Putting the "America" in South America - Part 2

After our full day enjoying the architecture and beach in La Serena, we jetted on over to Coquimbo with our photographer Kyle Hepp. Coquimbo is the neighboring port town to La Serena. At the edge of Coquimbo is an old fort that looks like ramparts of a castle - a very romantic location for an evening photo-shoot!
There's a café at the fort, and in the summer there's live jazz in the evenings outdoors!
The best part of the fort is the view of La Serena. Coquimbo juts out to form a bay with La Serena - you can see the entire city in lights at night.

Since our photographer flew up (down?) to visit us from Santiago, we had her the next morning, too! We really wanted to capture a bit of our life around the recinto, our astronomer-gringo home away from home.
Plus we needed an excuse to get cute shots of our dog Beau ;).We're a family! This is the pathway I walk down to get to work (above). The entire community (25 homes on a hill) is lavishly gardened. We're actually required to employ a gardener for our own house!
With our dog trainer, we've been teaching Beau some pretty sweet tricks. This is "high-five". First he sits on his hind legs ("high"), then he gives us "five"! Later we're going to teach him how to walk ("zombie" - what else would you call that crazy saunter dogs do?).Even though I know it's a bit out of the ordinary, I'm so glad we had our photographer Kyle stay the night with us! It's a rare thing to meet United-Statesians that aren't in astronomy here. Now we have a friend to stay with when we go to Santiago! Plus we were able to finagle four different locations for our photo shoot ;)

How did you choose your location for your engagement photos? Did you find yourself becoming friends with any of your vendors?

Putting the "America" in South America - Part 1

Our engagement pictures are in!!!

Kyle was really awesome to work with. There was a whole slew of locations I wanted to shoot at in La Serena, and she entertained all of them! Even though we're getting married in the states, we thought it appropriate to document part of our lives in South America.

Let's take a tour of our little town in Chile, shall we?

We started our paparazzi craziness in the Plaza de Armas - downtown old La Serena. This is where we take our spanish lessons, and it's got a great colonial feel to it, complete with beautiful gardens and old Spanish architecture.

This one is my favorite!!

bling-bling. 'ello?

We both really liked the Wes Andersen feel to this pic! (above)

When we were done making out gringo-style in the Plaza, we headed to the beach for some foggy coastal action. Remember that whole northern hemisphere / southern hemisphere thing? It may be June for you guys, but it's effectively DECEMBER here! ("Juncember") That means no sunny, summery beach views, but it does make for some awesome cloudy, romantic vistas!
We both really like to do jump spins!!! It's such a blast! We tried to coordinate our efforts ;)Mr. Cubbie's just too good at jump spins ;)I mentioned earlier that I had planned on including props in the shoot - I grabbed a bouquet of dried flowers last minute to play with on the beach. Kyle was really open to any ideas I had. I told her I wanted to get a picture of the flowers mid-air (while we look all normal and lovey-dovey), and she worked her hardest to make it happen! I love how that shot looks romantic, and completely random at the same time! :)

After our day in old spain and on the beach, we finished our photo shoot at an awesome old fort that looks like a castle! That's coming up next! ;)

Was your photographer open to your input on pictures? How did you express yourself through your engagement pics? Which of our e-pics is your favorite? ;)

**all pictures are from Kyle Hepp Photography

How to meet and woo a Bear Cub

Three years ago, I flew back to California from Chile. This is actually the 2nd time I've lived in Chile! There's an awesome 3-month summer science research program for undergraduates at the observatories in Chile, and I took advantage of this before I finished my bachelors.

When I came home, I didn't yet know Mr. Bear Cub. In fact, I was living with my (now ex) boyfriend. We both knew it was going to end soon, though. A month after I was back in the states, he drove with me (and all my crap) to help me move in to my new life in New Mexico. This was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. I was with this guy for nearly 4 years of my life, and even though I had loved him, I knew we wouldn't make it as a couple (friends, maybe, but we'll see on that).

Anyways, in July of 2006 I uprooted myself and moved to New Mexico to start a new chapter in my life. I started grad school, I was single, and I was making friends on my terms.

While I was settling into my office one day, a little Bear Cub popped out of a box to greet me!

NMSU, July 2006

His name was Mr. Bear Cub, and he was the friendliest little bear I'd met in a long while. I was pretty lonely after my move, and he became a great friend. I found out that he had just gotten back from seeing friends in the Bay Area - he had been vacationing in the town that I had just moved from!

Mr. Bear Cub is the kind of guy who will be your friend first, if that's what you need. This was probably the main reason we were able to get to know each other so well so fast. I really didn't want to date anyone in New Mexico; I didn't think I would find anyone well suited to my quirks there.

He told me later that he had had a crush on me from the moment he met me! (can you believe it?? an actual crush! I thought that was so adorable ;) ) Even though he liked me romantically, he didn't want to jeopardize our relationship as friends, so for a month we spent time getting to know one another. We watched movies no one else wanted to watch, we hiked the Organ Mountains, we talked about how the west coast is like totally awesome and radical (we both missed the rain a ton), and we finished many a delicious pint at the local brewery, High Desert (we both agreed the hoppier, the better).

Las Cruces, NM, August 2006

Then we decided we should go on a camping trip before school started in late August. I'll save the details for a later post, but I will say this - our first kiss was like FIREWORKS. It was like nothing I'd ever experienced before!

From there on out things moved pretty quickly. Before we knew it, we were flying to his home in Portland, Oregon to celebrate Christmas!

This trip really sealed the deal. I met his family, and life with him really felt like home. Isn't that a great feeling - when life with your fiancé/husband feels like home?

All our days since have just been steps towards building a life together.

Cannon Beach, December 2006

Chinese Gardens, Portland, OR, December 2006

A month after we got back from Christmas break, we moved in together. We rented a cute little house outside of town, and made it our home for a year and a half until we moved away from New Mexico.

Mesilla, NM, September 2008

Have you ever made a drastic change in your life, only to discover something wonderful come from it? In your years of dating, did you ever have to get up the courage to end a stagnant (but comfortable) relationship? How long did it take you before you "knew" your significant other was the one you would love for the rest of your life? Were you friends with your future husband before things "got physical"?

Hello, I'm Miss Bear Cub! :)

Hi there! :)

I'm so excited to bee here with you! I'm Miss Bear Cub, but you can call me Miss Cubbie. I'm no good at introductions - I prefer to jump ahead to being friends! :)

I'll give you a bit of background on me, though. ;) I'm originally from a small town in southern California, but I moved around a bit before I graduated high school in Dallas. I got my undergraduate degree in Astronomy and Physics from the University of Southern California (Fight On!), and I completed my masters degree in Astronomy at New Mexico State University in southern NM.

While in grad school, I met my future husband - future Cubbie Hubbie! Mr. Bear Cub is originally from Portland, Oregon, but he went to high school in Belgium. We learned fast that we both love to travel, we love rain (really!), and gardening, and NPR, and hiking and camping and generally being as goofy and silly as can be!

Cannon Beach, OR Dec 2006

I chose to be Miss Bear Cub because the Mr. and I usually have our hands stuck in a jar of honey candy! We love love love baked goodies and sugery goodness in most forms. We also love salmon (it's my fave sushi), and we're smitten with the Pacific Northwest! (Mr. Bear Cub went to UW!)

We're currently in the thick of planning our September coastal summercamp wedding in Oregon! I'm a die-hard DIY-er, and we're both eco-geeks at heart, so we're trying to craft the wedding as much from scratch/sustainable sources as possible! We're firm believers in doing something because you want to do it, not because someone told you that you had to do it.

I also love to bake. A lot. Luckily, I love to run, too! I'm actually going to bake my wedding cake from scratch, and Sister Bear Cub, Momma Bear, and FSIL Bear Cub are going to help me get it juuust right.

I was so excited I was chosen to bee here with you, that I baked all of you a loaf of sourdough bread!

This is really from my kitchen, from today. Fresh bread is so tasty!

There's just one little snafu in our wedding planning process. We live in La Serena, Chile, and we're not coming back to the states until a week before we say our vows!

from here and here

After getting our graduate degrees, we were offered jobs at the US-owned observatories in the Southern Hemisphere. We live and work in an "astronomer compound" - a small community where english is the primary language, and our neighbors are from Brazil, Germany, Canada, Australia, and many more countries! We both love this unique experience (y también poder practicar nuestro español!), but it's definitely making the wedding planning interesting.

One of the coolest things about being an astronomer in Chile is that we can visit (and observe on) all sorts of crazy telescopes on the southern continent! A few months ago we visited the European Southern Observatory's telescopes at Paranal. This observatory (an array of four 8.2 meter telescopes!) sits high in the Atacama Desert - the location for the most recent James Bond movie!

The observers' sleeping quarters were blown up in the movie, so of course we had to simulate movie magic!

Mr. Bear Cub in a very convincing dash from the blast!

Look! Telescopes in the background!

That's more like it. (screenshot from the movie, credit here)

Paranal, March 2009

It was really awesome being able to visit this observatory in one of the most barren places in the world...

Pumalin Park, Patagonia, December 2008

...But we Bear Cubs rather prefer southern Chile. It reminds us of home in the Pacific Northwest. Even with all of the excitement in South America (including the addition to our little family of a kitten named Georgina and a golden retriever named Beauregard), we can't wait to move to back to Portland in a few years, and settle our crazy selves down a bit! (Not too much ;) )

Beau, December 2008

There's a little over 4 months before our wedding, and I've got so much to share with you! Weddingbee has been such a source of insight and support for me ever since [before] I got engaged last May. I can't wait to let you in on our secrets to having the awesomest, most laid-back and crazy-cool summer camp wedding ever!

Bear hugs for everyone!

-Miss Cubbie :)

shoes. omg. shoes.

I'm not as obsessed with shoes as Kelly is, but I'm definitely particular. Most strappy heels don't really appeal to me, and 90% of the time you'll find me on the streets in some mod ballet flats.

When I bought my dress last year, I had a month to buy my wedding shoes for my fitting (I had to finish my alterations before the move!). That meant I had to get some shoes, and I had to get them fast. Luckily jcrew is always there to help a sistah out. Even luckier - her ugly stepchild ebay is always willing to cut you a black market shoe deal!

I'm short (a whopping 5'2"), and the Mr. is nearly 6', so I definitely needed a shoe with a heel. The jcrew Hadley d'Orsays were simple and effective - just what I needed! And at a steal on ebay (even less than this listing!), I considered my shoe case closed.

source

A girl is never "done" with buying shoes. No. It just doesn't happen. When I got the heels in the mail, they were great. They were fine. They hurt. I'm a little granola, if you haven't picked up on it yet. Heels are beautiful, but I just don't know how to walk in them!

I do, however, know how to dance in them! ;) I took some salsa lessons a few years ago, and Mr. Cubbie thought it would be awesome to do salsa as our first dance! You need heels to dance salsa - you're on the balls of your feet 100% of the time. I'm actually more likely to trip while dancing if I wear flats!

Then again, we are getting married on dirt. Heels and dirt are the biggest frenemies at a wedding! I could wear heel stoppers, like Miss Lab, but I could also trip while I walk down the aisle. (For some reason I'm only coordinated when I concentrate really hard. Go fig.)

I settled for buying a cute pair of brown suede flats (thanks again, 'crew!). I had my dress hemmed for the heel height, but right now I'm planning to wear flats down the aisle.

source

And then I saw these:

source

Jeez lil' miss 'crew - why you gotta keep tormenting me with all your stylin' stems??

Since my dress looks like this, I thought the little flowers would look oh-so-dainty peeking from underneath the fabric. But at $125 (even on eBay!), I don't know if I should chance this buy.

How many times did you second-guess yourself on shoes? Do you have any shoe recommendations for a short, clumsy, dancing fashion junkie?

Did she just say marathon??

Yes - I did! Twenty-six-point-two-miles of wedded bliss!

Mr. Cubbie and I thought this would be a good goal for our getting-in-shape-for-the-wedding pipe dream. As of today, there are 16 weeks until the Portland Marathon. Mr. Bear Cub is from Portland, and has always wanted to run the Portland Marathon. Unfortunately, two years ago while he was training for it, his stepdad died in a plane crash (while on a rescue mission!). This happened about a month before the race - he would have had to be running 40+ miles a week to adequately maintain his training (and not risk injury!). He went to the funeral, and pulled out of the race. A month after, we ran the Rio Grande half marathon together.

Running is something that's truly brought us together as a couple. You need to trust your running buddy - both to help you and to challenge you. I started out not being able to run even a mile... and then 7 months later I was running 13.1 of them.

Running in Portland is even better.

Forest Park, Portland

There's rain, trails, cool air, and a positive running culture. The Portland Marathon is known for being the most walker-friendly marathon!

There's also Forest Park. It's one of the largest urban forest reserves in the US. While the Portland Marathon doesn't go through the park, you could run a marathon on trails to work if you wanted! Mr. Cubbie and I always make time to run together in Forest Park when we're visiting family in Portland.

Granted, I'm definitely not in shape to run a marathon. That halvsie I did? Two years ago. I still consider myself a runner, but moving to another country (and finishing my masters degree) last year really ate up my time.

If you have a good attitude though, running a marathon with 3 months of training is completely doable. My favorite resource for running advice is Runners World. We get the magazine, but the website is hundy-percent free!

Running is an awesome way to get in shape for your wedding. Don't be intimidated - anyone can do it! Runners World has a great first 5k training plan. If you're interested in the sport of running to get in shape for the dress, you should check out their advice (walking is totally acceptable!).

I've got a different beast ahead of me - the marathon. Luckily Runners World is a well of knowledge for first-time marathoners. Their most accessible training plan takes 16 weeks. I've got 16 weeks - this is perfect! They also have great training advice to keep you from being injured. The last thing I want is for my new husband or myself to get seriously injured after only two weeks of being married!

Besides looking better in my wedding dress, I'm looking forward to sharing such a special event with my new husband (it will be his first marathon, too!). We'll be racing for each other, and cheering one another along the entire way.

What are you doing to get in shape for the dress? Do you work out with your fiancé? Are you training for a marathon (or another race) this year, too? Do you have any advice for a first-time marathon runner?

Will you be my bridesmaid... again?

When we got engaged last May, I couldn't wait to tell everyone! Even though Mr. Cubbie and I were in Thailand, we immediately hopped on a computer at our tiki-hut to spread the good news. Two of my future bridesmaids (FB?) were on gchat - I told them right away I wanted them to be my bridesmaids! The rest of my girls I asked over the phone when we were back in the country.

There's a million and one ways to ask your friends to be your bridesmaids. No one way is better than the other. Personally, if I have a fab secret, I can't keep it! I'm bursting with happiness! Asking my girls while I still had that "just slipped the ring on" glow was 100% me.

And then I saw all those other wonderful ways to ask "will you be my bridesmaid?", and I of course I wanted to do that, too! I decided this would be a great way to

1. RE-ask them (it's been almost a year since we got engaged!)
2. give them more up-to-date info about the wedding
3. pass around b-maid contact info
4. make them feel special
5. have an excuse to craft - tee hee! :)

The only problem is that now I live in Chile, and as we already know, there's not a whole lot in the way of crafting supplies here. No goccos, no papersource, no nothing that you lucky lucky brides in the states get to play with. You know what I did? I went to the grocery store. Ironically, in the grocery store, they carry [a minimal supply of] felt, [random colors of] cardstock, and [probably lead-laden] acrylic paints. I had never really painted before, but I was on the verge of considering markers, so I figured what the heck? Might as well try.

When I was looking for supplies, I told my super-cute mamacita spanish teacher that I was having trouble finding pretty paper to work with in La Serena - she whipped out a packet of purple artisan paper made from seaweed! It's not enough to make into 80 invitations, but it is enough to embellish cute letters to my girls! I also found in my closet some old (papersource brand!!) matching white paper and envelopes - I was set to craft to my heart's delight!

If you're interested in making cards for your girls based mostly on the junk you can find in the grocery store, you've just hit the crafting jackpot!

I bought blue cardstock (it was either that or hot pink), white felt, and acrylic paints in green, red, purple, yellow, white, and black. The old papersource letter paper was already sized to fit into its envelope, so I borrowed a guillotine-paper-cutter from work to cut the cardstock.


My idea was to paint a background of a lavender field with 6 sets of poppy buds (for each 6 of my bridesmaids!). Then, to give the card a little more texture, I affixed the lavender-colored seaweed paper to the front as a base for a little felt hand-cut wedding dress.


I first made one card completely to make sure I was happy with the result. I mixed my colors until they matched a picture of lavender, and then I painted the soft green lavender stems, then the flecs of lavender buds, then the bright poppies, and finally some touch-ups. The work wasn't so bad for six cards, but I don't think I could survive hand painting 80 wedding invitations.


All of my bridesmaids are scattered across the states. I really had to give them a lot of information in a little letter - long distance coordination is crazy! I gave them the dates of the wedding, the wedding location (if they didn't already know), dates to be in town (for fun BM outings!), the color palette, a BM coordination website, email addresses for the other BMs, and attire suggestions.


I secured into the envelope some paint chips from our palette to help them get an idea of how the mixy-matchy BM dresses will work together.


I wanted the pretty frayed edge to be the most obvious, so I put the glue on the front side of the letter:







I miss my friends in the states a whole lot - I'm happy for the opportunity to make them feel special, and I can't wait to see them in September!

How are you coordinating your bridesmaids before the wedding? Did you ask your BM over the phone? via gchat? with a cute little card? Are you crafting wedding paraphernalia with run-of-the-mill supplies and leftovers?