Happy Valentine's Day

It rained all weekend but that didn't stop us from hanging out for the day. This was typical Sat. for us... We went to our favorite bakery in Oakland Arizmendi for some blueberry muffins and coffee in the morning. Then we got some grocery's at Trader Joe's from across the bakery. The rain still didn't stop... we continue on our exploration of the east bay and this time to Berkeley and visited the Spanish Table, it's like a CostPlus... but they only have imported goods from Spain and Portugal like wines, canned food, books/CDs, and tableware. We ended up getting some Portugal green wines and spanish sausage- yum! Then we went for a movie to see Benjamin Button out in El Cerritto - what a sad movie....but a very good movie.
We finally headed home around 6pm and Marco cooked a nice Valentine's dinner for me :-)


Spinach with mushroom wine sauce


Baked rosemary potato and taro.


Baked breaded cod fish.

FINALLLLY!!!!

Finally we got a President that we can be proud of! After many Obama parties at friends house and at the official Obama SF party (i was almost on Ch.2 news). Marco volunteered passing out fliers to vote for Obama throughout the streets of Alameda, in the meanwhile I waited in line for 1.5 hours for early voting ... finally we got our man! A change we and our future generations can be proud of, let's bring back community service, family values, and the good ol' hardworking mentality back to America. There will be a change on how the rest of the world sees us as Americans. I look forward to the change that Obama will make in each one of us.
oh and i have to say i was pretty happy that Michelle Obama has chosen Jason Wu's design (ck out his 2009 spring collection), a fellow Taiwanese dude-REPRESENT!!! (click here to read more)

Accredited Professional

well, this holiday season wasn't very fun for me. i was pretty much studying the whole time all the way to 1/3/2009. Then finally took the exam and passed!!! the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) (click here to learn more) exam and now i can say i'm an accredited "green" professional. Marco helped me with some difficult subjects such as CO2 monitoring and somthing about ASHREA ratings... i celebrated my x'mas/black friday/NYE all on 1/3/2009! what a relief to passed the exam!

mirror ... mirror...

There I was trying on my mom's earrings and using her mirror and the same mirror I held today to do some last minute touch ups. Thanks mom!

Candid Shots!!!

here are some more highlights from our wedding:
http://picasaweb.google.com/AlvesM/WeddingPhotos?authkey=wLiu-r177-k

Thank You card inspiration

This was a carpet pattern I came across online and thought it was beautiful and simple. The design of the rug has a cut-paper style that caught my eyes and I wanted to implement some of the floral elements on my invitations (Chinese invite). To tied in the same design, I used it again on the Thank You cards.

Thank You cards are done!... well almost...

finally i'm almost done with our thank you cards :-) for those who are cking out our blog page - thank you for reading and i'm sorry that it has taken us this long to THANK YOU. It has been really busy with us since we got back from our month long honeymoon and one thing lead to another things are piling up but we're catching up. We like to thank all of our friends and family for celebrating our big day with us and all of your best wishes and lots of gifts we really appreciated! I will be posting some behind the scene wedding pictures so look for yourself on this site - you just might be tagged. we hope to see some of you soon!

remember to Vote on Nov 4

euro "Cut Paper" design

I came across Robert Ryan's website and just fell in love with his work!

Abount Hunger

When we first looked into wedding favors we came across many silly useless products.... so we looked into charity donations. We wanted to give something back to our community back to OakTown - East Bay baby!!! We started with our search with www.justgive.org and then narrow it down and selected Alameda County Community Food Bank.

Did you know each month, tens of thousands of low-income Alameda County residents cannot afford well-balanced meals for themselves and their families. Many never imagined they would need to request food assistance, but barren cupboards and empty pockets have led them to local soup kitchens and food pantries.

We have donated 1,000 meals on May 31, 2008 behalf of you. We hope you too will look into supporting your local or international charity organizations.

Paper Assembly Line

here's an image of the "Save the Date" assembly line... lots of stuffing and sealing - look out for paper cuts and don't forget to sort the English and Portuguese cards.

Monogram Shortbread Cookies

Finally i have some time now to update you on some of our fun wedding planning do's and don't and behind the scene...
Sweet Adeline Bake Shop in Berkeley have made my wedding cake and many other desserts that day such as Mango Cream Puffs and Monogram shortbread cookies. I have originally thought of making the cookies out out this custom rubber stamp design I've designed (see it... we're always leaning on each other hahahhaaa!!!) but it was unsuccessful... so i guess it will just be a rubber stamp.

Sale @ Gump's!?!

yep- i was the lucky one to walked passed the sales window last week and found Eva Zeisel's ceramic pieces for sale! i just couldn't believe it!!! her pieces are beautiful-- the graceful and sensual curves (you should see the water pitcher, it reminded me of my wedding dress) and i'm getting it at a sale price- i can't pass that up... so with out a doubt or a call to my new husband- i (we) bought a few vases and a sugar/cream set!!! i can't wait to have you over for tea time!

we are back!

so we're back....
i think some of you don't even know we have a wedding blog page... i guess we should of had our blog address bigger on the invitation. Anyhoo-- we're gonna do that on the thank you cards... maybe you just might to see yourself online or hear more about us (lovers!!-hahhaaa).
for those of you who came to our wedding -- a big thank you and we hope you had a good time, like we did... and for those who couldn't make it --- sorry you missed it and i hope this site will show you a little about what we have been up to and call me we should do lunch :-)
so we're back....
things are kinda back to norm... (we miss South America already) still got presents in our living room with no place to store it... we'll have to make some room in our closet or garage. i have all the wedding cards on display, so when we wash dishes in the kitchen we are reminded of your wishes :-) thanks! slowly we're catching up on bills and laundry - The next big task is to review our 1200 wedding pictures and over 2000 honeymoon pictures of South America... so lots to do.

hola from buenos aries

while marco watches the Euro soccer 2008 game... i have a few minutes to update our honeymoon. we took off from SF on Wed. 6/3 to south america, but our flight was canceled in Atlanta for a day so we hung out and explored the city and we visited the world of coca-cola company and tasted 73 beverages from all over the world. it was really really hot in atlanta like 92 when we got there.... then we flew to Santiago and arrived 7.30 in the morning and it was like winter weather where we can see our breath. we rented a car and drove to the country side 1 hour from santiago and visited a little village where they make all the chilean ceramics. did you know that people don´t really get up until 10 or 11am. we waited in our white little car... like a ford focus and waited for the town to be awake. then finally we got some Pan (bread) for 180 pesos for 2 (like 25 cents) and boy it was plain-plain bread. then we drove to a little beach town called Valparaiso and we were there for 2 nights visiting neighboring towns such as Vina del Mar-love both places and it was so relaxing there. the weather was a lot warmer like low 70´s still need a jacket at night, but by the time we left it go really cold so i had to buy a sweater. then off we go and drove back to santiago and exploring the city it took us all afternoon exploring all the little towns and finally santiago!!! the semi- big city. we were there for about another 2 nights in bellavista and took the subway everywhere. from santiago you can see some snow caps on the mountains of the andes which then we took a bus ride to Argentina.
the bus ride was about 8 hours to mendoza, a winery town but during this time ppl come here to ski. we drove through the andes in the snow then down the mountain ( we were asleep). we where there for 1 night and there wasn´t much there other than Malbec wines which we had - yum!!! then we got on another bus ride to Buenos Aries.... yes a 20 hours ride....not knowing that they stopped at 10 little villages with many passengers getting on and off the bus even 2am in the morning (marco!!!!.....) finally we are here in buenos aries after eating lots of jamon with queso (ham cheese sandwiches) i was ready for some really yumming food in the big city!!! so we´ve been here for 2 days now and tonight we are going to see a tango dinner-show ;) it should be lots of fun!!! with all this traveling we are both now sick... got a little cold. the weather changes from town to town, bus to bus,,, our poor bodies.... but another glass of wine and a warm blanket should be fine.
until then... adios!

few pictures from our outdoor shots- enjoy!

It's Tammy's Birthday!!!!!

yep... it's my birthday!!! We celebrated my birthday at my aunt Therese's house and had dinner at one of my favorite chinese restaurant Darda in Milpitas.

Heath Ceramics is having a Sale!

To redeem, take a printout of this.
Heath Ceramics, 400 Gate 5 Road, between Coloma Street and Harbor Drive, Sausalito (415-332-3732 or heathceramics.com).

Looks like they got new summer dishware- gotta go and ck it out!

*Deal valid through April 22, in-store only.

FREE Tibet

I was just down at the Ferry Bldg. and it was crazy!!!

http://cbs5.com/slideshows/olympic.torch.san.20.695874.html

bon-bons!

Marco's mom have mailed us some candies from Portugal, which we will be serving at the dessert table. Can you guess which ones have we chosen?