The Checklist

Letter from SLC - check

Temple recommends signed by stake prez - check

Dress hemmed - check

Cowboy boots buffed- check

Suit picked up from cleaners - check

Ring - check

Solar nails to go with ring + 2 big toe acrylic nails (who knew) - check

Suitcases packed - check
Hilari's present packed - check

Selena's present packed - check

Hotel reservation made - check

Dallas Temple reserved - check

Witness (Dane) contacted - check

Last day checked off the calendar - CHECK!!!

Choosing a Date

OK, now we have the letter, how about getting married this weekend?

Wait-what?! I'm still unpacking! I can't even find my Q-tips yet!

Well, I can't get married next weekend because of work--I'm booked up. What about the weekend after that?

I don't know--I have a three-day contract in Houston, get back for a few days and then leave for Hawaii that Sunday for a five-day contract over there. And then I work in Houston almost every weekday in August.

So...do we have to wait until September? By then, our marriage license will have expired.

Hmmm...I don't really care about the license--we can just get a new one--but I don't want to wait until September. OK, let's get out our calendars...

The Letter

The Letter from SLC finally came in the mail! It said, basically "You have permission to marry her in the temple." And I would put a copy of the three signatures at the bottom of the letter right here except that just about the only other sentence in the whole letter was "You do not have permission to copy this letter." But these are the three guys whose autographs we have in our possession until we surrender the letter at the temple of our choice:

Pack. Rat.

I have a confession to make. I am a pack rat. I know this because I have been packing for the last four days and there is still so much stuff that it doesn't even look like I've started packing. It's so bad that I asked my friends if we could turn my Night On The Town party into a Packing Party. And now I'm off to the Box Store again for more packing supplies.

Note to self: Next time you move, even if you have a small three-bedroom house, do not think that you can just buy the "Small Three-Bedroom House" box kit. HA HA HA.

This Girl Deserves a Party

"We want to throw you a party," my visiting teachers said one day, "Do you want to get a limo and see a Broadway show, have a night on the town? Where would you like to go? Who would you like to invite?"

Oh, boy. A party! Should we go to the exclusivo Vargo's with the famous gardens that I've always wanted to see?

Or how about Rainbow Lodge, the quaint hunting cabin set on an acre of flowers in the middle of the city, famous for its wild game? (I once ate emu and buffalo there--on the same plate!)
Then there was the new Grove restaurant right in the heart of downtown Houston, among the skyscrapers, but surrounded by a city park. Their rooftop dining area is called the Treehouse.In the end, we ditched the limo idea and decided we'd rather just hang out yacking together at a local joint rather than spend the evening sitting in expensive velvet seats facing forward and listening to highly-paid professionals sing to us.

Now my friends are beginning to RSVP for the event and asking if I'm registered anywhere. Not yet. Can you register at Cindie's? I don't cook!

Hot Springs is Hot

We decided to take a little jaunt over to Hot Springs to check it out before the honeymoon. We wanted to choose one of the charming little bed and breakfasts that we had seen online, and couldn't make a decision looking at the photos on the websites. We loved the town--it was as quaint and enchanting as advertised and almost reminded us of a little European village, except that all of the fountains in town were steaming!

We checked out one bed and breakfast after another. First this one:

Then this one:

And even this one:

Something just wasn't working for us. I finally said, "You know, I'm just not feelin' it, are you?" and my fiance sighed in relief and admitted, "I feel like I'm visiting my grandmother's house!"

So we headed to the historic Arlington Hotel to see if it was as "tired" and "tawdry" as the reviewers on Trip Advisor had said it was, and we were pleasantly surprised. We felt like we had been transported back in time to the roaring 20's! The joint was hopping!

There was a live band in the lobby with tuxedoed waiters serving cold drinks and patrons lounging around at tables and chairs on the huge veranda overlooking the main street.

People were pouring in and out of the revolving door--laughing, talking, and loving life in beautiful Hot Springs. We had found our place! But, after enjoying dinner and a walk around the town, we sat out on the veranda and watched the steam rise from the hot spring fountains around us and admitted, "We LOVE Hot Springs. But now we've DONE it! We have to find some place new for the honeymoon!"

Back to the drawing board!

Our Story

A friend asked me how we met. "What's your story?" she wondered. Here it is.

We met on an LDS singles' website two and a half years ago when he sent me an email telling me he was a mess and why. I responded that he did indeed sound like a mess, but promised that things could only get better. He lived in Texas, but was five hours north of me, and over the next two years we were pretty good penpals, but never met. I think we tried to meet in Dallas a couple of times and one or the other of us would have work conflicts and it never worked out. I just figured he wasn't very interested in me.

Finally, in January, we figured out that we would both be in the SLC airport at the same time while I was bringing my son to a film festival there and he was leaving after dropping his off at the MTC. We arranged to meet at the top of the escalator, a location that he now has a picture of on his cell phone. We talked for thirty minutes, went our separate ways, and that was that. I didn't hear much from him for a while, and once again figured that, well, he wasn't very interested in me.

Little did I know that he went home and made plans to marry me. We finally had another date at the beginning of April, after which he asked if it was too soon to propose. I told him it was not only too soon but to please quit being so nice to me because I wasn't used to that kind of treatment and it was turning me off. But by the end of the month, after keeping a list of everything we had in common that had reached #103, I was completely accustomed to being treated well and we were engaged. We realized that we loved Star Trek, dragon rolls, book clubs, museums, astronomy, blue cheese, our families, cool new stuff, and each other. So much so that we don't want to live without each other very much longer!