More Bridal Fun

Last weekend was my second in a row jam packed with wedding related fun. On Saturday, I had my San Diego bridal shower, and on Sunday, my parents, Tad, and I went to my friend Christine's wedding. Here are some highlights from both!

My shower was a lot of fun. It was quite different from the Biola one in that there were about 3 times as many people, we had it in our house, and it was mostly relatives and family friends rather than college friends. The party planning was a team effort by Raelene (my maid of honor), my mom's friend Kathy (who did much of the cooking), my mom's friend Diana, and my mom.

The theme was "Around the Clock", which turned out to be a lot of fun. Each guest was given a time of day on their invitation and asked to bring a gift that would be used during that time. For example, for the morning times I received a toaster and a waffle maker. For the afternoon times: a popcorn popper with a movie and penguin hot chocolate mugs. For the evening, candles and our ceramic toothbrush and tissue box holders.

The party was fairly laid back, as most parties with that many people have to be. We enjoyed delicious afternoon tea foods including scones, fresh fruit, sandwiches, and a lemon cream dessert. My mom and I had planned the games together. We did a memory game with different kitchen items on an apron that I wore and walked around the room. We also had put together a "How well do you know Lindsey?" activity. Mom and I brainstormed a list of 20 questions about me: everything from "How old is she?" to "What's her favorite Disney princess?". The night before, we asked Tad the questions and wrote down his answers. That made giving the answers more fun at the party because we could read Tad's response. Krista got the most right with 13/20. Raelene was a close second with 12/20. Both beat Tad who got 10/20.

The final activity we had planned was the first kiss game. People wrote down a couple things about what made their first kiss memorable on an index card. Volunteers read the cards and I had to pick the "most romantic" one. The rest of the time was spent visiting with my guests. It was a very nice party.

Our party continued on Sunday with Christine (Elizabeth, as she goes by now) and Eric's wedding. The weather was pretty much perfect for a June wedding: sunny but not too hot. It was held at Los Willows in Fallbrook. Los Willows is a property basically designed for hosting weddings. There is a beautiful lake next to a big sloping lawn with a gazebo, a bar area with belly tables, several other buildings for getting ready, and a semi-permanent tent.

Tad, my parents, and I arrived quite a bit early and enjoyed exploring the grounds a it before the other guests arrived. There was some mingling time beforehand to sign the guestbook and enjoy a glass of lemonade. It was a beautiful ceremony. True to her personality and interests, Christine arrived in a boat, accompanied by opera music. A unique touch that I haven't seen at a wedding before was a foot washing that she and Eric did.

The party that followed was also quite beautiful. We sampled many delicious appetizers during the cocktail hour and enjoyed their signature drink "Honey I Do", a blue mai tai. Tad and I got to chat quite a bit with Elizabeth and Matthew too which was nice. The dinner reception was quite fun. We sat with my parents and four mutual friends between my mom and Christine's mom.

Tad and I used the dancing time to practice a bit for our upcoming day. We've decided we still need a bit more practice ;) haha. All in all it was a great afternoon and evening. Christine and Eric looked very happy and we're happy for them starting their new lives. My thought now is "The next wedding I attend will be my own!", a very exciting thought :)

Of Toasters and Blenders

Tad, Mom, and I have spent the first few weeks of the New Year hard at work with wedding plans. Tad and I have done two cake testings (quite delicious), we've exhausted the search for bridesmaid's dresses and decided to make our own, gone to florists and printers and stationery stores, and completed our registries.

Tad was a sweetheart and fille dout the paperwork and such for both our registries while I was still in Nevada. When I came home, we spent an afternoon and evening, running around Macy's and Bed Bath and Beyond with the scanner choosing things. It was quite a bit of fun, both getting to scan things, and planning our future home together.

I had my first dress fitting, which is a blast getting to spend so long in my dress. It felt very princess-y. We took our engagement photos, and have had a preview of them, but are still waiting to see all of them. And this Sunday, Mom and I are going to the SD bridal bazaar to get leads for the few things we have left.

Ten Highlights of 2010

I feel like I was just writing one of these posts for 2009. I certainly have years that are filled with fun things and changes. As fun as it is, I won't mind when grad school is done and things are a little more relaxed in my life. Here are some of my favorite things from the year. :)

Family Cruise in the Caribbean

At the very beginning of 2010 my entire family took a fantastic vacation to the Caribbean Islands of Puerto Rico, St Thomas, Dominica, Grenada, Bonaire, and Aruba. We had a week onboard the Caribbean Princess. My favorite part of the trip was seeing the joy on Valencia's face on our catamaran ride in St Thomas.

First Valentine's Day Spent with my Love

This was very special to me. In the 3 and 1/2 years we had been dating, Valentine's day had never been a convenient time to be together. Now that Tad and I live int he same city, it's usually convenient to be together. Tad planned a very sweet surprise date for me. We made a cherry vanilla cake, and then re-created our first date by going to Boomers for mini golf and go carts. After which we got our favorite appetizers at Applebee's.

On the ferris wheel at Boomers

Spring Break with my Biola Girls

For a fun change, instead of visiting my Biola girls (Becky and Krista), they came to me. We spent a few fun days catching up and exploring San Diego. We watched Walk the Line, had Rubios with Tad, and spent a day in Seaport Village. I sure do love those ladies!

The hat shop in Seaport Village

Mother-Daughter Trip to SF

In April, I happened to get a four day weekend, which happened to coincide with the California Council of the Blind convention in Burlingame. We flew up and enjoyed a long weekend of relaxing, shopping, and seeing old friends. We ate out at an old favorite Chinses restaurant one night, had dinner with friends from church another, and got to see my friends Amy and Dave as well as Valencia's puppy raisers. Oh, and I went to some convention related things lol

In front of our hotel

Elizabeth & Matthew's Wedding

My friend Elizabeth got married on April 24 at the Grand Tradition in Fallbrook. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful wedding. It was also another fun excuse to get to dress up and go to a party with Tad. We enjoyed spending time together, meeting some new friends, eating some delicious food, and celebrating Elizabeth and Matthew's marriage with them. :)

Birthday Weekend with Becky

Becky's and my birthdays are 2 days apart and we have found a way to celebrate them together every year since we met freshman year at Biola. This year was no exception. I did the train ride up to Fullerton and had lunch with Becky at The Olde Ship (a pub!). We had our birthday dinner at Red Robin, and Krista and I watched Becky perform in the orchestra pit for Biola Youth Theater's production of Cats!. It is good to have a birthday buddy! =)

4 Year Anniversary

This was only our 2nd anniversary actually spent together, the 1st being our one year. Like Valentine's Day, Tad planned a surprise date for me, which consisted of a delicious Round Table pizza and a movie night in with mocchi to snack on. By dating anniversary 5, we will be married!

Family Summer Vacation

Our week of family vacation kicked off with a trip to the Griffith Observatory and the Hollywood Bowl concert. We went with the Biola Alumni Association and enjoyed a spectacular Tchaikovsky concert complete with fireworks. Several days later, we embarked on our trip to Cambria. It was a relaxing week of tidepooling, shopping, farm exploring, Hearst Castle touring, and Olallaberry pie, yum!

On the farm in Cambria. This is the next picture I'm going to submit for the GDB calender.

Sharp Community Re-entry Internship

This fall I had my first off campus clinical experience. And I loved it. I became a part of the family at the day treatment program at Sharp Memorial. I learned a lot, met some very cool therapists and clients, and became very confused about what I actually want to do after graduation.

Me with my supervisor Joann

Engagement

Probably the happiest day of my life to date - on November 23, my sweetheart asked me to be his wife. I am thoroughly enjoying being able to call him my fiance and enjoying planning my wedding. This highlihgt to be continued in 2011 ;)

Thanksgiving Day at my parents'

Looking back, 2010 has been a wonderful year with progress made towards my Master's degree and plenty of time spent with my love. 2011 can only get better from here!

Wedding Planning

Tad and I have been engaged for almost a month now and have a tremendous amount of planning already done, all thanks to my mom. Right away she jumped in and started doing research for us. She, thus far, has kept a perfect balance of being involved and providing suggestions, but also letting us make the decisions. She's made me a wedding planning binder, collected a couple bridal books, and is making me a scrapbook of our engagement and wedding planning time.

Here's all that we've accomplished in the last 4 weeks :)

We're getting married on July 23, 2011 at PLC (my home church) with a reception to follow at the Courtyard by Marriott in Rancho Bernardo. Since PLC doesn't have any outdoor place to take pictures, we're using the duck pond right by the Marriott. I have asked Raelene to be my maid of honor and Becky and Krista to be my bridesmaids. Tad has asked his best friend JC to be best man (ironically JC is getting married two months after us, and Tad will be in his wedding party), his roommate Nate to be a groomsman and will ask my brother Stephen to be a groomsman.

I have my dress. I'm absolutely in love with it!!! My mom and I found it on our first day shopping. We went first to the shop where she bought hers, a place in La Mesa called Amour. I tried on several dresses there and really liked one of them. We were all set to buy that one after looking at another couple shops. We looked at a secondhand place which had beautiful dresses that weren't any cheaper than the brand new ones. On a whim, we decided to go to one more store before deciding on the dress I loved.

There's a place called Here Comes the Bride across the freeway from my condo. We wandered in, without an appointment, and were helped by this delightful lady named Jeanie. She was so helpful and sweet. I tried on 5 dresses there, and knew right away when I tried my dress on. It is modern, sophisticated, and very me, and that's all I will say before the wedding :D

We've also ordered our cake topper, booked our DJ and photographer and are looking at florists. We've picked purple, yellow, and silver for our colors.

As I said, we've got quite a bit done for the amount of time we've been engaged, and I'm loving every minute of planning! :)

WE'RE ENGAGED!!!!

"Marry me Juliet. YOu never have to be alone. I love you, and that's all I really know. I talked to your dad, go pick out a white dress. It's a love story, baby just say yes."

Oh boy did I say yes! Here's the story :)

Tad proposed on 11/23/2010, after almost 4 and ½ years together. We’re very excited to be planning our wedding for July 23, 2011. <3

*Her Side*
For me and Tad, the answer to the question “Have you talked about getting married?” has been “yes” for a while now. Early on though, we decided we didn’t want to get engaged until we had lived in the same city for at least a few months. So when Tad moved to San Diego last December, after almost 3 and ½ years of dating, I was pretty sure I’d be getting engaged sometime this year. I just didn’t know when.

I knew he was planning it by summer, as I overheard snippets of conversations between him and my mom and my friend Raelene. I looked for hints of a proposal any time we went out starting at my birthday (in June). Yet he still managed to completely take me by surprise.

The week of Thanksgiving I was working at my internship Monday-Wednesday. I saw Tad Monday evening and was not expecting to see him again until Thanksgiving. I had class Tuesday night after work and was coming back home right after my internship on Wednesday. That being said, here’s the story. =)

I woke up bright and early (6:25) on Tuesday morning and was immediately confused. I use a travel alarm clock and am extremely regimented in where I put it. When it goes off in the morning , I jump out of bed and turn it off as fast as I can so it doesn’t disturb anyone else. My alarm clock was in a different place than I usually put it. I discovered that it was in some sort of open plastic tub, which had other stuff in it, namely feathers. My only thought while digging to get to my alarm clock was “Why the heck did Anja (my roommate) put my alarm clock in a box of feathers after I went to bed?!?”. I got the clock switched off (really hoping I hadn’t woken Anja) and set out to figure out what this mystery box of feathers was.

Again not wanting to wake my (supposedly) sleeping roommate, I took the box into the bathroom and flipped on the light. I then saw that taped to each of the feathers were pictures. Some were of me as a kid (holding my little brother as a baby, blowing bubbles, dressed as an angel for Halloween when I was six), some from high school and college (me and Raelene before prom, one of my senior pictures, my favorite picture from Romania), and some of me and Tad (our first picture together, on vacation with my family in Hawaii, celebrating his new job in San Diego). There happened to be 23 altogether: an interesting coincidence since I’m 23, he proposed on the 23rd of November, and we will be married on the 23rd of July. Looking at through the pictures, it clicked (as I became more awake) what I was looking at. In Tsubasa Chronicles, the anime series that got me interested in anime (and still by far my favorite), a princess suddenly loses all of her memories, and her childhood friend takes great risks to travel across different dimensions to find them. These memories are found in the form of feathers. Tad had found all of my feathers. I knew that the pictures were what he had asked my mom and Raelene for.

I had a minute of thinking about how sweet this was, and then remembered that I wasn’t planning to see Tad at all that day, or the next. For the second time that morning I was very confused. I wondered if maybe I wasn’t supposed to have found the box yet. Though not wanting to wake him up before 7:00 a.m., I decided I should call him. I intended to say something to the extent of “I’m confused, and I think you know why.”

Yeah, the thought didn’t even cross my mind that he could possibly be in my apartment. I threw on a sweatshirt over my pj’s, grabbed my phone, and went into the living room (once more thinking of my “sleeping” roommate).

I closed my bedroom door behind me, looking at my phone to find Tad’s entry in my recent calls list. I hit send on my phone and looked up and was momentarily startled by a figure sitting on my couch. I hung up the call when I realized it was Tad. First question “Who let you in?”, COMPLETELY confused once more. And Anja replied from the corner “That would be me.” So much for being concerned about waking her! I found out later that Anja had been enlisted to plant the picture box, let Tad in, and take pictures.

I went and sat on the couch next to him. “You have no idea what’s going on right now do you?” he asked, grinning mischeviously. “I have some idea,” I replied. Um, no, by this time I (finally for that morning) knew EXACTLY what was going on!

He handed me his stuffed Mokona (a Tsubasa character) who had a feather taped to him. I noticed another glob of tape and peeled it off to find a ring. Tad took it from me, got down on one knee, and said some very sweet things (only a few of which do I remember because I was thinking “holy cow he’s proposing” over and over again) which concluded with “Lindsey Rose Hastings, will you be my wife?”, to which I very enthusiastically replied “YES!”

I didn’t cry. I just smiled and laughed, a lot. One of the funniest things to me, besides being caught completely off guard, was that for the last couple months I have carefully planned every outfit in case of proposal, and when it actually happened, I was in my pajamas!

Tad saved me an hour on the bus by driving me to my internship, where I dragged him inside to show him and the ring off.

It was a perfect way for him to propose, and I’m so blessed to have him as a fiancé and soon-to-be husband.

*His Side*
I guess my side of the story is a lot longer than hers. For me, I'd been planning to find a way to propose to her since April. It started by finding her ring shortly after Valentine's day this year, and watching the "extra inventory" get helped out the door with a discount. Not to try and be cheap, but I was on an extremely short budget, and was hoping to get something really nice while being frugal. It worked.

As for the how, I was first going to try and get her on April 1st, being the generally silly person that I am to lure her into a sense that I was being silly the entire day about how I didn't want her as my girlfriend anymore, and then propose towards the end of the day. But I had yet to ask her dad at that point, and was working very long shifts at work; finding the time to meet with them was near impossible.

Now, on to plan two. Along with three, four, five, and several others, I felt like any good ideas I had were never going to pan out in my favor. I went through phases of modifying songs (most notably "Love Story" by Taylor Swift, knowing how much she loves it, and knowing that it would make such a big deal to her if it was made into something she would always remember. Conveniently, Lindsey Rose fits in the same relative space as Juliet).

With the talking we'd been doing about planning our wedding, (after four years, it's a natural progression), we had decided on some dates and she had wanted to get it official for planning's sake soon (being Thanksgiving). Being that I was at this point "running out of time", and having finally gotten a solid time to ask her dad, I went on to plan some way to get a complete surprise.

About half-way through June, I figured out my method of proposing. While I didn't completely decide every detail at that point, I thought that I should start the preparations. I started hunting down some pictures from her mother as well as best friend in order to get a broad spectrum of memories that she would have from throughout her entire life, not just ones since I was involved. After I had my pictures, I got them printed off, and then had some feathers ready to tape them onto. Then I grabbed my Mokona doll, taped the ring onto it, and that part was set.

The hardest part was trying to figure out how I was going to ambush her in the interest of actually surprising her. I knew she knew, and I knew she was constantly expecting me to propose any time we were together. That meant only one thing to me, early morning, preferably before she'd even left for the day. It would be even better with her telling me, at one point, that she didn't want it to be "too late". I knew that this would probably catch her completely off guard, which the way any good proposal should be. I was originally going to surprise her at work with the ring, but had to alter my course when I found out that I would need to be at work in the morning instead of at night, as I had thought.

The most nervous part for me, out of all of the various things, was definitely asking her dad (although they were both there, so it was more parents than just her dad). While I had no concern if she would say yes, I know her parents had gotten to see a really bad side of me and my life way back in the beginning of our relationship, as I was struggling with a lot of life issues at that time.

As for the actual asking her, the worst part was waiting from alarm clock going off to her coming out. While it may have only been 15-20 minutes, it definitely felt like an hour or more. I was worried my surprise was ruined when her roommate's dog barked, knowing that I was there. After she finally came out, it was a huge relief, because I wouldn't have to care about the logistics anymore, and it would finally be over. I hadn't really written out a speech in my mind, or honestly really planned the speech part out at all. The only part that mattered was the actual question to me. The irony of it all was that I thought that I was going to be the one who cried, just because I know that I had certainly not deserved her for the time I had her, even if I knew she'd say yes. The only part that I can really say was scripted was the fact that I knew I was going to ask her with her full name, and that I would ask her to be my wife, over "marry me".

It might be nit-picky, but I thought it means more to be asked to be something of that level of importance to a person, instead of just an action. You get married on a day, you get a wife for the rest of your life. And I will indeed have a wife, Lindsey Rose Tilden, and she will be mine until the day God takes us home.

Taken by my mom on Thanksgiving

The Lord is Gracious and Merciful

...slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

And he gave me another wonderful week with my wonderful boyfriend. As predicted, Spanish on Tues was painfully slow, it did however eventually end. Raeleen took me to the airport and a slightly amusing story ensued.

When we got there, Tad was still waiting for his bag, so Raeleen suggested I go in and find him and surprise him. Great idea, except that neither of us had noticed we were at the drop off section, not pick up. I was greeted with ticket counters upon entering the terminal. I called Tad and was told "ok, do us a favor, stay right where you are, I'm coming to find you." I did as I was told and several minutes later received a phone call "Are you upstairs, or down?" "Down" "No, you're upstairs." "what? no I'm not, I can see escalators going up-" At this moment I was glomped behind by a very attractive young man. Long story short, I was a level above where he was. Luckily he was smart enough to figure that out.

We had dinner in the caf with a large group of Hart people and then hung out in the lower lobby with Justine for a couple hours. Then it was time for our funk-tastic all hall. Seriously, Hart is amazing. People were dressed up like out of the 70's and it was a totally lower campus all hall. Dancing, drinking, an gambling...kinda, haha. Mel and Beardo were our fabulous "bar tenders." Shirley Temples, Sprite with margarita mix, and Sprite with rainbow sherbet. It was basically a casino night: bingo, craps, black jack, and poker (with chips, not money). And the dancing...well, some of it was choreographed, no comment on the rest. ;)

Highlights from the evening include Tad getting "drunk" off a Shirley Temple, Justine teaching me how to par-ty, "hey, stop spooning me in the lobby!", and Ryan Low singing play that funky music white boy.

Wednesday brought the opening session for Missions Conference. "Fragrance of a New Covenant" was the theme for this year. Tad, Becky, and I sat in the gym for the opening session with the parade of nations and George Verwer (our graduation speaker this year) pouring a bottle of water over his head, frying a mic. I absolutely love Missions. We switched to Crowell for the afternoon session with Marilyn Laszlo (amazing!) and checked out the mission organization booths. After dinner Tad and I took advantage of there being open hours; he napped and I worked on homework. We finished off the evening by raiding the International House of Drinks and hanging out in Eagles.

Thursday we went to a really cool seminar on missions at home in America and enjoyed the ethnic lunch on Metzger. We timed it just right to get through global awareness. This year's rooms were Uganda, Honduras, Iran, China, and Burma. Poor Valencia got very frightened in Burma because of the army kidnapping people.

The afternoon speaker was Grant Porter, an Aussie who has been working on the field in the Middle East. I slipped out a little early from the ession to get ready and go to my interview at Chapman. It went really well, and I'm rather excited to hear back from them now. The sad part was that they were running 45 minutes behind schedule, so I missed Marylin's second session. I also missed the capand gown buying time in the bookstore, but Tad was amazing enough to get mine for me, before I called to ask him to do that.

Friday morning Tad wasn't feeling well, so I went with Justine to Marilyn's final session. I really enjoyed her. I bought her book and had her sign it for me. I ended up collecting 4 books over the course of the week. After George Verwer's first session I bought "Amazing Faith" which tells little bios about a lot of different people, including George Verwer. Tad and I got "Revolution in World Missions" free from the Mission for Asia table in the missions booths. They gave out free copies of "The Skeptic's Guide to the World AIDS Crisis." And of course Marilyn's book "Mission Possible" about her work with the people in Papua New Guinea.

After lunch Tad and I got ready and met up with my friend Dave and went to meet his girlfriend (now fiance) Amy at the CSUN technology conference at the Marriott in LA. Us two couples went our separate ways to check out the exhibit halls. I found a couple of things I was veyr interested in: a *good* portable CCTV and a portable zoomtext-like program on a flashdrive. I shall look into both of these things further. The exhibits closed at 5, and at that time we went to Amy's room at the Marriott to feed our doggies. Amy has a yellow lab guide dog named Donna. Donna and Valencia were overjoyed to get to have some play time.

Once the pups had eaten, it was time for the people to. Dave drove us to Hermosa Beach where we walked the pier. It was overcast, but still beautiful. I will never get over how amazingly gorgeous the ocean is. One of Dave's friends from back home in Wisconsin, A.J. met us for dinner at a seafood place called "Sangria." Amy and I discovered that the couples had ordered the same things. Amy and I both got shrimp scampi and Tad and Dave both got chicken picante.

Anyway, so Dave's friend A.J. does a comedy magic sketch at the Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach (the club where Jay Leno presents his weekly sketches) and offered to get us in for free to the show that night. We certainly couldn't have said no to that! We had a little while to wait after dinner and move our group to get gelato. It was very tasty! The show was really enjoyable. I was very happy that all but one of the comedians had very clean routine's. After the show we got our picture taken with Larry Miller, the headliner, dropped Amy off at her hotel, and returned to Biola.

Saturday and Sunday were a little dull, as they were spent catching up on all the homework I hadn't been doing. Sunday we did get to church at Redeemer and had lunch at Panera with Kathleen. And (to my inevitable sadness) Tad flew home yesterday.

So yes, a very, very fun week. I'll post pictures in another entry, as this one is plenty long enough already :o)

Patience

A virtue that I struggle with, and one that God has been steadily working on in my life, especially in these past months. I struggle with being patient both with people, and with God. Today my patience in both was put to the test.

I have now had Valencia for almost 6 months (hard to believe!) Having a seeing eye dog brings a great deal of attention, which has its advantages and disadvantages. I have discovered that one of the most frustrating things to me is lack of knowledge concerning laws about service animals. I have now encountered resistance to Valencia's presence in a public business 3 times. Once at a Thai restaurant. Over this past weekend at DSW. And today when I went to get a pedicure.

In the first two occasions, I attempted to remain calm and polite, but became extremely frustrated extremely quickly. However, my family has an established relationship with the people at this salon, is that what you call it? The lady we go to for pedicures is a very sweet person who likes our family. In the previous situations, I was ready in a few seconds to just have them call the police and be told that they were wrong. But I really didn't want to give these people all that trouble. So, mustering every ounce of patience I could, I very carefully explained, several times that no, I was not going to leave Valencia outside, even though people are sometimes scared or allergic to dogs, because federal laws in this country say that Valencia is allowed anywhere the general public is.

In the end, after several consultations with the owner, it was conceded that yes, Valencia could wait patiently next to the spa chair during my pedicure. And I have been rewarded with very pretty toenails, and no unnecessary police encounters.

Patience test #2 arrived today when I came home and discovered on facebook that a friend from high school is now engaged. This is not a huge surprise, she and her now fiance have been together for over 2 years. But that darn petty little part in my brain says "You've been dating for 2 months longer than they have, you should be the one to be engaged first!" But the world doesn't work that way. God's timing is different in everyone's lives, but the one thing that remains the same is that His timing is perfect. It is not time for me to be engaged, not matter how much longer Tad and I have been together than another couple. I need to accept this and be happy for what God is doing in other's lives, and what He is doing right now in my life.

This second one is a major work in progress. I suspect it will be one God and I are working on in my life long after I get engaged. There's always something more to want. I need to learn contentment. Please pray for this in my life, it's something I should perhaps consider making a New Year's resolution. Also, any suggestions on books involving patience and such would be appreciated.