The Proposal Video

After I proposed on April 9th of 2009, I made a video about that day as well as a brief recap of our first few years together.

Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPUpv2AK4bE

We booked a place to be married in and it wasn't a van down by the river!

Oh yes, we have booked a church for the wedding. We are just under six months to go and figured it was probably about time.

We looked at the options with a number of places, but most of them had crazy rules or were crazy expensive. We feel really lucky to have come across and booked such a lovely place. We met today with Rev. Daly and if want she will be the one to marry us! She was a great person and was very helpful and warming. It really made us feel at ease and ready to sign on the line.

When we walked into the sanctuary my eyes first looked up and got the towering pipes that were along the back wall. Secondly, I saw where Cara and I will stand. I envisioned us there, holding hands and making such a great commitment together. It just felt right and this there was no better place then here for us to do it.

Rev. Daly then showed us the church gardens, which, are going to look amazing in mid-August and be a great place for some pictures.

After we signed the papers and said goodbye to Rev. Daly, Cara and I walked back into the sanctuary. I walked right up to where I will stand and she stayed back at the door. I looked at her in her red coat (the same she wore when I proposed) and I saw the pews seated with our family and friends. I looked at the glass windows in the back and knew that this is where I will see her come first, before she starts down the aisle. It was really great.

Soon enough I'll see here in that dress and I in my suit. I'll get to wear a ring to symbolize our love. And I'll get to love her everyday, as I do now, but with a deeper bond. We'll be married, and this is where it will happen. My dreams come true on August 14th.

Cara, I love you.

Pic-O-The Day

This was at Emily and Mike's wedding in Graylake, Illinois (I believe). Should have been around April, 2008. A year before I proposed!

Date, consider yourself saved

We did it! We're the best around! Congrats to us! It finally happened!

We mailed our "Save The Date's" this past weekend. We meant to do it a few weeks back but we had a hard time finalizing exactly how we wanted to present them. It came down to the classic battle of man versus woman. She had a multitude of ideas for how to approach the act of the presentation of the thing. My approach was simple: take it, stuff it in the envelope and bid it farewell.

Thankfully we did not use my approach. It took Cara, Shannon (Maid of Honor), some pizza, a trip to Michael's Craft Store to buy a set of pens that we didn't use and a long trip to Kinko's (where it smelled horribly of farts and wouldn't go away)...but we did it.

I'm happy with what we ended up with. It's nothing super fancy, just simple and elegant.

Elegance? We gots it? Yes we do.

Cara Arnett: Established in 1985 and currently celebrating 25 years of awesomeness!

Here is a picture of us in Breckenridge, Colorado from a few years back:

Today my wonderful fiance turns 25! The quarter century club, the mid-2o's, the half-way point to 30, the year after 24. Anyway you look at it, it's 25. Now, don't get me wrong, turning 25 is a great milestone, but her birthday this year makes me think of (and partially fear) our wedding.

We are both now officially the age we will be for our wedding. And that might scare me a bit. It's not that I'm scared or worried about being married, it's just that through it all I am still a guy and guy's tend to get jittery throughout this whole process at certain times. And right now, for me, it's the fact that we are at our respective wedding ages. 25 and 27. Although mine is somewhat of a stretch, seeing as how I'll be 28 just under two months after we are married.

Last night we crossed the T's and dotted the lower case J's on our passport applications as well as found a church that we seem to really like. It's slightly out in the country portion of west St. Charles, but it looks amazing and should be in mid-August.

But tonight we put our wedding plans on hold as I take Cara to Naperville to celebrate her 25th! It should be an awesome time.

Dogs and Cats, Living Together...Mass Hysteria!

First, I want to link to Cara's recent blog about the earthquake because I think it's pretty funny:

http://whippedcreamwedding.blogspot.com/2010/02/earth-what.html


Secondly, I have to quote Ghostbusters in light of both the snow storm and earthquake.

Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, "biblical"?
Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats, living together... mass hysteria!



Now, let me first say that I lived in central Illinois for 25 years and now in northern Illinois for two. In the 25 years in central Illinois I experienced one earthquake and it was in the late 80's. I've been up north for two years and have already been through two!

Now, granted, these are all mild rumblings that at the most knocked some dvd's off the top of the TV and made the dog bark. It's quite amazing how the human brain can analyze and create a theory on the situation in an instant. I woke up to the sound and shaking and immediately thought Cara's blood sugar was low and she had fallen into a wall while trying to get to the kitchen. For anyone who gets low blood sugar (but especially for person's with diabetes) it can really cause them to be very disorientated. Sometimes they can't even respond to you. I've been through that once with her and have never been more scared.

To quickly tell that story, we were in North Carolina on vacation and our first morning there she wasn't responding to me when I tried to wake her up. She could look at me, but couldn't focus or talk. My heart started to race as I tossed the room looking for anyone to jump her glucose level. A granola bar (not the best option) was all we had, so I started feeding it to her. I think I ended up getting her a regular soda (one of the best options in a pinch) after that.

Blood sugar (glucose) levels are a funny thing. You can plan and adjust to them all you want, but really, sometimes crazy things happen. All you can do is be prepared to handle them when they do.

So this is what I thought was happening right when I woke up. I jumped out of bed and flipped the lights on. Sadie started to run to the front door and bark thinking someone was there. I saw Cara on the floor next to the bed. To me, this fell in line with what I had thought was happening.

I went down to her and kept calling her name. She responded fine and was fine. Apparently, she had a hard time sleeping on the bed last night and decided to give the floor a try. She felt the quake as well, but wasn't woken so strongly by it as I was.

Having gone from sound asleep to awake, confused and full of adrenaline in just a few seconds takes a while to come down from. About a half-hour later I was back asleep, a good hour before my 5:30 alarm goes off.

So while today's top stories in northern Illinois may involve all the snow and the small quake, my top story to report and to maintain is just how lucky I am to have such a great girl in my life.

I can't wait to take her out for her birthday tomorrow!

Oh to look of rich mahogany

So, we are just a few days away from the magical half year mark. That means just over six months until I get a Mrs. Now, she's still unclear on what her last name will be, but we'll leave that for another post.

The half year mark is time to focus. Not on florists or table centerpieces. No, those things involve my other half as the project manager and I in an consulting role with random moments of illusions of being a co-manager in this.

Nope. My current focus (aside from finding a place for us to actually get married), is the of the health and vain variety. First and foremost I just need to push myself harder at the gym..... and at going to the gym. No problem. I can do that. Secondly, I need to eat better (blah blah blah everyone says that).

For the vain part, I just started tanning. Oh yes, I signed up for it at my gym and now wear the goofy goggles and specify a certain number of minutes to lay in a tube of really bright lights. Now I could say "well I just want to get a little color before the honeymoon," because that's most everyone else's excuse who is doing this before they get married. Not this guy. I'm doing this because I've recently become way to white for my own good. I'm pretty sure it's starting to effect my personality as I've recently started missing certain things like zebra pants.

As far as my skin is concerned I've always been one of those awesome people. Awesome because I tan like crazy without effort and hardly ever burn. But I've found that when you leave college and get a real job, you don't get to be outside during the day very much. And that for two years now has left me looking like Stay Puft:

Now I don't plan on getting real tan or abusing it. I'm pretty aware of skin cancer risks, advanced aging and want none of it. Plus I don't want to look like this dude (even though he has a sweet tie):

And I'll end this on a sad note. My fiance, the poor, poor girl. She is some form of translucent that they can't even see to identify. She tans and is who got me into this crazy game.