Eric and I are at the one year mark Sunday! I am excited for our much anticipated Sushi dinner up in Seattle to celebrate.
Updates for the year: Eric and I added a puppy to our family (Cole Dog) and are almost finished with the exterior condo renovations. This fall may bring a few more to the interior.
Check out the Fall edition of Oregon Bride. They’ve featured our engagement story and a photograph. Very sweet 
Love,
Jade
The gallery from the photographer has expired, but I’ve uploaded the pictures to our photo website.
http://www.jadebunker.com/gallery/v/album_004_001/
Love,
J+E
We have our photos back from the photographer!!!! Hooray!
The photographer has put together a slideshow here:
http://www.jasminephotography.com/slideshows/jadeericwedding/
All of the photos are available to view here:
Pics from the tea ceremony are posted on our photographers site. The wedding photos should be available soon-ish… I can’t wait.
To see the pics go to:
http://www.jasminephotography.net/pickpic/gallery/login.php
Password: 080708
Date Taken: 08-07-08
Chinese Tea Ceremony
The Chinese Tea Ceremony is a wedding tradition to unite large families. The bride and groom serve tea as a sign of thanks to families for raising them and as a sign of respect. The helpers are usually women blessed with a happy marriage.
The bride and groom serve the tea, holding the teacups with both hands, first to bride’s family, then to groom’s family. The recipients sip the tea, holding the cup with two hands
The tradition is to have the woman on the left side and the man on the right side. The people being served will sit in chairs, while the bride and groom stand.
The bride and groom serve tea in order, starting with the bride’s parents then proceeding to family members in the following order: the parents, then paternal grandparents, then maternal grandparents, then oldest uncles and aunts.
In return, the bride and groom receive lucky red envelopes (“lai see,” which means “lucky”) stuffed with money or jewelry. These gifts are a welcome into the respective families. These envelopes are placed on the platter which holds the teacups.
Joe put together a pretty good summary of Portland directions. Our many freeways and sometimes unfamiliar naming can make it confusing for visitors.
When I first moved to Portland, navigating about was bewildering with the likes of SW (southwest) this and NE (northeast) that! Further, a five digit address format was unfamiliar. Finally, a co-worker sat me down and explained the logic. If you are traveling here soon, you may appreciate this primer even if you have a GPS (by all means bring one if you have a portable or get a rental with one installed!!)
The SW, NE business comes from two lines drawn through downtown Portland; east and west are split by the Willamette River and north and south split by Burnside Street. Hence the four quadrants split by these two lines are (in clockwise order) NE, SE, SW and NW from the center of the Burnside Bridge. So many adjoining streets and in fact, several communities and cities can be in one quadrant, like the Gonzales home (SW Hart Drive), the Bunker home (SW 209th Ave) and even the church (SW Mill St) are all in the same quadrant. The airport is in the NE and you can find some very cool shopping and dining on NW 23rd as other examples of significant landmarks in other sectors.
You will find many streets numbered from the Willamette River. The church is on SW 4th Street and is four streets away from the river to the west side. Eric and Jade live on SW 18th and this same numbering referencing goes out to the Bunker home on SW 209th Ave, or 209 streets away from the river. The numbering goes out in both directions from the river so the NE, SE, SW, NW goes with the street numbers. To the east, this goes to about 240ish but to the west is goes to the 3 or 400 series. The airport is near NE 82nd so to get to the Bunker home, you go 82 streets west to the river then 209 streets west to SW 209th Ave for a total of 291 streets in the western direction.
Addresses pick up the street intersection if they go north/south. The Gonzales home address is 17885 SW Hart, so the cross streets are 178th and 179th, in fact, the house is at the intersection of Hart Dr and 179th Place. Knowing this can help navigate by reckoning if needed.
In Downtown Portland, streets north of Burnside (or NW) have the first letter in alphabetic order. They begin with Ankeny, Burnside, Couch, Davis and so forth up to York.
Now for fun, downtown is riddled with one way streets so you may have to go one street short or one street long of your destination because of this. For extra fun, there is plenty of construction going on downtown so the street you want to use is closed and you need to work around these obstacals. This creates a challenge for surbanites even with familarity with downtown navigation.
All in all, use a GPS as much as possible. Be sure to enter SW or NE designations for street names or you will confuse the simple machine.
Hope this helps! See you all soon.
Love,
Jade and Eric and the rest of the GonzoBunk bunch
I am so lucky to have such talented ladies in my life. Much thanks to Judi and Cindy for throwing a lovely garden party shower last Saturday.
We just found out that construction on the Max expansion will close the Max as it crosses the river from August 2nd though the 24th. Unfortunately that means that those coming to town via max will have to shuttle across the river on a bus.
“The Steel Bridge will close to MAX trains August 2-24. During the interruption, shuttle buses will carry MAX riders between Rose Quarter TC/Convention Center stations and Old Town/Chinatown Station.”
For More Information, visit the Trimet site where you can plan trips and read more about the closure details.
http://trimet.org/alerts/steelbridge.htm
The Paramount block is filling up fast and we have just discovered a new, hip and quite affordable option conveniently located between the St. Michael’s (2 blocks away) and the reception site (OHS, 4 blocks away). It is a newly remodeled modern structure that has some fancy courtyards. The provide a “European Continental Breakfast” with eggs, meat and pastries. Their rooms start at $149 for a king bed with two doubles going for a few dollars more. There are also still suites available. We are chatting with them about a group rate, but they usually don’t do group rates (they *just* opened, so they may be flexible). It seems like a very nice/hip and affordable option.
Moderna Lobby
Moderna Deck
Moderna Exterior
Moderna Room
