Nothing takes away the blood thumping in your ears or the pounding of your heart.  To sit and take an oath upon a bible while the people you love and hate bore their eyes into you is scary.  To attempt to swallow and wet your throat so you can gasp for that next bit of air is ruthless.  I had never wanted to run so fast in my life.  On the outside, to everyone else, I just sat still on a witness stand in a black suit.  I raised my right hand, nodded yes and glanced at Dustin for something, anything…Dear God, help us.  Help HER.  If there was ever one moment….Dustin just nodded at me and we both just KNEW, here it goes, it may have been me on that stand but it was OUR life.  The THREE of us…

You know he never asked to be in this position.  He wasn’t the best husband, obviously, but he was a great Dad.  He still is.  If there is one other priority besides his work, it is that Bear.  As a baby, Bear woke constantly in the middle of the night courtesy of being a marijuana baby.  She was awful,  there is no denying it.  Walking and waking hours upon hours and my heart just couldn’t handle it.  While I spent days with her the nights were their time together.  I could try to get up with her at night but she would stop crying long enough to inform me “da da, da da!”  I took the hint as I went back to bed and he picked her up so they could dance up and down the dark hallways at 3am.  It was their time.  Never once did he complain. 

I sat on that stand trying not to cry while everyone took their seats, while my fate was being settled into one moment and the lawyers started questioning me one by one.  Who I was, what I thought, my past present and future while Bio Mom looked on with glares.  There were points the judge would stop and want to ask me a question and I would answer quietly.  If I could take back anything, if I could go back and do anything it would be on that stand.  I have guilt in those moments to this day, major guilt, that I didn’t do it right, not good enough.  I was scared.  I was fucking scared and I don’t know if I fought hard enough.  I don’t know if I pushed like I should have.  There was only one other time I felt that…and that was in my divorce.  I forgave myself over time for that.  When I look at Bear now, I don’t know if I forgaie myself, in fact, I know I haven’t. 

That first time on the stand I remember looking at Dustin, the man working his ass off for us to do this and I walked back to my seat feeling I had failed.  It wasn’t just that day either, court crushed me EVERY fucking day I walked in there.  Months of preparation, I was so far into a depression I think it failed me in court and the only thing getting me out of bed in the mornings was Dustin and Bear.

Our first court day I walked through security with Lawyer, my Mom and Dustin. We had to wait outside the court room for over an hour in which I ran to the bathroom somewhere around 10 times to puke, my nerves had the best of me.  Bio Mom sat on a bench on one side of the door flanked by her entourage and me on the other side by mine. Dustin would hold my hand and fidget, my Mom would remain calm and make small talk with hometown gossip.  Anything to make it seem like that day wasn’t what it truly was.

Talk about never-ending tension. 

The people watching sucked and the vision of people in orange jumpsuits and handcuffs walking around was enough to make me sit up straight and not even want to take the Lord’s name in vain. 

Whatever case was happening inside the chamber that day took up the entire day and we never got a chance to set foot inside.  But Lawyer was paid for his pacing and time on the phone with other clients.  Eventually we would become the case that took up entire days with people waiting outside and never getting a chance in.  Fair is fair I guess.

That first chance of walking into the chambers and taking my seat was gut wrenching.  Nothing about it felt right and I would never recommend it.  Thank God our divorce happened in a completely other courthouse or Dustin and I may not have even gone through with it.  I go back to that moment every time the news shows the dingy, dark brown inside. I suppose the place isn’t meant to feel inviting, covered in rainbows and glitter but it was really depressing.

I sat at the front table with Lawyer to my left, our supporters in the seats behind us.  They may as well have been five miles away, I felt naked and lonely while I fought back tears.  The judge sat up on his fucking throne looking all judgemental and you could hear a pin drop if need be. It iwas the tick tock on the clock, the sniffle, the tiny inhale that meant life was happening somwhere, just not here. Here it was just purgatory.  Life on pause, again.

You stood when told, you sat when told, and I attempted to look like I knew what I was doing. I mainly learned I never wanted to be a lawyer and that I would never think highly of judges. In the beginning it was just the lawyers talking, submitting the evidence that took us months, blood, sweat and tears to collect.  Evidence that I though surely the judge would be floored by but hell if that man was even fully awake.  Nothing excited that man.  I wanted to scream at him when evidence was submitted that we collected by having a private investigator, didn’t he know that cost us $150 an hour that night?  Didn’t he know we sat by the phone all night?  Didn’t he know we worried?  The FUCKING WORRY, DID HE NOT GET IT??

Clearly he didn’t.

I wanted that judge to feel what I felt, instead of looking at me like a pathetic 23-year-old wasting his time.  Did he not realize how much I didn’t want to waste his time and HE was wasting MY time?  This was costing me a fucking fortune for him to take his time.  This was costing a baby Bear, quite possibly, her life.  Didn’t he know EVERY second counted.

He didn’t.

Again, I wanted Lawyer to assume all responsibility.  I wanted him to make everything okay and tell that judge what the fuck was up but I knew by then, that would never happen.  Bio Mom and I still had to take the stand.  We had to answer the questions, state the facts and act like it was all black and white and it was killing me inside.  By the time we hit that court room I was a fucking mess, we were a fucking mess.

Keep Bear safe. 

Not a day went by when this wasn’t all in our minds.  We worked with private investigators.  We worked with other lawyers and we did whatever we were told to help.  We gave every inch of our lives to her.  All of this, this is the stuff I wouldn’t know how to relay to you.  I don’t know how to put out there every detail, every meeting, every phone call, every late night. There was a conversation for every possibility.  We had to have an answer for everything. 

Christmas came and Dustin and I were engaged.  That seemed to be a black mark on us with the trial, not being engaged or married, so it seemed right.  Our families were pushing for us to be engaged, to put our minds on something else.  We celebrated and everyone seemed thrilled to have something positive to look forward too.  In our hearts though we just couldn’t set a date until the rest of our lives calmed down.  Much to everyone’s dismay we put any thoughts of a wedding on the back burner.

We were almost a year into this and were finally getting ready to go to court.  You read that right, ONE year THEN court. 

Life pretty much fucking sucked but we were doing the best we could.

I remember Lawyer telling us who our judge was going to be and he didn’t seem thrilled.  This judge would later let a juvenile free from a psych ward that would then walk into a mall and randomly shoot and kill 8 people.  To say I think this judge is a piece of shit is underestimating it.  I don’t have a lot of respect for him or the county in which we held our case.

At any rate this was what we had prepared for.  I was advised court would be a slow process and it wasn’t like TV.  We had our witnesses lined up, we had prayed, we had begged, we had done everything we could. 

It was time to go before a judge.

No matter how the story ends with Dustin and I we knew what we had to do for Bear.  The timeline in my head gets a bit off with all of this but at one point Dustin and I did break up.  We still lived together but weren’t together.  Yea, makes total sense I know.  Our lives were not like our friends.  Everyone else was in full on wedding mode, settling down, working on careers and truly just enjoying life.  Most friends just didn’t full understand what we were going through and struggled with how to be supportive or how to understand.  Plus, I hated reiterating everything to them day in and day out for them to share a stupid solution….like I hadn’t been through the basics yet.  Basically we didn’t have a lot in common so and Dustin and I were struggling to feel grounded. 

Basically we were a hot mess. 

Our families were there even though most of mine had the line drawn.  I already had my Mom in the mess of it all and she was going through her own issues with it all. I hated putting so much on her.

Once Dustin and I did get back together, everyone pushed the fact that we should be joining the ranks and getting married.  We got back together because we were all each other knew by that point.  While we used the break up to provide us with a chance to pretend our problems didn’t exist, it didn’t work.  I believe we truly loved each other at this point. It may not haev been perfect but we did have love.

Dustin worked his ass off.  He wanted to do everything he could on his end to pull us through court and what we were doing was costing us a fortune that we didn’t have.  I dove head first into taking care of everything else but it got to the point where I couldn’t hold up my end of the deal with my agency and had to shut it down.  Bill offered to keep me in the district office with part-time work for some sanity.  For those of you that have been with me for a long time on this blog, do you see how one thing goes to another?  To this day I feel like I drove Dustin so hard to work on making that money that he just never knew how to let up.  But then again there is a lot that I wonder about if we had never gone through with any of this.

Dustin and I would sit at night exhausted going over things.  Our kitchen table littered wtih documents and reserach. I would be lying if I said we always remained on the same team.  There was fighting and blame placed because we needed someone to hate.  Yes, we took it out on each other from time to time but always came back together. We lost our glue that held us together and had made us, US. It was a lonely world without the other person.

I remember one day missing Bear so bad I sat on the floor of her room, curled in a ball, holding her baby blanket just sobbing.  The kind where you feel like you are going to puke.  All her toys were starting to collect dust and life seemed on pause.  When children are kidnapped or die young, I don’t completely understand but, I have an idea of what that parent goes through.  Life on pause.  I just needed to feel the weight of her in my arms, trace her chubby fingers with mine. Breathe her in.  Whisper in her ear I was trying everything for her.  Dustin came home from work to find me there.  He just sat next to me and started silently crying.  He didn’t break down often but he did that night.  We sat there for a long time, surrounded by smiling Pooh and Tigger, as the sun set, just sobbing.  A 23 yr old and 24 yr old just trying to tackle the worst case scenario. 

We got up the next day and just did it all over again because what other choice did we have.  We just learned to take it one day at a time together. But the point is Dustin and I did it all together and there is truly no way I could have done it without him. 

Depositions…

Imagine sitting across the table from someone you have come to have actual hatred for.  Actual hatred. 

I would sit in a bare office across the table from Bear’s bio Mom and her lawyer with my Lawyer sitting to my left. Always to my left.  Bio Mom’s lawyer looked a lot like the Monopoly man but scummier.  (That is a word, I swear) He actually looked a lot like someone who was a loan shark in some nasty, back alley, strip club. 

Being deposed meant I had to sit for hours being questioned by the scum lawyer and I had to answer with as little information as possible, even better, with a simple yes or no.  A woman about my age sat at the end of the table recording everything and I used to wonder how simple her life must be compared to mine when we would walk out the doors at night.

The point of a deposition is to gather information to build a case to use in court.  I had to build a case against bio Mom saying she was worthless and they in turn were building a case against Dustin and I saying we were more worthless.  You can see how this would get fucking annoying after some time.  They would nit pick apart every penny we made, our bills, degrees, our families and parents incomes.  Everything was laid on the table.  Naked and exposed.  Me against her. Then my Lawyer would hit bio Mom repeatedly with questions and she would inevitably have some sort of anxiety attack and we would have to quit early.

Wuss.

It was at one of these depositions I learned bio Mom had at one time gone to the police with Bear and demanded to file a report that Dustin had done something to Bear.  Sexual abuse. We had never heard of this prior to that moment because, thank God, they realized bio Mom was fucking psycho and there was no case.  If you ever want to practice self-restraint this would be it.  This is where I learned composure, this is where I learned to not forget to breathe.  This is where I learned not to reach across a table and strangle someone with my bare hands.  Fucking bitch.

Bio Mom would act like Janelle on Teen Mom claiming how great of a fucking Mom she was because she change a diaper once last week AND managed to not be high that day.  You would think all of this would be pretty black and white to a judge.  Apparently it isn’t. 

These depositions were draining.  Let me say that once more, DRAINING. We would walk out and Lawyer and I would stand in the parking lot discussing what just happened and what the first step would be.  I always needed details on the next step so I wouldn’t dwell on the step that just happened. 

Then I was on my own.

Losing my composure in the truck.

These weren’t times when I could bring a friend for support.  Dustin and I had roles to play and he was working his ass off to pay for this debacle and I worked my ass off to make it not a fiasco.  We did what each of us could do.  I would call Dustin when they were over and he would hide in some back office at work while I replayed every minute and he would stop and ask me questions as I went.  They were often questions I wished I had asked Lawyer but Dustin’s head could always think clearer than mine.  He always took it well, never acted like I could have done better. When we were both home at night we would replay it all once again.  

Those depositions were typed up and page after page is tucked away in a box 10 feet away from me in the closet.  I don’t know if I could stomach reading them.  I don’t know if I could stomach all over again the things bio Mom put against Dustin.  Things that were hardly touched on in court because they had no merit but they were never the less said and for a man who chose to raise a baby without questions, well, he didn’t fucking deserve any of that.  

This was all just laying a foundation for court though.  We were no where near done.

Hiring the lawyer felt like it should be the same way.  In a scary moment and he was the equal to Mommy coming to save the day.  He was going to take over and fix it all.  Boy was I wrong.  I had no idea how this worked.  It wasn’t a small accident. It was big time.  I can’t remember how many times I had to go in and sit with Lawyer to go over this and that.  His paralegal (I think that is what you call them) and I became close. I would sneak out of meetings constantly to take a phone call from them that would cost me another $120.  I would run to their office to sign this paper or that and I became the biggest sneak.  I found all sorts of information.  Because let me tell you, you need lots of information.

I learned the hard way how much evidence you need.  Proof.  I was never one to watch court shows on TV but I remember wishing I had.  Lawyer said get a private investigator and I did.  He pulled court records and I stayed up late at night reading them and then reiterating them to Dustin.  Filling him in on every move every free second he had at work.  In between I built my insurance agency client by client while keeping my mouth shut on it all to everyone I worked with. 

Slowly my life was becoming wrapped into its own.  Dustin and I were in a world no one else could enter or understand.  Fuck, we barely understood.  The storm winds were building to hurricane force winds, swirling around us.  In between all that we had to pretend we were normal people who didn’t miss their child with this enormous force.  Nights were spent with me crying into my pillow wishing my Mom, my lawyer, just anyone could fix it and make it better. 

I couldn’t just hand over responsibility to the lawyer and hope for the best.  Just as much was riding on my shoulders which was almost worse.  I wouldn’t have anyone to blame in the end if things didn’t work out for the best. It was the weight that started slowly crushing both Dustin and I. Life was hard and there was no break from it.  Bear was gone, the concern for her was heart wrenching.  The bills were coming in.  I had a business to start and Dustin was working his way up at his job.  There was no one big enough to come along and make it all better.  Just like that we were grown ups dealing with far more than most grown ups ever do.

I didn’t know the last moment I would hold my baby Bear in my arms.  Quite frankly I couldn’t even tell you to this day when that last moment came before the storm.  The beginning seemed simple with Lawyer.  Dustin and I sat and answered even more questions while gripping hands, hoping we were answering correctly.  Lawyer scribbled notes and I’m sure he explained everything.  He was good at that but all that produced a document so bio Mom would be served with the knowledge that we wanted custody.  I KNOW I didn’t allow myself to think about the outcome because sometimes it is easier. 

So to this day I don’t know the last day I held Bear before she was gone from us for over a year.  Yes, we would see her in spurts but nothing was the same.  The baby we had raised was now being held from us because her bio Mom and guardian were served and they saw us as a threat.  This was it.  We were going in for the battle.  There was no turning back. 

To this day I can’t look at court documents without wanting to vomit.  Black and white letters put in such a way on a paper with such power.  That is why Dustin dealt with the lawyer and paperwork for our divorce, he knew I couldn’t do it.  It was his turn.  I couldn’t take another court document that changed lives. 

The process had begun and the rumors and hatred began to spread through my family.  Years from now, when I’m long gone, someone will do our genealogy and wonder who fucked up the whole family.  It was me.  I tore my Mother’s family apart.  Simply put.  A line was drawn and shots were being taken.  I can look back and tell you now what those moments of legal documents being sent out meant.  It meant my Mom’s siblings, all 7 of them, would never go home all together for Christmas.  Grandma would be fought over, turns would be taken while Grandpa was in the hospital and one huge irish family would never speak to one another again. It stands true to this day.

Just like that life changes.  I wouldn’t have wanted to know every moment I changed.  I’m sure I never will.  I didn’t just change me and Dustin’s life with that first document, I changed the course of everyone’s life.  I just had to keep telling myself that I changed the most important life…..Bear. 

There Dustin and I stood on our own island.  Us against the world.  Over and over there was no turning back from simply having a baby placed in your arms. Hell, it was only the beginning. Better yet….it was just the beginning of our own hell.

Have you ever had to try to find a lawyer?  It seems one will always need a lawyer when in a pinch and time is precious.  They can see you weak, across the desk from them, looking for a life raft.  I had never even spoken to a lawyer in my life, I didn’t even know what a retainer fee was.  Not to mention just trying to get past the front desk to get an appointment with one.  I thought they were suppose to help, not be unreachable.   I didn’t have a lot of faith going in.  Hell, no one cared to help us up to that point, why should I expect anyone now?

By this point Dustin was well into his job, I had studied and passed all license exams for insurance along with starting my own agency.  We were college graduates using our degrees and paying our bills while having a life at home that consisted of a fucking hurricane with non-stop worry. At this time Dustin and I were good.  We were the only ones on the same team fighting a rather lonesome battle. Since his job took up the most time and I had a more flexible schedule I designated myself to find the lawyer.  Plus, Bear was technically my family and we figure that was an important factor.

I think I started by googling.  Family lawyers?  That sounded about right.  I did some research.  Was anyone else in the same boat as us?  The closest was the classic Grandparents getting custody from the nutty daughter.  Not second cousin of child with a boyfriend fresh from college.  Nope, we weren’t the norm.  I just started jotting down names and numbers and went down the list calling and hoping.  It was narrowed down by what paralegal wasn’t a bitch and who was willing to politely listen to me and then what lawyer was willing to give me a free consultation.  ( They act like they are so  fucking generous to do this.)

I went to them all, one by one.  The second to last lawyer sat in his office and literally told me to give it up.  Basically laughing at me saying it was useless and we didn’t have a case.  This is how kids have it these days he told me.  The bio Mom has rights.  I was already sick of hearing that but I was learning it was never the kids being protected it was always the bio parents.  That asshole actually wrote a number on a piece of paper and slid it across the desk to me.  A retainer of $5,000.  I think I said something along the lines of go fuck yourself and then sat in my truck in the parking lot with tears running down my face.  I still had to go back to work.  I still had to call Dustin and fill him in on the latest.  This was what my life had become.  Drying the tears before I walked in to work and continued to build my business from scratch.  I would continue this crying in the parking lot scene for almost two years.  I always carried extra cover-up make-up.  At 23 my life wasn’t exactly normal compared to my friends.

The day I found our lawyer I was on my last leg and had nothing left in me to be polite or care.  This guy took my call and I slid past his paralegal and everyone else fairly simply to find myself across his desk crying before I even got started.  Amongst the mess on his desk Lawyer pulled out a clean piece of paper, turned the ringer off on his phone, handed me a box of kleenex and told me to start from the beginning.  Then he listened, he wrote it all down, he nodded politely in the correct spots and asked a lot of questions.  When I was out of tears and he had multiple pages filled he set his pen down and stared at me.  He was younger looking, cute almost, dark hair and dark eyes.  The pictures behind him showed a blond-haired wife and a few younger kids.  The certificates on the wall showed years of accomplishments and his time in the Marines. His specialty was actually helping fathers gain custody of their kids in a divorce.

I think we were both sizing one another up in this moment while we had our own internal debates. 

This isn’t going to be easy.  This is going to cost a lot.  This isn’t a normal case.  I can’t make promises.

Lawyer was telling me things I already knew.

They are going to tear you and Dustin apart.  Every inch of your lives will be exposed.  If there are any skeletons in your closets I need to know now. You both have to be willing to work with me. 

Dustin had some speeding tickets. 

Think harder,  anything at all that they could put against you.  Right down to MIP’s when you were younger, anything.  Anyone out there who would come out and say something bad about either of you. 

Nothing.  Neither of our parents are even divorced.  We grew up small town, middle class, private college, normal.  Nothing in our pasts. 

I’ll do it.  There is something here that says to give this a chance. (15 months later Lawyer actually told me what he was thinking in this moment.  That these kids don’t have a chance but he thought I just looked so desparate he didn’t know how to tell me no.)

Then Lawyer went through the basics, what might happen, the general process and everything else that sounded scary but we weren’t going to back down.  I think he thought we wouldn’t be able to handle it.  We covered money and I wrote a check for a retainer fee that I would later learn wouldn’t even cover two minutes worth of work. 

For the first time in a long time I felt like I had someone on our team.  I felt some sense of hope deep down even though I knew we had a long road ahead of us.  But I felt like we were making steps. From that moment on we didn’t have a lot of moments that gave us hope but I believe people come into our lives for a reason.  Lawyer was one of those people and believe it or not, we were those people in his own life.

At some point her bio mom got out of jail and decided it was time to try parenting again.  This thought apparently never occurred to Dustin and I or we were ignoring the inevitable. One of the two.  This is where we should have put our foot down.  Instead we gave her bio Mom the benefit of the doubt and tried to do what was fair.  Never did anything fair happen to us in return, let me tell you.  Her bio Mom only wanted to parent when it was once again convenient for her and then Bear was still with us the rest of the time.  She was still getting high and out partying with random guys.  The problem started when bio Mom wanted to make rules and here poor Bear just had no idea who she really was. Bio Mom would smother her and treat her like an infant because she just truly didn’t know what to do with her.  The child she had birthed was just a stranger to her and vice versa.  It also didn’t help that she was wacked out on her meds and stoned so what kid wants to be around that.

It got to the point where family members that never wanted to have an opinion started to have one.  Started piping their white trash mouths up because we started making noise.  We started to really freak out every time the Bear was with bio Mom.  Leaving the Bear at a casino day care to go get drunk and gamble, taking her around strange men in strange homes, not keeping a schedule with her and ultimately not keeping her safe.  The stories were piling up and Dustin and I were freaking out. Then began bio Mom being shipped in and out of a psych wards and rehab.  Those just tangle in there with the rest but gave us a break.

This is the point where I wish I had my blog at that time.  I can’t recall all the horrific stories because I think I just choose not too.  They are tucked away in a large box with legal information in the closet.  Someone recently read my blog from front to back and said it was best it was written at the time I was going through it not looking back on it.  That is how I feel writing Bear’s story now.  I don’t know how to dig down to get to the depth of sheer despair at each phase Dustin and I went through with her.  I don’t know how to convey the terror and fear. It was living in a horrible movie and not being able to get up and walk away. And not one single person understood. 

One night does still stick me with me though.

Bio Mom was staying at my Grandparents home in the basement and we went to drop Bear off one night.  She was almost 3 by this point and all hell broke loose.  Bear would often cry when we dropped her off but this was full on panic attack, screaming and kicking bio Mom, yelling how she didn’t want to stay with her and she wanted to go home with “Mom & Dad.” All this little one knew was life was fine until this crazy person came along that we dropped her off with every now and then and it was a scary place.  I don’t know how I held it together as three adults attempted to hold her back while we had to walk out the door and I lost it in the front yard.  Dustin had to pick me up and put me in the truck with tears running down his own face.

I couldn’t do this anymore.  Neither of us could.  Technically the three of us couldn’t.  This was a fucking mess.  A big fucking mess and no one would look at the obvious.  While we had been in contact with CPS about what we could do it was the same song and dance.  They kept giving her another chance and there wasn’t enough proof of anything.  They needed to walk in to the child close to death to do something more.  They flat-out told me they just didn’t have the resources. 

Three years of raising that baby and it was time to do something about it.  We had no rights and we didn’t want her to be the next baby drown in the bathtub or tossed in a river by the mentally ill parent strung out on God knows what. 

It was fight or flight time and we were fighting because she was all we had to give her a chance at life. 

Needless to say the holidays slowed us up big time and just life in general.  Unfortunately my life just can’t be all wedding all the time and there are things higher on the priority list.  Not that I’m not enjoying it but we have to work and raise and child and, and , and……

I won’t bore you with all the details because there just aren’t a lot right now.

The wedding will be in Mexico, at this resort, at sunset, on the beach, October 24.  We really wanted Dominican Republic but we learned we would be going during the off-season and flights are not anywhere close to reasonable.  There will be no bridal party but several of our closest friends and family. 

Perfection.

Somewhere along the way my ring went from a 1 karat solitaire…

To this.

When Hardscape purchased my engagement ring he knew that I wanted a halo but didn’t know EXACTLY which one so he just focused on a perfect diamond.  We had a fantastic crew that helped us customize it from there.  We also picked up my wedding band full of diamonds too. Ohmygod I fucking love it!!!!  I’m sorry, I’m a diamond girl.

Dress?….no where on that yet.

We are having a reception back home after the wedding for all friends and family.  Something along the lines of a bar, heavy hors d’oeuvre’s, cake, DJ, photo booth and a dance.  This Saturday we are going to approximately 200 places to pick a venue.  We have been looking non-stop.  To find a place that is affordable and not a shit hole is frustrating.  You also have to realize I live in the middle of no where and options are just limited. 

I do have some of the smaller people picked out such as the cake person, DJ service, photographer and photo booth company.  That is something, right?

Perhaps this is the part where I say we are on our own for the whole payment process of this wedding and we just aren’t Kardashian rich.  (Feel free to send cash to me for a present at any time.)   PLUS, Hardscape’s house had a water break.  As in, 6 inches of water in the basement and an excavator had to be brought in to fix the main water line.  No, insurance didn’t pay for it but our wedding budget did. 

Honestly, that is it so far.  We have ideas and such but until we get the big things nailed down it is hard to go from there.  Also known as, I spend way to much time on The Knot and not enough time working.

I have to get my ass in gear, I realize this but I’m assuming it will just all come together.  I’m not really stressed about it.    We are doing all of the planning ourselves and are enjoying doing it together. Ask me how THAT is going in a few months but so far his nose is in the wedding binder just as much as mine is.