Blogging from another country

We're in Canada!

I didn't have much time to blog much about the wedding planning, but it all paid off -- our wedding was amazing. I can't remember ever being happier than I was during the ceremony, except for possibly the day after our first second date, when I learned that Steph liked me back.

This is the second day of our honeymoon in Toronto. Yesterday we walked around a lot. We went to Barbara Ann Scott Park, where there's a round outdoor rink; I stood on the concrete where it would be in the winter. We shopped at Winners, which is like a TJ Maxx or Marshall's, and I got a cute flowered shirt. Steph got a hat at Le Chateau, and I liked a shirt there but didn't want to pay $50 for it. We bought a small stuffed moose because we completely failed to bring any monkeys with us (except Hector, but he's too big to carry around and photograph). Maybe they'll forgive us if we bring them a new friend. We bought a book at Indigo about how to be Canadian. We walked through several other stores and had a good time looking around, and we found a brick labyrinth and walked it. We both thought of putting one in on an empty lot in our neighborhood; I'll mention it to the board when I get back. We had dinner at Elephant & Castle, which was just okay -- I mean, what kind of place fries their pretzels?! -- and we saw the movie Baby Mama in the evening.

Today we took the subway to Union Station and then walked to CN Tower. The view there was really neat even though it was overcast. I especially liked looking down on clouds. After we had our fill of admiring the view, we took a tour at the nearby Steam Whistle Brewery. It's a microbrewery that brews one kind of beer and does so in a very green fashion. The bottles are made with 30% more glass so they can be used 30 to 40 times, whereas regular bottles can only be used 10 to 15 times. All the energy used there is provided by wind turbines and hydro power. In addition, they have one of the only women brewers in North America. After we rode the subway back to the hotel, we ate dinner at an excellent Vietnamese restaurant, and now we're hanging out in the coffee shop downstairs at our hotel.

Tomorrow we go to City Hall at 2 pm to get married!

Funny discussion

While looking for another article, I came across an MSN discussion board thread on the topic of best and worst wedding gifts. Some of the worst gifts are hilarious, and many of the best gifts are touching. It's adding some levity to the whole wedding planning thing.

Weekend update

We had a busy but productive weekend. On Saturday, Steph worked on installing edgers around the flowerbeds while I puttered around inside, and we went to my house to show it. On the way, we discovered that the Steak & Shake near my old house was being torn down. (Lisa, it's okay -- the last time I was in there, I overheard some of the employees talking about plans to knock it down and rebuild it. Besides, there's one downtown not too far from our new house.) The prospective tenant didn't show up, so we packed some garage stuff into the Honda and went back home, stopping to take pictures of the destruction of the Steak & Shake. It was supposed to rain, but the weather seemed to be holding, so we decided to go to the Fishers Renaissance Faire, which was great fun. Among other things, we watched a performer juggle knives and then sticks on fire, and we shopped a little and had a good time people-watching. (We also found my wedding dress, which I wrote about earlier.)

Then on Sunday, we showed my house in the afternoon and planted some bulbs in the front flowerbeds. The Steak & Shake was just a pile of rubble when we drove by. It was kind of sad.