WA Reception.

Trying to throw together the WA Reception showed me how unfamiliar I am with putting on an event, especially up here in WA.

I was waiting to hear that our church had moved to the new office. A pastor had given me the idea to ask if I could use the new space since we didn't need anything spectacular. We just wanted a simple potluck. However, there were all sorts of delays that made that option go out the window. I knew that with the bulk of wedding season approaching, I had to try to book a venue quick. But being the lazy person I am, and dealing with the indecisive Yubo, it became extremely last minute.

I started looking into community centers in Bellevue, since that seemed to be a pretty central location to everyone I hoped to come. Bellevue has A LOT of community centers, but I only focused on three: North Bellevue, South Bellevue, and Crossroads. It was only a week ahead that I started e-mailing the centers. Lucky none of these three had the one month in advance requirement that a lot of the other centers had. South Bellevue was my #1 pick because they had a very nice room that would've worked perfectly for us. We really wanted a dance floor so that we could do our first dance again for everyone.

Crossroads was unavailable due to renovations or something. North Bellevue had nothing available. And South Bellevue hadn't gotten back to me. I started freaking out. Our friend Sheryl offered her place as a last resort. We wouldn't be able to dance, but at least we had a place to gather and hang out with everyone.

I think it was the Wednesday before the date of the event that South Bellevue finally got back to me. They had the space available, but only for that weekend. Exactly what we were hoping for! God is so good!

So I got us all booked and started prepping for the event.

The Saturday before I had planned to bake all day (as we were providing dessert) and leave myself plenty of time to pick up Yubo's parents from the airport late that night. Oh my goodness gracious, it was not a good day for me in the kitchen.

I had two bags of brownie mix left from a Costco box we got a while back. It was still good, so I figured I would just make those for the reception. I wanted to be a little more fancy, so I looked up recipes for a strawberry frosting of some sort. I wanted to make the brownies as cupcakes, and fill them with the strawberry frosting. I suppose I was really trying to make up for our actual wedding cupcakes not being filled.

I got the brownie mix mixed, but when I started filling the muffin pan, I was puzzled to find the batter ridiculously runny. I soon realized that I had doubled my wet ingredients. To salvage the project, I ran back out to the store to buy two more bags of brownie mix. So I ended up with twice as many brownies as I had originally wanted, which meant twice as much baking and assembly time! Ugh! My 5qt bowl was just about full, but the mixture was finally the right consistency, and my first test batch of brownie cupcakes turned out fine.

To try and recover from the brownie mix fiasco, I turned to the strawberry filling. Things got even worse here. I needed to crush/mash the frozen strawberries into pieces but instead my Magic Bullet pureed most of it because the pieces wouldn't go down to the blade. The strawberries ended up thawing enough that I could mash them up with a spoon instead. When measuring the 1cup of whipping cream, my measuring cup wasn't put together completely and so cream started filling up the entire thing instead of just the 1cup I was measuring. I ended up spilling quite a bit of cream on the floor before I could transfer to another measuring cup. I managed to get that whipped with my Magic Bullet, but I didn't know that whipping cream didn't whip very well in a plastic container that wasn't cold. When I went to scoop the whipped cream and fold it into the strawberries, it all kinda melted out. So the folding turned into stirring. I stuck it in the fridge anyhow, hoping that it would still set. It didn't, and MIL eventually pointed out to me that I had kept it in a plastic bowl when it would've worked much better in a metal bowl. Unfortunately, the only metal bowl I had was the 5qt mixer bowl which was occupied by the TONS of brownie mix. Wouldn't have worked out anyhow. Whatever.

The brownie cupcakes made it. I had filled an 8x8 cake pan with brownie mix as well, and that ended up sitting in an oven that wasn't on for an hour. I guess the oven turned off cuz it was too hot, and I didn't notice the blinking red light until much later. I was wondering why the brownies weren't rising. Then I was a genius, and turned the oven off and back on with the cake pan still in there. I was really glad that Yubo had never put the smoke alarm back in. Anyhow, the brownies immediately started rising. Couldn't figure out how much longer to keep them in there. I didn't want to risk anyone getting sick so I didn't bring the regular brownies and stuck with the brownie cupcakes.

Despite all that, there was still enough time to pick up the in-laws, although their flight amazingly landed right on time and their bags (one suitcase and one cat-containing carrier) were waiting for them. So then ended up having to wait for me.

June 6, the day of the reception. I woke up earlier than I would have liked to get everything ready to bring with up. I didn't plan on coming back home after church.... but Yubo did. So we didn't take anything with us and I lost sleep for no good reason. Picked up Yubo's parents, went to breakfast, went to church, came back home. I tried for a power nap while Yubo went off to Costco to pick up drinks. And then, as often happens when Yubo runs errands without me, he ran way late. At 2:30, when he said we should leave the house (to get the center by 3:00p, which was the start of our rental time), he still wasn't home and he still had to get ready.

We were half an hour late to our own reception, but I called ahead to the center to let them know we would be late but some guests would be on time, and all our friends that were on time were able to get things set up without us. Well, really it was Joe, still acting as best man despite his new baby. ^_^

We finished getting everything set up. I got changed and marked the dance with Yubo (we didn't do any rehearsing before that moment) while everyone else started eating and socializing. We did the dance, then sat down with a plate for a few very brief moments. Then Yubo suddenly decided we should visit each table, which I agreed with, but wished he would've brought that up much sooner. Then I would've pressed to do the dance sooner to have more time with everyone. All we had time to do was go to one table, and then announce that it was 15min to the end of our rental time so we had to start cleaning up to get out by 5:00p. The center was pretty strict on closing to the public at 5p, so the girl from the front desk was kinda on my back about getting out in time.

With the help and graciousness of all our guests, we managed to get cleaned up and out of the building.... only a few minutes after 5p. The girl looked really impatient with me, but I didn't get in trouble for not being right on the dot.

Overall it was a good reception. I wish we spent less time setting things up and more time socializing with the friends that took the time to come. But now that all of that is done, and as we start on our home improvement projects (we've finally started working on redoing our closet), we can start the thank you notes or whatever to the friends and family that celebrated our marriage with us.

Speaking of children.

Yubo's parents came up for our WA Reception, which we had on June 6. I know. Kinda late.

Anyhow, along with them came Chiyo. Chiyo is a cat that belonged to Yubo's younger brother, Ei-chan. Ei-chan got her with his gf at the time, and was stuck with her when they parted ways. Unfortunately, Chiyo did not get along with Kombu, the resident cat of the house. Kombu, being the itty-bitty scaredy cat that she is (looking at her, you would think she was still a kitten), didn't care for Chiyo's playful nature.

The issue with Chiyo is that she was adopted as a kitten alone. We don't know when she was taken from her litter, but I suspect is was too soon. It seems she's never really been exposed to too many other cats. She does not know how to hold back on her bites when playing, as Yubo's poor hand found out recently. She's incredibly outgoing and friendly with humans, but no one knew how she would react to another cat.

Until now, Chiyo had been locked up in Ei-chan's upstairs room by herself since Kombu would have nothing to do with her. Since everyone in the house works, she was often left on her own for most of the day, only getting attention a few hours a day at most. So it's easy to say she became very attention hungry.

When visiting, her cute little chirps and barks melted my heart. I had been joking with Yubo about getting a third cat, but this seemed the perfect opportunity to really make it happen. If nothing else, we would have a better chance of finding Chiyo a home she could be happy in. We figured that since she's about the same age as Ellie and Tifa, and has a mellow personality, she could fit in well. The main concern I had was if she would rival Tifa for affection and attention. Anyhow, we wanted to give it a try.

So here's our new baby:


She stayed in the bathroom, which became fairly cramped with her litter box, carrier, and food/water dishes. I eventually came up with the idea to invest in one of those large cages and put her in the office.


It's been about 5 nights since she's been here. I've been doing fairly slow introductions, but probably faster than most would. At this moment, I actually have all three of them out here in the living room with me with very minimal hissing. Part of me just wants them to fight it out so we can be done with it. LoL.

Around Day 3, I removed the cage and set it up against the door for more exposure. They had stopped hissing and growing through the door so I figured it'd be a decent time to move on.


You'll notice in the picture that Yubo is in the office. Yeah.... we get in and out through the door at what would be the top of the cage.

I figured it was a good way to give them maximum exposure to each other in a safe way. It Chiyo was feeling threatened or scared, she could just run further into the room and away from the door.

As it is now, she's been excited to leave the office to explore the house. This is the second time I've had them all out at once, and I'm actually quite surprised at how well it's going. They ignore each other for the most part, and as I mentioned earlier, the hissing is very minimal. I think they're just putting up with each other right now. Actually, more like Ellie is putting up with Chiyo and Tifa is indifferent.

Chiyo seems very curious about Ellie. The encounters are mostly between them. For a short while, Chiyo would actually follow Ellie around to get a few more sniffs. I've also left the office open for Ellie and Tifa to explore Chiyo's space. A few minutes ago, it seems Ellie claimed the scratching post I had in the office for Chiyo. :P I hope Ellie learns to share with Chiyo like she has with Tifa.

I'm hoping this kitty hierarchy will get established soon and I can do away with the caged office. I'm hoping it will only take a few more days (I've read that it can take months with stubborn and shy cats). Chiyo's outgoing nature surely is speeding up the process a bit. Ellie and Tifa's calmness around her is encouraging. They were both eating treats with Chiyo only 3-4 feet away from them. So far it's all looking good to me.

Yubo and I ran into a bit of tension though. I'm a researcher, so all my behaviors and attitudes and actions towards the cats are based on what I've read from other cat moms and "experts" (quotes because I didn't care to find if the authors really were experts). Yubo likes to work on his common sense and instinct. Some issues arose between him and Chiyo that made me really concerned about whether we would be able to keep her or not.

On Day 1, I made the big mistake of already letting Ellie and Chiyo sniff each other through a crack in the bathroom door. I was too optimistic. The hissing got a little intense, so I stepped in and started hissing at Chiyo, asserting my dominance. After two good hisses, she backed down and had no problem with me. I gave Yubo the heads up that he might have to hiss at her too, but without the context that I read, I suspect he ended up hissing at her for the wrong reasons. What ended up happening was she would go from purring and getting affection from him to turning around hissing and growling and running away from him. MIL and FIL thought it might be just a guy thing. She got neglected by Ei-chan, all these horrible things got linked to FIL (going to the vet, getting put in the carrier, getting put on a scary airplane), and now here was another guy that was trying to get her back into the bathroom or back into her cage (in the office). For the bathroom incident, I came out with a sweet voice and she calmed down and walked over to Yubo for affection. He then picked her up (and she started hissing) to put her back into the bathroom. In the office, I had to ask Yubo to leave the room. When he left, she came out from her hiding spot and I was able to get her into her cage without a fight at all.

But as of yesterday, it seems to have all blown over. It looks like it will all work out. Yubo got around to reading some articles about introducing cats to each other. What he was doing was trying to get the hissing and growling to stop between the cats instead of letting it happen, even though I told him from the beginning that it needs to happen. That was when I felt he was hissing at the wrong times, because he would hiss at Chiyo to try and get her to stop hissing, when it was probably that she was hissing out of fear instead of aggression. I hissed back when it was aggressive. Anyhow, a decent amount of misunderstandings on the human side. The cats seem to be going good so far. They've been out amongst each other for a good... hour or so. I'm just looking forward to seeing the three of them play and snuggle together. We'll see how that goes. :P

*Random note:
Chiyo means "eternal"
Ellie means "light"
Tifa means "manifestation of God"; other meanings said "appearance of..." or "revelation of..."

Cool, huh?