Lisa and Michael

Halloween is one of our favorite holidays around the house. It’s one of the things we look forward to when fall rolls around. It is by far our favorite season. Cool mornings, warm days, the first fireplaces lighting up, not to mention football, Balloon Fiesta, Zozobra, and the smell of roasting chile! Oh man, what’s not to love about it all.

Halloween 1991 - Shari and Shelby

Halloween 2006 - Shelby and Puppy

maybe even happier too.  It is hard to believe that three months ago today we were on a beach saying our vows.  Wow-time does fly when you are having fun.  As I sit here in our gorgeous back yard posting this post I realize that we really have had a full life in the past three months.  I guess we should quit saying that we are going to relax and just do it!  We should take more time to go on a hike or ride those bikes that have been hanging up in the garage for over a year now.  We spend lots of time together, but we really have become lazy.  Both of us have gained 8-10 pounds each in the past three months and this past Monday we weighed in and started back on the diet.  This along with the money diet leaves us with the perfect opportunity to hike and ride bikes!  Either way fat, skinny or whatever life brings us, I wake up happy to be with you every morning! Happy anniversary Michael.  It will be hard to make me any happier than you already have..but I’m sure you will!

It’s been all doomsday talk in the news for the past few days, what with the market dropping nearly 1000 points on the reality of a Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and the AIG bailout by taxpayers. Actually, bad news for more than a year now if you think about it (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bear Sterns, etc., etc.).

Rather than worry ourselves to death about things we cannot control, we’re looking at all this turmoil as a giant opportunity. Sure, we’re doing our part to save money where we can by clipping coupons, riding the bus, and avoiding using credit cards (unless paid off immediately); but we are also maxing out 401(k) savings — what better time to buy low! — and maintaining a modest emergency fund, and taking advantage of low interest rates. The markets will not always be so bearish, and stocks over the long run are the best bet for maximizing one’s retirement. Things will get better, they always do — but it’s likely to be a bumpy ride for a while at least. Hang in there, and take advantage of the current market chaos.

Edited 09/22/2008 to add: Okay, so maybe the sky IS falling a bit, now that this whole mess is being unwound and estimates are north of $30 trillion had the Fed not stepped in when they did. It is all quite scary stuff. But, hold fast! Things will get better, maybe starting 2010. Lots of bargains out there, take advantage…

We painted Shelby’s room this weekend and while moving furniture around, ran across this picture of Puppy when he was, well, a puppy, along with his brothers and sisters, from nearly 13 years ago. Puppy is the cute one in the middle. And like me, he’s also Canadian. How cool is that?

A few weeks ago, Lisa and Robin took off for a couple of days to Pagosa Springs, CO. That left me all alone and in need of a little adventure.

How about a nice day trip to the San Mateo mountains south of Magdalena, NM? Unfortunately, Forest Road 330 at 8000′ is not suitable in a downpour with a two-wheel drive vehicle. So I relucantly turned around and checked out Ladron Peak instead, and to see if the Rio Salado was crossable.

A fun but tiring day.

New Mexico state highway 107

Ok, maybe we’ve done too much relaxing.

By the time we left for our wedding, I had dropped about 29 pounds in the previous five months, courtesy of the physics diet - less calories in, more calories out - so damn simple. Lisa didn’t need to lose anything, but did maintain her weight to stay in the size 2 dress we bought in December. We were both quite happy with the results all around.

Fast forward about two months since we left for the Bahamas, and I’ve given back about 7 pounds. Lisa, just a few, maybe. That’s actually not bad considering how bad we’ve eaten (steaks, beer, Golden Pride, etc.) and how lazy we’ve been. Even Junior is getting his gut back.

So, it’s back to our diets. My motivation is simply that I don’t want to be a fat tub of goo again. Plus, I’d like to live for a long time, get lower insurance premiums, and just feel good. Dieting is actually a no brainer. Get a lot of exercise while at the same time quit eating crap. No pills, juices, books, or surgery is required. Only motivation and will-power.

Eating right is also a hell of a lot cheaper, which contributes to the budget diet we’ve also been on for a while. We have been getting rid of old books through Amazon, selling tons of stuff via Craigslist, riding the bus, clipping piles of coupons, and using the library, just to name a few.

I haven’t sat down to calculate our savings yet, but I do know that riding the bus alone saves us over $200 per month in fuel, parking, insurance, and wear-and-tear. Plus, we regularly get 30-50% savings at the grocery store using coupons. Nice!

Now that’s relaxing.

I like the look of that.

We hope we can finally start to enjoy our home and family!  It’s been a busy few years.  Tonight is the first night we really did not have anything to do but read, watch tv or surf the web.  I must admit that it is nice.  The girls are getting up at five in the morning to register for college classes and off we go starting a whole new chapter.  We hope they get the classes they want and of course we hope that Shelby can carry her full ride all the way!  Shari of course has a good job that has tuition reimbursement so we only need to loan her money until she gets her check from work to cover tuition.  We are very lucky and hope to stay that way.  As far as marriage, nothing has changed except of course Michael is getting me to watch all those HBO mini series that he always watched while I was at cheerleading practice.  They are all very interesting and I can’t wait to be caught up so I can be ready for the fall new episodes.

I uploaded the wedding ceremony to YouTube tonight. The stiff onshore breeze made it difficult for the audio, but if you listen close enough, you can make out the minister’s words, as well as my and Lisa’s vows. The video, though, really gives you a sense of how great our wedding was.

It was for Lisa and I a perfect ceremony, the words were lovely and timeless, and the beach location was more than we hoped for and imagined. I look at that clear blue water and pure white sand and wish I could be back there right now. We’ve promised ourselves that we’ll try to make it back every five years or so, just to relive this wonderful moment in our lives.

We stumbled across this lush in the adjacent train at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta airport and happened to get a videotape of it.

It’s actually Robin having some fun with Jared.

I added a couple of new links to our honeymoon photos this week, Bahamas 2008 and Ouray 2008.

Over the course of two weeks our honeymoon took us to Cocoa Beach, the Bahamas, Disney World, a July 4th Isotopes game, and the surprise for Lisa, Ouray, Colorado.

The Ouray trip was strictly Lisa and me, and as you can see from the photo above at Cascade Falls, it was absolutely stunning. It was a blast swimming in some of the most beautiful waters in the world one week, then hiking in and around 14,000′ mountains in mid-summer the next week. It was unforgettable.

Check it out, there are tons of photos from all of our adventures (except Disney World… we learned our lesson last time that lugging a camera around four theme parks is a huge pain, so we opted out this trip).

While we’re still trying to locate a cocktail dress and a blazer, we just finished sending out thank you cards we created through Shutterfly, took advantage of Costco’s amazing photo print service and ordered some gorgeous wedding prints from the digital originals, and started preparations to create our very own wedding coffee book (via MyPublisher). So yeah, we’re still busy!