The setup… those chair covers were like sitting on a trampoline!

Neil and Eric keeping cool before the ceremony starts.

Hmm, a father talking as he walks his daughter down the aisle, when has that happened before?

The kiss!

The wedding party on the pier.

Taking advantage of the beautiful evening light.

My swim time had me starting at 8:47am, so I knew there would be some waiting involved but only about 200 people made it into the pool before thunder halted the swim portion. Those who started the swim were allowed to finish and, ultimately, complete the entire triathlon. However, after well over an hour and with the thunder (and pouring rain!) still going strong, the race officials had to scrap the swim portion and have the remaining three quarters of the field (including yours truly) do a biathlon instead.

Many people left during the wait and even more decided to skip the race altogether once they announced the change, but I paid good money to participate so I decided to tough it out.

My shoes, socks and bike helmet were absolutely soaked from sitting out in the transition area, so I spent the whole bike ride trying not to slip off the pedals and frankly, just stay on the bike. The course was hilly but not too difficult and even though I didn’t get to swim in my new trisuit, I certainly experienced riding a bike while soaked to the bone.

coming in from the nine mile bike ride

As expected, my legs were pretty tired from the bike, so it took a little effort to get them moving for the run portion. I ran the entire two miles without stopping and even had enough energy for a smile at Eric and a burst of speed at the end.

starting the second lap of the run

finishing strong! (note my muddy shoes and legs)

I have no idea what my splits were yet, but I’ll post them here once the official results are up. I’m pretty sure I fell within the range of my goal despite the conditions.

One thing I did notice: people do not accurately submit their swim times. For example, I saw several women breast-stroking at the beginning of the race, so clearly I need to drop my race time as I could have passed several of these sub-200 starters and I was seeded at #480. Next time!

Race Results: I placed  212/322 overall – 47:03 for the bike and 20:39 for the run for a total of 1:09:07 with the transition. This means I would have easily met my goal of 1:20 had the swim been possible. Success!

It all started with a trip to Hawaii eight years ago…

(Big Island, Hawaii – September 20, 2001 – OMG, how young do we look?)

(Machu Picchu, Peru – September 6, 2009 – OMG, how tired do we look?)

More photos of our recent Peru trip to come!

There were some introductions and funny dances…

The cake was cut and fed to the other party in a polite manner as captured by my brother’s iPhone which I don’t think he put down for the entire weekend.

I gave a nice toast (barefoot) and did not completely blank, cry or faint -  go me!

A certain groom had to wear a funny hat courtesy or his brother. Michael’s said “D.u.d.e.” and Lauren’s said “B.a.b.e.” She declined to wear the hat at the reception.

The first dance was lovely, “The Prayer,” as performed by two family friends.

Then my sister and dad enjoyed their dance while singing along to “Because You Loved Me”.

After this point, we let the photo booth take the pictures!

Since we were running behind, Eric was able to go into the decorated room and get some lovely shots of the centerpieces and wedding cake in the late afternoon light.

And finally, one of us!

Eric mentioned that a lot of people seemed to be a little worried about me descending five stairs backwards multiple times in 3.5 inch heels and at the end I got loads of compliments and an invite from the priest to help them with the 2:30pm wedding. :)

Here are some of the highlights… I think Eric did a fantastic job even though he doesn’t often take photos of people.

(Bob, Michael’s brother, and I walking down the aisle)

(my sister and a lovely shot of the Holy Name cathedral)

(the moms lighting the candles for the Unity candle ceremony)

(putting on the ring)

(you may now kiss the bride)

(posing for photos on the front steps)

the happy couple – Michael and Lauren

We practiced walking down the aisle (with the proper distance in between couples) and standing where we needed to be standing. My main job was to “floof” the dress to make sure it always looked good for photos during the ceremony.

Lauren’s very pink dress for the rehearsal

the entire wedding party up on stage

just married – well, at least for the practice round!

I felt much more prepared for the actual wedding part (and I imagine others did as well) and all the mugging for the camera made the entire experience fun.

There are more photos of the rehearsal in this Flickr photoset and I’ll also be adding many (many!) more in the next few days.

Unfortunately, it turns out the wrong menu was posted when we made our reservations, and we discovered a more limited menu on the day of our dinner reservation. When asked, the hostess was very nice and explained that they decided to do an entirely different menu rather than smaller portions of their existing dishes, and that they sent in the revised menu well before this week and it just wasn’t posted on time. This makes a good case for Four Square posting the special menu on their own website in addition to the Triangle Restaurant Week website (hint, hint!). While I was actually looking forward to trying dishes on the regular menu, the changes still looked appetizing.

We arrived about 15 minutes early and took a seat on the front porch rockers while we looked over the wine list and talked with our friends. The restaurant is located in an old farm house, where each of the rooms has about 3-4 tables, making it great for romantic meals. At 7p we were seated upstairs in the back of the house in what must have been a bedroom.

Seating was followed by a rather long 10 minutes before we could place our drink order and then another good delay for our drinks to arrive. Fortunately, this was the only problem and the service was otherwise excellent. We choose a Loire valley Rose that we thought would complement each of the courses.

There were two choices for each appetizer, entree and dessert, so we decided to get different things and share—except we both choose the beef entree as I wasn’t in the mood for mahi mahi.

The fried green tomato appetizer was crispy and the sauce was good but it could not outdo the baby artichoke and sundried tomato pasta with chicken and creamed spinach. Delicious. The skillet cooked ribeyes were both slightly underdone from how we ordered them, so my medium rare was more of a rare plus, and Eric’s medium steak was a dark pink. The gravy was rich and seasoned perfectly but I would have called the seasoned potatoes ‘wedges’ rather than ‘steak fries’ as they weren’t crispy after spending time soaking in the sauce. (Note: Only one couple split the mahi mahi and they thought the beef was superior.)

For dessert, the chocolate torte accompanied by a strawberry balsamic sorbet was the hands-down winner, but the strawberry shortcake put up a good fight. Personally, I would have preferred the vanilla bean cake to be lighter in texture and body, more like an angel food cake because it seemed like strawberries piled on a cornbread muffin to me.

Overall, we had a lovely time and would return. The service was great, and we thought the sauces used throughout were quite good. Although the regular menu is pricey, we found the wine list to be quite extensive and reasonably priced.

Happy birthday, Dad! Enjoy your James Bond martini and remember it’s always happy hour somewhere.  I love you! :)

Even though there have been challenges (getting paid on time, seemingly endless networking events, etc.), I have never once regretted the decision to quit my job at UNC and strike out on my own.

Plus, all of the self-marketing and conferences and after-hours events have not only helped me become more comfortable talking about what it is I do for a living, but it’s generated a large list of possible leads for 2009.

I have spent the first week of this year researching client management systems (I like Highrise), new hosting companies, and planning out what conferences I want to attend in 2009. So far, I am traveling to San Francisco in April for the NTEN technology conference. Very exciting!

I have a feeling this is going to be a great year. :)