Happily Ever After!!!

Well, the wedding is over and now our new life together has begun! Everything I dreamed about as a little girl came true! Our ceremony was the most beautiful ever performed! The day was beautiful! Everything was just lovely! Our family worked so hard to give us everything we wanted. It was the happiest day of my life!
We went to Carlsbad for the honeymoon, it was beautiful there also. We stayed at a resort on the beach and bummed around there and San Diego for a week. We were at Sea World the day the new baby killer whale was born. We saw the Phantom of the Opera movie, it was good, but if you see it and have seen the musical (like we have) it can be hard to watch. We also went Christmas shopping for eachother, I thought I was being clever getting Billy a watch... well he got me one too! I guess we know eachother better that we thought.
We had a wonderful Christmas and are just happy to be married!

Party-time in Calimesa!!!

BILLY: Well, this is probably the last time I will update this before the wedding. Yes folks, it is coming soon, this Saturday to be exact, and I am very excited. I am very focused on the wedding and becoming a husband and everything else in my life right this moment (i.e. work, fun, eating, breathing, etc) is pretty much a distraction. This week I'm getting to school in the morning, making copies of worksheets, passing them out to the kids, and saying, "Do the worksheet and try not to kill each other" and then I sit up in the front of class with a blank expression on my face while drool occasionally rolls down my chin. It's not that I don't want to be a good teacher, just my mind and heart aren't in it right now. I'm so excited and emotionally invested for this Saturday that it leaves me with no energy to care about anything else.

Anyway, we hope to see you all on Saturday. Regardless of how many people show up (estimates vary between 150 people and 200,000 people) there is definitely going to be quite a party in Calimesa the night of the 18th. So much work and effort has gone into all the planning that I am excited to see how it all turns out.
Katie: Ditto what Billy said, except I don't make copies of worksheets and I'm not a teacher, but anyway. One of my bridesmaids had an unfortunate event happen this weekend. She had taken her (very expensive) dress to be altered at a bridal salon in Redlands. This place told her no problem, just pre-pay and pick it up in two weeks. Well the two week deadline was last Friday (Dec 10) well, she goes down there and what did she find.... nothing.... no store, it went out of business and her dress along with the store was gone! Long story short, she got the dress eventually. But here's where it gets cool, I used to work for a law firm so I used my hook-up's .... and I found out the owners name, home address and phone number! We worked on a letter this morning, I feel like making this owner cry!
It is things like this that create the term "Bridezilla" I'm not all stressed or psycho about this, but I am really ticked and to quote one of my favorite movies "If you mess with the bull, your gonna get the horns."

I love my dad!

Last night as I was walking down the hallway I stopped because my dad was pushing his way down his bedroom. And as he was trying to get there he kept saying "I give up", " I am so sick of this" "I just can't do it anymore" ... and he looked so mad! I thought he was mad at his walker, or that he legs kept freezing up on him or something serious so I asked him what was wrong, and he said "I just can't watch sports on t.v. anymore, I get so mad, I give up!" I laughed so hard! He was so disgusted! And as he walked down the hallway he kept saying it over and over again!

Hypocrisy in Palm Springs!!!

I know that politics are over with, at least for now, but I couldn't believe what happened the other day. Those who know me know that I am a pretty conservative chap, so occasionally I will browse and look around a few conservative websites when I have a spare moment. Well anyway, the Palm Springs USD has a firewall and they block objectionable material so that the students can't look at it. I rarely get "blocked" from websites because I'm not that sort of guy. During my prep yesterday, I was trying to log on to the Republican National Committee's website to see what was going on in the Grand Ol' Party and it was blocked! . The reason it was blocked was due to "Objectionable/Controversial Material". What the heck!?! Then I got to wondering: I started going to every conservative webpage I could think of: Blogs for Bush, the Swift Boat Vets, GeorgeWBush.com along with about 10 others that came to mind and they were ALL blocked! What I thought to myself, our school district doesn't want our students learning about politics?!? Then I started going to every liberal website I could think of: JohnKerry.com, moveon.org, dnc.org you name it and NOT one was restricted. Not even Michael Moore or the ACLU was blocked. It was then that I came to the conclusion: Palm Springs sucks. I know, I know, most of you already knew that but I just learned it yesterday.

Anyway, with all the stupid crazy lawsuits being filed these days, I think I should file a lawsuit about everything! In addition to this crazy internet firewall that PSUSD has, I might include in my lawsuit the fact that Michael Jackson touched me in a "special place", that I am offended by the use of "God" in the pledge of allegence and the Declaration of Independence, that Nativity scenes in public places offend me, that the recent laws banning gay marriage are unconstitutional, that the steeple on the new Newport CA Temple is too tall, that my neighbor's Christmas lights are too bright and don't allow me to sleep at night, and finally, the Boy Scouts of America are the DEVIL and should be all killed and that my Eagle Scout award should become null and void.

Of course I will not do this, because such a lawsuit might be considered "Objectionable/Controversial Material" and might be firewalled by my school district.

Let the games begin.....

Well, we are down to the final few weeks. For the most part things are ready to go. After the lady forgot to schedule the church building I am afraid to say that things are in place. But I am just so dang excited for it all to be here. I am excited to be with my whole family around the holiday, I haven't seen my brother Chris and his family in over a year so I am anxious to see them. I will also be meeting a lot of Billy's family so there is a lot to look forward to.
I am making the list of songs to be played at the reception so if you have any requests let me know! Peace... k8

The count down continues....

BILLY: Well the wedding is getting closer and closer each day. I think I speak for both of us when I say that I wish it would get here quicker, or better yet, have already gotten here. The planning is essentially finished and all that is left for us to do is sit around and anxiously wait.

My brother Matt is coming home tonight. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are minimum days. Wednesday we are going to get our marriage license and afterward go to Disneyland. And of course, Thursday and Friday are days off. It's going to be a good week.

Jury Duty

I may be the only person alive who wants jury duty. Not some 6 month murder case, but a day or two off certainly wouldn't be too bad. Last night, as I was talking to Katie, and was upset because I might have jury duty on tuesday. Well, I got to work this morning and literally the first thing I did after stepping out of my car was break up a fight in the parking lot. It was then that I realized that jury duty would be nice compared to some of the stuff I do around here, so I am crossing my fingers that tonight when I call the jury summons will be confirmed. I figure I can get out of it pretty easily if I need to: They ask, "Sir, do you believe you can be an impartial juror in this case?" After thinking it over, I respond, "Well that depends what race or religion the defendant happens to be." I'll be out of there quicker than a bolt of lightening.

ALLLLLL ABOARD!

If anyone needs a little bit of the Christmas Spirit, go and see the Polar Express! It is such a good story and the animation is incredible!

38 days!

Katie: Well we are down to 38 days until the wedding. My mom and I stayed up pretty late lastnight getting the finishing touches on the invitations so we could mail them this morning. And when I went to take them to the post office, I was still kind of asleep and didn't really pay attention to the way I put them in my car, and well..... the first corner I turned, sent them flying all over my car!
But alas, we made it safely to the post office. Also some good news, we have a new member of the wedding party. Haven Goodman, Billy's (2nd) cousin will be a flower girl! She is adorable and will be a beautiful addition to our wedding party!

Why I Hate Wicks

BILLY: One would think that a Queen sized matress would fit a Queen sized bed. If you thought that, you would be wrong! What is suppose to happen is this: you buy an expensive bed from Wicks, and they have a bunch of Mexicans deliver it to your house while running over your Mom's flower beds and breaking a tree in her front yard. Then you set the bed up in the bedroom, you buy a wonderful Queen-sized matress to go with, but the Queen sized matress isn't actually suppose to fit on the Queen sized matress. No, that would be too easy for Wicks. A queen sized matress is actually suppose to hang over the edge of the bed with no support underneath. I know, I know, I didn't know that either but once we discovered that, we were able to make some progress. Well anyway, after a lot of head-scratching and use of several 2x4's....I think we have the problem solved.

On Saturday Katie surprised me and took me to the beach for a date. We ate out on the pier and walked around and had a great time.

Lesser of Two Evils

KATIE: I could not agree more with Kevin and Bean. They were talking about how this election was very hard! People don't really like Bush, but then they don't really like Kerry either. So what do you do... you pick the lesser of two evils!
I am just glad this whole thing is coming to an end. For some dumb reason I stayed up until
1 a.m. watching the election report tv and then woke up at 5:30 to watch it some more.... why?!?! Oh well so much for the Redskins superstition!

BILLY: Thank goodness that is over! After listening to the exit polls yesterday, I must say I was very surprised with the actual outcome. Without becoming too political, I mentioned to a co-worker of mine that I think the Michael Moores of the world and Hollywood liberals stirred up the Republican base more than the liberal base they were shooting for. All their books, and speeches, and interviews, and college tours, and HBO specials, and movies, and anti-Bush propoganda came back to bite them in the butt. You can only call someone's politcal and personal beliefs stupid before they start getting upset. Seeing literally dozens of Anti-Bush books in the local Barnes and Noble made even myself, a fairly moderate Republican, upset.

Anyway, I think I've already made this too political. I had nothing wrong with Kerry and would have been fine if he had been elected. However, I think Bush was the better of the two and I feel a little more comfortable, I emphasize the word little, having him in the white house.

Funny Article

Those who know me know that Dave Barry is probably my favorite humor columnist. I get a kick out of everything he writes. Anyway, I was reading an article of his and decided to post some of it for those who are unfamiliar with him.
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"Oh, swell: We have yet another survey showing that men, when compared to women, are scum. Just once, I'd like to see some survey asking questions that would highlight areas where men are more likely to be superior, such as:

1. If it was an emergency, could you open a beer bottle with your teeth?

2. How many hours per week, total, do you spend fretting about your thighs?

3. Do you have the emotional stability to make a meaningful lifelong commitment, through good times and bad, to a set of underwear?

4. If another person is not saying anything, and you're wondering if this might be because something is bothering that person, and you ask that person what that person is thinking, and that person says ''Nothing,'' do you accept this perfectly reasonable answer, or do you proceed to NAG THE PERSON HALF TO DEATH?

But do we see these questions on surveys? We do not. Instead we see questions like the ones asked in a recent survey by the U.S. Department of Labor. Having apparently run completely out of useful things to do, the department asked 21,000 Americans how they spend their time when they're not working.

It turned out that women spend twice as much time as men on household chores and child care, while men spend more time on leisure. On the surface, this looks bad. But surface looks are often deceiving. A good example is the iceberg, which appears to be a big hunk of ice, but if you look beneath the surface, you find that it is ... OK, it is actually a big hunk of ice. So we see that this is in fact not a good example, and we should just move on.

But my point is that this survey is very misleading. Take the concept of ''housework.'' It may be true that women spend more TIME on it, but what, really, are they accomplishing? In my own home, my wife spends a lot of time picking up our 4-year-old daughter's doll clothes and laboriously putting them back on the various naked Barbies, the naked Snow White, the naked Ariel the mermaid, and the incredibly lucky naked Ken.

When my wife does this, she is clearly working, but she is not what a man would call ''working smart.'' A man knows from harsh real-world experience that all of these dolls will soon be naked again, and so he makes a conscious decision to leave the dressing of the dolls, and the cleaning of his daughter's room in general, until a more sensible and productive time, such as when his daughter enters college. But does this man get any slack from the so-called ''Department of Labor?'' He does not.

And let's talk about child care vs. leisure. For women, these are two separate activities, but men have perfected a productivity-enhancing technique called ''multitasking.'' Say a man is supposed to watch a child, but he also wants to watch a football game. Thanks to ''multitasking,'' this man can keep one eye on the football game, while at the same time keeping the other eye also on the football game. But in some remote sector of his brain he is vaguely aware that there is a child around somewhere, and if he hears anything suspicious, such as sirens or an explosion, he will respond immediately, unless it is a crucial third-down situation.

Speaking of which: I was once at a Thanksgiving gathering where there was a backyard touch-football game involving all the guys except one -- I will call him ''Fred'' -- who was watching us while holding his infant daughter. My team was short one player, and we were in a crucial third-down situation, so we looked over at ''Fred'' -- an excellent receiver -- and, after making us swear we would never tell his wife, he very carefully set his daughter down on the lawn and joined the game for a single play, which resulted in Joel -- excuse me, I mean ''Fred'' -- scoring a touchdown. This never would have happened if we had allowed ourselves to be shackled by the rigid, inflexible definitions of ''leisure'' and ''child care'' that have for so long enslaved women and the so-called ``Department of Labor.''
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Go Red Sox!

What a series! A clean sweep. I thought that Johnny Damon would have received the MVP. I will admit, I did hop on the Red Sox bandwagon. My sister is working in downtown Boston now and I imagine she had the time of her life last night!
Billy made a great dinner lastnight, he worked really hard to make it nice for me and he did a great job! Our place is starting to look like a home now. We've got some pictures on the walls and books on the bookshelves. Our bedroom furniture got delivered last weekend, it is so beautiful! Its craftsman style solid oak headboard and footboard with a matching bureau and mirror. Its huge though. It makes our room look kind of small. But that's ok, we're not going to live there forever.
The wedding is now 51 days away. Yes I am counting down. I am a girl, I'm allowed.

Posting a comment / 2004 Elections

There seems to be some confusion regarding how to leave a comment. For those familiar with making a Blog, you can now have people post comments in Blogger itself instead of bringing in an outside source like Haloscan. However, the problem is you can only post your name if you have a Blogger account...otherwise you must post as anonymous. So, if you desire to make yourself known to the world, go ahead and include your name in the actual comment. I apologize for the trouble, but it just makes it a thousand times easier for us to manage the blog.

I don't know about you, but I'm getting sick and tired of all this campaigning. I love politics and I have very strong beliefs in that area, but it just reaches the point where you say, "Ok already, can we vote yet?!?" Everyone with half a brain has already made up their minds (or had them made up for them) and I think we are all ready to vote. Along those same lines, I don't mean to offend anyone, but how can anybody still be undecided? That is just plain crazy. People who wait until they are in the voting booth to make their choice scare me to death. I understand that some people feel they are being forced to decide between two evils, but the decision should have been made a long time ago.

Have you noticed Katie still hasn't posted anything on this blog yet? Someone needs to get her butt in gear!

Disneymania!!!!!

We went to Disneyland on Saturday with my parents. While we were down there we met up with my Uncle Jim and my Aunt Trudy who were already spending a few days down there. We had a great time. They completely re-did the Haunted Mansion and made it into a "Nighmare Before Christmas" ride....sweet! I was expecting a few decorations here or there, but seriously, the whole ride was completely different and it was like going on it for the first time. If you get the chance to go to Disneyland sometime between now and Christmas, don't forget to go on that ride.

As we were leaving the park my mom and Katie decided to go on the rocketships before we left...you know, the little rocketships that go around and around, and you can adjust the elevation. Bear in mind that this is a children's ride...it is designed to hold 2, maybe 3, small to medium sized chidren. Two full grown adults is a completely different story. My mom was the first to sit down, and lo and behold, there was no room for Katie to sit. I could see there was no room from where I was standing outside the ride and I just assumed they would give up and give some eager waiting youngsters a chance. Well, my mom never willing to admit defeat, yells at Katie "Get in here!" and Katie not wanting to upset her future mother-in-law just kind of climbs up and plops down on my mom's lap. This whole time both of them, and all four of us on the outside, are laughing non-stop. Well, they start squirming around and within a few seconds both of them have something sorta resembling their own seat. Well, everything would have been fine....but then there is the problem with the seat belt. The Disney employee comes around and asks them where their seat belt is. They respond that they have no idea. They weren't kidding. Turns out they were both sitting on the seatbelt, and even when they got it out from under both of them (which is quite a feat when you consider that they were practically sitting on each other in this confined space) it doesn't fit around them. Well, to make a long story short, after 5 minutes of 2 frustrated Disney employees, 5 hysterically laughing people, one taunting uncle, and a whole ride full of impatient children, they got to enjoy the ride for about a minute in which the only thing anyone could hear was the two of them laughing as they went around and around and around. Good times!

Welcome To Our Blog!

For those of you who do not know what a blog is, a blog is basically an online journal. Either I or Katie can log on at any time and write whatever we want. I of course will be doing this when I have some free time, and Katie will be doing this from work. We thought this might be a fun way to let people keep up with us and our exciting and busy lives. We expect to update this often with weddings news, information about ourselves, quotes, pictures, funny stories, and pretty much anything that tickles our fancy. It may be quite random or informative, we have no idea. Best wishes to everyone and we hope to be reading some of your comments in the near future.