Chris graduates from college

Note: click here to see all the pictures!

My brother, Chris, graduated from the University of New Orleans last weekend, so LL and I flew to Louisiana to celebrate with him and the rest of the family. We were both really glad for an excuse to visit everyone! We stayed at cousin Wil's in Ponchatoula.




Here's Wil on the front porch with Casey. Casey's a great dog, though due for a haircut. Her favorite toy is Donkey from Shrek. She pretty much goes everywhere with Donkey.


When we're in Ponchatoula we always like to go out on the town and see what's new...what the new restaurants are, who's hanging out where. Actually, the restaurants and bars are always in the same places, but they change names once people get tired of the menu or the vibe. We went to a new place called Rockefeller's. I had some sort of cajun pasta with fried shrimp thrown in, which I ate till the near-bursting point. The portions were enormous. Not a skinny place, Louisiana. However, that doesn't mean there aren't some good-looking residents...

Here's LL and I posing with this year's Strawberry Festival Queen (the Festival was just a few weeks ago)! She was eating at Rockefeller's just like us, but looks like she must have only gotten appetizers (probably a salad) and then did 200 situps. Now...you may be wondering...is this the way she goes around town all the time? With a giant crown and a sash? Well, no. It just so happens that she had her crown and sash in the trunk of her car (I'll admit that it's' possible she has it available at all times, but who could blame her?), and LL was not ashamed to ask her to pull it all out for a photo. The crown has its own custom case (with built-in mirror in the lid to aid a quick change), and the sash was protected in a cute little sack that her grandmother made for her. I think this makes the 3rd or 4th picture LL has taken with a Strawberry Festival Queen...for whatever reason, she really has a knack for sniffing them out. In this case, Wil introduced us to her. Wil is in the Ponchatoula Chamber of Commerce and in the Rotary Club and he works in an office on main street, so he pretty much knows everyone in the town, Festival royalty being no exception.

The next day we drove down to New Orleans for the graduation, which took place at the UNO Lakefront Arena. It's a nice facility (my sister, Celeste, saw Styx here a few years ago...she has fond memories). Fittingly, the roof resembles a mortar board.

Here is Celeste helping Chris into his regalia in the parking lot. Amazingly, it wasn't hot or really all that humid in New Orleans. In fact, it was hotter in Menlo Park that weekend!

And here's me helping my little brother get his hat on straight. I think he had spent some time on his hair, so I did my best to ruffle it in every possible direction. It seemed like a good brotherly thing to do.

And for the actual graduation:

After that everyone went to dinner.

Some of us went to Brennan's, a very good restaurant in the French Quarter. Here's Chris and "Maw-maw Betty" out front. Maw-maw isn't quite as mobile as she was a few years ago, but she hung tough all weekend going to the various grade school/high school/college graduations and awards ceremonies for four of her grandchildren (Paw-paw adopted the opposite strategy and skipped all of them...both methods adequately avoiding favoritism). She actually has this little 3-wheeled walker (not the cane in the picture) that she zips around with...like you'll turn around and she'll be across the room.

After dinner, the 'kids' (those 32 and under) stayed out till 2:30 on Bourbon Street. Quite a feat, I believe, though I felt pretty old. You'll see what I mean in a bit...

Here's Chris with a friend of his from UNO named Carrie. She was really fun and sweet. She also helps run the Arthur Roger art gallery. Really not too much wrong with old Carrie.

At this point, she was going up on stage to try and get them to do something for Chris, though I can't remember what it was. Whatever she was angling for, the guy in charge was having none of it (keep in mind that the 'guy in charge' is a loser whose sphere of influence extends across a 7x10 foot stage where he uses his microphone to sing (badly) over the club music and make sure that he's the only male up there).

This is also the point where the 30+ club (me, LL, Celeste and her husband) became certain that we needed to call it a night. We were having fun, but the thumping music and smoke and lights that would have been hypnotically intoxicating ten years ago, failed to charm us this time. Instead we spent a lot of time looking around wondering why no one else could see the run-down bar behind the flashy facade. Must be a sign of old age.

Finally, take note of the girl in burnt orange (no need to ask where she goes to school). In about two seconds (not pictured) she starts rocking out with a series of pelvic thrusts, leaving Chris in a state of... ...sheer wonder? Well, anyway, everyone is pretty overwhelmed. Happy Graduation, Chris!

And if you want to see more pics, click here!

Melissa and Mark's wedding: part 3

Hello, and Welcome to the third installment of the Box/Stromblad wedding weekend! I'm going to try and wrap it all up in one uber-post because I'm getting backlogged...I mean now I've already been to my brother's graduation (this past weekend from the University of New Orleans), yet I'm still writing about the wedding. Not that the wedding doesn't deserve many, many posts...


So, this post will have stuff from the rehearsal/rehearsal dinner and the wedding itself (finally, right?). The R/RD was held the night before the wedding at the home of a relative of Mark (well...now Melissa too, I guess...though not me, right? Surely you have to draw the line somewhere...). Interestingly, the rehearsal was not at the wedding site, so some adapting had to be done as far as pretending to walk down and aisle and all that, though it seems to have worked out just fine. Melissa was really chill about this stuff...I'd rate her a mild 1.5 on the Bridezilla Richter Scale (by comparison, LL gets a 2.5...still pretty mellow, but not so much as Melissa...neither would cause much more than a ripple on a pond). Actually...is the Richter scale too confusing? It's log-based, and the scaling is wack. Maybe I should have used the Bridezilla Hurricane scale instead. For that, LL is a Tropical Storm and Melissa is a Tropical Depression...basically just good surfing weather.


Which would you pick? I think everyone I talked to preferred the one on the left. At least that was LL's personal favorite. In addition to the frozen drink machines, we also have Leslie (bride's mom) and Streak (bride's Godmother). Actually, by divine arrangement, Leslie is Godmother to all Streak's kids and Streak is Godmother to all Leslie's kids.

Here's the rehearsing part. The woman in blue is Mrs. Lewis, who choreographed all the who-goes-where-when parts of the ceremony. Behind her are the bridesmaids, to the right are the groomsmen, and in the center are Mark, Melissa, and the Father of the Bride. Gene is a really good sport about weddings. He is also not-so-secretly happy to have a grand total of zero daughters left to get married. He still has two boys, but the difference between the marriage of a son vs. a daughter is like the difference between making Pop Tarts for 2 vs. dinner for 50.

On to the wedding day...!

This is a lobster. He lives at the hair salon where all the bridesmaids got their hair done. His life sucks.

Here's the bride with her hair done! Melissa was a super-pretty bride, and she was completely awesome all weekend about dealing with all the weddingness. I'm sure it was stressful for her. I know about this stuff first hand after all. No...not because I have already been through a wedding. Remember, I'm a boy, so my wedding was a breeze for me! But I DO remember LL being under a lot of stress, and, considering all the crazy things there are to worry about, I thought Melissa did great. She was a gracious hostess and all that.

Now that the hair is done, Melissa has to get her makeup on (Mark, following the standard male wedding day agenda, is probably about to wake up). Katie is something of a make-up martial artist (huh...one of the few times where 'martial' and 'marital' could be mixed up with little or no consequence), and she is putting eyelashes on Melissa individually. I didn't even know that could be done!

The bride and the matron of honor! LL looked great too. She was a little worried about the, er, front of the dress, but she always worries needlessly about that. I thought it was fine, impartial judge that I am!

After that, we go to the ceremony itself. It was at a beautiful place called Skelly Lodge, overlooking something of a valley, over which were flying lots of hawks and buzzards. Buzzards, I've decided, get a bad wrap, but they look cool flying around. There was also an eagle out there, but I don't know that we saw it.

Here's some family (of LL's and mine...I'm pretty sure I claim most of these). Right to left on the row with the Cheshire uncle we have Tom (Leslie's brother), Stacy (Tom's wife), Laura (Leslie's sister), Joyce (Gene's sister), Harry (Joyce's husband), and Mema (Gene's mother). Note that I went right to left so that I could introduce the blood relatives first (e.g. Tom, Leslie's brother) and then the relatives by marriage (Stacy, Tom's wife). Had I gone left to right, it would have been awkward to, e.g., introduce Stacy first (as Tom's husband or as Leslie's brother Tom's husband...it just gets messy to say all that). See how hard I work for you, dear reader?!

OK...actual, actual ceremony! LL gets a fancy yellow flower in her hair because she is special. The other bridesmaids look on enviously. In this pic, Melissa is about to be given away by Gene. We assume Mark, smiling, knows what he's getting into. Isn't' the wedding pretty? Also, I should add, the weather was really nice. Unfortunately, as we enjoyed a beautiful, if a little blustery, day, there were tornadoes ripping across other parts of Oklahoma. But whatever the surrounding weather was up to, it was perfect here at the wedding. Sunny, but not too hot. Really nice.

The Matron of Honor and the Best Man (Mark's brother). You could tell that LL was very happy for Melissa. They are great siblings. I mean, they raid each other's suitcases for new clothes when we're all together for the holidays and accuse each other of stealing any clothes that they can't find at the end of the trip. They both engage (and deny engaging) in the pirating, which seems to be in good fun, until someone's favorite cami goes missing. But when it comes down to it, they adore each other. Sisters.

Smooch! All hail the happy couple. Personally, I think posing for a kiss is hard.

This is Lillian. She is (Leslie's sister) Laura's granddaughter, which means she is LL's cousin, once removed. I took 5 or so pictures of Lillian, and she was cute as a button in every one.

In this photo, you might think that everyone is just chatting, but that doesn't explain why everyone is sort of in a circle. Well, actually, these people are all avidly following the exploits of a certain...

...MOLE!!! Ahhhhhhhhh! Killer mole!! Run!!

No, silly, moles are not killers. In fact I recently read The Wind in the Willows, and Mole was very nice indeed.

Mole actually introduces the wildlife section of the wedding. Oklahoma is known to be home to some of the most interesting animals in North America.

Here is Frog. He's looking forlorn, and is contemplating a leap off the table. We're pulling for ya, little guy.

Oklahoma is also apparently home to a boatload of hummingbirds. There were a ton of them around this bird-feeder hanging off the porch at the lodge. Enough, anyway, for me to get this National Geographic quality picture (or at least Wikipedia quality).




Cousin Wil, in the house.


Sometimes LL scares me with all her talk of cute babies, and I have to remind her that I'm in school and we're poor. This little guy was fantastic. Thankfully, though, we also occasionally come across noisy, whiny ones and she realizes that maybe we don't want one for our own just yet. Schwew.


Here's the mother of the bride taking a load off. You can also see Lynette (left), who is Lillian's mom. So Lynette is LL's first cousin. Leslie had a lot going on, as mothers of the bride often do, but she came through and helped make the wedding a big success and a lot of fun for everyone.

Melissa and Marks wedding: part 2

Continuing with the wedding weekend...here's a shot of LL in the lobby of the Cherokee Resort and Casino where we stayed. It has a full-blown casino on the first floor. I didn't gamble all weekend because I'm a gambling pansy, but LL ended up playing blackjack Saturday night after the wedding. Here, she's posing in front of a chopper, as they are called, wearing her "I'm so OK" t-shirt. I told her to act like a biker chick, but maybe it's a good sign that she only managed a big nice girl grin.

I'm also in theme (though not pictured) wearing a shirt that says "Okie doke" (mine is not pink). Melissa bought us these Oklahoma shirts for Christmas, and LL wanted for us (and LL's bro. Lawson) to wear them Friday so Melissa could see them. It wouldn't have bothered me that much if Lawson's shirt wasn't exactly the same as mine(!)...I ended up feeling pretty dorky when he and I were walking through the Tulsa airport together (we had to go pick him and my cousin Wil up Friday) looking like Oklahoma tourist twins.

Also at the Cherokee was...

...a nice television cycling through various announcements, one of which was for the big wedding! I'm certain that Mark personally requested the beach backdrop...probably to remind them of their Colorado honeymoon.

Another activity we had for Friday was to put together gift bags at Mark's mom's house. She lives in Tulsa, about 20-30 minutes from the hotel. But first, we found Teacup out by the pool. It looks like she's right at home! Teacup really is an awesome dog, if a little on the loooong side. And she's got a great personality. She's very friendly. She can also run...

Here's Teacup running right at me, and all I can see is her snout with ears a-flopping. I miss Teacup.

Mark's mom's house is the current storage location for all the wedding gifts that they have received so far. Here's LL in front of the gift table. They have a lot of cool things, but my favorite is their china...No, I haven't gone soft on you out here in CA! The dishes are cool because they are nearly indestructible! When they were shopping for these dishes, the sales person smacked two plates together and they survived! I didn't have the courage to try it myself with these, but it's a heck of a good quality to have in a dish.

Well, the main purpose of the visit, other than to visit T, was to put together gift bags. These are bags full of inexpensive items that we deliver to the front desk of the hotel, and which they in turn give to the wedding guests as they check in. It's like a like a shot across the bow for the newly arrived guest to let them know they are in for some serious weddingness this weekend. We were able to get started putting them together when LL's parents, Gene and Leslie, arrived from Dallas with their complete wedding-in-a-car kit. Here I am holding the mother-of-the-bride's dress and the father-of-the-bride's suit, while everyone else unloads stuff from the car trying to find the bride and groom rubber ducks. I'll explain in a bit.

Also in the background, you can see that the street is under construction, meaning we had to carry everything the last block to Mark's mom's house. I have to say it wasn't the best timing for the road crew. I ended up walking past this old dude sitting in front of his house with his dog cackling at us for carrying boxes back and forth ("Man, you jis carried it the other way! Ha!" ...thanks old dude).

Well, here's the assembly line. 1) LL opens each bag 2) Wil wraps two Melissa-and-Mark water bottles in tissue paper and puts them in the bag while LL holds it open 3) Lawson adds in one bride and one groom rubber duck 4) Mark puts in some cookies and Gardetto's 5) I put in a wedding-theme ink pen, a deck of playing cards, and a map to the wedding.

I'd like to challenge everyone to find a way to have fun while simultaneously using all of these items. Extra points given if you can do it without requiring alcohol.

Here's the finished product...30-40 bags of maps, playing cards, rubber ducks, pens and healthy snacks. We next delivered them back to the Cherokee Resort where the front desk people promised to give them to the guests as they checked in. We had to trust them to do this, but I'll admit the possibility that they could have just brought them into the office and stole all the Gardetto's. But I will not stand for any funny business with the ducks.

Melissa and Mark's wedding: part 1

As Melissa's wedding is such a big event, it's going to take a few posts to cover everything! Well, I took over 350 pictures over the course of 3 days, and I can't really pare that down to 6-7 favorites. The other thing is psychological...if I sit down thinking I have to cover the whole wedding in one post I'd develop some form of anxiety for which LL would make fun of me (she often remarks that sometimes things are harder for me than for most people...these things include sleeping, driving, cleaning, going to the post office, filling out forms, etc.). So as part of an effort to keep my heart rate at an acceptable level, you'll be stuck getting this in bits. We are hoping that the whole will be greater than the sum of the parts.

Since the wedding was the day before Mother's Day, there were Mother's Day charms handed out to all the...mothers. They were cute. LL asked me if they were cute and I said yes. I don't really know what they are for. Well, I know they're for Mother's Day, but I don't know what a mother does with them. But I'm assuming that their utility is obvious, and I don't want to embarrass myself by asking LL. I also helped to make these things...I cut the little notches in the sides of the cards so that the yellow ribbon would not slide down. I think it's safe to say that that was probably one of the 5 most important steps in the construction of the charms.

Anyway, here we are on our way to Tulsa. This is the Denver airport (you might recognize it). Gate A53!

LL was the matron of honor, which means she has to purchase wedding night Lingerie for the bride. Here's Melissa posing with her sexy outfit. I think it's a little drab, but what do I know.

Ok, ok, I'm kidding. Obviously, this is a slip. These are used so that, if you stand in front of a bright light (e.g., the sun), no one will be able to see that you're wearing Spanks. Only judging by their effectiveness in the sunlight above, I'm not sure if I'd trust them to work.

Another fascinating thing about this slip is that I was at Macy's when LL bought it. It turns out there were only 2-3 to choose from (as if THAT's not apparent from the photo), and LL was a little disappointed about that. She mentioned this to the sales associate who said people do not wear slips anymore, and instead people wore socks. I don't understand that response, but LL says that it doesn't make any sense to her either. So if you know how socks can be used to replace slips, please let us know!

Anyway, after meeting up with Melissa and transferring the beige prize, we all went to a restaurant called El Guapo's, which had a giant rooster painted on the side. Mark came too, so there were four of us: me and LL, and Melissa and Mark. We got to sit on the roof. Here are three of our beers lined up along the roof ledge overlooking downtown Tulsa. Look good, don't they?

I have to say that Tulsa was a cute town. It's not a big city by any stretch, and there's nothing really urban about it as far as having lots of high-end eating or the usual lineup of fancy hotels and all that. But it was a fun place to hang out. There are a few cool shops near El Guapo's that we saw, one of which we went in for t-shirts and Christmas ornaments, of course (it also had a lot of Woody Guthrie memorabilia..."This beer is my beer. It is not your beer." ...I made that up). Anyway, all in all I liked Tulsa.

Here's LL and I on the roof of El Guapo's. We had a great time.

And here's the grand couple of honor. Melissa wore cute outfits all weekend. She's also wearing a pin with a picture of Mark at age 5 or so (when he was only 5'10" or whatever). In response, LL wore a pin of Melissa the next day. I don't think that's technically the appropriate reciprocation, but I'm not sure if I have a pin of me that she could wear anyway...yet!

Random pre-wedding post

We are off at 4:30 am on Thursday morning to catch our flight to Tulsa...yikes! We will have lots more to blog after the big weekend, but in the mean time check out this photo of the happy couple at the marriage license office today:

And because this is a random post, here are a couple of other fun pictures that my dad just sent over.

Mema with her new car:

And because I'm feeling sentimental and excited about the fam getting together this weekend, here we all are last Christmas.  We won't wear pajamas to the wedding, though...

More to come!

LL's swank office

I mentioned last week (the day after the Masters of the Universe Party) that LL had to go into work for a few hours. Well, I decided I would go with her and take the camera, just so that I could share with everyone how much she rocks.


This is her nameplate. W14308...aka the Eagle's Nest. It's where the big decisions are made.

Here she is indulging me and pretending to type. Obviously she doesn't actually type that often since it is faster to dictate to someone from her support staff. And I guess she also really, really likes m&m's...I had no idea!

Here are some of her awards. The crystal cube is one she got after helping EY land a huge customer. EY technically isn't giving out these kinds of awards anymore, but exceptions can be made in extreme circumstances. We also see a shot of a photo of her daddy posing with a Simpons character at a 7-11 in Dallas (her dad is the one on the right).

Here she is in a fancy boardroom. Nice view!

And this is a facsimile of how an action shot would probably look during an important meeting, such as the aqusition of a multi-billion-dollar, multi-national corporation, which she'll agree to handle if it's enough billions.