Alyssa & Shane

Randy & Cathy

Great fun was had at the Nelson/Jablonka wedding! On our return home, Justin and I realized that we had less than four months before we were to be wed.

As this week is my spring break (and the first time it has snowed in more than a month) I have spent a great deal of time looking at things for our wedding. Poor Justin comes home from work and is bombarded with information and questions on everything I’ve been looking at all day.

We are supposed to try and find tux rentals today. It is more complicated than it shoudl be only because none of the stores in St. Cloud are related to any stores out west. We may have to rent from the cities or have Justin try on stuff from specific designers that are supplied by stores in St. Cloud and then rent via phone/internet. We’ll see how it goes.

Fortunately for us number of photographers who are still available for July 11th. We’re looking at online portofolios trying to decide who we would like to have taking the pictures of our loverly wedding. It’s not quite the same as meeting with them in person, but it’ll have to do for now.

I’m going to go watch the snow fly and maybe start a fire in the fireplace. Enjoy they day!

"It's not like actually playing, but I'm still totally awesome"

This weekend my friends James (front of the pic, holding the plastic guitar in the Floyd shirt) and Gabe held a ‘JWBDSGHWTC’ party (James’ Welcome Back Drum Set Guitar Hero World Tour Celebration), where we played Guitar Hero and Rock Band.  For the uninitiated, Rock Band is a ‘music video game’ in which you have to time your button pushes (on fake instruments) to the ‘music’ that is scrolling by on the screen.  Since I (Justin) have played my fair share of instruments, I happen to be relatively ‘good’ at these games.  I talked a lot about the wedding that night – a couple of my ‘work buddies’ are married, so I got some advice from them while Heather talked with all of the females about whatever-it-is that they talk about.  I somehow tricked Heather into staying up WAY past her bed time (party started at 7:00, we left at midnight).  Apparently we left at the half-way point, since those guys were playing until ~3:00AM.

I think that Henry was singing “Go Your Own Way” by Fleetwood Mac in this picture – the rule is that the singer must sing in the song’s original octave, and therefore must employ heavy falsetto.  Boston songs tend to be the house favorite.

My wonderful sister was very excited initially to hear about the upcoming wedding. She was ready to help plan everything, pick out the dresses and do whatever she could to make sure that it would be beautiful. She has been asking me weekly if she can buy her dress yet, I’ve been waiting to see if I actually like the dresses we picked or if I change my mind. I gave the OK yesterday, so we’ll see how that goes. I can’t wait to see how cute they actually are.

Kristal came to visit and help with the planning/dress picking

A college student at North Dakota State University, current major: engineering, Kristal spends time she is not in class working for the catering company on campus, pumping iron and “rock climbing” in the wellness center and making all sorts of new friends.

With all the “excitment” of wedding planning, Justin sometimes get’s this way.

kisses=saddness?

Justin: “You know I love you, but are we done yet?”

I try and give him sort of an every-other-weekend type pattern for planning things. Last weekend he did really well. We picked out readings for the ceremony, set up this loverly website and set a tentative list for people we would like to help with things for the ceremony and reception. Now we have to ask said people if they would be willing to participate.

Justin also asked Mike (a friend from college) to be his groomsman with positive results. I’m happy because now he officially has his guys that are willing to come to Minnesota and stand up in the front of the church with him all lined up and ready to participate. Pictures and info to follow on the two gentleman.

Also, check back soon for info about my girls.

This weekend is a break from our wedding stuff, but preparations for Steve & Amy’s wedding are underway.

Watching the new home team

While I’m not quite sure Justin was into baseball when we first started dating. I have helped to convert him. Part of the fun we spent in Denver over the past summer was watching Rockies games. We managed to get some surprisinly  great seats. The first time we went to a game (pictured here) our seats were right along the right field wall maybe 4 rows back. We could almost reach out and touch the players. Another nice part about the baseball games we attended this summer was the cost per hour of entertainment (unlike Broncos games, to be discussed at a later date).
Then Justin had the brilliant idea (I think it was his idea, I’ll give him credit for it this time) of getting burritos and bringing them into the game for lunch. It was way cheaper than stadium food and tasted better too. Other people came up to us a few times asking us where we found the burritos and we had to break their hearts by telling them there were no burritos in the park.

 

It always amuses me how many stadiums are named after alcoholic beverages

One thing that I will miss when I move from Denver will be the proximity to untold numbers of entertaining events and activites that come from being in a major metropolis. It was great to live just across town from Coors Field with a special super secret (well, I thought so, but other people parked there too, so I guess it wasn’t so secret, anyway…) parking spot that let us escape from the madness after the game with ease.

Center field springs, just below the Rock Pile

We were lucky too,  it was a beautiful day for baseball, almost too much sunshine.

Top of Greys Peak - our first fourteener

This is a picture from the top of Greys Peak in Colorado.  I remember that we had to hike up the service road, since non-4×4 vehicles couldn’t make it to the trail head.  Hopefully I’ll be able to convince Heather into hiking with me, again!

Playing at the Science Museum

I hope to have pictures incorporated into the posts to share some of the time Justin and I have spent together over the past years. This is from the day we went to the Science Museum of Minnesota. We spent the afternoon learning all there was to know about the human body in Body Works, walked a maze outside and just learned/explored stuff. This past year we also visited the Museum of Nature and Science in Denver. The museum in MN is better than the one in Denver, but it was neat to see the space exploration items and the gold exibit in Denver.
I think I also have a picture of me standing next to a model giant ball of poo…I don’t think I’ll go looking for that one.

Welcome to Heather Gruba and Justin Dittmann’s ‘wedding web site’.

This site is informal and intended to carry miscellaneous wedding news and updates.

Click the links above for more info.