Engaged!

If anything were truly blog-worthy, it would be the fact that I am now engaged!

How did it happen? Well, on Saturday afternoon (October 14th) I asked Jason what he wanted to do that night. He said that since we wouldn't be able to go out on our anniversary (he had Asia that night), he would take me out that night instead. He mentioned that he wanted to go to SanChez, tapas restaurant downtown. That should have raised my radar since he doesn't usually have a particular place in mind when we go out. Anyways, we drove downtown and parked at the fish ladder right on the Grand River. We meandered our way to SanChez where we had a very nice dinner.

After dinner we walked back up the river and paused for a moment on the pedestrian bridge by the DeVos performance hall. The view of the downtown there is great so we stopped to admire it. Then he gave me a big bear hug (it was a cold night) and said "so its been two years" (or something like that). Then he said that he had gone shopping and at that point I knew what was going on. He pulled a little box out of his coat pocket and opened it. I could see that it was a ring but it was a little too dark to tell what it looked like. Then he dropped to one knee and asked me to marry him. Of course I said yes and then pulled off my gloves so that he could put the ring on, a perfect fit :)

Festival 2006

On Saturday, Jason and I took Asia downtown to visit festival. I'd never been before and neither had Asia so it was an adventure for both of us. The rain held off while we were there, and we got a chance to walk around and see what was all going on. There were art and craft activities for the kids, and lots to see and smell. All along the streets were food vendors grilling and cooking up a storm. We stopped at a Vietnamese booth to get chicken skewers and egg rolls...mmmm.... Asia had a true foot long hot dog, and wonder of wonders, she ate the entire thing! They had several stages set up where they had dance and music. On the main stage we watched the Grand Rapids Ballet Trainees do a rendition of Snow White. Then the storm clouds started to set in, so we headed for the car. We made it without getting too wet, but the rest of the afternoon it showered on and off. Not so good for the rest of the crowd at Festival.

Phantom of the Opera

Friday night Jason and I were finally able to enjoy my Christmas present. This year for Christmas Jason bought me tickets to go see the Phantom of the Opera and tucked them into the DVD. That was pretty sneaky because he left the tape on the top of the DVD, so I figured it was still sealed. He had to tell me to open up the DVD, and then I saw the tickets. So on Friday I got out of work early and met him at his place. We took Asia down to stay with Grandma then we went to Kalamazoo for dinner. We had a nice dinner at Fridays, the headed to the Miller Auditorium. It was spectacular, definately worth seeing live :) The guy that played the phantom started as the understudy to the original phantom when it played in Toronto. He went on to play the phantom in Toronto, and also played Jean Valjean in Les Miz. Great music, great stage effects. I'm thinking I'll have to go and pick up the book now, so I can read the original story.

Be-u-ti-ful Butterflies

This past Saturday, Jason's mom came up to GR to visit to see the butterflies at Meijer Garden. I forgot my camera, but Jason let me borrow his. I had fun snapping away. Most of my pictures didn't turn out very good...butterflies move around too much. But this particular shot turned out pretty well.

Colorado, Thanksgiving 2005

Wow, it sure has been a long time since I posted anything to my blog. I was looking through some pictures and came across this one from my trip to Colorado this past Thanksgiving. I flew into the Denver airport on Wednesday and Da Cheong and Josi came and picked me up. This picture was taken on our day trip to Denver. Our first stop after getting off the bus downtown was Starbucks :) We also took a drive up into the mountains, which were gorgeous, and had a yummy Thanksgiving dinner. It was a great trip and I want to go back and trek through some mountains!

Reminicsing Days Gone By

I've been busy going through my old negatives and scanning them onto my laptop. In the process I unearthed this photo from my Calvin days. Natalie was making a birthday cake for a friend of hers and Da Cheong and I were trying to help shave chocolate for the top. Since it was a warm summer day, our chocolate shavings turned into chocolate mush pretty quickly. But it was a lot of fun, though as you can see, quite messy.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Good: Jason got my promise ring back from the jeweller's correctly sized. So now I can actually wear it on the correct finger. And its prettier than it is in that picture, but that's the best picture I could find.

The Bad: It's only Monday and I'm already worn out...this is going to be a long week.

The Ugly: I spent the majority of the weekend avoiding what I knew I had to do and now I have a ton of homework to do tonight to get caught up again...this is going to be a long night.

Hair Count Diaries: Starting to Thin

The craziness of my schedule is starting to hit me. Not only do I have a lot of reading and writing to do, but I have very little time to do it in. I also have to squeeze in time to do several classroom observations, service learning, interviews, lesson plans, and the list goes on. On top of that, there are lots of new things going on at work too. New projects, new people, more things to think about. Ack! I think I'm going to need a larger calendar just to manage all the things that I need to get done this semester. But I think that once I start getting things completed I won't feel quite so overwhelmed. I think that I will really need my December break by the time December rolls around.

Hair Count: 109,000

Hair Count Diaries: Story Time

One of my classes this semester is Teaching Writing for Elementary Students. We had our second class last night, and it was just as good as the first. The professor taught middle school for years, and uses many techniques that you would use in a middle school classroom on us. Its great fun :) Last night she asked that we each bring a piece of fruit, disguised in a bag. She read us Owl Moon by Jane Yolen, a great picture book with lots of sensory images. Then we had to get to know our fruits and write about them using as many sensory images as we could. The idea is to give the audience an image of the piece of fruit without actually naming it. She also handed out Scholastic book order forms. So tempting...so many good deals... I love this class, its always a fun one to go to, and you never know what the prof will do next. And the great thing is, I get credit for it!

Hair Count: 110,000 strands and holding. So far its not too bad, busy but not unmanageable.

A Quarter of a Century

Happy Birthday to me! Well it is now official, I am a quarter of a century old. Or as my sister would say, just old. I've already had a little bit of a birthday celebration, last weekend when I was home my mom made a cake and my grandparents came over for lunch. We didn't have candles though, mom said it was too early for that. But this morning the birthday fairy visited. I went out to my car to go to work and discovered that the birthday fairy had left a birthday surprise for me. There was a card and happy birthday balloon, and flowers in my cup holder. What a sneaky fairy ;)

Wilson Family Picnic

On Saturday the whole family drove to Bolsover for the annual summer picnic. We always meet in a park that used to be an old school house. I think the date on the school was 1901. Jason went inside and said that there were the pictures of the classes dating back to 1900, pretty cool I thought. Each family brings some food to share and everyone enjoys good food, and catching up with what everyone is up to.



After eating, we usually have some games. This time each family had a quiz about the family history. The group shot is our family trying to figure out the answers to the questions. My mom is in the middle, pen in hand, recording the answers, and in this picture, they had just called on my dad about one of the questions.





Grandpa talking to my dad and Jason about something. Ryan is in the foreground enjoying some watermelon.






A picture that Caitlin took of Jason and I.








Ryan trying to lean his way out of the picture. But, I gotcha!








Caitlin and Mark. Notice what it says on Caitlin's shirt...

Visiting Old Friends

On Friday, Jason and I trekked out to Peterborough to see the lift locks. After watching a couple of boats go through we headed on to Belleville to visit Sarah. Sarah and I have been friends for many years, but it had been two years since we had since each other, which is far too long in my opinion. The last time I saw her, her daughter Victoria was just a baby. Now as you can see she is a bouncing, babbling, happy, nearly two year old. She is such a sweetie, so cute and smiley :) And oddly enough (at least I thought it was odd), she loves pickles. In the picture of her by herself she's munching on one of the many pickles that she ate while we were there. As we were headed out, she waved from the door until we were almost to the end of the hall. I'd love to have taken her home with me :)
On another note, Oden the cat had quite the hair fetish. I would petting him, and the entire time he would be sitting there totally mesmerized by my hair. Then he would make his attack and go at my hair with mouth and both paws, trying his best to eat it. What an odd cat! When I tried to push him away he would just climb onto the back of the couch and try to get my hair from there. He was very determined and persistent in his quest to eat my hair.

*Hack, hack, sniffle sniffle, snort*

Having a cold in the middle of August is terrible. I caught a cold bug sometime early last week and have been going through various stages of misery. Started out with a stuffed up nose and a plugged left ear. The plugged ear switched to my right ear, still a stuffed nose and mild cough. Then no more stuffed ears, but a very sore throat and dry cough. Every time I swallowed it felt like needles going down my throat. Then yesterday my throat was killing me, I had a cough that comes from deep in my chest and nearly lost my voice completely. This morning my voice was back, and my nose is no longer stuffed, and my cough is a very deep, satisfying one. I'm hoping that this means I'm almost through it. A whole week of this has been torture, especially when the weather is sunny and warm.

Great Big Sea

Hooray! I just checked Great Big Sea's website and saw that they are releasing a new album in October 2005, The Hard and The Easy. I can't wait!

Hair Count Diaries: The Quiet Before the Storm

All is calm and quiet right now, and I have plenty of spare time to go galavanting about. I've enjoyed trips to Cleveland and the UP so far. One last trip to Ontario coming up, when I will visit my folks. One last hurrah before I turn recluse and have no time to go a-wandering. I'm soaking in all the relaxing I can right now because come August 29th I'll be leading a double life. Software professional by day, education student by night. I have a jampacked calendar waiting for me, and likely many long nights trying to fit everything in. I might be tearing my hair out at the stress, and sheer magnitude of stuff I need to get done, but hopefully it will all be worth it in the end.

Hair Count: 110,000 strands

Tahquanemon Falls

The Upper (left) and Lower (right) Tahquanemon Falls. The upper falls were certainly larger, but I preferred the lower falls myself. There were more trails to wander through, and each new bend in the path gave a different view of the falls.

Row, Row, Row your Boat

At the Lower Tahquanemon Falls on Friday we took a rowboat to a small island where we could get a better view of the falls. After wandering around the whole trail, we hopped in the rowboat to go back to the mainland. Asia insisted on "helping" row the boat :)

Johnny Depp

Another quiz... Which Johnny Depp are you?

You Are Sam From "Benny & Joon." You are very talented at physical comedy. People are in awe of your abilities. However, you have many quirks which can either win people over or completely annoy them. But you're a sweetheart through and through, and it's hard not to love you.

Enneagram Test

Test time, what type are you? Take Enneagram Test

My top two were types 9 and 2. Just a short test, but surprising what they can figure out from a few short questions.

Type Nine - The Peacemaker
The easy-going, self-effacing type. Nines are accepting, trusting, and stable. They are usually creative, optimistic, and supportive, but can also be too willing to go along with others to keep the peace. They want everything to go smoothly and be without conflict, but they can also tend to be complacent, simplifying problems and minimizing anything upsetting. They typically have problems with inertia and stubbornness. At their Best: indomitable and all-embracing, they are able to bring people together and heal conflicts.

Type Two - The Helper
The caring, interpersonal type. Twos are empathetic, sincere, and warm-hearted. They are friendly, generous, and self-sacrificing, but can also be sentimental, flattering, and people-pleasing. They are well-meaning and driven to be close to others, but can slip into doing things for others in order to be needed. They typically have problems with possessiveness and with acknowledging their own needs. At their Best: unselfish and altruistic, they have unconditional love for others.

Maureen and Yemi

As promised, on the left a picture of the happy couple outside the reception hall. And below, one of Maureen and I inside the reception hall. Such a beautiful bride, and a very handsome groom. Congratulations!