Elissa + Lee = married!

Just one week ago, on November 7th, 2009, Lis and Lee made it official. (Lee, feel free to bookmark the link to this post so you can remember your anniversary in coming years...!) The day was as smooth as silk, (and prettier than a double-rainbow) to the point where I felt all funny that there wasn't a hundred things to do or anything for us to set up. The ladies lounged around in the morning enjoying mimosas and the Bean. Since none of you tuned in to hear my lame recap of the day, lets move on to the pics, shall we?!

at the cocktail party before the rehearsal dinner

h2o + mimosas + pumpkin latte = breakfast of champions

bows!

Jen & Elissa

Nic & Lis

Molly & our gorgeous bride

Lindsay & Mrs. J

as per usual, we found trouble while waiting our turn for photos

as a bit of an icebreaker and to pump Lee up (more), there was a bit of a surprise for guests when I reached the head of the aisle

Elissa & Rory (who I've known since he was born...)

To surprise his new wife, Lee orchestrated a duet with Molly. The whole operation was very covert, with only fiver or six people in the loop. Since Molls was slotted to give a joint toast with me, and the two needed rehearsal time, we had a helluva time slipping things by the bride-to-be. Elissa was shocked to say the least ("wait...this isn't in the timeline!" so proud.) and the whole thing went off fabulously...

One thing I'd like to point out, however, is that I ROCKED the toast. Killed it. I was nervous and anxious and wanted it to be perfect. And since I was nervous, I joked for weeks that I'd be passing on hard-core boozing, *coughcough* celebrating, at the cocktail hour (you know, so I wouldn't make a complete fool of myself), but would sure as hell make up for it immediately following my toast with a quad o' beers. Rob took the next (sneaky) step upon himself and ensured that there would be four secret beers slammed upon our table as my toast wrapped up. He and a buddy 'went to the restroom' and snuck off to the hotel room to get contraband Bud Light for post-toast chugging. After I handed off the microphone and high-fived Elissa, Rob opened his suit coat like a watch-hustler on the street and pulled out the beers. You can see why I love this man, right?!

The whole weekend was one amazing breeze of fun...it flew by so quickly, but we're still laughing about some incidents today (like the near-brawl during the bouquet toss in which someone ended up on the floor...and the three-peat of garter tossing, since none of the guys really wanted to catch it the first two times...hah!).

Congratulations to the newly-minted Mr. and Mrs.! Love you tons, and can't wait to do it again next year... ; ]

coming attractions

With a not-so-tiny nudge over dinner last night, I realized that I've been twelve kinds of remiss with my blogging of late. HEY - I've been busy! My oh-so-fun to do list does include blogging among the awesome chores of scrubbing the shower and buying cat food, so here's a preview of what's to come (or a note to self to help me remember what I want to blog about when the time comes to do so):

- Elissa and Lee got married last weekend, and I have pics to prove it
- Rob is in town for the week (!) and we've been running around for family visits
- I've been up to my eyeballs in mailing lists, which at times makes me rethink my love for Excel

Happppppppy Friday!

happy halloweeeeeen!

(get it?! boobies?! hehehe)

Monteverde

Intent on checking out the cloud forest, Rob and I booked a tour to visit a sanctuary with a series of suspension bridges strung across the canyons within the rain forest. Another early van awaited us and we bumped our way to the Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve.

The Reserve consisted of a few meandering paths through the jungle, and eight bridges to let you literally walk in the clouds. Since it was the off-season, the place was pretty quiet.

The lush foliage and gorgeous colors were breathtaking. We meandered along the paths and bridges for about two hours, and took TONS of pictures. Since pics are better than words, here we go...

Rob has eagle-eyes and saw this GIANT moth chilling in a plant along the path...the thing was bigger than a CD!

this little guy almost got crushed and was haulin' ass...

our new little point-and-shoot has RAD macro capabilities. these bad boys are the size of the fingernail on my pinky. at the biggest. sick, no?

the bully of our block

If you've met 'the Lou', you know she's no ordinary animal. She talks, open cabinets, fetches, and is rather rad-tastic. However, I can't claim fandom of her new desire to kick the crap out of anything that comes near or through the door of our apartment. She's like a guard cat, which should be cool, right? Generally, I find it funny, except when I'm trying to get in or out the door and she's screaming and hissing and I have to hold her back like we're in a bar brawl...

I have this theory that there's a stray cat who has discovered her existence and wants to be pals, so he/she hangs out around our door, waiting to ask if Kali can come out and play. Kali, on the other hand, is the playground bully and wants nothing to do with this cat. Nuh-theeng. One rainy day a few weeks ago, I popped the door open to leave for work, and there he/she was, sitting politely on the doormat. Kal took off like a bat outta hell and chased this would-be friend for a good 30 yards. My blood-thirsty beast now likes to sit at the front door and stare at the doorjamb, waiting for her victim to return.

Maybe I'll make her write sentences until she can be a nice girl...something like "I will not attack other kitties" or "The front door is for people, not for me". Since she doesn't have thumbs...that'll teach 'er for sure.

"don'tchu know I'm loco...?"

Monteverde - are we there yet?!

As you'll surely recall from this post, directions, smooth roads and signage are not Costa Rica's strong points. We set out on Sunday morning for Monteverde to hang out in the cloud forest.

We found a second semi-paved road into/out of Tamarindo, and gave it a shot...muuuuuuch smoother. Huh. When we approached the area of Nicoya with the collapsed bridge, we started to keep our eyes peeled for the humungo 8 1/2" x 11" sign that would lead us around toward San Jose. We were successful at first. After blasting through two sign-free intersections with crossed fingers that we were in the right place, we ended up on pavement. Um, what? We both knew that shouldn't expect to hit pavement for another 45 minutes. Troublesome. Somehow, as it tends to happen when Rob and I are on the road, we ended up where we needed to. We had literally taken the wrong road and ended up in the right place.

We knew that we should find one sign indicating the turnoff for Monteverde, but weren't counting on it. When we actually saw a sign that told us to turn left, we cranked the wheel. After somehow ending up in a little town that we knew we weren't supposed to be in, we started the climb to Monteverde. They don't call it the cloud forest for nothing! At one point, the winding one-lane dirt road reached a 40 degree pitch...no joke. We kept moving, imagining that we were perhaps on the right road. We were told that it should take no more than 40 minutes to reach our hotel upon turning onto the dirt road. An hour and twenty minutes later, we started to see more signs telling us that we were still 15 kilometers from town. Huh? We had managed to take the back way -which no one we know even knew about- into Monteverde...nice.


After asking more locals where to find our hotel, we made it! The place was gorgeous, and our balcony had a view of the entire valley and gulf. That night, we were lucky enough to catch a lightning storm in the distance, and I snapped a couple pics:

cool, huh?

Costa Rican wildlife

I'd been in Costa Rica about five hours the first time I heard it. It resembles a baby's cough, but hackier (that's TOTALLY a word). Or someone tapping a pen six or seven times on a desk. It's metallic, and it's not very loud, but is certainly noticeable. I tried for 8 days to capture the sound on my camera, to no avail. What could possibly make this sound, you ask?!? A gecko. Apparently they're vocal...huh.

On my first night in Costa Rica, we stumbled upon this, the most monstrous moth I've EVER seen...in Rob's house:

the beer can's for scale, not because we were trying to get it drunk. i only do that to my cat. duh.

Along my trip, other fun creatures popped up at INCAE...

I love leafcutter ants...they're so funny. and fast as hell.

this little guy was starting his cocoon right on the wall of Rob's little casa

annnnnd this one's for Summer. no joke...they've got squirrels in Costa Rica...you scared?