my work hooked me up with some rockin' tickets to the dayton dragons game.
my wife... the rebel
after this photo, heater the dragon approached me, patted me on the back and then pulled on my collar to indicate my ghetto fabulocity at scoring such a fine little filly.
later, monica and i speculated whether or not there was a soul man beneath his foamy exterior.
i seem to recall him asking me to give him "five on the green hand side" and when i didn't he called me a "jive turkey." ... weird.
have i mentioned what a goofball my wife is?
afterward we walked in the park along the river and smooched a little.
i promised a recap of the wedding, so hunker down, this may take a while.
pre-wedding stress
where to begin?
a good friend told us two weeks before the wedding, "this next two weeks will feel like 5 minutes... under water."
boy, was he right.
here's a short laundry list of what went down in those two weeks.
moving day for monica
one-day religious assembly
head gasket blew on my car
power steering went out on monica's car
monica's personal shower and bridal shower
bath tub drain/seal broke causing flood in carpeted kitchen
washing machine pump troubles
lawn mower malfunction
jared jewelers dummies ordered ring 2 sizes too large and botched line of credit so we couldn't buy my band from there
rental hall for the ceremony called and said we couldn't get in until 10AM the day of our planned 1PM wedding
stress from friends who were offended that they weren't invited
requisite pre-wedding blowout argument between bride and groom.
but you know what?
it was worth it. :-)
wedding day
what a beautiful day it turned out to be!
the weather was perfect. the pictures turned out beautifully (thanks, jairus). the food was delicious. the ceremony was lovely.
everyone seemed to have a great time.
audrey was the most perfect little flower girl.
monica looked beautiful!
see the pictures from my previous post below.
if you were there and took pictures, please email them to me and i will post them.
now for probably the funniest story of the whole experience.
monica's friends, lee and janet, were so kind to get us a hotel room nearby for the wedding night.
they even checked in for us and gave us the room key-card at the ceremony.
the hotel was on a strip about 5 minutes from my house.
because of their close proximity, i've never needed to stay at one of these hotels before and have never really paid much attention to the buildings themselves.
after the wedding, we hugged and kissed everyone goodbye and quickly drove up the highway, eager to consummate our new union.
i saw the sign for our hotel, "country inn & suites" from the highway and got off on the appropriate exit.
we pulled into the parking lot, carried in our wedding night goodie basket that monica's friend, kim, made for us and quickly entered the hotel.
we followed lee's instructions exactly; past the concierge desk, up one floor and to the left, room 206.
we found the room and i kissed my beautiful bride once more before inserting my key-card to unlock the electronic door mechanism only to see a blinking
RED LIGHT.
i inserted the card again.
RED LIGHT.
i jiggled the handle and inserted again.
RED LIGHT.
i tried sliding it slower, i tried sliding it faster, i tried it backwards.
RED LIGHT. RED LIGHT. RED LIGHT. then to my surprise, an eight-year-old boy opened the door from the other side.
now i was confused and a frustrated at the thought of having to deal with this hassle when i really wanted to be with my wife in a private, marital way.
i put our goodie basket down and turned to monica, still in her beautiful gown.
"there must have been a a mix-up," i said, stating the obvious. "stay here and i will get this cleared up at the front desk."
i hustled down to the desk and, upon catching sight of the counter and it's contents, i immediately did a 180ยบ turnaround and ran back up to where monica was waiting.
i quickly hefted this basket and with a nervous laugh said, "let's go! we're in the wrong hotel!"
the sign that i had seen on the counter before our rapid egress had quite plainly indicated that we were not, in fact, at the "country inn & suites" but rather had pulled into the "courtyard by marriot."
it seems that i had acquired a particular case of tunnel vision in my excitement to be in union with my bride and had turned into the first hotel lot with a sign starting with the letters "C-O".
there was also a "Comfort Inn" on the strip but thankfully i didn't make the same mistake twice. ;-)
the honeymoon
the next day we drove to our honeymoon cabin.
it was so beautiful there.
the weather continued to be in our favor as we hiked and lazed about in our secluded getaway.
we saw several deer and made terrific use of our hot tub and fireplace.
on monday, we went into town to do a little shopping.
we went to an antique store where monica found an old green bible and then to a bookstore where we got a really good novel about a boy with autism called "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time".
after these two great finds, we pulled in to wal-mart to buy some groceries for the remainder of our stay.
we loaded up our cart with plenty of food and headed for the checkout.
we had such a long day to that point that i was desperately looking for the shortest line.
i looked in our cart to seem if we could possibly squeeze through the express lane.
i estimated that we were only 10 items over the 20 item limit and decided to go for it.
monica started fussing with me that we had way more than that, but i was so ready to go and the cashier didn't seem to mind.
ooooh doggy! wal-mart must only be hiring mensa candidates these days because our clerk was a flippin' genius!
once in line, monica began counting our items. "... 41, 42, 43 items! i told you we were way over!" she exclaimed.
"you're right, honey. you're always right. you've been right the entire time we've been married." i responded sarcastically.
the woman behind us in line chuckled a little.
monica turned around to her and explained, "we've only been married for 2 days."
this must have been exciting to our cashier because she enthusiastically interjected, "Y'ALL GOT MARRIED TWO DAYS AGO?!?!?! WHEN'D Y'ALL GET MARRIED?"
i was a little confused by the question and slowly replied. "saturday?"
then she became distracted by one of our items of produce.
"LOOK AT THESE BABY ORANGES!" she shouted.
The items that she found so thrilling were actually cumquats.
"LURLEEN! YOU EVER HAD THESE CRUMPETS?" she shouted to the woman behind us.
"NAW! I AIN'T NEVER HARDLY DUN HEARED OF 'EM" she replied in an equally obnoxious fashion.
"WELL, THEY'RE REALLY CALLED CUMMETS BUT I DON'T LIKE TO SAY THAT WORD, SO I CALL 'EM CRUMPETS."
"Actually, it's pronounced 'kum-kwat.'" monica said, emphasizing the phonetic qualities of the word.
"KRUM-KWAR. KOOM-KAHT." the clerk struggled. after several attempts, she gave in to the limitations of her rural articulation. "WELL, I'M JUST GONNA KEEP CALLIN' 'EM CRUMPETS. I LIKE THAT BETTER."
i smiled and once we got back in the car, i looked at the clock and said, "it's 4:00, monica. time for high tea and cumquats. "
yikes.
...
here's us at the cabin, as well as a shot of the special beer that i purchased the night before to take with us. ...
and the rest...
we got back in town on wednesday night and enjoyed the rest of the week being together, shopping and generally being frivolous with our time.
here's some highlights:
both of us got new running shoes. i've never had a pair of shoes that were this comfortable in my life!
in columbus, we went to a great grocery store called "whole foods grocery"
while waiting for our pictures to be developed, we went to see indiana jones on opening day. monica was super psyched about it. did i marry the right girl or what?!?
on saturday we had a little picnic in the park and took our dog, murphy, for a walk.
on sunday night we went over to my non-related, but sort-of surrogate parents' house and played board games while the twins stuck random food items in their deep fryer. (they said they were inspired by this:
on monday, we had my cousin timothy, his wife, mikey and their daughter, savannah over for dinner to thank them for all of their help and support with our wedding and during our courtship.
monica, i love you and i truly could not have done any better than choosing you.
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finally to commemorate the occasion, i little clip from my favorite move of all time.
