Update. We done got hitched.

It's been a ca-razy couple weeks here! I wound up getting all new tires for my car, but that's boring. Onward.

Most notably, we got married. Who knew, when you get married, your life goes totally bonkers for a few weeks months a year and a half. A more thorough write-up of The Best Day Ever will come a bit later, but here are a few pictures for the time being, which our incredibly generous, super talented friend Adam took.

I am particularly in love with the black and white one of us sing/dancing. It wouldn't have been our wedding if we hadn't wound up slow dancing to Purple Rain, wearing imitation Wayfarers in the dark. We actually already have this one up in our place, framed. Because of awesome.

What I feel I need to share with you right at this moment, however, is these photos I took ten minutes ago:

Now, our kitchen is the absolute worst. It's the worst at the best of times.  Clearly, this is not the best of times. (I really hate our kitchen. You can't do anything in it! There is no counter space! There is no prep space! If you attempt to make something with more than two ingredients you have to use the 3rd bedroom to put things in! I don't even know how to add counter space because all the things in this picture are awesome - the giant sink and the giant 1950s GE stove, but they are both so giant you have about 2 square feet of prep space. What you can't see is the best part of the kitchen, the gorgeous original-to-the-house built-in cabinet with glass doors that I hope nobody ever rips out to make more counter space, because you just can't. But this kitchen is not functional and I despise it. Don't even get me started on that plastic tile.) My fiance husband came in while I was cleaning this tomato-onion salad dressing off the dog (Beorn had salad dressing all over his head) before cleaning up either myself (so did I) or the kitchen. Thinking he may have thought bad things, considering the red liquid everywhere and the knife covered in it on our cutting board, I assured him we were both fine and asked what he thought when he entered. He said he "thought it smelled really great in here."

So. That's what I did tonight.

After the wedding we took a couple days off to hang out in Chicago for a mini-honeymoon. Our real honeymoon will be happening in a few months (more on that to come), but we really wanted to do something closer to home to relax after such a busy and stressful... uh... year and a half. We ate and drank really well and stayed on the top floor of a swank hotel. The room had amazing porthole dormer windows and the staff brought us cava and truffles.

Fun fact! John F. Kennedy was staying in our room when he was called back to Washington DC to deal with the Cuban Missile Crisis (does this warrant capitalization? Sure. Why not). I feel powerful.

We also joined several schools on field trips to the Shedd Aquarium. Observation - teachers in the Chicago area seem to have checked out for the school year. It is probably a losing battle to try to trick their students into behaving like humans at the aquarium, which is why we witnessed the following: several children attempting to grab a lake sturgeon by the tail with their bare hands, a boy standing in front of a closed exhibit's glass throwing his backpack in it while his chaperone looked on in weary defeat, loud awkward middle-school flirting, and at least a dozen children knocking on the frog tank because "He won't wake up! DO SOMETHING, FROG." The frogs were not inclined to cooperate, probably out of spite.

On the other hand, we saw some beluga whales which quite possibly may be the coolest (unlike dolphins and most other cetaceans, they do not have fused neck vertebrae because they need to be able to move their heads to worry the sand at the bottom of the ocean to find yummy bottom-dwelling foods, so they pop out of the water and look all around like people and it's adorable) and learned lots of things. Did you know the Shedd Aquarium has an Australian lungfish that has been there since it opened in 1933? His name is Granddad. Insane. We also learned that otters have the thickest fur of any animal on earth (with the possible exception of Robin Williams. Not really). There was also a special jellyfish exhibit where we learned about jellyfish blooms, which made me glad I don't live in a place where I regularly encounter jellyfish.

We also became members of the Art Institute and went twice, so it's already been worth it. The Chagall windows are back on display (Ferris Bueller FTW) and we probably could have spent a week in there without seeing everything we want to.

And of course we stopped at Millennium Park.

There is currently an exhibit at the Art Institute called Clown Torture. No, really.

We did not go in.

Some good friends live in Chicago (and The Husband lived there for a long time) so we met up at one of our favorite tapas spots before going to watch the Blackhawks lose (bah) at one of our favorite Chicago bars. We also figured out where our fellow Outlaws were going to be watching the US game, and met up with them to watch the US win, and generally lived it up.

Being in Chicago and in love is really lovely.

When we got home we started putting our house back together after four or five days of people coming in and out, bringing boxes of things to us. Unfortunately as soon as we got it back together we learned that our leaky roof was going to be worked on (finally) and we needed to take all our fragile things off and away from the walls so they didn't fall off and break while people were dropping heavy things in our attic and on the roof and shaking the entire house. So it's a mess again. Alas.

We picked up Beorn from the best pet sitter in Milwaukee. He had a pretty great week too, judging from how tired he is.

Sleeping sitting up is not normal for him, for the record. He was trying really hard to stay awake and hang out with us. Sweet little dude.

I have a ridiculous amount of photos I want to share featuring Chicago stuff and wedding stuff, so that'll be happening (sorry). If you ever wanted to know how to make an origami bouquet from comic books, I am here to help you.