Thursday, January 9, 2014

For Auld Lang Syne

In light of making no sense with these posts at all... I am going to write about New Years before Christmas? Kay cool, just go with it.

Sooooo, on December 31st, the roads were terrible (like real bad) but we trekked north anyway. Ludington or bust. And it was worth it because small Midwestern towns are the cutest and there's nothing better than holidays with family. And Ryan was in town so seven kids under one roof, no wonder the polar vortex descended upon us.


The best thing about small towns is that there are small populations of people. So for a grand celebration in Ludington, MI, people are clever and party in storefronts in warmth until about 11:45. So unlike NYC for NYE we were able to stay toasty for a bit and go to the bathroom.


The majority of these people are related to me... not all, but most. And some might claim to be, who knows? Other great things about small towns?




The worst thing though is that this small town is located in Northern Michigan so even though we were outside in "crowds" for only 25 minutes we were probably more in fear of our noses turning red and falling off than all the people in NYC combined.


As Torey cries about the temperature.


Blurry, but they're the prettiest so I had ta.



Stole this one from the gram so the ball did drop and the firework display was killing it.



12:01 selfies because 2014 is about to be the craziest year of my life.


Small towns let you get up close and personal with the flashing who's-a-ma-what-z-it, I think we have you beat New York.


I included this photo only because I love Thomas so much.


And here we are, all in one frozen ice block so mom could get what will likely be on our Christmas card next year, or at this rate we could throw it on with 2013, keep-a-checking your mailboxes friends, they're-a-coming.

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Registrating

Tim and I fight. We do, like the rest of the fallen world, let pride get in the way of joy, and selfishness get in the way of peace. It's true. But it seems like it has been happening more lately and we both kinda hate it. But what to do? Because if you read my first post you know that we are equally stubborn people and when it comes to planning a wedding and planning a home and planning a life for two becoming one, we found out that there are a lot of people's feelings that can get hurt... and not just the two that become one. We are finding out, first hand, how many people are affected by our wedding. And we are just like HAYYYYYYY, don't mind us (to their face) but to each other it can grow tense.

I am not trying to tell y'all this to then prove that I am right in my arguments (I truly don't need an affirmation of my ego) or even to rehash anything we have fought about. But I am just being real with you. I just really want the joy back in planning this big day, that's what I want to say. Because everyone has an opinion about what we should do, including Tim and I, but there comes a point when you say 'love ya' to everyone else around you and do what you really want. And we don't mean this to be insulting to anyone who cares about us enough to drop a line with their opinions. 

The one thing Tim keeps yelling at me for though is becoming indifferent. I gain the attitude that because there is no way to win I just don't care and it really doesn't matter and we have a church and a priest and a groom and I'll just walk down the isle in a Value Village dress and Bring Your Own Beer people!(calm down I totally already said yes to a dress). Anyway I have become someone who is throwing my hands up and walking away defeated. It's depressing and not like my choleric nature at all and Tim's over it. And, reflecting on it I can help but agree with him. Mark this day on your calendar y'all because I just backed down and told the internet (aka errybody) that I was wrong and Tim was right............. Anyway, I wouldn't want to plan a wedding with a person like that so this is my informal apology to you hun, do forgive me?

So plan: less indifference and more joy. Ready? BREAK.

Step 1: Claim it in the small things.

Like a registry and fun teapots? YES! Super fun.
(blurry because it was taken with my phone becuase awkward to pull out a camera in B, B, and B?)


And Tim with his newfound weapon of choice. I walked around and talked to myself about the pintrest house of my dreams while Tim was a kid in a toy shop, scan, scan, scan. We really had a good time and were there for hours. In some senses it was completely over whelming but in others it was what we needed. For those four hours we were able to plan a future life and not just a day of caterers and DJs (don't ask) and poofy white dress decisions but a home and a daily life together... in the same time zone at that. We are happy for that, joy in the small things.

Bonus shotz of the table settings we picked because Bed Bath and Beyond is beyond awesome and did that for us. Thanks B cubed, you rock our socks.

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Not what I asked for...


But it's a whole lot better me thinks. The rest of this post is from Tim for y'all, 'njoy!

P.S. I'll get the engagement story soon I swear!


Falling in Love with Rylee Grace

Friends. You all know and love our dearest Rylee. As such you may have noticed a recent flood of activity on Facebook from our recent engagement photos or even might have caught sight of her oh so clever (please affirm her that they are clever) engagement related posts on Instagram. Well, this post is pretty late compared to when we announced the news, but better late than ever right? But here it is folks, I asked Rylee what will probably be the 1st or 2nd most important question to ever escape my lips (not sure if it will rank above or below “Is it a girl or a boy?”). Now, in anticipation for that weekend, I knew I could not plan for everything. First of all, I knew I didn’t have that capacity. Rylee is the good planner and she was inherently incapable of helping me prepare for this one so I was on my own and knew some details would inevitably be left out. Shout out to my friend Meredith, without whom November 1st would not have gone down so smoothly. Second, I knew there would be something(s) that I simply could not anticipate, regardless of how long I tried to plan. One such thing was the story telling that went into that weekend. Rylee and I were amazed at how many times we told the story of how I proposed and what all happened. It makes perfect sense that people were interested, but I never would have thought that we would map out our weekend by which of us had to tell the story this time.

Now at the end of that weekend, Rylee posted on the blog a few pictures and hinted that more was to come, possibly even a post from me. I immediately shut the idea down, at that point totally over having to repeat the story one more time. I knew I would eventually write something, but at the moment I refused. I have since recovered my tolerance for the story of how I asked the woman of my dreams to marry me, but I am not backing down on my previous stance. Stubbornness is a staple of Rylee and I’s relationship and rule #1 is never give in, and if you do give in make it look like you did not just give in. So, I will not be telling how I proposed (in this post. That one comes later, making it look like I did not give in). You see, when Rylee started this blog, she said it was because she wanted it to show who she was. Now she doesn’t brag on herself all that often, but I think “Who she is” is a pretty amazing person and so I’ll take it as my own responsibility to convey that a little today. So instead of telling you “How I Proposed to Rylee Grace” (which she will still guilt me into writing) I give you “How I Came to Propose to Rylee Grace.”

Rylee and I have been dating for 5 years, starting all the way back at age 17 in our junior year of high school. However, I still remember the very first time I ever saw her. Freshman year, first day of school, 3rd period, Mr. McCarthy’s room, World History Honors. (We also had Geometry together (10th period) and possibly English?) But anyway, I get pretty shy around new people and the first day of classes I felt like everybody knew everybody, except me who knew nobody. I walked into class and instantly saw Rylee, 3rd row, 4 people back, smiling and laughing up a storm with her Corpus girls. I on the other hand went straight to my seat and sat there silently for the next 4 months. Allegedly, Rylee had a crush on me from Day 1. Well that was Day 1 and I’m pretty sure she had no clue I existed. She will never believe me (because it took 2 years for something to happen), but I had a crush on Rylee from Day 1. I will never forget that day. Time passed, Rylee and I became friends, and at the beginning of our junior year we were both asked to help with (and both missed the mandatory meeting for) a new program from the diocese called “First Comes Love.” It was designed to be a day long retreat for 8th graders preparing to enter high school about the importance of Chastity. Rylee and I were there because for the last hour of the day they had current high school students come in and give personal testimony to what it was like being chaste in high school.

After the couple leading the program explained it to us, I suggested that Rylee and I should just prepare something together. Rather than attributing this to a romantic notion, I have to confess I was just being practical: writing half of a talk and not know who we were going to be paired with ahead of time sounded like a lot more work. We set aside a Saturday afternoon to write the talk and spent the entire day talking, never once getting anywhere near writing that talk. But we learned a lot about each other in that preparation and the months to come talking to 8th graders. We were open and honest about what we wanted in relationships, how we wanted to make God present with our significant others, and shared our faith and commitment to remaining chaste until marriage. From the moment I suggested we write the talk together, the thought popped into my head that I might end up dating this girl. But for the next 4 months I pushed myself to resist and wait, not wanting to just throw myself into another relationship that would end in heartache. But after months of getting to know Rylee better and better, I was sure I had to give it a shot. She was too special, too one of a kind, to just let her slip through my fingers or have to watch some jerk scoop her up. So on December 30, 2008, after much delay and significant ado, right as I was about to ask her to be my girlfriend, she cut to the chase and asked me first. Who’s surprised?

It sounds strange to say, but I knew I could marry Rylee from the start. That is, from the time we started dating, I never thought “I could only see us dating for a while.” To borrow a phrase from How I Met Your Mother (irony), I never felt like our relationship had an expiration date. It was always an attitude of indefinite love, even before it was “love” and only “like.” I always had an attitude of “of course this will last,” something absolutely aggravating to our favorite self-proclaimed realist (she often bemoans my optimism, while I see myself as the realist and dismiss her as the pessimist). She always preferred hard proof, legitimate reasons why this should still continue to work. But it seemed pretty simple to me. The more time passed, the better I knew this girl and the more unequivocally she held my heart. Freshman year of college, as we settled into our lives 1,000-2,000 miles apart (depending on the time of year), seeing each other for week stretches (if that) every few months, I told myself, “If we can make it through this year, she’s the one.” And at the end of freshman year I told my friends the same thing. I was sure at that point, barring some unforeseen disaster in the coming years of college, that I was going to marry that girl.

When we went to Rome, everything (and by everything, I mean nothing (and by nothing, I mean everything)) changed. We had grown up over 2 years into remarkably different people than the 18 year olds sent off to college in August 2010. And things could not have been better. Rylee and I had, in some ways, to relearn each other. We had different priorities, mannerisms, and concerns in life than our younger selves. It was a little different being able to see her every day. Being able to say, “Good night, I’ll see you tomorrow.” Being able to cook, clean, study, travel, walk, eat, shop, cry, laugh, love, and live every day with the person that makes my heart sing. But nothing has ever felt so natural in my entire life. Whatever was hard was worth it because of Rylee. I was excited to be in this amazingly beautiful place with millennia of history and the center of the Church 10 minutes from my apartment because of Rylee. Cooking dinner became one of my favorite activities and could be followed up perfectly by listening to my roommates rant about God knows what because of Rylee.

In our preparation to go to Rome, Rylee discovered that the halfway point between our apartments was St. Peter’s Square. We had used it a few times as a convenient meeting place, but normally one of us just went to see the other at their apartment. One night, mid-October, we were fighting about something that I honestly can’t remember. But somehow I convinced a reluctant Rylee to meet me at the Vatican because I refused to let her go to bed angry that night. She arrived even more steamed than when I had left her on the phone because I’d made her walk over there at 11pm by herself (bad move on my part). But whatever was the matter that night, we talked it out soon enough. I remember standing there, outside the colonnade, 2nd or 3rd column in on the right, and I just looked her in the eyes for close to 5 minutes. She of course had no idea what was going through my mind, but at that moment I knew I wanted to ask this girl to be my wife. From that moment forward I was positive I was going to propose, and for the rest of that evening while we stood outside I was trying to convince myself to get down on one knee right then and there. I asked her what she would say if I did not have a ring when I asked and she told me it would be important to her, not to have for herself, but as a sign to everyone else that we were serious and not just a couple of kids. I went home that night and started looking for rings online. It was hard leaving Rome because I knew I was leaving living that close to Rylee for at least another 18 months. But I was certain now that it would not be a permanent separation. We would be together in the end, there was no doubt in my heart or mind.

To be continued…