When all I had was sorrow, you brought me joy.
When I was was dead, you brought me to life.
When there was only cold blood pumping through my veins, you rekindled the flame that now allows warmth to flow through them.
When my world was nothing but darkness, you illuminated my life with your love.
When I was all alone, you took my hand in yours and said, “Mi Reina, I am here for you forever and for always.”
My beautiful Jared, I am so thankful to have you in my life. Thank you for being the sunshine, spark and ultimate love of my life!
It’s hard to believe it has already been two months (on Groundhog Day).
Had I planned things more carefully, I would have waited to give Jenny this groundhog card in February. Instead, I already gave it to her in January. Since I completely botched the timing for Groundhog Day (that’s OK, we’re not superstitious), I had to come up with something more clever.
No, I’m not going to let you read the inside of this card! Scroll down for the real card.
The idea came a to me too late, and I didn’t have much time to work with. But it was worth trying anyway. Jenny’s necklace had already been ordered, and I wanted a good card to go with it. I was looking at a dead keyboard, I remembered a picture a friend recently sent me, where keyboard keys were removed to spell words.
From that moment on, I was on a mission. For a couple days, I gathered all the dead keyboards I could find (even made a trip to Goodwill). I was going to make my own anniversary card, and find a way to make it work with the necklace. It’s not just about the gift, it’s the presentation!
Putting it all together (the day before I gave it to her) took considerably longer than I expected.
Here’s our review of the things that could have been better:
Our hotel does not provide free wireless internet (our blog posts were delayed).
They want $4.95/day for internet. Not that we couldn’t afford it, but we refused to pay on principle. The public library, airport, Starbucks, etc, all offer free Wi-Fi. But to make matters worse, these clowns want $4.95/day per device! We have two laptops and two phones, and there’s no way we would pay almost $20/day to have full connectivity, when other places (even hostels) offer it for free.
We love the location of this hotel, but when we return to NYC, we will not be staying here again. They lost customers over a trivial Wi-Fi fee. Yes, we left a review. We checked with the hotel around the corner (which I stayed in several years ago), and they offer free WiFi, so we’ll most likely stay there next time, and enjoy the same great location. Click here for the rest…
This was our last full day in the city, and we had so much to do! Getting to bed at 3 AM makes it hard to get an early start. Even so, we hit the Statue of Liberty first thing, trying to beat the crowds.
On the way there, we picked up a couple of hoodies from one of the street vendors. Jenny got the big NYPD hoodie (which came in handy later that day).
Going through security for the Statue of Liberty is about as bad as the airport. There’s something about the dehumanizing machine that should make people wonder, yet they flow through it in droves. Security at the Empire State Building didn’t seem as bad, because the crowd wasn’t as large as at the Statue of Liberty.
When our boat arrived, we thought we were doing great, because the crowd wasn’t that large (even though we slept in a bit). Then we found out why: Click here for the rest…
Traffic was huge this evening. Because of the traffic, our tour bus was seriously behind schedule, and we decided it would be faster to get off at Rockefeller Center, and walk the rest of the way to Broadway. (For those of you just tuning in, we got half-price tickets to Phantom of the Opera, and didn’t want to be late.)
Even though Jenny was in desperate need of a “potty-break”, we had to stop for a few minutes to check out a unique performance. Most times the Salvation Army people stand outside a store and ring their bell, hoping for change. These guys definitely took it to the next level; and generated quite a few donations, as you can see in the video. This is our first time posting video, so hopefully it comes through OK.
Finding a restroom in the Rockefeller Center was even tougher than we had expected. Even so, we made it to the theater on time.
The Majestic Theatre (which opened in 1927) has quite a bit of history behind it. We were unable to take pictures in the theatre, but you can see images that others have taken, here on the on the web.
Jenny stayed in line while I went to grab some food for us. Later, we found out that we didn’t need to stand in line, as our tickets were already purchased. This was my first Broadway show, and Jenny’s first as well (and highly anticipated too). The show was amazing! If you’ve never been, it’s definitely worth it. It had been Jenny’s dream to see The Phantom of the Opera live. Click here for the rest…
On our way to the Grey Line Tours we saw a line forming in Times Square. People were lined up to get half price tickets to the Broadway shows for that evening. We had some time, so we got in line too. Click here for the rest…
We were amazed at how many people were trying to figure us out during the day. Only one guy got it right at the courthouse, when he said “Cool! Steampunk!” as we were walking by. Another person said “Time Travelers!”
But other assumptions were severely distorted. Everything from ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ (from a subway drunk), to ‘Alice in Wonderland’ (in the Empire State Building Elevator), to ‘Napoleon’ (old guy selling things on the street corner). Whether they understood us or not, they all cheered us on, and asked to take pictures. Everywhere we went through the city, there were so many compliments and applauds.
Her boots are the coolest!
Jenny did some custom modifications to her dress/corset. It originally had buttons on the front, but the buttons were plastic, and a few of them broke. Jenny decided to sew in some gears to replace them; it actually looked better than the original. She also sewed the train (I suppose you call it that) in place to give it a more elegant and flattering look.
We got back to our hotel around 3:30AM, and thanks to the broken elevator, we had to take the stairs up to the 9th floor (carrying all our gear, along with two pizza boxes and a couple pieces of cake).
We ate and crashed, only to get up 4 hours later. Jenny was too tired to clean up the rat’s nest hair, so this morning she gave up and put on a beret to cover most of it up, and we headed out for the day.
The rest of yesterday’s wedding pictures will be posted shortly. We’re still not even sure what day it is anymore, and will let you know as soon as we do!
Today is the real deal with Jenny’s hair at K’s Salon, and it turned out excellent. Not only that, but the customer service and atmosphere was most impressive (Jenny can’t say enough about how great it was).
She knew exactly what she wanted, and was a little worried about a hair stylist understanding and executing it. Jenny fell in love with her octo-clip (called ‘stolen pearls’) and chose to accent her hair with pearl-pins to give the octopus even more pearls to steal. Kaye was so amazing, and produced a true work of art!
(If you haven’t already seen the hair pictures, see this post.)
We just had to get a shot with Kaye (left), and one of the staff before leaving.
So now that we have revealed our theme, there will be no holding back!
Steampunk Themed Wedding (or elopement, you could call it).
No white dress, no black tuxedo, no flowers, no ‘let’s do what everyone wants us to do’.
We had been planning this for months, and wanted to do something that we both enjoyed. Click here for the rest…
Jared and Jenny 