It’s my sister Carrie’s birthday!  She’s 20 today!

Here she is giving a toast at my rehearsal dinner!

The sisters together!

Missouri!

Standing awkwardly close to Sarah…

Isn’t she pretty?  And she’s not really that short, the others are just tall…

So happy birthday Carrie!  And in honor of your birthday, today will be "funny search terms people found my blog through" day!

Here are a few from the past 30 days:

nice thoughts about life aww…that’s me in a nutshell, right?

bacon cookies oh yeah, those were GOOD

polar bear at gym is the polar bear catholic?

summer cruise trip yes please!

balance ball pose picture below!

teachers taking my new shoes from me okay, weird

tri colour cookies i presume this was a british reader!

people with big heads you came to the right place, i have a giant head, both figuratively and literally

crazy violin i presume they meant crazy violinist

violin merry merry merry merry christmas say merry again!

giant plunger i’m not sure about this?

i am rich i am not

person crying during a workout hey, i wasn’t crying!  that’s a lie!

sad plunger i really don’t talk about toilets much, do i?

cookie-free you mean free cookie, right?

i love you spelled with poop i think that’s the end here!  doesn’t get stranger than that, and nothing says love that spelling it out with poop!

I just read this on violinist.com: The first victim identified in the cruise ship Costa Concordia disaster in Italy is a violinist from Hungary who worked as an entertainer aboard the ship, who had apparently gone back to his cabin to pack up his violin.  You can read the whole story here.  His name was Sándor Fehér.  He had been putting lifejackets on some children and then went to his cabin to pack his violin. 

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Several people have asked me if this makes me think twice about cruising again.  Well, no.  Statistically I’m pretty sure that I have a better chance of dying in a car crash, or perhaps getting hit by a bus.  But it’s still an awful tragedy.  My heart goes out to all the friends and family of the victims.

On our most recent cruise (Celebrity Eclipse), there was a string trio that performed at a variety of venues around the ship.  Chris and I really enjoyed hearing them play (yes, we’re very nerdy) and chatted with them a bit.  They were all from the Ukraine and had just recently started playing together, though they had been doing cruise ship work separately for longer (I believe the violinist said 7 years?).  This story made me think of them—they were really nice guys, very polite and personable, seemed to enjoy their work (or at least well enough) AND the violinist had arranged all kinds of awesome quartet arrangements (M. Naughtin, for instance) for trio! 

I guess the moral of the story is to leave your violin on the ship?  I’m sure he thought he had time…

I want to blog about so many things, but where to start? 

Let’s return to the end of 2011.  If you recall, I was preparing to get married.  My family got into town (my parents came a day earlier than I thought) and we hung out a bit on the 30th.  I was already planning a dinner at my house on the 31st.  Some of our friends were in from out of town as well, though many weren’t arriving until the 1st.

The weird thing was the few days leading up to people getting into town I was just sitting around not doing much.  The planning was basically DONE but my friends were ignoring me, either because they were busy or because they assumed I was too busy.  I actually got weirdly lonely!  But I knew it was the calm before the storm so I managed.

Eating pizza at Pi.  Some people say they got too busy to eat or too stressed to eat before their wedding.  I had the opposite problem!  I was eating every carb in sight. 

Herbie’s!  Little did we know later than night Chris was going to have a serious stomach flu thing happening…

Some of our friends met up for dessert and after dinner drinks.

December 31:  In the morning Leslie and I went for pedicures and a manicure for me.  I decided to get fake nails put on, since I wouldn’t be playing violin for two weeks (you can’t play violin with long nails) and they looked great!  No pictures right now, but I’m sure there will be from the wedding.  Then we went with my parents and Carrie to Basil Spice for lunch and then went to work on a dinner of meatballs and macaroni and cheese for New Year’s Eve Dinner.  Chris spent the day in bed with a bad stomach flu or food poisoning—my dad kept making jokes about him being sick due to not wanting to get married.  I was not amused, but quite worried about him! 

Chris’s family (my in-laws!), my parents, and my aunts and uncle came over for New Year’s Eve dinner.  We thought it would be easier to cook at home than brave the crowds with a large group. 

My aunt Connie, my dad, and my mom.

Chris, his mom, his dad.

Chris’s dad, Carrie, Leslie, Peter

Me, Connie, Dad, Mom.  We all like squeezing into tiny spaces!

Chris’s dad and my parents had met before, but it was the first time for his mom and for my siblings and such.  It was a fun evening—we spend hours telling stories and talking.  Chris was up and down, in and out of bed.  He seemed to be on the mend, but I just felt horrible for him :/

Just before 11 pm our parents wanted to watch the ball drop in Times Square, so we turned on the tv.  At 11 pm they wished everybody a Happy New Year…that’s how Eastern Time people roll, I guess.   They didn’t care that it wasn’t midnight yet!  They left, so we young folks headed to our friend Will’s for a New Year’s Eve party!  Chris insisted…he was barely alive, but he wanted to see some of our out of town friends who were going to be there.  I told him we had one hour and then I needed to be back home to get my beauty sleep.

That’s us!  Chris was probably just trying not to puke…because he was SICK people, not because he gets nauseous when I stand too close.

So…in my recap…Happy New Year, readers!  I was in bed by 12:30 pm because January 1 was going to be a BIG DAY.  Rehearsal and rehearsal dinner!  I’ll tell you more about that in another blog post.

Present day:  Today I am BACK TO WORK!  I had a meeting with Chamber Project St Louis and three students.  I also managed a 3.5 mile run and a variety of other business related things.  It’s nice to get back into my routine!  I’m still way behind, of course, but I’m working on catching up.  I feel way behind on my friends too—I have no idea what people have been doing for really the last month as I was out of town and before that super busy with planning…if you are reading this, let’s catch up!  Lunch?

I just got back from my fourth cruise.  I’ve decided that a cruise is most certainly my favorite form of vacation.  Each time I cruise, I learn something new about what to bring or what not to bring.

I am the sort of packer who generally makes a list of what to pack, or at least starts packing a few days beforehand, so I can puzzle over what I’ve packed, remove stuff, add stuff, buy things at the store, that sort of thing.  Since this cruise was our honeymoon I had some other things on my mind beforehand.  We decided to do laundry and pack the day before, since we had one day in between the wedding and our flight to Miami.  This worked fine, except that I should have made a list in advance.  Oh well!

Our stateroom on the cruise.  My outfit is case in point—the shorts were JUST a little too small.

What did I forget to pack that I wish I had?

For starters, a clock or watch.  We’re used to using our phones to tell time, but when you are in international waters you either can’t use your phone or most certainly have no use for it, plus the ship time may be different than phone time—my cruise did change time zones but late at night, whereas I am sure we actually changed time at some random point during the day.  We ended up having to buy a cheap alarm clock in Miami, but felt silly as we own numerous alarm clocks and each have a cheap gym watch as well.

Next:  more casual clothes to wear on the ship.  I did well packing swim suits (4) and cocktail dresses (way too many) but not enough casual clothes for every day in addition to nicer casual clothes for dinner.  I enjoy dressing up for dinner, and indeed the ship has several nights dedicated to dressing up (formal nights) but I always forget I will really just want to wear a more casual outfit the other nights, like a skirt and top, or even jeans.  My other error was forgetting I won’t wear a bathing suit all day long, and might want shorts that fit.  I packed a couple pairs of shorts, but I guess I was a bit thinner (or differently organized) over the summer than now, post holiday time, and they ended up being a bit shorter than I anticipated.  Lesson learned: try on clothes before packing them!  And pack MORE semi-nice clothes.  I have many wonderful tops that I left at home.

Shoes:  I brought plenty of flip-flops but not enough comfortable walking shoes, plus I could have used another nice pair of sandals.

View from our balcony, leaving Miami

What else does one need on a cruise?  I did well with everything else, I think.  I brought the appropriate seasickness drugs, aspirin, toiletries (too many in fact, since our ship provided loads of body wash, shampoo, conditioner, and lotion), bathing suits/cover ups, dresses, a sweater to wear at night when it’s cold, dress purse, totes for shore days, camera, camera battery charger, sunglasses, dresses, (suits for men).  And of course the ship sells things (at outrageous prices) should you forget anything important, though you may not be able to get the exact brand you want.  There was a moment I wished we had brought antihistamines and Immodium though, so that will go on the list for next time!

In a nutshell: more semi-casual clothes, walking shoes, sandals, more otc drugs, less cocktail dresses.

I’ll try to remember for next time, though I’m sure that won’t be for over a year, so I’ll likely forget!

(Last cruise, Carnival Legend August 2010)

I love that dress!  This is at dinner on our cruise, the first "formal night."  Doesn’t my husband look handsome?

Our ship for the week.  You can see our balcony in this shot.  It was towards the top, above the first orange lifeboat.

We had a fantastic time!  (Unlike those poor people on the cruise in Italy…)

The past two weeks have been incredible.  The new year started with our wedding, filled with family and friends, followed by a few days in Miami Beach, followed by a week long Caribbean cruise. 

And now it all comes to an end.  We are home, and now we get to enjoy just BEING married, no longer stressing about the wedding…it’s wonderful!

And…with no further ado, what I know you all really want, some wedding picture sneak peeks!

Sarah Crowder is my hero!  The upper left hand photo is breathtaking, I can’t believe that’s me!  I can’t wait to see all of the pictures (next week.)

I’m exhausted.  But I wanted to say "hi" to my readers, and of course I’ll be back to regular blogging again now, and I want to tell you more details about everything, and also talk about what the upcoming year will bring. 

How are you all?  What have I missed?

We got married!  This picture is from the rehearsal dinner the night before.

It was awesome.