Museum Musings

When we moved to Santa Clara we were stunned that this lovely historic museum was right behind our house. The city purchased the farm and all it's contents a few decades ago - a lovely heritage for our town. On our daily walks past the museum, we decided that it would be the perfect spot for our wedding.
The trellis archway is where we'll have the wedding ceremony. The gardens are lovely year round with quite a collection of flowers and fruit trees - typical of the farms in this area that used to be known as The Valley of Hearts Delight with orchards running from east to west between the Santa Cruz and Diablo Mountains.

The tank house was brought from a farm where they recently built the new Kaiser hospital - where Kiera will have her baby! There was a tank house on the original property but it was demolished when the land was sold off into the lots that are now our neighborhood houses. The brick BBQ where Bill and Neil will be grillin' up chicken and portabello mushrooms is just behind the summer kitchen.


This view from the patio beside the house is where we'll set up tables and chairs for the wedding festivities and BBQ reception. The caterer had a great idea - to serve appetizers and beverages as people arrive around 2pm. That should assuage the afternoon heat and get everyone in a full mood for the ceremony which will be short. If you feel like coming early - just come on over and enjoy the gardens. There is a small parking lot in front of the museum on this side, and you can park along the street also. The surrounding lawns are where we'll have the kids set up games and the bubble wands.

Looking forward to seeing everyone here on August 18th!

Ceremonial Plans

Our fried Huck is helping us plan our wedding ceremony. Last month we spent an afternoon at Picchetti Winery in Cupertino hiking and talking about ideas for the ceremony that blends our Spiritual ideas from Buddhist and Naturalist traditions to weave a tapesty for our celebration.


Huck taught at Washington Manor Middle School with Margo and once retired, he's expanded his expertise in world travels, wood carving, drumming, massage therapy, alternative healing, and officiated at several weddings. Huck manifests spirituality in so many delightful ways. Here he holds his Emissary of the Doll card, which requests that we send him stories of how "worry dolls" manifest good energies to our lives.

During his last visit, Huck had each of us select a "worry doll" from a small bag, explaining the custom of Guatamalan woven dolls that "carry" the worries of their holder and promote healing. Margo put her worry doll to work when she took Greg to the ER for his kidney stone. Rather than worry about the complications in the past of the lengthy hospital procedures and healing time for kidney stones, she handed it over to the worry doll. The next day Greg passed his stone, which was quite unusual for him!


This Friday, Huck came down to help us finalize the ceremony details. We planned a Flower Ceremony, in which each guest will select a flower from the table bouquets and place it in a ceremonial bowl. The flowers transfer their energies to the water, which Huck distills into a special marriage aromatherapy for us. If you would like to select a special flower, you can check this list of flower essence qualities at this website: http://www.sacred-space.com.au/bach-flower-essences.html

Greg, Isaac, and Huck practiced a Drum Ceremony for the beginning of the wedding ceremony. Isaac and Gavin will be practicing to play a special Didgeridoo Heart Blessing.

After teaching two summer school Drawing classes, Margo got the idea from her students to make a wedding mandala for the program cover. Mandalas are spiritual icons fromBuddhist tradition. Their circular patterns and designs represent unity & completion to establish a sacred space. Students designed personal mandalas using favorite colors, shapes, animals, gem stone, and flowers. This student works on her mandala that incorporates a dolphin, sapphire, and sunset to represent her personality.Our wedding mandala will include a star sapphire, which represents heaven and loyal devotion, the lotus flower pattern from our wedding vests which represents enlightenment, the sun and moon for timelessness, and a pair of frolicing otters, which symbolize play, creativity and laughter.

In Sickness & Health

Greg had another kidney stone scare! He took the day off today to rest up from a very painful weekend. Conveniently he timed it for Sunday morning, so Margo could hang out at the ER with him. We read the introduction to the Dean Ornish diet and lifestyle program as the Toridal drip made life less painful. Hopefully the new approach will lead to healthier kidneys! He passed the stone last night, so we can bypass the ultrasound treatment this time around. Since he had the day off we drove over to the County Clerk's Office and picked up our marriage license. We found out that Monday's a good day to apply for a marriage license.




We walked right up to the window - no waiting or lines - and filled out the paperwork. So, surprisingly, the day allowed for one more detail to get checked off the wedding"to-do" list! We headed home to relax for the afternoon. Greg checked back into his favorite spot in our new outdoor living room. Maddy and Blaze, our two terriers, were fast on his heels for some rest time in a cushy spot.

Your Presence is Gift Enough

In this corner of our garden a Laughing Buddha and reflection ball bring us to the quiet spaces in our lives. We're blessed with wonderful families, friends, a lovely home, opportunities for travel, and work that we both love. We're grateful for an abundance of things that enrich our home and lives. Our relationship has been a gift of finding kindred spirits and making a joyful life together. On the wedding invitation we noted that "your presence is gift enough." We are delighted that you spend time with us to celebrate our life together, in August for the wedding, or in the future if you can't be here at that time to come and visit. If you feel the need to purchase a gift we request that you make a donation in our name to any one of the generous organizations that supports a sustainable environment, education & the Arts, and positive social change. Some of our favorites organizations for land preservation and positive social change are:

Penninsula Open Space Trust http://www.openspacetrust.org/

The Trust for Public Land http://www.tpl.org/

The Nature Conservancy http://www.openspacetrust.org/

In honor of Ryan Brendan Barry @ the American Foundation for the Prevention of Suicide

http://www.afsp.org/

The Australian-American Fulbright Commission

http://www.fulbright.com.au/

The Arts projects for the East Gippsland Aboriginal Arts Corporation

egaac@ozemail.com.au

Art Projects

Art projects are the focus of this summer. When Greg sat down to help assemble wedding invitations he stopped and asked in surprise, "Margo, what are you getting me into? This looks like some kind of weird art project!" Kiera looked at him and laughed. Well, duh! How long has Margo been making life into an art project? And why would the wedding be any different? So hopefully everyone received their collage invitation. Here are some of the returned ones with photos and lovely decorations to add to our wedding celebration. We're assembling the returned invitations into an art poster - so be sure to send it back with your additions! This is our dining room table - the workstation of the Arts - filled with the latest art projects.

Other art projects of the moment are the Fulbright memory book - printed copies were sent out to friends from the Oz Adventures (check out that blog at http://ozspotting.blogspot.com/) last week. The original pages will be assembled in an album - all 68 pages in full color! And the most recent art project is a book for Lisa's birthday titled Pear Dreams. It's the red album on the table with color pencil drawings of pears in each circle. The book is filled with mythically beautiful photos of Lisa that just begged for a story rather than simply a photo album.

Welcome Home

The old brick wall is now a lovely entry walkway. We built a "Peace Gate" with the kanji for peace in front and a "Happiness Gate" at the side entry with the kanji for happiness. Our house is the one that looks like a Bed & Breakfast with front and back gardens and decorative gates. The trellis is now grown over with wisteria and we put up a koinobodi - a giant fish kite flying from a tall bamboo pole. Can you guess that we love Japanese style architecture and decor? We dug a pond for turtles, frogs, and mosquito fish. Margo arranged 2 tons of rocks around the edges of the pond, and Greg installed a waterfall that looks like it comes from a creek behind our 100 foot redwood tree. Sheer delight - just ask the turtles! Bricks from the old wall were cleaned and arranged with various size stones to create a figure-eight walkway around the front gardens. A Buddha statue rests blissfully smiling in the midst of colorful flowers, the sound of waterfall, and hummingbirds and dragon flies buzzing about.

Garden Extravaganza

We're busy planting in new flowering additions to the back and front gardens. When we bought the house six years ago our vision was to have a home that felt like a vacation retreat every day! Greg rented a dumptruck and we hauled 12 cubic yards of compost to transform the surburban slab-o-lawns into a lush gardens and shade the view to the street. Two trellises, double decks in front and back, as well as a recycled brick wall turned into an old walkway, give the place a rustic and vintage feel.

Greg had the brilliant idea to get a Jacuzzi so we bought a Shoji-style cabana that doubles as a spa and guest house. If you are coming to the wedding - don't forget your swim suit. Inside is room for a futon couch that converts to a double bed for guests. At Christmas we had the pleasure of hosting Bill's family from Wisconsin and Paris and 8 guests was no worries, so we're looking forward to a housfeul of wedding guests.