We've Been Busy!

We pulled it off! Jesse and I tied the knot on Sunday, August 1st in my parents' backyard. We decided to post some wedding and honeymoon photos below.

After the wedding we flew home to San Diego then re-packed our bags and headed to southern Utah for two nights outside of Zion National Park and a bit of canyoneering.

It started raining when we were about 100 yards from the car -- what a perfect ending!!!

After a hard day of canyoneering, we shared champagne and read love poems to each other...awwwwwwww.
The best part of staying into a bed and breakfast is the breakfast!!

After breakfast, we got back into the car and made our way through the park then on up to Wyoming.

The road was long and weary but the "big sky" kept it interesting. We made our way through thunderstorms -- and sometimes the thunderstorms made their way around us with nary a drop of water touching us, as though we were in an invisible tunnel.

We eventually arrived at our fancy hotel in Teton Village, WY. We only got to enjoy the luxury bed for a few hours of sleep, though, as we had booked an all-day horseback ride though the mountains the next morning.

The day after that we enjoyed the hotel and spa with a couples massage and a day of swimming, reading and relaxing.

The following day we drove into Grant Teton National Park for a bit of site-seeing and some beautiful hiking.

We went out for a fancy dinner at an Italian Osteria in Teton Village.

We had to head home, but not before checking out Yellowstone National Park. We took a few mini-hikes, but we ran out of time and weren't able to do any serious treks.

Free ranging Buffalo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111!1!
Once we got back to San Diego, it was time to host our San Diego reception for our friends who were unable to make it to New York.

Phew! Now time to get back to work on the house!!!!!!

If you'd like to see more wedding photos, check out:
http://lynnbrennanphotography.zenfolio.com/p329138609
and
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25950547@N03/4930620285/in/set-72157624816156846/
more to come later!

So. Much. Tile.

I'm not sure which of us thought that tiling the shower enclosure would be a "fun" "easy" project. I'm pretty sure we both disagree with that statement now, though.

We had gone back and forth about which tiles to use, which design to do, which color grout to use, and several other points. We finally decided upon antique white grout with 3"x6" subway style tile (Color: Urban Putty) with two horizontal bands of mosaic glass tile (Color: Cloudy Sky.) Below the first band of glass mosaic would be glossy tile and above would all be matte tile.

We started tiling around 4pm on Saturday.
We masked off the tub with rosin paper, nailed guides to the wall and drew the outline of the pattern on the RedGard.

We took a break at midnight to sleep, after eight good hours of tiling. We started again at 8:30am on Sunday.
You can see progress being made.

It was pretty tiring work, but we persevered.

Progress!

Below is a close-up of the glass mosaic tile. There is an eight inch high band near the bottom of the tub and a four inch band near the top of the shower.

Almost ready for the top band of glass! You can see that the tub is now covered with a sheet of plywood and more rosin paper to protect it. I'm not quite tall enough to tile our very tall shower enclosure. Jesse was going to be on his own after about five feet so he designed this lovely work-around.

At this point, we'd been working for twelve hours and I gave up and went to make dinner. Jesse tried to finish so he could grout in the morning but just lost steam, understandably.

He was on his own Monday (and had a lot of other things going on) but he managed to get all the tiling done, save the bottom strip. He did a beautiful job in the alcove.

All the spaces will be filled in with grout (or caulk along the seams) then sealed. Once we get it sealed, we can use the shower again! It's bath time tonight, though.