First off, let me just say Happy Anniversary (and Happy Birthday too) to Mr & Mrs W.  I can't believe it has been a year!  Leo and I ended up driving past Berg Park on Saturday and we thought of you.

I made hotel reservations en espa�ol on Friday.  It all started off with me sending a simple email that said something like "Hello, do you have a free room on July 3, 4, and 5?".  That's the kind of Spanish I am capable of writing.  I don't quite know what I thought would happen, but, of course, the person wrote back in Spanish.  And the response was really, really long.  So I translated it on babelfish:

ARRIVAL: Thursday, 3 of 2003 July (hour)
EXIT: Domingo, 6 of 2003 July (3 nights)
A) A double room with deprived bath, T.V. (6 channels via satellite) and telephone by 53 Euros/noche + 7% I.V.A. This is our last double room available in these dates. If it were interested in making the reserve please it sends the as rapidly as possible asked for information. In order to make this reserve it is necessary that it sends a fax or an email to us with a clear photocopy of his passport and a clear photocopy of his credit card (VISA, Masters Card, American Express or DINERS), writing also the number of the credit card and the date of expiration. So that we pruned to him to receive the first reserved night as deposit in case of not appearing or to annul the reserve. The photocopies are necessary, is not possible to only make the reserve with the numbers of the credit card. Please conf�rmenos its time of arrival to the hotel. We hoped to have the news as rapidly as possible hers.

I don't know what a "deprived bath" is, but I can't wait to find out! 
Also, I like the way that this sounds like what Gollum would say, if he was working at a hotel. 

I think that I have hammock-related back problems today.  I strung the hammock up between two trees in our back yard.  It was great; it felt like I was in a forest. 

We took our engagement photos on Saturday.  The pictures came with the wedding package; I don't think I would have had them done otherwise.  We had them done in the photographer's back yard.  His crazy wife was not there, unfortunately.

So...we have now captured on film some shots that could be captioned:

• "Hi!  I'm just sitting here all dressed up on the grass by myself, pondering my engagement"
• "Here we are sitting on a rock under a pine tree, thinking about how happy we are to be engaged"

      and my favorite:

• "we are just standing in some stranger's backyard and admiring the engagement ring that we bought over a year ago"

I just know that he will put a soft haze on them, like some maxi-pad advertisement from the 70's.  I can't wait.