We've made it five years!

Five years ago tonight, a stammering young guy managed to cough up some words to the effect of "Date, um, you and me, you know, like maybe, um, this weekend?"

The lovely and poised lady of his amorous intentions replied in dulcet tones that she would be delighted.

Nothing has been even close to being the same since then. The stars have been brighter, the sunsets more lovely, and the birds have sung more sweetly.

Three and a Half Years!

C&I celebrate our anniversary mostly on our half-year anniversary. Typically we're with family, or traveling, or something on our actual anniversary, so if we want to do anything special for it we need to do it on the half-year anniversary.

So we went out for dinner, spent a while at Borders, and then went to a play of Oklahoma!

We need to do stuff like this more often! We got all spiffed up, which is a rare occasion and fun in its own right, and hit the town. C was smokin' in her little black dress and hopefully I wasn't too scruffy since I recently got a hair cut.

An excellent evening was had, the play was excellent, we shared bits and pieces with each other of what we were browsing through at the bookstore (I got hung up on a book of Chuck Norris "facts"), and St. G and Sarah watched TGM while we were out. (Thank you!)

Life is good!

2.5 Years

Two and 1/2 years ago today, Jesse and I said our vows in a Virginia church before friends, family, and God. Unfortunately, since I'm writing this at work, I don't have time to rhapsodize about how much I love him and how much he means to me and how wonderful he is. (I'm sure you are all now sighing in relief.)

Instead, I just have to simply say, "I love you, my dear, wonderful husband!"

Three Years Ago...

The anniversary of our engagement isn't until Monday, but it was three years ago after the BBQ for the graduating class that there was a ring/candlelight ceremony hosted for me and thus was my engagement announced to the PHC student body and community. Graduation day, I think I got as many wishes of congratulations as some of the graduates did, as the word continued to spread among students, faculty, staff, and their families.

Now, three years later, as I'm typing this, I'm taking breaks to feel and watch my belly move. Another three months and I'll be the mother to a baby that I can hold in my arms.

25 months

We passed the marker for 25 months of marriage last week.

I still haven't gotten out our Christmas letter for this year. (It is written, but not edited. Maybe it'll get posted on here at somepoint, instead of mailed.)

I still haven't made supper for my husband more than one night out of any given week (IF that).

I still haven't unpacked from our move.

BUT, I still have the most wonderful husband in the world!! He remembered my birthday and made it a very special day. And yesterday he had supper waiting for me when I got home, even though he had a bad headache and was in bed by 8:45.

I am SO blessed!

Two Years!

Happy Anniversary, My Love! It has been two wonderful years! Your actions and words are a blessing to me everyday. My words and actions in trying to express to you how much you mean to me seem so inadequate.

I love you and look forward to many more years together with you.

The 30th

Today is the 30th. That means I can be sappy and wish my husband a Happy Anniversary! Yep, 21 months ago, we got married!

House update. The bank didn't laugh, but we haven't seen a signed contract yet. There'll be some projects to be done if we get the house.

Anniversary again?!

Yup, today is our third anniversary ... of when I first asked Charlessa out. Best thing I've ever done!

Thursday after clogging everyone else had needed to hurry off for various things and we were left alone in the clogging barn. So we spent an hour or two talking and sitting there, and it was just like "old times". For over a year Charlessa and I sat in that barn, or outside talking and chit-chatting about any and every little thing.

I've come to the sneaking suspicion that the other cloggers were leaving early to leave us alone. Ever since we got married, it seems like they will regularly sit and chat until 10:30 or 11:00, whereas they seemed to take off within 20 minutes of the end of class back when we were dating and engaged.

We have a great group of friends!

I was shocked when C&I figured out that it had been three years ago that we were standing outside and I managed to stutter through asking her out on a date. While it would be sort of fun to have a video of that night, I also have deep feelings of relief that I wasn't captured on film being such a bumbling, 30-minutes-to-get-to-the-point performance. I much prefer to maintain my self-image of being cool, suave, debonair, and rakishly handsome! :^)

It doesn't seem like it has been that long. Three years. Wow! It's been a GOOD three years!

Living Life

Please don't be alarmed by the fact that there are currently three contributors to this blog. I'm in the process of sorting out which e-mail accounts and which Google accounts I want to keep and which one I want to use. So at the moment, I'm a contributor from two different accounts. I'm still deciding how I want to handle accounts, so I'm not sure if this is a temporary arrangement or a long-term arrangement.

My sticking point is that I want to use one Google account as my primary e-mail account and I want to use the other Google account as my primary blogging account. Since Google doesn't allow one to log into two different accounts at the same time (even if one is blogger and one is e-mail), I have to re-login everytime I want switch between e-mail and blogging. That has been part of the reason my blog posting has been down in recent months.

Despite the lack of posts, life has been going very well for us. Jesse still surprises me with text messages and the so many little things he does for me--hot tea, foot rubs, opening doors, or just waking me up with a kiss.

I'm sure no one's cares.....but it was 31 months ago that we started dating and 22 months ago that we got engaged!

One-Year Anniversary

Happy (belated) Anniversary, Jesse, love of my life!

For the past week, we've been reminding each other of the events of "one year ago." One year ago today, we were on our honeymoon in Nevada. One year ago, I was still adjusting to the idea that my life would never be the same, but would forever be better because you are part of it!

Today, you still amaze me with your constant reminders of your love for me! Today, I still marvel at how my life is changing and becoming better with you. Today, I love you more than I did a year ago.

Tomorrow, I look forward to once again trying to tell you how much I love you. Tomorrow, I look forward to sharing another day with you, with it's experiences, thoughts, and dreams. Tomorrow is not guaranteed, but by God's grace, our tomorrows will continue for many years to come!

Eight month anniversary!

Nothing particularly special about eight months I guess, or at least not compared to a nice, big marks like the yearly anniversaries, but until we get to those yearly anniversaries, and maybe even after, I'm going to celebrate even these smaller ones!

These eight months have been far and away the most wonderful eight months of my life! I've never been particularly impressed with the idea of Soul Mates or "The One" that is waiting out there somewhere, but experience has a funny way of changing ideas. I still can't say that I intellectually agree with the full idea of a Soul Mate, but on the other hand . . .

If it purrs like a cat, is furry like a cat, and meows like a cat, then it's probably a cat!

So I'm left with having to say that I guess I've found my Soul Mate! (Even if I'm not sure I believe in Soul Mates!) Here's to eight months, and counting, of wedded bliss!

6 Months After the Wedding

Wow! We've been married for 6-months! I'm not sure if I'm more surprised that it was only 6-months ago or already 6-months ago. Either way, we are still very happily married. And after serious consideration we have decided to stay married for another 6 months.

So, how have we remembered our 6-month mark? Somewhat belatedly.

Saturday, June 30th, was BRTC's 10-year birthday party! Jer was visiting us for the weekend, so we all got to spend the entire day with all our clogging friends. (There are a couple of great pictures of Jer from the Party at the link above!) BRTC Lightning (Team) spent the morning learning a new performance song. BRTC spent the afternoon learning a new performance song. Then 5-9PM was spent learning 3-4 more fun songs and having friends from other clogging groups join us for the cake and dancing! At the end of the day, we were all very tired.

It was on the way home that Jesse reminded me that the day was also our 6-month anniversary! We shared the honor of being "newlyweds" with Josh and Carrie Harrison--the instructors for the day--who have been married for just 9 months.

For our 6-month anniversary and to get some things done, we both took today (Tuesday, July 3) off of work. We didn't make it out of the house until 3:45 but we still accomplished:
- oil changed in Jesse's car
- the LAST of our wedding thank you notes mailed (with two exceptions where we don't have addresses yet). The notes been written for more than a month!
- the last of the gifts for our wedding party mailed. (Our apologies to Andy, Margaret, and Katie for being so late!)
- a gift for Jesse's dad for father's day was mailed. (Again, our apologies for being late!)
- a return completed for an item Jesse's parents had bought in the area and decided they didn't need.
- moving our cell phones to a family plan. (We are now both on Cingular/AT&T. Jesse has a new number.)

After all that, we sat in the car pushing all the buttons on our new phones trying to figure out all we wanted them to do and all they could do. (Instructions? Why bother?)

For the evening, we headed over to Lovettsville for a clogging performance at their Independence Day celebration. It drizzled and almost rained for the fireworks, but not enough to keep them from going ahead with their display.

Anniversary

It was one year ago (May 18) on a Thursday evening that Jesse waited out the talkers in the clogging barn, wrestled down his nervousness, and asked me to spend the rest of my life with him! :)

A few weeks ago, I picked up a book on the World's Greatest Proposals. The book is filled with proposals over romantic dinners, as part of suprise weekend get-aways, and even one where the guy pretended to get himself arrested. As I read the many different proposals, I realized that as romantic or grand as some of them may have been, I wouldn't have traded a single one of them for mine.

Auspicious Milestones!

We're celebrating two big events today!

Four Month Anniversary!
Yes, exactly four months ago, Jesse and Charlessa tied the knot in a wonderful ceremony witnessed by our wonderful families and dear friends! I still say that hands down, Charlessa was the most beautiful bride I have ever seen! We're still happily married, and we agreed just this morning that we would keep up this married thing for at least another week!

100th Post!
We've been posting on here to say all the mushy stuff, talk about the couples stuff that is about us both, and share all the things that we would have to duplicate between our blogs. We've been trying to come up with something profound to have for our 100th post, but neither of us are good at coming up with profound stuff off the top of our heads. Hmmm, I guess it wouldn't be truly profound if we could. Oh well.

Happy 1-Month Anniversary!

A month ago about this time (Dec 30, 2:40 PM), we walked out of the sanctuary having just been pronounced husband and wife. As we reached a bit of privacy, Jesse turned to me and stated, "We're married." My reply was, "So they say." At that moment, I didn't "feel" married. The ceremony was great, but nothing in it really changed how I "felt."

Last Sunday at church, a friend commented to us that when he saw us after the honeymoon, he was struck by the fact that we "looked married." He couldn't define what "the look" was, but we don't really mind--it matches the facts and we (at least I) am feeling married. And that is a VERY GOOD THING.

At some point about mid-way through the honeymoon, I found myself feeling disappointed when I thought about going home and back to "normal life." When I took the time to figure out why I was feeling disappointed, I realized that I was still thinking of "normal life" as what I've known for the past 5-6 years--living on my own and only seeing friends (including Jesse) when time permitted between work, church, clogging, and other activities. That's not what I want any more for my "normal life."

I'm still figuring out what the new "normal" is, but I'm enjoying every minute of it--not going home to an empty house, not having to deal with all the chores (from dishes to broken showers) on my own, having my best friend there to listen and share the joys and frustrations, and so much more.