Dress Is In...And we picked the food

Yes the wedding dress has arrived.  I have not seen it,  even though I know there is a picture of it on her phone.  Whatever it looks like I am sure it is perfect.......just like Jenn is!   And the shoes have arrived......I have seen those....well, not the winners, but all the potentials...

We went to Harrington Farms with Ron and Sue and had a nice dinner, trying a bunch of appetizers and potential meals.  We made our decisions on all the food and how its being served.....For our entrees we decided on squid and octopus!  Surprisingly good!

Wedding Planning Update

Well, the bridesmaids have ordered their dresses.....a wonderful color called celadon.   I (sean) narrowed down the suits to two types, of which we will decide this week when they come in to try.  No tuxedos for this wedding!  Mother Sue is working hard to narrow down her dress and is currently scouring Massachusetts malls.  Lindsay and Jenny are voting for sandals.  I prefer to see the bridesmaids wear stilettos just so I can see them walk down the aisle in them.  Is that mean?  Sure!  But Jenny is my sister and Lindsey is my newly crowned sister, so I have the brother obligation to have fun at their expense.  We have no flowers yet or center pieces.  But we have chosen the cake which is good.  And as a bonus they will make us a small chocolate cake to be eaten on our one year anniversary.  The cake will be chocolate, with chocolate frosting, chocolate chips, chocolate fudge.....pure chocolate madness.  I voted for a chocolate wedding cake with chocolate icing and fudge inside and a traditional white icing on the outside, but I lost 2-1 in the voting to Jenn and Sue.  But I scored the chocolate anniversary cake.  We still don't know where we are going for our honeymoon, but have it narrowed down.  Jenn, myself, Sue and Ron will be heading over to Harrington Farms next thursday to try out the food and make the final decision.   Lets see, what else........mmm......mind is blank.  Oh on a side note, Jenn is turning 33 Wednesday......33.......33.....!

Burn Party Officially Cancelled

It was a great thought, but it never materialized.  With the excavator needing some maintenance and this wonderful wedding sucking up all of our time, we were unable to make it happen.  We will sometime this spring burn the stumps.  The good news is that we may be able to get rid of the lumber for free, which is a huge plus.  Anyway, we will let people know when we decide to burn the stumps and if anyone wants to hang out and bring Jenn and I some food and drink and at the same time get a tan from the intense heat, well you are more than welcome.

Burn Party cancelled

Sorry guys.....burn party is canceled.  The excavator is having electrical difficulty and there is no way we can put the stumps and logs on the fire by hand.  It may sound a little premature, but we have some people taking vacation days in order to come join us and we don't want to risk having them take precious time off for a party that looks like it may not happen.  So when she/excavator is operational again, we will set up another date.  The next weekend we have free is not until 3/12-13.  So we will shoot for then.  Pray that there is still snow and the place is not a mud hole.

Meeting with Architect 1/29/11

We met with the architect on Saturday 1/29/11 and it was a great experience.   Scott (architect) is very patient and relaxed which is perfect for us.  We met him at his house, armed with our ideas and critiques of the 2nd 3D Model.  Under the direct instruction of Jenn, I was not to overwhelm him with comments and ideas.  She wanted to hear his ideas first.  So, biting my tongue for the first part of the meeting, we discussed the model and a couple things that we wanted changed, mainly making it smaller overall, but maintain our major themes/spaces.  Its funny how spaces and square footage adds up.  We don't want a McMansion, but at the same time we want certain design aspects that tend to create a larger sized house.  Oh well, we are starting big and toning everything down.  Its our dream home and we have to start big right?  We are never moving from Barre and would never, ever, dream of selling.  So this house is it.  We know it and thus want it as close to perfect as we can get.  We don't want to move in and start scratching our heads, asking each other why we did this space this way or why we didn't do something else.  I would rather spend time now asking questions, questions, questions, questions....in order to have a better chance of having a perfect house in the end.  One year of design and building is nothing compared to 50-60 years of living in that house.  Do it right the first time.  So to continue......we also wanted the exercise/kids room over the great room with sun exposure and wanted to discuss how low the great room ceiling could be to allow this.  Well, spending time with Scott was a great experience.  We made some design changes and then instantly turned them into a 3D model which allowed us to walk around inside the newly reconfigured space.  At one point, he popped a guy inside a room to see the relation of window height and room aspects to him.  However I asked Scott to make the guy 6'1" which was amazing as it allowed us to now see the exact relationship of my real life size to the room.  And that is how the 4+ hours went.....very productive and lots of brainstorming.  Adjusting the ceiling height of the great room to 11', we were able to place the exercise/kids room above the great room, requiring only a 2 step entry from the hallway.  We made our bedroom smaller and shower/tub/walk in closet larger.  Windows were changed on south side of house also.  We also want to shrink the kids rooms a bit.  They can manage just fine in a smaller room.  Downstairs, we decided to try and shrink our ADA bedroom/bathroom to much smaller dimensions.  Its just a lot of space to pay for, when in reality we wont be using it for another 50 years.  At that point we figure we can do some minor construction if we need to as long as its currently configured to have enough space to maneuver a WC around a bit.  We are are getting rid of the 1/2 bath to save space and moving the guest room bathroom around to allow it to be the sole bathroom downstairs.  We are excited to see the result in a week or two.  Were getting close.  Loving every minute of it.

Save The Date Ordered

OMG......Jenn has decided on the "save the date" notifications.  They are ordered and should be here by June 17th!  Right on time.  In the end, not to toot my own horn, but she chose my design thank-you very much.  Anyone who knows me, well you can only imagine that it may be a little unconvenitional, but in the end we both liked it.  So expect it by June 17th for our June 18th wedding.

2nd 3D Model Design

We received the second 3D model from the architect and the design is getting closer.  Very exciting!  I have my walk in pantry to stock up on canned goods and annoy Jenn, so that's cool.  We now have a walkout basement and a screen porch for those killer Barre Mosquitoes.  However a few things have to be worked on, such as possibly deleting a 3/4 bath, bigger walk-in closet and a kids playroom/exercise room.  Don't laugh about the playroom.  Jenn and I love our sleep and we have been advised by parents that having a kids playroom near the bedrooms is a dream come true, because we can sleep in a little longer and the kids can just wake up and go play.  No safety concerns of them going downstairs alone.  Nope!  Just head into the room next to our bedroom and play away while we sleep away.  Perfect!  It may not work out like that every time, but if we can sleep in every Saturday and Sunday for an extra hour or so....well its worth it.  So far the designs and corrections have been done through email, so at this point we are going to meet with him next Saturday 1/29 and interactively make some corrections on the computer and see if we can shift a few things around.  Cant wait!