On the Road to a Business

We have finally come up with a name for my cards & invitations "business"!! Over the past couple of years, we've brainstormed, we've thesaurus-ed, we've researched other sites. Some of the ones we liked were: Paper Trails, Paper Arrangements, Inklings, Eventations ... thinking we were SO creative with all of them, only to find they were already taken, or just knew our minds could come up with something better. Well, we have!! Aaron thought of it this morning and I quickly worked on a logo idea and think we may run with it - so here's the unveiling (drum-roll, please ...) :


(I hope to get some help on cleaning up the logo and getting a quality format to use for everything)

Now that we came up with a name, we've purchased a domain name - www.paper-seeds.com. And I will be making wedding invitations for an old co-worker of mine who has agreed to do a trade-off with me and create my website! (And another old co-worker who is offering to help as well ... nice to have programmer friends!) Aaron is going to start the research for starting our own business and I should be on my way by the end of the year! Very exciting, yet a bit scary at the same time. But if business picks up well enough - I may need to hire friends and family to help me on some of the bigger jobs - I don't offer good benefits, but I DO allow some drinking on the job! ;)

So there it is, I thought I'd share this with all of you since it's a big step for me. Let me know what you think of the name and logo - I'd love some feedback!

Professional Pics

Here are the professional pics we decided to purchase on the honeymoon (in addition to the crazy group one in the last post). We went a little overboard, but we'll only honeymoon once, right?!

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We also got our caricatures done - look just like us, don't they?!  

Back on Solid Ground

Well, we had hoped to update our blog from sea, but that proved to be impossible with the ship's WiFi ... I tried and tried with no luck. Sorry to those of you who were looking forward to it. ;)

For a quick review of our honeymoon trip - it was a great, relaxing 12 days on the Explorer of the Seas. We've gone down the Atlantic, into the Caribbean to visit 7 beautiful islands, and back up the East Coast to return home. During that time, we zip-lined through a rain forest of Antigua, toured waterfalls and many other areas of Dominica, mountain biked through the sugar cane fields and neighborhoods of St. Kitts, relaxed on beautiful beaches in Barbados and St. Thomas, walked down the boardwalk in St. Maarten and toured a historic fort in San Juan. We met some great people, went to a cheesy honeymooner's party, loved the perks of the Grand Suite with 3.5 hours of free drinks each night (me, a little too much a couple of times!), we attended a Murder Mystery dinner in the ship's Italian restaurant, played ship shuffleboard, stuffed ourselves silly ... and I found out from a number of strangers that I have shiny hair!?! lol

Here are some pics from our trip that show the above adventures - (I'll send the big batch of photos on Kodakgallery):

~St. Maarten, Netherland Antilles~

~St. Johns, Antigua~

Looking calm in front of the rainforest we're about to dangle over

The nerves hit me after gearing up

Tarzan & Jane Lewis!!

~Roseau, Dominica~

In front of one of the Trafalgar Falls -"Mama Falls"

Overlooking the city of Roseau

~Bridgetown, Barbados~

The view from our umbrella on Boatyard Beach

~Basseterre, St. Kitts~

During the 10-12 miles of biking

Overlooking the Atlantic Ocean on the left and the Caribbean on the right

~Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas~

Looking over Magen's Bay

The view from our lounge chairs on Magen's Bay Beach

~San Juan, Puerto Rico~

San Cristobal Fort

Touring the grounds

Touring the tunnels

The colorful streets of San Juan

We had a blast off the ship as well as on the ship. We became friends with our tablemates - the Hanson family and Christine, Joyce and Nancy. We spent most of our time together - when we weren't at dinner or off the ship, most of us were together at the Crown & Anchor bar in the Royal Promenade, at a show, in the concierge lounge, or playing shuffle board. We even had a party in our room with everyone.

One night, we all decided to get a fun photograph taken:

All good things come to an end. The last few days flew by and as the weather grew cooler, it was easier to get ready to "move out" of suite 1560.

Final dinner with our waiters Sherman and Norris

"The crew" - our final night in the Concierge lounge with Ovidu and Jason

It was a great time all around. We can't wait to plan another trip for next year!

(I will put up the professional pics we purchased in my next posting)