Marriage Councelling

One of the requirements of getting married in a church is that we have to attend a marriage retreat where we'll be discussing a variety of topics related to being married, including sexuality, money, family, etc. It's to designed to get us talking about the "big" issues and make sure we're on the same page for our future together. This is in addition to the PMI (pre-marital inventory) test that we took back in January and scored 93% on it. Fr. Mark pointed out that we are one of the oldest (or did he said oddest....) of the 8 couples going to the retreat so it's not surprising that we scored so high. One of the other couples at the marriage retreat scored 20%. I can't wait to meet them tonight....

I just hope we're not stuck with any real churchy people.

Engagement photos

Our fabulous photographer Chelsey included engagement photos as part of her photography services for the wedding. Since it was included in the price, it'd be stupid not to do it! We agreed that after Christmas would be better, and then I got busy in January with my defense and my thesis revisions, and then the weather turned horrible, and then...well, there was always something that would come up. So, I emailed Chelsey and said "How about next weekend? Let's hope that the weather is nice." It was a random weekend that the three of us were free, so we met at Kil-Cona park, just off the Harbour View Golf Course in Transcona. The photo session was surprisingly fun. Chelsey's really laid back so we could just be goofy. I didn't really want lots of stylized posed photos of us looking awkward. I'd rather us look like us, so we have pictures of him throwing snowballs at me, me slipping on the ice and him "helping" me up (but more like pushing me around), me jumping on him for a piggy-back ride, playing on the swingsets, etc etc. She had some great ideas too, so we brought out mugs of hot coffee had close-up pictures of us canoodling in a tree with the steam coming out of the cups. I haven't got the proofs yet, but I'm sure that in the hour that we were knee-deep in snow, she managed to get a few pictures of us that don't make us look too dorky! One of the neatest things was the frozen pond next to the club house. The ice was perfectly clear and there were sections where a column of bubbles had frozen in the ice. Chelsey took photos of the frozen bubbles with my ring on top. I can't wait to see that picture!

The reason we drove across the city to go to Kil-Cona was that it was the site of our first "real" date. Not that we hadn't gone out on a date, but our first date was to Pizza Hut and renting movies from Blockbuster, and having a bbq at Derek and Faith's house for his birthday. Going to Kil-Cona park was our first romantic, out in public, new couple in love, afternoon together. Here's a pic from that afternoon taken in the paddleboat with his cellphone camera. Paddleboating with someone that can squat 200lbs isn't easy. The boat keeps going in circles!! :)