Archives for March 2006

Ladies and Gentlemen – the wedding invitations are ready to be sent out :) I can’t believe this day finally came. I received a call from the print shop this morning that the prints were actually ready to be picked up and even though I had to pay more than I expected [for some odd reasons], I was really happy that I could finally finish this part of the wedding preparations. I really think the invitations turned out nicely :)
I got the package ready which will be send out to Jon’s parents tomorrow [so that they can send out the invitations in the US] and I’ll start giving out the other invitations here in Germany as well.

The last three days I was basically busy with addressing the envelopes and helping my sister with more computer stuff – I can’t believe how much time this shit takes. My sister never made a backup of her files, so we’re burning everything on cd’s right now – and I mean, EVERYTHING! We spent two whole evenings on that already! Hey, the good thing is that I get to spend time with Nina and we can do other stuff, too, while the computer is working ;) I must admit that it is really nice to be around her so much – I don’t want to think about the time when I am back in California and all we have is phone and email. She always misses me very much and I miss her, too. I enjoy being around her and do stuff like shopping and hanging out. I really want to use the time that we have until I leave to enjoy her company.
It’s funny, because although I am a “family person”, I dare to move so far away knowing that I won’t see my family very often. I guess it’s almost the same as with my friends – even though I can’t see them, they’re always close to my heart. I just wish I never get to the point where it physically hurts me to be away from them so much.
Seriously, as a kid I was the most fearful and shy kid you could imagine – I didn’t even want to stay at someone’s birthday party by myself, let alone stay somewhere over night. I don’t know how many times my parents had to take me home or pick me up early. My sister on the other hand was very outgoing and always was my own private guardian. She would always make sure that I am OK, she would ask things for me, if I was too shy to do it myself – my teacher in elementary school even told me in her goodbye letter in 4th grade that I should start standing up for myself and not rely on my sister so much.
It’s funny that exactly this shy girl would be ending up traveling the world! :)

I am not easily frustrated and usually a very patient person, but the last few days just really put me over the edge.

First of all, I’ve been trying to work on the church ceremony. I found some useful information on the Internet, but now the problem is: which songs, readings etc. to actually pick out. I am trying to collect some readings I came across, but still haven’t found the “perfect” reading for us. I am also trying to pick out songs, but some have been used a lot for weddings and I really want to find one that fits my relationship with Jon.

Second, Nina and I went shopping in Köln yesterday. Our goal was to buy some shoes for the wedding – just white shoes, that is. I personally don’t like the real wedding shoes, because they look all the same and I would definitely not wear them again afterwards, because they just look like wedding shoes. I would like some shoes that I could wear at the wedding AND later on as well. Unfortunately, right now the really pointed shoes are “hip” and I hate them. I really don’t like the style and I know that I would only wear them at the wedding and then never again. The ballerina-type shoes [with heels] are kind of popular right now as well and I think I could be fine with that, but the problem is that there are no white shoes of this kind, and if there are, they have big brown heels. WTF?
Nina and I spent 7 hours walking around and checking out every single shoe shop and didn’t find any shoes that we really liked. The only compromise would be sandals like this, but the heel is way too high for the whole wedding day so I am pretty lost right now.

Third, Nina and I also looked for potential dresses to wear as the maid of honor on each other’s wedding, it’s impossible to find one. The problem is: most dresses are too “casual”, the more elegant ones are either always black OR they just won’t fit. If it fits around my breasts, it’s too lose around my waist and hip-  if it fits there, I can definitely NOT fit my boobs. It’s so frustrating!
I also must say that I don’t like the current fashion very much. Sigh. I am considering a two piece- outfit now or just hope for a miracle.
On a nicer note, I met “a friend from the past”

for coffee on Friday which was fun and I bought Tobi’s single :) :) Yeah, I am crazy! :)
I spent Friday night at my sister’s place, because she had someone come over to fix her computer and she wanted me to be there [because she’s an computer-illiterate :)], and later on we had dinner together and talked some more wedding stuff. [If that seems to be a sentence popping up in most of my posts lately, you are right! :)]

Today I wanted to keep myself busy with addressing the wedding invitation envelopes, so that I can send them out as soon as possible. Unfortunately, it seems like there are certain “rules” in the US on how to address envelopes traditionally and of course, I don’t have the necessary information to do that – so I had to contact Jon’s parents again to find out.

There is always something.

Yes! Tobi made it – he’s the new German Teen Idol :) I am so happy – I didn’t want Mike Leon to win [hey, and I usually don’t even watch these kind of shows ;)] – but Ilka and I had a fun night on the couch on Saturday night and watched the finale of DSDS. I was so hoping that Tobi would make it. I really think he has a great voice and I like the kind of music he sings. It’s awesome that he won, and I really hope he’ll make it big.

OK, back to my weekend – Friday night, my sister and I went to Cologne to see a friend for her “farewell party”. She’ll be moving to Sacramento at the end of the week. We went to a bar in Downtown Cologne and I was soooo under-dressed :( I thought we would go to a pub and have a drink, but it was more like a lounge-type-of-thing and everybody was dressed up, wearing make up and all that. Oh well, I felt kind of “young” between all these dressed up people, don’t I look like 12? ;)

Saturday, I took the train to Siegen at 1 p.m. and Ilka picked me up at the train station at 4 p.m. We went shopping and then had a cozy evening on the couch and watched DSDS [see above]. It was fun to talk and hang out :)

Sunday morning, we slept in and after a nice breakfast, my sister arrived in Siegen and we chatted a little bit and we showed Ilka our wedding dresses. Then we went downstairs and she did our hair :) I was so amazed what you can do with my hair ;) I am still not totally decided on how I want to have it done – but it was good to start trying things out and Ilka did a fantastic job [thanks hun!].

We had some coffee and cake afterwards and Nina and I got home at 9 p.m. and I was kind of tired and went to bed pretty early.

Today my sister and I went to a crafts and garden store near Cologne to look for decorational stuff for the wedding. It’s so hard to decide what you want.
I’ll be able to pick up the invitations at the print shop at the beginning of next week. We had some problems last Friday, because of the file format that I submitted to the print shop and Kim helped me to straigthen things out with them [they wanted to charge me an extra 120 euros for something that they had to change and hadn’t asked me about beforehand. WTF?]. Fortunately I talked to them and they said that they wouldn’t charge me the extra costs. They’d better NOT! So, things are moving along :)