Category: Clearing the Cache

Today is one day short of a milestone 100 days of us being married. I’m sure as time goes on, the number of days will not be as exciting after the number gets too big, but we’ll enjoy the “newness” of it for a while longer. The picture was actually taken on January 13, 2005 when it was 99 days until we got married, so it’s nice to reflect from the other side of the wedding day.

Jenni told me on a drive home from the park tonight that she loves that she gets to share life with me. More than just talk about experiences, dreams, and hopes, but striving, experiencing, and celebrating life together. I couldn’t agree more. We bought our first car last Saturday together and we’re pretty happy with it. Just like life, it has a few bugs, but with some debugging, we’ll get it operating well.

Also we’re launching a new look for our web site. I’ve been wanting to develop a web site using several of the new ideas from redesigning my work web site. The primary enhancements are more for my own learning, but it also provides a channel for Jenni to communicate on our web site too. I’m looking forward to reading what Jenni writes.

For those geeky in nature or interested in web technologies, here’s a quick rundown:

• Valid XHTML and CSS. Working toward web standards have been a big goal of mine, but also a big source of frustration. I’m old-school in doing layout with tables so I had unlearn those old habits and learn some new tricks. Using web standards allows me to work toward the model of separating content from presentation.
• WordPress Publishing System. I’ve wanted a blog for over a year. I actually created one on Google’s Blogger, but I felt it was too limiting. WordPress is one of the best blogging systems available. It’s open-source, very modular, and great documentation. It has forced me to adjust how I approach working with my site, but I think it allows our site to be ready for the future. Its template system allows me to swap in a new layout quickly when the time is right. Also, it’s been great hearing people enjoying learning about us from our web site during our wedding month. So now with a full-blown blog, we can receive comments too!
• Content is King. Now that both Jenni and I will be writing to our web site, hopefully that’ll mean we’ll have more interesting things to look at when people visit. We enjoy sharing about what God’s doing in our lives and we’re looking forward to reading the comments people write.

So here’s to 99 days and many more days to come. Happy reading everybody!

Hope everyone had a great Fourth of July weekend. Jenni and I spent it catching up with Clark and Mary at Oysterville. I have to confess that I’m always a little leery of the 2.5 hour drive. Yes, I know, it’s not much, but it’s still 2.5 hours on my behind staring at the world coming at me. But when I get to Oysterville, it’s all worth it.

It’s so relaxing to be away from the city and just be with nature. I enjoy the small beach house that Clark’s family owns because it’s cozy enough for everyone to gather around and talk but big enough for a sizeable party.

At any rate, it was a great weekend of enjoying the gorgeous weather, fellowship, photography, and loads of junk food. The stay is never long enough, but a great time to reflect on life when there’s nothing else around but peace.

Oh yeah, the drive doesn’t bother me anymore now that I have an awesome copilot I’m married to who reads me Chronicles of Narnia or dreams with me about dance, dance, and more dance!

Thanks to Jerry Hart, we have 1615 pictures from our wedding. Luckily, Jenni and I managed to cut it down to just under a 300 for your viewing enjoyment. It was such a great party! We are so happy that so many people were able to come celebrate. If you got any fun stories to share from that day, please let us know!

Married life is awesome. Things are going very well and we look forward to years and years growing together in Christ.

What an incredible honeymoon. Thanks to everyone who suggested Maui. It was gorgeous weather, relaxing scenery, and of course, my best friend as company. It was paradise. We had our fair share of adventures and we have a few to share through pictures!

Go to our photos to see our Maui honeymoon!

It’s hard to believe that Jennilyn and I have only been courting each other for a year. We’ve liked each other a little longer than that, but not much more. It’s exciting that so much blessing can come of one year.

We had a great anniversary on Valentine’s Day. The Portland Steak & Chophouse was packed so we had reservations at 9:15pm. It was fine at that hour, we enjoyed a more comfortable setting as people left and we were able to snap some great pictures. I’m lucky to have a girl who’s patient as I set up shots =)

February is half over now! The wedding isn’t far off… more to do!

Ah Halloween, the one day a year that people fund dentists their job securities dress up in costumes and pretend to be someone—or something— else. I’ve never been much for costumes, except when I was young because it meant I got free candy. As I grew older, I couldn’t go trick-and-treating unless I got dirty looks from people, so the costumes lost their appeal to me. But being married to Jennilyn comes with a young-at-heart spirit, so here I am getting in costume with Jenni at the Portland Swing Dance Club masquerade dance.

In celebrating our six month anniversary, we went to the dance at Norse Hall in our bride and groom attire, with some masks to hide our identities. Our friends in the dance community smiled and were very happy for our celebration.

Halloween this year is anti-climatic, but I’m not troubled by it at all. Jenni and I have had a long weekend bouncing around so we look forward to a quiet, peaceful Halloween where maybe some neighborhood kids from our apartment complex will visit us for treats—like carrots and celery.

Did a quick update to put our photos online. Had a great time this past weekend hanging out with Jennilyn for almost four days straight. Nothing better to end the visit than pumpkin carving. She was kind enough to give me a slimy handshake while we carved. This is the best pumpkin I’ve messed with. Funny faces…

Note: this post refers to our previous design of www.davidandjennilyn.com.

After a few more tweaks and changes, I’ve added our wedding information page in preparations for our “Save the Day” e-mails which have this web site’s URL printed on it. Most of the site’s content is to come but I wanted to get our site up.

Note: this post refers to our previous design of www.davidandjennilyn.com.

Amazing what inspiration can come from one source then another then another. I worked on this layout for many hours late into the night before a work day and was dissatisfied with how my paper prototype translated on the screen. Then after some feedback from Jennilyn and Clark, I grew to like it, especially after making the colors more consistent.

I also found a cool css rollover trick that got me to incorporate the design element I’ve admired from Adobe’s CS product packaging. The trick is pretty slick because it allows me to create a rollover using purely css, no javascript, and is quick. The idea behind is when someone hovers over the image, the lower image is ‘shifted up’ on-the-fly. This also alleviates the problem of preloading images so people don’t see blanks when the rollover image hasn’t been loaded. An example of one of the images is shown to the right, it used to be the “Photos” background, but I used the current one instead because it allowed me to use white lettering to better balance the entire navigational graphic.

It’s funny how creative things can get. Jennilyn and I have been trying to figure out what to do for our “Save the day” pre-invitation message to our friends who may need additional time to secure vacation and/or flights to come to our wedding. I remembered an idea I had about having a string tied to Jennilyn’s left hand, so that her engagement ring would be a visual indicator of our upcoming celebration. The string would represent remembering something important and special, and her finger would be pointing to our wedding day.