It's official!

(Jeope, stop reading here.)

So I know we already set a date and I bought a dress and all, but Rob really wanted to surprise me with a traditional proposal. And even though we've pretty much known about getting married in Vegas for months, I've been in suspense, awaiting my engagement ring.

Well, today was the day!!! And Rob is so creative. I give him mad props. Here's how it went down.

I was waiting to get picked up at around 4:30 when my boss's husband (who happens to be the VP of IT) saw me in the hallway and handed me a package. He said the courier just dropped it off for me. I looked at the return address and it said, "Ben Folds Five Guy," which is what Rob had written on a scrap of paper with his phone # the night that we met. At that point, I pretty much knew. I opened the box, and in it I saw my beanie kids. We have these beanie kids that look like us. Beanie Melissa and Beanie Rob. And years ago I bought them a tux and wedding dress, for fun. So they were in the box, in their wedding attire, along with a poem/riddle, and a pair of binoculars. The note had said something about him being hard to find, so I used the binoculars to look out my 17th story window. And there, across the street, in Love Park, right in front of the "LOVE" sculpture, was Rob, holding a big sign that said, "Will You Marry Me?" I was dying! I couldn't stop laughing! So I called him and he had all these people in the park jumping up and down and cheering! He told me to meet him downstairs. So I rushed downstairs and Rob was standing in the small park in front of my building. I ran over to him and my high heels sank into the soft ground! When I reached him, he got down on one knee and proposed. Of course I said yes. I mean, we already put down deposits on the hotel, the chapel, the restaurant, and the photographer! :-) Then he said, "Don't you want to see the ring??" So he put it on my finger and it fit perfectly. My smile was so huge that I was getting facial cramps.

After we went up to talk to my boss, who was in on the whole thing and was taking photos of us from the door, we decided to go to a nice dinner. It was a perfect evening! And can I be honest? I can't stop staring at my ring!! It's so silly, but I love it!

Alrighty, here are some photos of the evening.

This is a blurry photo that my boss took from the door. I thought the "knee" thing was so silly so I kept trying to pull him off the ground, but he wanted to do it right. Some lady honked at us and yelled "congratulations!" out her car window.



Here is a picture of the sign he made. He couldn't believe how long it took to color the whole thing in with crayon!



Here's me at dinner. I'm a little worn out, and I look it.



And here's Rob, posing as usual.



And here's our wine. We actually bought a bottle of wine. We've never done that before at a restaurant, isn't that funny?! But it seemed like the appropriate occassion. The waiter was so nice and polite, I loved it! And I had some White Sturgeon that rocked!



And of course, photos of my new, beautiful, engagement ring! Rob knows my taste so well. I absolutely love it!! He's the bestest evah.




The best part about the ring though, is when you turn the ring on its side, there is a little diamond on each side. You can see it in this photo. I think that's so cool!



So yeah, Rob gets props. As my mom said on the phone today, "He did good."

Females Only!

Disclaimer: The following post will consist of wedding talk. I don't need any males rolling their eyes at my post, so if you're a guy, quick! Hit the back button!!

Well, the big news is...I BOUGHT MY WEDDING DRESS!!! (Actually my parents bought it, but that's just a technicality.) I am so excited about it! I get butterflies just thinking about it all! Okay, breathe...breathe. That's better. My mother and I went to three boutiques. Two were awful and felt like thrift stores. One lady picked out ten of the ugliest dresses I have ever seen. They made me feel like a hooker, which I suppose is appropriate in Vegas. But the one shop was awesome and the ladies were super helpful! The dress that I got is one that I would never, ever, in a million years want to try on...and it's nothing that I would ever see myself wearing. In fact, it looked hideous on the hanger. But the store owner swore that it would look great on me, so I gave it a shot. When I put it on, I felt like a movie star!! Okay, so it was twice as expensive as I ever wanted to spend on a wedding dress, but it's worth it!! Mainly because I'm not the one paying, teehee. Oh, I love it though. It isn't very vegas-y and isn't modern or anything, which was the theme I was going for, but I knew that if I didn't get it, I'd regret it.

Now it's time to start looking for a veil and shoes and jewelry. Yay for dressing up!

My skin is totally breaking out because this wedding is starting to get to the point of stressful. I thought that having a vegas wedding would prevent that from happening, but turns out it's unavoidable. I had a major freakout on Monday night. A few weeks ago, the woman from the Skyloft sent me a hospitality menu, with prices for hors d'oeuvres and an open bar and such. The open bar was priced at $28.50 per person for three hours. Okay fine. Sure, that's a lot, but it's understandable at a nice hotel. Well, Monday night, the in-suite coordinator sends me an email with a special Skyloft menu. Open bar was $65 per person for two hours!!! I started having a panic attack! I can't afford that! That's insane!!! And get this. The bartender fee in the original menu was $100 for three hours. This new menu had a bartender at $150 for two hours! That is so wrong because you know it’s the exact same guy doing the same exact job! Rob calmed me down and I wrote an email back to the woman, asking about the price differences. Turns out the original menu was sent to me by mistake, but she said that they would honor that pricing. PHEW!!!!! I dodged the hugest bullet right there. Can you image? Who can drink $65 worth of alcohol in two hours?? I don't drink that much in a year! :-)

I'm also having one other wedding issue right now. The paperwork I just got said that there is a limit of 30 people for a reception in the 2-bedroom Skyloft. That's not good. My "definite" guest list is at about 25 right now, but I was telling all my fellow HOWies that they could come by. Now I'm afraid they won't let anyone else in. I have to contact them and find out what the deal is. I didn't think that was going to be a problem, but since I'm paying per person, they want to have a guestlist finalized prior to the event. UGH! This wasn't supposed to be a hassle. It was supposed to be quick, easy, and cheap. So far, I'm just getting "quick." I figure maybe I can do the regular reception from 7-10, and then send the bartender (and the old folks) away and have a byob howie party at 10pm. The night will still be young. I'll need a power nap at some point, but ya only get married once, right?! Well, hopefully.

Anyway, I'm trying to keep my freak outs to a minimum. I just keep looking at the pictures of my dress to calm me down. It's going to be a very special day. I know it. But I was silly to think that I was going to be a calm, collected bride throughout this process.

Since Mary asked, here is a photo. :-)

My Pursuit of a Great Show

Just wanted to share my excitement about my upcoming Saturday evening. I get to see my favorite band in the whole wide world perform! Belle & Sebastian! If you don't know who they are, please look into it because they are incredible. They have a very unique retro sound and they put on one heck of a show.

I bought their new album, The Life Pursuit, a few weeks ago and it has already become a favorite. In fact, I enjoy it even more than their previous few albums. Plus the packaging totally rocks! I paid the extra few dollars for the album that came with the dvd because it had this really neat packaging. The dvd-less cd was in a regular jewel case. (I'm such a design-dork.)




This show should be great. I saw them at Across the Narrows last summer but they were only allotted 35-40 minutes. Both times I saw them prior to that were at the Tower Theatre. It's a great theater for a mellow show since there are seats, but Belle & Sebastian are a little more upbeat and I would have preferred a setting where I could have danced. Well, the seats didn't stop this one nerd guy. He was about 7 rows from the stage and stood up and danced like a fool, despite the angry people behind him. He caused some problems. And then at the end of the show, this musclehead tool climbed on stage and proceeded to take off his shirt as he danced. What a dork! Belle & Sebastian isn't exactly stripper music. I think the band was really annoyed. I know I was. How full of yourself must you be to go on stage and take off your shirt??? Ugh. Anyway, this show is at the Electric Factory, which sucks on one hand because it gets so smoky in there, but is great on the other hand because I'll be able to dance my tushy off!

Monster-dudes

Ahhh, I feel refreshed. I took the day off of work yesterday to venture out into the world of wedding dress shopping. I went by myself to David's Bridal and tried on about 6 dresses. I probably would have tried on a lot more, but the lady that was helping me was a frantic nutcase, and I didn't really want to ask her for anything! She was so pushy. I told her I needed my mom to come back with me, but she kept trying to get me to buy the dress on the spot. "I'll wait if you want to call your mom now. You can use our phone if you want!" Um no. "How soon can she come in? Tomorrow? This weekend?" Um no.

And she wasn't just pushy with sales stuff. I'm trying to get changed and she's all barging in, throwing a dress on me in 2.3 seconds. It was like she was timing herself for speed. Anyway, I found a dress I really like. Not sure if it's "the one", but it's a front-runner right now. I didn't just want to post the picture of me in the dress, but if you really wanna see, you can click right here. I know Rob doesn't check out this blog anyway.

In other news, I WAS CRAFTY! Yay! I finally squeezed in some craft time Tuesday night and yesterday afternoon. I saw this blog and I thought the little felt dollies were so cute, so I had to make some of my own.

Here they are:







These monster-dudes are tons of fun to make! And so easy! I can just plop myself on the couch with some felt, thread and buttons and craft the night away. I think I'm just going to make hundreds until they infest my house. Then I'll put them in drawers and cabinets and the fridge. Kinda like mice or silverfish.