HOMELESS: DAY 365

I would like to say "It's hard to believe a year's gone by since we vacated our quaint San Clemente home", but I can't!! Looking back, having a year behind us is a great feeling. It does means that: a) the worse is over and b) we have the feeling that the end is near. Yeah, we realize that's what many folks are saying worldwide right now thanks to the current fiscal state, but we can actually see for the first time ever, an end to our "project". We may actually have a home in the foreseeable future...and I can put a stop to these pesky blog-postings once and for all!! The cyber world will be a better place without me!!

THESE PICS SAY IT ALL!!

Forward progress on the house is now proceeding at a blinding pace. The first two layers of concrete stucco have been applied to the exterior walls...in a few more days, the final textured, color-coat will be put on top of all this...and the walls will be finished. After that they'll finally set the tile on the roof and presto, we'll have a house!!

Since concrete-colored exterior walls have minimal visual appeal (hence can quickly become boring), here's a trypic of the exterior. The first (on the left), is the exterior archway above the stairs that take you to the third floor deck. The center shot is the deck area around the skylight...and the picture to the right is the front dining room/kitchen window. There, was that quick enough for you?

Let me now take you to the interior walls have all been drywalled, coated and painted since your last visit. Here's a quick sneak-peak at the interior. Once accented with the windows, door and floor treatments, it should look even better. We played around with some very non-traditional colors and placement for these colors. Though the house may never be featured in Better Homes & Gardens, Architectural Digest, or Watchtower, we're really happy with the look we pulled-off here. Let us know what you think. Not!!

This is the first color you see when you enter and the main color used throughout the house. This is a picture looking back at the front door.


This taupe/gold color is used on the main walls in the entry, in the hallways and on the "rotunda" walls around the staircase. Once upstairs, the color continues into the kitchen. Where the kitchen ends and the dining room begins, the walls turn red. These "red" walls then continue throughout the dining and living room areas.

Here you are looking at the stairs area with skylight. The wall to the left, is the end of the living room wall.




Now we move the camera a little to the right and see the stairs on the left, the kitchen in the center and the dining area on the right. To the very right, you see the face of the fireplace. Somewhere between the dining room and the fireplace, is the sliding glass door that goes to the second floor deck.

Here's your first look at my personal fortress of solitude. Yes, Gina gave me one room in the house to do with as I wish!! This is a shot from inside the room looking out towards the front door. Note the berry-colored paint with I think an eclipse gold accent wall. That box on the right is for the electronic gear. It may be a small room but it'll be a great place to go when everyone is asleep and I want to watch a movie with the volume cranked to 11...or even 12.

These pics are all of our living room. The one on the left is our weird ceiling/wall with the fireplace on the left-side and the AV component box in the middle. The center picture is of the wall where the TV will be mounted. The small hump at the bottom is something we built to house the center, in-wall speaker. Since the master bedroom shares the backside of this wall, we needed to deaden as much sound as possible...for when Gina's in bed sleeping. If that doesn't work, I retreat to my "fortress"!! The last picture is the ceiling in the hallway transition to the master bedroom. We feel we added an additional level of character to the house with the paint colors and placement we choose. If red's an "angry-color" as some believe, we gotta' be the most pissed-off people in town.

Here's a sampling of the master bedroom suite. This is a picture looking towards the "sitting area" and the door that leads to a private deck. To compliment the mahogany used on the doors, floors and trim, we had them box the visible ceiling bean with mahogany. It looks very cool!!

Above we have the most important room in the house...the master bathroom. What you're looking at in the picture on the right, is a small alcove where the freestanding tub will sit. We took advantage of the very unique ceiling configuration in this room and painted the ceiling accordingly. This bathroom is ready for business!!

Last but not least, we have the den/office that connects with the garage at the back of the house. The color is a very intense grapey/purple color that is capable of making a grown man's eyes bleed. The color is so vibrant that I'm thinking about using it for some accent areas in the garage!!

Now that you're all questioning and second-guessing our sanity (and color choices), you're probably all wondering how we both have survived so long in the graphics and design business with such questionable skills. For better or for worse, we feel we have create a unique environment that is warm, friendly and inviting, a house that reflects our personalities. This is the house we'll be living in for the rest of our lives. We may change the paint-schemes and the furniture around every decade or so to reflect changes in our tastes (or the onset of dementia!!), but this house is ours...or should I say, it's the bank's, for many, many years to come!!

On a parting note, wanna' know why we miss living in San Clemente? Aside from the fresh air and blue skies, this pic says it all. This was taken on Dec. 14th at 5:05 PM. With weather and sunsets like this, why would we ever want to live anywhere else?

ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE?

The house is all prepped and ready for the first stucco coat. Hopefully this will be done later this week!! Gina and I are leaving town to spend a few days in New York City and then we're off to Baltimore. We'll be back late Monday. We hope we'll be pleasantly surprised and that the house will be stuccoed by the time we return. While that's being addressed on the outside, they'll be insulating and drywalling the inside. We should have some very cool pictures to show you very, very soon!!

Here's Gina checking out the new door. Now that it's been stained, she's become even more protective towards it. I pity the fool who tried to kick this door in...only to find Gina on the other side!!

While all the outside activities hit their stride, they have been busy hanging door inside. The picture on the left are the doors to the downstairs TV room with the double doors leading to the master bedroom on the right. Neither of these have been stained yet and should look incredible once finished.

We leave the serenity of San Clemente to return to our Anaheim residence, only to come face-to-face with this...

When we left to go to San Clemente at 10 am or so, we saw a very small plume of smoke in the distant blue skies. Here we are returning three hours later. Driving on the freeway less than a mile from the office, we come face-to-face with this incredible billowing wall of smoke. What the hell happened?


We were suddenly in the middle of a big-ass fire. With everything we own currently at our office/warehouse, we needed to get closer and see what exactly was happening. The freeways and most roads in the area were closed, so it took us almost an hour to finally find a way to sneak into the area where the offices are located. We quickly were in the direct path of one honking fire!! The fire began on the left side of the Santa Ana River and thanks to the strong winds and low humidity, quickly jumped the river and spread to the other side. There were now smoke and flames on both side of us. Luckily we have a concrete tilt-up building with the river directly on the one side and the 91 freeway on the other. Most of what was burning was open land but a number of homes also got destroyed by the fire.

Though Gina was extremely concerned and wanted to leave, I convinced her that if it gets worse, we definitely would quickly get our asses out of harm's way. We both got on the roof of the building and watched the fire rage. At one point, I was manned with my water hose while Gina went inside to follow the newbreaks on TV. All was going fine until Gina heard on the news that a large furniture store in the complex down the way had gone up in a ball of flame. That (along with the Police Dept. driving through our complex making one last evacuation notice), was all it took for Gina to demand that we leave immediately. We took a hard drive backup, a few pieces of art and half of Gina's wardrobe, and left Graphitti Designs in the hands of the gods.

Here's Gina on the roof of Graphitti Designs modeling next year's new urban guerrilla fashions. Notice the colors and the fine cuts of fabric. We guarantee that you'll stand out at the next firestorm you attend!!

We were not allowed to return that evening but discovered at around 10 pm, that the fire had passed by us with no ill-effects (other than the smell of smoke) whatsoever. They opened up some of the roads on Sunday and by noon, we were back at the office watching the first set of football games. Since no "disaster" occurred, life returned back to normal as though nothing has ever happened. Kinda' strange how quickly things change!!

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Our friend and next door neighbor WILLIAM "Willy" ENGELS died on Monday Nov. 10th. He watched over the construction project like a proud parent during the days when we couldn't be there. Willy was constantly dropping by to talk with all the contractors and was the kind of neighbor made popular on old black & white TV shows like OZZIE & HARRIET. Earlier on Monday, Willy dropped by with copies of "Noah Today" (http://home.att.net/~hideaway_today/t133/noah.htm), to share with all the contractors on the job site. Later that afternoon to the shock of everyone, he was found dead in his home.

Willy always knew more about our construction and we did. His excitement and ethusiasm towards life was infectious and was always positive. Our condolences go out to his wife Donna, his family and his friends.

SKYLIGHTS, VISITING NATURE, FINANCIAL UPHEAVAL AND PORNO!!

Yup, it's all coming together...or at least that's what they're telling us!! We've got a skylight, we've got roof tile, we've got pre-stucco activities, we've got a front door and we've got a fireplace. Sounds like we have it all, but in all reality, we don't have squat!! What we need now is to get all these pieces put into place so construction can proceed at a blinding pace.

Here's Gina standing in front of the house "reflecting". As you can see, most of the house has been wrapped with the paper and chicken wire prior to the first layer of stucco that'll go on later this week.

Here's an exterior and interior shot of the skylight. I've been assigned by first official job once we move-in. I've been told I get to clean the skylight every week!! Looks like we'll be purchasing Windex in the convenient 55 gallon drums.

And here we have a sampling of the roof tile. They need to deliver and set the tile on the roof a few weeks prior to installation to acclimate the tile. They did an install on a small area to make sure Gina and I liked everything (color, pattern, visible concrete, etc.). Since we liked what we saw, they will finish the installation after some of the dirtier-elements of the exterior stucco are finished.

Here's Chris our General Contractor showing us where to put it...I mean, where one of our exterior lights will be located. Actually Chris promised to have the construction completely finished by January 2009 if I put a picture of him on our blog. We have seven of these lights outside: two flanking the front door with another two on both side of the garage, with three more located in various locations around the house.

...and here's our very cool mahogany front door. This is one of many "problem" areas the house has created. The flat door jambs fits into a curved wall that will be our front entrance area. Lots of brain cells have been expended (from both the thinking and the drinking), to work out all the construction challenges this house has to offer. Who's idea was it to have a house with curves?

We wrap things up on the home front, with some construction details. The pic on the left is a downshot of the stairs from the second floor. All we need to decide now is what to do tile-wise with the floor at the bottom. The middle shot is the chimney and how it integrates into the third floor deck. Gina wants to make certain that it'll be real easy for Santa to find and to jam his fat-ass into it during his annual visit. The final is the interior framing for the fireplace.

In an attempt to keep Gina from going stir-crazy, we took a quick road-trip to Yosemite National Park. It's less than 400 miles from us and is actually a very easy drive. Since Gina is not known for camping or being a big fan of nature (sleeping in a tent, co-existing with animals and squirrels, visiting an outhouse...without running water or fixing meals on a campfire), we needed to make reservations at one of only three, hotels in the park. As you would expect, these hotels are booked waaay in advance and reservations need to be made a year or so in advance. We got very fortunate and were able to make reservations at Yosemite Lodge (in the valley), for one night only (Thursday)...and off we went!!

Immediately after going through a long tunnel cut in the mountain, you open onto this picturesque-view of the Yosemite Valley.

Here's Gina communing with nature and posing with friendliest tree she could find. This was midway on our hike to Vernal Falls. We planned on going to the top to camp overnight until she told me she needed to go the bathroom...and down the mountain we went!!

The shot on the left is the view of Yosemite Falls we had as we walked out of our room at Yosemite Lodge. Normally there's water gushing forth from the area indicated. Because it's so late in the year and water for the falls come from the glacial and snow runoff from the high country, there was no water left to "gush". On the right is Bridelveil Falls...which actually had water!! We climbed around on the rocks and were able to get to the base of the falls.

Guess what A-list celebrities were seen at the premiere of Kevin Smith's ZACK & MIRI MAKES A PORNO?

OK, maybe the C or D-list grunts but Gina and I did attended the premiere of Kevin Smith's new film ZACK & MIRI MAKE A PORNO on Monday Oct. 20th. The premiere was held at Grauman's Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Blvd....in Hollywood!! Though we did not see as many Chinese as I was hoping for, the movie was great and was viewed by an appreciative crowd. Gina was initially reluctant about attending the premiere. Regardless, she did attend and surprisingly, throughly enjoyed the movie. As expected, ZACK & MIRI is chock-full of well-written sophmoric humor,and is easily Kevin's best movie ever. Rather than dick-n-poop jokes starting at the very beginning of the film, he waits and gets you emotionally invested in the characters before he unleashes his colorful comedic wit. Once you realize that his humor though often off-color is not mean-spirited, it's easy to see beyond the moment (and the language), and enjoy a very sweet love story. Congrats to Kevin on what I predict will be his biggest hit to date and on his personal growth as a writer and director. He is so uniquely talented and was able to craft a commercially successful film while retaining his artistic vision, voice and integrity. The film opens this Friday Oct. 31th...check it out!!

SHIFTING INTO HIGH GEAR: THE WINDOWS, THE WEDDING and THE WINNER?

It's unbelievable how much crap a person gets when they don't update their blog on a near-daily basis. Do people think putting a blog together is easy? Do people think my lot in life is to entertain them with an endless flow of words and pictures? Because it's been more than five weeks since the last entry, I do feel kinda' bad and fully recognize that I do have some sort of responsibility to provide you with the most comprehensive updates possible. Lots of stuff has been going on. Now get off my case, sit back and enjoy!!
As you can see, there's lots going on...and our house now has "braces"!! Note that we now have windows...and just the other day, the three-part radius sliding doors were installed on the second floor. It's all coming together and construction is moving at an incredibly fast pace.

The look from the inside is even more dramatic. This is a shot from what will one day be the living room, looking towards the dining area/kitchen. The pipes to the left in the middle of the floor is a future kitchen island. You thought islands were created via volcanic activity? You thought wrong. Find me a plumber, some pvc pipes and a little time...and we'll give you Hawaii!!

Here's an interior and exterior shot of the Master Bedroom. We are very please with the windows and how they're pulling the construction together visually. Now as long they don't leak, we'll be as happy as clams!!

...not only do we have windows and sliding doors, but we also have copper scuppers!! That outlet in the center (called a scupper), will allow water from the third floor deck, to depart with grace and style. Our rain gutters will also be made from copper. Though more expensive, when copper ages it takes on the turquoise-colored patinae that's incredible. The other option is we can purchase Brasso by the gallon and have Gina clean and polish them weekly. OK, that ain't gonna' happen, now is it?

Check out our stains!! The left are the windows in our stairwell with the right pic, a detail of our dining room windows. They stained the pine sills mahogany. This will match the kitchen cabinets and wood floors in the bedrooms. Ain't they purdy?

So much is going on over the next few weeks and months, that hopefully someone will get off his sorry ass and keep you better abreast of the progress. They're currently wrapping-up all of the plumbing, the electrical and anything else that they need to put into the walls. You'd be amaze how much shit needs to be hidden behind the framed walls before they can insulate and drywall them. Gina and I have been locating electrical fixtures, deciding where to place cable for the phone, the internet, satellite TV and permanently-mounted speakers. The tile for the roof should also be coming-in soon as should the front door, the skylight, the interior doors and the garage door. Lots going on and decisions need to be made on a daily basis. These are the details that will make or break the overall look of the house. Here's your chance to play backseat quarterback. Let us know how we're doing. We know you're watching!!

May I present to you, Mr. & Mrs. Anthony Forrester...Yes, on August 24th, Anthony & Francesca were married in Redondo Beach in front of family and friends. If you weren't there, you missed a great party. A good time was had by all!!

Here's the obligatory family shot. Aside from Anthony and I, this is four generations of Gozzi's that all flew-in from the east coast. Grandparents, aunts, cousins and who knows what, were present and accounted for.

We start on the left with the Rev. Maryann (Gina's sister and Francesca's aunt), presiding over the ceremony. Actually she only did a reading during the ceremony and ended with an off-color joke that brought the house down!! Here we have Anthony sucking a piece of blue cheese off of Francesca's face. Notice his technique and the smile on his face. "Did you get it all Ant?" We end with the season-opener of "Dancing With the Stars". Men were optional but Sean (in the blue shirt), was see cutting-the-rug with the reverend throughout the evening!!

For those of you that don't know, my day job (and how we're financing the new home) is producing shirts and licensed products for the world at large. Alex Ross, a friend and artist that I've worked with for more than a decade now, asked me if I'd be interested in producing an Obama T-shirt with him. We unveiled our OBAMA: TIME FOR A CHANGE T-shirts at the Wizard World Chicago show in July. It was an immediate hit!!

The picture on the left captured Barack mumbling "Can I get this in a size small to better accent by rippling abs?" The next pic shows him at a local frat party. Now when he does the beer bongs later in the evening, he won't ruin his nice dress shirt!!

We really got a kick out of seeing this photos. Graphitti Designs has now expanded it's reach. Not only do we dress the comic fans, we also dress Presidential candidates. Our next goal is to get Sarah Palin wearing one of these puppies!!

(unpaid advertisement)
If you or anyone you know wants to purchase one of these shirts, they can do so by going to: www.graphittidesigns.com.

That's all for now. I promise I will do my best to better address the needs of the community and provide content on a more regular basis. Come soon, construction will be moving at a very rapid pace. Check in and see what's new and exciting.

THE CHRONICLES OF CHAPMAN: THE BUILD, THE SCARE, THE CON, THE QUAKE...AND THE COMING EVENT!!

...in our last episode, rough framing on the second floor was just beginning and we were preparing to leave town for Wizard World Chicago. It's been non-stop fun and games since then...which explains the 7 week gap since the last update.

Let's start with a current picture of the construction. It's evolved into one big-ass sculpted mass of lumber!! We figured if you're gonna' be an eyesore in the neighborhood, ya' might as well do with style!!


Compare the photo above with the pic to the right taken in late June, and you'll see what has transpired. Not only has the second floor been completed (with roof!!), but so has the third floor deck...complete with stairs and crow's nest.

Here's a trio of pics that show you what's going on outside. The one on the left is the west side of the house. The large opening to the left is for the garage door. The center shot shows you the complete length of the east side of the house. It all begins with the second floor windows for the dining room and kitchen, and ends at the far right corner with the master bathroom. This is anything but a flat surface and provides our neighbors Willy and Donna with a rather interesting view. The final shot is a detail from the east side. This curved area houses the spiral staircase inside.

Here's an interior shot of the second floor landing for the stairs. The light source you see from the roof is where the skylight will be. Note all the curves and "non-straight/flat" surfaces. This is definitely not a traditional build and is testing the skills of the framers. Though they've stepped up to the plate and are doing an incredible job, the framing has taken considerably more time than originally projected. More time equals more money. See, I'm not as dumb as I look!!

The vision of the architect and the details she has brought to the build are second to none. There's times when we think the plans got switched and they're building us the new Snow White castle that should be at Disneyland. They should be putting the windows in any day now. We can't wait to see that!!









To keep our interior spiral staircase company, we now have this grand curved stairway that leads to...

...our third floor deck. The circular element is where the skylight will be recessed into. We originally wanted to put some kind of "fire circle" that people could sit around up here. For some reason, the city doesn't allow flames of any kind, sourcing from the top of a building. Go figure!!

Now that you've been updated with the construction, let us share with you some of the other elements of our lives...

Remember reading about the problems with IndyMac Bank on Friday July 11th?

"The federal government took control of Pasadena-based IndyMac Bank on Friday in what regulators called the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history.

Citing a massive run on deposits, regulators shut its main branch three hours early, leaving customers stunned and upset. One woman leaned on the locked doors, pleading with an employee inside: "Please, please, I want to take out a portion." All she could do was read a two-page notice taped to the door."

...guess which lending institution we have our construction loan with? You guessed it...IndyMac!! To say than Gina was besides herself is an understatement. Thanks to her calm and level-headed reaction, I got a first hand look how investors must of felt when the stock market crashed in 1929. If we had a tall building close by, who knows how my day might have ended. We suddenly had no access whatsoever to the money we had secured for our construction. Thankfully on Monday the Feds stepped in and took over the operations of the bank...everything appeared to be normal. If they had experienced the uncertainty of the weekend that we just endured, they'd realize that we had been forever traumatized. What a wonderful time to decide to build a house!!

This now takes us the 2008 Comic-Con International in San Diego. Though the show opened to the public on the evening of Wednesday July 23rd, the prep-work for this show is overwhelming and begins months before the show starts. Aside from being the biggest show of the year (150,000 people) and setting-up a larger exhibit/selling area than we do at any other show, we also have a second selling space where we sell the official event shirt for the convention. Between these two space, we sell lots of shirts which also requires additional staff to man the booths. As always, we draft Graphitti Designs employees (old and new) as well as family members. Aside from my three kids being there working (Kevin, Chris and Sarah), we also had family (no not that "family"), from Gina's side. Her sister Nancy flew in from Mass and worked with us as did our daughter Francesca and her fiancee Anthony.

The show was a success and everyone survived...more or less!! As we've done so for the past twenty-plus years, Graphitti Designs throws a wrap-up party on Sunday night after the show. This "Dead Dog" party has become legendary over the years and has become the place for friends, family and business associates to relax and unwind. The following is a small sampling of the people at the party. It's a great group of people...many that I've known and worked with in some capacity for 25 years or more!!

Here's the obligatory family shot. Going from left to right, we have: Chris and his fiancee Meloney, Gina (rubbing Buddha's belly for luck), Bob, Sarah, Kevin and his girlfriend Kristy. Not in the picture are Nancy, Ces and Ant who had to leave early and missed the party this year...and Ricky (Sarah's boyfriend), who was standing on the very right and was cropped out of the shot by the photographer. Sorry Ricky!!

Here's Christine and Mike Mignola (creator of HELLBOY), confronting the papperazzi. Having just completed their press junket for the HELLBOY II flick, they're old pros at this. Actually we shared a cab from our hotel to the bar with them. Everyone thought it was funny when the flashes suddenly went off. It's all fun and games until cars begin chasing princess' and someone gets hurt!!

From the upper left corner going clockwise we have: Robyn Moore, Gina and Tom Gaadt. We went to the wine country (see Feb. 29, 2008 entry), with her and her husband Terry. Because this was also a memorial/birthday party for Dave Stevens who died earlier in the year, as host, I opened the floor to remembrances and racy stories about Dave. If you look closely, you can see the fear in my eyes...I hate public speaking!! Next we have me flanked by two of me mates. Eddie Campbell (a misplaced Scotsman who now lives in Australia, who co-created and illustrated Alan Moore's FROM HELL), is on the left with Dave Gibbon's on the right. Dave illustrated WATCHMEN back in 1986. We produced a hardcover edition of the book over two decades ago. Keep your eyes peeled for the WATCHMEN movie coming out in March 2009. Aside from talking funny, the Brits are damn fine drinking buddies. These are two of the greatest guys and talented artists around!! Under that pic we have me with Thomas Jane. Thomas was the PUNISHER and was last seen in Stephen King's THE MIST. Moving to the left, we have the birthday cake. One might ask what's up with a birthday cake for a dead guy? It would have been Dave's 53rd birthday on Tuesday July 29th. Dave would never let us throw him a birthday bash while he was alive...so we waited. The bulldog design on the cake (and on the shirts), was done by Dave back in 1984 and was also used by his family on his tombstone. The last picture shows me in a heated discussion with Frank Miller. Frank, who created SIN CITY and 300, is currently directing THE SPIRIT (scheduled for release Dec. 25th). I'm sure I'm reminding him that Gina walked out of his acclaimed SIN CITY flick. If you see dancing penguins in his next movie, you'll know that he listened to Gina's suggestions that I offered to him!!

Our first day of decompressing and recharging the batteries after San Diego came to an abrupt halt on Tuesday July 29th. At 11:42 am, our world was rocked by a 5.4 magnitude earthquake!! I was at my desk and after a few seconds, I realized what was going on and Thought that it was just another earthquake. The quake proceeded in the normal fashion until the very end. There was a hard crash that sent the earth moving in two opposing directions...at bthe same time!! Gina hid for cover under her desk (that's what they teach you in school), while others in the office went outside. There was minor chaos for a moment. We could hear fire alarms and the sound of rushing water. We discovered that the interior fire sprinklers for the building to the right and to the left of us, had ruptured...spraying water inside their buildings. Once we made sure everyone was OK and helped others in any way we could, we gave our offices a closer inspection. Though we suffered no major damage, remnants of the quake were evident everywhere.

Though I'd would enjoy attributing this to "earthquake damage", I can't. This is the way my office always looks!! The pictures askew on the wall are the only elements of the room that mother nature worked on...everything else is 100% me!!

From left to right, the first picture shows more framed pictures cocked in all directions. Maybe someone can get us one of those laser levels for Christmas? The next one show you some fairly innocent filing cabinets that were opened by the force of the quake. The third picture shows you a vertical crack that we now have in our drywall. The crack runs 20 feet from the ground floor all the way to the ceiling of the room above. Though our wine racks and bottles gave way to the forces of nature, nothing was broken. I'm convinced that the greek god Bacchus must have been watching over us!! Note that this photo was not staged and no professional wine bottles were used in this photoshoot!!

Last, but certainly not least, we are winding down preparation for the wedding of Francesca to Anthony. With the wedding just a little more than one week away, I'm beginning to feel that the earthquake was an easier to force to recon with. Gina and I attended a couples bridal shower the Saturday prior to leaving For San Diego and we have the family (yes, that family), will be flying in from the East Coast beginning next week. They'll be rehersal dinners and non-stop family events leading up to and continuing beyond the "I do" moment. Unless Ant gets "cold feet" oe Ces has a "runaway bride" moment, congrats in advance to the soon-to-be-wed couple!!

Plans are to have pictures of the wedding to share with you in the days ahead. That and pictures with house (with windows), are more than enough hype needed for you to return to our blog. Safe travels to everyone flying out to California. See you soon and bring your hardhats...the aftershocks are coming!!