just sent them an e-mail today for more information on that site. I also just sent another information request to Calistoga Ranch up in the same area. So we'll see what come from these possibilities...

We are also still on the lookout for any sites down in the Carmel or Big Sur area, but so far no luck for anything in a reasonable price range. If anyone has any suggestions or ideas on sites down there, we would really appreciate the input!

More websites :-)

Lots of stuff in the works! We started putting our registries together, though we still need to go in to the stores and add a bunch of stuff. So check out the "official" web site here and keep checking back because we've only started working on it!

The toughest secret I've ever had to keep

Two months ago I found myself in little fifth floor office on the corner of Geary and Market in San Francisco. It was a tuesday around 1pm and Adina was at work thought I was running errands in Capitola, or more realistically, lazing around on the couch putzing the day away. Before me was what amounted to an amphitheater of rings in all shapes and sizes. The next tuesday I was back and had a plan of what I wanted. Beth, the gemologist that was helping me, had a fancy shmancy photoshop type mock up of the ring that we had designed and we went over the finishing touches and placed the order. A month later I was back, picking up the ring - and then I actually had to figure out what to do with the damn thing!



After a few sleepless night spent just thinking about taking the ring out and asking right then and there I finally remember that I owed Adina a Valentines Day because I had been working on actual Valentines and the plan began to take form. I got off duty that morning and it was all I could do not to speed (excessively) just to get the day started! After a shower we made breakfast together and headed down to Monterey. The plan was to spend the day just the two of us hanging out and ended up taking a walk that we always used to when Adina was in school there along the harbor and then had a picnic on a lawn overlooking the bay.



We had done this before and it was one of my favorite dates that we had been on (a picture from that one is above). It was a little cloudy and overcast this time, but still beautiful out and picnics are always fun. Afterword we headed over to Adinas friend Jennys house to change. Adina knew a suprise was coming, that were had to be a little dressed up and that it was going to be outside, and that was it. She had been spending the entire day trying to guess what it was, or atleast trying to figure a little out about what might be happening. I spent the entire time hicuping because I was so nervous and trying to come up with witty ways to deflect her questions without giving away the actual surprise.



Out to Asilomar State Beach we went, parking in a little turn out on the side of the road and following a sand path out to a little gazebo on a bluff overlooking the rocky beach. We took in the view for a couple of minutes and I told Adina to close her eyes and, attempted, to stealthily take the ring out of my jacket that I had placed on the bench. After having what must have been the quietest panic attack in all of history because I couldn't remember what pocket I put the ring in and it wasnt in the first one I checked I finally found the ring and kneeled in front of my fiancé to be, took a deep breath and told her she could open her eyes. She looked like an Atom bomb of excitement just went off inside of her and I could tell as I started to speak that there was no time for the cheesy speech I had planned on giving because in the next few seconds she was either going to say "yes" faint or spontaneously combust and she was definitely going to make me ask. Hoping to avoid the faint or spontaneous combustion paths blurted out 'WILL YOU MARY ME!!@#!@!" and the next couple moments happened pretty quick but I do remember series of (incredibly) cute noises that had a "YES!!!" in there somewhere, a whole lot of jumping up and down and a really big hug (oh yeah, and some tears :-p) - I'm still on a high from it and hope to never come down.

After all the phone calls were made to assorted family and friends we went to dinner at Passionfish, a nice restaurant in Pacific Grove that had excellent food and cater to any food allergy or need and highly suggest it to anyone thats going down there. After we drove back up home and spent our first night as an engaged couple before going back to work in the morning.