Sam and Melissa’s wedding was great yesterday. It was awesome to see so many people from school that I hadn’t seen in awhile and also to share with Sam and Mel on their day. Sam was in our wedding and he was nice enough to include me in his as an usher.

I met a couple of his friends I hadn’t met before as well as reacquainting myself with some that I had. The guys all had a lot of fun and got along great.

Jess and I realized that there really wasn’t any need for us to stay in Springfield. It was only an hour and a half drive (for some reason I was thinking it would be closer to two or two and a half hours there) and we easily could’ve driven back home after the rehearsal dinner on Friday and driven back up on Saturday for the ceremony. But it all worked out alright.

I think Sam and Mel had a good day and we may be meeting up with them for my birthday on Tuesday. Overall it was a great weekend.

I’ve been sick the past two days. I caught whatever illness plagued my dear wife Jessica over the weekend. It was unfortunate because I woke up Monday feeling so good. This morning I was able to get back to work but definitely did not feel awesome. I’d say that right now, at 7:09 PM I am at probably 85% on a wellness scale. Definitely recovering.

The second half of next week and first half of the following is going to be busy. First we’ll head off to Springfield, IL for our friends’ Sam and Melissa’s wedding. I am an usher and apparently that means I need to wear a tux (is that normal?). So a 2.5 hour drive and a stay in a hotel will be a mini-vacation before all of our favourite television shows come back on the following Monday while I am teaching a class (boo!). Tuesday the 22nd is my birthday (25 years!) and we’ll be going out to a fantastic dinner with friends at Dressel’s in St Louis that evening. Wednesday the 23rd Jessica is taking me out of work for a day in the city. I will probably be getting some new clothing for the winter and generally enjoying a day off with my wife.

Hopefully by then the air in Southern Illinois will have cooled down to a consistent mid-70s and it will actually feel like autumn the way it did a few weeks ago.

In two weeks’ time I should have one of my pending projects done (you can watch progress as it’s made here) and hopefully be working on a second one to be finished in October. Then it’s Jessica’s birthday, Halloween candy to pass out, and finally November shows up.

November means NaNoWriMo. And I am really excited about it this year. Mostly because I’ve had a whole year to loosely and mentally plan for it (as opposed to the -1 day I had last year when I first discovered it). I’ve got a sort-of plot ready and want to get it down on paper. You should totally do it too! If you sign up, let me know in the comments and we’ll all be writing buddies this November.

December means Christmas in California with my family and then in January we’ll be heading up to Portland with the fam for my little sister’s wedding. I guess it’s just busy all the way until 2010 comes around. Hopefully teaching this class will continue to be good as well.

How’s the end of your year shaping up?

I didn’t have an incredibly great week last week. It started out pretty good but got increasingly poor as the days went on. This weekend was a blessing of a break. Even though we did a lot of driving I was still able to get away from here and that was good.

Saturday we drove to Poplar Bluff in Southern Missouri for my friend Ryan’s wedding. It was a 3 1/2 hour drive, but entirely worth it to see him get married. I also got to see my good friend Rod who lives on the East Coast now.

And we slept in. That was really nice. Today we went to the bookstore and I picked up Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue which I’ve been eyeing for a while. I’m excited to start reading it tonight before bed. I think it’s going to be really interesting.

But I am not excited to have work tomorrow. I need a break. I need an extended vacation. I need some time to recover. I haven’t had any time away from work since Christmas and I am definitely starting to feel the effects. I was going to take Jessica to Six Flags last week but didn’t feel I was able to after some things that happened at work and with Kevin taking Friday off. So hopefully I will be able to work out a long weekend this week and we can take care of these cheap Six Flags tickets I have.

And today was Father’s Day. Looks like I will finally be starting on a design for my dad’s site which is good. He needs it and I have a good idea for what I’m going to do design-wise. Hopefully  I’ll have some more freelance coming my way in the near future.

Last night, while nothing was on TV, I started working on my blog redesign. And I actually got a large chunk of it done. Seriously, the video screencast series that Chris Coyier over at CSS-tricks.com put out has helped me out so much. It’s been really fantastic.

So, I’ve got the basic structure done; header, main content, sidebar and footer all ready to go and styled. I’m going to start working on typography and the special trick in the header the next time I get a chance to work on it. I’m pretty excited. It’s looking good.

My plan is to have the redesign finished before I send my grad school application in. That way, if they visit, the letterhead and website will match each other. I’m going more sparse on “extraneous” sidebar info and stuff. Plus hard coding it all in. I think I’m over widgets for my own designs. I’ll widgetize the templates that are going out to the community.

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Tomorrow I’m going up to Champaign with Pancho to help him shoot a wedding. I’m pretty excited. It’s cool to be getting some more experience.

I’ll be a six hour shoot, plus to drive up and back. But he is paying me. Which is an added bonus. And I know the couple getting married. It should be a fun day, with lots of learning.

I guess this is that summer. I think everyone experiences a summer like this, and this is the year I’m experiencing it. The summer of your life where it seems like a friend, old or new, is getting married. Every weekend.

A good friend from high school and growing up in church got married this past weekend. One of my sister’s friends and another church friend got married this past weekend too. Jessica and I are headed to Portugal for another wedding.

Tons of people at school got married this year too. It’s pretty crazy.

But it’s also been kind of… I don’t want to say sad, because it’s not sad. I’m not sure what the emotion is, but I wish I could’ve been at these weddings for my old friends. Especially seeing photos pop up on facebook and things. The best I’m able to do is give them a “congratulations” on their wall. I suppose I could send a card, but I personally didn’t get an invite (though my family did, so I was included in those), and they weren’t able to make it to our wedding because we’re so far away.

In any case. To my friends who have recently been married, I wish you a big congratulations and I want you to know how excited and happy I am for you! It’s been great getting to know you for so many years and just exciting to see that God has brought you to someone who loves you! Good luck and best wishes and we need to get together sometime so I can meet your new spouse!

Jon’s leaving tomorrow. We will follow on Thursday. I am ecstatic about our trip to Portugal. We’re even making it in in time for André’s bachelor party. And we’ll get to see a good bit of the area.

I do wish we could stay longer than a few days. We’re taking a train from Porto to Lisbon on Sunday and then flying to Dublin on Monday morning. So we’ll have the evening in Lisbon to get some food and hang out. The train ride will be nice too. Three hours and I’m sure some pretty good scenery. And the food in Portugal will be fantastic.

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I talked to Danny yesterday on our way to see a movie (Wanted. Horrible film. Don’t see it. It sucked big time). We’re gonna try to do a three-week Ireland trip with him sometime. I’ve got a few good itineraries that I’ve found.

In any case. Foreign travel is beckoning. I’ll be photoblogging as long as I can find a wifi connection (which should be at our B&B)

If you want to see our trip itinerary, go over to tripit.com and sign-up (add me as a contact too!). If you have some ideas or insight into what we should see or do in Dublin, Porto or Lisbon – leave it in the comments.