entertain: tourists in DC

We've got some really fun guests coming to visit today! As soon as they get here we are going to grab some coffee at Northside Social. They make one of the best lattes I've ever had and the savory scones are what my cheesy dreams are made of. Then we are off to be tourists in the District!

You can see what we are up to on Instagram!

xo Lea Hart

entertain: Our Wedding: the schedule of events, or what do do in the middle of nowhere!

Hey y'all last Monday I started to tell y'all all about our wedding. This week its all about our itinerary. Since we knew we would be entertaining a large group of guests for the whole weekend, we wanted come up with a working schedule of events. Most people were arriving on Friday, but a good number of folks came earlier, so we kicked off the wedding weekend extravaganza on Thursday with a casual cookout at the Ranch. This link is from part of our wedding Documentary by Halidou Epics.  The fact that we have a wedding documentary about the whole weekend is the. best. thing... EVER! It's so fun, one of our best friends made it for us. I'm going to share all about that too!  But here is a clip from it. This is a what its like driving up to the ranch. So remote and beyond beautiful.

Pino Wedding 02 - The Drive from Moustapha Halidou on Vimeo.

Super fun and totally not stressful, lots of cold beer, grilled chicken, veggies, and tons of Cousin Willie's crazy hot salsa and chips. We ate gallons of it all weekend long!

Good times and it was one of the few times I got to relax and just hang out! This is what it's usually like at the ranch during the reunions.

You might have noticed the stacks of chairs, tables, and dishes in the background. We rented everything including two huge tents from a rental company about an hour away. When we scheduled the delivery, we just thought we needed to be there to let them in and supervise.... Ummm yeah, we were so wrong!!! Thank goodness so many folks were around. This clip is from the Documentary and it's only of the funniest things I've ever seen. How many engineers does it take to set one of these crazy tents up??? And I loved hearing my NYC friend asking the Motel if they had a fitness center!! haha.... enjoy!

Pino Wedding 03 - Thursday Prep from Moustapha Halidou on Vimeo.

Hilarious!!! And how awesome are all our friends!?! They rock.

So on Friday we encouraged all of our guests to explore around the area during the day. Then off to the No Scum Allowed Saloon for our Rehearsal Dinner!

A bunch of folks went to White Sands, which is soo cool! Its mountains of white sand in the middle of the desert. My family went there on a family vacation years ago.  Looks like Uncle David and Cousin Sara had a blast!

Some of our Trekkie type friends headed over to Roswell, to look for aliens. It's pretty cheesy, but if you are into UFOs and extraterrestrials... it can be fun. 

We created a blog for our wedding guest and listed fun stuff all over New Mexico. There is sooo much to see in New Mexico. We also let everyone know where the best green chili cheeseburgers, are. One of our friends ate one everyday he was here! They are so freaking good.

Another cool spot is Bonito Lake, near Ruidoso, Mike and I went there the year before. The high desert of New Mexico has a very diverse landscape. It looks so green and lush! This year it was off limits because of wild fires. Lots more about the Wildfires later, too! 

Lots of folks just hung around Zozo, there are some fun art galleries, antiques shops, a cute coffee shop, and Roy's Soda Counter, it's famous for ice cream floats! 

Next up Friday night Welcome Party, and the Wedding Day...

xo Lea Hart

ps- How great are the videos? Mous did an amazing  amazing job. We really love having that to look back on. It really shows y'all what it was like out there! I'll post videos about the No Scum and from the Big Day. 

entertain: Daft Punk

On a lighter note today, one of our favorite groups, Daft Punk just released the first single "Get Lucky" off of their new album, Random Access Memory, which is due out next month.



A little back story: After a couple of months of casual dating, I invited Lea to see Daft Punk with me at Coney Island's Keyspan Park. It was at that show that we decided we wanted to date exclusively. It was an amazing show and an amazing night.

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We also walked down the aisle for the first time as a married couple to One More Time blasting, that was great. We really hope to be able to catch them again.

Peace Mike

entertain: our wedding, the location

I've posted a few pictures from our wedding here, but I realized I've never really talked about it! So much went into planning our wedding, and it was all done from the other side of the country. You might be wondering why we decided to get married in New Mexico. We realized, right away, that no matter where we held the event, a majority of the guests would be traveling. Mike is from Virginia, I'm from Alabama, we lived in New York... there just wasn't a place that made sense. I thought about having the wedding in New York, but even planning a small wedding it's really expensive in the city. So when Mike told me that he'd always imagined getting married out on his family's ranch, and we knew everyone was going to have to travel anyway, a rustic ranch wedding sounded like the perfect solution.

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It is a stunningly beautiful place, and his family has been on that land for seven generations. The Pino Ranch is just outside of a tiny town called Carrizozo. 

The town is in Lincoln County, which has two claims to fame, Smokey the Bear and Billy the Kid. This was the wild wild West. Billy and his crew "allegedly" used to cross the Pino Ranch going back and forth between Carrizozo and the gold mining boom town of White Oaks. The sheriff of Lincoln County shot and killed Billy the Kid for his involvement in the Lincoln County War. 

Cool stuff, huh?!? I love history, it was my favorite subject in school, and Mike and I almost exclusively read non fiction or biographies. So "thanks to great leaders, such as Genghis Khan, Joan of Arc, and Socratic method . . . the world is FULL of history." *Extra bonus points if anybody knows what movie that quote is from!*

OK, back to the wedding planning. So I was on board right away with a Ranch wedding. But I did have some concerns. Some were design related, but most were actual logistics... like where does one get flowers, a cake, food and lodging for a hundred people in a town that doesn't even have a grocery store??? This is the main street... so, as you can see, there's not too much going on here.

We knew right away that finding enough room people for people to stay was going to be a deal breaker. Unfortunately the available accommodations were... umm... not so deluxe... but what can ya do?

We went around to all three of the local motels and reserved every room in the town, and a couple of B&B's in the surrounding area. Once we'd booked the entire town, we went back to NYC and started planning the rest of the event. 

Now let's talk scheduling and why I had over a year long engagement. Mike proposed to me in May of 2010. It was really great, he took me out to the Eastern most tip of Long Island, and popped the question by the lighthouse in Montauk. 

He was really sweet and of course I said yes! Oh have I mentioned before, that I'm kind of a dork???

We go out to New Mexico every year for a Fourth of July family reunion. So we knew the Where; on the Ranch. With lodging confirmed we knew the When; the next family reunion July 4th weekend. Now finally we could start planning all the fun wedding stuff! 

Pinterest is an awesome tool for wedding planning, I got tons of inspiration and ideas... and so the decor and feel of this wedding started to materialize.  I'd always imagined, before I met Mike, that my wedding would be a Southern affair. And I probably would hold it at Oakton. A beautiful antebellum mansion that has been in my family for many generations. 

Many of my relatives have had their weddings here, my mom and dad, cousins, aunt and uncles, and most recently my youngest sister. It's a beautiful place with tons of history and it just oozes Southern charm. I was just going to pick my dress add some hydrangeas, serve up some sweet tea and call it a day! But now that I was getting married out West- I had to rethink everything. My husband's family has a strong Spanish heritage, they call it Pino Pride. And since I was going to become a Pino, I wanted to reflect his culture as much as mine. 

So here are some of the pictures that really inspired me to plan our Southern, causal, Ranch wedding fiesta, and it was all about love being a BIG deal...

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Are you feeling the mood? Glowy lights (I LOOOOOVE glowy lights), boots, burlap, wild flowers... Ok next Monday more Pino wedding goodness. 

xo Lea Hart

ps- this song inspired the whole theme of our wedding. It's such a beautiful song, I still tear up listening to it...

Love is a Big Deal, y'all. 

entertain: Cherry Blossoms

Here in DC the Cherry Blossoms have exploded! They are so pretty, when the wind blows, the petals fall looking like pink rain. I would highly recommend coming to the District for the Cherry Blossom Festival.  I snapped a couple of pictures, but only one turned out well... and the video is of the daytime fireworks! They were so cool.

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So after you've checked out all the beautiful blooms, or if you don't live in the DC area but still want to celebrate... try making one of these yummy looking concoctions. It's called George's Folly, and is made with gin and cherry juice. The name comes from the legend about George Washington cutting down a cherry tree, check out the website for the recipe and the rest of the story.

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And Mike's musical pick this week is, Shuggie Otis' "Inspiration Information"
"We had a rainy day..."



Perfect for a gorgeous Spring weekend, do y'all think?

xo Lea Hart & Mike

entertain: Friday fun times

Yep. It's Friday. And Friday's are made for fun times, like living room dance parties, cocktails, laughs with friends, something fancy to eat, and to wear! Mike is going to get in on the blogging action and he will be posting cool musical finds. He has the best taste in music and is always exploring new artists. I think y'all will dig it. And while you are listening to your new favorite tune, why not mix up a Paloma. I had one at the Carousel Bar on New Orleans and it was tasty.

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and now Mike P is on the mic...

This is a track called "I feel good" by Jay Electronica. You can check it out here.





He is a man of few words...
OK now go shine on you crazy diamonds!

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xo Lea Hart & Mike

entertain: Breakaway

Art Garfunkel's Breakaway was my "gateway" album. You know the one you heard and as soon as you did, it opened your world to how awesome music could be? One day, when I was 12 or so, I found an old dusty box of cassette tapes in the garage. Thankfully these musical treasures were discovered after I my NKOTB stage (we all had that right?!), and I was able to really appreciate them. There were some really awesome tapes in that box; The Beach Boys, Yes, The Doors, and Art Garfunkel's Breakaway. I listened to and LOVED all of them.  But there was one that I played over and over... Breakaway.

My Dad told me that he gave it to my Mom in college before he left to go to school in Paris, France. So she would listen to it and think of him. It made such and impact on my musical tastes. For many years after that I wouldn't listen to any album recorded after the 70's. I fell in love with Simon & Garfunkel, Pink Floyd, the Grateful Dead, America, the Beatles, The Who and so so many more.

Anyway, I though I'd share because I heard a great cover of the Boxer by Mumford & Sons today




and I wondered if kids today are exploring this great era in music? Or are they going "old school" with stuff from the 90's? Hmm...

I'm really digging Munford & Sons right now. They have soul. Maybe I'll start sharing more music regularly here, since its such a part of my life. I shared this one last year, and it still makes me dance as soon as I hear it!

What do y'all think?

xo Lea Hart