church? check!

wedding stuff is slowly falling into place. some of the biggest parts of planning a wedding are getting the church and reception hall. looks like we now have both!
at first i wanted to have our wedding at kelloggsville church, the church i grew up in, but they were major jerks about the whole thing. so we checked out covenant church, which is the church that my parents grew up in and got married in, and they said yes! so we put in our papers at the church and booked it! we also have a reservation on a reception hall, so we are doing pretty good! last week i talked to my pastor and he said he would love to marry us, so we got that taken care of as well! i know there is a ton left to plan, but im feeling pretty good about what we have lined up so far.
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midweek trip

this past wednesday diana and i headed back to grand rapids (three times in one week is enough, i think...) to pick up her ring. we brought it in to get the diamond reset. they didnt do the best job with it last time, they put on the wrong brackets and didnt quite center it. i didnt get it fixed right away because it would have taken an extra week and i wanted to give it to her before then.

that morning jon, my cousin, stopped by to replace dianas windshield (as i explained here), and then we went over to see jill and the kids. we picked up jackson and got lunch for all of us. we spent the afternoon playing around with the kids and having a great time. they are certainly enjoying their time with their (future) aunt diana!

after playing, we went to the mall to pick up dianas ring and it looked much better. she was happy with it, and really thats all that matters to me! then we headed over to covenant church to give them the forms for getting married in their church.

soon after we packed up and headed out to sandy pines to have dinner with my parents. we went out to this little hole in the wall place called russo's. its good food, and kind of cool because it used to be a bowling alley, and still has the wooden floors with all the arrows and lines and stuff.

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papas day

on sunday i went out to sandy pines for lunch. i met my parents out there and we grilled out with tim and jill and the kids. we had a fun time, and i got to give my dad his fathers day gift.

now, heres the thing about my dad: he doesnt watch too many movies, but he definitely has his favorites. his absolute favorites are 'the godfather' movies (which i got him for christmas), and then there are a few more questionable ones that he loves... for some reason i dont quite grasp my dad really loves any movie with steven seagal in it! knowing this, i came across a book recently that i knew he would just love: its called 'seagalogy' and its a collection of essays about each and every seagal film! i paged through it and got a kick out of the utter ridiculousness of it all. when he opened it he was very surprised that such a thing even existed. i hope he enjoys reading it, and im sure it will make him want to watch some of the old movies again. to each his own, i guess...

guy time

this past saturday i hung out with the guys. we started off by meeting at my parents house to follow through on something jeffry lee promised to do a while ago: we made a profile for him on one of the dating sites online! aaron and i got quite a kick out of making the profile for him. hes very much against it, so we had to take matters into our own hands. as we were filling in the forms jeffry lee sat back disinterested while we would periodically ask him questions. but for some reason he became a little more interested when we finished and he could check out profiles of different girls. strange how that works, huh?

we got hungry and decided to go eat at red robin over by rivertown mall. it was a very strange visit. soon after we sat down a strange woman came up to me and put her hand on my shoulder and asked 'where do i know you from?' she didnt offer any suggestions, or even her name, so i was stumped. after an awkward silence, she walked away again. a little later a guy walked up to rex and asked him a question about his spiderman shirt. there must have been a sign at our table that said 'come and pester us please', thats the only way i can understand what happened...

after dinner we checked out the house aaron is going to buy (totally rad), and then we went to the movies. we couldnt decide if we wanted to see 'the incredible hulk' or 'the happening', so we went to see them both! (heres my review of hulk, and happening)

wedding crasher

this past weekend i found myself up in grand rapids again. a friend from high school and college, joel weaver, got married on saturday so i went up to go to that. i wasnt exactly invited, but i showed up anyway...
rex initially invited me, but i didnt get back to him in time, so he asked a girl to go with him. she said yes, but so did i, so i ended up crashing the wedding. joel was surprised that i showed up, but was happy to see me. i figure it doesnt cost anything for me to go to the ceremony, which is why i refrained from being a jerk and didnt invite myself to the reception.

13th airborne division

last time i was at my parents place i saw this book sitting on the table. it looked kind of cool, and very old. i asked my dad what it was and it turns out its a book from when my grampa was in the army! i took some time and paged through it.

my moms dad was in the army during the second world war. he passed away about five years ago, and now im really regretting the fact that i never asked him more about it. the book that i was looking through had pictures of all the different groups that were in the army at that time, and tucked into the book were my grampas original papers from his service! he was forced into the army during the draft and spent time on the european front as a member of a glider team. as my brother described it, a glider team were people who would go up in wooden planes being pulled by other planes. when they got to their destination they would be cut off and glide to the ground, a very dangerous thing considering the glider didnt have any engine or much by way of controls. when on the ground they would have to defend themselves and try to achieve their mission. the survival rate for this kind of work was pretty low, so grampa must have been very good at it. in his papers it says that he had 4 months of training, then was a rifleman for 14 months. they must have figured that he had worked hard enough as a glider, because the last 4 months of his service were spent as a clerk.

learning more about his time in the military makes me even prouder to be his grandson.

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hail to the car

over the weekend there was some crazy weather going on. down in south bend, where diana works, there was a bad hail storm. she was at work at the time, and suddenly hail started pouring down, some the size of baseballs! unfortunately, her car was out in the open in the parking lot! ive had some experience with this- years ago when i first went to visit salt lake city i flew out of omaha. when i got home they had been hit by hail and my beautiful white bonneville suddenly resembled a golf ball!

well, dianas car is now covered in dents, and boy is it ugly! the insurance company took a look at it and wrote it off as a total loss. yikes! the windshield was damaged as well, so when we went up to grand rapids this week we brought that car and had my cousin jon come and replace it. he does that for a living, and it was really cool to watch him do it. it was cool to see how he cut the windshield out with some crazy tools he has. well, now the car is still in bad shape, but at least you can see out of it to drive!

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break begins

summer vacation is here!!! its been over a week now since school got out, but im still getting used to it. it doesnt feel like break already, ive hardly even gotten to sleep in yet! ive been keeping really busy, so everything has been going by really quick.

last week tuesday diana had do have some oral surgery, so she took off a few days afterward in case it was really painful and she needed the rest. turned out that it wasnt too bad and she was feeling fine the next day! so, i headed over there and we went on a quick little road trip. her friend lissa left her car by dianas house, so we needed to drive it back to her in detroit (long story, her dad is doing fine). we drove it over to her, and then went up to grand rapids. we figured we could take some time to set up the basics for the wedding. we visited a couple churches and a couple reception halls to get a feel for what our options were. we also dropped of dianas ring to get reset (the setting they had put on what the wrong one). wednesday night we had dinner with the family at grand villa, and we headed back down afterward. it was a pretty productive day and we got a lot of things figured out for the wedding.

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the old gang

now, as a teacher i dont have favorite students, but to be honest i have a special place in my heart for my first homeroom class. these were the kids who were in sixth grade my first year teaching in highland. they met in my room at the beginning of the day, during breaks, lunch, and for study hall. i get to spend quite a bit of time with them. a good homeroom makes the difference between a good and bad year of teaching, and my first year was great! they are now in high school and going to be juniors next year. a few of the guys from that class stopped in to say hi to me this past week, and i was so greatful! i always love to see these guys! i feel like an old man saying this, but its true: they grow up so fast...

better buy

recently one of the grocery stores that i went to every once in a while closed down. they started gutting the building and diana and i wondered what they might be putting in there. and now, just the other day, i was driving down the road and noticed this sign. oh, it makes me very happy! at the moment the closest best buy is a good half hour drive from home, but now, it appears that there will be one just 2 miles from home. it is my lucky day! coming soon? please come sooner!

out early

last week dianas best friend from college, lissa, came to visit. shes from out of town, she currently lives in detroit, but she had some time off so she stayed with diana for the week. i was able to go over and meet up with them for a while last weekend. she is a lot of fun, and its really funny to watch her and diana play off each other- they are hilarious together! i had met lissa once before, but that what a while ago, so it was nice to see her again.

saturday i was planning on meeting up with diana and lissa for her lunch break from work, and then doing something together that night. but things didnt exactly happen like that... after about an hour of work she called me and said 'so, you want to come pick me up?' what?!? it turned out that they had too many people scheduled and it was a slow day, so they offered to let her go! this was great considering it was lissas last day in town! the three of us went out for lunch, then lissa headed out. diana and i had an unexpected day to ourselves! we went back to her place and hung out with her dog for a while, then we went to niles to wander around the bluegrass music festival for a while. it was rather small, so we didnt stay too long. we found our way to south bend and went to the mall. she got her ring cleaned (oh so shiny!), and we went out to eat at hacienda (my personal favorite). on their soda cups they have little slots on the bottom and figured out what they are for- you can balance them on each other! quite handy for the servers im sure...

it was great to be able to have such an unexpected and beautiful day together. what fun!

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seasons change

the end is near. we are coming to my favorite time of year: when school is out for the summer. it always feels so far away, june feels like an eternity away around march, but then before you know it: its the end of may and theres only a couple days left! this year in particular has felt like its just blown by! God blessed me with some really great kids this year, so that helps with making it go so quickly!

this past tuesday we had our 8th grad graduation. i was excited because the end of the year is almost here, but i was also a bit sad because i really loved this class! there are a lot of kids im going to really miss. and matt is leaving this summer, so its going to be the last year with him too. its sad to see things change, but im also excited about the new changes in my life since i met diana.

some things end as others are beginning. elton john was right, its just the circle of life...

new friends

last weekend i went over to see diana and spend the night hanging out with some of her friends. ive met a few of her friends, but this was an opportunity to meet a bunch of the people that she works with. we drove over and met everyone who was getting out of work at closing time and we headed downtown south bend. there is a place down there thats a three story pub that they go to sometimes, so i tagged along. it was fun getting to meet some of the different people that ive been hearing stories about for the past few months; put faces to names. soon after we got there a few of the guys went over to play pool and darts, so i figured id join them. they were very cool about including me, and by the end of the night i was feeling like i fit right in. its really cool to be able to meet people diana spends her days with and to find that they are really nice and funny.
also, our plans for the wedding started to feel more real. we sat in dianas living room with barbara and worked through a list of who we would like to come to the wedding. we figured that we would have to make a list of who we would like, and then have to painstakingly whittle it down to a manageable amount, but it looks like we might be able to include everyone we want to. score!

sharing the news

on sunday, the day after she said yes, we met up again with my family at sandy pines. we stopped in for a little bit and had lunch. but we didnt stay long, diana had a family that wanted to see us as soon as possible! so, we headed back down to buchanan and went to her moms house for a grill out. her dad and sister were there too, so we got to see everyone in one place. they were very excited for us and eager to see the ring and hear the story, and we were eager to oblige.

the meal was great, and it was kind of strange for me, because for the first time it started to sink in: these people are going to become my family too. yikes! a bit scary, but really cool.

as the evening continued on we sat and talked. barbara had noticed that they had a strange looking contraption next to the house, left over from the previous owners. it was a bike, but it was built onto pontoons. we decided that she should give it a try, and surprisingly she went for it! so we carried it to the water and she hopped on. it was really funny to see her out there pedaling this crazy bike boat amalgamation thing.

it was a great time, and i look forward to getting to know them better as my family.

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the search

i finally found her. ive been looking for almost ten years, but i finally found her. i figured id find her in iowa, but after four years of looking, she was nowhere to be found. so, i went a bit farther away, to utah, but it turned out she wasnt there either. about five years ago i came to indiana to track her down, but still nothing.
who would have thought? how was i to know? she was in michigan the whole time! in fact, for about five years, she was looking around for me in my own hometown of grand rapids! yeesh, it would have saved a lot of time and gas money if i had known she was going to be so close.
oh well, all that is water under the bridge. because when it comes down to it, i did eventually find her: i found my wife.

the setup

we headed out to sandy pines to see my parents and show diana the place. we got there and met up with my mom, jill, and the kids at the flea market. after wandering around there for a while we stopped over at tim and jills trailer. we went back to my parents lot and hung out. we had lunch and chatted with my mom (dad was out golfing). i wanted to show her around so we got in the golf cart and i took her on a tour of the place. we drove by all the cool places, we even checked out the new water park that they just put in. i showed her the lake, the golf course, and the beautiful scenery and she was quite impressed. we ended our tour, and by then my dad was back so we talked with them for a while.
diana said she would love to take another cart ride and mentioned that she wanted to go stop at the beach and check it out. everything was going according to plan. i had a little something in my pocket and the perfect place to take her. everything was going to work out just as i hoped...

the question

we drove over the the sandy pines chapel and took the trail right behind it. it lead to a nice and secluded little beach. we got out and sat on the sand and talked for a bit, enjoying the perfect weather and the beautiful scenery. after about ten minutes i was ready to ask the question, but just then a bunch of kids came and crashed the place. two carts full of kids came barreling in and they all jumped out and stormed the beach. shoot! we sat and talked for another ten or fifteen minutes as i tried to wait them out hoping that they would leave. they didnt. diana, oblivious, says 'im getting kind of warm, how about we get out of here.' dang! i reluctantly agree. bound and determined though, i drive down a little ways and head take the cart down a trail that politely put, was rough terrain. it was not meant for riding on, but i had a mission that i was not going to fail on.

we stepped out. the view was still beautiful, but not nearly as nice as the beach we had just been forced out of. as we stood there i put my arm around her and she put her head on my chest. 'wow, your heart is beating really fast!' she said. 'i think i might know why...' i admitted. i got down on one knee, asked her if she wouldnt mind hanging out with me for the rest of her life, and she said ok! (i was actually a bit more eloquent than that, but thats just for me and her).

we had talked about it a lot before, but she was still very surprised and very excited! she loved the ring and, much to my continual amazement, she loves me too. which is a good thing, because she is the love of my life. now comes the good part: the rest of our lives...

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getting the blessing

last wednesday i went to go and get dianas parents blessing. i called up her mom and step dad david to meet with them tuesday late afternoon, and called up her dad to meet with him in the evening. im pretty sure they all knew what was up considering its kinda weird otherwise to make plans to visit your girlfriends parents without her...

i was a bit anxious about the whole thing. as i was driving over to their house the nerves started to build. i knew that i needed and wanted to talk with them first, but to be actually doing it was a completely different thing. every couple of minutes my mind would make another strange realization: im going to ask her to marry me?! im going to have a wife?! these people are now going to be a part of my family?! the weight of it all slowly set in.

i got to her moms place around 4:15. she wasnt home yet from work, so i chatted with david. they were in the process of moving, so we talked a bit about that and the summer plans for the new lake house. we both chatted about our families and stuff. finally, around 5:30, her mom arrived. after a couple minutes of light conversation, i began to ask the question i had come there to ask. 'well, as im sure you probably guessed, the reason im here is to ask for your blessing to...' thats as far as i got. i had a whole little speach planned out, but her mom interrupted me with exclamations of 'yes! yes!' before i could quite finish it. i shared with them a bit of what i was planning for the weekend, and both were very excited for us. they both had great things to say and heaped praises on diana. im sure she would have felt embarrassed if she had been there. after that they both shared some great bits of advice for me about her and about the whole marriage thing. it was very encouraging and helpful stuff that im sure will come in handy.

after the hugs and happiness, i went to go see her dad. i wasnt quite sure how to get to his house, so he met me and we drove together to a restaurant. we sat down and immediately he asked 'so, whats this all about then?' yikes! i didnt even get to warm up with him! hes very direct, but in a good way. so i asked for his blessing, and he said yes. hurray! two for two! im batting 1000! we then had a very relaxed dinner as we talked about diana, work, art, and everything else. he too had some great things to say about her, and gave me some tips for keeping her happy.

now, only one thing left: asking her...