Rob & Emily Are Married!

Last weekend Monnie and I were in Milwaukee for a weekend of fun surrounding Rob & Emily's wedding.

After arriving Thursday night, Rob and I spent Friday working remotely from the lounge of the Pfister. Why the Pfister? It's the preferred remote workplace for the distinguished wireless internet user, of course... oh, and because our significant others were having their nails done at the salon there.

Friday night was the rehearsal (at the Pfister, which was the site of both wedding and reception), followed by dinner at Coquette Cafe. I would highly recommend the Coquette by the way - if you're looking for spot in the 3rd Ward.

Saturday was a great day. The guys watched football in Rob's room all day before the nights festivities. Everything seemed to go REALLY well - the ceremony was very nice. Justice Prosser (Rob worked for him at the state Supreme Court) officiated a very fun ceremony - a little humor mixed in with your dose of serious is always a good thing.

The speeches and the dance were great too - Monnie and Becca's maids of honor speech was a big hit and everyone had an awesome time!

Congrats kids!

(click the picture for plenty more)

Catching Up

It's been a while since I've posted. Let's see... what have you all been missing?

Last weekend was Matt and Amber's wedding. Everything (from my perspective) went off very well - it was a gorgeous day for an outside wedding - the food, band, and company were great as well. In addition to our common Madison friends I got to see a few friends that I had met, worked with, and in one case last seen at UWW tennis camp some 8 years ago (*side note: 8-9 YEARS AGO!?!). The day was great and Monnie and I are very happy for the two of them!

The big news with the Fox's is that Steph will be taking over the lead posting role on their blog. This could very well mean that we see more than a post a month over there! ...not that I have much footing for a complaint lately. Oh, they also had a baby.

Monnie is doing well and is really enjoying her new blog on madison.com, Nutritilicious. There's nothing better for a blog than comments so make sure to leave one over there - even if it's just "man that food looks good"!

Last Friday we had a great time at the Brewers game with both sets of parents. Of course, the Brewers continued their losing ways -- but it was a fun time none the less and really a pretty good game... just the wrong guys coming out on top.

The fantasy baseball playoffs have started. I am coming into it with a fairly strong team but it's not looking good in the first few days of the week-long first round. Fantasy football has started up just in time to relieve baseball. I am pretty happy with my draft, so we'll just hope I can improve on a dismal last season.

Tons of birthdays this month. Happy Birthday to Matt (couple days ago), Marni (today), Aly (tomorrow), Claire (Friday), Me (not for a couple weeks), and Sheila (not for a couple days after mine). It sure seems like I'm missing a couple still too! Who is it? (and sorry!)

Well, that's probably about enough for now - looking forward to Gerrard and Karen's wedding over in Milwaukee this weekend!

For those who haven't heard...

Our wedding pics are now online! Go to www.pictage.com, register with your name, email address and password of your choice. Then search for our event (last names usually work) to see all the photos. If you see any that you like, order them directly online. To view the images enter
"135183" when prompted for the Event Key.
Enjoy! There are some really great ones! Our photographer, Jessica Kaminski, did a fantastic job!

Back to work?!?

Well, we got back from Lake Tahoe yesterday and it was great! The travel all went well (although it was early AM in both directions) and the Tahoe area is every bit as beautiful and fun as advertised.

First things first, I've uploaded pictures of the wedding to Flickr. These are courtesy of Mike and Steph Fox (thanks guys). I've broken the wedding ones out into a few different sets: Rehearsal, Pre-Wedding, The Ceremony, Post-Ceremony.

As for the honeymoon photos, I have uploaded them as well and you can find them here. I apologize for having one giant set with 169 pictures in it. I did try to make it a little easier and break them out by day or something but it was really being a pain so sorry, this is what you get! I am a big fan of Flickr but it's missing a couple tools for organizing that could really make life easier (a future blog post?)! You should check out the pictures though. There are some very good ones. It's a great place!

We didn't end up on the hot air balloon ride, as we had hoped, due to weather. That's a pretty unbelievable statement since it was 80 and sunny everyday we were there. I guess they are pretty sensitive about wind though so we ended up missing out. We got a lot of site seeing in though (as you can tell by the quantity of pictures), had some great meals, and really enjoyed being out there. We're definitely going to have to get back out there in the winter to do some skiing now that we've seen it in the summer!

The Wedding!

The wedding was awesome; all the planning was worth it as there was nary a snag encountered!

We were so happy to see everyone that could make it! My only regret about it is that I didn't get to see everyone at the wedding, so if I didn't get to talk to you (or did but not much), my apologies. Although, I'm sure you understand.

I've discovered some pictures on Sheila and Mike's site, as well as Leslie's. If anyone else has pictures of the wedding, we would love to have them. If you're willing and able, just attach them to emails to jimhalberg@gmail.com. If you'd rather mail: just let me know and I can send you the address.

As for the Honeymoon... Monica has now learned the destination and it is (drull roll please)...

After some clues and guesses, Monica ascertained the destination... Lake Tahoe! This was, btw, guessed by JR - almost blew my cover! We'll be staying just on the Nevada side (in Stateline) which borders on California.

We are heading out of Madison early Tuesday morning and will be returning early Saturday evening. It's going to be a great trip and we're really looking forward to it!

Thank you all for the gifts and well wishes at the wedding. Both are very much appreciated!

Another Great Weekend

We just got done with a very fun weekend in Milwaukee.

Things got kicked off with Nate and Ericka's wedding on Friday. They had perfect weather (especially considering that the rest of the weekend it was either a thunderstorm or 150 degrees) for an outdoor wedding. The War Memorial was a great setting, right on Lake Michigan. They even had fireworks courtesy of Festa Italiana right down the road there! I think everyone had a great time! I don't have any pictures of the wedding but hope to have some at some point - our camera has been behaving poorly but I think Carissa has some that she'll be able to send me (?).

After a late night Friday, Saturday was pretty much a recovery day. We had planned on heading to Festa that evening but ended up with thunderstorms. Actually, that was alright though as we were all feeling pretty lazy. Instead, Monnie, her parents, brother Thomas, and I played a few rounds of Scattergories and ordered some pizza. Sheila, Claire, and Mike came over to work on the wedding programs and Mike put on a hoola hoop exhibition that's definitely worth checking out.

Sunday was another good day. We started making our first calls to get some answers on missing wedding RSVPs. The seating chart is getting put together and we're working towards our "final number". Later we had a 'couples wedding shower', mostly for Monica's side of the family (except my parents and Sheila/Claire) and some friends. I admit that I was somewhat worried about exactly what would go on but it was a great time. Uncle Ric made some awesome Mexican food (I got to request the genre) and everyone really enjoyed staying in the house and away from the incredible heat. I think that's going to have to be the hottest day of the year... it was CRAZY out there. Anyway, we're quite appreciative of all the gifts and it was great to see some people that I hadn't seen in a while. I don't have any pictures of the shower but Sheila has some posted already - check em out!

Big week ahead here: Presentation Thursday and closing Friday!

Flintstone's Style

We headed down to Racine last weekend for Chris and Lisa's (Huebner) wedding. After the ceremony we had a couple of hours to kill before the reception so Geer, Bridget, Monnie, and I headed over to Applebees for an appetizer and drinks - basically to waste as much time as possible. We stayed a while and when we got back to the car and turned the key... nothing. Battery is only 2 years old... nothing was left on... I guess it just decided that it was too darn hot.

Well, we hooked it up to Geer's car for a jump - no luck. Let it charge longer - no luck. Noticed that there was a Sears on the far end of the mall we were next to with an auto center, so we headed over there for some advice. Basically the advice was: charge it longer. So, we went back and tried again... nothing! The eventual solution was Geer and I pushing the car to the far end of the mall (beats paying for a tow) in our shirts and ties.

We were later voted "best smelling" at the reception.