Soggy Camping

Last weekend, we went camping. A hurricane was heading for the Northeast, but a strong thunderstorm front kept it off-shore. Of course, we got hit with the thunderstorms instead of the hurricane, which was good, but it was still a fairly wet weekend.

We're going camping again this weekend - and guess what's headed for the Northeast? That's right, another hurricane (okay, so it's a Tropical Storm at this point... same thing). I really can't believe it. Hurricanes in NJ are rare. Or at least they're supposed to be. Is this some cruel joke?

Perhaps I'm only allowed a certain number of nice-weather vacation days per year, and I used up the quota while in Hawaii. Or maybe this is a sign from God that I really shouldn't plan any more camping trips. Either way, it's not really how I wanted to end out the summer.

More Writings Vs. Writing More

I've always considered myself a writer. I always knew I'd grow up to write in some capacity or another. I feel like I'm doing fairly well - I have roughly 120 published articles in my portfolio and several novels in various stages of being done. Not bad for someone who just turned 24, right?

I've been thinking about my writing a lot lately - mostly prompted by the too-long honeymoon plane rides. I was trying to sketch out my ideas for this year's NaNoWriMo. This is the first year I have several ideas going and don't know which one to choose.

I was spending a lot of time over the Pacific running through scenes in my head when something dawned on me - the scenes in my head are really scenes. Like, I want them to translate exactly how I see them in my head - same lighting, same background music, same facial expressions. It got me thinking - maybe I'm doing this all wrong. Maybe I should be writing these stories as screenplays.

Perhaps I'll be giving Script Frenzy a go in April. (Fun Fact: John Hughes regularly wrote his screenplays in less than a month, why couldn't I?) The more logical side of me really wants to squash that, though. Who ever actually gets their screenplays produced? At least I know some published authors so that seems remotely possible.

Another writing-related thing I'm considering is Twitter. Part of me cringes at the thought. The other part of me is absolutely fascinated by it. Any Twitter users have opinions on it?

More than a Month

Mark and I "celebrated" our one-month-aversary last Monday. I use the term celebrated loosely, here. We probably wouldn't have acknowledged the day with more than a "hey! one month down!" if we didn't have a wedding cake to eat.

I wasn't planning to save the top tier of the cake, but the venue packaged it up for us and it was sitting in Mark's parents' freezer. We decided that it probably wouldn't be good in a year, so we might as well enjoy it now.

I got a small bottle of champagne and broke out our new wedding china to make the one-month dinner a little more festive.

Our normal dinner looked a lot more impressive with the nice dishes.

The cake was still really good the second time around - we cut and froze two slices for the one year mark, the rest is being enjoyed nightly!

Tiny champagne!

It was a little hard to believe a month had passed already, but I guess that's what happens when you spend the first two weeks traveling!

Can You Give Me 5? Light the Night '09!

Every year, I participate in the Lukemia and Lymphoma Society's Light the Night Walk in honor of my beautiful Mom who was diagnosed with Lymphoma in 2001. She's currently in remission, thanks in large part to some of the drugs and technologies that money raised by Light the Night helped develop.

Can you "Give me 5" to kick-start this year's LTN campaign?

1. Give me 5 minutes of your time: Go to my personal LTN website (http://pages.lightthenight.org/snj/MercerCo09/KateSabella), and read about what I'm doing.

2. Give me 5 bucks: Just donate online! $5 provides an hour of microscope use to determine if a new medicine will stop a life-threatening lung infection in a bone marrow transplant patient. $20 pays for a bottle of nutrients that will nourish 10 million leukemia cells grown in the laboratory for a week, enabling scientists to test whether a new anti-cancer drug halts their growth. Every little bit helps!

3. Give me 5 friends: Pass the word to five friends and help spread the word! To sign up to walk with us, visit http://pages.lightthenight.org/snj/MercerCo09/Hope

Every 5 minutes someone new is diagnosed with a blood cancer - money for research is desperately needed!

We've been blogged!

Nicole blogged our pictures this morning - you can check our her post here: http://photonicolem.blogspot.com/

Even though I saw the pictures already, I got excited about the blog post. I know Mark and I worked hard on the wedding, but it's nice when other people pick up on it too - especially people like Nicole who have seen more than their share of weddings!

I don't know if I could handle being a full-time wedding planner. I love my current job - and my weekends - a little too much. I did love the DIY projects of it, though - especially the parasols. I'm incredibly tempted to start making them as a side business!

Photographer's Wedding Pictures

Today marks one month of being married - and we got to celebrate by looking through lots and lots of wedding pictures. Our photographer, Nicole from Photography by Nicole Marie, emailed us a little while ago to let us know that they were ready.

Of course, I've been stalking her website all week in anticipation so I actually found the pictures last night - but now it's official! The slideshow is here: www.nicolem.com/show/71009

I love so many of the pictures. There's great shots of my DIY stuff, the families, all of our friends partying... and us too. I can't wait to have the CD so I can make Thank You cards, DIY our wedding album and plaster the pictures all over our apartment. We got so many nice frames as gifts - they need to be filled!

Nicole and I have also been kicking around the idea of doing a Trash the Dress shoot - now I just need to get Mark on board! With any luck, you'll be seeing more of Nicole's work in the future.

MHR - He Loves Our Family

My family is important to me - and Mark is very family oriented too. When we were first dating, we marveled at how similar our families were. Families, as I'm sure you all know, are not always the easiest people to head with - or love.

The first time Mark met my family was he came over to help chaperone my sister's end-of-year pool party. At the time, we weren't officially dating yet. After the party, we sat in the gazebo in the back yard chatting. My brother went out the front door, over to the neighbor's yard, crawled down the side of the yard and across to the back of the gazebo - where he proceeded to scream to scare us. Mission accomplished. While I wish I could say that kind of thing doesn't usually happen around my house, it really does. I thank God everyday that Mark is such a good sport about those things!

During the entire time we've been together he's shown me he's really a family man. No matter what either family has managed to dish out, he's been supportive and loving of them the whole time.

Newlywed Life

I'm loving married life. Since we got home from the honeymoon about two weeks ago life has been pretty great.

Mark started his new position since we've gotten back, and it cuts his commute roughly in half. All of that extra time means we're able to sleep in a little later in the morning and he's home earlier in the evening. It's been nice having him around to help more with dinner and just be around at night to bum.

I've been making the time to cook more. The week after the honeymoon, I cooked a good dinner every night. This week has been a little shakier because our schedules haven't been as cooperative - but our fridge is full of left-overs so it's okay. Most of our wedding and shower gifts are being stored at Mark's parents, but we have plans to get the remainder of our kitchen stuff this weekend while we're up visiting.

This weekend will also mark one month since the wedding. We weren't really planning on celebrating, but since we'll be up at his parents' house we've decided to go to Sunday brunch at our wedding venue. We're also planning to bring our cake back with us and chow down on that too - no waiting for one year for us!

Looking Back: Honeymoon - Part 3

The last few days of our honeymoon we stayed at Turtle Bay Resort on Oahu's North Shore - it was our big splurge of the trip. These were our most laid back days - we ate a lot, sat around the pool and just soaked in our last hours in Hawaii.

The view from our room.

The manager sent up a bottle of champagne for us since we were on our honeymoon.

These birds were in the lobby - so fun!

Pool time

The one morning we walked on the beach we had it all to ourselves.

What a place to relax!

We did an ocean kayak tour - it was my favorite part of the whole honeymoon. We got really up close with sea turtles, and I got to see a Humuhumunukanukaapua'a - Hawaii's state fish!

This is the "Lost Banyan Tree" - several episodes of Lost have been filmed here.

It was really hard to leave such a beautiful place. For as much as we did, we could have spent twice as much time in each place exploring more. We're hopeful that we'll be able to go back in the not-so-distant future.

Looking Back: Honeymoon - Part 2

The second week of our honeymoon was spent on Oahu. The first four nights were spent in Waikiki.

Aloha, Oahu!

Our hotel - that mountain in the background is Diamond Head... make a note!

Waikiki beach - the area in front of our hotel had this sea wall to prevent the waves from getting too rough.

Our Diamond Head hike - we walked from the hotel all the way to the top!

Diamond Head Lighthouse

We made it!

At Pearl Harbor - the Bowfin Submarine

They had Pearl Harbor survivors that you could meet and chat with - this was Al and he was fantastic! After Mark took the picture, he was like "You've got the picture? Yes? Well I've got the girl!"

Arizona Memorial

Battleship Missouri

Waikiki Sunset

Waikiki after dark

With the Duke statue - he was respondsible for bringing surfing to the world

Street performers! They were awesome.

Dole Pineapple Plantation

A long way from home!

Banana trees! I couldn't reach them.

Dole Whip Float