CATCHING UP

Okay everyone, let me take a moment to get you all caught up on a few things in my life that I have not spoken about much on here. Ready? Here we go.

In April 2007 I found myself at a charity event in Dallas, TX. While there I met a girl named Meg. We talked several times. I made some of my super awesome moves. And the rest is basically history. Okay, my moves were probably less than super awesome as we are not standing together in this picture ...

... but needless to say, this is where it all began.

Many emails and phone calls followed and then came many weekend trips back and forth to Longview as that is were Meg was currently living and working. We spent a lot of time together over the course of the summer and had a great time getting to know each other.

By the fall I was sure she was the one I should marry. So I did two things to that end. I took a trip to my favorite Parisian jeweler and bought a sweet ring for my woman. And secondly I bought an investment property to fund said purchase.

On Christmas Eve I asked Meg to be my wife. And on Christmas Day we broke the big news (she said "yes" by the way) to our friends and family.

We celebrated a wonderful Christmas here in Texas and then shortly thereafter had a small celebration for the second annual 29 on the 29th. The party ... awesome. The reality of my new age ... not so awesome.
And then the wedding planning began. We had a lot of help and definitely plenty of advice on this subject and were grateful for all of it. But in the end we completely planned the entire wedding on our own. Some days we enjoyed this. Some days it was exhausting. But in the end it was all worth the efforts we made.

And did I mention the investment property? Through all the wedding planning we also spent our weekends working on this house in an effort to almost completely rebuild the property to get it ready to sell.

Oh yeah, and I was getting ready to ride in the MS150 in May. Do I need to say that it was an extremely busy spring for us around here?

June 28 and the day was finally here. It was so great to have all of our friends and families in town to celebrate with us. As is always the case, we didn't have anywhere near the amount of time we would have liked to have had with all these people, but it was such a blessing to have them all in town and all in the same building to celebrate out wedding.

Meg's family is from Buffalo, NY and since we both were living here in the Dallas area we decided it would be best and easiest if we had the wedding here. So we were married at First Baptist Church in Van Alstyne where I grew up. And then we had the reception at Rock Creek Ranch (part of the old Bill Bates' ranch) in McKinney.

We made many decisions involving the planning of the wedding and reception but there was one decision that were went back and forth on and in the end could not have imagined what the event would have been like if we had not made this decision. We asked one of our favorite bands to play the reception and the Tejas Brothers graciously agreed to play the occasion. If there is a group of guys who know how to get people to enjoy a wedding reception, these are the guys.

Best wedding picture ever.

These guys were so great and have now become wonderful friends. They were recently voted "Best New Act" by the Dallas Observer and if you have the chance to go see them play I strongly suggest you do so.

After a wonderful wedding weekend and a great time with all our friends and family it was finally time for some rest and relaxation. So the next day we hopped on a plane and headed south towards Mexico. We spent a week on the beach in Playa del Carmen that was absolutely perfect. We stayed at a wonderful resort that was definitely much more high roller than where we usually find ourselves. We found out how awesome all-inclusive is and enjoyed having time together after a very busy 6 months of wedding planning.

We've now been married for just over 3 months and couldn't be more happy. We are living in McKinney with the two dogs, Riley and Chloe, and are having a great time together.

And finally, I would like to say a few words of thanks to a few people who were unbelievably helpful during the wedding. I think it definitely was to our advantage to have several friends who are already married as they knew just what a bride and groom needed during their wedding weekend. And it was to our advantage to have very loving family close by. The ladies in my family were so great in preparing the church for the wedding and putting on the rehearsal dinner. It couldn't have been more perfect and we are so grateful for all their efforts. And we had a lot of friends help us out during the weekend, but I've never seen anyone go above and beyond the way our friends the Thompsons and McCrackens did. You guys are the best and we love you even more for all you did for us. So a huge thank you to both our friends and family for all you did for us during this wonderful time.

Okay everyone ... you feel caught up? There is plenty more to update you on and hopefully that will follow soon. But I think this is a pretty good little starter. Until next time ...