Lucy and Mick's World Wide Wed

Cracker Barrel triumph

2006-07-10T09:11:00.000-07:00

Cracker Barrel triumph
Originally uploaded by mrtoastey.

DATELINE: CRACKERBARREL—In a magnificent moment, lucy has mastered the legendary Golf Tees In the Wood Triangle game, leaving ONLY ONE. By the inscribed ranking system, she is officially a genius. PS: next time she left FIVE...moron!!

Bob Morgan's "St. Martha"

2006-06-27T16:49:00.000-07:00

Mick and Lucy's wedding 160
Originally uploaded by fatherofhomer.

Created for Lucy and I by renowned Lexington artist Robert Morgan, this is his depiction of St. Martha.

Bob Says:

Saint Martha was the brother to Lazarus, she became a believer when he was raised from the dead. Upon Christ's death she left the Judea for Avignon in what is present day France. It was in Tarascon she was told of a great monster dragon that was devouring local folks. Martha set out to find the monster and came upon it eating a screaming man in the local woods. Martha used the power of love to tame the beast that sleeps at her feet.

Unlike St. George who slew the dragon St. Martha knew the best way to change was from within.

This piece titled "Vision of St. Martha" shows Truth and Justice in a triumphant ride against ignorance. Martha rides a chicken, a very important creature in Voudon belief and ritual.

Saint Martha is Santa Marta in the Caribbean Voudun Cults and Mami Wata in West Africa

Thank you, Bob. It is wonderful.

platters of puppies

2006-06-25T18:15:00.000-07:00

platters of puppies
Originally uploaded by mrtoastey.

there have been a number of requests for the --ahem-- puppy present party pix. And they're right here!

The Samba Parade!

2006-06-21T16:37:00.000-07:00

Mick and Lucy's wedding 180
Originally uploaded by fatherofhomer.

Lucy and I have all the fun in the world leading the Samba Parade that was the aftermath of our wedding… and led to drinks and dancing anc cake!

The Family Shot that Wouldn't Stop.

2006-06-21T16:30:00.000-07:00

Mick and Lucy's wedding 211
Originally uploaded by fatherofhomer.

The Eckler clan (lucy's mom's family side) get together to continue their mania for group shots. This is from Brother Christo's camera, the results of which are here.

the after party story by LOL

2006-06-21T07:46:00.000-07:00

Lori wrote a sweet sweet little account of the after-party that you might wanna read!

Pictures from all over Creation!

2006-06-21T07:31:00.000-07:00

There are just a ga-jillion pictures from our wedding. Which is fantastico!

I'm going to try updating this post to include new links as they come in, so look for this post on the right side "permanent links" of lucyandmick.com

Pictures

The first place to look is at the Flickr Group that I set up for people to "dump" pictures to. If you have some, please consider adding them to this group! This group will be a work in progress for some time! (PS: Flickr is great fun. Joining is free (unless you want to spring for a $25 PRO account, which I highly recommend. Being a Flickr member is the best way to appreciate all this photo-sharing madness)
Mark Swindle took some wonderful pictures, and they are here.
Mary Lynn's pictures at Kodak Gallery are here.
Minneapolis' swankiest man, Scott Muskin put up his fabulo pix here.
And here are Jill's fab pix!
Brother Christo has posted many a goofy shot here.
Some pictures that Lori-lyn took of the Bowling & Karaoke pre-wedding party are here. And Mary Lynn took some, too, and they're here.
Some of mine and Lucy's Belize Honeymoon pictures are here.

Videos

Mark Swindle took some videos, but last I checked the links weren't working. Hopefully they're back up now.
The amazing Tim Stamps has thus-far posted three videos: There's a montage which sets the scene of Buffalo Trace, accompanied by JT's trumpet Call to Post; Then there's the Marriage Blessing Dance by the Solid Gold Gopis, which occurred at the end of the ceremony; and finally there's the Samba Recessional! Thank you so much, Tim!!

pix from mark!

2006-06-21T05:57:00.000-07:00

CIMG1377
Originally uploaded by swindlemark.

Yes, it rained like hell on our wedding day. Right before and right after and not a drop during.

Click on the photo for Mark's Flickr pix. A more complete version of his pix (with some real winners) is here.

Thanks, Mark!

Mick at Bar

2006-06-21T05:54:00.000-07:00

PICT0149.JPG
Originally uploaded by scotty muckin.

I insisted that I would bartend at my wedding. And I did. Thanks to Jimmy (WWJD) who came and found me and asked me if I still wanted to, because otherwise, I would have probably forgotten!

Lucy & Mick's Bowling & Karaoke Party

2006-06-21T05:44:00.000-07:00

Lucy & Mick's Bowling & Karaoke Party
Originally uploaded by lorilyn.

Thanks to Lorilyn for posting Bowling & Karaoke pictures!!

uh-huh

2006-06-21T05:18:00.000-07:00

uh-huh
Originally uploaded by mrtoastey.

it was spectacularly hot the couple of hours that Lucy and I were on Caye Caulker. Plus—we were actually somewhat drunk, due to the rum punch being served on our snorkeling catamaran trip just prior to docking. Bastards!

pictures!

2006-06-18T14:17:00.000-07:00

finally some pictures from belize! click here!

The Regulars

2006-06-18T13:32:00.000-07:00

Mata Rocks Resort is small enough that we have quickly become acquiainted with "the regulars," at least of our week:

The Overachievers: a NY 30-something couple who always have plans and reservations

The Lesbians: several couples that we are happy to share space with. In fact, Belize is a country where homosexuality is illegal, though rarely enforced. With this in mind, our hotel must have made the Pink Pages.

The Marine's Family: a barrel-chested tattooed and tanned marine is here with his extended family. They do it all, and grandma generally watches the cute little girl (unless she's being "brave" and zip-lining or cave-tubing)

The Canucks: a lovey-dovey couple from ontario who are currently trying to make "a whirlpool" in the deck pool, by swimming around and around repeately in a counterclockwise direction. Now that's what i call leisure.

Popular interrogative phrases among natives when talking to tourists:

2006-06-18T13:25:00.000-07:00

• "You guys are gonna have fun, okay?"
• "Taxi, guys?"
• "C'mere, guys, there's some sharks over here, okay?"

I'm trying like hell to upload some pix of our adventure, but there's a weak link somewhere... not sure where, and don't worry, I don't care too much! Went for a walk in the rain earlier today. Yay.

real estate adventure, part 1

2006-06-18T13:20:00.000-07:00

Okay, here it is, folks, a gen-u-wine adventure from our honeymoon home on Ambergris Caye (that's "key" to y'all) on the beautiful Antilles, off the coast of the mainland of Belize.

I think this one starts "So there we were, walking down the beach, minding our own business…"

It was our first full day.

Lucy and I had slept the sleep of a thousand sleeps after the amazing weeks of wedding prep, finally somewhat alcohol-free blood, and fatigue as crusty as french bread. After some general fiddle-faddling around, we decided to finally walk some ways down the beach to the center of the main town on Ambergris Caye, the fishing village-cum-tourist mecca San Pedro. Along the way—nearly there—a beach fella changed our day with the words: "Are you enjoying your holiday?"

Innocent enough, especially in this world of delightfully genial people Still we were—not surprising—at least a bit wise to the (possible) con. This handsome 20-something corn-rowed black man righted himself off of a leaning perch and walked over to us. He smiled, we told him it was a wonderful day and that our vacation was equally so, and he went into some spiel that was hard to exactly understand. The Belizian accent is drenched in leisure and goodwill but takes a bit of getting used to—it's almost a jamaican brogue. The upshot was that he produced a manilla envelope and said that we might win a prize if we reached in and pulled out a piece of paper. Nothing so wrong with that, I know, I know, How could it be true?

Anyway, we both reached in and pulled out these tiny manilla envelopes, about the size of a business card. Like a fortune cookie, Lucy opened hers and read it: "$25 off of lunch at the Banyan Bay Resort!" I can't remember what the reaction was from the guy or from Lucy, I think some general congratulations. I couldn't hear them because I was reading every inch of mine, trying to make an assessment of the validity of this message: "7 day all-expense paid vacation to Belize"

Which, of course, had to be complete bullshit.

Lucy and he looked at me, like ya do when everybody at the table is sharing fortune cookies. I handed the card to the guy and said "I'm not sure what this means…" and he looked at it and his eyes widened a bit and he exclaimed "No way! You got the first prize! That's awesome!" Right buddy… then he added: "Please—you gotta make sure to tell them that I gave that to you, because I get a commission!" Huhhhh... I'm thinking. But—no way. It's not possible, right? Well, possible or not, after some brief commisserating, Lucy and I decided to accompany the guy—Moses, it turns out—by the local preferred method of transport, the golf cart, to Banyan Bay Hotel, where he said some people would talk to us. Lucy assured me that we were in some sort of real estate scheme and that we were about to be sold something, but the guy insisted that we had actually won this thing, and that, if we could spare an hour and a half, that the prize was ours, regardless of our intent to buy.

Lucy was basically right, but what followed was the most delightfully surreal couple of hours that we could hope for on our honeymoon.

With Moses, we then took our first careening ride through the "streets" of San Pedro (which really are more of rutted sand trails filled with puddles of skim milk). He was friendly and talkative, the whole time, explaining that he worked for Royal Crown International (RCI), a time-share business, and that it benefitted them to give away vacations because it was the best use of empty units. Furthermore, even if we didn't want to stay in Belize, they had other properties in the Caribbean where we could also choose to go as our prize. That all seemed quite likely, but I was absolutely pre-occupied with the essential question of whether or not we could have possibly actually won a 7 day vacation. According to Lucy, I spent probably the next half hour in a kind of visible skepticality, described by her as "dropped jaw, vaguely head shaking, raised-eyebrow" demeanor which for me was a physical manifestation of "okay. so this can't be true, but you say it is, but will you please just tell me that it's not unless of course it is."

A few minutes and many pothole jolts later, we were, in fact, deposited at the front steps of Banyan Bay Hotel, a quite regal palace of a place, marble floors and giant entrance way, where we were promptly greeted by a number of chipper and crisp hotel employees. A courteous young lady congratulated us, Moses' name was duly noted—also, we found out that he's a boxer—then he shook our hands and hit the door. The woman remained warm to us and waved over this somewhat hulking, gallumphing Guatamalan fellow named Alphonso, who also seemed happy to make our distinguished acquaintance. Couldn't any of these people tell we were just a couple of lovebirds from Kentucky, on a package tour?

Well, of course they could, and we knew that, too, but nonetheless, they were nice as nice could be. Lucy and I hadn't much time to talk between us, but the whole time I'd been looking at her funny. Ironically, she was almost more up for this highly-calculated adventure and while I was, too, I was still trying to process what I thought the odds were that this wasn't total BS, and trying to figure out what the "catch" was and and also, and most importantly, wondering if we went and looked at some real estate, what the odds were that we might in fact, have actually won a 7-day all expense paid vacation.

Could it be? It sure seemed unlikely. My mom didn't raise no dummies. But when you're walking the beach in Belize, on your honeymoon, anything can happen, right? And maybe the bird of paradise, could, in fact, fly up your nose.

So I guess you could say, we bit.

Alphonso was a genteel fellow if ever there was one, who's English was a work in progress. He was about to whisk us off on this mysterious 90 minutes of salemanship, when we interrupted with: "We're hungry, though. Can we get lunch fiirst?"

"Of course!" Alphonso roared, through his 6 foot 300 lb frame, looking a little like SNL's Horacio Mendes. Rubbing his belly, he said, "I'm hungry, too!" We then walked with him down the beach and got a table at Rico's, the breezy and posh outdoor restaurant at Banyan Bay, clutching our Bel$25 certificate and wondering if the entrees were going to be Bel$100 each. The whole time, Lucy and I kept looking at each other and vaguely shaking our heads, silently sharing the sentiment: "What the F&*ck is going to come of this?"

It was our first adventure. And while Belize is clearly best known for snorkeling, eco-tours into Mayan ruins and so forth, we had certainly found our first amazing experience. It was Alphonso, who I quickly became convinced had recently been promoted and was good and green at this sales thing. Lucy was actually wilier than I and retorted: "sure it seems like that. Sure it does… You feel very comfortable…don't cha?"

Which was true.

We had a delicious lunch, which was actually quite affordable, and we seemed to be treated like royalty, if only as minor officials from a tiny obscure country. Everyone knew Alphonso, and our waiter came up, took our order, pointed to Alphonso and said: "It's on him." and Alphonso was instantly flushed with good-natured embarrassment and blurted out "No! no!" waving his arms to undo our waiter's jibe.

Of course, this tipped us off a little bit. Who gives somebody a 7-day vacation and won't buy them lunch? Still, the guy was a treat. When we worried that our table was a little more in the sun that we would like, he galumphed off and came back a few minutes later to move us to "his table," which was actually off the proper patio and down on the beach. As we finally sat, he wiped the sweat off his brow for the umpteenth time and said, "I'm so glad you guys wanted lunch, because I wouldn't have gotten to eat otherwise!" He rubbed his enormous belly with gusto and all of us ordered Pina Coladas, and Alphonso tried to undo the waiter's joke by buying Lucy's drink, which was sweet. We were actually coming to like the guy at this point; he began talking to us about really anything from his preference in rice (coconut vs. plain white) to his Guatamalan heritage to the crazy little philosophical chats that we love to have all the time anyway ("what makes you mad?" he said, which inspired a fun little profound discussion, which then we turned on Alphonso who thought as long and solomnly as we each had and replied "Lying. Unjustice.(sic)" I don't know if that was out of the handbook, but I feel certain that we had somewhat inadvertently tapped into the heart of this fellow. Which benefitted us two-fold: first, I felt that the hard-sell was going to be much harder for hiim to accomplish, and second, the guy was maybe too sweet for this gig.

-- to be continued! --

hi guys from belize!

2006-06-16T20:11:00.000-07:00

Hello from Belize, guys! I say "guys," because that's what all tourists seem to be called.

Our hotel here, Mata Rocks Resort, is pretty delightful, smallish and not too touristy. Belize is a touristy place, fyi. It is. We've quite learned the actuality of the term 'eco-tourism,' which means you shuffle people around on all sorts of excursions that tend to include, in any order: snorkeling, fishing, cave-tubing, zip-lining, ruins-visiting, and scuba. All of these are, of course, package priced, and so, depending on how much of an overachiever you are (note: there seem to be plenty of NY'ers here), you can get into some serious money. We're trying our best to find a balance with "doing nothing," but every day there seems to be a preponderance of conversations with sentences like: "What did you guys do today?" or "Have you guys done the cave tubing thing?" or "We went snorkeling at Shark-Ray Alley and it was awesome." You get the idea.

The place is a delight though. One can relax as much one likes, and the motto here is, supposedly, "No Shirt, no shoes, no problem." I've seen little to disprove that.

I'm going to go snorkel in the 80 degree water now.

Pictures and more to come!!

Three Things

2006-06-16T20:08:00.000-07:00

Three things that Lucy and I don't like in Kentucky, but are quite happy with in Belize:

Reggae
Coconut Rum
Cole Slaw (mick)
Puff pastries (lucy)

Mick and Lucy get married.

2006-06-12T19:40:00.000-07:00

Mick and Lucy get married.
Originally uploaded by mrtoastey.

Mick and Lucy are wed!

2006-06-12T18:37:00.000-07:00

No words (or at least no small amount of words) can express the deep and profound joy I feel over the magical events surrounding mine and Lucy's wedding on Sunday, June 11.

Thank you, a thousand times over, every person who did anything for us. Anything, and everything. We're going away for a week and then we'll be back and start posting pictures and probably even video from the wedding.

In the meantime, I've set up a Flickr Group for wedding photos.

If you have any that you would like to share with us, please post them. If you're not a Flickr member, it's free, easy, and really great fun. I adore Flickr. You don't have to be a member to look at pictures, but I think you do, in order to post some of your own. And we would so love to see them…

Directions to Lucy & Mick's Wedding

2006-06-10T07:15:00.000-07:00

Lucy and Mick are getting married at 2pm, on Sunday, June 11, 2006 at Buffalo Trace Distillery. There will be food. There will be drinks. There will be giant puppets.

Here's a link to the driving directions to Buffalo Trace.

Here are the driving directions to Good Ole Days Barbeque. (the Saturday shindig)

Accommodations for out-of-towners

2006-06-09T06:42:00.000-07:00

We have made arrangements with two fine hotels in Lexington, The venerable Campbell House (now officially a Crowne Plaza property), and their next-door former property, now a Best Western Suites. These hotels are adjacent to one another. The Campbell House offers a special rate for mentioning the “Points-Jeffries Wedding.” Both are fine and dandy, and honestly, if you're at the Best Western and want to walk over to the pool at the Campbell House, well, we're not tellin' anybody!

The Crowne Plaza Campbell House
859-255-4281
The Campbell House web site

Best Western Suites
859-259-0521
Best Western Suites web site

A complimentary shuttle will depart from The Campbell House at twelve-thirty on Sunday for the wedding in Frankfort. If you want to be on that shuttle, and you didn't indicate so on the RSVP card, please email us so we can have an accurate head count!

Married!

2006-06-08T13:19:00.000-07:00

Okay, not totally, don't worry. It's that weird difference between the clerk's office and the, ah, officiator. So we're sort of half-married.

Married!
Originally uploaded by mrtoastey.

My Bachelorette Party!

2006-06-06T19:55:00.000-07:00

Here I am folks!

I just had to say something about my fabulous Saturday night "Fiesta de Females!" Melissa arranged this wonderful gathering of super-chiquitas. We caravanned from The Isle parking lot out to Chesney and Scott's country house for a night of fresh margaritas, smores, pedicures and tacos (not necessarily in that order). Good old fashioned girl talk and reminiscing through photo albums. Some gave advice on marriage, some gave gifts of body butter and undies. I couldn't have asked for a better time! Thanks ladeez!

Directions to Good Ol' Days - Midway, Kentucky

2006-06-06T13:53:00.000-07:00

Here's the map to Good Ol' Days Barbeque, which is out Old Frankfort Pike. This is where we'll be gathering on Saturday night, before the big Day!

Directions to Good Ol' Days - Midway, Kentucky

My bachelor party comes to disorder

2006-06-06T05:04:00.000-07:00

My bachelor party comes to disorder
Originally uploaded by mrtoastey.

Last saturday was my bachelor party. Here's some pictures including bellydancing, cocktails, friends, food, and fabulousness!

The invite went something like this:

I almost forgot that I'm supposed to have some sort of pre-wed dealio, and there *had* been a wonderful plan for a camp-out at Pete and Lee Higgs' marvelous farm, but that plan has been postponed due to ... BELLYDANCERS!

If y'all know Mick, y'all know Mick loves bellydancers. Watchin' 'em, drinkin' with 'em, yard saling with 'em, photographing 'em, drawing on 'em.

So, to be the renaissance man that I am, and also smack at the tawdry and gruesome cliche that is "the bachelor party," I am turnin' it inside-out and making it MY OWN.

That means: bellydancers. drinkin'. laughin'. BOTH genders. thai food. pezhead.