hot bliggity blog 267

Friday, May 17, 2013

Hoard sale this Saturday

Nine West sling purse
For anyone in the Houston area: we are having an 8-girl, Texas-sized Hoard Sale tomorrow (5/18/13) from 8-12.  This is a sale you DO NOT WANT TO MISS!  Part boutique part junk; something for everyone!  These are just a few things that will be featured at the sale.  Click here to see more sneak preview items.  Check out my Facebook page for details.

Remember: One man's junk is another man's treasure!  

Premier Designs Jewelry

Pink Gerber Daisy bathroom set


Thursday, May 9, 2013

odoriferous

Do you see that there refrigerator?  That pretty little thing has had a good life since Emily and I moved in to this apartment.  We neither one cook much, so we don't keep him stocked full of foods that have the potential to lend their smells to the outside world.  We neither one eat a whole lot of variety, so very  little of the few foods we do keep do not stay inside long enough to age accordingly.

Now let's move to the exterior of the beast.  He stands there in the kitchen adorned with the loveliest collection of Irish & Scottish  magnets, wedding invitations, birth announcements, sand from the dunes of Dubai, an ARE 'Pass' letter, and glittery rainbow octopi.  What more could a fridge want?  He certainly boasts a more decorative lifestyle than Mom's fridge ever did when we were growing up.  I used to get embarrassed for it myself; nakedly greeting us each and every morning while it's neighbors all donned Sunday's best.  But seriously, what better way to lead a life than highly decorated?!  He may not like that we accessorize so much; I guess most guys don't get into that.  'How do you know that your fridge isn't a girl?' you're probably asking.  We will get to that but just trust me for now.

So what we live with is a refrigerator who's insides are relatively sparse and outsides are beaming with great news and happy memories.  But don't let appearances fool you.  I know you've been warned by one mother or another.  'You can't judge a book by it's cover', 'Things aren't always what they seem', and 'It's the prettiest ones that hurt you'.  Okay, that last one is from Dating 101 but it seems relevant here, too.

And our fridge is not exempt from this rule.  That pretty little thing that is decorated so nicely is emitting one of the worst smells I have ever encountered.  Worse than a locker rooms' B.O.  Worse than greens cooking on the stove (I never dreamed I would find something worse than that!) And it's taking over the apartment.  But we don't know what IT is.  Each day we go through the same routine: open the fridge to find some breakfast, Euuuuwww, it still stinks!  We then comb through the shelves and throw out anything, anything that might look questionable and then move our computers a few steps further back from the source because the stench radii is growing quite large.  Pretty soon we will be computing while swinging from the balcony.

I always thought 'odoriferous' was a fun word.  Funny looking, fun to say.  But not anymore.  It is a bad, bad word with an even worse connotation.  I know this makes us sound like the worst housekeepers and most disgusting people ever.  But--well, we aren't awesome housekeepers--but we are not GROSS!!!  Hopefully I hear some nods of agreement right now.

So for now we only know three things: 1) the smell did not originate from the cantaloupe, Ego waffles, frozen ground beef, three week old bell pepper, ice cubes, or string cheese, 2) the smell is not coming from something dead under the fridge, and 3) our fridge is definitely male because no smell like that could ever, ever come from a female.

Hopefully we can figure this out soon.  And I hope that your fridge is smelling just dandy.

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

third time's a charm

It's been said that good things come in THREES.  Well, maybe I made that up but I happen to believe it's true.  THREES are everywhere.
There were THREE pigs and THREE bears.
THREE stooges and THREE musketeers.
THREE's Company.
THREE men [and a Baby].
THREE answer options [Yes, Maybe, No].
THREE strikes.
THREE bulbs on a traffic light [American].
And so forth.

I have done some research-aka Googled-and have learned that there are a lot of rules regarding THREES.  According to Wikipedia a 'Rule of Three' may refer to:
  • Rule of THREE (aviation), a rule of descent in aviation
  • Rule of THREE (C++ programming), a rule of thumb about class method definitions [Emily]
  • Rule of THREE (statistics), for calculating a confidence limit when no events have been observed
  • Rule of THIRDS, a compositional rule of thumb in photography
  • Rule of THIRDS (diving), a rule of thumb for scuba divers


With all of these rules is does not surprise me to any degree that my parents had THREE kids; they are never ones to break any rules.  And, following in their footsteps, we THREE little angels do our best to follow suit.

Let's see what I can scrounge up...
  • Let's see, each one of us busted our chins in various pool accidents at the age of 3.5.
  • The second letters of our first names are the first THREE letters of the alphabet group 'L-M-N-O-P' eLlen, eMily, aNdrew.  You just never know what you might learn here :)
  • We were all three born in Louisiana.
  • We have all [or will soon] subjected our family to THREE graduation ceremonies each.
  • We all THREE graduated in 2009 from Grad School, College, and High School.  (I wanted to put a link to my blog post about that but I see that I wasn't blogging then :/)
  • And now, in the year 2013, we have all THREE received fairly significant bands of precious metals:  Engagement ring, Engagement ring, & Aggie ring.  As I'm writing this I just realized that our rings fit our familiar alpha-rhythm of EEA or Ellen, Emily, & Andrew.  I would call that coincidence but knowing our parents they probably planned that too.  Trust me, it is entirely possible with those two.

Jeff, Emily, and I all drove to College Station to go with Andrew to pick up his Aggie Ring.  This is a big deal at TAMU; a deal so big that I still don't quite understand.  People tell me it's because I didn't do my undergrad there and I missed out.  I've never really argued this point as it is quite obvious that I did miss out [please detect some sarcasm here!!!!!]
I should also note that I am so proud of Jeff for making the trip to the forbidden land and did so with very little grumbling but he still tries to hide in pictures.  My beloved Texas Tech Univ. graduate is still trying to grasp the fact that he is marrying into a fairly well-rooted family of TAMU-ers.  It's a tough pill to swallow but he's a big boy.  And if not that's what counseling is for ;)  Sigh, love makes you do some crazy things.


Anyhow, we had a great time pretending to be like we are still in college.  And do you know what I found out?!  I can't do it anymore.  You know, the moment your 2X year old body wakes up and realizes it's not 22 anymore?!  You have no idea how hard that is for me to admit but it's so true I couldn't lie about it if I had to.  And I know it's only going to get worse...


Regardless, we had a good time and am thankful for to Brother Andrew for opening up his sofas to us for another night's sleep.  Even though there are few things in the world that I would enjoy laying my head on less than that of sofas belonging to college guys.


I have to be honest in the next picture.  I am not quite sure who's arm is who's and actually find it quite disturbing.  But I like our smiles.  Andrew looks like he's loving every minute, doesn't he?!  My, how he loves his two sisters :)


And there's Jeff!  The camera man.  We were racing the sun and I'm thankful to Jeff that he volunteered to be behind the camera :)


Congratulations, ANDREW!!!!
I love you and am so proud!
Now go study ;)


Thursday, April 4, 2013

I came to PARTY!

This past weekend was one of many celebrations for our family & friends.  All we did was party. Party.  And yes, more Party!

We woke the weekend up with a great big PINK party [the only color a party should ever be in my opinion].  It is not lost on us that our first party was a baby shower; a celebration of a soon-to-be-here new life!  Amanda and her family have been our family's friends since before my time.  I know I have pictures and stories about her in various other posts.  But anyway, she represents one of the four families of whom we share very unique family ties.  We have all grown up together, most of us having started life in Louisiana and all of us ending up in the same church family once again in Houston.  If you were to only hear our interactions and conversations and not see that we look NOTHING alike you would definitely think that we were all related.  It's a neat thing.  We are the 10.

Amanda and Trey are in the process of moving to Canada :/ so it was a good thing we were able to work the shower in before they were gone for good!  Amanda is this first to go Preggo on us and we are all so excited!!!

Hostess': Dee, Me, Emily, Amanda, Sandy, Charlotte, & Lynda
As I often do, I jumped at the chance to volunteer as a hostess; the fact that I am an unemployed vagabond-and showers are expensive-never even crossed my mind.  That is until the planning meeting where I quickly started bartering for all physical labor and legwork duties.  It worked out great for me and I got to do what I love to do: Decorations!  Atmosphere!  Sunny Disposition!

Paper corsages for the Mommy-To-Be and Grand-Mommies-To-Be
Emily chose the overall theme of the shower: polka dots!  And man, oh man, do I love me a good dot party! Thus the search for dots and nothing but boldly bright dots commenced.  The food table turned out so cute and perfectly balanced in my humblest of opinions.  Internally painted clear Christmas Ornaments made exquisitely shaped, 2-dimensional dots.

Painted ornaments took their places in my cupcake tree stand.
It looks like one or two didn't survive the trip :/


Amanda asked that we bring an autographed children's book in place of a card.  Every time they open that book in the years to come they will be reminded of their friends and family back home and the plethora of prayers that have blanketed her child.

I Am a Princess from 'Miss' Lynda and Five Little Monkeys from my mom;
because even the princesses that live in Fairy Tale Princess Dream Land must know how to count.
Disguising a Sunday School room as a Fairy Princess World is no easy feat.
You must use your imagination in parts of the room :)



If You Give a Moose a Muffin is the perfect book for a
little girl who's first pet will in fact be a moose.
This was a particularly favorite moment of mine: all of the
Grandmothers examining a hand sewn receiving blanket.
The Grandmother in blue is mine!
After all the gifts had been opened and packed back up and the Sunday School room rared it's plain head again we scurried home to change clothes and get ready for the next event.

So here we go on to the next party.  This was also a sort of colored dots party: the Easter Party!  There were eggs of all shapes, colors, sizes, and ages: oval, pigs, sheep; green, pink, sunburned white; some half eggs but mostly whole eggs; ones that have been used and reused year after year each donning a different year's name/color/number code for what ever the games might have been, some brand spankin' new.

There is an unwritten rule that the Start line for the egg hunt is the very tippy side of the driveway.  I'm not sure when or how that came to be but every year we line up with everyone's toes grazing the nearest grass blade and one or two who break the rule all together.

On your marks...I'm not sure what Jeff said here but Emily looks like she's up to no good
while I'm wearing the 'U Crazy' face.
See what mean?  Little Andrew is pulling the 'I'm the youngest and I don't really know what you meant when you said whatever it is you said.'  Ok, that might have worked in years past [and it did] but that can be your excuse no more now that you are 15 years old and-as of Easter weekend-you have grown to be #5 in the tallest to shortest lineup. And that was 4 days ago.  He's probably already grown 3.5' since then.

...get set...
...GO!
Jeff's Yoda basket came back out this year!
Back at the Finish Line; I had to enlist helpers and hands to count all of my eggs :)
Much to everyone's surprise and my enthusiastic enjoyment I won the hunt with 29 eggs!  I was in it to win it for sure.  This has never happened to me before in this group.  I have come in first place only one other time as best I can remember; but my arrival  into this world first only means I am going to have knee replacements sooner.  You can't win an egg hunt with false knees.


I think most of us made this picture.  I can detect a few missing.
Before I get any frantic phone calls or emails let me just say
that Amanda is the only pregnant person in this picture :)
And that brings us to the next party in the line-up: mine and Jeff's engagement party!  I've waited a long time for my own engagement party to be catered by Mr. Randy's fine fajita grilling and I finally go it.  I had no idea we would receive any gifts but it was an exciting surprise.  I loved them all and we got a few things from our registry!  Looks like I need to jump back on that real soon or we may end up with 3 different styles of flatware and only hand towels for bath linens.




Judging by this picture it looks like I still need to work on my Ever-Ready-for-the-Camera faces
We were able to get Tom & Sue down here for the big event and I'm so glad!  We had such a good time and I'm thankful that they had the opportunity to meet the members of the Mad Mafia   I think they drove away thinking either 'Well, that explains it her' or 'Quick!  We don't have much time but we can still save Jeff!'  :)  We're not that bad.  I happen to think we are a lovely group of people with only the normal amount of quirks.  My Mom's parents were also able to make the afternoon/evening!  Though I guess now that they live with them I shouldn't act so surprised.
And...the 'Grown-Ups'.  That is everyone over 30 years old.
And then there were...a lot of them [ minus Jake, Tim & Faith :( but we left
a spot for them on the end!]
Now let's play 'Who has the baby?'
Back to normal

I'm gonna miss this girl!!!
Lastly, and definitely most importantly, we get to our last party: Easter Sunday!!!  Every one of us donned our Sunday best and went to church to worship and praise our Saviour who, after being crucified, dead and buried for three days, arose from the grave to save you and me from our sins.  We sang all the appropriate hymns including 'The Solid Rock', 'Christ the Lord is Risen Today', and 'Crown Him with Many Crowns'.  I got tingly goosebumps when we sang 'In Christ Alone', one of my absolute favorites.  Oh, it was a glorious day indeed.  But nothing-NOTHING-compared to the actual day that He did arise.  Can you imagine?!  It sounds too good to be true.  But it's not; this I know.

After church we all headed over to Mom & Dad's where Mom had prepared a wonderful Easter Feast.  I don't have any pictures of the day but I'm sure you can use your imagination.  And I dare say that every one of you had to lay down and take a nap after eating your own Easter dinner.  I know everyone in our house did just that.  I would also be willing to bet that there were at least three other houses in the area looked just the same: tired and worn out bodies draped across every open and soft horizontal surface.  These 5 families had an excitingly fast paced weekend of partying!

Do you know Jesus?  Do you study His Word?  If you don't I think you should give Him a shot and just try it out.  What have you got to lose?  It is all simply fascinating.  Simple.  And fascinating.

He Has Risen
He Has Risen Indeed!

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Happy Spring!

I'm starting to wonder how in the world I ever had time for a full-time job.  I've been unemployed for 2 months now and I have packed--literally--the days to their maximum capacity.  I am the type of person who ALWAYS has To-Do Lists.  Lists.  Big lists.  Small lists.  Unnecessary lists.  Lists of books to read.  Lists of topics to blog about.  Lists of people to call.  Lists of things I need to buy--often paired with the list of things to return.  Lists of my lists.  And why does it seem that the longer your lists, the longer it takes to get to them?  Let alone do them.  Things are always popping up--the entire house needs CLEANING OUT, engagements, allergies, they found your size but it's in the store that is 150+ miles from where you live.  You know how it goes.  But there really isn't anything you can do about it.

So, you proceed to help your Mom clean out the house, finding and reminiscing over the stove top ceramic eye-covers that you used back in 1992 and the American Girl doll that the American Girl Store does not make anymore.

You accept the ring...and the guy ;) and the planning...and the pictures...and the flowers...and the oh, dear, it looks like one list just gave birth to another list.

You go to Sam's and buy the largest bottle of Zyrtec they have to offer.  From now until May you'll be popping them daily and it's always a good idea to carry extras for your friends.

You go home and search the stores's inventory from you own computer because who would believe that your size does not exist in ANY of the seven stores that are located within 20 miles of your home.  This is really frustrating if you live a stone's throw away from a great mall like Emily and I do.  But it happens.  And more often than you would think.  For instance: just this week we stopped in the nearest Fossil store to have a new battery put in Jeff's watch.  When we went back to pick it up the clerk informed me that unfortunately they did not have the required size in stock but another store might have it.  When she asked me if there wasn't a store any closer to my house I replied with, 'I live behind the grocery store' (literally across the street).  And then I wanted to ask 'Why would you ask me that anyway?'  Like I just up and decided that it would be fun to drive all the way across the city to come visit your store.  Gas is expensive, people.

All the while you are supposed to actively seeking employment, going through old work files, finishing up projects that you started in 2010, and the like.

Anyway, Spring is almost here!  Well, technically it's almost here.  Spring arrived a few days before Christmas for those of us who hug the I-10 service roads.

Happy Spring!

Monday, March 4, 2013

2013 Siesta Scripture Memory Team: Verse 5!

If you haven't done so already, here is the link to this week's Living Proof's Siesta Scripture Memory Team post.

2013 Siesta Scripture Memory Team: Verse 5!

'Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?'  Romans 11:35 [NIV] 

Monday, February 25, 2013

how the proposal was won: the tale of a handsome white knight who rescued his beautiful damsel in distress

Ok.  So I'm finally here to tell you about our engagement!  Hopefully I will be able to explain how the whole thing went down without my knowing as well as fill in any holes for those of you who do not know the whole story.  I'm not sure where to start, though.  Do I tell you how Jeff secretly planned a proposal but had me do all of the work?  Or how I was planning this perfect photo shoot while feeling some resistance from him causing me to almost cancel the whole thing?  Or do I take you through the following images and explain what each one of them symbolizes?  Take you through a timeline of events as my explanations in paragraph tend to be are extremely wordy?

I don't suppose that there is a correct way, nor do I think one way is better than the other.  So how about a little smash up?!

Sometime around January 24-26:  I spotted a magazine clipping on Emily's desk one day while using her computer.  It was an advertisement for a photography competition; it sparked my interest immediately.  I figured if I'm not employed full-time right now then I have time to collaborate with Emily and enter this competition.  Entries were due on February 15 and the theme was true to the 'Month of Love': What is love to you?  Show us in pictures.

'Emily!' I exclaimed, 'We should totally do this.  This would be so much fun to do; I've been wanting to help you on a photo shoot.  Why not now?!'

She kind of shrugged and said that we could think about it.

Later that evening she asked me if Jeff and I would be interested in being models for said photo competition.  'Sure!' I said with much enthusiasm.  'Well, at least I am.  I don't know about Jeff.  You know how keen he is on creative ventures like this.  But I will ask him; I will do my best to talk him in to it.'

I mentioned it to him later that night while talking to him on the phone.  His response went something like: 'She wants us to be MODELS? ME?!  Well, she will have to help keep me grounded and not let it all get to my head.'  I didn't say much more at that point; I said we could talk about it later.  You see, I knew that if I had any hopes of talking him in this sort of fiasco we would need to feed him first.

And Sunday at Red Robin was the place to do just that.  He was actually the one who brought it up by asking what exactly was the crazy, hair-brained idea that Emily had cooked up.  I was very quick to point out the most positive of positives: it was a free photo session; it would tell our story; and we would have these pictures forever!  After only a little more coercion he said he was on board as long as he didn't have to where a dress or anything like that.  Noted.

With his blessing I began to think of how exactly would we execute this task.  I was not about to do a poor job and lose the competition.  But I was having trouble getting into it.  That is until Jeff surprised me with the poem that eventually drove the whole thing.  He text me on Tuesday night while I was at Bible study and said that he had written a poem for the signs that he figured we were going to use.  I was blown away.  He too was shocked.  Later that night he text me one line at a time.  Each line I read out loud to Emily and with each one came a louder, 'Awwwww....how cute is he?!'  The last line he said we could come up with and write it together as it was our future that we were talking about.

So for the next couple of days I proceeded with his poem and fought, ahem, learned how to use my new Cricut that I had gotten for Christmas.  And I worked so hard!  Emily was helping so much, too, that I felt bad because she wasn't getting any of her stuff done.  'She's doing this for her business,' I kept telling myself.  On Wednesday we went and scouted out locations.  This was also helpful to her business as we went and looked at two places around the city that she had never seen before.

Saturday came and it was all hands on board.  All hands, that is, except for Emily, Jeff, and Jake.  Hehe, actually they were all helping a great deal.  I was just feeling the heat as we were racing the sun. But we were successful and made it to the park before the sun went down.  This is how the photo shoot went:

'Through a red velvet cupcake
Good friends they did make'
In the beginning, I thought Jeff was kind of rude.  We worked at a company with only 4 full-time employees under the age of 30.  I thought it made sense for us to be friends.  He did not, apparently.  For my first 2-3 months we gave each other awkward smiles/looks when we passed in the hallways.  This really frustrated me as everyone else had come and introduced themselves within my first 2-3 days of employment.  His version is something like 'I knew we were going to be friends; I was waiting on you to realize it.'  Or something like that.  Whatever it was it never made much sense to me ;)  Anyhow, around Month 4 we were both at a cook-off; it was here that Jeff decided that I was a fun, normal person.  Ha!  We got to talking and by the end of the night I had promised him a red velvet cupcake the next morning and had given him my phone number because I told him that he needed it :)

When I showed up with said cupcake the next morning he just kind of stared at me like I was crazy.  It turns out that he walked away from the cook-off thinking that I would not bring him a cupcake the following day.  WANTED: A girl who keeps promises.  Check!


'They met at their work
Where their feelings did lurk'
The cupcake opened up doors and Jeff finally decided that I was okay to talk to.  He had to work at it, though.  While he was playing dumb for those first few months I was becoming very good friends with the other girl who was under the age of 30.  Now we all know that I like to talk and will do so until the cows come home.  Christy will talk until the un-sheparded sheep come home.  I'm not kidding :)  Needless to say Jeff had his work cut out for him.  He started to come with us to 'Fiesta Friday' [mexican food for Friday lunch] and would lick his plate clean while Christy and I fought for talk time.  I'm really not sure why he kept coming with us; he couldn't have enjoyed it very much.  We knew nothing about him and he knew little to nothing about us because he tuned us out.  But something got us talking outside of Fiesta Friday--could have been my cell phone number that I had given him--and we hit it off really well.  We have many colorful emails [literally colorful--color coded by who said what] that prove it.

'Sparks began to fly
On the 4th of July'
We have yet to determine on what day to celebrate our dating relationship.  Somewhere in our email flirting we began to hang out together some outside of work; usually with other coworkers present.  We did semi-date-like hang out on Cinco de Mayo but Jeff doesn't really like to call that a date.  We went to one of my favorite band's concerts one night in June.  He sat outside and talked with friends while I danced inside the entire night away to the Irish music.  Still not really a date.  Then on the 4th of July something happened and I knew we had crossed over into the 'dating exclusively' or 'exclusively dating' zone.  I can't really tell you why or how I knew but I did.  We both did.  Thus we now celebrate an 'Anniversary Season', the last two weeks of May through the first two weeks of June. Ha!

'She then was let go;
Still their feelings did grow'
On August 2, 2011 I was let go from my job at the company that we were both working at.  Since we had not told anyone at the company that we were dating he had to act calm when he found out the bad news.  He called me right away and told me that everything would be okay.  I was living with my parents at the time but still had little to no spending money.  If Jeff wanted to see me he had to put gas in my car so I could even get to his house and pool [I did spend a lot of time there] and he continued to do so just as he continued supporting me in my job search.  Looking back I realize how crazy that might have seemed to others looking in from the outside.  Here we were, having only dated for about 3 months, but he treated and cared for me as if we had been engaged for 12.  I'm so glad he decided to keep me around!

'New work and great joy
With love from her boy'
In early November I got the call that we had all been waiting for for about the previous 2.5 years: a job offer at a local architecture & design firm.  My first day was November 15 and between my parents, Jeff, and myself I'm not sure who was the most excited.  I guess it was all pretty close to a tie!


'Through thick and through thin,
One year it had been'
We celebrated our anniversary season in May-June 2012 with dinner, a Dave Matthews concert, and a flower bouquet charm from James Avery.  How fast time flies!!!


'And just as before
Her job was no more'
Things continued on at a rapid pace; Jeff had already learned that things at my family's house are almost always crazy and never, ever dull.  That point was driven home after an eventful Thanksgiving and Christmas season that was punctuated with the determination that my grandparents would be coming to live with my parents for a while.  Planning and cleaning out proceeded as you might imagine to prepare for their arrival.  

'With troubles in sight
In rode her white knight'

No one was prepared for January 14, however.  About 25% of my company was laid off that day and I was one of the lucky 7.  Not knowing where to turn after leaving the office I went straight to Jeff's house and waited for him to come home from work.  When he got there he held me and let me cry it out, telling me that everything would okay and reminding me that we had gotten through this one before already.

Side note: When Jeff sent me the lines in this part of the poem I literally cracked up and 'LOL'ed.  Not funny but so true!



This is the part of the photo shoot that I was not looking forward to: the last and final sign.  We weren't able to come up with anything cute and rhyme-y for the last sign.  Both Jeff and Emily had suggested 'To be continued...' as the best alternative given our time crunch.  This DID NOT make me happy and I literally sat in the corner and pouted for a little while on Saturday morning as they continued working on the remaining signs.  'Nothing is cute about 'To be continued...' in this application.  I like it for anything else but unless you can come up with something that rhymes with 'Continued' I don't want it.'  I lost that battle and a 'To be continued...' was hastily adhered to the last and final sign.

But alas it didn't matter.  Everyone and their mom [aside from myself] knew that it didn't matter at all what I came up with to put on that sign as it would not even make the trip to the park with us.  With every photo that we took Emily would take me to a new spot and try out different angles and lighting positions.  I ended up with a fabulous portfolio of portraits and model shots as she tried her best to keep my busy and from looking around at what was actually about to happen.  And she pulled out all the stops for this last shot.  I was flipping my hair, signing, blowing kisses, taking pictures with her, and the works while the guys got everything ready.  This is a little of it shown here.  Jeff said he literally just stood their laughing at me for several minutes, waiting for me to stop posing for the camera.


I didn't even look down when Jeff walked up and handed me my end of the sign.  I just yelled at Emily and asked her what she thought we should do as far as posing for the shot.  When Jeff told me that I should read the sign I told him that I knew what the sign was and reminded him that this was the one that I was not happy about.  He patiently asked me again so I did.  I realized that it had too many words on it to say 'To be continued...' just as my eyes caught sight of a bright flashing object in his hands.  He kept asking me to read the sign and I kept asking, 'What is that?!'

'To be continued...'
'Now all but her knows
That her knight will propose'





At this point I still had no idea what the sign actually said even though I had 'read' it twice now.  I only knew that Jeff was down on one knee and saying something.  I assumed he was asking me to marry him and I hope that I said 'Yes'.  [I did check and I did in fact say Yes!]  I think my actions that followed enforced that decision, though :)

Excitement.

Throw the sign down.
Embrace.

Notice Ring.

Forever.




Thank you, Emily!
www.emilykiel.com
In the end I found out that Jeff was the one who had asked Emily to do a photo shoot.  He called her and said that he needed her help in proposing.  He had three criteria: it had to be a surprise, it needed to be photographed and documented [these first two were my criteria :)], and he wanted to tell our story using some sort of signage.  He said that he could not have planned it any better and that if they ever made an 'Inception 2' we would be the story line.  Our Sunday School teacher's wife said, 'You planned the whole thing and had her do all the work?!  GENIUS' !!!  I'd say so myself :)  Thanks for reading!

Producer & Director: Jeff P.
Set Design & Wardrobe Consultant: Ellen K.
Camera 1, Film, & Editor: Emily K.
Assistant to Director & Camera 1: Jake R.