Mike and Jill's Family Blog

http://reyeszone.smugmug.com

mdreyes23@hotmail.com (Mike Reyes) — 2008-05-15T14:11:00-05:00

Just wanted to let everybody know that we have a brand new photo website that we are utilizing for more space and backup purposes. It's located at http://reyeszone.smugmug.com Our current family blog site ran into some "technical issues" - it was never meant to be a permanent site but we just loved it so much. Our friend Dylan Greene - the brains behind the dabu web software - made it available to us to utilize/test. So the family blog may be on hold for a bit. Dylan has been very good to us and allowed us to use his amazing piece of software. The guy is a busy man - and even has time to get engaged. Congrats to our good friend Dylan Greene on his engagement!

Wedding Pics - From Roland

mdreyes23@hotmail.com (Mike Reyes) — 2008-05-08T14:02:00-05:00

Roland and Cindy's wedding was the first wedding that Mike and Jill attended together as a couple. As fate would have it, Jill ended up catching the bouquet and Mike ended up catching the garter belt. So a warning for all you single guys :) Just Kidding of course. Roland and Mike were also friends that date back to college years - but it was their college job where they first met. Roland, Cindy, and Mahalia quickly became one of our closest family friends. Roland - also a photography-geek - has pictures of our wedding at http://olan.smugmug.com/gallery/4915043_FoWiA#293523118_vy2Az

Wedding Pics - From Jhason Abuan

mdreyes23@hotmail.com (Mike Reyes) — 2008-05-05T13:47:00-05:00

Jhason, Virginie, and their daughter Isabelle are very good friends of Mike and Jill. Jhason, Virginie, and Mike go way back to their days in college and met at the International House (specialty dorm on campus) at the University of Maryland. Actually, Jhason and Mike first met in 1994/1995 before their days at the International House. They both lived in an all guys dorm around their 2nd year in college. As luck would have it - they both ended up meeting again at the International House. Jhason is a freak with his camera and it's one of his many expensive hobbies. Here's a link to his pictures of our wedding: http://picasaweb.google.com/jhason/MikeAndJillSWedding

Wedding Pics - From Fred Barrios

mdreyes23@hotmail.com (Mike Reyes) — 2008-05-02T22:06:00-05:00

Fred is a close friend of Jill and Mike. They met through work. Mike works directly with Fred regular and quickly bonded with Fred - with all of his hobbies of photography, comics, and movies. The link here is to most of the Photos that Fred took of our wedding. He's also got a guest section for other users to upload their own pictures. I'll be sending account information about this guest account soon. Anyway, you can check out the pictures at http://fredzone.smugmug.com/gallery/4847449_mWA25#288640018_DFLhs

Wedding Pics - From Ann and Lance

mdreyes23@hotmail.com (Mike Reyes) — 2008-05-01T22:09:00-05:00

This photo album is courtesy of Ann and Lance. Ann was Jill's Maid of Honor. Jill and Ann met roughly about 6 years ago at their place of work. They immediately became the very best of friends. You could always hear them giggling throughout the offices. Mike met Ann at her place of work as well - when Mike first started his new job down in Florida. Mike and Ann actually worked side by side together, temporarily for about 2 months before Mike started his regular job. It was Ann that actually introduced Jill and Mike together as "possible" motorcycle riding partners. Mike had just learned how to ride and needed a partner to ride with. Well, long story short, Mike and Jill's first ride together lead to their first date together, that lead to their first kiss - yada yada - the rest is history. Ann's other half Lance - what can we say - he's got the "pop" and "lock" completely down. He's been an amazing friend to us along with Ann and we were very happy to have them both with us for the weekend. This album is only a small subset of all the pictures they had but you can take a sneak peek of most of them. We still have our own photographer's pictures to look at - I know some will be similar to what everybody has. We also still have to develop all the cameras that were on the tables - so look out for those soon.

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Wedding Pics - From Suzy

mdreyes23@hotmail.com (Mike Reyes) — 2008-04-30T21:11:00-05:00

...And more pictures are starting to roll in. Suzy Q, as we like to call her is also a long time friend of Mike's. She also lived in the International Dorm at the University of Maryland (Go Terps!) about the same year Mike first lived there. It was 1995 I believe. After Suzy graduated college, she moved back to her home town of Puerto Rico. Suzy flew in for the weekend just for the wedding! We're so happy that she could join us. Suzy is one of Jill's favorite Mike friends :) - I know we've said it plenty but we seem like the only ones who haven't made it out to visit her yet. It'll happen soon. It's nice knowing an International crew. Suzy's pictures can be found on her blog site at http://suzy.dabu.com/2/3210-Mike-Jills-Wedding

Wedding Pics - From Rich Koza

mdreyes23@hotmail.com (Mike Reyes) — 2008-04-29T21:02:00-05:00

Rich Koza is a long time friend of Mike's. They went to college together and met around Mike's third or fourth year (yep, Mike was on the long-year plan). It was Mike's last year living in the International Dorm at the University of Maryland - when Rich first moved in. He quickly became good friends with everybody and joined the dabu crowd (the origin behind the hosting of this website - but that's another story for another time). Anyway, we were very excited to have Rich with us to share our special day. He can be seen in one of the framed pictures that he was given as a gift for helping us out as one of our Ushers. You can check out his website and some of his pictures from our wedding at http://rich.dabu.com/2/3209-Mike-Jills-Beautiful-Wedding-in-Tampa-FL

Thanks Rich!

http://www.allpopart.com

mdreyes23@hotmail.com (Mike Reyes) — 2008-04-28T18:37:00-05:00

Now that the wedding is over, I can finally post some of these pictures - I didn't want to ruin the surprise before the big day. I had the hardest time trying to find something special for my friends who were part of our wedding entourage. It was one of my Best Men - Chris Donovan - who I knew collected pieces of art. That thought gave me the idea to search on the Internet for personalized, modern art. That research resulted in one of my greatest finds - http://www.allpopart.com. I truly recommend them for the art lover - or comic book fan for that matter. Below are some of the framed pictures I had made for some of my friends that helped with our wedding. They are designed in lichStyle (Inspired by Roy Lichtenstein). The text is based on some inside jokes that we share but anyway, let me know what you think.

Wedding - Thank You's!

mdreyes23@hotmail.com (Mike Reyes) — 2008-04-27T18:25:00-05:00

Amazing - all that anxiety and preparation, and bam! It's already over. Jill and I had an amazing time though - and we just want to thank all of our family and friends for their love, friendship, and kindness. We had the time of our lives and couldn't have asked for a better weekend. We're still recuperating from last weekend so check back later as we hope to be able to share pictures of our wedding with everybody. We're very excited to begin our new lives together - oh, and our honeymoon of course.

Orlando Magic Game

mdreyes23@hotmail.com (Mike Reyes) — 2008-04-15T21:50:00-05:00

I know it's been awhile since the last update. We've been busy like crazy - can't believe our wedding is next weekend! Can't wait! Anyway, I got to take a nice break recently, which I really needed. A co-worker and I got to go to the "Storage Networking World" conference in Orlando last week which was pretty interesting. As an added treat, we ended up going to the Orlando Magic game. With VIP passes, we got to go to a special dinner before the game... including meeting some Orlando dancers... and Nick Anderson (a veteran of the Orlando Magic back in the late 80s and most of the 90s). At the end of the game, we also got to go on the court and run some layup drills. They were pretty strict about just doing layups - so unfortunately I was unable to do one of my dunks. Below is a video of the "regular" layup. I wish Jill could have made the trip with us - but she could not make it :(

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New Car Photos

mdreyes23@hotmail.com (Mike Reyes) — 2008-03-02T12:24:00-05:00

I was going to wait another year but as my luck would have it - I got into an accident recently and my Acura RSX was totaled. I finally was able to go out and look for a new car after being sick for more than a week. Anyway, I ended up going with a 2008 Ford Edge. I was always leaning towards a crossover and this was pretty much the only one I liked at a resonable price. What do you think?

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Wedding Shower 2

mdreyes23@hotmail.com (Mike Reyes) — 2008-02-27T11:57:00-05:00

Jill had a wedding shower a while back in her hometown of Buffalo. Well, this time around... my mom threw us one in DC. We had an absolute blast. We had a taste of what it's going to be like at the wedding - jumping from group to group, trying to talk/entertain with everybody. We want to thank everybody that came and celebrated with us!

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DC Trip Early 2008

mdreyes23@hotmail.com (Mike Reyes) — 2008-02-24T11:48:00-05:00

This time we both made it back to DC for a visit. The main reason for the visit was because we were going to our second wedding shower. While in DC, we took the opportunity to tour the actual city for a change. Despite the cold weather we still walked around as well as visited the National Museum of Natural History, the Hirshhorn Museum's Sculpture Garden, and the Freer Gallery of Art. I also got a chance to take Jill to visit my father's grave at Arlington National Cemetery

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More Max

mdreyes23@hotmail.com (Mike Reyes) — 2008-02-01T11:45:00-05:00

Couldn't resist. Had to post some of these pictures we took of Max looking out the window (laying on a box we put down temporarily). Side note - I need to take more pictures of the outside - we finally got some trees cut down. In fact, I'll post pictures on a future post with regards to recent house changes.

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Jill's 29th Birthday

mdreyes23@hotmail.com (Mike Reyes) — 2008-01-19T11:41:00-05:00

Another year, another year closer to the big 3-0 for Jilly! Like last year, we got together with a bunch of our friends. Mainly - Splittsville at Channelside - which is a bar/restaurant that also includes some bowling lanes and pool tables. Thought I took more pictures than these but it's all I have. Happy Birthday to my future wife!

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Engagement Photos - Preview

mdreyes23@hotmail.com (Mike Reyes) — 2008-01-14T21:37:00-05:00

Another quick post here... busy with wedding plans. We're down to almost 3 1/2 months left. Yikes! Anyway, we wanted to show a preview of our engagement photos. Pictures were taken by Lawrence Photography who are also doing our wedding. We found them through a friend of ours and they've been great! Let us know what you think.

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Christmas 2007

mdreyes23@hotmail.com (Mike Reyes) — 2007-12-29T11:37:00-05:00

Pictures from around Christmas time. This year, I went back to DC for a quick visit with my mom. Jill stayed in Florida while her Dad and Stepmother visited. I met up with them a couple of days later.

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Wedding Shower 1

mdreyes23@hotmail.com (Mike Reyes) — 2007-12-01T20:18:00-05:00

While we were in Buffalo for Thanksgiving a wedding shower was thrown for Jill... which I eventualily crashed. Here's pictures from the festivities! Thanks to all who attended for the best wishes and "cooking" gifts :)

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Thanksgiving 2007

mdreyes23@hotmail.com (Mike Reyes) — 2007-11-26T20:11:00-05:00

This year Jill and I spent thanksgiving in the coldness of Buffalo! Although it wasn't that bad... it only hit 20 degrees! Enjoy the pictures with Jill's amazing family

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I Believe I Can Fly

mdreyes23@hotmail.com (Mike Reyes) — 2007-11-05T13:31:00-05:00

Dug this up from the archives. It's getting very dated. I shot this video on VHS back in '93... and then edited it on an old computer when I first was learning about video editing. Anyway, thought I'd get this back out there to see where it all started. I wish I had the skills to be able to make a new version of this.