The Blackout and guess what? We had another wedding!

Huge aplogies. We had over a month without proper internet capabilites, then all of our computers died due to hard drive issues... It's like they had a suicide pact. But thanks to the amazing talent of Lizzie Valentino, we now have one back! That was crazy. But we're back and things couldn't be better.

There are tons of blogs I want to write but I figured I'd start with the biggest news first.
Liz and I got married again! This time was more of a celebration for friends and family as officially we've been married since labor day weekend. The niftiest part is that we did it all for about $150. No kidding. The clothes, the food, the drinks, the decor... everything for a grand total of $150. We had 1000 butterflies (instead of cranes) which I'm particularly proud of. Liz traced and cut them out while the kids and I decorated each one uniqely. See pics below. Liz's brother, Brian, officiated the ceremony which was awesome and we had a great crowd (bigger than expected) show up which was really great.

So it was wonderful to marry my love again. It was magical in a new way this time. In front of people, new vows and happy things to say... The experience was once in a lifetime but this time, I got to expirience it twice. Thanks to everyone that came out, shed us well, posted on our walls, took pictures and generally were amazing all the way around. Super special thanks to everyone that helped us with this... (Brian, Jen, Anthony, Mom, Autumn) It was crazy to pull it off but your help really made it all possible. A thousand thank yous!

In other news:
-I'm waiting on the release date for Thomas Riley 2 and the rerelease of Thomas Riley (1). I'll let everyone know the instant I hear something.
- Look for new blogs on "The 33 days of Halloween", "Loss (The band)" Lizzie's new princess dress company and tons more.
-Now that I have a computer back, you'll be hearing much more and more often.

 Me and the very lovely Lizzie

Our Officiant, Brian having a celebratory glass of vino

Our Seattle friend and fellow Steampunk, Andy.

    1000 Butterflies

I'm Married!!

Yesterday, May 27th 2012 I woke up to a vase of freshly picked flowers and a note from Liz. I was groggy and hardly awake as it was 6AM. I opened the note and it said, "If you would like, I would like to marry you today at 1PM." There were check boxes for Yes Maybe and No. I checked yes and handed it back to her.

Originally, we were going to have a semi grandiose wedding in Nashville where everything went down at one place. Then we thought we'd get married here in Washington at a resort then have a party in Nashville. With life being as crazy as it is, we went and had an elopement ceremony with a Liz's mom and step dad as witnesses. I'll tell you what... it was such an amazing day!

Just so you know, we are still planning on having our reception in Nashville in several months at The Flying Saucer Beer Emporium and we'll still have a ceremony there where everyone can be involved and have a great time.

So yesterday was totally our style. We went to Goodwill where Liz got a dress for $8.00. Then we picked up some campaign, $8.95 at Riteaid. We came home, got dressed and thought, "Oh man! We don't have rings!" So on the way to the officiant's house, we stopped at the dollar store and picked up some plastic rings from the front vending machine. Well, mine is plastic, Liz's is aluminum. That ran us fifty cents each!

Off to the officiant's house where we were married in a quick and perfect ceremony in his garden. It was seriously awesome in every way. We went to our favorite hangout Spiro's here in Gig Harbor for a drink and cheese bread then to Massage Envy where we both got hour long massages. (It was really nice). From there we were hungry and couldn't decide where to eat. we had several options but we're super indecisive. So we went to Anthony's which is a pretty renowned sea food place here on the water. After checking out the menu, we had to go in. Seated with a perfect view of the harbor, we had an amazing meal with Shrimp cocktail, muscles, clams, and medium rare Yellow Tail Ahi Tuna.

From there Liz's mom and step dad lent us their place for the night and again, things couldn't have been more perfect. They have a dynamite house with a deck and hot tub overlooking the bay with a font and center view of Mount Rainier.

The best way to sum this up is that this was one of the most perfect days of my life and it all happened starting at 6AM as a total surprise to me. I'm the happiest guy in the world and I can;t tell you how overjoyed I am to be married to the perfect girl in the world.

NOW for pictures!

Here we are in the garden with the officiant "JP". How awesome is it that he looks like Adam Savage from Mythbusters?

The kiss that seals the deal.

The kiss continued.

Our rings in all of their vending machine glory!

Me with the love of my life.

View from the hot tub sipping campaign.

The next morning we headed home but not without a stop at "Smokin' Hot Espresso" a Bikini Barista establishment.

Real Life Romance (His)

Two days ago I proposed to the love of my life Elizabeth Darvill and I'm so excited. So this is my companion story to her blog post which can be found HERE.

I've been planning this for a while and due to constraints, I haven;t been able to get the ring I wanted until recently. So I toiled over how to ask, what I would say and where I would do it for quite some time. Every night I would drift off to sleep planning and contemplating how when and where.

Liz wanted a Claddagh ring so I wanted to get her a real one made in Ireland. Ok, check. Then it was where do I pop the question? I wanted it to be in Nashville, and I wanted to do it at a memorable place. You know, one we could drive by in the future and say, "Wow, that's where it happened." After many Internet searches and running through every local cool place in my head, I decided that The Parthenon would be the best and most permanent location. Now how do I get her up there without raising suspicion?

A few years ago I helped one of my best friends in the world hatch a plan to propose to his girl at the same location. So I took the story we came up with and slightly modified it.

Before hand, she didn't have anything to wear so she mentioned she wanted to go get a dress of a shirt for date night. She wanted to run to Goodwill(Yeah that's how we roll) but when we left the driveway, I totally spaced out and went the other direction. Liz, said, "oh are we not going to look for a shirt?" So I turned around and we went to look. The ring was burning a hole in my pocket and while she looked for something fun to wear I feel like I was distant. Hey, my mind was elsewhere. She found an amazingly hot dress and all was well.

Keep in mind, this was going to be our date night anyway, so we had plans to go out, have dinner then a few drinks at the amazing Patterson House here in Nashville. So I concocted a story that there was a pop art exhibit that I wanted to stop by before dinner. Hey, that's totally plausible. That's something we would do. So I parked on the opposite end of the actual entrance of the gallery under The Parthenon which forced us to walk around the giant place. I was totally nervous and honestly, I'm not sure what I said. I had a bunch of things I wanted to say, (Like it was rehearsed) but I think I still hit the main points. In the end, I got on one knee and asked Liz to marry me. Well, she said yes. And I am the happiest boy in the world.

We finished the night actually going out to The Flying Saucer for dinner then to Patterson House for wonderful drinks from scratch and finally to ChaChah for a nightcap. Again... happiest Boy in the world.