Carbon be gone.

In our effort to reduce the impact our destination wedding will have on the environment (50 or so people traveling hundreds of miles), and because we like the organization and the idea, we have made a donation through Trees for the Future. This nonprofit has been promoting sustainable agroforestry around the world since 1989.

We have adopted the village of Bethel in the community of Cabaret, Haiti, which has been devastated by deforestation and global climate change. The project we have sponsored will plant more than 5,000 forestry and fruit trees. The trees are fast growing and permanent. According to the non-profit's executive director, these "beneficial trees will protect the fragile lands and assure that families can continue to live in dignity. Each year, these trees will remove several tons of pollution from the global atmosphere [...] while protecting lands and assisting the natural return of past diversity." Only three percent of Haiti's original forests remains, leaving it brown and barren. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and the deforestation leaves its people vulnerable to flooding and mudslides, which kill many and wash away what little fertile topsoil remains. Eventually the hillsides turn to rock and cannot be farmed.

Trees for the Future fits its program to what best suits each community, teaching people how to better use the land by integrating the elements of their daily lives — trees, people, animals, agriculture — into a system that is self-sustaining. They also train people to spread the knowledge they have gained.

Since the idea is to offset all our upcoming (June 2008) travel, the donation is basically in the names of everyone attending the wedding — so, in a sense, it is your donation as much as it is ours. At 5,000 trees, that's roughly 100 trees per person. Check out Trees for the Future at www.treesftf.org.

Jason

PS: I had two trees survive my planting of the "Save the Date" seeds, a redwood (left) and a sequoia (right). Here they are at about 10 weeks. Anyone else have any luck?

Goodbye November.

Well, the last six weeks have kind of gotten away from us.

As is our custom in the fall, we took on way too many obligations at work and school, so in the lead up to the semester ending, we typically have no choice but to dig in — so if you haven't heard from us or seen us, we've been dug in. Sarah's been working on final projects for her classes in the evenings after work and on her days off. It's all due next week, so we're bowing out of two holiday events we wanted to attend this weekend to make sure that she has enough time to complete her work. I've been steeped in grading during this time. I've been conducting and grading finals and filing grades this past week, with everything looking to wrap up next week around the time Sarah finishes. I also took a French class, which had been going well until the last two weeks or so, when it had to take a back seat — that final was ... not my finest work.

Amid all this, we devoted our time to one more pursuit — we bought a house! We had convinced ourselves and come to peace with the fact that we would have to leave San Diego in order to afford a home, but with the help of Sarah's moms, we were able to become homeowners. We bought the house that we had been renting from Sarah's step mom, Kat, during the past year and a half. It is a 1950's two bedroom, two bath with a huge yard and a pool, located in Allied Gardens (a great neighborhood across the freeway from San Diego State University). Kat happily lowered the price to one we could afford, selling the property under value, and Sarah's mom, Pam, generously payed for our closing costs and our first month's mortgage. The purchase has special meaning for Sarah and her family because her grandparents on her mother's side lived there, as did her dad, Jim, and Kat — so it's a family house, which will now stay that way.

Progress on the wedding has been slow going (see above), but we did manage to get our wedding coordinator up north squared away. Her name is Sarah, and she's very cool. We also ordered the materials for our formal invitations (100 percent recycled, tree-free products — of course), and we will be working on getting those out over the Christmas holiday. There has been wedding dress and reception site drama, but all of that has quietly worked itself out.

From this point forward there should be plenty of activity, so check the site and the blog. We're at about six months out — starting now.

Jason

Best man, Korean man.

The best man has left the country. Chris departed October 18 for South Korea, where he will remain in exile to wait out the rest of George W. Bush's term in office. Actually, he is spending a year there teaching English in Cheongju, which is in the south. He'll be teaching high school age or younger students at a private school.

In the past few weeks he's been getting settled and getting to know the other teachers in the program, who are all young Americans like himself. He also got to spend a few days in Japan on the company dime while he worked out his visa, and has been hiking the nearby national parks (see pictures). He even managed to find a couple Korean guys who make decent burritos. He hasn't started teaching, but he says the students in the classes he has observed have been amazed at his shoe size.

At 6'3", he says the girls giggle when he walks down the street.

Jason

The fires for us.

We thought this might be a good place to let everyone know how the fires that have burned hundreds of thousands of acres across San Diego County have impacted ourselves and our families.

Sarah's mom, Pam, and step mom, Kat, have been evacuated from Ramona since Sunday afternoon. They first heard about the Witch Creek Fire while having lunch together after a play, and by the time they got to Ramona, the east end where Pam lives was already closed off. The police wouldn't let her through in a car ... but had no problem with her walking past the roadblock, so she trekked a half mile up the road to get her cats and a few necessities, then drove out in her other car. Sarah's moms have been staying with their moms in Santee and Oceanside.

It has been difficult to get information out of Ramona, and while we were fairly certain that Kat's place was safe on the west end of town, we were less sure about Pam's, which is located along Highway 78 in the very heart of the burned areas. She had some word from her step brother, who works for the CDF and stopped by her street, but he wasn't able to identify her house specifically. Yesterday, my dad was able to talk him and I through several police barricades and we confirmed that Pam's house escaped the fire — just. The flames burned to within 100 feet of her home (see picture; click image to enlarge), charing much of her property and leaving behind a still smoldering oak we spent some time snuffing out. Several of her neighbors lost their homes.

My dad's sister Carol and her family evacuated for a night out of Carlsbad. My cousin Monica and her family evacuated. My cousin Theresa and her family spent several days at the stadium in their RV. And another cousin of mine evacuated and may have lost his home in Ramona, but my dad and I couldn't be 100 percent sure because the property was blocked off, but from what we could see and what we found out from someone coming out — the area where he lives was a total loss.

My dad, who is an Engineer with the La Mesa Fire Department, never got sent out to fight the fires. On his off day, he and another guy checked on the threatened homes of other firemen.

As for Sarah and I, we have only been affected indirectly — with the exception of the constant ash fall and the apprehension that comes with massive fires burning to the north, south, and east. Her work was closed for a few days when Poway was evacuated, and her school has been closed all week. All my colleges have been closed all week, as well.

Jason

Little big trees.

I wanted to make sure the seeds we sent everyone in the "Save the Date" announcements were viable, so on Sept. 12 I opened one of our extra postcards and planted the 50 or so seeds that were inside using the methods that I mentioned in the Sept. 11 blog entry.

They're alive.

A few days ago I noticed a few little trunks trying to push their way to the surface, and as you can see in the pictures I took yesterday, two of them — one sequoia and one redwood — have succeeded. In the pictures, the sequoia is the one with the penny, the redwood the other. A third (not pictured) hasn't shed its seed casing yet and is a redwood as well.

Though the species are close cousins, they start off quite different and never really get too similar in appearance. What they share is greatness in their genes — one with the potential to be the largest thing to have ever lived (sequoia) and the other to be the tallest thing to have ever lived (redwood).

It's hard to imagine that these two seedlings, overshadowed by a penny, are racing toward 2,000 tons and 370+ feet, respectively. But it's true.

Jason

The itinerary!

The itinerary is up on the site! This takes care of one of the four pages left to be completed. I'll soon be able to move away from my obsession with creating the site. Rather than spending the last two hours grading exams, I instead spent it finishing this page. But it was totally worth it because now that we can see all the cool things we'll do once we're up north for the wedding, we really can't wait to be there with everyone.

We've outlined the week of June 22 - June 28, which are the dates that Sarah and I will "officially" be in Eureka. Seeing as how it's nine months away, things are still a bit tentative for us, as I'm sure they are for you. I know the formal invitations haven't even come out yet, but since it's a destination wedding, I figured you all could use as much information you can get as early as possible. We'd still like everyone to wait for the formal invitations before making lodging reservations, but if you need to request vacation time way in advance, the list of events on this page should help you get a sense of things for the week of the wedding.

This list is not what you must do while there. It's just what we're doing, and what we'd like to do with you. And, we're open to suggestions if you find something you'd really like to do that we haven't thought of — nothing's written in stone. Post all suggestions below.

Jason

Invitation limitations.

While we are absolutely thrilled about the destination for our wedding, we did have to consider it carefully because of the limitations it will place on who can attend. The destination we have chosen is an important part of making our wedding … perfectly us. We both have extensive families and many personal friends and friends of the family. This makes for a big list of important people. However, since we are having the ceremony in a National Park, we are subject to the rules and regulations that govern the park’s issuing of permits, one of which is a 50 person cap at our ceremony site. The site itself places a similar restriction. It is the intersection of three trails at the base of a stand of redwoods, and there is no way we could responsibly fit more than 50 people at that location. Because of this, we had to significantly reduce our guest list. For those we are able to invite, we have had to exclude children under the age of 18, and, for the most part, any guests for our single attendees.

Why not get married somewhere more accommodating, you ask?
Honestly, after making several trips to Redwood National Park and spending time there last June hiking and selecting a location — we can’t imagine getting hitched anywhere else. It’s just exactly what we want.

Because of our strong desire to celebrate with as many people as possible, shortly after our wedding up north we will host a barbecue in San Diego to share pictures from the ceremony and extend the celebration to those who we wish we could invite, but cannot.

We appreciate everyone’s support.

Sarah & Jason

PS: We encourage anyone with questions or concerns to contact us at junetwentyfifth@gmail.com.

Travel by car.

For those thinking way ahead and thinking they might travel up the coast to Redwood National Park by car — you can now plan your trip directly from the "Destination" page on the web site. I know, I know: This is terribly exciting and just the news you had been anxiously awaiting. Now you can get right on mapping out that road trip that is nearly 300 days away. Or maybe you're flying, and this tidbit is completely irrelevant to you.

Either way, I'm stoked. Eureka and the surrounding areas relevant to the wedding like Trinidad (reception) and Orick (near the site) can be manipulated and put in perspective with the new Google map. Thanks to our friend Mark, what seemed like an impossible task of making the web site interactive was reduced to simply inserting a few lines of code (which I guess is really what the whole site is — just entering a few bits of code).

Thanks, Mark.

Jason

Save the date.

Well, if you’re reading this — and you’re not one of the few who have been visiting this site as it has developed during the past few months — then you’ve received the “Save the Date” notices we sent out.

So, welcome.

We discovered this idea for the announcements two years ago when we first visited Redwood National Park together. They sell these postcards at the Samoa Cookhouse, an old logger’s diner that Sarah’s dad, Jim, was excited for us to try. I have a redwood and a sequoia growing from a postcard I bought that first time around. When we were up in Eureka figuring out wedding details this past June, we bought a whole bag of the cards to use for our “Save the Dates.” The Samoa Cookhouse is where we will have our rehearsal dinner — and probably several other meals while there for the wedding.

It all ties together.

We are stoked about the announcements because they encapsulate some of what our wedding’s all about. The announcement is a postcard, which is kind of the classic traveler’s communication — and, in part, this wedding is about traveling together and experiencing Redwood National Park. And it promotes the environment by encouraging you to grow the seeds that are enclosed in between the cards — and we are trying to make the wedding as green as possible.

In regard to the seeds, we encourage everyone to try to grow them — green thumb or not. When we cooked up this idea, we thought how cool it would be if in the time between the announcement and the wedding people grew little redwoods or sequoias, like a living “Save the Date” reminder.

One estimate I read for the total carbon sequestered in a mature redwood tree is in the neighborhood of 800 tons. This is a conservative estimate that does not include the branches, needles, and roots. The average American spews about 1,600 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through fossil fuel consumption in his or her lifetime. So, get two redwoods to reach maturity and you’re square — at least in terms of fossil fuels.

There are growing instructions on the interior of the postcards, but that is only one way to do it, and not necessarily the best. If you plan to try, it can be as easy as:

1. Get a plastic cup and punch several holes in the bottom for drainage.
2. Put dirt from your yard in the cup (without weeds or grass, if possible).
3. Dump the seeds on top of the dirt.
4. Add just enough dirt to cover the seeds.
5. Water. Don’t let the soil dry out. Put the plant in a mostly sunny area. If it’s going to happen, it will happen within four weeks.

Or, for a more complete set of guidelines:

1. Get a 1-gallon plastic pot with drainage holes at the bottom.
2. Get some potting soil (I recommend Miracle Grow Moisture Control Potting Soil).
3. Fill the pot nearly to the top with soil and then pat it down to remove air pockets and refill until it’s about two inches from the rim.
4. Spread the seeds evenly over the soil (if you get anything to grow, e-mail me when they’re a few inches tall and we’ll talk about separating them).
5. Add just enough dirt to cover the seeds, about a ¼ inch.
6. Water — make sure the soil gets wet all the way through the first time, then just water as needed to keep the soil from drying out during germination. Unless it’s unreasonably hot, watering once a week should do it until the weather cools off, then twice a month or as needed until the weather warms next summer.
7. Put the pot in a sunny location that gets some shade. Wait four weeks.

Because they grow so tall, redwoods are extremely efficient with water. Because they spend most of their lives fighting their way through the shade to the light, they are extremely efficient with sunlight. Because of both of these factors, redwoods grow fast — three feet or more a year — and they are drought tolerant once established. Once established, they’ll care for themselves.

Feel free to contact me with any questions.

Jason

Travel pics, etc.

Well, we just spent the last few weeks prepping to move and moving — so we've been away from the computer. I've also been sick; one of the many perks that go along with meeting all those fresh new faces when the semester starts. I'm teaching seven classes this semester at four colleges and taking a French class. Sarah just started up yesterday with her new semester, so she's working and going to school full time — her usual, year-round schedule. We had been living in Allied Gardens (near SDSU) for the past year, but we decided to jump at the chance to pay off our debt and save for the wedding by moving in with my grandpa in La Mesa. He has allowed us to take over the two back rooms in his house, so we're working at getting settled in there (thanks to Anna, Amy, Paul, Jessica, Charles, Pam, and Doug for help with the move).

We've also been on hiatus in terms of wedding planning, but we hope to accomplish a few things in the coming weeks and get things rolling again.

Otherwise, I have attached a series of pictures from our travels, as promised to JT a while back. There are pictures from New York, Trinidad, Belize, Guatemala, and Italy.

Jason


Us in NY near Madison Square Garden (2005).


The beach we stayed on in Trinidad (2005).


Hiking to a waterfall in Trinidad (2005).


Exploring coastal swamps in Trinidad (2005).


Sarah holding a giant spider our guide found, Guatemala (2006).


High up on a Mayan temple in Guatemala (2006).


The ruins of Tikal, in Guatemala (2006).


Ziplining through the canopy in Guatemala (2006).


On the Cayes in Belize (2006).


Snorkeling with sharks off the coast of Belize (2006).


In Positano, Italy (2007).


Ancient temple in Paestum, Italy (2007).


Frank, Sarah, me, Chris, Beth, Anna at Pompeii, Italy (2007).


Looking into the crater of Mt. Vesuvius in Italy (2007).


The view from our villa in Positano, Italy (2007).

Best man, better man

We have been enjoying everyone's posts so far. For JT (and everyone else who hasn't had enough of the narcissism we've splashed all over our web site), we'll post some more pictures from our travels and such on this blog in the near future — and don't forget the site isn't finished yet, so I'm sure more pictures will turn up there, as well.

I have chosen my brother, Chris, to be my best man — a part we're confident he will fulfill with all the class of Steve Buscemi in "The Wedding Singer." Per his request, and until the "Wedding Party" link is up on the web site, here are a few photos of Chris from the last time he was in Europe.

Jason

The beginning.

This is an experiment.

I've never contributed to a blog before (with the exception of a few comments on my buddy Evan's Rwanda blog), and I'm pretty sure Sarah has never created a personal blog, either — unless there is some secret life she's leading ... where she blogs.

But, we thought this might be a good way to get out information and updates during the next ten months while we all wait anxiously for the wedding. This will also be a good way for you all to post questions for us regarding the wedding, or post things of interest to others like cheap flights or carpooling arrangements, etc. Since it is a destination wedding, there's a lot to coordinate. To post something, just click on the "comments" link below each entry. To view the comments/posts of others, click the same link.

Also, just in case there wasn't enough content about us on the actual wedding site, we'll also (meaning me) post regular updates on what's going on with us and the wedding.

Come to think of it, I'll probably just be writing this for Sarah's mom and mine.

Jason