Have – you – met – Mike?  Well, as most of you know Mike is an avid blogger, tweeter, and follower of many things.  He has suggested that I take our old wedding website and create a blog of my own.  I have thought about this over the past few months and wasn’t sure how much I had to share and if I really wanted to spend more time on the computer then I already do.

With that, I would love to start recording some fun things I am doing and projects/endeavors I am working on.  So why not start blogging?  I don’t imagine that I will be a frequent participant in sharing here…but I guess it is hard to tell at this moment.  Lets see what happens!

And – Go.

If in the off chance you read this before sending your reply cards, Becca and I have been receiving them from folk and are definitely getting more excited over it. However, in a couple cases, people are sending them back without writing who they are. It has only been people who will not be able to make it, but unfortunately we don’t have any other way to track it.

So, the favor is that we ask that if you could write your name in the card whether you are attending or not, it would be great for us.

Thanks!

Late last week Becca and I sent out most of the invitations to our wedding, and the reply cards are starting to come back in.  First thing you may have noted upon recieving yours is that they are not quite the typical traditional wedding invitation.  What you may not have noted is that the one that you recieved is the only one of its kind, with only its reply card (included) to match it.

We’re getting closer to the date, and with the cards coming back to us, its very exciting and we are starting to finalize things officially (which is a strange sentence to say).  Come back soon for more updates.

We have been rolling with planning our wedding at Bradford Woods. Please check the tabs for more information. And if what you are looking for isn’t there, please contact us (we are sure others may have the same questions).

Here it is, just over 5 months to the big day and we are still planning away. We are plugging away at getting the important things taken care of, including having a date, a location, a person to marry us, and a photographer (more on that one later).  We are still working on getting a registry put together, as well as floral “arrangements” and alcohol (which is surprisingly proving to be one of the hardest bits of it all even though we know exactly what we want for this one).  Lodging for the event is to be had in part at the Woods (contact us if you are interested – seriously, if you don’t then you will not be able to stay there) as well as several hotels in the area, varying in distance from BW.  Stay tuned as we do really intend on keeping this space up to date on it.

In more recent days, as in sometime last week, we created a Facebook group for folks to interact with since many people we know who in turn we intend to invite are also on Facebook.  If you are on Facebook, and/or are now interested in joining after reading this amazingly in-depth posting, you can join our wedding group at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=555877945&v=feed&story_fbid=83366347652#/group.php?gid=81762888296 (maybe…it may be a secret group so the direct link may or may not work for you if you were not invited originally.  if thats the case, please let us know).

Thats what we got right now.  In other news, after 6 months of unemployment, I have a new job at the Concord Family YMCA as the After School and Camping Programs Director, which is a good thing, cause we have a wedding to pay for!

Hi all…its pretty amazing to think that Mike and I have been engaged for a year and a day!  Wild.  We are really getting rolling with plans, this is really for real!  We are visiting Indiana for 4 days from February 14-17.  We look forward to meeting up with friends (recruiting some help), talking to some local vendors and discussing arrangements with Bradford Woods.

It’s been a while since either of us has written.  We have been quite busy with some good times and some devastating times as well.  I was really hoping that 2009 would be full of all good times.

As you may or may not know, my mom suddenly passed away on January 2nd.  It has been very surreal for me personally, I find myself on a roller coaster  of emotions at times.  It was wonderful to have such an outpouring of support from friends and family all over the country.  But, I think the toughest times are yet to come for our family.  My dad, brother and I are each coping in our own ways.  And as we keep saying we will take it day by day, week by week, month by month…

Please be on the look out for more information regarding our wedding!  If you have specific questions, feel free to e-mail or call us directly.  We are very excited to have as many of our friends and family attend our wedding as possible!  We would love to have you stay at Bradford Woods…let us know if you are interested and we can tell you more about the options.  We would also like to get a count of folks who would like to stay on property as we will have to book it way in advance.

Thanks again for all of your support!

Love, becca

Well, maybe not fully, but the ball is starting to roll.  we massively changed the layout of things as the way it was before made it difficult to quickly find information that you may actually have an interest in.  Don’t be fool by the new layout and titles to sections at the top, as there is still just as much info to be shared with the new layout as there was before, meaning there is still plenty of blanks for us to fill in.  But, as we find things out, then we can share it with you more easily.  Enjoy.

Beccas parents are in town visiting right now, currently watching the “edited so far” edition of the engagement video (currently at around longer than it needs to be) entailing everything before, during, and after the “race”, including her reaction to finding out that both Jaime and Jeremy are in town specifically for her. It’s fun stuff, and I really enjoy the video, but I’ve seen it a few times, so I am ok for the moment, but it did remind me of when we would do adventure races back at Bradford Woods.

During the Fall 2002 season, Jeremy, Nate and I found a couple of BMX bikes that we decided to try to ride on all the trails really fast. After trying to take the bikes on a particularly hilly and full of trees trail, we elected to not continue because we liked our bodies in tact (for the day), but we started thinking of how cool it’d be to race around the property on BMX bikes and doing other stuff too. then we remembered that we almost died, and thought that perhaps mountain bikes may be a better choice. And what if we incorporated climbing into the mix? and what about boating? Archery? why not? And over the course of the next two weeks, Jeremy and I started to piece it all together, and put together what we thought would be the ultimately awesomest home brewed adventure race ever.

If you are familiar with Bradford Woods, or have access to a property map, The race started at the gatehouse near the entrance to the Woods off 67 with a biking leg that went from the entrance along the road up Memorial trail, onto ACA trail, down Sasafrass trail, back along Tipple Trail, and then following the road into Observatory field ending at the climbing tower. the second leg was to race up and back down the climbing tower. Once off the tower, the third leg began, which was running. The runners would run from the climbing tower up the road/trail to Agape Lodge, across the bridge and back along village trail to the archery range, where the racer needed to then shoot and hit four different targets each at different distances. Once the archer actually hit each target, they could then begin the next leg, which was another running portion, following village trail past the amphitheater and down switchback trail to the beach. Once at the beach, they needed to follow an orienteering course to find their paddles, which they would need for the next leg which was canoing. With paddle in hand, the teams needed to race from the beach to towaki beach and back, making sure to pick up their teams bandanna.

When all was said and done, it was a blast of a time. we had 5 different teams competing, including “Team Petr” which was a one person team (all other teams were 4-5 people each). Teams were randomly drawn out of a hat, and somehow my team randomly consisted of myself, Jeremy, Kari, and Rose who became “Team Apple Pie”, and then proceeded to win the race. Needless to say, everyone thought it to be a fix. But we won, and thats more important than fair play, even though we did.

We tried to run another adventure race the following spring, using the same formula, just rearranging the course, so it started with a sprint across the dam followed by climbing then biking, but the race ended early, first because of hail, then eminent threat of tornadoes, though there wasn’t any. We called the race right around the fire building portion (a new element) and headed back to Griffith house to drink and wait out the storm.

Late this September Becca and I will be meeting up with Jeremy in Portland, Oregon to compete in an adventure race with him against the rest of his family. It will require all of my strength and might to overcome the challenges that lay ahead, as well as the need for an iron stomach. The only thing at this point keeping us back is that we still need a team name. It will be amazing.