Oh, Mexico!

What a great time we had celebrating our friends Chris and Kelly this weekend! I'm so thankful that they decided to have their wedding down in tropical paradise. It was a quick 4 days, but completely worth it to spend time with our friends. We enjoyed lots of sun, pool time, walks on the beach, fruity drinks, dancing, and enough guacamole to feed an army. My idea of heaven. I'll let the pictures from the weekend speak for themselves. Congrats to Kelly and Chris! Will and I have some big shoes to fill to match the fun we had at their wedding!

My 3 favorite little valentines

525,600 minutes

Today officially marks 1 year until our wedding! In honor of this, I bring you Sh*t Brides Say:

Hilarious!  (And sadly, I admit that I've caught myself saying things like this. "Pinning, pinning..." and "Our theme is going to be country chic..." come to mind.)  Oh well, you're only a bride once, right? :)

Start Spreading the News, Part 1

(I'm apparently really enjoying capturing every detail of our engagement weekend.  So much that I have to break this story into a 3-part series. I'll cover how we told Will's family when I have more time to write again!)

The honor of 1^st person to learn we were officially engaged goes to our friend Amy (Will’s friend from college).  She starts every conversation, email, facebook post, etc…with “Are you engaged yet??”.  Will long ago promised her that she would be the first to know should we ever actually become engaged, so we surprised her by sending her a picture of me wearing the ring.  She lives in North Carolina now, but had been in Chicago that week and we had missed her by a day.  Will had encouraged her to extend the trip over the weekend, and our photo evidence proved to her that she should have listened!
 

Will didn’t want the happy news to go public on the internet as he wanted to tell his family in person over Thanksgiving.  We thought it would be best to at least call our families and let them know the news before anyone else did, but he really wanted to surprise his sisters (his Dad also already knew) and tell them in person.  I agreed to keep it quiet on the internet, but I was going to have a hard time keeping it from our friends that we would be seeing shortly!

So we agreed that we would make an exception and tell our Chicago friends that we saw that weekend…after all, we were in the mood to celebrate! But they were sworn to secrecy until we had a chance to tell as many as we could in person. We had hoped to personally call as many good friends as we could on Thanksgiving to share the news with them before it was blasted onto social media. 

 

Unfortunately we weren’t going to see my family over Thanksgiving, so I got to call them to share the news that evening.  Shortly after Will popped the question we headed out to meet up with our friend Kelly for drinks.  As we were walking to the bar, I tried to give my Dad a call.  Will insisted that I tell my dad first, as he was the only one who knew Will’s plans.  I tried calling him at home and didn’t reach him, so I called the bakery next. Mom answered and I tried to talk with her as nonchalantly as possible for a couple minutes before asking if Dad was around.  “No,” she replied.  “He had some dental work done this afternoon, so he’s at home with a mouth full of gauze and can’t talk.” Needless to say, I wasn’t super happy to hear that news.  I talked to Mom for a few more minutes, avoiding her probing questions (as I’m sure she knew something was up), and then tried to call Dad at home again.  I left him a message on the machine, asking him to just pick up the phone and grunt to let me know he was there, because I just had to tell him something really quickly…he didn’t even need to respond.

 

Well, he didn’t pick up, which was a bummer.  By this point we were at the bar, though, so I didn’t dwell on it too much.  We share the news with our good pal Kelly, her fiancé Chris, and Will’s cousin Anna at the bar, and had champagne all around to celebrate (after we swore them to secrecy, of course!) We then headed to dinner with one of Will’s old Four Seasons buddies, Edgar, and his girlfriend Crystal at Café Iberico (Mmmmm, tapas- a girl couldn’t ask for a better celebratory dinner!) We continued the evening at Fado (another one of my favorite establishments in Chicago) where another Four Seasons friend Megan met up with us.  We enjoyed our celebration, for sure! So much so that Will and I didn’t want to be done celebrating when everyone else was, so we headed to the late night bar (and another one of our favorite Chicago haunts) Dublin’s and ended the evening there.  Or should I say morning.  In true Chicago fashion, we got back to the hotel room around 5 AM.

 

Needless to say, we were feeling ROUGH the next morning.  We had to rally, though, as we had friends to see and news to share.  I was finally able to reach Dad that morning at the bakery, and he was happy to hear our news.  And a bit surprised, too, that it happened so quickly after Will had talked to him.  He shared the news with Ella (who fell out of her chair) and my BFF Kelly (who was working there) but let me know that Mom was out running errands.  I made him promise not to tell her as I wanted to be the one to let her know.

 

We were at a bar watching football and celebrating with friends Megan, Abby, Kelly, and Tracy when Dad called me back and let me know that Mom was back at the bakery and that if I wanted to tell her our news myself, that I should call quickly.  She was catching on that something was going down.  So I went outside and called her back.  When she answered, she asked if I had something I needed to tell her, to which I replied, “Yes, I do.”  Then she made a big show of letting me know that Kelly was there, and so was Molly, so she took the phone back to the kitchen area and put me on speaker phone. 

Once the phone was properly set up, she said, “OK- what’s your news?”

This was just too good of an opportunity to not mess with her.  I took a deep breath, and said, “Are you ready to hear the news?
...I’m pregnant.”

"WHAT?!?! THAT WAS NOT THE NEWS I WAS EXPECTING!!!" was her reaction.

I had to laugh at that point.  "Of course I'm not pregnant, Mom! You just saw me last weekend, and I was definitely drinking the whole time.  The real news is, we're engaged!"

It was definitely a memorable and fun way to break the news to Mom.  She was also really surprised that Dad and Kelly already knew. But she did say that she suspected that it was going to happen soon based Will's reaction in Savannah when she had (again) said something to him about us getting married.

We spoke with Andy and Sandy that evening once we were settled back in at the hotel.  Rockstars we are not, so 2 nights in a row of late-night partying were not in the cards for us.  They sneakily asked us what hotel we were staying at, and we thought nothing of letting them know as it is a pretty integral part of the engagement story.  We were pleasantly surprised about 30 minutes after we  hung up the phone with them.  They had called and arranged for champagne and chocolate covered strawberries to be sent to the room!

Engagement Story, Part 1

We’re engaged! Hooray! (Or, as everyone we know put it, it’s about time!) I’ve decided to take a minute to write down the whole story while the details are relatively fresh in my mind.  This is pretty much just for myself (and Jess, of course). :) But, I’m sure it will be fun to go back and read this later…especially on days when I want to strangle him. Kidding…sort of.  Some of these details I’ve learned post-engagement, but I’m going to attempt to keep things in chronological order.

Will actually took his first trip to a jewelry store to look at rings way back in February.  He didn’t really intend to buy one then, but it’s nice to know it’s been on his mind for awhile.  Coincidentally (or perhaps hilariously is the better descriptor here) his first trip to look at rings fell on none other than Valentine’s Day.  He didn’t realize that it was the 14^th until he was already walking into the store.  He later told me he felt pretty stupid, but he braved the V-Day sales rush anyway to get an idea of what he was looking for.

My baby nephew was born in May.  We drove back to Decatur in June to meet Liam, and following that trip, I had a full-blown meltdown on Will…in bed…in the dark…after waking him up to “talk”.  (I’m sure every male has had that happen to them by their lovely lady at least once.)  I loved holding a brand new baby and really felt for the first time in my life that I was totally ready to start a family.  I was freaking out worrying that Will wasn’t in the same place as me and wondering when and if we would ever get married, let alone have kids.  It wasn’t like we were newly dating- we had been together for nearly 5 years!  (Will was probably just rolling his eyes at me in the dark as he already knew he had plans in the works to ask me to marry him.  I can be a drama queen. But I felt pretty justified in my ranting at the time.)

Fast forward a few more months to our most recent Europe trip.  Will had warned me before we left that he was not going to propose, so I shouldn’t get my hopes up for an engagement.  So of course, I got my hopes up for an engagement.  I was pretty convinced that he was trying to reverse-psychology me into thinking he wasn’t going to propose so that he when he did, I would be extra surprised.  Well, the joke was on me. I distinctly remember the moment we walked into the hotel with the a-ma-zing view of the Matterhorn and our own private balcony. I thought to myself, “this is where he’s going to ask me! How romantic!” Well, afternoon turned to evening, which turned to night, which turned to the next morning and I did not become the future Mrs. Mason.  I even said to Will as we left that fantastic hotel, “you know, that would have been a great spot to get engaged.”

Sometime shortly after we returned home from Switzerland Will actually picked up the ring.  He had it hidden in plain sight at our place- in his sweater drawer under the bed.  I never once suspected, nor saw anything. That goes to show how often Will wears sweaters, or how often I put away his clothes- I'll let y'all be the judges on that one.

We had a trip to Vegas planned for 2 weeks after we got back from Europe to go to a Jimmy Buffett concert (Will’s birthday present to me from back in May).  Prior to leaving for Europe though, we failed to buy our flights out there.  So after lots of hemming and hawing, I told Will that we needed to cancel the trip. It was just far too expensive/pointless since we had just gotten back from a big trip, and the flights were ridiculously expensive that close to the trip.  Will grudgingly agreed to cancel the trip…and then I felt really bad because he wasn’t able to sell the concert tickets. So basically he wasted a lot of money on a present that I never got to use.  And here’s the real kicker- I later found out that he had planned to propose in Vegas on the bridge of the Venetian (which happens to be the precise place where he realized how much he cared about me 5+ years ago) (Queue “ahhhhs”- I’ll wait.) So basically, I thwarted my own engagement by being financially conservative.

In early November, we met my family for a long weekend in Savannah.  Will tried several times to get Dad alone so that he could ask him for permission to marry me.  That apparently proved to be a difficult task.  They never did get any time alone, so Will had to call him the following week and ask him over the phone. Dad was really excited to know that he knew something before anyone else in the family did, including Mom.  Will didn’t tell Dad when he was planning on proposing, though- Dad assumed it would be around Christmas.

Anywho, Will kept going on and on about how he needed to get out of town and how much he wanted to go back to Chicago.  We try to go to Chicago every year for a Bears game so I didn’t think that was too weird.  And even though I didn’t think we needed to take another weekend trip away, I felt guilty saying no since I had forced him to cancel the Vegas weekend. I tried to convince him to at least let us stay with friends in Chicago to keep costs down, but he insisted that we stay at the Four Seasons (where he used to work- he still gets hooked up with sweet deals there).  He used the excuse that staying there was an integral part of his Chicago experience because he spent so much timing working there and he still knows so many of the employees.  And he had already made reservations that were not cancellable.  So, he won.  I took the Friday before Thanksgiving off and off to Chicago we went. 

We spent the whole day on Friday wandering around our old neighborhood, eating at one of our favorite lunch spots- Cozy Noodles, having a couple drinks at our old stomping grounds, window shopping on Southport, stopping in to pick up a couple items at Strange Cargo, and walking by our old apartments.  It was so nice. Chicago, how I love you.  We were meeting up with some friends for dinner and drinks downtown that evening so we headed back to the hotel to get ready.  Just as we were getting ready to walk out the door, Will asked if I had seen his wallet… to which I replied no.  Then he asked me to look for his wallet in his inside jacket pocket (which, admittedly, I was annoyed by.  He often asks me to do stuff like that (grab his shoes, his coat, look for his keys or wallet on the counter, etc… as if I am sitting around twiddling my thumbs. I am trying to get ready, too, buddy!))  I bit my tongue, though, and reached into his pocket expecting to find a wallet there. Instead I half pulled out a ring box. And then I quickly tried to shove it back in his pocket, thinking I wasn’t supposed to find it. (He had often joked around that he was going to propose on a jumbotron at a sporting event…and we were going to the Bears game on Sunday) When he asked me if I found something in his pocket, I told him no! Then he asked if I was sure, and as I turned around to look at him, he was on his knee. :)

And then I started jumping up and down and doing that weird half-laughing/half-crying thing. And I kept asking if he was being for real and if he was serious, and then proceeded to repeatedly ask him, “Are you going to ask me? Are you going to ask me? Are you going to ask me?” until he had to tell me to be quiet because he had something important to ask me. And in typical Will fashion, while on one knee, instead of asking me to marry him, he asked, “Are you ready to leave?” Then I think I hit him.  Thankfully, he then popped the real question, and of course I said yes.  It was a wonderful, surreal moment.  I couldn’t stop crying/laughing/smiling/kissing Will.   I love that he surprised me in the way that he did and that he kept it very true to our relationship- we were joking the whole time.

The only kicker is that the ring didn’t fit! Will had sized the ring by putting it on his pinky finger.  I keep an old ring in my car that he always plays with on his pinky, so he assumed that was the proper ring size for me.  Unfortunately, the ring was a size too small, so I didn’t get to wear it that weekend. Talk about torture!! Finally engaged and not even able to wear the ring for proof.

Stay tuned for part 2: how we told our families….

30 Days of Thankfulness: Day 30

Day 30: I'm thankful that I have so many more things to be thankful for. 


Well, I made it. Full disclosure: I did have to "cheat" and do some back-blogging to get all these posted...some days because internet and blogger were being spotty, other days because I just didn't have time to write anything...but I gave it a solid effort.  Admittedly, it was harder than I thought it would be to do this whole 30 days of being grateful thing.  Some days I felt thankful for so much that I didn't know where to begin, other days it was hard to come up with something, no matter how miniscule.  But in the end, this little exercise reiterated to me how fortunate I am in life to have so much to be thankful for.

Now, on to some more regularly-scheduled blog posts!

30 Days of Thankfulness- Day 29

Day 29: I'm thankful that it is now socially acceptable for me to listen to Christmas music non-stop.  As a general rule, I won't bust out the Christmas tunes until the day after Thanksgiving.  But now that turkey day is over, it's on.  I could listen to 100 different versions of Oh Holy Night and be a happy camper all day long. I love this time of year.

Now if only I can convince Will to get our tree this weekend...