Matrimonio, Pura Vida style

Our wedding photographer has recently posted our photos on his site. We are very happy with them, and recommend him to anyone having a wedding anywhere.

Dan Scheerer is the best destination wedding photographer we could have imagined. He captured every moment and every gesture from every angle. The quality of the lighting and composition are incredible. His style is somewhat photojournalistic, so the photos don’t look staged. Everything is natural, and he was totally unobtrusive.

In addition to that, he and his wife were wonderful people to have at our wedding. They were just a total blast. Dan went surfing with us (at our invitation) the morning of our wedding, and his wife shot that event.

We are just so happy! Thank you!

The very good news is that Kia and her father are still very much alive and healthy. I just heard from her through Gmail. She was checking in with an email and we chatted for a little while as well. I won’t say that I was worried, exactly, but then I can’t say I wasn’t, either. Internet access was understandably limited.

They are both doing well, but are quite exhausted from the journey into, through, and back out of Panama. They’re back in the wild comforts of Costa Rica this evening. Kia even has 2 minutes on a calling card, and threatened she may call me. My phone is charging with the ringer at full volume.

I installed a photo gallery on the wedding site, here, and it is currently in testing. I need to install something for uploading many photos simultaneously, as there is currently on the option to upload one at a time. Not Happening. Once that’s done and all functionality has been tested, I’ll give everyone an account to upload their pics, and anyone who wants an account for viewing them can register as well. Guest users will be able to view thumbnails of the photos.

Pura Vida

Once the family and friends were gathered in San Jose, we had a Welcome Dinner at Nuestra Tierra, an excellent, but very moderately priced restaurant that serves typical food, but caters to tourists with 24 hour service and servers who speak English. Near the end of the main course, three musicians appeared, and Kia’s father had them play a few songs for us. Their first was Novia Mia (My girlfriend, or my fiancee).

My step-father, Ron, is running the camera, and did a terrific job. When they started playing, I basically flipped the dial to movie, slapped the camera down in front of him, and said “IT’S IN MOVIE! HIT IT TO RECORD!” and then ignored his questions of what the heck.

After that, they played a second song, much more upbeat, that I recorded myself. I kept flipping to my best friend, Kit, who was cracking me up. I think she had a crush on the guitarist.

My favorite part of his playing is that it’s utterly expressionless. He wastes no passion on his face, and channels it all through his guitar. Nice.

When the fellas were having trouble choosing a song, we took the limelight off ourselves, and I asked the lead man (maracas) if there was a traditional birthday song that wasn’t “happy birthday to you” that he could play for Kia’s niece, Kia, who turned 16 that day. They DID indeed know such a song, and proceeded to sing “Cumpleaños a ti” to the tune of happy birthday to you. When the cake appeared, and they had gone through a round in spanish, they switched to the typical english song, then went into a traditional spanish birthday song, much to my surprise. We asked for a song and got a medley. Nice! This video only captured part of that, but sometimes you need to put down the camera and join the celebration!

They were really a lot of fun, and we really enjoyed the performance. Many thanks to the father of the bride for that generous and most excellent gift!

SJO airport that is! Terry and I landed about 9:15 a.m. local time and were pretty hungry. TACA gave us a breakfast of a cheese hot pocket, cookies, fruit cup, juice, tea but we didn’t bother eating dinner last night. We got off the plane and headed to the food court, walked up to Church’s Fried Chicken, and ordered a $3 breakfast of gallo pinto and tortillas. Mmmmmmmmmm!

Terry took off to hit duty-free liquor and get our bags. I’m hanging out in the terminal waiting for Shirley, my matron of honor, to arrive. Her flight is almost three hours later but hey, there is free wireless all over the place here. So Terry is with the bags probably on his laptop, I’m in the terminal with mine.

When her plane lands in less than an hour we will go through immigration, get her bags, meet Terry, and the three of us will walk through customs together and then a cab.

Note, on your immigration form you will be asked for your address while in country. Write down CASA VIVA - PUNTA UVA.

For now I am trying not to fall asleep and sitting by the window. Did I mention that Terry and I have hardly slept this weekend? Leaving the house at five this morning was HARD! Here are some pics of what is going on in the world behind me.

See you all soon!

Update: Here is a pic of her plane coming in. It turns out that she is pretty darned tired too. The three of us need sleep.

It took a while to clear immigration because of the line. However when we went to get the bags they were already pulled off the conveyer belt and put to the side. The three of us hopped in a taxi for $24 and made it to the hotel by 1400. It is a funny little place but will do well. Now it is nap time, they are already out. I’m next.

Rudy,

The ones with the strap on the back are Doc Martens. The others are Tevas.
Call Kia with your preference:

from right now I will be a married hag! Woot woot!!

Our coordinator wrote us a message today that she was hiking into the jungle to look for bamboo for the wedding arch. Too cool!

And thankfully we have only heard jokes about getting a divorce kit instead of receiving one. They seem to be common wedding gifts here in Florida.

Although I should reconsider getting one of those kits myself. Terry just interrupted this post with trying to offer me a dollar to eat ice cream out of our toilet. Luckily I have a sugar allergy.

seventeen days until the wedding

Terry will be sending you a document about what is going on. We still need to do a what to pack list. For now I want everyone to be getting plenty of rest, eating good, washing their hands, and staying healthy.

And I am so happy that part of our mastermind plan worked. The weather should be good where we are going.

Compared to where Terry’s family is.

Or where my family is.

Now let us all put good vibes out there that the weather does not mess with anyone’s travel schedule.

I got a great message from Rob and Lean in regards to an order placed via their etsy store.

It is so pretty in a manly way.

I hope everyone had a great new year celebration. We had an interesting night. We got a last minute camping reservation at Long Key State Park in the Keys. That put us 60 miles north of Key West. In case you didn’t know, Key West is a decent place to be for New Year’s Eve. At midnight you have your choice of seeing a giant conch shell be lowered on to the roof at Sloppy Joe’s, a pirate wench being lowered from a schooner in the bay, or Sushi being lowered to the ground. Click here for a clip of the Sushi drop that we went to.

Woohoo for 2oo8!! There are many good things in store for me and those I love. I am really excited.

Woohoo! All that is left are a few more days of kwanzaa, new years, a niece’s birthday, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday, another niece’s birthday… and then our wedding!!

I hope everyone had a great holiday, whatever you celebrated.

I got to see my first live Portugese Man-O-War over the weekend. I have seen them preserved in jars before but the chemical fixatives bleach out the gorgeous color. I took the largest one washed up on the beach back out to the water. It isn’t an individual organism but rather a colony of organisms. It moved like one unit on the sand struggling for water and that is deceptive. I got a couple of small nematocyst strikes but nothing major, they tickled more than anything else. However you need to be careful of these guys.

Here are two pics of the Man-O-War from the weekend… remember them for Costa Rica. You most likely will not encounter one… but those long tentacles on the underside are a sure give-away! If you get any sort of jellyfish sting down there we will have vinegar to put on it to help neutralize the effects.

Besides the critter we found something else pretty cool that day. Terry decided to pose with a Red Ryder BB Gun (a la A Christmas Story) while ducking in from the rain at an outdoor store.

Christmas itself was awesome. We planned to sleep out on the grass Christmas Eve but a steady rain sent us inside about an hour after we fell asleep. We went for a workout in the park on Christmas morning. Afterwards we were hungry and stopped at a Dunkin’ Donuts for bagel sandwiches then came home for mimosas and clementine cake. Here is Terry still in workout gear sitting with our X-mas morning feast spread around him.

After food and a bottle of champagne it was present time. My stocking is the one fashioned from a Target bag. His is the one I put together in a few minutes with hemming tape. They are both goofy hanging out with the Christmas orchids. All right, there are no Christmas orchids. We simply didn’t care enough to want a Christmas tree this year.

We both got some sweet loot this holiday. Terry had some surprises in his stocking as did I. He got us a nice sized sample of some Fresh Cannabis Santal for the wedding (our gender neutral wedding fragrance). He also gave me a Michael Michaud Sage necklace. This was really surprising because this is what I wanted to wear with the first wedding dress I picked out. We are both fans of Michael Michaud’s work.

Have a great New Year everyone. Be safe and make merry.