Our Story, Part 5

How long can our story possibly be? I mean, we're still back in 2010 and it's almost 2012- I could still cover the last two years to get "caught up." But I don't think I'll do that, at least for now. Maybe it'll give me some motivation to actually blog more regularly, so I can keep up with current every-day life. After all, the goal for this blog is to capture the memories so that some day, we can look back and smile. Or laugh.

Here a few more pictures from winter 2010:

 We had a pretty awesome snow day in January, so Will and I took the opportunity to make a kick-a snowman. See the neighbor girl in the backyard? Yeah, our snowman was way better.

Dawson turned 5. He was really in to Spider Man.

The semester was relatively quiet, we were just planning our wedding and focusing on classes. When we got engaged, we planned to have our wedding a year later, and set the tentative date for January 18, 2011. But then we got to thinking about it, and realized that the most important part of the day for us was that all our friends and family would be there. January is not an ideal time because A) weather- there could be a blizzard/ice/snow that would prevent a lot of people from coming B) we wouldn't be able to take a honeymoon because we would be in classes. The 18th was the first Friday after classes started because we knew a lot of college friends wouldn't have a place to stay if they came into town a week early for our wedding, and C) we realized we didn't want to wait that long. So in February we decided we were getting married in Summer 2010, six months earlier than we originally planned.

We had the typical "Holy crap we're getting married in five months and we don't have time to plan it" freak-outs at first, but once we had a plan everything went smoothly. I'll do another post on all the wedding and planning details, but planning our wedding really was one of the most fun things I've ever done. 

In March, I traveled to Turkey as a Readership Ambassador. I had traveled abroad before, but this experience was completely different. Again, it's a topic for another post, as I cannot do it justice in this one.

My host student, Sevda.

Brandy and me at Ephesus

Journal time

Our group

;

 We had our engagement pictures taken by a friend:

 Once the semester was over, we packed our bags and headed to Costa Rica with our Honors program for a seminar.

I know it looks like all we did was go the awesome white sand/crystal clear water beach, visit the volcano, go on the best river rafting trip through the jungle, go ziplinning through the rain forest, and take awesome hikes with a panoramic view at the top, but we really did have class while we were there. And we learned a lot about how patriotism is becoming an excuse for propaganda in the United States. Snort.


***** I think I should explain that our honor's program partnered with another honor's program from a university in Florida, and the professors from that university were the ones who actually taught the course while we were there. We (including our program directors and the professor who took  us) all thought the course was going to be about Costa Rica's lack of a standing army and what that means for them as a country, but the other professors totally blind-sided us and it turned out to be a ridiculous course. However, it was one of the most fun trips I've ever taken, so not all was lost :)

We came back in early June and it was all Bridal showers and last minute planning until the day of our wedding, July 10, 2010.


Stay tuned for a wedding related post!