A Little Golf Interlude

Full Disclosure: This is a backdated post. I wrote it after the blog was created, but have written it in the style of an in-progress blog so that anyone reading from the beginning will get a more sensible narrative than time-jumping like Hiro Nakamura through our wedding planning.

It's been over seven months since I started taking golf lessons to get prepped for playing at Disney World, so it's time for an update. The Guru and I took lessons about twice a month up through June, and then, once the weather turned nice, our instructor suggested that we get out on the course and get some actual play in. One of the nice things about the course we play at is that, after about 5:30 PM, you can get twilight golf rates, which are cheaper by about half. The real advantage for us, though, is that there is hardly anyone else out on the course that late, so the two of us can whack away at the golf course without disturbing other people. Since the sun doesn't go down until 9:30 during the summer (one of the things I love about living in Seattle), we have no problem getting in nine holes with plenty of light to spare.

I have noticed a marked improvement this year over last year. I'm really hitting the ball well with my irons, and though I still struggle with the driver off of the tee I usually end up on the fairway. I'm actually fairly good at chipping, but putting is my Achilles' heel; on the green, I'm just terrible. If it weren't for my putting, I'd be getting close to par on some holes. I still don't have a ton of confidence, and I usually completely botch a shot about once every three holes, but I'm putting together a fair game, and am seeing my score get better every time.

The last time my parents were in Disney World (just a couple of months ago when they took my brother and his wife down with them) I asked my parents to send a few souvenirs for Girl Scout Fiancée, including a new Minnie Mouse antennae topper to replace the one that got destroyed. Apparently, my mother was extremely distraught at the idea of sending Girl Scout Fiancée souvenirs and not sending me anything, so they picked up a divot repair tool that came with three Disney character ball markers (Mickey, Goofy, and Donals) that magnetically stick to the divot repair tool. I finally remembered to stick it in my golf bag this weekend, and here's a photo of one of the ball markers in use on the course.

I made my golf partner use the Goofy ball marker, because he forgot a coin.

I still have a long way to go before I'm going to feel confident enough to play at Disney World, especially since the weather is about to turn again here in Seattle and I have no idea practically how many times I'm going to be able to hit the links this winter. I am going to try and schedule some more lessons for the winter to help me with my swing and consistency, but what I really need is more practical experience on the course!

Seattle Party: Now in Brunch Flavor!

Full Disclosure: This is a backdated post. I wrote it after the blog was created, but have written it in the style of an in-progress blog so that anyone reading from the beginning will get a more sensible narrative than time-jumping like James Cole through our wedding planning.

By and large, up to this point I have let Girl Scout Fiancée do the bulk of the pre-planning for the Seattle wedding celebration party. It's been her baby from the beginning, and other than my insistence on two key elements (fun, and Men's Room Red beer) and the occasional near-fainting episode when she mentions a cost to me, I've mostly been content to let her plan the local party. She has a vision, and my job is to make sure that vision happens in a way that is a win for me, her, and all of our guests.

I may need to invest in one of these. All this planning is giving me the vapors!

We got some pricing back from one of our first-choice food trucks and it was...well, it was ludicrous. Clearly their catering is geared more toward corporate events and mega-huge parties thrown by rich people. I believe my exact response to the e-mail was, "HAHAHAHAHAno." Fortunately, Girl Scout Fiancée is always thinking on her feet, and is about a million times better at thinking of things that are fun and unique, so today she came up with a counterproposal: instead of doing a lunch or dinner at the party, we move the start time up a couple of hours and have a brunch-themed party. I loved the idea, mostly because I'll pretty much do anything with the word "brunch" in it.

As she is prone to do, Girl Scout Fiancée  already had a replacement food truck in mind, the Seattle Biscuit Company food truck. I hit up the website, and immediately knew this was meant to be when I read the slogan: Southern Born, Northwest Raised. If that's not a fitting metaphor for my own life (born in Tennessee, moved to Seattle seven years ago), I don't know what is. Fortunately, today the food truck was up in a relatively accessible part of Seattle, so we drove up, grabbed Girl Scout Fiancée's friend (who visits once every few months after stints as an observer on Alaskan fishing vessels), heretofore known as the All-Seeing Eye, from her dorm in the city, and decided to do our own "tasting menu" experience (otherwise known as standing in line with the other customers and just buying food).

The Seattle Biscuit Company Menu

I got the Willie Lee, which is a pretty traditional breakfast biscuit. Girl Scout Fiancée and the All-Seeing Eye got the special, which was an egg with andouille sausage and jalapeño jelly. I also grabbed one of the honey-and-butter biscuits to have tomorrow for breakfast, and we got a side of the cheese grits as well. Of course, I needed coffee, and though it probably makes me a bad Seattle hipster only Starbucks would do, so we drove to the Safeway nearby, grabbed a Starbucks from the inside, and then headed to a nearby park. It was sunny, open, and there was a picnic table where we could enjoy our biscuits at our own pace.

This thing (the Willie Lee) is the size of a large double cheeseburger, for scale.

One of the best side dishes: cheese grits made with Beecher's cheese.

Totally. Worth. It. The biscuits were delicious (though I think I would have been fine not having jelly on my otherwise savory biscuit), and we were all stuffed by the end. Barring any kind of problems working out a contract or menu, I think we've found the food truck for our Seattle celebration!

Girl Scout Fiancée enjoying her biscuit.

Signing Up for My Disney Experience

Full Disclosure: This is a backdated post. I wrote it after the blog was created, but have written it in the style of an in-progress blog so that anyone reading from the beginning will get a more sensible narrative than time-jumping like David Freeman through our wedding planning.

I joked earlier in this blog about going through Disney World Withdrawal, and it's not a joke. All of the honeymoon planning that I've been doing has really been making it worse, though. It's gotten to the point where, during a slow moment, I pull out my iPhone and fire up the Disney Parks app, then look at the wait times at various rides of showtimes of various shows, kind of like scrying on the parks through a crystal ball from a distance. I know that sounds sad, and it is, but it's the closest I can get to Disney World for the next 10 months.

As I was doing some more honeymoon planning research, I came  across the My Disney Experience website. This looks like a planning website for anyone (not just Disney wedding people) to help plan out your vacation. It is compatible with an app (named the same thing) for iOS that is like the Disney Parks App on steroids. Plus, this is the app that the MagicBand technology is going to be tied into, which will allow you to book Fastpasses and restaurant reservations. I actually really like the idea, but it seems to touch on something very, very important that I did not realize before: online ADR booking.

Enjoy this image of Future Me after booking ADRs.

See, up until this point, I'd planned on getting up at 6 AM Pacific/9 AM Eastern 6 months to the day before our trip begins to call Disney's dining reservations line and book all of our Advanced Dining Reservations. Thanks to reading up on My Disney Experience, I have discovered that you can make your ADRs at midnight that night instead of waiting until morning. This is a big deal, especially since I'm trying to get a reservation at Victoria & Albert's Chef's Table for some time during our stay, so now I'm going to try and book it all online. The one takeaway I did get from other folks' experience is that, even when making your ADRs online, you should still call the next day and ask them to put a note that you are there celebrating your wedding/honeymoon at Disney World, just so the staff at the various restaurants knows that you're celebrating a special occasion.

Booking Our Hotel Reservations

Full Disclosure: This is a backdated post. I wrote it after the blog was created, but have written it in the style of an in-progress blog so that anyone reading from the beginning will get a more sensible narrative than time-jumping like Inspector Spacetime Dr. Who through our wedding planning.

Today, I booked our hotel for the wedding and honeymoon. We're going to be staying at the always-beautiful and exciting Boardwalk Resort on the Disney World property.

I get excited just looking at this photo.

In my younger days, during trips with my family, we stayed at a lot of different resorts. I have fond memories from the Polynesian, the Contemporary, the Caribbean Beach, the Dixie Landings Port Orleans Riverside, the Beach Club, and, of course, the Boardwalk. Over the years, the Boardwalk emerged as my favorite, largely for the variety of food and entertainment right there at your doorstep. In fact, in the last few years of my frequent trips, my family stopped staying anywhere else, as it had the best combination of food, entertainment, comfort, and location for us on the Disney property. For years, the Hollywood Studios park has been our favorite park, so being within a boat ride (or a really long walk, on some days) from that park was a big perk. Plus, being able to walk in the back door of Epcot for a beer at the Rose & Crown was a huge plus once my brother and I were both 21.

Still, just because it's my favorite doesn't mean that it's the best resort for our wedding and honeymoon, so I did some research. I wanted us to stay at one of the nicer hotels, because I want this to be a really special trip. I considered the Grand Floridian and the Contemporary because both are really nice, but the Contemporary felt a little dated the last time I was there, and we've been put in one of the outlying buildings (instead of the main resort building) before. The Polynesian didn't really seem like Girl Scout Fiancée's style, though I do expect us to visit it during the stay. The Yacht Club and the Beach Club are nice, but they always feel like sub-hotels of the Boardwalk (though the pool is very, very tempting). In the end, it came down to the Grand Floridian vs. the Boardwalk, and I think we settled on the Boardwalk for three main reasons: We want to get married at Sea Breeze Point, since it offers a great overlook of the lake; it is centrally located between two parks, giving us easy access to both; there are lots of dining and entertainment options right there at the hotel so we don't have to travel very far.

I did briefly consider that we could stay in multiple different hotels, but I was dissuaded by doing some research on others who did the same thing. In almost every case, they lamented trying to change hotels, as they ended up losing a half-day to each change. Given how much I want us to do, and how little I want to deal with perfunctory bureaucratic busywork like checking in and out of hotels, I proposed to Girl Scout Fiancée that we stay in only one hotel, but make it a goal to go visit all of the other ones. This also meshes nicely with my plan to go eat at various restaurants across the resort!

With that decision made, we very quickly started running into the biggest challenge with the wedding and honeymoon plans: length of stay. I want us to have nine days for the honeymoon (one for each park, two to revisit parks, two relaxation days, and the departure day), then we have the day of the wedding itself. Girl Scout Fiancée wants to go to Universal Studios one day, and coming from the West Coast our travel in day is going to be basically a bust. We want a day for our families to mingle and spend time together, since they've never really interacted before. That means we need a total of thirteen nights (travel day, Universal Studios, mingle day, wedding day, then nine honeymoon days) in the hotel. Of course, since I settled on one of the Deluxe resorts, that got pricey in a hurry.

Because I saw the writing on the wall here, I decided to start pricing out the hotel stay once the rates went up for April 2014...and I'm glad I did. Turns out, April 8 is right in the middle of Spring Break for a lot of people, and then Easter is the following week, meaning we were accidentally booking in peak travel season! For a while, I was really worried that this would make it impossible for us to go to Disney World for our wedding/honeymoon; the price was much, much higher than I had anticipated, a result of being in peak season. A little research revealed that the end of the month was actually a slow season (kids back in school), and the first two weeks of May are too; the prices were much more reasonable for this time period. After some discussion with Girl Scout Fiancée I discovered that she didn't have her heart set on the 8th, so we agreed to try and push our target wedding date back to the 30th of the month, with our honeymoon in the first two weeks of May.

Of course, seeing the price differences, and knowing that pricing was up for everyone to see, made me nervous for another reason: other people can now book those dates, too. With that in mind, I decided to go ahead and book the hotel for our stay. I knew that Disney World's cancellation policies were very generous, and suspected (rightly) that I could rebook the same stay at a different time should a better discount come along (like the discount I suspect will be available for having Annual Passes or having our wedding in Disney World). I got on the phone and had what can only be described as one of the most pleasant and efficient experiences I've ever had when booking a hotel. The agent we spoke to was polite and enthusiastic, and asked lots of questions about our reason for travel. She was more than happy to book the hotel rooms we wanted for our stay, and even put us under the AAA discount rate (which was 20%) as a worst-case-scenario option. She noted on the reservation that we were coming for our wedding and honeymoon, which I really appreciated, and was so informative and accommodating that I went from being very stressed out before the call to totally relaxed after.

Our hotel is booked, and if need be we can rebook it later, but that's the first real step we've taken toward our Disney World wedding!

Grimstad Farms

Full Disclosure: This is a backdated post. I wrote it after the blog was created, but have written it in the style of an in-progress blog so that anyone reading from the beginning will get a more sensible narrative than time-jumping like Dr. Sam Beckett through our wedding planning.

A few days ago, Girl Scout Fiancée informed me that she wanted to check out a new venue for our Seattle wedding party, a place called Grimstad Farms located about 10 minutes from where we live. She arranged for us to go for a visit, and then we piled in the car and headed over to give it a look. One of our close friends who lives out in that direction had alerted her to its existence, and it wasn't really one of the sites on her radar up to that point.

When we got over there, we were pleasantly surprised at how much we liked the place. Yes, it's a farm, and there are a lot of buildings there, but it quickly emerged as a front-runner for us for a number of reasons. First, it's got a cool rustic aesthetic that GSF really liked, and a large lawn available for yard games. Second, the interior of the barn (where the main event would be) is fully furnished and decorated, and so there would be no need to spend any money on decor. There is plenty of room to roll in a food truck, and an entire upstairs area where we can set up tables with board games in case the weather doesn't cooperate. Plus, since the main seating area is indoors, rain will only cancel the yard games, not the entire feeling of the event.

There are a few drawbacks, namely that we can only have bottled beer and wine (no liquor, which puts a cramp in GSF's plans to serve alcoholic Arnold Palmers), and I'm concerned that some of the open barn areas (where a lot of the farm equipment is kept) might be a little distracting, but in the end we weighed our options and ended up booking the place as the venue for our party! We're having our party on May 25th, the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, in 2014. That's locked in, the down payment is made...and now we just have to figure out all of the rest of the logistics.

Disney Honeymoon Registry

Full Disclosure: This is a backdated post. I wrote it after the blog was created, but have written it in the style of an in-progress blog so that anyone reading from the beginning will get a more sensible narrative than time-jumping like Crono, Marle, and Lucca through our wedding planning.

Something that has been a big concern for me (and for Girl Scout Fiancée, probably more so) is the idea of what to do with our registry. I know it's a bit gauche to talk about wedding gifts, but we've already had people asking where we were planning on registering, and, as this blog is geared toward helping other couples, I'm going to break etiquette barriers and talk about it frankly. Thing is, we've been living together for over six years now, so most of the stuff that newlyweds need for their house has been in residence with us for a long time now.  In fact, over the course of the last two years we've made great strides in getting rid of stuff and de-cluttering our house (despite what my game room may look like, we've actually gotten rid of lots of things), and the idea of a bunch of wedding gifts, well intentioned as they may be, cluttering up the house certainly gives us the creeps.

After doing some research into honeymoon registries, however, I think we've both decided that it's the way to go for us. Even I, the unfrozen caveman groom to be, know that it's extremely bad form to just ask for money, but we also want to stop people from spending money on something we're just going to return. Knowing my family, if we don't give them some direction, they're going to go off and get us things anyways. Instead, we're hoping that by doing a honeymoon registry our friends and family will contribute to our ability to have an amazing experience that we'll treasure for the rest of our lives instead of a toaster that we will treasure once a month when we make toast.

My worst nightmare.

We discovered that there is a company partnered with Disney that does official Disney World honeymoon registries, simply called the Disney's Fairytale Honeymoons, that serves as a basic setup for a honeymoon registry. I signed up, and put together a pretty simple honeymoon registry. The nice part about this official honeymoon registry site is that it has lots of Disney World experiences pre-loaded into the system, so you just go through and pick and choose which ones you want, and add a certain quantity to your registry. It also comes with a nice, simple wedding website (which seems like it will be more than enough for us).

After signing up for the registry, I went through and added all of the restaurants and events that I knew we wanted to do, including the Wild Africa Trek at Animal Kingdom and the Spirit of Aloha luau at the Polynesian resort. Many of the restaurants I want us to go to are available to choose for gift items, so I added those too. Once I had all the major events in, I then started looking at some of the other items, like souvenir money, hotel room contributions, and "fun money" for the honeymoon, and added plenty of those in various denominations to ensure that people didn't feel like they needed to give us $150 for a dinner just because it was listed.

I feel like there are a lot of upsides to the honeymoon registry, including keeping down the clutter in our house, making it easy for people who are not coming of the wedding to give us a wedding gift, and yet at the same time keeping people from feeling any kind of pressure to contribute. Plus, the fact that folks can choose to give us specific events and meals as gifts keeps it from being quite as mercenary as just asking for money.We're also going to take photos of anything that folks give us as a part of the honeymoon registry to include in thank-you cards.

There are some serious drawbacks, though. First of all, the list of gifts to choose from is far from complete, and there's no option to add your own (either as the couple, or as a gift-giver). For example, I know we want to eat at the California Grille and La Celier, but I can't add custom items for those to our list. Likewise, since the honeymoon registry goes through a third party, there's a percentage taken off of each gift as a service charge. It's small, but that still means we won't be getting the full value of the gift. Of course, I'm a little concerned about looking gauche, even though everything I've read says that people who do honeymoon registries end up being really happy with the results. Personally, I'm just not sure of the etiquette behind letting people know about it, and I have no idea how many people will actually contribute, so it may end up being a big waste of time.

In the end, I think both Girl Scout Fiancée are excited about the honeymoon registry, but we both have some reservations as to how well it will work out.

1/3rd of the Way to Weight Goal

Full Disclosure: This is a backdated post. I wrote it after the blog was created, but have written it in the style of an in-progress blog so that anyone reading from the beginning will get a more sensible narrative than time-jumping like Kyle Reese through our wedding planning.

Even though my last blog post was about the massive amounts of amazing food we plan to eat on the honeymoon, I thought this might be a good opportunity to post an update to our weight loss efforts. Back in January we started changing our lifestyles, and I gave myself a weight loss goal of losing 120 lbs. I'm happy to report that as of today, four months into the journey, I'm now one-third of my way to my goal. I've lost 40 lbs. in the last four months, and already I'm starting to notice the difference. Girl Scout Fiancée has been doing great as well, and has lost over 35 lbs. up to this point (I had a lot more to lose, so mine is burning off faster).

A lot of people have asked how I've done it, so I thought it might be good to share that here. First, I can't overstate how integral the MyFitnessPal app has been to the process. Being able to accurately track my calorie intake accounts for the larger portion of the weight loss. The contest that Girl Scout Fiancée and I have been having to stay under our calorie goals each day has been key the process as well, as neither one of us has failed to come in under our calorie goals a single day since we began this back in mid-January. We both realized that the first person to flinch is going to get stuck with chores for the next month, so it's quite the standoff.

I also have a morning routine that I stick to nearly every morning that helps a lot. First, I get up around 6 AM, go downstairs, turn on the coffee pot (a critical step) and then eat a banana. I stretch, and then head out for a walk. I started out walking a little over a mile, but now I walk about 3 1/2 miles around my neighborhood. Critical to making this possible is the fact that I have gotten an Audible subscription, and listen to audiobooks while I walk. I seriously could not have done it without them, because they distract me enough that I don't get bored walking out, and, since I refuse to allow myself to listen to the audiobook except when I'm walking, always lures me outside for the walk. When I get back inside, I eat 100 calories worth of almonds and drink a cup of coffee (the banana burns off during the walk, kickstarting my metabolism for the day and ensure I burn more calories, and the almonds replenish the protein I burn off during my walk and repair my muscles). Then I shower and head to work, and about 10 AM I have another cup of coffee (using the carafes that Girl Scout Fiancée bought me for Christmas) and have a peanut butter Clif bar (again, high protein to keep my energy and metabolism up) to tide me over until lunch.

At night, Girl Scout Fiancée has done an awesome job of finding low-calorie meals for us that both taste great and are filling; turns out, having a professionally-trained cook in your house makes things a bit easier when you're trying to change your diet. We also allow ourselves one cheat day a week where we're allowed to go over our daily calorie allotment, so long as that doesn't take us over our weekly calorie allotment. This also helps keep our metabolisms from fully adjusting to the reduced calorie intake during the week, and keeps our bodies on high calorie burn.

The first month or so was pretty rough as my body adjusted to a drastically reduced calorie intake, but now, four months in, it's not so bad. The workouts earn back enough calories for me to have a light snack in the afternoon (some more almonds, a rice cake, or some hummus if it's handy) and the pounds are melting off.

I would encourage anyone thinking about losing weight to try these steps. I don't do anything crazy for workouts, just walking around my neighborhood. The biggest part of it is adjusting to a different calorie intake, but once that's done it's actually pretty easy to keep your calorie count down.

So, 40 lbs. down, 80 to go...but I'm on pace to hit that mark well before the wedding, assuming I can stick to it!