Lego Caketopper

I'm just about recovered from my back sprain, thanks to the loving care of Liz, as well as some excellent treatment from her friend who is a naturopathic doctor and also a licensed acupuncturist. While my plans of fitting into my tuxedo pants have been derailed, my time resting at home provided some time to finish my design of a Lego caketopper for our wedding cake.

My Lego interest is something I've rekindled in the past several years. I remember spending many mornings as a kid making spaceships with my brother, and then in the afternoon having our spaceships and their crew wage epic battles with space monsters (which were stuffed animals) and space aliens (which were just mini-figs with a brick for a head). But one day our parents gave away all of our Legos to their friends' younger children, so I stopped playing with them during college and law school.

In the past couple of years, I've focused on building pre-designed Lego Star Wars sets, and making modifications to them to make them more movie-accurate, or to add features to the sets. I've also built a couple of my own models (My Own Creation or MOCs).

When I design my own models, I usually make them from scratch without the aid of design software. I tried using a software program called Lego Digital Designer (downloadable for free from The Lego Company website) to make a version of Anakin Skywalker's personal starfighter (the Azure Angel), but abandoned my design without finishing.

However, I decided to give Digital Designer another try for purposes of building the caketopper for our wedding cake. The basic concept is a white-colored, Valentine's Day-style heart. There is translucent red lettering that says "Eugene + Liz" on either side of the heart.

Also, beneath the two mounds at the top, there is space for bride and groom Lego mini-figs to sit. It's not apparent from the outside, but I did some somewhat fancy designing to create as much hollow space as possible within the heart to decrease the weight of the model (so the model can safely sit on top of the cake).

Here are some images of the design prototype, from a couple of different angles. I've just finished ordering all of the pieces, so it'll be about a week or so before I can assemble the actual model. The real thing will look a little different from these pieces, and will have the bride and groom mini-figs, but these images provide a sense of what the model will look like.

Injured backs but Happy Hearts

We are getting so close to the wedding! Although there is a lot of little things to do, each time we complete something ourselves I always stand back and am happy that a piece of us really went into our big day.

I am so proud of Eugene's creative side. As I've mentioned before on this blog, he is a lego engineer and he just finished designing our cake topper! I cannot wait for you all to see it! It is so cute and will really bring a special touch to our cake. We've really tried to make the style of our wedding modern but playful... therefore the lego love. I think that those words even represent us as a couple :)

On a not so good note: To get in shape for the wedding, Eugene, some of the wedding party and friends have been doing boot camp! I love it but we had a grueling test and Eugene injured his back :( He is feeling progressively better. I was worried there for awhile. But, taking care of him has been some great time for us to enjoy each other's company. Its been quality time that we needed to talk but also to just share how much we love each other.

I am so happy to be seeing all my family and friends soon! Each day I get nervous but excited! Everyone has so many good wishes that it is easy to forget all the stress for that day.

Boot Camp

Liz and I started an exercise "boot camp" this past Monday. It's held at the Los Angeles Athletic Club in downtown L.A. Two of Liz's bridesmaids are also participating in the boot camp.

Classes are every Monday evening, Wednesday evening, and Saturday morning. The boot camp lasts for six weeks; Liz and I will miss the last two weeks because we'll be on our honeymoon :)

After our second class tonight, I'm pretty wiped out. Our instructor wears a military-type jersey and an army hat. He makes people do 25 push-ups if they are late to the class, don't follow his instructions, or forget other students' names. He's tough.

I hope the rigors of being an exercise grunt are worth it! I've done one spin class in my life, and had a couple of sessions from a personal trainer. Other than that, I've never done any sort of organized exercise class before, and have always done running and weights on my own.

My goal is to lose a couple of inches from my tummy. The pants on the tuxedo I bought a couple of months ago are too tight :( So I either have to trim my love handles, or get my tuxedo pants let out. Either way, with only 30 days until the wedding, it's literally crunch time.

Our Last Anniversary as an Unmarried Couple

Last evening Liz and I celebrated the two-year anniversary of our first date. We went to Ortolan, a top-rated French restaurant in Los Angeles. The chef at Ortolan is Christophe Émé, who also owns the restaurant together with his partner, actress Jeri Ryan.

Both Liz and I enjoyed a sumptuous eight-course tasting. Preceding the tasting was a champagne toast and a flavorful amuse bouche served in test tubes, including a black truffle concoction. Liz's favorite course was the beef carpaccio served on top of cucumber gelee, and mine was the foie gras dunked in mushroom soup. I got the wine pairing for my tasting as well, and thoroughly appreciated all of the selections provided by the sommelier.

The service from everyone at the restaurant was impeccable, and we enjoyed the French accents of our waiter and the sommelier. Also, the decor was very romantic. I took particular note of the high-backed booth we were seated at, which gave us a feeling of intimate seclusion.

When I made the reservation, I let the restaurant know that it was a special occasion, and we were appreciative of the attention that the staff gave us, such as congratulating us on our anniversary. But we were surprised when at the end of our meal, our waiter delivered a complimentary collection of desserts, including a blow-your-mind rum cake and a "happy anniversary" placard made of chocolate (sorry for the darkness of the photo). And this was in addition to the assortment of chocolate wonders that came with the tasting!

All in all, the restaurant and its staff provided us with an experience that lived up to its Michelin rating. Soon Liz and I will have a new anniversary to celebrate, and we look forward to more experiences like the one we had last night!

Our Wedding Shower

We wanted to thank our friends and family who made our wedding shower a special occasion for Liz and me. We especially want to express our gratitude to the organizers of the shower, including the maid of honor, the other bridesmaids, the best man and the other groomsmen, and our friends Max and Mari. Also, a big thank you to Sue for taking photos and making these wonderful collages.

Wedding Invitation

Here's a photo of our wedding invitation (sorry for the blocked out text!). We think it turned out quite well!


We have an extremely large amount of appreciation for our letter press saint, Cristiana, who designed the invitation and also produced it. I really like the Lego elements in the heart :)

We've received a lot of support from friends and family during the wedding planning process. It's heartening to have this support, and makes us excited for the future.

Adventures in Babysitting

Today Liz and I babysit our friends’ nine-month year old baby boy. We were there for about four hours this afternoon. It was my first time babysitting ever, and I was struck by three things. The first is a reminder of how soft a baby’s head is!

The second is how much work raising a baby must be. I have many friends who have children and I have an abstract sense of how much effort being a parent takes, but taking care of a baby by ourselves, even for only four hours, allowed me for the first time to get a first-hand sense of what it takes. Both Liz and I were pretty spent after we finished our shift (although we love the baby and enjoyed spending time with him very much). We changed the baby’s diaper twice, fed him three times, put him down for a nap, and took him for a stroll around the block, plus the constant watching of him when he was playing with his toys. It was a lot different than when I volunteered during high school one day a week at a daycare center, where all I had to do was pick up babies when they started crying.

The most stressful moment was after we fed him the first time. After he was done eating, we put him on the ground and he resumed playing with his toys. But after a few minutes, he started making little crying sounds. I picked him up and rocked him a little, which quieted him down, but when I put him down again, he started crying again, not bawling, but small crying sounds. It was very difficult seeing his eyes fill with water, with a tear streaking his cute face, as he looked at me expectantly. He must have assumed that I knew what was wrong with him, and that I would fix it.

But after a while, he realized I didn’t know what was wrong, and he started crying a lot. It was a little bit scary because we weren’t sure whether something was really wrong. Finally we checked his diaper, and we realized we needed to change him.

The third thing I was struck by was how well Liz attended to the baby. She seemed like a natural, for example, when she patiently fed him with spoons of carrot sauce, with much of it ending up on his face and bib. Looking back at this afternoon, I can see us raising our own baby, and visualize how great of a parent Liz will be. It makes me look forward even more to starting a family with her.

All in all, it was a busy but rewarding afternoon and we had a wonderful time babysitting our friends’ baby!