To the faithful lost few

We are now married and settling into a routine of work food and sleep. Reading and TV watching is thrown in there occasionally. Anywho, I just wanted to post on here for those lost few of you that check this crazy neglected blog. We now have pictures and are in the long process of looking through all the pictures, resizing, rotating and uploading the 200++ pictures. Our lovely photographers, Thanks Bruce and Lisa, took tons of shots not only at the wedding but at the cabin, in Rocky Mt. National Park and all over. There are great shots, cute shots, romantic shots, disgraceful shots, and all around hilarious shots. So we will find the best of all those, except maybe the best disgraceful shots (isn't that an oxymoron?), and post them up here and/or on myspace or our other blogs. So maybe I should go work on that instead of blogging about the process of getting pictures up here. :) You've waited this long, you can wait a little longer. Till then go look up things like Apple PDA, Amazon Kindle, and the origin of trash compactors. That'll keep you busy.

RSVPs

Thank you all for sending in your RSVPs. As of this morning (without checking the mail) we have gotten back 31 RSVPs. Well actually that should be 32 cause 1 came in by email. If you are an avid checker of this blog and have lost or misplaced or can't remember if you send in your RSVP, feel free to email us. If you are coming- fantastic. If you are- we hope you'll have a fantastic day where ever you are that day. As a disclaimer- if you haven't received an invitation to the wedding, we still love you. Either we don't have your address or we are desperately trying to keep the wedding small. We still love you and if you're in Lincoln- we might see you after the wedding anyways. Hey if you didn't get an invitation but still feel the urge to buy us something *wink wink* check out our Gift Registries. They're over there on the side bar. No no no no. Not that way. That way. Yeah, that way over there. Have a great day. (no, I said that way)(really you don't have to get us something. but if you want to, we won't discourage you.)

Update!!!

It is 10:05 am PST on Thursday the 13th of September. 1 month from Tomorrow Krissy and I will be having our wedding. I do not say "we are getting married" because as you all should know, we already are married. I have just returned from the post office for the 3rd time this week with the final batch of postage. Ever since they changed the way mail is metered I have been a little paranoid of having the wrong postage. Instead of going by weight only they now go by size and weight. It is my prior mail room experience showing through. But alas I could have saved time by stopping by the Automated Postal Center thing that is by the PO Boxes. Thankfully our invitations, with gold foil seal, are only 4/10ths of an ounce. I know that means nothing to most of you but, to the rare postal worker reading this, it means that our invitations are able to go safely with a 41 cent stamp. (Anything over 1.4 ounces cost more) It is now my duty to put the First Class stamps on our invitations and seal them. Yesterday (or was that Tuesday, I don't remember) or some day this week I put 26 cent stamps on all the RSVP postcards that you get to joyously tear off, please use the serrated/dotted cut line not the middle of the postcard, and send back to us. Remember to put your return address or at least your name up in the corner so it gets to us.
Also today I have experienced, for the first time, riding in semi inclement typical wintery Portland weather. The temp is 58 degrees and my weather widget says it is raining/misting. I rode to the post office with my bike lights on, in shorts and a t-shirt and with my glasses. I could have put in my contacts but didn't feel like it. It was a fun experience. So far I have enjoyed riding around Gresham. Venturing far from home on a bike still worries me some. Portland is the most bike friendly city in the country slightly edging out San Fransisco, but I still worry about stupid motorist that drive fast and don't pay attention. When it comes to biking, back roads and suburbia are your friends. Sadly Trimet, Portland Metro City Transportation, claims to be bike friendly but really isn't all it cracks up to be. Bikeportland.org has many a story about unfriendly acts towards bikers on Trimet buses and the Light Rail aka The Max. Mean people suck and sometimes mean people ride or drive public transportation. Like I said earlier, I have not ventured far with my bicycle and have not experience such as of yet. I have ridden the Max but not with a bike.
Anyways I digress from the point of this blog. Hopefully, fingers and toes crossed, our invitations will go out in the mail tomorrow. Which means one more trip to the post office, yay!! That will mean uh.. 4 trips this week. Weighing, post card stamps, First class stamps, and sending... yep thats 4 trips. All done without any fossil fuel. Yay!! Go green!! Have a nice day whatever the weather and whether or not you ride bike. Tootles.

Jeremy

The Last Three Weeks

Well... how to begin. Jeremy and I moved to Portland, Oregon last week. Well, we moved into our apartment last week. We actually got to Portland late on Thursday, July 5th. When we arrived we had no place to live and didn't even know where we were going to sleep for the night. God is good though, as always, and everything is ok now.

We managed to stay the night at the hotel near the conference office in Gladstone and the next day headed over to the conference office to get some of our receipts reimbursed. While there we asked where we might find the nearest Wells Fargo so we could deposit the check and were given directions to a branch in Oregon City. So away we went. We found the bank with no problem and while there we met a lady that gave us directions to an apartment complex in Gresham. Unfortunately, the apartment complex had no vacancies so we stopped at another location that had a sign out in front. The manager was very nice and helpful, then she informed us that we made too much money to live there. That was a let down. I didn't know that there were places you couldn't live because you made TOO MUCH money! Blah. I was getting depressed. The nice lady continued though. She told us that she knew of several other nice places in the area and proceeded to give us directions and information on two other places close by.

That's how we ended up here. One of the places she recommended was a place called Columbia Trails. We stopped by and were immediately impressed by the landscaping and style of the layout. There were large trees, townhouse style buildings and a very nice clubhouse, pool and spa.

After seeing some of the apartments we were very interested but were worried that we couldn't make it financially. We decided to go find some lunch and discuss it while eating. We added up all our bills, discussed it and figured it out...and we could make it! We went back and filled out an application and went on our way.

We started to relax and went over to the Mac store to play with the toys, (anyone that loves Apple computers knows that a Mac store is filled with toys), and I went online to find a room to stay in for the weekend. Problem numero dos...could not find room!! AHH!! I started to panic again. All the hotels I called told me that they were full because of the basketball tournament in town. No!! Jeremy came back to car to find in me completely stressed out again. That's when he suggested we start looking out of town. I started calling places on the coast. I called a place called the Terimore Motel in a town called Netarts. (It's pronounced Nee-Tarts.) The lady that picked up the phone told me that they had just had a cancellation and we could have it. I was desperate and told her we would take it before she told me that it was only $87 a night for a small apartment overlooking the ocean. A beautiful little place overlooking the ocean for a great price. Why did I doubt God?

We got to spend the weekend out on the coast. We walked the beach, ate in little ocean side restaurants, napped, and generally relaxed. We got a call Saturday morning letting us know that we were approved for the apartment and we could move in whenever we were ready.






We moved into the apartment on Monday and Tuesday and I started work on Thursday.
_________

On a side note, as you may have heard Jeremy and I got married before we moved to Portland. The rumor is true. We did. We discovered the best way to freak out a pastor is to show up in their office and say, "Hey. We got a marriage license today. Will you marry us tomorrow?" It's pretty funny. We got married before we left because of the job offer in Portland. After we looked at finances, other expenses and everything else we decided that it would be much easier if we were married, not to mention that the conference would move both of us and we could pay for the wedding with the money we would save by not having to pay another set of rent and utilities.
However...if you thought you were going to get out of the wedding don't even think about it! :P We are still having the wedding as planned in Estes Park, Colorado on October 14. We just thought we'd make the fun last longer.


Just another reason for considering us a "weird" couple.

How We Got Together

For those of you you who don't know how we got together here's a brief summary for your information and enjoyment.

Though we had known each other for years we had never had the chance to spend all that much time together. Neither of us were looking for a significant other when we began spending more time together. In fact, I had recently made a deal with God that I was going to stop looking all together because I never managed to pick guys who were good for me, in one way or another. I told God that he would have to put the guys in my life and then hit me over the head. Jeremy on the other hand, had recently become single after a long time relationship.
Kristi Joiner and I knew Jeremy was going through a rough time and took it upon ourselves to try to keep him busy. We invited him to do things and encouraged him to be involved around campus.

Late one Saturday night, shortly after Jeremy returned from the International Rescue and Relief summer training program in Colorado, he climbed up the outside of my apartment to make sure I was alright. I had had a rather unnerving experience earlier in the evening with a car load of drunken guys and he stopped by to check on me. As the lights were off in the living room he thought I was already in bed, however, when he went to leave he noticed a light on in the bedroom. Not wanting to wake me if I already had fallen asleep, he decided to climb up to the 2nd story window and look through before disturbing me.

I was reading in bed and had a large box fan in the window to cool the warm bedroom. I was rather unnerved still so when I heard a strange sound outside the window it got my attention. I went to investigate but I couldn't see through the fan very well and couldn't hear through the noise either. I pulled the fan out of the window and was startled by a voice on the other side of the dark screen... "You know...it's not easy to climb up to this window." I refrained from knocking the "intruder" off the side of the building and instead asked if he would like to come in the "normal" way instead. He accepted and we sat on the living room floor for most of the night eating Jelly Bellys and talking.

We officially started dating in the end of June 2006. Though we had spent a lot of time together and seemed to "click" on practically everything I still was unsure that it was best for us to date. I finally asked God for a sign. I figured if Gideon could ask for a sign than I could too. I asked that if we were to date that Jeremy would ask me straight out. Two days later..."At the risk of sounding 5th-grade-ish, will you date me Krissy Ball?" Score one for direct answer to prayer!

Over the summer we spent time biking, hiking, taking in jazz festivals, and traveling to CO for weddings of friends and family. It was some time after we started dating that we realized we hadn't even gone on a date by themselves yet, always doing things in groups with friends.

Jeremy and I realized early on that this was going somewhere wonderful and on March 1st he asked me to marry him.

We are planning for a fall wedding...October 14. The Sunday happens to fall on my birthday this year so Jeremy will have one day to remember and one day to forget. He hasn't decided how he feels about that one yet.

Below are some pictures from the last year....