Wedding progress and lots of new babies

It's been a while since our last update, mostly because life has been pretty calm at Casa Bravo (& Wiri).

We have been making some progress on wedding planning:

--We booked a photographer. A parent at Hope's school recommended Stacey Adams and when we saw her website we were astounded. Once we saw her work we weren't going to settle for anyone else; compared to her all of the other local photographers looked like amateurs. You can see her work here: Stacey Adams Photography

--We have a room block reserved at a local hotel, the Albuquerque Marriott Pyramid North. There are more details under the "Getting Here" page on our wedding website (which has a lot of new updates).

--Our catering is set. A local caterer who owns several local restaurants has worked with us to create a delicious menu that we're sure you'll all love. The menu will include a lot of options, including many that are vegetarian and kid friendly. We have also booked a local DJ who was recommended by our caterer.

--We have our invitations and rsvp cards! We ordered them in January and received them in the mail about a month ago. When we opened them we found a printing error on every other invite, so the company immediately sent us reprints, which were perfect. We used a little photoshop magic to really personalize these invitations. We love the results and we think you all will too. Right now the plan is to get them addressed and try to send them out the first week of April.

--The only big thing left is Hope's dress, but we're working on that. We've been having trouble finding something that we like because Hope is not interested in any of the gown styles that are popular right now: strapless, drop-waisted, mermaid... none of these styles really flatter short, curvy girls. Do you know how hard it is to find a wedding dress that isn't strapless right now?

Aside from the wedding planning Suthee has been skiing a lot and Hope has been crocheting a lot. Since almost every couple we know is either pregnant or recently had a baby, Hope has been making hats for them. Between new babies, gifts, and a few items commissioned by friends and coworkers Hope has made 44 hats and two scarves since September.

Speaking of babies... we want to wish a big congratulations to all three of our siblings. They are all having babies later this year:

--Hope's brother Nicholas and his girlfriend Crystal are due to have their first child in mid June. They are planning on naming their little boy Timothy Nicholas Bravo.
--Suthee's brother Tom and his wife Susan are due with their first child in mid September. They don't know the sex of the baby yet, but we're sure they're thinking up some great names.
--Hope's sister Sara is due to have her third child in early October, and also does not know the sex of her baby yet. Grace and Elizabeth are on her list of girl names, no word yet on any boy names.

We hope that all of these mommas and babies enjoy good, healthy pregnancies and we can't wait to meet all of these new additions to the family.

a trio of hats made for Hope's cousin's three sons

Kirby hat (alongside a picture of the actual Kirby) made for Suthee's cousin Selah

a pair of Notre Dame themed hats for two sons of one of Suthee's ND alum friends

Holiday Card & Save-the-Dates

Hi Everyone!

     We had a wonderful holiday season and we hope that you did too. Visiting with Hope's family in Atlanta was fun. We enjoyed our time with the kids, especially our trip to the aquarium. Texas was nice too, very laid back the whole time.

     We sent out our holiday cards right before we left on our trip and we assumed that they would barely reach you all in time for New Year's Eve. To our surprise we found out that most of you received them before Christmas. We realized after we sent them that maybe we should have labeled the pictures. The two on the top are us crossing the finish line at the Warrior Dash. It was a 5k mud-run and obstacle course that we did in Hawaii in March. The two bottom pictures are from our trip to Europe in April. The picture on the left is us enjoying some tapas in Barcelona, Spain. The picture on the right is over one of the canals in Venice, Italy. Last, but certainly not least, the center picture is us in front of our new house here in Albuquerque right after the sale closed and we officially became the owners in October.

     We also sent out our Save-the-Date magnets along with our holiday cards. We have been engaged for over a year now (since October 2011), but we never got around to taking engagement pictures. Since we didn't have a professional picture of ourselves (and since we figured you didn't want to have our faces staring at you from your refrigerator for the next eight months), we went with the picture you see here. Suthee wrote in the sand and took this picture on a black sand beach on the Big Island of Hawaii during a visit there last year before we were engaged. 

    We're slowly but surely updating our wedding website. Right now it just has a few things, but eventually it will have all of the details that you will need. We have a link to the site under the "Wedding Plans" tab on this blog. 

We're in! Then we're off!

     We finally moved in! The floors were finally finished on Thur Dec 7, so the weekend before last (Dec 8 & 9) we packed stuff up, rented a truck, enlisted some help, and finally moved our butts into this house. We started Friday night and finished Sunday afternoon. Moving 5 miles across town is waaayyyy easier than moving 2500 miles across the ocean.

     One of Suthee's coworkers helped us to move the big stuff with the u-Haul on Saturday and one of his friends helped us move the last few medium sized things in his truck on Sunday. They both asked "where's the rest of your furniture?" To which we replied, "this is it, dude." We had enough furniture to make our 500 sq ft apartment in Honolulu look cramped, but this 2100 sq ft house looks pretty sparse right now. The only things upstairs are the extra bed and a bunch of unpacked boxes. We've been warned not to worry about this, as the accumulation of stuff will happen without any intention on our part and before we know it the house will be full.

     Speaking of unpacked boxes, that seems to be the theme of our decor right now. The kitchen is completely unpacked (because we like to cook) and the bedroom is mostly unpacked (because we have to sleep and get dressed), but everything else is still mostly packed. This isn't going to change any time soon either, since we have been and will continue to be busy traveling.

     This last weekend (Dec 15 & 16) we drove to Vail for the weekend... which we will never do again. Driving seven hours each direction is not worth it to spend Saturday in the snow. We did enjoy spending time with the Epsteins (a family whose children Suthee tutored when he lived in Vail in 2002-2003) while we were there and they were eager to finally meet Hope. We also were able to stop at Ikea in Denver on our way home and pick up some furniture and other items for the house. The stop also provided dinner (and dessert) in Ikea's lovely Swedish cafe.

     This coming weekend we're off again. We leave Saturday morning to spend time with Hope's mom, sister, niece, and nephew in Atlanta for the holidays. After that we have a quick stop in Texas to see a lot of Suthee's family who have come in from Thailand to see his cousins graduate from Texas Tech university. We'll be back in Albuquerque Dec 30 and Suthee will be right back at work, but Hope has another week off from school so she doesn't have to go back until Jan 7 (so maybe a couple of boxes might get unpacked).

     Hopefully we'll be seeing a lot of you soon!

p.s. Our holiday cards finally arrived, so we'll finally be sending those out with our save-the-date cards later this week.

the realtor let us keep the sold sign

Floors! And holiday plans! And cards!

We're moving next weekend!

We've been waiting for the floors to be finished and they're nearly done.

The carpet has been installed on the stairs and in all of the rooms upstairs. It's very nice, but we haven't remembered to take a picture of it yet. We'll do that soon and post it. It's a nice medium brown, like a teddy bear.

The master bathroom has new tile and all of the carpet downstairs has been removed. Now we're just waiting for the flooring that we ordered to come in and be installed. That should hopefully happen early this week and we'll move in next weekend.

After that we'll be off to Atlanta to spend Christmas with Hope's mom and sister, then a quick stop in Texas on the way home to see Suthee's family. While we're in Georgia, Hope has an appointment to try on wedding dresses at "Lori's Bridals" which is the shop that's on Say Yes to the Dress on TLC. It's a cheesy show, and all of the dresses are waaaayyyy out of our budget, but it will be fun to go try on some fancy dresses.

We are ordering our holiday cards right now and will be sending them out soon with our save-the-dates. We may need some addresses. If your address has changed or you think we might not have it please let us know so that we can send these to you.

See you all soon!

Last time we were in Atlanta (Jan 2010)

Thanksgiving and another house update!

     Just a few updates:

     We picked carpet! We picked some non-carpet wood-type flooring! We bought a washer and dryer! Things are finally moving along. The washer and dryer will be delivered the Monday after Thanksgiving and then the floors are going to be done the weekend after that. That means we will probably move in right around the first week of December. We'll take pictures of all of these things as soon as we have them. 

     We will be in Levelland, TX for Thanksgiving so hopefully we'll see a lot of you soon.

     We're going to send out our Save-the-Dates with our holiday cards soon and we'll update the wedding website too.

This picture was taken last year at the Notre Dame v Air Force game,
right before we got engaged.

House update

We still haven't moved into the house yet. We're currently trying to decide on what flooring we want, and after that we have to actually have it installed. Do you know how many options there are for flooring? That stuff is just crazy. 

It'll probably be a few more weeks before we move in. We'll keep you all updated as it progresses, but in the meanwhile here are a few random pictures of Suthee: 

How cute is the bow tie?

Polynesian Cultural Center

random iron dinosaur sculpture
somewhere along Highway 1 in California

New House Pictures

Here are some pictures of the house. They are all screen shots that I took from the listing company's website. I'll post more of the ones we have taken later. 

-Hope :)

front of the house

entryway and stairs

top of the stairs, office on the left

left to right: entry to master suite, living room, dining room, kitchen counter

living room

more living room

kitchen

view of kitchen, stairs, and entry to master from dining room

master bath

master bath

middle of the stairs, that window looks into the office

office, with a window looking out onto the stairs

back yard, porch

back yard, view from the porch

side view