Information on Puerto Rico...

As many of you already know we will be getting married in Lisa’s hometown of Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico on June 13, 2009.

If you feel that you will not be able to come to Puerto Rico for our wedding, please know that we will not be offended. All we ask is that you let us know early enough so we can have a realistic estimate of who will be there, so we can adequately prepare not just for the wedding and reception but for transportation and lodging.

The wedding reception will be held at a small beach hotel, where you will be able to stay. The hotel has a pool, and a restaurant, but the restaurant is not open for breakfast. This is a good time to mention that Puerto Rico is part of the US, but it is NOT the US. San Juan is a lot like Miami, which is to say it is very American with lots of Latin flavor. But, Cabo Rojo is as far away from San Juan as you can get and still be in Puerto Rico. There are no big chain hotels, the roads are not the greatest, and the rules tend to be a bit different. When you are in Cabo Rojo you are in Latin America, make no mistake about it. The hotel is a nice hotel, but when Michael and Ann (his mom) stayed there they had some issues with the hot water. The room did not have a coffee maker, or a hair dryer, but it did have TV with cable and a small fridge. You would have your own bathroom, usually with a stand up shower, and if you pay for the more expensive room it will have two full size beds, and some soap and shampoos and stuff, as well as a balcony. However, the accommodations will not be what you are used to in the US in every other Best Western. Michael and I will do our best to guide you through what to expect, so there are no surprises. Feel free to call or email with questions.

We will also send you information on other lodging options should you decide that you want to stay somewhere different. Boqueron has many options for lodging, but there are no Hiltons, Holiday Inns or Marriots. There are different options to stay on the water at places where you could have your own kitchen and prepare your own meals, but you will need a car to come to and from the hotel for the reception. I have no way of knowing how much it will cost you to go to Puerto Rico in June of 2009. However, another friend has bought her tickets and they were $282 round trip from Atlanta to San Juan for June 12-15. Go Sandy!

Before you make up your mind on whether or not you will attend, please visit the links at the end of this email for more information. We will like to ask our guests to consider not bringing any small children. Our reception will have lots of music, and not all will be suitable for children. There will also be lots of dancing as well as alcohol. The wedding ceremony will be at a breathtakingly beautiful spot, but as you will see, we cannot be held responsible for children at a location such as this.

The ceremony will be (if we get the stupid permit) at:

http://www.caborojopr.com/los-morillos-lighthouse-pictures-cabo-rojo-puerto-rico.html

The reception will be at:

http://www.westernbayhotels.com/

For more information on Puerto Rico:

http://welcome.topuertorico.org/index.shtml

For more information on Cabo Rojo:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabo_Rojo,_Puerto_Rico

or

http://www.portadelsolpuertorico.com/cabo-rojo.html

Lot’s of love, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Lisa & Michael

Happy New Year!

Happy Holidays to all of you who are celebrating something! And to those who are not, I ain't mad at 'cha!

I just celebrated my 35th birthday and I am feeling pretty good about it. I'm feeling even better about 2009! I am sorry I have been kind of slack on the updates. Grad school has been hectic. I am happy to report that I am finished with classes and my comprehensive exams, so all I need now is a thesis and I will be a Master... I mean have a masters. Who am I kidding, I already am a master!

We did not send any cards for the holidays because we are very very self involved people as all of you know. I have quite a few things on my plate and Michael... is Michael. Next year, I promise.

I just wanted to wish every one a happy 2009, and to let you know that before I get bogged down by writing I will send more info on the wedding. More coming soon...

Much love always,
Lisa & Mike (& Vito)

Tickets to Puerto Rico are pretty cheap

My dear friend Tammy was the first to inform me that she purchased a ticket to go to our wedding. Go Tammy! She has a lot of sky miles so wanted to cash them in before she lost some in the recent merger. Anyway, long story short, her ticket was free but she informed me that if she had paid for it it would have been $280! I went in to check and sure enough, round trip from Atlanta to San Juan fluctuated from $286- 319. I didn't bother with all the details so I am not sure if it was direct or had a stop in Florida ( which is common). The point is, if you are a planner like Tammy, and you know for sure you are going for a long weekend for my wedding, you could start looking now. I will send more information on hotel accommodations soon. The wedding is set for 6/13- with bachelor/rette parties on the 11th. If you wanted to be a part of that too, keep this in mind when reserving your flight.

The airport code for San Juan is "SJU". Their is a closer airport to my home town in Aguadilla, with the airport code of "BQN". This airport would be a shorter drive to my town of Cabo Rojo, but the flight might be slightly more expensive. Delta does fly direct to BQN from Atlanta, but my search in Travelocity gave me a quote of $570. If it is your first time in Puerto Rico, you might be wanting to see San Juan anyway, but just to let you know there is another option.

More soon, and by the way the picture is of the sunset in Cabo Rojo, where Michael, his mother and my parents had dinner our last night there. Gorgeous, isn't it?

Lisa

Barack Obama Wins Race for Davis-Ayala Pet

After a long and hard campaign punctuated with vicious attacks from the Canine party, Barack Obama has won the race for the Davis-Ayala pet. It ends a truly rags to riches tale that is quintessentially American. At many times during the campaign season there were serious doubts as to whether or not the Feline party could mount a serious challenge to the dominance of the Canine party. The Canines had enjoyed dominance in the pet landscape of the Davises for almost two decades, and never had there been a black feline pet. But his campaign based mainly on pity captured the hearts of many independents. And in a last minute crossover vote, Michael cast the deciding ballot in favor of the feline. Explaining his vote, Michael simply said “I couldn’t let the little bugger starve.” In his acceptance speech, Barack was characteristically eloquent and brief, saying very simply “meow.” He then returned to his victory feast of Whiskas Tuna Dinner. Transition plans are being drawn up now, which include a trip to the veterinarian and house training. Despite this early victory, the canine party insists that Barack will someday have to share power. But for now, the little fellow can sleep a little easier.

Written by Michael Davis

Flying to Puerto Rico

Hey People!

I am sending a quick note for all of you who have never been to Puerto Rico. There will be more info later on (when I am done with comps) I will probably send you better details. Since I started distributing the stds I have gotten a lot of questions about flying to Puerto Rico. The flight non stop from ATL to SJU (San Juan) is about three and a half hours.

I cannot guarantee a price for travel for June of 2009. However, in the last 5 years I have been to Puerto Rico three times in June, and my tickets have always been around $300-375 round trip from Atlanta. If you are seriously considering coming to my beautiful "Patria", and I hope you will, keep in mind this estimate so you can budget ahead. I cannot guarantee prices of course, but that is my average.

Also, I have a group discount from American Airlines available (5%), I will send more info on that later. I looked into Delta, but their group discounts are available for groups who are flying on the same itinerary. If there are a group of 7 or more who intend to fly together, we can sign up for this. Michael and I are probably not flying there together so I thought this was a bit impractical. I usually just buy my tickets through one of the online sights and I do pretty good.

That's it for now.
Peace!

Save the date (STD for short)

Saturday night, almost 9 pm. I fnished one book and read another one. Yes the whole book. OK, it was only 110 pages, but still, that's a whole book! Moving on to book 10 of 16 before comps. I also finished the STDs yesterday and spent some time today printing them in English and in Spanish, no es fácil... So I have decided to start addressing them to send them out in the mail soon. Those of you who will get this blog are advised that the STDs will not come all at once. I am waiting on many mailing addresses still, so they will have to go out as they go out.

Some of you might be wondering what does Training Day have to do with all this. Well, Michael si reading the Wall Street Journal. So everytime I try to engage him in conversation, about the wedding, school, or what the particular song reminds me of, he says:
"This is a newspaper, it is 90% bullshit, but it entertains me... you won't let me read it..."

Save the date June 13th, 2009... coming soon to a mailbox near you.

Blogging

So Mike and I are getting married in 260 something days according to the knot. It is Sunday September 21st, 9:30 or so. Michael and have been drinking a somewhat cheap wine and are sorta kinda watching TV, but not really. Although The West Wing was a damn good show. Michael is really reading "The Road to Serfdom" by Hayek, and I am trying to do this blog thing. Which neither of us has done before.

Planning a wedding is not easy, especially when you are trying to finish your Master's and maintain a full time job. I guess I should mention Mike is trying to run a business. Neither of us is very big on the this stuff. We are not very interested in wedding web sites (hence the blog) or choosing wedding colors. We just want to get married, and have a great party. This blog is our attempt to keep people informed of the developments in our wedding plans. We want to warn you that there may be some curse words in this blog, as well as many weeks may go by between posts. Please don't expect either of us to be too traditional in any of this wedding business, and don't expect our wedding to be traditional either. As I had said before, we mostly just want to get married and have a party. I also want to say this wedding, as well as the blog will be quite bilingual, so if you do not speak Spanish just be patient and keep an open mind. There are things that can only be said in Spanish carajo!

Anyway, if you are receiving these updates it is because you are eventually getting an invitation and Mike and I love you (or at least one of us does).

Mike wants to mention a quote by F.A. Hayek, but I won't let him right now. I can't promise capitalist propaganda won't get through later.

To be continued...