Premarital Counseling

Tonight is our first premarital counseling "session" with John Lasley. I'm honestly slightly nervous. We chose to go with John because we knew that he would be entirely honest with us. We definitely felt some other pastors and elders are more attached to us and our relationship and that "bias" could get in the way of honest spiritual counseling. I think John will be tough on us, but in a loving way and will bring forth changes that need to be made in both of us. I will appreciate your prayers tonight.

Big purchases

We bought a dining room table! And we actually got an additional $50 off -- thanks Lisa Mishler!

Also, pray for us as we're making a decision about an apartment; we're pretty close to making a decision.

The dress

My dress came in this week! I went with my mom and Aunt Lisa to pick it up yesterday. Since some changes had been made, I tried it on again at the store, and it fit better than before, and I loved it even more than I already did. The actual dress I will be wearing at my wedding is now in my house. I'm stoked and just hope that Ben will love it when he sees it for the first time on March 13 -- just a little more than six months from now.

I would love to post a link, but that could be problematic, since Ben accesses and even writes in this very blog... so I'll avoid even the slightest description. It's a dress, that's all he needs to know :)

Personal data inventory discussion

On September 16 Ben and I will be meeting with John Lasley for our first premarital counselling session. There are so many great things about marriage that I'm looking forward to, but there are going to be difficulties that we just can't ignore. We had a really good conversation going through our premarital applications together. It was hard at times, but it was beautiful because we were able to be open and honest with each other. I was left feeling edified and reminded once again of the reasons I am marrying Ben.

In other events, I am going to call some cake places today to see if they're open on Monday. The time has come to really start looking into these kinds of things.

Proposal photos

Kha Do: what a wonderful and gifted friend you are. Thank you for capturing this moment for us and sharing it with us.

Tuesday morning, July 28. We got up early in the morning to see the famous Charles Bridge. Ben thought it would be a good idea to pull me aside and start having a private conversation.

Why are you saying all of these sappy things, Ben? Oh, wait... this is far from a normal conversation...
Ben: "Are you going to say yes?" DUH!

Oh my gosh. I can't believe this just happened.

This was probably one of the most amazing moments of the whole proposal. Everyone's support was overwhelming and incredibly encouraging.

That just happened!!!

Overjoyed.

Personal Data Inventory

We got our first packet to fill out for our premarital counseling with John Lasley. It is a "personal data inventory" packet and has some straight forward questions and some that are really making us think. For example, one is "List 5 reasons why you want to marry your fiance." Of course I know I want to marry Cassia, and I know why I do but articulating them into something more than "I'm in love with her, that's why!" is proving to be interesting. Cassia feels the same way about that particular question too. There are some other challenging ones too, which I won't share. I personally think one is a trick question that Nancy put in there and we aren't supposed to be able to answer it. ;) We are going through our packets by ourselves, but we decided that when we're done we are going to go over them with each other before turning them in. I think it'll be good for us to be able to talk about our answers alone first.