DieselGotKelly

We arrived on Monday and have been spending the week with friends. We are here to watch the semi-final match between Portugal and France. It’s somewhat bittersweet as our favorite teams have already lost (Brazil, US, Germany). When we return, our first goal is to send out the invitations. Look for those to arrive in the mail in the next couple weeks. Tchus!

It appears that we are on for a golf tournament the day before the wedding. I scheduled eight tee times at Gold Mountain Golf Club starting at 10:00AM.  The format will be a scramble…

In a scramble, team members all hit each shot. They then decide which is the best shot and then all team members hit the next shot from that spot. This continues until the ball is in the hole. Stroke play counts the number of times the team hits the ball. The team with the lowest total wins.

If you're new to golf, this is a great way to start playing. There will be prizes for the winning team and maybe prizes for longest drive and putt.

The Olympic Course at Gold Mountain is one of the prettiest courses I've ever seen and as been rated as one of the "Top 100 Courses You Can Play" by Golf Magazine and the "2nd Best Value in the United States" by Golf Digest and ESPN. So, if you have the chance to take the day off and bring your clubs, I promise you'll have a great time, assuming you hit better than my dad.

Gold Mt. is located in Bremerton, WA, which just so happens to be on the way to Alderbrook Resort. If you wanted to stay in Seattle Friday night, it's easy enough to just hop the ferry back after the game.

Look for signup details on the wedding invitation…

What Diesel said on the previous post is not entirely true.  True:  the family is starting to get  more stressed out than us.  However, we HAVE indeed registered.  On a sunny Sunday afternoon–after Mom's Day lunch, actually–Diesel and I decided to ruin a perfectly nice day by spending several hours at Macy's scanning dozens of cookware items with a scanner that was, oh…so 2001!

What started out as excitement over getting new, matching stuff (growing up in an Asian family where no piece of china matched and no two glasses were alike, I am very much looking forward to having matching EVERYTHING), dragged into a long afternoon.

It all started out well and happy.  I got a complimentary Swiss Army tote just for registering there! Very nice, actually, despite the fact that the saleslady went on and on about how Swiss Army now has a luggage line, and how we should register for it.  

However, it all started going downhill when we tested the scanner.  The damn thing took FOREVER, and I mean FOREVER to scan.  And then it would take more FOREVER to add the quantity we wanted.  Not exactly high-tech.  When the scanning started, I was a bit appalled by how much the pots and pans set that Diesel chose cost.  Yeah, we do love to cook, but if you do think that 200 dollars for a single pot is too much, well then…I'm with you.  And I won't be sad or offended if you don't get it for us, because seriously, I wouldn't buy a 200-dollar pot myself.  Aside from the pots, we found some pretty good deals at Macy's.  The good thing about Macy's is that there is a sale pretty much every other week.  I will be very proud of any guests that buy our stuff on sale.

The last thing we were going to register for was bedding.  We found a great, beautiful set, but had to draw the line there:  80 bucks for a pillowcase is just silliness!

Anyhow, if you are one of those people who buys wedding presents way in advance, don't buy anything for us yet.  As it turns out, the very same day Diesel decided to go to crateandbarrel.com and register online.  Riding on the wave of "I'll-register-for-whatever-I-want-since-I'm-not-paying-for-anything," he registered for yet another set of pots and pans.  Great.  We now have about 1000 dollars in pots and pans.  Several are duplicate, so I'll make Diesel unregister.

It’s true, there isn’t much to report lately. Kelly and I have been completely slacking. It’s funny because I think all of our friends and family are a lot more stressed out then we are. We have the food, bar, date, and place set. What else do we need to do?

Kelly and I are in NYC this weekend to, well, eat. I would like to tell you it’s related to the wedding, but it isn’t. We haven’t taken any time off in a long time so this long weekend is well deserved.

Alderbrook will be hosting some sort of concert on the main grounds the night before the wedding (September 1st). I'm told the band will be "mellow and fun", but I'm not exactly sure what that means. Either way, it's something else to do if you happen to arrive on Friday, which is when all the cool people are coming.

Those out there that are getting the Save the Dates this week probably have no idea that for about 3 weeks they were the cause of discord in the relationship. As you all know, during his BK (before Kelly) period, Diesel was a "designer." So many of my suggestions for the Save the Dates were met with resistance accompanied by a disdainful "you were never a designer."  Needless to say, this was not good for our relationship.

The good news is, you CAN teach men new tricks, and Diesel has learned that sometimes, even if Kelly is wrong, Kelly is really RIGHT. The Save the Date pdf was ready to be printed out, except for one tiny detail: I had requested that he Photoshop my nose, but "still make it an Asian nose." He didn't. I decided that this time I should be the one to give in, and live with the fact that out there the picture of my crooked nose is being displayed on refrigerators all across America.   But alas, the Save the Dates were finally sent out!

Enjoy and we're looking forward to seeing you at the wedding!

We just got back from the tasting and the food was delicious. I think that we're pretty much set there. We also got a lot of our questions answered regarding all the little details. But best of all, I'm feeling better about our choice for the location.

Over the last couple of months I've been a little concerned about the distance and price, but after making the trip again and seeing the place, I know it's perfect. The trip is easy and really only requires about 40 minutes of driving and all of it on country roads. The rest is on the ferry.

Finally, Alderbrook Resort was just selected as one of the top 50 hotels in the US by Food and Wine magazine! Not only that, but of the 50 chosen, Alderbrook is the one they've chosen to spotlight on The Early Show this Tuesday!

If you wish to stay at Alderbrook for the wedding, then we recommend that you book soon as it is over Labor Day Weekend and there’s a good chance it will sell out. Mention the “Chow - Sale” wedding to get a small discount. Because of the holiday weekend, we were unable to get a great discount on the price, but we are currently looking around for other hotel options. Check back for updates on what we find.

Also, if you really want to do it up over the weekend, there’s a spa & golf package that my brother discovered. For $100 more for the weekend, you get two golf passes at nearby Alderbrook Golf Course and two spa treatments at Alderbrook Resort. Call Alderbrook Resort for more details.

Kelly, her family, and I are heading to Alderbrook Resort this weekend to taste some of the food options for the reception. Not understanding how the whole thing works, I initially requested a taste of about 20 different things. Turns out I'm only allowed to choose 4-5 things. Oh well.

We're also going to scope out a couple golf courses, hotels, and other restaurants in the area. Stay tuned for more details and start working on that golf swing! 

Kelly and I finally finished the Save the Date cards. It took many months and costs many lives, but they are going out the door this week. Finally, a piece of regular mail that you actually want.

Not to spoil the surprise, but the wedding is on September 2nd, 2006. This is labor day weekend, on Saturday. We hope you can make it.