1000 Islands

This past weekend, while Mom and Papa and Chris's Dad and Lisa were visiting, we all headed up to 1000 Islands to go on a boat tour and see Boldt Castle. Here's the pictures from our adventure:
Mom and Papa in front of the ferry we cruised around in.

A dilapidated boat house.

Doesn't that just make you jealous? lol I want to live there!
Another gorgeous house. This one is surrounded by 10 man-made waterfalls.
This is the smallest island in the 1000 Islands region. haha It has a tree on it, so it counts as an island.
This is Heart Island, where Boldt Castle is. The castle is at the very top. In the foreground, you can see the generator building.
This is the boathouse for Boldt Castle.
I think this is the house country singer Alan Jackson just bought last year.

So this is Boldt Castle. That terrace near the top is where we stood to take the pictures below.






This is the children's playhouse. It has 1 bowling alley for each child. The family stayed here while the castle was under construction.
This is Mrs. Boldt's room.
The swimming pool.
The main corridor was massive.A picture of Mrs. Boldt, for whom the castle was built.
Chris and Dave admiring the generator that was once used to power the house.
Funnily enough, it was made in Schenectady, where Chris's family is from.

This is rumored to have been the house Mr. Boldt built for his mother-in-law, a known sleepwalker. haha It's right across the water from the castle.

Sterling Renaissance Festival

Today Chris and I went to the Sterling Renaissance Festival with our friends Kate & Issac and Shawn, a friend of Chris's from work. As always, the festival was a lot of fun and there were a lot of really funny performers there. This video shows one such performer: Emrys Fleet performing the Rat Extravaganza featuring Wilbur the Dancing Weasel. hahaha It was just as ridiculous as the name would have you believe.

It was, of course, that much more entertaining when I got pulled up on stage to be his "lovely assistant." hahaha Chris filmed the whole ridiculous thing.



In case you couldn't tell from the video, the big joke near the end was that the rat pooped in my hand. lol Obviously, not really. He dropped raisins in my hand. lol

Here's some more pictures of our adventures:

We watched the jousting. Very funny and exciting.
A silent comic, Danny Lord, put on an entertaining show. I'll leave this picture to the imagination.
We watched a show put on by a sword swallower, Johnny Fox. He's really funny, too. Gross and confusing, but funny.
Here's the sword he swallowed in the above picture.
We tried our hands at archery. I believe Isaac was the only one who left feeling like he had any talent with a bow.

This guy was strange and entertaining.

This picture is a little blurry, but it was the only one I had of his "whole body". lol See the little legs as he ... er, the queen rides side saddle? That's how you know she's a lady. haha
And this guy was just amusing.

The Other Room

So this is Dibbles Inn, where we're having our wedding reception. If we happened to actually be able to meet the 150 guest minimum (not going to happen) we would be able to have the reception in the Gold Room, which is where I had been told over the phone we could have it. Oh well. Here's the difference between it and the room where it will probably be, the Garden View room.

When you arrive at Dibbles, you can actually go in the main entrance to get to the Gold Room. The front of the inn is actually pretty charming.



The front porch is cute and cozy.

When you walk in, you see the staircase and a little chandelier. If you head to your right, that's the Gold Room.
... as you can see here.
I actually didn't get a ton of pictures of the Gold Room because as soon as we got there we were told we would not be having our reception there. Yeah ...

But anyway, I'm not really sure I would even want the Gold Room. It too, like the Garden View room, has major of pros and cons. The ceilings are high and there's lots of windows, so that's nice. The color palette is fine and the chandeliers are not bad either. The room, however, is divided into sections, so the dance floor is segregated from the tables and both are fin a different room than the bar. Here is this weird platform area where we were told they normally seat about 15 of the guests ... off by themselves. Makes me wonder what those guests did wrong ...
When we were there, the platform part was set up as a buffet area. There is that big pillar/wall thing in the middle of the picture that divides this space from the rest of the tables (right) and the dance floor (left). From this view, the bar is behind me.

Here's the bar. Pretty awesome. Don't mind the little guy sitting on the bar. That's Chickie, the mascot of our office at work. haha He came along to drink some booze and harass the staff. Such a rowdy little guy.
So yeah ... If we had a lot of people, I would probably want the Gold room. But since we won't, I think this room would probably be worse because it's so spread out and awkwardly arranged. It would be sort of uninviting to guests, I would think. And way too easy to not get a chance to see everyone. On the other hand, it's not a room in a basement of a 70s addition to the Inn ...

Sigh. I just have to keep reminding myself that we got a helluva deal on this place, and that Disney World is the main event. lol And to just plan on having fun at the reception and not getting hung up on the stuff I can't change. That's the goal.

Preliminary Pics of Dibbles Inn

So we went to check out Dibbles Inn this week. It looks like we'll most likely be in the Garden View room. That means we will not be using the main entrance. Instead, this is our entrance. Sort of 70s looking. :-/

Then, after you enter through the glass doors, you go downstairs ... like to a basement ...

Here's the room. Low ceilings and bad paneling on the walls. Carpet looks a little rough too. I guess I'm just going to have to really use my imagination on this. Luckily, there is a very nice feature to this room. As you can see below, the room has three sets of french doors that open up to the garden.



The garden is fantastic. I will give them that. But having a wedding in October means it'll be a gamble on whether or not we'll even get to enjoy the gardens.
View from the gardens looking at the outside of the Garden View room.

The buffet area.
The bar.The other side of the room (no windows).

I think I need some ideas. A little vision. I do like the size of the room and the fact that it's open and we'll be able to see everyone. Having the head table right at the edge of the dance floor (at right in the above picture) would be nice. Also, obviously all the chairs will have chair covers and matching table linens and all that. So I dunno. Could be good. Could suck, too, I guess. lol

Bathroom Renovation

Chris and I started the work on our bathroom this past week. Yay! and Ugh! lol It's going to look great, but it's difficult being without our only shower in the house. Here are the before pictures of our bathroom.

The plastic burgundy tile is amazing, right? lol
Oreo assisting Chris as he takes out the toilet.
Demo time.
Once we started removing the tiles around the shower, a lot of plaster came with it, revealing the lathe and a 3 inch gap around the tub. Inside the cavern in the wall, we found the front page of a Post Standard newspaper dated June of 1955. Pretty cool. It has the headline that reads "Russian Gunfire Downs U.S. ..." and mentions "Ike" and the "Soviet Peace Program."
So here's the bathroom after day 1 with our handyman, Tom Harvey. Looking pretty good! (Obviously we need to pull the sticker tags off the stones still ... lol)

The medallion in the center of the wall. Looks like a compass rose, right?
Reflection of the shower wall in the mirror.