Month: October 2007
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Home: Emergency Bathroom Remodel
So, a last week the bathroom vanity collapsed around 1 a.m. in the morning. On Sunday, we made an “emergency” trip to Home Depot, which of course led to an “emergency” bathroom remodel.
The most interesting part of the whole conversation is when we got to Home Depot and saw the exact same medicine cabinet that had collapsed the previous week ($99, fwiw). You would think we wouldn’t have even considered going down that road again, but … fortunately, thoughts of picking glass out of our cat’s hair won out.
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home: halloween
We had a couple of halloween parties to go to tonight (even though we only made it to one of them).
After many long evenings frantically digging through our closets, the lady sparkler decided she would go as David Beckham, and I decided I would go as the Pool Boy that my beloved brought back from Belize. You’ll notice the “Why Not Us?” Red Sox t-shirt which was a late addition … because the parties were poorly timed to coincide with Game 3 of the World Series (the nerve, really).
It’s incrediable how much you have to think when you are wearing a sarong. Getting in and out of the cab was almost comical, as was me sitting demurly on the couch (with my legs crossed at the knees) at the party. I don’t know how girls do it … well, except for Britney Spears who doesn’t seem to try very hard.
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Wedding: The Abridged Belize
Now, there are always people who *say* they want to see pictures from the honeymoon, but aren’t prepared for the full 526 photo onslaught. For those, we have prepared something special: the 72 picture abridged Belize.
If you are looking for the full annotated story (the hard core wedding enthusiasts, I presume) check out our more expansive “honeymoon” posts for a walk through our 10 amazing days in Belize.
Explore the Photo Set:
Honeymoon: The Abridged Belize -
Home: 14 Years of Bad Luck
We woke up this morning at 1 a.m. to the sounds of glass shattering.
Never a fun thing to wake up to, we stumbled out of bed and found that the door to our medicine cabinet had collapsed into the middle of the bathroom floor. The cabinet had glass on both sides of the door, so we got a two-for-one discount on the 7-years of bad luck offer.
About a year ago, in our previous place, we woke up to a horrifically loud crash … I woke up with such a fright that I landed (literally) on top of the lady sparkler. Our bedroom closet shelving had collapsed. To this day, we don’t know if I was trying to protect her or if I was running away and just got stuck on top of her.
Anyway, all the kings horses and all the kings men couldn’t put that vanity back together again, and to make matters worse the collapsing medicine cabinet ruined the sink on its short trip south.
i guess it’s time for a trip to home depot.
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Website: theparkerfamily.org (launch, v10)
Now that the wedding is over, we have to figure out what to do with tashaandevan.com … do we hold it in perpetuity as a last memento of the glory days of our engagement?
Sitting on the domain just seems unfair to the legions of Evanses and Tashas sure to follow (especially as evanandtasha.com appears to taken as well).
Instead, we have decided to take merge my web site (evancparker.com) with the engagement site, to form a brand-spanking new site called theparkerfamily.org. I had bought that domain for my parents for a Christmas almost five years ago (hi mom!) but sadly, nothing came of it (sorry mom!) and my mom ended up with a computer instead.
Anyway, if you want to keep track of the Sparklers from this point forward, you have come to the right place. You might want to grab our RSS Feed
(if you are into that sort of thing) or sign-up to be notified by email when we post something new.p.s. If you are wondering about the picture, for the last decade — dating back to when my vanity web site was unclevanya.com — my site has featured the same picture of my face on Karl Marx’ body that you see here. The new addition is the lady sparkler’s face gracing the body of Catherine the Great, who was arguably the most powerful female ruler of the last half millenium (it seemed fitting).UPDATE: Karl Marx and Catherine the Great are growing to be a little too obscure, even for us. I just swapped them out for The Great Gonzo (needs no explanation) and Abby Cadabby, the newish girly-girl-fairy-princess Muppet on Sesame Street (which seems to resonate the lady sparkler all over the place). I was also thinking about Shaggy and Velma — which would be funny beyond all possible understanding — so maybe that will come next.
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Travel: Actun Tunichil Muknak, Belize
Our last excursion in Belize was to a cave system about an two-hours outside of Chaa Creek. Called Actun Tunichil Muknak (or A.T.M. for short), the caves were used by the Mayans as a place of worship.After driving out towards the A.T.M., we parked the van and hiked 45 minutes to the mouth of the caves. Once there, we hopped into the river flowing out of the cave, and swam inside. After about 100 yards, the water was shallow enough to stand up. After hiking through the water for about half a kilometer, we climbed out of the river and spent an hour walking through the formations which 2,000 years earlier were a Mayan burial ground.
The whole day was spectacular, not just the journey, but the formations and especially the Mayan artifacts left untouched for over two millennia.
Explore the Photo Set:
Actun Tunichil Muknak, Belize -
Travel: Last Free Day, Chaa Creek, Belize
Tomorrow we are going on our last excursion, so today we did … well, pretty much everything left on our list in Chaa Creek.We got up early and spent the morning birding with a local naturalist. After breakfast, we went mountain biking through the nature reserve next door. After lunch, we got a tour of the reserve’s butterfly farm. Finally, after dinner, we hiked the resort’s River Trail (which, up to this point, had been closed due to high water levels caused by the wet season).
Explore the Photo Set:
Last Free Day, Chaa Creek, Belize -
Travel: Caracol Archaeological Reserve, Belize
Our first major excursion in the Cayo District of Belize was to Caracol, which is the largest known Mayan site in Belize. The reserve contains the largest building in Belize (the 2,000 year old “Sky Palace”) and dozens upon dozens of excavated ruins from the Mayan Classic period.One monument here records a military victory over the army of Tikal — a larger Mayan city across the border in Guatemala — in 562CE, where Caracol’s Lord Water is shown to have captured and sacrificed Tikal’s Double Bird.
Part of the excitement was having AK-47 toting members of the Belize Defence Forces escort us from the Mountain Pine Ridge ranger station to the ruins. Apparently, about two years ago, a group of Guatemalan bandits (angry about the aforementioned defeat of Tikal, I’m sure…) crossed the border and held up a couple of tour buses. While the bandits were caught long ago (and presumably taken out back and shot) the Belizean authorities aren’t taking any chances with their tourist revenue.
The ruins themselves were just amazing, and we were two of 30 people in the park that day, so had the place largely to ourselves. Simply amazing.
Explore the Photo Set:
Caracol Archaeological Reserve, Belize -
Travel: Chaa Creek Natural Reserve, Belize
As with the first day in Placencia, we spent the first day in Chaa Creek wandering around the area. The place we are staying is surrounded by a 350-acre nature preserve, and we spent the morning hiking around the resort’s seven miles of trails.Explore the Photo Set:
Hiking in the Chaa Creek Natural Reserve, Belize -
Travel: Transfer to Chaa Creek, Belize
The morning of day six saw a surprisingly easy three-hour transfer from Placencia southern Belize to just outside of San Ignacio in northwestern part of the country. Outside of the 27km of dirt roads to get from the Turtle Inn to the main highway, the trip was remarkably easy.Once in Chaa Creek, we spent the afternoon walking around the grounds of The Lodge at Chaa Creek which is where we will be spending the last half of our honeymoon.
Explore the Photo Set:
Transfer to The Lodge at Chaa Creek, near San Ignacio, Belize -
Travel: Trip up Monkey River, Belize
Our second major excursion in Belize was up the Monkey River, which is one of the larger rivers in southern Belize. We took a boat up the river and saw all sorts of wildlife (Howler Monkeys, Egrets, Ospreys, Crocodiles, ect.) and had lunch in Monkey River Town on the way back through.back at the turtle inn, after making our way through the vast majority of the happy hour special list, we finally asked the bartender what the locals drink when they don’t want bad fruity resort drinks.
he introduced us to the rum and coke, with belize’s own one barrel rum.
the rum is made with sugar cane, which gives it a bit of a vanilla taste — which makes it a lot less like drinking alcohol, and a lot more like drinking vanilla cokes.
mmmmm.
Explore the Photo Set:
Boat Trip up Monkey River, near Placencia, Belize -
Travel: Rainy Day at the Turtle Inn, Belize
Today was our first day of rain in Belize (and it would ultimate turn out to be our last), but as we were planning on spending the day at the resort, it didn’t turn out to slow us down a bit. We realized today that we haven’t taken a single picture of our accommodations, so we spent part of the day wandering around snapping pictures of where we stayed.we spent the bulk of the afternoon at the pool bar, which just so happened had happy hour specials that made the drinks actually mostly affordable.
Explore the Photo Set:
Rainy Day at the Turtle Inn, Placencia, Belize -
Travel: Snorkeling off Laughing Bird Caye, Belize
Our first major outing was to Laughing Bird Caye, a National Park in Belize (where, coincidentally, The Nature Conservancy has a few marine projects). Belize is home to the largest barrier reef in the Western Hemisphere, and we spent the day snorkeling through the western fringes of it.Explore the Photo Set:
Snorkeling off Laughing Bird Caye, Belize -
Travel: Relaxation in Placencia, Belize
We spent our first full day in Belize doing what all honeymooners should, lounging around the resort … which we referred to more elegantly as “getting our bearings.” After dinner, we went out and took some pictures of the resort at night.it turns out pretty much everyone here is on their honeymoon — which would have been funnier if it we hadn’t had the “oh my god, we got married on saturday too! what a coincidence” conversation twelve times before we figured it out.
Explore the Photo Set:
getting our bearings, placencia, belize -
Travel: Arrival in Placencia, Belize
honeymoon! we flew out of Washington’s National Airport at early, early in the morning, and arrived in Belize CIty by mid-morning.Once in-country, we hoped on a little puddle-jumper of a plane for the trip down to Placencia. WIthin minutes of landing, we were at the Turtle Inn, a Balinese-style report put together by Francis Ford Coppola after Placencia was ravaged by Hurricane Iris in 2001.
We spent the afternoon biking into the villiage, and hanging around the pool. Beautiful.
Explore the Photo Set:
Arrival in Placencia, Belize -
Wedding: Honeymoon
let the tropical drinks begin… I’m not “supposed” to be online, but I negotiated and got that sentence reduced to just a ban on email.
With my new found interweb freedom, we have been uploading pictures from the honeymoon to Flickr. If you want to see what we have been up to, take a peak at our Flickr slideshow of the honeymoon so far.
We’ll keep posting so long as we have access to free WiFi at the bar (the drinks make uploading go MUCH faster).
UPDATE: Well, Flickr was fun while it lasted. Everything is great at Chaa Creek, but WOW! is the internet slow. It takes so long to upload one picture that if we keep going we won’t have any time to *take* pictures. Anyway, we have (sadly) posted our last pictures until we get home this upcoming weekend.
UPDATE: We’re back, and everything is uploaded. We will post an abridged version later, but if you want to see everything from beginning to end you can look here.
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Wedding: Afterparty
You’ll have to forgive the lack of originality here (stand in a straight line, arms around each other, smile) but we had such a great time at the afterparty, we wanted to have pictures with as many people as we could…Explore the Photo Set:
Afterparty @ Stetson’s, Washington, DC -
Wedding: Thank You.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/unclevanya/sets/72157624993258967/show/Thank you for coming! We had a fantastic time at our wedding, and it was absolutely because of the wonderful people who decided to share our special day with us. For those of you who didn’t get a chance to see our slideshow at the reception, take a look and see some of the other wonderful moments of our new family’s life.
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Wedding: Where did the 538 days go?
first picture together I guess it is about time for me to become weepy and sentimental, but first … where the heck did all that time go?
We had an 18 month engagement (April 15, 2006) and it seems like it was only yesterday that The Lady Sparkler was having trouble explaining to all of her Texas friends how a couple could be together since the first term of the Bush II administration and not be common-law wed yet.
A couple of lesson’s learned for anyone who is going to try throwing one of these themselves:
- Simplify — We did everything we could think of to simplify the wedding, and we still needed the whole 18 moths to pull it off (assuming tomorrow goes smoothly, of course).
- Avoid wedding magazines — Go your own path. Magazines are only good if you don’t already have too many preconcieved notions, and besides … nothing is ever *that* simple anyway.
- You and your betrothed are on the *same* side — And, frankly, if you aren’t then you should probably rethink the whole “wedding” thing.
… but the last one is really is the key. I can honestly say that the wedding has made The Lady Sparkler and I better partners, and that fact has been a real strength in seeing us through the last 18 months.
Oh, that, and the promise of a 10 day honeymoon when it’s all done. Which is tomorrow.
*whew*
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Wedding: Photos on Flickr
Well, people have already started arriving for the big weekend … and pretty much all of them brought cameras. This led me to thinking that this is going to be a fairly well documented event, and we might want to do some online sharing of our own.
A lot of us use Flickr for our pictures and, if you are one of them, why don’t we try tagging all of our wedding weekend photos with “ParkerSpindler2007” (without the quotes) so we all can all share in the picture love.
It’s so rare for us to have this many friends and loved ones together, we’d love to see any many pictures of the ensuing happiness as we can.
Once The Lady Sparkler and I have the “official” pictures back from the wedding photographer, we will be tagging them this way (along with any snapshots from the extended weekend). If you aren’t on flickr, just add a comment to this blog entry with a link to wherever your post your pictures. If you don’t *have* a place to post them, feel free to forward them along to us … we’re happy to post them on our account for you.
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Wedding: This weekend’s events
© epmd We’re almost there, which made us think it might be nice to tell you all what the heck is going on this weekend.
First of all, for those of you around (and not working) on Thursday, The Lady Sparkler and I will be having an open house at our new place in the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood of D.C. We’ll be there (1661 Park Road NW Apt 206) with some love and baked goods from 1:30 PM until 4:30 PM. Just take a taxi up 16th Street, amble up to the front door call box, press #206, and we’ll buzz you in.
By now, we hope that you have certainly heard about Saturday’s wedding ceremony (10:30 AM @ Foundry / 1500 16th St NW), not to mention the reception to follow two blocks away (11:30 AM @ Doubletree Hotel / 1515 Rhode Island Ave. NW).
What you may not have heard is that we are also having an after party that night on the top floor of Stetson’s (7:30 PM / 1610 U St NW) to help us relax after what is sure to be a wonderful day. Everyone’s welcome, so we hope you can join us.
p.s. All this (and more!) is available on the printable map and schedule mention in the last post.
![[Photo]](https://theparkerfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/1811985364_0b730cac71_m.jpg)
![[Photo]](https://theparkerfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/1786132674_57a91ceb8b_m.jpg)
![[Photo]](https://theparkerfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/1786132626_b3c10f7276_m.jpg)
![[Entrance Road to Chaa Creek (Last Photograph in Belize), The Lodge at Chaa Creek, San Ignacio, Belize ]](https://theparkerfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/1648118281_40155af29d.jpg)
CRW_7140.CRW, originally uploaded by [collin].
Unbelievable the number of kids out in Mt. Pleasant tonight.
After dropping a friend off in Northeast, I drove through Capitol Hill, Shaw, Petworth and Columbia Heights on the way home … and saw probably 20 kids in 20 minutes (that’s one kid per minute for those playing at home).
As soon as I crossed 16th street, however, I saw packs (PACKS!) of kids toddling from house to house (princesses and angels were big this year, with a strong second for little boys in vampire caps). I would hate pull a National Park Service here, but the count was easily in the hundreds.
I’m guessing not all of them were local, too. I saw every kind of car stuffed with kids heading into the fray — trick or treaters whose parents who had obviously driven across the city. One of the streets west of Mt. Pleasant Ave (not sure which, I drove for a very unusual 30 minutes looking for parking) was closed to handle the throngs.
Anyway, the secret is out: if you are under 5 and in D.C. looking to score some halloween candy then Mt. Pleasant is the place to be.