While our first choice for a wedding venue was the picturesque Nagrand, my mother-in-law's deathly fear of mage portals led us to compromise on Scottsdale, Arizona instead.

Screenshot because it totally DID happen.

My dad escorted me down the aisle, and — much to my relief! — managed to prevent me from tripping on my way to the altar. (The real problem with cloth armor? No agility!)

One of the most fearsome bosses Keaton has ever had to tank: my Dad.

I walked down the aisle to what my parents assumed was a lovely but obscure piece of classical music...

Don't let the "Bradenburg 12" fool you.

... it was actually Zelda's theme, arranged for a trio — courtesy of the amazing Sweetwater Strings.

Drawing on four years of raid leading prowess, Keaton managed to slide my wedding band onto the wrong hand.

It's a wonder he managed to kill Onyxia in Vanilla, much less again in Wrath ... and again in Blackwing Descent ... and again in ...

He was a little embarassed, but honestly? It was my favorite part of the ceremony.

This may have been his:

/kiss

A few of our Canadian guildies caught a wyvern to Arizona for the occasion! Needless to say, we were both touched by their presence and delighted to meet them face-to-face for the first time. It was the continuation of what I hope will be a lifelong friendship.

We took screen shots while waiting for the reception queue to pop. (Resto shaman, feral tank, fury warrior, hunter and shadow priest? Looks like a heroic group to me!)

Heroic Deadmines, gogo!

We entered the reception to "Do You Wanna Date My Avatar?" Under the circumstances, it seemed appropriate.

My actual face. (His too.)

We attempted to dance.

I look like a demented chipmunk.

It's a lot harder in real life, without the slash commands...

/dance

... But I did get brave enough to attempt a little twirl at the end!

We cut the cake after dinner, to the tune of Still Alive from the Portal.

Our cake toppers were moose(s?).

The music was Keaton's choice and oddly prophetic considering the surprise groom's cake I had custom-made for the occasion ...

Not a lie.

He liked it so much that it's currently sitting in pieces in our freezer. He informs me that its been humanely euthanized — again.

After the obligatory wedding events were done, it was time to party!

Cyn likes bubbles.

And drink!

This was either a Canadian drinking song or the impromptu re-enactment of Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog. Both happened.

And sing!

Seriously. There was a lot of singing.

Also, if you ever wondered what a fury warrior looks like seconds after pulling boss aggro and getting smacked in the face with a giant flaming axe...

I'm pretty sure this is it.

Defensive stance! Defensive stance!

It was without a doubt one of the best nights of my life.  It ended far, far too soon.

Arizona -- or Blade's Edge Mountain? -- at sunset.

The next week found us honeymooning in Puerto Vallarta.  As you might expect, Keaton spent a lot of time in aquatic form.

I think a Squee! might actually be appropriate here.

Two months later, our Fiance Visa arrived in the mail and we were actually able to move in together.

And just last week, Keaton's green card application was approved and I felt that I could finally share this without jinxing us.

Consummate geeks that we are, we celebrated by killing hard-mode Alysrazor.

The End.

An Update, In Pictures. is a post from: Altadin

So, naturally, I opened a ticket.

(Click on the image to embiggen.)

Best. GM. Ever.

Game Master Scogonn — you totally made my year. 

Hey, remember that warlock pet bug? is a post from: Altadin

By five million years, do you mean three days?

"The last one doesn't count, and you know it."

Fine.  Whatever.

Since you asked so nicely...

"Are you using your sarcastic font?"

Always.

For the record, my sarcastic font is 10 point Verdana unless you're reading this on a reader, in which point it's actually your browser default.

Anyway.  As I was saying.  In the five millions years since I last posted, I have been:

• planning a wedding;
• buying a house;
• preparing to sell a house;
• raiding new content (Icebound Frostbrood Vanquisher = MINE!);
• raiding old content;
• not raiding at all (QQ);
• leveling alts (final count: 5, including a sexy mohakwed beast master hunter);
• collecting pets (I named my seagull Ignus and he is every bit as lame as his namesake, but -- like his namesake -- I heart him anyway); and
• feeding my Netflix addiction by watching back-to-back seasons of Lois & Clark, (Dean Cain is the most adorable Clark Kent ever), Roswell (read: Twilight with aliens), Veronica Mars (HOW DID THIS SHOW GET CANCELED?!) and Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles (interminable cliffhangers FTL). 

I've also become a regular over at TheKnot.com — ostensibly a wedding planning site, but actually the eighth layer of hell.  Seriously.  It's a train wreck over there.  I love it. 

I don't know if I'm actually back yet.  I want to be back.  I miss blogging.  But I'm in the middle of a move, and I'm getting married in just 68 days (according to the rapidly moving ticker on my TheKnot.com signature).  There's still a lot to do, and that's on top of the 10 and 12 hour weeks I've been working.

Oh, and there's the small matter of Cataclysm dropping in the middle of it all, and my desperate need to keep up with the rest of my rapidly leveling guild so I don't fall behind and miss out on the first days of raiding.  :3 

So, I may not be back just yet.  Or I may be.  I'm a Libra; I /waffle.  It's what I do.

A long over-due and rather jumbled update is a post from: Altadin

You know it’s time to end the blogging hiatus … is a post from: Altadin

Or we could kill the Lich King.

So. is a post from: Altadin

To quote my most favoritest rogue ever:

Fucking finally.

Finally! is a post from: Altadin

I don't know why we even bother to raid on patch days.

The hamster has Tuesdays off, you see. is a post from: Altadin

Take that, Charles!

This is not a UI post. is a post from: Altadin

However, Professor Putricide continues to get the better of us.  We managed to push into P3 a couple of times last night, and even suffered the humiliating enrage wipe that means we understand the fight's mechanics well enough to survive and now need to work on fine tuning our execution.  (Do other guilds gets excited by enrage wipes?  We've always tended to view them as a benchmark on difficult encounters.)

While I would have loved to have downed Putricide in our second week of attempts, I'm thrilled to be working on a new fight that is challenging enough to allow for actual progression.  Over the course of two weeks and 20 attempts, we went from utter chaos in P1 to near-masterful control, with Keaton calling DPS starts and stops to ensure that Putricide's health dipped to 80% exactly when we wanted it to.  (This kind of coordination has never been our strong suit, so I was suitably impressed!)  We also learned P2, and while it's far from perfect — Dear Surreality: l2dodgeball, kkthx. <3 Sari — we did manage to survive it several times with the raid more or less intact (give or take a shaman or rogue or two >.>).

In spite of the wipes, morale seemed high and almost everyone had something significant to contribute to the discussion.  I had a lot of fun, especially when a number of players decided to hang out on Vent after the raid just to chat.  We don't tend to be a particularly gregarious group outside of raids, so it was nice to share some stress-free downtime.

I'm really happy with Icecrown Citadel so far.  Raiding feels like raiding again.

Putricide: 2, Surreality: 0 is a post from: Altadin

To Do List is a post from: Altadin