Let's Talk!!!

About seven hundred bucks LOL.

how much should I expect to pay a photographer to do our wedding? Oh.. and if we are too OT Kate, then we can take it off this thread.

shelly! i forgot to tell you congrats!

This morning we took an early morning (7 am) walk with the pups to our cities most beautiful park to assess where we want to surprise my family and DH's with the news of our engagement (DH is NOT LEGALLY my dh, but everyone calls him dh still because we have been together over 12 years). SO we walked the park, took pictures of the areas we are considering and talked over engagement announcement plans. Now we are cooling off a bit at home before we go back out in the heat and look at more rings.

 
Well I can't believe I'm your BFF and you hadn't told me [] but Congratulations!!!  How exciting. I vote for a Maui wedding on the beach.  Trust me on this...you won't regret it and neither will your guests.  Hey, we'll be there at the end of October, so I could attend.  I stink at taking pictures but I'm cheap []
 
Yeah, well it's blazing hot here too, so it's been a very laid back weekend.  I've got steaks and corn on the cob ready to grill and hoping hunger will be enough to motivate DH to go stand over the grill for a little while.  He's got a cold, which is never fun when it's 100 degrees, so maybe it's a good thing we don't feel like doing much.  Of course tomorrow is supposed to be 10 degrees cooler [8|]

What I really want to know is if there was a special proposal you would like to share???  []

Denise- It's wonderful, take it from me.  But, they'll be back for a while for some reason - so enjoy it without them while you can. Unfortunately, even after they leave permanently, the worry never goes away! 

Yay!!!  The rain let up enough that I could take the dogs out for a short romp in the yard.  Unfortunately, it was a short romp.[&o]  Everyone except Bevo are tired & ready to settle down for the night.  Bev is still pacey & begging to go back outside, so it looks like he'll get another kong to occupy him until bedtime.[8|]  Oh well, I'll take him for a long run in the morning.
 
While the dogs were playing, I realized that my plumeria is finally blooming!!!  I love the smell of plumeria & it seems to be attracting hummingbirds.  There were 9 flying all around the blooms.  I think that I may pick up a hummingbird feeder tomorrow.

Congrats Shelly! So happy for you and your dh[]

Been having nasty headaches the last 3-4 days. Most likely due to sinus, but I am ready to hide under a rock and stay there. As crabby as I've been, I'm sure hubby and the puppies would appreciate it too. But life must go on.

I spent all day yesterday baking. And when am I going to learn not to try two new recipes at a time? LOL Hubby got a new brown sugar cookie recipe done, as well as a Tres Leches cake for his work pot luck today. Both have been hits though - so I guess it was worth being up on my feet all day. Hubby even cooked dinner for us last night since I spent all day baking for him. *snort* I can't eat any of what I baked, so I guess fair is fair that he cooked for me! Though I really would like to be able to try both of these recipes. Usually that isn't a problem, but I would like to see how these taste - and texture - would love to know how they turned out. Oh well, I'll just pester everyone to find out what I need to do differently if something is off in this first try.

And today I cleaned house. Oh so much fun! NOT NOT NOT I hate cleaning house!!!!!

But one bright thing in this miserable (and wet) weekend, is that Roo kitty seems to be self-regulating on her own! I haven't had to do insulin in over 48 hours now! Yeah for her pancreas! LOL We have normal blood glucose ranges going on five days now! I am so happy that we've managed to get a handle on her diabetes so quick and is looks like we might be able to manage it with diet! Snoopy dance if I had the energy![]

Anyway, sorry this was more of a rant.
Amy

MandyO.. I LOVE plumeria's and mine is doing fantastic this year  and loving the high temps and humidity we have been having the last 2 weeks. I have more blooms than I have ever had on it.

Thanks Amy and Megan! []

Well I can't believe I'm your BFF and you hadn't told me but Congratulations!!! How exciting. I vote for a Maui wedding on the beach. Trust me on this...you won't regret it and neither will your guests. Hey, we'll be there at the end of October, so I could attend. I stink at taking pictures but I'm cheap

Cathy .. I am so sorry[] I didn#%92t tell you yet. Honestly no one in my family even knows except my stepdtr cuz we told her yesterday and had her do some ring shopping with us.  The rest of the family won#%92t even know until October when everyone is in town and we have a “unique” engagement announcement event.  I figured I would email you about it but I haven#%92t had much idog or email time this weekend and we only decided on all this Friday night.   Oh and I would LOVE to have an October wedding in Maui but my stepson is on Westpac so we must wait till May or June.  BUT we might have a second tiny ceremony in Maui on our honeymoon for just for a few family members if my stepmom#%92s health is too poor to allow her to travel.

Amy, I hope that your headaches improve quickly.  Actually, once your headaches are gone you could come to my house to do some cleaning ?(since you like it sooo much[&:]) And, I am more than willing to be a guinea pig for any new recipes that you'd like to try! 
 
It's great to hear that Roo Kitty is regulating her own insulin levels again.  Hopefully the diet change will keep her normal, without having to deal with injections.

ORIGINAL: boneyjean

What I really want to know is if there was a special proposal you would like to share???  []

LOL… actually there is no great proposal story, but since this is sorta a "no topic” thread and I don't think MandyO will mind,[]
here IS the story and it has its romantic moments. [sm=floating.gif]

  We have been together for 12 ½ years, lived together for 12 of those years and I have helped raise his kids who are turning 23 and 21 very soon.  SO honestly, being married is really just a tax break for us and to make our families happy by giving them a wedding.  It won't really change anything about our relationship at all. We talked about it a few months ago, but somehow I guess I gave him the impression I really didn't want to be married. I think it is just because I was distracted during our talk thinking about all the logistical aspects because I have several family members in poor health and our families are also pretty spread out.

  Anyway so Friday night we were walking the pups around 9 pm in the sweltering humidity and got to discussing our families health and so I brought up that we probably need to discuss again the possibility of a wedding before their health gets too much worse.  He told me he thought from our last discussion that I wasn't interested in getting married and that he was very happy to hear otherwise because he is 1000% behind us getting married.   SO there was no actual proposal, just a discussion and we both agreed… LOL! We are a pretty pragmatic about a lot of this kind of stuff and he isn't the romantic at all.

  Now that said Sarah, he is diving right into this whole thing and we went from discussing what I thought we both wanted (a small ceremony for JUST immediate family in the park with a lunch afterwards), to now he has his heart set on a dinner cruise (or actually brunch cruise), with a carriage ride to our hotel for a early honeymoon afternoon and night [sm=wavetowel.gif]  taking dance lessons together before our wedding, a guest list of 60 instead of 16 and he has decide to create the sketches for the "perfect” wedding and engagement  rings for me.

  I will sorta get a "special proposal” actually because early next month when a lot of our family is back in town, including his son who will be back from his 8 month Westpac,  we are planning to have our families go to this park that is one of our favorite places  for a  "surprise” welcome back event for him. But the surprise will be on all of our parents when Jims a-capella singing group walks up from 4 different directions and Jim joins them to sing "going to the chapel” (thus announcing our plan to wed[]) At the end of the song he will actually give me the engagement ring he is having designed in front of our families and this will be the first time I will have seen the actual ring.  It is cheese and silly, but fits our goofy personalities[]

SO I really consider THAT event to be our " romantic proposal”.  But I also kinda love the fact that we were doing our favorite daily activity (walking the pups) when we decided to tie the knot.  SO there is the LONG story to your question…LOL!  

Amanda! You made me laugh[]. Acutally, I didn't used to mind cleaning. Every weekend I would clean the bathroom, floors, dust - I loved the neat and clean house. But after the wreck and not being able to clean at all - I got over a messy dirty house (umm, yeah I tell myself that at least) and clean every two weeks. It just hurts too much and I since I already hurt before I start, I end up in a horrible mood before I get started because it just sucks! Oh well. Such is life. At least I don't mind dogs in the house now - the dirt is already there! LOL

I don't know what it is about baking, but I love trying new recipes. And of course, the new magazines from America's Test Kitchen really help the addiction. [] Hubby is going to have to start working out if he wants me to keep making sweets! I make a mean cheesecake now, and the chocolate one is pretty darn good if I do say so myself! Everything is made from scratch, and I've gone back and pulled out my grandmother's cookbooks to find the really good ones to make. The older, the better the recipes seem to be. I also have more liquor in the house than ever - all for baking. I thought my hubby was going to die laughing when I bought a $30 bottle of bourbon - especially since I hate the smell of alcohol when he drinks beer! My mom can't believe all the baking I do since I can't eat a single piece - but it is fun to put a smile on people's faces when they bite into something they aren't expecting!

If you were closer I would certainly put you to use as a guinea pig for my reicpes! Though you may hate me for the weight gain! LOL

Hey Shel, I didn't know you were waiting until next year. You know by May or June I'll be in Vancouver, right? []

Oh Shel!  I LOVE that story...and from what I know of you here, it sounds like it fits you and your DH perfectly.  I am so so excited for you!  Sometimes the best things come to those who wait.