Our Wedding :)

Well, after a year of planning, stress, and anxiety, OUR WEDDING HAPPENED! And it truly was the best day of my life.

I'm proud to say that I successfully planned a wedding from 2500 miles away. PHEW!

On Wednesday, March 16, Chad and I boarded a plane from the Monterey airport to LAX. From LAX, we flew to Chicago. From Chicago, we went straight to the Asheville airport! We checked into our hotel (the Doubletree Biltmore) that night, where they gave us chocolate chip cookies upon our arrival.
This was the first time I ever had alcohol on a plane. I've always been either too tired, sick to my stomach, or drugged up on Dramamine. But since flying has become a major part of my life now, I'm becoming better at it and no longer require drugs.
We ordered two of the Sunrise Sunset cocktails, which was basically a Tequila Sunrise, but with vodka instead of tequila. When I said this to Chad, he replied with "So what's in a Tequila Sunrise then? Rum?" I had to explain that a Tequila Sunrise has TEQUILA in it. :P Sorry Chad, that was way too funny and I had to share it!

Thursday, March 17th
Chad and I woke up, took showers, had breakfast at the hotel restaurant, and drove straight to the Register of Deeds to get our marriage license. That took about a half hour. When we were done, Eliz was already in town so we met up with her at Wild Wings! Not long after, Jacob and Robbie met up with us and I watched WVU win (yay!). After a few drinks and food, Eliz and I went to Packs Tavern for the UNCA alumni viewing party of UNCA vs. Pitt. Being that I hate Pitt more than anything in the world, I enjoyed watching my little alma mater play against my biggest rival. UNCA held themselves very well, especially in the first half. So proud of my little school!
After this, Eliz and I drove to her hotel so she could check in, and Lindsay met us there to give us a ride to El Chaps, which was our restaurant of choice in college. Paulina met us there, too. After this, Lindsay drove us to Bier Garden where I resumed drinking. Lindsay had to leave because she had to work in the morning, but Joe Phillips, his friend (I don't remember his name), Heather, and her friend (I don't remember his name either) all eventually met us out and I got pretty wasted. I hadn't drank this much in a long long time, but it was bacherlotte party so why not??

After this, we were informed that Asheville now has a bar that has NINTENDO. Yes, you can sit at this bar and play Nintendo. It was a dream come true. I cannot believe that this bar did not exist while Eliz and I were still students.

Here is a picture of me at the bar posing under a picture of Goomba:


I was still in my UNCA shirt from the game earlier, and I have no idea what it was that I spilled all over my shirt. Ha!

Eliz and I took a taxi back to my hotel to hang out with my sister Sarah and my brother Kevin at the TGIFriday's bar. At this point, it was about 2:30am (way past my bedtime, even for Pacific time), and I was really pretty drunk at this point. I went back up to my room and settled down in bed. I did not puke!! yay for me!

I knew Chad was out with his friends, but I decided to send him a quick text (the best I could considering how drunk I was) telling him that I love him and goodnite. I quickly got a text back from one of my friends who was using his phone to let me know that he was beyond gone and that they would be bringing him back to our hotel soon. About 45 minutes later, he was "delivered" back to our room in one piece. :) It was about 4:00am when I finally passed out.


Friday, March 18th, the day before!
This was a rough morning, complete with lack of sleep and hangovers. We checked out of our room at 11am (since we both had separate rooms the night before the wedding). I ate TGIFridays with my mom, dad, Jon, Natalie, and little Caitlyn. Then me, all of my sisters, and Eliz went to get our nails done. It was really a lot of fun. I am definitely going to be doing it on a regular basis because it feels good, I like having kept nails, and it's just fun.
After I got my nails done, I met my parents who then took me to the Bohemian to check into my bridal suite. It was a pretty amazing room! I got cleaned up and dressed for the rehearsal. There was a wedding going on at 7pm that night, and I started to freak out (probably due to overall stress, lack of sleep, and still hungover). There were people from this wedding hanging out on the terrace where we were supposed to be rehearsing. Luckily, the event coordinators kicked them out for me, and we got to do our rehearsal without any problems.
After that, we had what I thought was a fantastic rehearsal dinner at Province 620. I had spaghetti and it was very very good. Chad's parents picked a fantastic place and planned a great dinner.
Chad and I were so effing exhausted at this point. We said our goodnights and he retired to his friends for the night. My bridal suite was really big- too big to be by myself. So my mom and Aunt Jo spent the night with me. It was great to have company. :) Despite being SO FREAKING TIRED from hangovers, no sleep, and jet lag, I didn't sleep that much.


Saturday, March 19- the BIG DAY!
I woke up, took a long shower, and went back to the Doubletree right at 10:00am and met with my hair and make up stylists from Lola's Salon. They were so much fun and they did a GREAT job with everyone's hair. The make up artist was very very careful with my skin sensitivities and I had no problems. It was so much fun to sit around and watch all of my sisters and their kids get their hair done.

After this, we went to the Bohemian to all get ready in my bridal suite. Everyone got dressed, and all the kids put on their flower girl dresses. They were all SO CUTE!

When I put on my dress, and was sitting there waiting, I was seriously so nervous i felt like I could throw up. When my dad came in and said it was time, I wanted to throw up then and there. Not because I was afraid of getting married or anything, but I get anxiety when I am the center of attention.

After all of the stress and nervousness, the ceremony was perfect. It was exactly what I imagined it would be. Short, simple, too the point, yet still very meaningful. David did a fantastic job being our officiant. Since all of the little flower girls walked down the aisle with their mommies, they ALL did a fantastic job with no meltdowns! I couldn't believe it. I was fully expecting atleast 1 niece to completely breakdown (which would have been completely fine! They are kids!) but they DIDN'T! They all walked down, dropped the little petals on the ground, and stood up there with their mom's like little angels.

And the weather-- OH MY GOD. I couldn't have asked for better weather. Sunny, around 75 degrees, and a slight breeze. They even got to remove the plastic tarps from around the terrace and we got to say our vows in the beautiful weather.

Our first dance was hilarious, because Chad and I had no idea how to dance! And we were like "Uhh, so what do we do? Everyone is watching..."

Eliz and Jacob gave their speeches which was very special to me. Standing in that room, with my Chad, and all of our best friends, and our families, was one of the best feelings I have ever experienced. I think it was the one moment in my life where I felt truly happy.

From there until the end consisted of great food, great cake, and lots of dancing. It was great to see old professors, friends, family, and to all just have fun and dance.

Something to note is that when Miley Cyrus "Party in the USA" came on, the dance floor got a little insane. As a result, someone jumped on my toe. My sister and her husband, who are doctors, diagnosed my toe as broken. I have pictures on my phone that show the black and blue bruising.

Afterwards, Chad and I didn't get the have the relaxing wedding night that you see in movies, mostly because we had to clean up my bridal suite (since it was used for all of us to get dressed), and then we had to walk to the Doubletree (with my broke toe) and clean up his suite. Luckily, Terry, Robbie, and Jacob came up and offered to finish. Thanks guys!

We went straight to bed. It was a VERY VERY exhausting week. The next morning, we checked out of the hotel, returned all lost items that were left in our room to my family members, ate lunch at Jersey Mikes with Eliz, and then went back to the airport to check in for our flight to San Diego to begin our short honeymoon. While our wedding night was exhausting and uneventful, we definitely had a GREAT TIME in San Diego, which I will detail in my next blog which I will write later. :)

Food for Thought

There are two active nuclear power plants in the state of California.

1. The Diablo Canyon Power Plant is located outside of San Luis Obispo, and is said to be able to withstand a 7.5 magnitude earthquake from the nearby San Andreas, Hosgri, and Shoreline fault lines. The Hosgri fault is located 2.5 miles away from the nuclear reactor. The November 4, 1927 Lompoc earthquake (magnitude 7.1) is thought to have occurred on this fault. There has been much controversy over this plant.


2.The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station is located in San Diego county. It is said to "built to withstand a 7.0 magnitude earthquake directly under the plant", and also has a 25 foot tsunami wall for extra protection. It is located very close to the Cristianitos fault, which is believed to be inactive at this time.

TSUNAMI WARNING!!!!

Chad and I moved to California in 2009, fully expecting that we would encounter things like earthquakes and mud slides.

Once a year since we've lived here, we've had a tsunami experience. The first two (one triggered from an earthquake in American Samao, and the second triggered from the earthquake in Chile) were tsunami advisories. While they *did* occur, they were not noticeable by any means. Meaning that we stood on the beach and didn't SEE anything different occur.

This time... wow. Let me start from the beginning.

The last thing I do before I go to bed is check facebook and twitter on my iPhone, and then read a book until I can't keep my eyes open. I remember reading on my twitter feed how there was a 7.9 earthquake that just hit Japan (this is about 9:45pm). I mean, we ARE along the ring of fire, and while that is substantial it is really nothing out of the ordinary.

If you know me, then you know that I sleep with the TV on (I picked this up from my mother... who also sleeps with the TV on and it rubbed off on me). We were both awoken by the Emergency Alert System at 1:30am... you know that BEEEEEP BEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEEP "this is only a test" thing? Yeah... except this wasn't a test. It clearly said we were just placed under a Tsunami Warning. WTF? Our last two experiences were only advisories... I didn't understand how this was different.

I later learned that a tsunami warning not only means that a tsunami is going to occur, but that it is expected to be greater than 3ft.

We both got out of bed and got on the internet trying to find out if what this was about. CNN, MSNBC, and the Weather Channel were all going pretty crazy over it and kept showing those awful videos of that tsunami wiping out the agriculture fields in Japan. That, and it was upgraded from a 7.9 to an 8.9... which is unheard of. Is that tsunami seriously what we were going to get on the west coast?!

At this point, I was kind of scared. And I didn't fall back asleep until 3:30am because I kept checking the local news to see what we were supposed to do (if anything).

I woke up again at 5:00am because my phone was blowing up with phone calls, texts, facebook messages, and tweets from concerned family members and friends on the east coast who were just waking up. Thank you for all of your concern <3

It was at this time where Hawaii was about to get hit. So I stayed up until 7:00am (when we usually wake up for work) and watched all of the footage of the ocean water receding and then inundating on Hawaii. No, it was not nearly as devastating as Japan, but it was certainly noticeable with the human eyes.

I got to work at 8:00am, and despite the lack of sleep during the night, I was ready and prepared to work a full day and to provide as much support to our Navy as I could. I watched the local news live on the internet and watched as Santa Cruz (located approx. 30 miles north of Monterey, on the northern edge of Monterey Bay) got hammered:



Here is a photo of the surge entering the San Francisco Bay (courtesy of Steve Winter, tweeted by The Weather Channel):



AMAZING....

This was a wild experience. It made me realize that Chad and I really live in a place that is susceptible to natural disasters of catastrophic proportions... and that we don't have any sort of emergency plan. I found some handbooks from USGS that help you get started with building a plan. During the next few weeks, I'll be working on starting a food storage incase something were to happen here.

Now we'll always remember that we were hit with a tsunami just a week before we got married!