This blog is typically all about Selena and I, but I wanted to take a minute to express how excited I am for my brother Jeff, who over the holidays finally popped the question to his long-time girlfriend, Katie.

Now making it about me ... [ more ]]]>

My brother Jeff and his fiance' Katie

This blog is typically all about Selena and I, but I wanted to take a minute to express how excited I am for my brother Jeff, who over the holidays finally popped the question to his long-time girlfriend, Katie.

Now making it about me again.

I don’t know that Jeff and Katie know how often I get asked “When are they going to get married?”, and for the longest time I’ve been able to point out an event or goal in the future that they are focusing on first, such as:

• They want to wait until Katie graduates from school / finds a job / finds a different job
• They didn’t want to pull focus from Selena and my engagement / wedding / announcing of the baby
• They want to get settled into their new careers/ new house
• They want to wait until after Ben comes back form NZ / Katie comes back from LA / hell freezes over.

And then right when I was starting to run out of milestones to prioritize on their behalf first, Jeff goes ahead and asks Katie to marry him.

We couldn’t be happier for their engagement and to have Katie officially become a member of the family.

“Hi everyone, I’m Greg, and if you don’t know me it may be because you started working here in January and I’ve ... [ more ]]]> On Friday, January 29th I was standing beside a big projection screen in front of the entire company of The Motley Fool. I took a deep breath and began:

“Hi everyone, I’m Greg, and if you don’t know me it may be because you started working here in January and I’ve been out most of the month on my Fool’s Errand.”

“I think the Fool’s Errand is a fantastic initiative. I had the most remarkable and rewarding time. But wait, this is The Motley Fool, we don’t evaluate success based just on word of mouth. No, we look at the numbers. So I submit to you, Fool’s Errand – The Report.”

“All right, let’s dive right in.”

“I spent the first half of the trip moving into my new home. You can see in the upper left a chart of which level of my home I spent time unpacking. It turned out most of the work needed was in the attic and basement. Notice here too the number of boxes left to unpack: one. I’m very proud of that.”

“Enough about moving in, lets go on to the road trip. I drove down to Florida with my wife and my puppy, 2969 miles in total. I am presuming that’s expendable, I’ll be submitting an reimbursement report later today.”

“You can see here a breakdown of where I slept each night of the Fool’s Errand, about half in my home, and then a little less with relatives and less still in hotels and B&Bs including SoBe You in South Beach which I highly recommend and La Quinta in Savannah which… well, not so much.”

“While in Florida we travelled down to the Florida Keys and then back to Orlando to spend some time with family. We did hit all four Disney parks in one day. You can see in the lower right here a breakdown of time spent in each park, pretty balanced Disney experience. Also, I want to call attention to this score right here, 39 or -14. Yes, I played a sick game of mini golf  and held the low score of the day at Fantasia Gardens.”

“The weather was surprisingly cold, you see here 19 degrees in Orlando. The locals found that novelty fun and interesting. Me… not so much, I knew cold, I left cold back in DC, I wanted some warmth, which did come towards the end of the trip, 78 degrees on the last days in Orlando.”

“Let’s talk about what I ate while I was away. I totally recommend Puerto Sagua in South Beach for excellent Cuban food, and hey, did you know that there is still a Bennigans in operation in Orlando?! I was so excited to get to have a Monte Cristo sandwich again.”

“You can see her a breakdown of what I drank. We all know it’s important that we have a nice variety of beverages, and I think I achieved that here.”

“Now, exercise… let’s not talk about exercise, wasn’t much to speak of.”

“Ah, entertainment, yes. I highly recommend the Finding Nemo Stage Show in Animal Kingdom, it is Broadway caliber, by far the best thing I watched while I was away. And the worst… that would be my Eagles losing to the Cowboys twice while I was away. Ugh, Cowboys.”

“Oh, there’s my dog. I am very happy about this number, zero accidents in the house or car, she finally became housebroken during this trip. I will also point out this number here, six attacks by poodles. I don’t know what the deal with ShihTzus and Poodles but there is some bad blood there.”

“Finally, if I may tell a quick story, two years ago my wife and I got married on a very warm day in the Florida Keys, and a staff member at the resort, trying to be helpful, put our cake, well actually cake topper, in the freezer to keep when it should have been out thawing. When it came time to cut the cake it was frozen solid, there was no penetrating it. So, my wife and I never got to eat our wedding cake.”

“Knowing I had this opportunity  of the Fool’s Errand, I convinced my wife to join me on the trip to Florida, and we contacted that same bakery and ordered that same cake, and we went to that same spot on the resort where we married. It was two years late, but we finally got to enjoy our wedding cake. And it was damn good too.”

“That alone made this whole Fool’s Errand worthwhile, so thank you The Motley Fool for providing me this opportunity, and thank you all for letting me share my experiences with you today.”

And with that I returned to my seat, smiling, knowing that I had made the most of my Fool’s Errand and the most of presenting it back to the people at The Motley Fool.

Today is our one year anniversary, and Selena and I are as happy today as the day we got married a year ago on that beach in the Florida. Keys.  You probably have seen some of the pictures, you may have even taken a few, but ... [ more ]]]> Happy Anniversary to us.

Today is our one year anniversary, and Selena and I are as happy today as the day we got married a year ago on that beach in the Florida. Keys.  You probably have seen some of the pictures, you may have even taken a few, but only in the past couple months could did we finally compile a complete album of all the wedding photos, because only recently did we finally recieve our professional wedding photos.

After the wedding, the photographer was supposed to get our photos turned around to us in twelve weeks. Unfortunately a tragic event happened, (her house burnt down). While that did not destroy our photos, they were in the lab being processed, it was so devastating to our photograther and her son, that she had to prioritize rebuilding their life over fulfilling her obligations and the result was many people’s photos including ours got delayed.

So, we were supposed to be able to post our wedding photos around Christmas, instead it took significantly longer, but alls well that ends well, because we have the photos now, and you can see the best of the photos on our Flickr group “Greg and Selena.”   And we added a few below here as well.

Enjoy.

 

All these photos and more can be viewed at Greg and Selena.”

 

 

 

I really like this plan.

About 8 years ago, Duke and ... [ more ]]]> We’ll be up in Delaware for the wedding for our good friend Duke and Lauren’s wedding; but unlike every other trip to Delaware ever, we won’t be staying with the parents or siblings or friends, we are staying in a hotel.

I really like this plan.

About 8 years ago, Duke and I flew out to Nebraska for our friend Rich’s wedding. We had a blast, and decided that was in no small part due to all us fun guests staying in the same hotel together for the weekend. When you get all these fun people in one place for longer than just the three hours, but overnight or for a weekend, all in a celebratory mood, it can not help but become something memorable.

We agreed that we push for that for our own weddings.

Selena and I did more than push, we sort of forced this issue by having the wedding in the Keys. And we have been told it was pretty memorable, so the theory still holds.

As of tomorrow all the usual troublemakers will be descending on the DoubleTree in Wilmington for the wedding weekend. I have little doubt that this wedding weekend will prove the theory right again.

This blog was started to capture all the discoveries Greg and Selena had ... [ more ]]]> As we get ready to say goodbye to 2007, we want to take a moment to remember the year that was, as described through Greg and Selena’s blog:

Top Seven things about 2007

7. We discovered more about each other.

This blog was started to capture all the discoveries Greg and Selena had once they moved in together. Some of the early classics include Selena’s fear of running out of tuna , Greg’s belief that dryer balls work, and Selena’s insistence of turning around the silverware tray some of which even were worked into our wedding vows.

So what would 2007 bring? A few samples include Greg learning that Selena doesn’t know how a dishwasher works, and Selena discovered that all guys (even her beloved Sawyer) secretly have a hidden knowledge of something ridiculously geeky – most likely Star Wars lore.

The top comments received about these discoveries came from Kitty in regard to Greg claiming the inner geek rant was a cheap excuse for Selena to put a picture of a hot guy on the blog.

Hey- if she wants to post a picture of some hot guy (Chris O’Donnell) on her blog, there’s nothing wrong with that! You keep on posting those hot picks, Selena (of Chris O’Donnell)… do it! (Chris O’Donnell : )

And Tanya who became disappointed to realize she was not being referenced in the same blog post.

I quickly scanned the post and saw the term “TAWN-TAWN” After reading the post, I realized you were not going to reference me, but in fact a star wars animal.

6. We found our Horcruxes

As Harry Potter and Pals tried to solve the case of the mysterious ticking noise stop Voldemort, Selena and Greg got to wondering into what seven items they would split their souls? Selena’s included her VW Bug, cupcakes and her ratty-ass kitty doll. Greg’s included his TiVo and his new iPhone.

The top comment received about the Horcruxes came from Danielle

I object to the use of term “ratty-ass” to describe gross kitty!

5. We watched a lot of TV

Greg and Selena didn’t blog nearly as much as they could have about television, this year they shook up the TiVo, let go of a few old shows, picked up a few new ones, and spent way way way too much time thinking about our favorite Heroes superpowers

The top comments about TV watching came in regards to those Heroes superpower breakdowns. From Heather:

[O]ne person that you omitted because she was on for like two episodes. Hana Gitelman. Her powers is one I would want so I could check my email while I was driving.

And from Joanna:

I guess people would say I’m a lot like Jessica/Nikki with my whole split personalities, remember the Christmas party? Who was that?

4. We dealt with real issues

These don’t get as many hits or as many comments as some of the other topics on this list, but it’s a good feeling when, without getting too preachy, this blog acts as an advocate for a good cause. Greg did this on a very small scale in December offering advice and insight about de-cluttering, but the major groundbreaking post was Selena opening up on the blog and expressing her disdain for offensive speech and jokes towards people with mental handicaps.

The top comment was from Stef.

This is a really great post. Thank you for sharing something so personal, which is a good reminder for all of us to be cognizant of our words.

3. Oops!

On a lighter note, Greg had a few missteps including (potentially) offended I. Scotter Libby when he and others shouted terrorist and un-American in Scoot’s presence (the insults were meant for Selena, because she doesn’t love Tom Hanks). And Greg made further bad choices that resulted in scared the hell out of Selena, one time swiftly coming up behind her on the dark walk home from the Metro and again on the Honeymoon when he yelled “Boogedy, Boogedy Boogedy” to signal he was already in the room.

The top comment was from Jenny.

That’s hilarious! Boogedy… who says that?!

2. We decided who was hot

If this top seven things of the year was based off of sheer response, this one would be number one by a landslide. In January ‘07, Selena generated a 64 person single-elimination bracket to determine who Greg considered was the hottest female celebrity (Greg’s finals has Kiera Knightly just lose out to Charlize Theron). The success of this quickly spawned a second hottest mail celebrity bracket (Selena gave the crown to Sawyer, only because she didn’t include Chris O’Donnell).

While the brackets were a hit (and hopefully will resurface updated in 2008), they did not come without criticism. The top comments about the brackets were from Duke:

Who the hell seeded these people?!?!? The matchups were completely messed up. And how did some of these people make the tournament (i.e Debra Messing) and Maria Sharapova not?

And Erich (in response to Greg’s finals)

I think they both pretty much suck.

1 We got married

Surely it is anti-climatic and rather obvious that the number one thing about 2007 according to gregandselena.com is that Greg and Selena got married. Whole pages of this site were devoted to the wedding preparations and pictures, and 40% of the posts this year were also wedding related, including describing the Hurricane concerns, inquiring for the best wedding tunes (Cha Cha Slide explicitly excluded), determining when to open wedding gifts, exploring the sand castle options, documenting the Vows, highlighting the ceremony and reception, and of course ruling out the need for Dolphin Escorts.

The top comment regarding the Dolphin Escorts was from Dancer in DC

I must say I’m a bit disappointed I won’t see this. Are you sure you won’t consider a scaled-down version? Field mice, perhaps?

And that, in a nutshell was 2007. Thank you for reading this far down this unending blog post the Greg and Selena blog in 2007, and here’s hoping you will be back for more insights, stories and discoveries from Selena and Greg in 2008.

Happy New Years!

So when we were on a jeep safari on our honeymoon, and we stopped at a fruit stand for some samples from a local farmer, who happened to have a pet snake, I ... [ more ]]]> Selena is afraid of three kinds of snakes: live ones, dead ones and sticks that look like snakes. 

So when we were on a jeep safari on our honeymoon, and we stopped at a fruit stand for some samples from a local farmer, who happened to have a pet snake, I kept my eye on Selena trying to gauge how far she would run and hide. 

To my complete surprise, she didn’t run, she didn’t scream, she didn’t back away. As the farmer wore his pet curled around his arm, Selena got up the courage to walk up and actually touch the snake.  I think in my disbelief, I took a thousand pictures, to document my new wife taking the first step (and a pretty huge step at that) towards overcoming her greatest fear.

In the frustrating months when we were trying to figure out where, when and how were were going to get married, Greg had asked, “Don’t all little girls dream about their wedding day? Haven’t you had this all planned out since childhood? Don’t you have some sort of wedding ... [ more ]]]>

In the frustrating months when we were trying to figure out where, when and how were were going to get married, Greg had asked, “Don’t all little girls dream about their wedding day? Haven’t you had this all planned out since childhood? Don’t you have some sort of wedding notebook?” No, not really. And that surprised Greg and myself a little too. But then I thought about it and realized that maybe I did have some expectations. I guess I always envisioned a 12-course meal, myself in a red dress, squid, hundreds of my dad’s closest friends, a glamour shot photo session of myself and my husband to be, a karaoke machine, a bottle of bourbon as a centerpiece with people drinking out of it every moment they got and red everywhere.

Last Sunday, we had a Chinese banquet for mostly my side of the family, and I got what I’ve always pictured, more or less. I also came to the realization that the bride and groom are merely props in what is really the family’s day. My dad’s face in every picture was absolutely priceless.

Do also note the BRILLIANT art direction (ahem…by ME) on our glamour shot. Photo by Dean Kang, but that’s secondary.