The mystery of the missing marriage license: Happy 5 years.

Please ignore the fact that I'm woefully behind in our posts, and that our anniversary actually occurred at the beginning of the month rather than midway through September.

 In keeping with the spirit of marital bliss, I'd like to relay a story which jump started this wacky journey into what is our marriage today.  About  three days before our wedding, Kyle and I made the obligatory trip downtown to receive permission from the state to wed.  And by receive permission, I mean apply for our marriage license. Holding hands, we sat in the overly air conditioned government office in uncomfortable metal chairs, and answered the mundane questions of our applicant processor. When it was all said and done, we were handed a beautifully decorated  marriage license to take home only to return with the appropriate signatures after the wedding date.

Fast forward three days.  On the day of our wedding, there were many loose ends needing re-arranging, and knotting as is often the case on a wedding day. Boxes were full of miscellaneous nic nacs such as photos of our parents, and grandparents on their wedding day, a photo guest book, the wedding leash and other such trinkets.  These boxes fraught with wedding delights were to be taken to "The Vineyard," our wedding location. One of these boxes, also included the marriage license that we were supposed to have signed by our officiant, Kyle's uncle, a baptist preacher.  However, on the day of the wedding, the marriage license mysteriously disappeared. There were witnesses, numerous witnesses, placing the license in one of the boxes only moments before its departure to the vineyard.  Whether it was stolen by a saboteur secretly trying to steal away the bride, or eaten by hungry Texas fire ants looking for their next meal, or it simply grew wings and flew into the humid, pinkish dusk, we will never know.  Because despite desperate searching by family and friends, the certificate never again was to show its face.  The mystery of the missing marriage license may forever continue to remain an X-file.

We're quite blessed however, that Kyle's uncle was quite understanding of the mishap. Previous to our wedding ceremony, I had no idea of the importance of that little paper.  Kyle's uncle Keith although confused as to why we didn't have the license did not make a big deal of the matter. However, once I tried to ratify the situation by calling the downtown offices I was met with disbelief.
 "Our marriage license has been lost, how can I get a new one?"
"Was it signed?"
"No, it was lost on the day of the wedding?"
"How did you get married?"
"I don't understand, we just got married."
"That's impossible."
"Well, it happened, we're married."
'You couldn't have gotten married without the license."
"We both said 'I do.'  I'm pretty sure it happened."

Our exchange went on like this for sometime.  There was a twinge of fear growing that our ceremony wouldn't actually count.  The woman even stated that we'd have to state another date than the one that the ceremony had occurred on.  However, with a little finagling, and much stubbornness on my part, it was all sorted out.  In fact, it was as simple as reprinting the license with the word "copy" inconspicuously placed and as it turned out, we had been married after all.

Five years later, miraculously I still love Kyle Rogers with all my heart, and for reasons unbeknownst to me, he still loves me as well.  Our marriage, like most relationships, as not been all cotton candy and smiles, but it has been an exciting ride, and one that I think I'll stick with for at least another five years :)

We're being featured

I know, I know, we aren't exactly newlyweds anymore, but the author of the blog has been married about the same amount of time as us, and they still consider themselves newlyweds. The hostess, Jenna, has a personal blog along with a cool feature where she interviews newlywed couples. It's a neat site and I urge you to read some of the other posts on their as well as ours. So head on over and read our story- that is, if you don't know it by heart already :)

4 years down, 96 more to go!

When I was 11, I had a serious discussion with my friends about what we would be doing at certain points in our lives. By the time we were 16 we would all have the coolest cars. By the time we were 20 we would all be going to the best Universities. By the time we were 25 we would all be making a million dollars, have 3 to 6 kids, a huge house, a boat, jet skis, guns and 4 dogs.

Now that we are officially "old" by 11 year old standards, I think we would all be happy to just be out of debt. Most of us have cars that we pray will last another year, I barely squeaked by with a degree from a fine school that took me 6 years to get and I currently live in a mold infested apartment that has AC that works 15 minutes every hour. Things don't always go as planned.

But sometimes something happens in your life that you didn't plan for that has a profound effect on the rest of your life. 10 years ago I met a girl who's playfulness and melt your heart smile sucked me in like a magnet and sent my 16 year old hormones on overdrive. I had no idea then that this beautiful, hardheaded, fantastically bold person would enrich my life in more ways than I could ever have imagined. She is my best friend, my unending source of confidence, and an ever constant inspiration. And I was the lucky bastard that won her over at 22! Sometimes something happens that looking back you think, with everything in my life that didn't go the way I wanted, one thing did. Four years ago my soul was officially united with it's perfect match. We are different people and sometimes it's hard to believe the puzzle pieces fit but we are truly, deeply and God willing, unendingly bound to each other and as of yesterday, for the 4th year in a row, I am the luckiest man on the planet.

When we are old

I hope this is us when we are elderly. This is just plain adorable! Watch here

The marriage that keeps going and going and...

I understand now.
I understand how easy it is to fall into a routine with a person.
I understand how easy it is to stop showing the most important person in your life that you LOVE them.
I understand how easy it is to forget to be in a marital relationship, not just two people living together.

I never understood before how people could just "fall" out of love. Doesn't love last forever I thought?

When we are young, we read the fairy tales and watch the romantic princess movies, and the endings are always the same, they got married and lived "happily ever after." When we are young, it is understandable to believe that marriage is the end of the road. It is the finish line, that once you cross, the race is over, and the cool down can begin. In some ways, that metaphor is true. Marriage is the finishing line for the single life, for the rat race of finding "mr./ms. right." But in many ways, it is the starting line. It is the start of a commitment. A life long commitment.

Kyle and I were joking the other night about our contract with English Village, and how we were thankful that it wasn't more than a year. A year of chaos, is probably as much as we could handle before loosing what little sanity we have left.
The next part of the conversation is a little hazy but I said something about quitting Kyle (jokingly of course).
And Kyle's response was, "uh-huh, you signed a life long contract with me."
And it hit me, when we (people) get married, we are signing on for the duration of the rest of our life. It is pretty crazy to think that anybody would willingly sign something agreeing to one thing, the same thing for their entire life. When I thought about it in terms of contracts I was really hit with the longevity of it.

Don't worry people, I'm not getting cold feet three years into our marriage. But it is something to consider, looking at it from a different vantage point.

In recent weeks, as I have mentioned in earlier posts, we have been going going going, like two energizer bunnies with fully charged batteries. Working during the work week from 8:30 am-8:15 pm. Finding time to work out, to write, to rest were all on top of the list for the "to do" list after work. However, not on that list was to appreciate each other, or to love each other. And make no mistake people, those should be on a "to do" list of a married couple. Sometimes when we slip into one of our routines, I feel like we forget how to "be in love." And in actuality, I forget to love Kyle. I forget to appreciate him for the man I married, and not just the person I spend most of my time with. It is so much easier than I ever imagined to turn into "an old married couple." A successful marriage is not one that doesn't split up in my opinion. There are plenty of couples who remain together but no longer as a husband and a wife, but as two people who just happen to occupy the same house. An old married couple who no longer bother to even look at each other, or kiss each other because it takes too much effort, is not what I am striving for in my marriage. But I understand it now.

I have understood from the beginning that a marriage takes work. I was under no illusions that marriage is always a piece of chocolate cake, gooey, and delicious. But until now, I didn't think that falling into a loveless marriage would ever be possible for Kyle and I. We are so alike, we love each other with a fierceness. We call each other pet names and we aren't afraid to display public affection. But guess what? We aren't immune to the blah-ness disease. The disease of rote pattern, and blinders. The disease of selfishness and lack of consideration. The disease of loosing the romance and not bothering to look for it. I wish their was some sort of immunization one could take at their wedding ceremony to prevent these sad occurrences from plaguing our lives, from preventing life from wedging it's way into our relationship, but there isn't a magic elixir to prevent it. There is only us.

The antidote, for us at least, and most relationships (in my opinion) is effort. Effort to remember the other person. Not just to remember them, but to remember that they are a separate person with feelings, wants and desires all of their own, not necessarily connected to our own. Effort is remembering to kiss the special person, to show them the affection you wish they would done on you. Effort is remembering that cuddling next to someone should never just be habit, but something to cherish each and every time. We have to put effort into our relationships, treat that other person as we would want to be treated.

Our weekend of R and R, was just what the romantic doctor ordered. A short time to appreciate each other, to remember to be in a relationship outside of work, outside of friendship, outside of being roommates. We were able to take the time to look each other in the eyes for not just a second, but for minutes, melting into each others souls as we used to do when we first found each other. We told each other "I love you" not just because it was "that time" to say it, but because we meant it and because it had to be said before it exploded out of us. Taking time to remember to love each other, is what I found is extremely important in keeping our marriage vibrant.

So this got me to thinking; What do you do, to keep your marriage or relationships alive? How do you keep the love from slipping away into the abyss?

9 years down, 90 more to go!

It's funny sometimes to think of just how long Vanessa and I have known each other. While we are both over 1/4 of a century old, it doesn't seem that long ago that we were making out in the costume closet at MacArthur High School. Time does go by so fast. Nine years ago on December 11th, Vanessa and I "officially" declared our romantic feelings for each other. That's really just a fancy way of saying we kissed for the first time (off stage) ;) Now I know that this may seem like a silly thing to celebrate but for us it represents something special and who doesn't like having an extra day a year to appriciate being with the one you love?

So this year to celebrate, Vanessa surprised me with tickets to see the Nutcracker. For most guys this would seem more like punishment but who here doesn't know that I'm a girly man? I actually enjoy ballet quite a bit and not just because of the sexy ballerinas. If you ask me, people who don't like ballet just don't pay much attention to the details. Have you ever stopped to watch their feet? Those girls are balancing on little blocks attached to their toes that are maybe 2 inches by 2 inches. INCREDIBLE! And I still get chills when I see people leaping through the air in ways that seem physically impossible. Now I have yet to see a rendition of the Nutcracker that portrays an even closely realistic sword fight between the cracker and the rat but at least there's a battle at all! If it were just the fru fru girly dances I think I might have a different opinion of it but as it is, I'd say the Nutcracker was pretty good for such a feminine work of art. Not to mention the fact that nothing makes a WASP Christmas more jolly than a night at the Nutcracker.

To top the evening off we went to Carino's and enjoyed a nostalgic Italiano dinner. Van and I frequently went there on dates while we were going to Tech. It's not exactly authentic but come on, it's Lubbock. Can't get to picky can we?

Anyways, I feel so privileged to have spent the past 9 years falling more in love with such an amazing person and I just wanted to share some of the mushy gushy with you all.

Is Love enough?

Napolean and Josephine divorce?

I just finished the Josephine Bonaparte trilogy, three thrilling historical fiction books based on one of the most acclaimed love stories of all time, and it ended in divorce and death?? Why must all of these LOVE stories end in tragedy.

When I finished "Gone with the Wind", the most fervent love story of all time, I threw the book across the room. I couldn't believe that I read over 1000 pages only to learn that in the end, their marriage doesn't blossom into the love that they both desired, but decayed and disenegrated painfully in heart ache and despair. However, the difference between these two stories, is that Scarlette and Rhett are fictional characters, the came from Margret Mitchell's active and twisted imagination.

Josephine and Napolean are characters in French history, they were genuine human beings, with actual feelings, and authentic heart-break. Why was love not enough? I wrote a ten page paper in college about how Scarlette and Rhett's lack of communication, and their inability to say "I'm sorry" was ultimately their demise. This story galvanized my perfervid passion of the importance of communication. But Josphine and Napolean talked, they communicated, they were spirit-friends, as she called it, but it wasn't enough. Napolean was convinced he needed an heir to uphold their empire which deteriorated quickly after their divorce. I lay in bed next to my sleep-thrashing husband (he sometimes convulses in an agitated way while sleeping, especially when he is stressed), reading devotedly as I rabidly clung to the hope that in the end, they would be reunited. Maybe they were reunited in death, but they were not by each other sides in the end. It frightens me to read these stories of passion and woe as I often relate so strongly with the characters having had a whirlwind romance all of my own. Is love enough? Will it get us through the hard times? Often, there are small fractures hidden within the foundation which spur rapid crackling and ultimate severing in the end. Communication, as I have said before is key, open, honest, and heart-felt communication. However both of these stories took place during tumultuous times, the civil war, and the French revolution, situations which were not serendipitous to a healthy relationship. Hopefully there will be no uprisings, wars nor revolutions in our future, but no how much we will it, we cannot control all situations. I pray that love will bind us and in the future when our love is acclaimed as the most romantic in history (obviously I have a vivid imagination as well, as I do not actually believe that we will also rule an empire and be remembered throughout history, but for the sake of argument) it will not end in tragedy as so many of them do, but will end with "they lived happily ever after."


Interesting facts I learned while reading these fascinating books.
1. Napolean came to power directly after the French revolution. (Maybe I didn't pay enough attention in history, but I have both of these parts of history categorized in completely different compartments in my mind.)
2. The French Revolution and the American Revolution basically occurred simultaneously.
3. Women, in order to be beautiful, slowly poisoned themselves unknowingly with lead makeup base.
4. Napoleon's family was a crazy bunch of power-hungry deviants.
5. Napoleon and his family were not French, but Corsican. Corsica is an island to the west of Italy.
6. Josephine went through menopause before she was thirty because of the deprivation she went through during The Terror while being held in a disease-infested prison.


I hope you are able to read the books. They are remarkable!

Happy 3 year (wedding) Anniversary to us!

September 2, 2006 Kyle and I stood before a preacher (his uncle) to be joined together in holy matrimony in front of our friends, family and God. It was a beautiful Texas summer evening, still hot enough to cause sweat to streak our backs, but the mosquitoes were at bay and a gentle breeze glided through the ceremony to cool us off every once in a while, even our ring bearer (our Maltese) appreciated the breeze. The wedding was all that I had dreamed of and more. But the most important aspect, more than the cake, or the music or the even our friends and family who were there to witness it, was that Kyle and I were officially husband and wife, at the end of the day we were there to be married. And married we were, with or without the mysteriously missing marriage certificate which was never found... (Good thing it was his uncle marrying us or else the ceremony might not have occurred)

To celebrate our THREE years of marital bliss, because we are poor (very poor right now), we decided to have a romantic evening in a park overlooking the city, Comanche Park. We dressed in our best "dress up" clothing, picked up some fabulous Greek food with a bottle of wine and hiked up to the look out spot, missing the sunset by only five minutes. But the streaks of purple and pink illuminated the sky for quite some time after the sun had gone bedy bye, providing us with ample entertainment. The mosquitoes, because we have had so little rainfall this year, have been amazingly sparse this summer, and I only left with three bite wounds, one for each year married, an amazing record for sitting outside at sunset without any protection to ward them off. It was very romantic, and because we are sentimental saps, it was the absolutely perfect way to celebrate a landmark in our marriage.

Last sunday in church, the preacher recognized a couple who had just celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary. The old man, got out of the pew, stood in the aisle and placed arms in the air like Vanna White when presenting a letter, however he was showing off his beautiful bride. I nearly burst into tears right there. How wonderful that this couple had not only made 70 years of marriage, but that he still was so proud of his wife to stand in front of the large congregation and present her so proudly. It was, to say the least, inspirational. So before descending, we toasted to 67 more years of wedded bliss. Glasses up everyone!
The cakes my aunt madeWe bit Mickey's ears off. Sorry Mickey! (The Mickey was from the Tree of Life wedding cake made by my aunt, but Kyle actually made the Mickey. He was edible, but didn't taste good )

Maybe eating Mickey wasn't such a good idea!

A Korean wedding

We attended a co-workers wedding a little over a month ago. I am not sure why I put off writing this post for so long, maybe I was still trying to gather my thoughts on the whole thing. Upon attending, I had few if any expectations, except from what I had been told by other foreigners: lots of food, lots of pictures and very short. So I am going to give you a step by step of the events of the day as best as I can.
-first of all it was very exciting to get to dress up. I don't get many opportunities here in Korea to dress in fancy attire, so it was thrilling looking for a fancy dress, shoes etc. Sometimes I am such a girl! I just love dressing up! However, I have to say I am disappointed with how I looked in pictures. I was pretty confident that I was rocking the house with my outfit, but my few pictures were unflattering- kind of a bummer.

(outside the wedding hall)

-We then had to take a bus to a hotel. We felt even more out of place than usual being so dressed up and taking a regular bus to our destination, a hotel I think.

-The bride, our co-worker Jessica, sat in a designated picture taking room for all who wished to take her picture before the wedding. She looked like a princess. A beautiful Korean princess wearing a very typical western style wedding gown.

- Unlike in a typical American wedding, we sat at a table in a huge fancy smancy reception hall rather than in a church or a designated ceremony room. This reception hall had a long run way running down the center.

-Several projectors displayed engagement and wedding photos. I found it odd not only that they would have wedding photos displayed before the actual wedding, but also many of the pictures showed her wearing a myriad of wedding gowns rather than the one I had just seen her wearing. After further inquiry into this matter, I discovered that brides in Korea do not purchase their wedding gowns, but rent them in a package deal. You can rent 3 or 4 gowns for the wedding photos which are almost all taken before the actual wedding day. Personally, I like this idea of getting to wear several different dresses. In our system you wear the dress for one day of your life and spend hundreds if not thousands on a gown that will probably spend the rest of it's lonely days hanging in your closet.

-The wedding began with the bride walking down the extremely long aisle to pre-recorded music. The ceremony was held all in Korean, so I am not sure what was said except that I was told it was mentioned in the proceedings by the officiator that the man should make sure and make his family his first priority rather than his job like most male Koreans have a tendency to do. They then bowed to her family, and they bowed to his (and at this point the groom and his mother both started to cry, it was very sweet). And then without the very important first kiss at least to western society they walked back down the runway (which felt more like a super model runway than an aisle as it was raised much higher than the ground.)The mothers walking down the runway

-Amazing food was then delivered in 5 courses to our tables. The food was western style. Our boss explained to us that they are typically given three choices of styles; Korean, western or Chinese. I am so glad she choose western, we got real steak!

-They came back in wearing different outfits, cut a funny shaped cake, poured and toasted campaign on a campaign tower with changing neon lights complete with a smoke machine, and that was the end. No dancing, no party, no drinking (very strange for Korea.) Watch, eat and go home, time for the next wedding. Seriously, these places have several weddings a day, and one on every floor as well.the cake

The whole event seemed surreal to me, in less than two hours they had presented a proper performance up on a stage, fed hundreds of people a very expensive meal and then said adieu. I realize that the same can be said about western weddings. "They are a waste of money, why spend so much on just one day." as I have heard many say. And as much as I complain about the costs of wedding because they are exuberant and over priced, I wouldn't trade mine for anything. I loved our wedding, and I loved that we could make it so personal and reflect who we were, why we were there and celebrate our union with all of our friends and family. This wedding however, wasn't really a celebration at all, it was more like a show, I mean it literally had a runway. The ceremony was short, they fed us and that was the end, time to go home. It felt incomplete and impersonal. I think the impersonal aspect of it bothered me the most. It just felt rushed as if they needed to get down to business so the next wedding could take place, like we were in a wedding factory. I don't know what a traditional Korean wedding looks like or looked like in the past. I know that traditionally they wear the hanbok, the traditional Korean dress, as you see the mothers in, but other that I am in the dark. It was a fun event, and to be fair by the end of it I was exhausted, even without a party or dancing, so I was even a little happy to be going home.
I am not sure how Jessica and her husband met, but according to wikipedia, many marriages are still arranged by parents or match makers. I have a feeling this particular union was what is refered to as a 'love' match as they were together 7 years before tying the knot. One reason, at least that I have infered for putting off marriage here in Korea, is the amount of responsibilty, mostly on the wife, that comes with marriage. Your husbands family becomes your family in the sense that you are responsible for the cooking and events that the family celebrates. A co-worker once told me that when she worked in the country one of her Korean co-workers said that she dreaded the weekends because of the amount of work they involved almost every weekend to entertain her in-laws.

Arranged marriage

Arranged marriage is popular in South Korea. Koreans usually refer to this type of marriage as Seon (선). Generally, parents arrange a meeting. The reason why this type of marriage is prevalent in Korea is that marriage in Korea is not just a matter of a bride and groom but a merging of two families. Because the potential spouses are pre-screened by the family, there is much less of a chance of family opposition to the marriage. It is extremely rare that a single Seon leads to a marriage; many succeed in finding a suitable spouse only after dozens of Seon meetings with different individuals. Following the initial meeting, the couple typically date for several months to a year before the actual marriage. The distinction between an arranged marriage and a "love" marriage is therefore often blurred, although in an arranged marriage the families tend to be more closely involved throughout.

Matchmakers

Matchmakers are common in South Korea. Families present their son or daughter to a matchmaker, or a single man or woman arranges a meeting with a matchmaker, to analyze their resume and family history for the purpose of finding a marriage partner who is compatible in social status and earning potential. Koreans keep precise lineage records, and these are listed on the matchmaking resume. Today, almost all single people meet their matched partner prior to the marriage and have more say about the match than was previously allowed. Matchmakers earn a fee for their services.

A Korean friend of mine mentioned once to me that it is still common practice to consult a fortune teller to help parents decide on important events in their childrens life such as marriage. According to this article, parents, armed with their child and the prospective spouse’s birth information (date, time, place, etc) will ask if the couple are a compatible match and if the union will be a happy fruitful one. Marriage plans, even today, may be cancelled if the reading is unfavourable.

Sometimes I think that parents in Korea are way TOO involved and controling of their childrens lives. Thank you parents for allowing me to make my own choices. I feel oh so much more appreciative now.

(me and some of my fav Korean ladies)

Hopefully I will get attend another Korean wedding in the future to compare the differences.

Happy 8 year (dating) anniversary my darling honey bunches of oats!

(Warning: If you don't like lovey-dovey mumbo gumbo, skip this post. No fake vomiting sign language allowed. )
Today is our 8 year anniversary and unfortunately the first ever spent apart, but not only apart, but in different countries, across an ocean and several other bodies of water. The reaction I receive often when I say that we still celebrate our dating anniversary is a face of confusion and sometimes constipation, communicating in not so many words (or none at all) "why would you celebrate your dating anniversary now that you are married? Weirdo!" I can't speak for Kyle, but for me, our dating anniversary is just as important if not more than our wedding anniversary. When we began "dating," which cannot really be refereed to as dating at the age of 16 and 17, especially when dates weren't a regular event, rather " romantically hanging out" might more accurately describe our true activities at the time, (but come to think of it, I don't think that has changed much since we go on dates hardly never), we were young, too young, some might even argue, but early on we were fully, deeply, heart and soul committed. (Could that run-on sentence be any longer or confusing) And although the delectably formidable "M" word wasn't breached for at least a year into our relationship, had we been in different places in our lives (not dirt sandwich poor, and perpetually in college) we would have married much earlier because we knew much earlier on that we were perfect for each other and our lives would not be complete without the other. For me, our wedding was a formality, legalizing what I had felt and held in my heart for many years. Please don't misunderstand, I loved our wedding and I love that we are married, but our relationship's emotional, and committal level grew at it's standard growth rate the day of that blessed day, not a giant leap. Therefore I argue, that it is just as important for us to celebrate the day of our albeit awkward first kiss, the day that began what was to be the best thing that ever happened to me, the day when I found my true love. So happy 8 year anniversary my darling, and here is to 121 more years to come!

Reasons I love my Darling hubby dub:
1. His laugh is a highly contagious virus (a good virus) taking up the entirety of the space around, positively charging every particle within it's reach.
2. He somehow pulls off "the cool kid" and the "nerdy kid" at the same time. Truly amazing.
3. Kids and animals alike are drawn to him as if he were a kid animal magnet. You gotta love a man that is great with kids and animals.
4. His ginormous cranium is filled to the brim with useless information. There is useful info banging around in there as well, but it doesn't always find it's way to the forefront.
5. He still makes my heart go "pitter-patter" I love you baby!

The life of Nomads

I got to thinking the other day about how our life has evolved from being pretty settled and routine to that of nomads wandering the globe looking for a home. From the age of 8 months, I lived in the same house up until I left for college. I can trace some of my friends back all the way to elementary school and before. My oldest friend, Susie, a neighbor from across the street, and I have been friends since the time we could speak. Never changing homes meant that I went from elementary to middle to high school with practically the same people. I enjoyed the stability of constantly being surrounded by familiarity. When I left for college, however, that constancy and stability that I had so depended on, fell from under me. After I graduated from college, we, Kyle and I, decided that we wanted a life of adventure, we wanted to see the world before "settling down" to lead a "typical" American life.


Here is a glimpse of our journey from the time we were married until now. (And in fact this list could be extended back to the beginning of college, but that is another post all together)

August 06- December 06 – We were actually married in September but our lease started in Aug. We lived in our apartment in Austin while Kyle finished what we thought would be his final semester in college.

December 06- March 07- We moved all of our belongings into my mother's garage, and we moved in with my mom after our lease in Austin was up. Living with my mom made financial sense, especially since we were leaving for our volunteer postions in Chile in March.

March 07- November 07- We lived in Chile with a wonderful host family, made absolutely NO money, and came back further in debt than we started.

November 07- July 08- We had planned on just moving in with my mom for a couple of months before we left for South Korea (where we would actually make money) to teach English. The original plan was to leave in March, but when all hell broke loose, and our plans fell to crap, we extended our stay to what we thought would only be through the summer.

July 08- mid August 08- Three week road trip visiting family and friends

August 08- October 08- Lived with our aunt in Seattle. Once again we thought we would be in Seattle for a couple of weeks, only until early September when we received news that once again Kyle would not be graduating.

October 08- Now – living in San Antonio, house sitting Grandma Dee Dee's house.

Dec. 5- Vanessa, if all our stones fall into place, will leave for South Korea, and hopefully Kyle will only be a month behind.

What made me think of writing this post in the first place was moving into Grandma Dee Dee's house. I realized that for nearly the entirety of our two years of marriage we have only lived together, just the two of us, for 4 months. Having a place to call our own, at least for this short time, has been really rewarding and gratifying. Although we are adventurous, and love traveling to the four corners of the world, we are also very domestic as well. We love to cook (not clean), throw dinner parties, decorate and anything else that one does in one's own home. There are times when I wish that we could have our own place, but that day will come, just not today. Today: explore and be nomads. Tomorrow: who knows?

Trials of marriage: A bamboozeled mess!

Laying lethargically in bed on a very lazy mid-day Sunday, Kyle looked at me and asked a question that has no definite answer. Kyle and I talked yesterday for the better half of the day. The question covered the much avoided topic of our immediate future. It is a question I hear a lot, but never have an answer. What are we going to do when Kyle graduates in December? Where will we go? What will we do? Will we continue to live where we are? Kyle will of course have one more Spanish class to take but he may take that class at any community college leaving us with no obligation to stay in any specific city. My advertising consulting job is both in San Antonio and Austin, but truly it could be from anywhere I please. We volleyed ideas and opinions from under the covers and uncovered many more questions wanting answers. The more we talked the more we confused ourselves. The whole situation and conversation was discomforting. I used to know what I wanted, but now I am not so sure. Well, that isn’t entirely accurate because I still have dreams and goals I just don’t know when I am to achieve them. When you put two ambitious people with different hopes and dreams together in a marriage you get a bamboozled mess! It’s like throwing two necklace chains in a jewelry box, shaking it up a bit, and pulling the two chains out with new knots and twists, not knowing where one starts and one begins. When I married Kyle, I knew I would be making sacrifices to conjoin our lives to one. I knew this willingly and accepted it because all though I am making sacrifices, they don’t have to be permanent deaths to my dreams, only sleeping pills to wake another day. But now I am in limbo waiting for my next door to open, hoping it is somewhere I would like to be. Kyle asked me what I want and where I want to be in a year from now, and it bothers me that I cannot answer that question. I can answer the question with what I would really like, but not what is actually going to happen. Don’t ask me what the conclusion of this half-day discussion was because I don’t know. I felt like progress was made, but no final decisions have been planted for permanent growth. Our life’s future is uncertain, but at least I know one thing assuredly, we will always have each other to complicate the other’s life.

Why get married?

What does marriage mean? Why do people get married? What is wrong with dating for the rest of ones life? I met a man the other day who seemed to hold that philosophy on relationships. He was an engaged man, but had been so for 15 years. He asked the woman he was dating if she would marry him, slipped a ring on her finger, and remained in limbo till the present day. Obviously the commitment is there, but he is happy in the arrangement they are in and really has no intention of taking his fiancé down an aisle. “Why?” I asked him. His answer to my question was the same as my question, “why should I?” “We have been living together most of our engagement, I make her happy, I am her prince charming, and she is happy, why do we have to get married?” What is the importance of marriage? What’s wrong with just vowing to each other to be together. I asked what her feelings of her perpetual engagement was, and his response was “She must be happy she has stayed with me this long.” If I were that fiancé, I don’t think that I could have handled such a confusing situation. But why would I struggle with that state of affairs. What is so important about being married? Legally, this couple is married by common law, but he chooses to refer to her as his fiancé. He said it was always a great conversation piece. Statistically speaking, couples who do not get married and stay under the label of live-in boyfriend/girlfriend have a much higher chance of splitting apart. There is something about that written contract that solidifies a couple from feeling uneasy about the commitment to the other. The words we use define us in a way. “I am married,” for example is phrase that changes people’s percpective of me. I am automatically older, or maybe I am silly and impulsive. Whatever their reaction, I have changed somewhat in their eyes.
For me, I chose to marry Kyle because I wanted to take that last step to solidify our commitment to one another. As I said in my vows, I have been married in heart for a long time, but we wanted the world to know our love and passion for one another was not a fleeting crush but true and lasting love. We know that marriage is hard, but the benefits greatly outweigh the labor. I love being married. There is so much security in knowing that there is a person in my life that will love and stand by me the rest of my days. Using words like “husband, wife , married, and Rogers” is still challenging, but I am slowly learning to use these familiar yet foreign words. Life is like a disorienting walk uphill through a blizard, not knowing where the top really lies, but at least with marriage, one knows that their hand will never be empty.

Wedding Pictures

How to get to Wedding Pictures.
type in: www.goensouth.com
click the left option: photography
click on reorders
type Vanessa Braun into name space
password is : kyle