My weekend plans

Ram and I are going away without the boys for the first time in over 7 years-longer if you count my pregnancy with Lamb 1. We leave early in the morning and will come back on Monday. Packing for just myself was so easy! It will be so nice to travel tomorrow without any interruptions in our conversation and without stopping multiple times for bathroom breaks for one of the Lambs.
We asked the Loopers that are former Saint Louis residents for advice on where to eat dinner. After several suggestions most suggested The Spaghetti Factory. We have had a few dates to one local restaurant, a few dates in Fort Wayne when we visited my parents, but other than that we have never gone out without the boys.
I don't think anything could top being together with my beloved for 5 whole days, but there will be several friends there too. Two college friends (Leah and Jennifer), at least 2 Loopers with some other Loopers possible, one blog friend that I've never met in real life, one other local pastor here, and I'm sure there will be others that I know that I don't even know are going. Then on the way home we are going to stop to see another college friend (Karla) and we're trying to work out the details to stop and see the family of the flower girl from our wedding.
Where are we going? To Doxology. The first session was just for the pastor and Ram attended that in June. This session the pastor and his wife goes. The next session in February the pastor and some leaders from our tri-parish will go. Ram has only attended one session and he loved it. Others that have gone to the pastor/wife session have told me that I will love this. If you are LCMS, encourage your pastor to check out Doxology and help your pastor find a way financially and to take some time off to attend. Next year there are plans to have Doxology sessions in 3 different areas of the country.
We don't have a laptop or smart phone, but I'll be sure to take my camera and I'm sure I'll have lots to blog with you when I get back. We are so thankful to my parents for watching the Lambs, to the tri-parish for allowing us to attend, and to the Doxology leaders that organized this.

Weddings

DakotaPam posted about the royal wedding on her blog here. We don't have TV, but I did look at some photos of the day. After reading her post, I decided to watch the wedding on hulu.com. Ram made fun of me a little because I had joked about the wedding earlier in the day. It seemed so ironic that Americans were so thrilled to watch this on TV when it wasn't so long ago that Americans fought for their rights to get away from being subjects of the same royalty that they were watching on TV!
I was glad to watch it later, I never would have got up in the middle of the night to watch the wedding. (Although there was a minor earthquake not too far from us that night that I think woke Lamb 3 and it took me a little while to get him settled back in bed so I could have watched it.)
What surprised me was how much the royal wedding reminded me of my own wedding. There were glimpses through the whole wedding that reminded me of December 29, 2001. Her bouquet was made of lily of the valley, which I love. As a little girl I tended to the lily of the valley in our yard to assure it came up each spring. I had a perfume that smelled like lily of the valley that I loved. I couldn't have lily of the valley because I was married in December. In fact the small white flower that I chose froze that year and the florist improvised because she didn't have what I requested. My bouquet ended up being much bigger than I had imagined. I would have loved a small bouquet like Catherine's.
I loved Catherine's dress partly because her dress reminded me of my dress. Of course my train wasn't as long as hers, but I had a long train. I had long sleeve lace sleeves like hers. I wore a tiara with a veil in the back. Ram's tux looked English, like what Prince Charles would wear.
Being LCMS, the church service reminded me at least in structure of our wedding service. My wedding was held here (sorry the website is under construction now, but at least you can see a photo). It was a very high church wedding. The pastor that married us wrapped his stole around our hands as we knelt just like the bishop did for William and Catherine. I think there were more pastors/seminarians involved in our wedding service than the wedding party. The school children were invited to our wedding and the congregation was invited to sing the Lord's Prayer and the Te Deum with the school children leading. Of course the church wasn't as big as Westminster Abbey, but it seemed like a long aisle to go down myself and a big beautiful historic church.
I found the "confession" part of the service very interesting. Our wedding service wasn't as blunt as that, but my dad preached the sermon and he had a confession and absolution for Ram and I as part of the sermon.
The commentary talked about how Catherine seemed much more relaxed when they came out after they went in the back room and signed the papers. She seemed to enjoy the rest of the ceremony/day and not be so nervous. My dad said something to me when we got to the end of the aisle after processing in that made me cry. I didn't have a chance to wipe the tears away until we went in the back room to sign the papers. (Our church had us go to the side chapel and sign the marriage license while the congregation sang a hymn in the middle of the wedding service.) The pastor back there cracked some jokes back there while we were signing papers. I came back without tears and could concentrate on enjoying the rest of the service.
For my own wedding, the only "mistake" that we caught was the flowers we ordered for the alter sat in the back room and were never put on the altar. We were married at Christmas so there were enough Christmas trees and poinsettias that no one missed the one more bouquet of flowers that was supposed to be there. It seemed as if everything went perfectly for the royal wedding. If there were mistakes they were very minor. I'm happy for them that everything went so well.
I'm so glad that there was an event that was watched all over the world that was a Christian event with Jesus' name mentioned several times. Even if it is all for show and no matter how the marriage turns out, I'm glad that Christ's name was proclaimed proudly at Westminster Abbey.
My next question is how many babies will be named Catherine or William in the near future?

November 6, 2000

It's hard to believe this was 10 years ago...

Ram organized for my friend Karen to kidnap me for an hour. We went to a book store while Ram was busy at my house. I remember being mildly worried to leave a guy that I had just met a few months before at my house by himself! He made supper of pork chops, baked potatoes, broccoli, and wine. When I came back there was a rose on my plate and a candlelit dinner ready.
After dinner he took me in my bedroom. My house was only 800 square feet total. There was only the kitchen, living room where we also ate, small bathroom, my bedroom, and my office. He had arranged roses on the bed with a card in the middle. Under the birthday card was a card from the florist. On the card from the florist he had written, "Will you marry me?" He pulled the ring out of his pocket and kissed me. He showed me the wedding band. We called his parents and then we went across town to show my parents. His parents were impressed that he made dinner when he had done very little cooking before that. I was impressed that he borrowed some items to make supper/set the table from his friends because he couldn't ask me where I kept things or it wouldn't have been a surprise. He was teased because he never ASKED me to marry him, he just wrote a note. A week later when he had my ring resized he got down on his knee and asked me to marry him. I said "YES"and got more kisses!
The next day after he proposed was my birthday. He had to work so my parents took me out to eat for my birthday without him. I don't think I did very much teaching on my birthday-I had to show everyone my ring. I remember one mom dropped her son off for school and I showed her and she was shocked. She ran home and got a gift for me both because it was my birthday and because I got engaged. She couldn't believe I was engaged when she hadn't even met him at any church or school events. I didn't tell her that our first date was in September and we got engaged in November! I still have her gift and we're still in contact.
I kept my engagement a secret until Ram and I went to visit my sister the following week for her birthday. It was really hard to keep that a secret from her for a week. A few weeks later Ram left for his vicarage for a year in the New Orleans area.

I recently realized...

that Ram and I are going to be apart for the longest we have ever been apart since our wedding day when he goes to Synodical Convention in July. I'm very glad that he was nominated to go, but I will miss him. Our Lambs are Papa's boys, and especially Lamb 3 is going to miss him. Thankfully my parents are coming and hopefully we can fit in a trip to the zoo or something fun to get our minds off of missing Ram! I didn't want to go along to convention because of the heat, cost for our family, and Ram would be busy all day every day.

I was trying to remember when we have been apart and this list doesn't count 1 or 2 day pastor conferences or something like that. Most pastor conferences our family goes along.
*Ewe's 2003 trip to relist our house in Fort Wayne to sell it
*Ewe and Lamb 1 went to my grandma's funeral
*Lamb 1 and Ewe went to my sister's college graduation
*Ewe and the Lambs went to Lamb 2's godfather's wedding last summer
*Ram went to two funerals this year without us, but those were fast trips of just going out there and attending the funeral and coming home.
I may be forgetting a trip, but it doesn't even come out to once a year since we've been married 8 1/2 years!

Ideas wanted

I am invited to a bridal shower where I don't know the bride at all. I need an idea for a present. I don't want to mess with a registry, because we live so far from stores and I don't want to pay shipping for online. I'm wanting to get her something that won't just be given to Goodwill eventually. I'm extra cautious about this because when a relative got married, they were not excited about registering for their wedding like I was. They didn't plan to cook a lot but they were "expected" to register for a lot of kitchen stuff. She didn't know what they were going to do with all that kitchen stuff. I don't know this bride at all and I wonder if it is the same way. Once I gave a pizza stone because I figured even if they didn't make homemade pizza on it, they could put frozen pizza on it! Please leave a comment with any ideas-I don't have time to sew something or do something crafty.

Wordless Wednesday-Date Night

Ram and Ewe's date

Last Saturday, while my parents were here, we put the Lambs to bed a little early and went out without them. First we went to church, Easter Vigil service, about 45 minutes away. It was wonderful to be at that whole long service without any Lambs to watch during the service! I love the Easter Vigil service-they had a small fire pit outside and then the beautiful readings and Holy Communion and some of my favorite hymns.
Then we were the last customers at this local Italian restaurant (in the same town as the church). We had lobster dip and this fancy chocolate dessert. It was so wonderful to have hot cheese dip (Lamb 1 hates hot cheese) and our chocolate dessert had small pieces of toffee on top (Lamb 1 can't have because of his caps on his teeth). The staff was busy getting ready for an Easter buffet so we pretty much had the restaurant to ourselves. Then we still had the 45 minute car ride home.
We haven't even gone out without the Lambs once a year in the past 6 years. I could name our few dates since Lamb 1 was born-one movie while we were at my parents when Lamb 1 was a toddler; once or maybe twice out to eat when my parents watched Lamb 1 and 2 before Lamb 3 was born; one day out to a bookstore and out to eat with just Lamb 3 while my parents watched Lamb 1 and 2; and once out to eat with just Lamb 3 while my parents watched Lamb 1 and 2. I have a babysitter come once a week and I attempt to get something done while she is here. She has offered to babysit for us to go out for an evening. I think we'll have to take her up on that deal! The Lambs love our babysitter too.
I expected Lamb 3 to have the most difficult time with us gone because we had never left him and both gone out (with the exception of my doctor visits a few months ago while Ram was at his grandpa's funeral). Lamb 3 just laid in his bed very quiet until he fell asleep. Lamb 2 was his usual pain at bedtime-going to the bathroom several times before he settled down. Lamb 1 was the one that had a total fit when he figured out we left. "I want my Mama!" Grandpa was able to talk to him calmly and soon after his talk with Grandpa he also fell asleep. Grandpa and Grandma were glad to babysit and give us a chance to go out. Grandma was glad that Grandpa was able to calm Lamb 1 down!
We were all exhausted after Easter morning services, especially because we had been out late on Saturday night, but Ram and I thought our date night was worth the exhaustion the next day!

Holy Sex

I can't believe I just commented on this blog on this topic. I closed my eyes when I hit the submit button before sending my comment. I'm sure I'll think of more to add today, but it's time for school with the Lambs now.