The Ten Day Forecast

The bad news: this is the little symbol currently appearing next to our wedding date in the 10-day forecast, along with a 60% chance of rain. The good news: the 10-day forecast is almost always wildly wrong! :)

Actually, I am much more worried about it raining on Thursday night or Sunday morning (the bbq at our house with the parents and the brunch at our house). We did get a canopy-type tent for the backyard that will keep off a light-medium rain (or shelter guests from the mid-day sun) but our house will definitely be crowded if it pours!

But, in general, if you are getting ready to travel to Indy for the wedding next week, expect highs of around 80 and lows of around 60. And bring your raincoat just in case ... this is early summer in the Mid-west and thunderstorms tend to spring up suddenly around 4 pm at least 3-4 days a week.

Downtown Dining: Dinner Edition

For those of you who will be in town Friday night and looking for a place to chow down, here are some ideas!

There are several restaurants in the blocks surrounding the Indiana Repertory Theatre, including most of the standard chain restaurants one finds attached to shopping malls these days. PF Chang's, Champps, Weber Grill, and Buca di Beppo can all be seen from the corner of Illinois and Washington streets. There are also 3 brew pubs in a 2 block radius: Rock Bottom at 10 W. Washington, Alcatraz at 49 W Maryland, and Ram at 140 S. Illinois.

If you're looking to escape the world of national chain restaurants, here are a few more excellent options:

Yats is a local restaurant with several locations around town, and man, do they have a great thing going! If you're looking for cheap, hot, and amazingly tasty cajun food you have to check this place out. They have only 5 options of entree each day, all served up in huge portions over rice. You can get one choice of entree for around $6 or a split plate of 2 entrees for around $7. Watch out though, it can be pretty spicy. The closest Yats is located at 659 Massachusetts Ave (which would also give you the chance to check out the Mass Ave neighborhood, a great part of downtown with little shops, bars, and tons of other restaurants.) Ooh, looking at the website, it would appear Yats has recently expanded to the Chicago market. Yats is probably a good 20-25 minute walk from the theatre but there is fairly ample parking in the Mass Ave area should you choose to drive.

Looking for a little adventure? Check out Sushi on the Rocks at 235 S Meridian. FH and I had lunch there the other day to celebrate picking up our marriage license and it was so delicious. Be sure to sit at the sushi bar and watch the sushi chef in action!

Finally, a favorite of the IRT production department is Loughmiller's Pub. It's located about 1 block west of the theatre on the south side of Washington street and serves up great burgers, sandwichs, big salads, and all the other standard pub fair.

Also, with all this talk of food, I should remind everyone staying at Candlewood Suites that your rooms will have kitchens in them so if you'd rather not attempt to find a restaurant you'll have all the resources you need to refrigerate food and cook for yourself. Candlewood has a small shop in the lobby that sells snacks, convenience foods, and other essentials, though there are really no restaurants within walking distance from the Candlewood so you'll need to drive (albeit less than 1 or 2 miles) to get to dining options.

Licensed to Wed

FH and I went down to the City-County building this morning, did the paperwork, and now have our marriage license! Hooray! Bet you're all relieved to know you'll be attending a legally binding ceremony in just 11 days. Unfortunately we did not take the ubiquitous "holding up our license with a cheezy smile" photo to post for you.

More soon!

A Rose By Any Other Name...

Regarding name changes, FH and I have reached our final conclusion: for the time being we will both keep our current legal names. We've discussed me hyphenating, we've discussed both of us hyphenating, (one thing we did not discuss was me changing my name completely, I've worked long enough in my profession that I'm not willing to totally give up my name) and have decided that keeping the names we have now will work just great for us.

Why? Perhaps it's laziness. I mean, who really wants to get a new driver's license, social security card, credit/debit cards, checks, change all your tax and insurance forms, etc? Especially when you're keeping the name you have as part of your new name. I may eventually choose to hyphenate socially without legally changing my name but I just don't see it being worth the effort to make the legal change.

(me, filling out name change paperwork? I'll skip it.)

Most importantly, our names have served us quite well for nearly ... well, for some years now. If people have a hard time wrapping their heads around the idea that we're married but have different names, we'll just write it off as part of our "mystique".

(And if you're thinking of asking, "but what about when you have kids?" let me say, IF we have kids we'll probably hyphenate their names, but don't go counting any chickens before they're hatched folks! :P)

Shower recap!

Last weekend I attended my bridal shower, hosted by my aunts at the home of my Aunt Ruth. It was great to spend the afternoon with my grandmothers, many of my aunts and cousins, my step-mom and my mom. I've really never been to any other showers (other than one I helped host for a friend) so I wasn't sure what to expect!

We started off with a few games (none of them embarrassing, thank you!!) First we whet our appetites with a game where participants had to fill in the names of 20 different types of cake based on provided clues. mmm, cake...

Next, the guests filled in Bingo cards with their predictions about what gifts would be received that day. On my mom's side of the family no celebration is complete without Bingo (it's an important part of our extended family Christmas tradition, invented as a means to keep 17 grandchildren occupied for several hours once dinner was over and presents had been opened.)

My favorite game was trying to match songs from a list to the guests whose wedding the song was from. My initial strategy was effective, basing my guesses on the era that each song was popular, but after the first few I was stumped ... everyone seemed surprised at the effort I put into getting the right answers, I guess I strive to be an over-achiever even at bridal shower games! lol

We spent some time opening gifts and I was overwhelmed by the generosity of my family and friends. More even than the gifts I appreciate the thoughtfulness of everyone's kind wishes, the support and excitement offered to me and to Bill as we get ready to take the leap into marriage.

Then we dug in to the cake and punch! My aunt and grandmother had collected a stack of antique cake plates, including a special bride plate, which was such a fun and lovely touch. I took the plates home at the end of the day and plan to save them for our next family bridal shower. Sounds like a new tradition in the making!

And finally, a few more family photos.

Me with my grandmothers
(Left is my maternal grandmother, Dorothy;
Right is my paternal grandmother, Mildred)

Me with my step-mom, Deb (on the left) and my mom, Amy (on the right).

Okay, off to finish my thank-you notes! We can't wait to see you all in just 2 weeks.