Marc and Marilyn and Andrew!

I want to start off by saying I got some dope coworkers.  They threw me a surprise party today to celebrate the wedding.  Now I know Aimee had sent an email out to people last week because she accidentally included me in it but I thought it was just for a card (I had promised to delete it and not read the email).  Nope, it turned out to be a big breakfast bonanza!

I was thoroughly surprised and really grateful to have wonderful coworkers.  People should know that while IBD may not work like a “normal” company, the people that I work with make it a great place to work.

The cool thing was that even Marilyn knew about it.  They had invited her to come but declined so she wouldn’t “steal my thunder.”  Very sweet of her but I wished she was there

And what a better way to end the day by having dinner with my family.  We ate at Palermo, which I was told is one of their favorite hangouts (I’m just not there enough to see it).

Sorry it’s been a while since we’ve posted but things have been a LIL hectic lately…no seriously.  So much to catch up on but I’ll leave that for another day.  Just found out Mama (my grandmother from my Dad’s side from the Philippines) will not be able to attend the wedding because she was diagnosed witht peripheral vascular disease – poor blood circulation on the toes and fingers.  I’m really glad she didn’t jeapordize her health just to come to see…it’d be like a deja vu with Papa.  Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

When I first heard of her sickness, I was torn.  I would want nothing more than for her to attend the wedding but did not want her to do so at the cost of her health.  She was stubborn (Geraldez trait?) and insisted on going because her doctor said it was OK.  Well, now the doctor changed his mind and thought it better for her not to travel.  I’m very happy that she’ll be working on getting treatment but now feel ridiculously sad.  It’s OK…Marilyn and I will hand-deliver a wedding DVD to her as soon as we can.  Mama, I love you and will miss you.  We’ll see you soon.

Marc and I were going over our song playlists to figure out which songs we wanted played at the wedding. The songs were playing in the backgrond while we were making dinner.  We came across a Disney song (from the Beauty and the Beast soundtrack) and Marc says “fitting”. I didn’t understand what he meant until I stopped stiring our dinner and listened to the lyrics.  If you know me, you know I’m all about lyrics. Here are some of the lyrics from the song:

Belle:
There’s something sweet
And almost kind
But he was mean and he was coarse and unrefined
But now he’s dear, and so unsure
I wonder why I didn’t see it there before

Beast:
She glanced this way
I thought I saw
And when we touched she didn’t shudder at my paw
No it can’t be, I’ll just ignore
But then she’s never looked at me that way before

Belle:
New and a bit alarming
Who’d have ever thought that this could be?
True that he’s no Prince Charming
But there’s something in him that I simply didn’t see

Mrs. Potts: There may be something there that wasn’t there before.

Ok ok, so Marc is no Beast and by no means am I claiming to be Belle, but the idea is there. Two friends that suddenly fall in love.

Ouch! So a couple of days ago Marc and I went to Huntington Beach to soak in some sun with our buddies. We soaked in too much. We both applied sunblock, but managed to miss Marc’s upper back and my lower back. Now, we’re both nursing sunburns.  I haven’t been sunburnt in quite some time. This blows. My back stings and even the slightest brush of my t-shirt against my skin amplifies the stinging. Aloe vera now.

Oh Independence Day. A day full of family, friends, barbeques, beer and fireworks. AND it’s during the summer so you can wear t-shirts and shorts and flipflops and be considered dressed the part. Sweet! It’s definitely one of my favorite holidays.

We planned to have a BBQ at Cousin’s place and then walk over to the water to watch the Marina del Rey fireworks at 9pm. I wanted to try out some new recipes so I decided to make Korean Kalbi Ribs, Spinach Artichoke dip and cupcakes. Kara made chili from scratch for the very first time. Cousin and the boys made carne asada and salsa.

Kara’s chili

Korean Kalbi Marinade

So started the day relaxing in the morning. How often do we get to wake up and just chill? So Marc and I enjoyed the morning lounging and cleaning up around the place. Then we went to Albertsons to get the ingredients for my meals. Marc helped mix teh ingredients together for the Kalbi marinade. We prepared what we could before heading to the Geraldez house for lunch. We enjoyed yummy food and entertained ourselves with music from the past. Eagles, Stylistics, Cher… oh yes! When we got back to the Marina, I continued cooking for the BBQ. The plan was to meet up at 3pm so that gave me 2 hours to complete the spinach dip and cupcakes. We headed over to Cousin’s to get the party started.

Everyone started showing up, so we started up the grill and poured the drinks. And of course, we started the party with a game of Hi Low. Its a card game where all players get cards. We each flip one card over to reveal the value. The highest card wins… all the rest lose and have to drink. If two or more players tie, they flip another card and that person wins. the others have to drink, twice. Alex won a 3 way tie. It was funny.

Hi Low

Alex the winner

The rest of the day was filled with more food, more drinking games, Rockband and Battle of the Sexes. Robert and Danny rocked out to Metallica and the women won Battle of the Sexes.. again. Around 8pm we all walked over toward the water and watched the fireworks show. I seriously love fireworks. Love them!

Cousins

Friends

After the girl shots of tequila… bleh

Best friends

Jose tackles Jaime

Jaime counters the attack

Fireworks with my love

It was another fun-filled night with family and friends.

See more pictures here.

Fridays off are the best.

Marc started the day early with a 30 mile bike ride. When he got home he cooked breakfast and we enjoy some morning TV. It’s one of the best things to do, wake up have breakfast and watch TV together. Then we got ready to head to the OC. The plan was to meet up with Matthew and Tash at the beach then Boiling Crab. They decided to go biking first, so we tried to go wedding shoe shopping at Westminister Mall. Marc and I have never been there before. That mall sucks.  It was dark and half the shops were closed, like out of business. Pretty sad. They did have an enormous DSW where I found 2 more back up shoes. We headed for the beach to meet up. PCH & 9th was where we were going to lay out. We ran into Matthew looking for parking and the 3 of us made our way to the beach where the others were greased up and soaking in the sun. We stayed out for 2 hours before attempting to go into the ocean. Bbrrrr it was COLD! According to Lucci, “it’s so cold my feet are cramping up” hahaha. It’s true, too cold for me. Of course Marc and Mario hopped in like it was nothing. Boys! Then we packed up and made our way to Boiling Crab. I completely passed out in the car ride. The sun just drains the energy from you sometimes. I woke up just as we arrived to the Boiling Crab parking lot. After waiting in line we finally got seated and ordered our food. 3 pounds of shrimp, 12 sausages, 6 corn, 1 pound crawfish, 1 basket of fried shrimp, 1 basket of fries, 3 dungeness crabs and 12 osyters. all whole shebang style. The 6 of us had a feast! We were all stuft and completely satisfied. We headed home and passed out.

It was another great day and to make it even better, it was Friday, that means 2 more days of fun.

The Oysters

(allergic causing… poor Tash)

The damage

So this morning I had this crazy idea to go to Camrillo after work to go shoe shopping. I still haven’t found the perfect wedding shoes. I’ve exhausted all the local stores so going further in hopes for different variety seemed like that right thing to do. I bbm-ed Marc and told him my crazy plans. Camrillo is about 1 hour away. Considering traffic was the inevitable I planned to leave as soon as Marc got home and take PCH to avoid 405 and 101 traffic mayhem. After a quick dinner we hopped into the car and took a nice sunset drive along PCH. We hit a little traffic on account of a slight fender bender but we still made it to Camrillo in about an hour. Whoo whoo!

The Camrillo outlet opened the new side and we had never been there so we headed there first. Marc finally found some shoes. Not wedding shoes, but day kicks, to replace wearing his running shoes everyday. He also found some black comfy everyday nice shoes. He only had a brown pair that he swore matched everything. Sigh… now he has a variety of shoes that fit his feet well. I didn’t realize how tough it was to find size 13 shoes that weren’t running/basketball sneakers.

I went into any shop that sold shoes and had zero luck. I did find a couple of back-ups though. So I’m happy.

Tonight Marc and I met with our wedding coordinator Yingka. She also doubles as our florist, so it makes everything sooo much easier. We went over the ceremony participants, wedding day timeline, essential items to bring, photo priority, assigned responsibilities of each participant and more. 3 and half hours later we had the entire wedding day put down in ink. While I’m certain the day will not go as planned, its nice to know that we have Yingka to help guide the day along. Most people suggest against a wedding coordinator, but we feel a bit different. When you’re planning a wedding with a relatively large party (we’re at 270 now) a day of coordinator will help unload the stress. Yingka and her staff is worth every penny if that means Marc, myself and family and friends have less to worry about and can enjoy the celebration.

Today I had to take the day off in order to take of some important things for the wedding. I’ve never really hungout in downtown on a weekday. It’s actually nice.  Met with Marc’s mom had lunch at the library wandered through Pershing Square and enjoyed the sights that downtown LA has to offer.