A Great Week End

I suppose it depends on how you view it - it's either a great end to a week or a fantastic beginning to a week!

Either way - what a nice Sunday evening!

Itzhak Perlman and the CSO 

At Ravinia

 Crowded but... With friends and a picnic 

With a glass of wine 

If I'm ever ready for Monday, it would be now!

A Perfect Story

Ok - I'm back!  Sorry the long lull but I'm here and I have a post...

And it's all because of a perfect story that God wrote a long time ago.

And like so many perfect stories, it starts with...

Once upon a time there was a boy and there was a girl...

This boy was pretty special because he actually won the heart of a girl that had kind of thought she was would be single forever and was starting to be acclimated to that thought!  But like a true Prince, he came in and was kind and patient and gentle and treated the girl with so much respect and so much honesty and so much care that she started to like him .... a lot!  And then one day she liked him so much that, like a true fairy tale, she couldn't help but fall in love with him!

So there they both were, in deep like and finding love growing.  And they started exploring doing life together in little ways, and really liked it.  And then started diving in a little deeper, and some of it hurt and some of it was fun, and overall - it was pretty great!  And then a year or so went by and great turned to amazing and the boy and girl kind of started feeling like,  when one went away for a week or a day, things just didn't feel right.  The boy and the girl started spending more and more time together and all their friends and family and even people that were just acquaintances started asking the boy ... So when are you going to stop saying goodbye to your girl(friend:) every night?!

Poor Prince Charming!  How much he endured from so many of you!:)

And then a week ago, on a hot and bright Monday, early evening in Florida, while visiting the boys home and family - a surprise trip was planned for the girl.  They both got in the car and drove from Ponte Vedra to Amelia Island and the only information given to the girl was "bring water shoes!"

So she did...

And as she sat holding her water shoes they drove up to a boat ramp in downtown Amelia Island and saw a truck loaded with kayaks!  The girl was pretty excited:)

The boy said "I have a private kayak excursion planned for us!"

So they met Amber and her dad and they were fitted for kayaks and life jackets ...

And then they set out....

And they paddled and paddled, and then Amber pointed to one side and said - "do you know what that house is?  It's the house they made the Pippi Longstocking movie in!"  And the girl got really excited - and the boy - not so much ... :)

And they paddled some more and almost an hour after they left the boat launch they got to a little uninhabited island and Amber and her dad said "hey!  Why don't we go over to that beach and you can look around on Tiger Island!"

So the three kayaks pulled up to the beach...

And the boy and the girl got out and Amber said "you should just walk down the beach there and see if you can see the wild horses."

And so the boy and the girl walked down the beach...

And then they couldn't walk any further and so they turned back.

And when they got back by the kayaks, Ambers dad said "you should look over by that stick, I think I saw a horseshoe crab over there."

And so the boy and girl walked over to look and the girl thought "what's that in the sand?  I wonder if the horseshoe crab was kicking up a fuss in the sand?"

And then they walked closer and the girl thought "wha?...."

And as she was trying to figure out what was in the sand, the girl turned to look at the boy, and the boy was down on one knee in the sand...

And then all of a sudden the girl saw a word in the sand - just one word...

And the girl started to cry...

And the boy asked her the question in the sand...

And of course she was so much in like and so much in love with the boy that ....

She said yes to his question!

And they immediately started to plan to live happily ever after!!!!:)

And as they kayaked back to their car, the girl tried to act indifferent but every time she looked over she saw the boy smiling at her with a huge smile... And she had to smile back bigger than she's ever smiled!

So there you have the perfect engagement story topped off by the setting sun ... And the most memorable evening ever!

Thanks to Amber and Mark at Amelia Island Kayak Excursions (whose Facebook page you can look up and go to July 18th "She Said Yes" album to see a plethora of pictures!

And thank you to every single one of you who have prayed for us and encouraged us and loved us and have shown us how to love God and each other!  You are examples and lights to us and we're so excited to share this part of our lives with you!

We're planning on having a smaller wedding down in Florida in April and then we'll come back up and have another wedding party a month or so later to share with so many many of our friends/family in IL and other places!