Wordless Wednesday | I’m thinking…

that the Guy-I-Dig is the best thing that ever happened to me.

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Wordless Wednesday Here and Here.

Double Digits!

Only yesterday...

That what it seems like. But alas it has been 10 years.
We've been married 10 years.

Wow.

Last year I mentioned that I would have probably added some additional "detail" pictures had I known and pictures of getting ready. I didn't have anyone doing that. And even back then I would have loved close up shots of the flower bouquets and the bridesmaids gloves that I designed (and were sewn by a friend - thank you for taking over that project!). Regardless, it was a perfect day that we joyfully reflected on throughout and long past our first year of marriage. 

Lately as I've been cleaning and downsizing things I don't use or need, I have stumbled across little items from that day tucked away here and there. One being my wedding dress shoved in Harrison's closet. I thought it would be fun to do a Trash the Dress session with the Guy-I-Dig for our 10th anniversary presciently since it was never cleaned and boxed. Then I tried it on - but 10 years, genes, and giving birth has left me unable to zip up the back.

So I took a picture instead!

Another item I discoved was the box with my wedding shoes. Seriously, they are not as pretty or sexy as the shoes I've seen photographed lately; and the years of living in a box inside the closet of hundred year old houses has taken it's toll on the not-so fancy-shoes. Yet, the scuffs and dirt on them represent a wonderful day filled with joy and celebration with our closest family and friends. I bought them with comfort and dancing in mind, Plus, I changed into my white 60's go-go boots (which have also not fared well in the hundred-year-old house...) under the wedding dress for part of the reception anyway .

So now I have a few detail pictures and I can let go of those items that I have no use for because these pictures evoke such great memories of that day.

Even 10 years later.

Here's looking forward to the next 10 years! Oh how I love that Guy-I-Dig! 




Hosted by Cecily

Another Bloggy Birthday!

One year ago today I got the hair-brained idea to start a second blog. One that wasn't about posting pictures of Harrison for family but rather - Just. For. Me.

I got sucked into the blog world - hook, line and sinker.

Love it.

I actually have virtual friends that are truly- friends! Crazy.

So in honor of my blog birthday, I ate a piece of...


Well.



Gingerbread House.

It was really yummy.


On another note Natalie tagged me a while back, so I thought I would oblige (though at my age and constant lack of sleep, I don't like unedited pictures of me).

There are rules but as you know, I'm a rebel and I don't tag others too often. Sorry.  I'll still list the rules because at the same time, I'm a "rules girl".

It's a constant internal battle.

Not really.


Here it goes.

1) Take a picture of yourself right NOW!
2) DON’T change your clothes, DON’T fix your hair… Just take a picture.
3) Post that picture with NO editing.
4) Post these instruction with your picture.
5)Tag 10 people to do this.

Finally the picture.

Did I mention I was too lazy to change out the 50MM lens from my camera?

Yeah.

I think I'll go break off another piece of that gingerbread house.

Togetherness - Nine Years Ago Today...

I married the Guy I Dig!

Here is the bridal party. I couldn't ask for a better group of women to surround me that special day. We chose not to see each other before the wedding. Yeah, it changes up the picture taking - but well worth the wait. He really wanted the first moment when I walked down the isle.
(Back in 1999 we weren't using a lot of digital quite yet. I had to scan all there pictures. Photos by Shawn Jolicoeur)

The Groom's party, the best man would be the tall gorgeous blonde to the right of my hubby (her husband is flanking my husband's left side). I love this picture.

 

This adorable flower girl is now 16 and GORGEOUS!! [She is also God-sister to Harrison. See her all grown up at Harrison's 3rd birthday.] How about that breeze, I couldn't keep that veil down to save my life.

Check out handsome nine-year-old Big Brother! Not so big there. (hey is that hair on hubby's head?)

The music I chose still to this day moves me to tears. I found that out as I listened to it last night as I was putting this post together. Then the internet went down for 24 hours and all was lost. I'm starting all over tonight - before we retire after a yummy dinner at our favorite Japanese restaurant sans children.

Anyway, most of the music came from the movie soundtrack Much Ado About Nothing by Patrick Doyle. If you haven't heard Patrick Doyle, check him out. You won't be disappointed.

 

The runner above got messed up when the flower girl stopped to turn around and spread out some of the rose pedals she had dropped.  I love it. Those are the moments most remembered.

Seriously I never thought I would get married. Never. Nine years later, well let's just say it still feels like yesterday sometimes and I still pinch myself that he married me.

My favorite photo of our rings. Back then I hadn't looked at a lot of the wedding photography I've seen in recent months. If I had I would have requested more of the small details. I'm a details girl.

It was supposed to be a 3-tier round cake. Made for us by a friend. A little accident happened on the way to the reception hall and the bottom tier (my favorite part - chocolate with raspberry filling) bit the dust. The cake maker was devastated. I made a couple of calls to friends with Costco cards and one rushed a cake over to the hall. The caterer had extra frosting from another event and my florist decorated it with the fresh flowers we had planed on using in the first place, so all was good. No one knew the difference. (No I didn't care that much. I was getting married and I just wanted to celebrate - that we did.)

Our program, I was going for an old fashioned theater feel with a twist. Sort of.

Our "cast" in order of appearance.

 

The lyrics from our special song sung by Harrison's God-father, musician Jerry Lansdowne.

My parents each passed away before they could see this special day; but my brother walked me down the isle and my Godparents stood in my parents place along with my brother to give me away.

Nine years ago today my life changed for the better becuase I met the love of my life, the man who loves me unconditionally, the man who supports me and my dreams. The man who would lasso the moon and give it to me if he could.

And I wouldn't change a moment of it.

Our first dance was to At Last by Etta James. (yeah, everyone uses that song -blah, blah, blah) because the lyrics rang so true for me. I waited for a long time. When my mom was ill with cancer I longed for someone to hold me in his arms and comfort me. I leaned into God and I waited. As I watched and celebrated with each of my friends as they got married - I waited.

Until ~
At last, my love has come along
My lonely days are over
And life is like a song
Oh, yeah, at last
The skies above are blue
My heart was wrapped up in clovers
The night I looked at you
I found a dream that I could speak to
A dream that I can call my own
I found a thrill to rest my cheek to
A thrill that I have never known
Oh, yeah when you smile, you smile
Oh, and then the spell was cast
And here we are in heaven
For you are mine
At last

And then we realized that WE were the ones who were supposed to kiss when the spoons clinked against the glasses at the reception. 

At last.

Ha! He Married Me!

So I read some posts on "How I Met My Honey" hosted by ramblingsbyreba.com. I decided that I wanted to play along, too. I like coming out to play.

Let me just say that I was no longer in my 20's when I met the love of my life. In fact, I was a good couple of years into my 30's. I had longed to be married and have a family in my mid-twenties but God had a different plan for me. Over time, I figured that marriage wasn't going to be a part of that plan. Still, I believe God's promises for my life, I trust Him in all I do; and I still stand firmly on Jeremiah 29:11 - For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

With that being said, at the same time I moved to the West Coast, the GID moved to the West coast. We lived a one & half miles from each other on the same street for the first couple of years. I road the bus my first year on the west coast and during that period he had a funny part-time job standing on a street corner, dancing with a sign. I passed him every day for a month. I remember the character dancing on the corner. Then as quickly and easily as our paths unknowingly crossed, time moved us in opposite directions. This is our story.

How I Met the Guy-I-Dig, a.k.a. GID (My Honey)

In the late winter of 1997 a long-time friend called me and asked if I was interested in working part-time on the weekends at a local theme park as a DJ. By this time I had moved from the entertainment industry to non-profit but I had actually been pondered a second job temporarily to bring in some extra income. I just didn’t want anything stressful on the weekend. She gave me a name and number of an old friend of hers that she had been working with for several years. So I pulled out my acting head shots, quickly updated my acting resume and sent them on their way – forgetting that I ever did any of this.

[and this is LONG before baby-brain.]

Months later, I arrive home from work and check phone messages, a guy left a message regarding working for him at K&P Productions? [What? I have a job, it’s a little late to call me now, I’m in non-profit, I don’t want to go back to entertainment – I’m HAPPY!] So a couple weeks I finally get around to calling him back as a courtesy; after all he found someone else, I’m sure. Within moments I realize my mistake, we immediately hit it off bantering back and forth and we end up on the phone for about an hour. Finally he says, “So you want to check out what I do?” I respond, “Sure.”

“My only concern,” he continues, “is that you may not fit under the umbrella we have set on the stage…” What? Great, silent confusion sets in. “Well it says here on your resume, that you are 7 feet 5 inches tall.” D’oh!!! I’m so glad we were on the phone at that moment.

A week later I entered the theme park with a pass to meet this guy. As I walked around the picnic area, he came walking up to me, clipboard in hand, ball cap on head [I love ball caps on guys] and dark sunglasses, “Are you Rose?” He shook my hand and - I have to say reluctantly – I felt something. A spark. A moment. The annoying clichés of all my friends words chiming -When-you-least-expect-it,You’ll-know-when-it-happens Meet through-a-friend - words rushed in; for just a second.

Nah. I shook it off. I was fairly jaded by this point.

A week after that, I was standing in a parking lot of a restaurant below the theme park entrance. He pulls up in a green Jeep Cherokee [cool] to guide me to the employee parking area, he isn’t wearing sunglasses. He has gorgeous green eyes. That was late June 1997. I started working with him on a weekly basis. It was pure fun. Weeks went by and I started dating some men through church and friends, suddenly they were all around so I thought, What the heck. Why not have fun! I hadn’t dated anyone for *gulp* ten years! At all.

They were all Christians, they were all nice but they were all wrong. During this time that guy I work with talked to me more often, he would say things, do things, look at me and I would tell a friend after each of these incidents to get her objective opinion because it seemed as if he liked me. I became slightly confused. During that time, I also learned he was newly divorced and had a 7 year old son; eek, complications. Not to mention that fact that we were “geographically undesirable” for each other, as I would later learn from him. We lived 25 miles apart – in traffic that is about 45 minutes to an hour on any given weekday. Then during an evening phone conversation he asked me about my date, I told him that the person wasn’t right for me and I had no interest in seeing him again. He (overly-happily) exclaimed, “Good!” Wait -What? “I didn’t like his name.” he added. Okay, I responded verbally as I thought –I think he really likes me…

We began hanging out with a group of friends, impromptu dance parties, bowling nights, movies, museums. It was perfect; we were having fun without cares and stresses of dating. Then on one of those playful evenings as my girlfriend (the one that introduced us) and I were sitting at a stoplight late in the evening in a car behind him and his friend. Suddenly his friend got out, ran back and laid a kiss on my friend’s cheek! At the next stop light she returned the favor. She was close to the guy and his friend, she had known them for a quite a while. I was new to this group, but then she dared me to go kiss the guy (on the cheek of course)…

Oh yeah baby, remember those hot Indian-summer days, long past, when you would sit up in a tree fort or in someone’s basement playing Truth or Dare? I hated that game.

I took the dare.

We parked at the next stop; so I got out of the car, ran over to the driver side of his car where he had just stepped out and laid a kiss right on his…lips!!

The world spun.

I didn’t expect that. I heard him saying, “She kissed me!” in a giddy voice. I knew in that moment that I felt something for him. Everything suddenly became different. Only did he feel the same?

His busy season began to wind down but over the next few weeks, we talked on the phone and saw each other occasionally but no longer weekly. We played it safe, teased each other and secretly hoped for dating failure. The friend whom told me about him started dating his friend. (the 2 initiators of the kiss - mm, now we know why they did that...)

Shortly thereafter, we all spent Thanksgiving together since our families lived out of state. That night, as we took a walk after dinner, he took my hand and held it. Butterflies made an appearance. Later he asked me if he could call me and ask me out on a date. He called the next day. We went out the following Friday, December 3, 1997.

Over coffee that evening, he asked, “So, what do you want to do with your life?”

I thought it was over, no more dates. [Seriously, I'm not all that interesting - I don't keep 5-year plans on hand...] But he called the next day, and the next. Soon he became the “Guy-I-Dig” as the word “boyfriend” sounded so ODD coming out of my post-twenty-something mouth, and I became the “Gal-I-Dig” to him.

Two years, a couple of bumps, and one day later we were married. On Saturday, December 4, 1999. And I thought I would never get married…

But that’s another story.

Pictures: Top - Out and about with friends from left our dear friend and giver of beloved espresso maker, me, GID's friend from kiss-night, the GID, & beautiful girl that introduced me to the GID ( also from kiss-night and now happily married to each other with 4 children of their own!)
Second picture - Thanksgiving 1997, Im' in green and GID is on far left. Everyone in the photo was single at the time and now all are married with children! Oh, how time flies!