Holiday Cheer!

Christmas 2010. Our last Christmas non-married. An oddly nice and relaxing Christmas for me.

See, I thought I”d be rolling into this holiday like usual: taking my week or so off, a trip to New Jersey, visiting with my family and running around like a crazy-person leading up to it. However, something unexpected happened.

I lost my job.

Sounds so bad, right? Lost my job just before the holidays… planning a wedding…

But it was actually a blessing.

I was laid off and got a great severance package and a week later I was approached with a job offer. I”ll be a sales/traffic manager for a new cable news station launching in March. I start in January, so I get all of the Holidays off, plus a little help for the wedding stash.

WIN WIN!

I”ve been spending my days shopping for Christmas and doing few things to help my new employer get things into place for our fresh start.

Mike”s been working 24/7.  He loves his job and they love him. They are also growing like mad. I”m really so happy and proud of him. He”s really casino online coming into his own in his career and it”s made a difference in how he feels about himself and his whole outlook on life.

Honestly, we are just really blessed right now. I find myself waiting for the other shoe to drop, but I just take a deep breath, push it out of my head and enjoy it all.

I have also been gettin” my Christmas decorating groove on. We, sadly, couldn”t make a video this year (cue internet rage) but I did snap some pictures of our place all done up.

The front porch:

The tree:

Santas:

The table:

Holiday plans so far: Party this weekend, quiet the next, Lastrapes family Christmas then we head out to Jersey for a week. Really looking forward to it all!

Post holiday all wedding planning will be in full swing!

Hope all is well with everyone! Happy Holidays!

-Ali

My Love.

Today is Mike’s birthday. We all know that he made mine ridiculously, stupendously awesome. Now, I can’t even touch that for his birthday. How could I? He officially made it official that we’ll be spending our lives together for mine. With a gorgeous ring and everything!

Anywho, I feel like I kinda dropped the ball on his birthday. I mean, I didn’t get him anything special or surprising. He got a new lens for his camera but I couldn’t surprise him with it because I don’t know jackshit about them. We tried to go to one of his favorite restaurants this weekend, Josephine’s, only to find it was closed for emergency repairs. I ordered his favorite cake from Marble Slab, but they eff’d up and didn’t make it. And now he’s working late when we are supposed to go get our grub on at Chuy’s.

Boooooooooooooo.

So, let’s talk about what makes him so awesome.

• He’s got the best heart.
• He’s so committed to everything he does.
• He always takes care of me.
• He loves me even though I’m batshit crazy sometimes. (NOT ALL THE TIME. Gah.)
• He loves my family and especially the kids. And they adore their “Tahtee”.
• He sacrificed a lot to be with me.

He’s just a really, really good person. Who deserved a great birthday and not this.

So, everyone, make my boo feel as special as he is. Because he’s the best there is.

-Ali

PS – Threw a fit at Marble Slab and got a free cake. We shall put our faces in it tonight!

The Proposal – Her Story

Yes, I knew it was coming. That didn’t mean I knew when, how or that I wasn’t super, ridiculous excited.

It started with Mike telling me to get a new dress for my birthday dinner. Not that he doesn’t encourage me to buy new clothes, but he was getting his jacket cleaned. This was big.

So, I got a pretty dress. Black and white retro style. I added an aqua shrug and my peep-toe Coach pumps. I looked cute. Mikey had on his suit. He looked all kinds of handsome.

The weeks leading up to my birthday were exciting. Wondering if he’d bought a ring. Wondering if he was going to finally do it. It’s been over 5 years and I’d been getting antsy.

I hoped he was taking me to Brennan’s.  It’s my favorite restaurant and it burned down during hurricane Ike nearly 2 years ago. So going there was a big deal. I like thinking that it re-opened to make our engagement special. Sort of like, all the right things falling into place to make it perfect.

About a half-hour before we left, Mike asked me if I knew where we were going. I said “Brennan’s?”. He laughed and said yes. Then my excitement kicked into high gear.

We got there and gave our car to the valet. Walked in and the hostess said “Oh, you guys look so nice!”. We hadn’t given her our name yet, but I think she knew it was a special night by how much we were beaming.

They seated us at a table that has giant wing-back chairs, so it’s all private and romantic. I ordered a chardonnay and Mike got a crown and coke. Then we ordered the most delicious food. I had the chopped salad (hearts of red romaine, cane jelly glazed bacon, pressed egg, parmesan cheese straw, and cayenne avocado dressing) and the Pontchartrain platter (grilled shrimp, red fish, lump blue crab and pan-fried oysters with rice and mushrooms in a creole butter sauce) and Mike got the Angus beef fillet with whipped potatoes.

Oh. My. Gah. Foodgasm.

After we finished, I kept wondering “OMG WHEN IS HE GOING TO DO IT?!?!?”

They came out with the dessert menus. I picked out caramel pecan pie with homemade vanilla ice-cream (pie for me, ice-cream for Mike). They put a candle in it and wrote “Happy Birthday Ali” in caramel on the plate. They also brought me a Brennan’s chef hat.

So, we ate the dessert. I’m thinking “Ok. For real. WHEN IS THIS HAPPENING?!”. Just as we finished Mike asked me what I wished for when I blew out the candle. I said I couldn’t tell him, or else it wouldn’t come true. He pressed me a bit. I said, “Something sparkly. And not vampire sparkly.”

He said, “Well, what about this?”

He starts pulling something out of his pocket and getting out of his seat. I’m about to explode with excitement! In my head I’m thinking “OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG HE’S DOING IT! OMG!!”

In the excitement, I totally missed what he was saying. I was tearing up so I couldn’t even see what he pulled out of his pocket. I had to aske him to repeat it.

He said, “Will you marry me.”

I said, “YES!”. And I was crying and kissing and him. He put the ring on my finger and got back in his chair.

Then I finally looked at it.

I was like “OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!” It’s so beautiful. I couldn’t believe how beautiful it is. How good he did. It is absolutely perfect.

We left and pulled over into a parking lot so we could call all of our families.

I keep looking at the ring. It sparkles constantly. It’s gorgeous. And perfect.

I’m so happy, not just to have a ring and be engaged, but to know we’ve finally gotten to this place. We’ve had so many downs, its nice to finally feel like we are on an up for once.

We can’t stop looking at it and holding hands and calling each other “fiancé”. This next year and a half will be amazing and we can’t wait to share it with all of you.

The Proposal – His Story

The ring was always with me. At work it sat on my desk and looked at me all day. At home it sat in my bag on the chair across the living room from where Ali and I sit every night. It was a week of torture having it with me and not being able to give it to her.

Every day my mother asked me, “How are you going to ask her? Do you have a plan?” I didn’t. And her asking me every day didn’t help.

The only plan was to ask her on her birthday, unless I could somehow surprise her before. Ali knew what was going on. She’s the world’s greatest detective. Batman, Columbo and Sherlock Holmes rolled into one chick. She couldn’t contain her excitement and all this wedding talk that had become more and more of an everyday topic of conversation went into overdrive.

Before any of this ring stuff came up I had booked reservations for one of Ali’s favorite restaurants, Brennan’s. I had never been, but Ali has a few times and always talks about how awesome it is. During Hurricane Ike there was a fire and the restaurant burned down. They were closed for a few years and finally just re-opened this April. Brennan’s is a Houston establishment so its re-opening was a big deal.

Brennan’s is a high class restaurant, so I knew that the service and food would be impeccable and that this birthday dinner would be amazing for Ali.

She didn’t know where we were going for her birthday dinner, only that I was getting my jacket cleaned and pressed and that I sent her to the mall to get a new dress. She was in heaven. We do occasionally like to get dressed up and go for a night on the town, but I was wearing a tie and had my shirt tucked in. This was fancy to the extreme.

On the night of her birthday as we were getting dressed I asked her if she knew where we were going. She said “I think we’re going to Brennan’s.” See? Batman and shit. The only thing she knew was that we were getting dressed up.

I’m a burger and fries guy, so going to a fancy place like this is a culture shock to me. Ali had some good wine, I had a whiskey and soda and we took everything in, enjoying ourselves and our meal. The way the chairs and tables were set up it was almost like we were in our own private room. The dinner was amazing. The service was beyond anything I’ve ever experienced. Every time the wait staff came over they fell over themselves to wish Ali a Happy Birthday. She was glowing, so happy. (Ali may go into more detail about the restaurant and the food because she is better at that.)

All during the meal, Ali kept looking at me, smiling. I knew exactly what she was thinking. “WHERE IS MY RING, MIKE? WHERE IS IT?” And the ring in my pocket was screaming at me “JUST DO IT! GIVE ME TO HER ALREADY!”

But for once I had the power in this relationship. I was going to enjoy the remaining few minutes of it as long as I could and I stretched it out. It’s fun to see Ali squirm sometimes.

After our meal we ordered dessert. Ali got a slice of pecan pie, and they brought it out with a candle on the plate. I told her to make a wish and blow it out.

She wouldn’t tell me what her wish was, because she was afraid it wouldn’t come true.

When she finished her pie I asked her again what her wish was.

“I CAN’T tell you or it won’t come true!”

“Oh,” I said.

Then I stood up, got down on one knee and pulled out the ring. This is exactly how it went down:

“I have a wish. I love you, Ali. Will you marry me?”

“AHHHH! What?”

Yes. She was so excited that she didn’t hear what I said and I had to repeat myself. She was crying and shaking as I put the ring on her finger. A perfect fit (swwiiish). The table next to us (who we overheard were celebrating their 45th wedding anniversary) congratulated us, waiters came up and congratulated us. Our waiter brought over champagne for us.

Ali was crying and couldn’t take her eyes off the ring. She was beaming.

When we left the restaurant we pulled over in a parking lot to call our families. We called our parents first to tell them. Our parents did know, but no one else did. We called my sisters on conference speaker phone so we could tell them both together (I had to call Amy three times to wake her up). We called Ali’s brother and sister.

Ali hasn’t stopped looking at the ring. I catch her staring at it when we are watching TV, or when we are driving somewhere.

She looks at it and smiles so big. I love that. And her.

Buying the Ring

In the weeks and months leading up to Ali”s birthday hints were being dropped that all Ali wanted was an engagement ring.

The wheels in my head started turning. I did my research. I checked out all the major stores web sites. I had the color and clarity charts memorized. I had no clue what I was doing.

My parents knew I was ring shopping, but I didn”t want to tell anyone else. Ali has a way of figuring things out, she really missed her calling because she could have been one hell of a detective.

My mom told me what to look for, what questions to ask so when the time came when I finally went to look at rings, and buy one I knew what I was doing.

Early one Saturday morning I got up, showered, dressed and headed out. I usually go on photowalks on the weekend, so I had a good alibi if Ali woke up and started to wonder where I was. But before I left, I tried on one of her rings, to figure out how far it fit on my finger so I could guess about what size the ring needed to be (I nailed it, by the way).

I got to the mall before all the stores opened. I sat in the middle of the mall watching all the old folks doing their power walking  laps as I waited to do the rounds of all the jewelry stores. Zales, Helzberg, all the big ones. As I walked from one store to the next I realized more and more that I had no clue what I was doing.

I left the mall totally overwhelmed. One place had a great price, but you could see giant inclusions with your eye. Another place had an okay diamond at a decent price, but it wasn”t certified. Yet another place had a nice ring, but it was three times my budget.

The last place I had to go to on my list, I almost blew off because I was so dejected.  But I made myself go because they weren”t opened on Sundays and because my boss highly recommended them to me. He had just bought his and his fiancé”s wedding bands there and said he wish he knew about this place when he bought his fiancé”s  engagement ring.

I walked in to this family owned shop that has been in Houston for almost a 100 years and told the owner exactly what I was looking for. He took me over and pulled out a box of loose diamonds and I was freaking out on the inside. I saw what loose diamonds cost at the mall, and now this guy is going to try and sell me one. I kept my mouth shut and let him tell me about the diamond.

It was gorgeous. With only my eyes I couldn”t see anything that I saw in the crap diamonds at the mall. It was the high end of the non-color scale and on the low end of the inclusion scale.

I thought, “Great. This guy is going to try and sell me a $5,000 dollar diamond.”

Then I looked at it under the loop and magnifying glass. It was beyond gorgeous.

I thought, “Great. This guy is going to try and sell me a $9,000 dollar diamond.”

I asked him the price. He asked how I was paying. I said I had cash, and was ready to buy today if the price was right.

He did some math, crossed it out, started over, and did it all again. He gave me the price that was just above my entry point. I couldn”t believe it. I pulled out the cash and bought it right then.

I waited one whole week for the ring to be to set in the band and picked it up on my lunch break the Friday after I bought it. The ring was beyond beautiful.

The Sunday after I picked up the ring I asked her father for his blessing and from there everything was in place…