vel's journaly thing

I'm going to use LJ to chronicle my horse search; it'll help remind me what I've already seen.

( Cut for those who aren't interested )

That's all of them so far. Out of this group Mystery and Grace are my top choices so far, but I really want to ride May and see how she is as well.

I'm lined up to see about 8 more this weekend, so I'll try to have more updates when I get back Sunday night.

Yesterday was my dear husband's birthday. Happy 27th, ibanix!!! ^_^

Anyway, a long time ago he had mentioned how he would like to have a surprise birthday party sometime. I've never planned a surprise party before, but I thought I'd give it a try. How hard could it be, right?

He had already asked to go out for sushi for his birthday dinner. I thought "well that's easy, I'll just invite a bunch of other people to dinner and be at the restaurant to surprise him!" So I made a reservation with the sushi place next door to us we haven't been to yet and sent out a bunch of online invites a little over a week before his birthday. Unfortunately I don't really have any email addresses of his friends, so I had to see what I could hunt down off of lj/wedding guest list/past evites/his cell phone. I think I managed pretty well, except a number of his friends either don't have their email addresses anywhere or he doesn't have their phone numbers. So it was kind of a crapshoot as to whether or not they'd even see the invitation/I could call them up. Most of his friends were unable to come. =( But I did manage to round up 8 people (friends/family) to make it on Friday night.

But then! Two days before his birthday he emails me at work and says "hey let's go to this other sushi place I like instead"! So I have to rush email/call everyone and let them know that the location has changed!! Thankfully they were all able to get the message in time, so they knew to go to the new restaurant. But it doesn't end there.

On the day of his birthday, he emails me again to say he'll be working late, "I'll meet you at the restaurant right at 8." Okay...no problem, I had told everyone to get there by 7:45 in order to be early enough to surprise him. And since I didn't want to drive all the way home then all the way back up to the restaurant if we weren't going together, I just stayed at work late as well.

I left work a little after 7 so I could get the restaurant really early and have plenty of time to make sure things were taken care of before he was supposed to get there at 8. But then disaster strikes! As I'm driving over there, Josh calls me and says "hey traffic wasn't as bad as I thought, I'll be there in about 10 minutes"!!! What?! It was only 7:20!! And since I'm completely incapable of lying on my toes, so the only thing I could think of to say was "ummmm...okay..." We were both already on the road, and I couldn't think of any excuse that would delay him long enough for the guests to get there before he did.

I ended up getting to the restaurant a little after 7:30 and was shown to our table set for 10. I put my present down and went back to the entrance to wait for Josh, who got there about 5 minutes later. So it was only 7:40, and I tried to stall around by saying our reservation was for 8, but he could easily see that there were plenty of open tables and there shouldn't be any reason why we couldn't be seated. Finally I gave up and brought him over to our table. Of course that was when the light went off when he saw all the chairs "Oh!!" That was also when our guests started arriving and he was surprised and happy to see who all came. So it was a sort of success in that he was definitely surprised, just not in the way I had wanted! Oh well. =/

The food was delicious! And they had all kinds of awesome rolls to choose from. I had my favorite, a catepillar roll, plus their calamari roll and tamago roll. Josh had the crispy dragon roll, tuna roll, and then one of their specials, the Pirates of the Caribbean roll. This thing was HUGE, and by that time he couldn't finish it. The chef also made a sort of "birthday cake" out of stacked California rolls to share with everyone. It was all really yummy! All in all I'd have to say the dinner was a success. =)

( Pictures! )

Today after work I went with my friend Melissa up to visit her horse at the barn where he's getting trained. It's called Williams Ranch, and they specialize in training and breeding draft horses.

( Read more )

I didn't get a chance to mention this earlier due to the move and everything, but we did finally have to end good old Smoky's suffering on Saturday, September 22nd. He had cancer in the entire upper part of his mouth and could no longer eat; we kept him on pain meds for a while, but it was obvious he was in horrible pain even with them. He was born in May of 1994 and was 13 years old.

( More )

So yes, my husband and I were married on July 7th, 2007 (yeah, I was one of those ^_^ ). I could not have asked for a more beautiful, wonderful, fantastic day. Everything was just amazing, and aside from a few very minor snags, pretty much perfect! I actually was very relaxed and at ease for most of the day; the only time I really got nervous was right before I walked down the aisle.

( The Good, The Not As Good, and The Advice )

( And now what you're really here for, pictures! )

Well I think that's about enough of that. Check out our Picasa album for pictures from our honeymoon cruise to Alaska! =)

We have our wedding photos back from the photographer. You can check them out here.

My next task is to upload the photos I took on our honeymoon...Josh has his up right now, but they're mostly of me! =P I took more of the scenery and whatnot.

Enjoy!

Quick note: if you were at the wedding, please email your pictures to thomasweddingpix@gmail.com Thank you!

The long and short of it is it was the best day ever! There were only a couple of minor snags that were quickly fixed and/or easily ignored, and everything else went beautifully. It was truly wonderful and I couldn't have asked for a better wedding. =) Everyone did a great job; I really am lucky to have such amazing family and friends.

So without further ado, here are a few of the pictures I got with my camera. Many more to follow in the near future!

( Pictures! )

That's all I have for now, but you can be sure there will be more!

Today we brought home our new cat, Serenity!

She is a *gorgeous* tabby/tortie mix with huge green eyes. She's 3 years old, incredibly sweet and relaxed, and I think she'll be a good complement to Cricket (assuming they learn to get along, anyway). She's a very large cat, not fat, just overall proportionally large. She's going to dwarf Cricket, since she's about twice her size. They won't meet for a few days while she settles in, of course. Thus far Serenity has spent most of the evening hiding under the bed, but I'm sure she'll adjust just fine.

Josh and I went up to the Nine Lives Foundation in Redwood City to find her. I really wanted a lap cat, one that will settle down when it jumps on you, not just walk all over you like Cricket does. We looked at and played with dozens of cats, many of which could have been good prospects, but in the end both of us were really drawn to "Queenie" (we renamed her Serenity on the ride home). She has a very regal and elegant bearing, everything about her just proclaims royalty. My one concern for her is that she seems to have a bit of a cold and sneezes every now and then. I think she'll recover just fine now that she's away from the shelter, where many of the cats seemed to be sickly from being stuck in such a small place with so many other cats. This was a rescue shelter where they house cats from other shelters that are in danger of being put to sleep soon. In all other respects she appears to be very healthy, nice body condition (even a tad chubby), so I'm not too worried about her. I just hope she and our little firecracker Cricket will get along!

( And now what you really want, pictures! )

Where to start? Well, I have a bit of a cold at the moment so I'm just resting up, and I see I've been neglecting lj again.

Easter Weekend

Friday night I had to work, and after that I met up with Josh at the Sonoma Chicken Coop in downtown San Jose for a group dinner event with his motorcycling friends, the South Bay Riders. It was pretty fun; much of the time was spent trying to convince Josh that he should go to Disneyland at least once in his life.

On Saturday we got up relatively early to drive down to Fresno for my cousin David's 20th birthday party. It was held out at my aunt's ranch in Clovis. While we were there some of us walked down the road to a neighbor's place to see my remaining duck in (her?) new home. The surviving duck turned out to be Kikumaru (I seem to be the only one who could tell them apart), so I guess Ooishi is fox food now. =( Maybe I shouldn't have named him something that sounded so close to "oishii"... ^^;

But all reports say Kikumaru is doing well and has buddied up with a black and white duck in the new pond, so I guess that's good. The neighbor is really nice and says we can visit anytime; we also went to another neighbor, a friend of my aunt's, and I talked horses with him for a while.

( Kikumaru at the new pond )

Then back at the ranch we went to visit the cows grazing in the pasture. My aunt and uncle don't live at the ranch (my aunt inherited it from a friend of Oma's; she's hanging on to it, but they actually live at their own house), but they let a guy who raises cattle graze some of them on their land. There are 10 acres split into three different sections; right now there are five cows in one of them, and some of them were actually friendly. Josh didn't seem to think much of the cows, but I thought they were cute!

( Cows in the field )

It's amazing how green it is out there from all the rain California has had. Normally it would all be brown and dried up by now. I'm glad it wasn't raining while we were down there, though. We stayed down in Fresno until about 7:30, then drove back up to San Jose.

Sunday morning I went to work and it was pouring and windy. That was good because it meant nearly no customers and I was able to leave early like I was planning on doing anyway. I left work at noon and went to Josh's aunt and uncle's place in Saratoga for Easter brunch that was really good. After the food we watched a photo album DVD with pictures chronicling the life of one of Josh's relatives...his grandfather I think? I wasn't paying all that much attention and fell asleep on his shoulder. When I woke up it was time to go over to my parents' house to have Easter dinner with them, my brother, and my grandma.


New Apartment

Josh and I are pretty much settled into the new place. I think all that's still left to bring over is my bookcase, and there's still some more decorating to be done. I don't have too much to say about it; it's a pretty decent place, and I'm happy wherever Josh and my computer and high speed internet are. *g* Anyway, onto the pictures...

( New apartment pics )