A Laborious Day

With only a couple of weeks until the wedding, this past Labor Day weekend Ingrid rounded up our friends and family to gather footage for a video we planned to show at our wedding. As luck would have it, it was the hottest weekend of the year... I mean blisteringly hot. We haven't installed central air in the house, waiting to see how hot the house would be in the summer, and boy did we find out. The heat that day was simply unbearable. And to make things worse, many windows in our house are broken and don't open, so all the heat was trapped inside. Fabulous.



But the heat couldn't stop us from enjoying some great carne asada and each other's company as we all tried to stay as cool as we could.



Ingrid had planned to have our engagement pictures, which were long overdue, taken that day. I couldn't believe it. There's no better time to take pictures of me than when I'm drenched in sweat, which is what was guaranteed to happen within minutes after stepping out into the sun. And to make things worse, Ingrid had planned to take pictures up at Griffith Observatory, but that weekend, the observatory was closed to visitors. Ingrid suggested we just hike up. Now let me tell you that while the observatory is admittedly only a short drive away, to hike there is an entirely different story... especially on such a hot day. Knowing Ingrid's plan in advance, I took a preliminary scouting trip to see if the reports were true, and as you can see, it appeared they were. With the thought of hiking on my mind, I circled around the area desperately searching for a back road up to the observatory, and miraculously, I found one. Whew!



As Ingrid and I left to take our pictures, the videographer for our wedding (who is amazing, by the way), took video of our closest friends and family.



I couldn't wait to hear the sweet and complimentary things my mom and dad had to say about me, but I guess I would have to wait until the wedding.



Ingrid too, would have to wait to hear the wonderful things her Aunt, mom, dad and good friends said about her.



After a couple of hours of terrible heat up at the observatory, we came back to the house to rejoin the others. Sebastian wanted to go for a walk in the park, so all of the guys took him out for a quick tour of the area. We saw a turtle, squirrels, fish and some shrimp-like creatures during our brief stroll.



Even near the stream and under the trees, it was tremendously hot so we had to convince Sebastian that it was time to turn around. He clearly wasn't thrilled at the idea. Despite the extreme heat that day, everyone soldiered through and made their contributions to the video. I knew then that everyone's hard work would be worth it.