Katchup! ;)

Well here is something you haven't seen in a while... AN UPDATE TO THE BLOG!!!!

 

Some of you may be wondering, why it has been so long since we've updated, and there is really only one honest to goodness answer.... WE'VE BEEN BUSY!!!

 

A lot has happened since 11:13 pm on August 31st, so what we will be doing is updating you, as quickly as possible as to what has happened since then, and then we will continue with our story of how we met etc, as promised. We will also try to be a bit more prudent in updating the blog as well. 

 

To start things off, and the biggest reason for the delay in posting... School started, for the two of us. Rachel continued her classes at Cal State San Marcos, and Mike started at Southwestern College in their Telemedia department. From August through December we both kept quite busy with school. Rachel finished up the last of her classes, and is now a Liberal Studies graduate! Mike had a very successful semester as well, working on a few different productions in his classes. His final project entitled "Modern Medicine" won 3rd place in the department's end of the semester awards ceremony, and was the only first semester student to place! Mike has no problem admitting he has become a sort of celebrity in his department. The brave and the daring can check out some of his work here: http://www.youtube.com/user/ILPAZZOPRODUCTIONS

 

The semester wasn't all about work and school though. Plenty of other interesting events happened. Rachel hosted two exchange students for the semester. One from Turkey, and another from China. It was a very interesting experience to say the least. The experience also led us to come to the conclusion that we may wish to visit Turkey someday (or in Rachel's case visit again), but we're pretty sure we have NO interest in seeing China. :)

We also celebrated both of our Birthdays (Mike: September 4^th, Rachel December 7^th), caught up on some excellent movies we wanted to see, and caught a concert or two as well.

 

The biggest adventure came in December, when Rachel went up to Fresno with Mike to visit his family for the Holidays. They packed up and headed up early in the morning. About half way to Fresno, Rachel asked Mike to pull over, and tossed an envelope his way. Inside the envelope were tickets to see his favorite hockey team, the San Jose Sharks, live and in person, that night in San Jose. Needless to say Mike was overjoyed, and we both had an awesome time at the game. It was Rachel’s first NHL experience, and after a couple early mishaps of spilled popcorn, and cheering for the wrong team, was acting like a seasoned pro late into the first period :) The next day we headed to Fresno, where Rachel met many aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, friends, etc… Though a little overwhelming a good time was enjoyed by all.

 

We returned to San Diego later in the week, and enjoyed the rest of our Christmas break, before our new semester began, which is where we are now. Rachel is in the middle of her student Teaching, and Mike is continuing with his Film program, and his writing.

 

Our next adventure will be a celebration-vacation in MAUI, Hawaii for Rachel’s graduation :) Needless to say we both can’t wait!  

All about how we met… OR Congratulations you are a WINNER!

I have been answering lots of questions about how Mike and I met lately. People want to know how we managed to find each other and ultimately fall in love.

Here is my story…

I, being the computer savvy person that I am, created a Wiki for my credential program cohort. In gathering information to post on the Wiki I frequented a local San Diego radio station page for local events, volunteer opportunities, etc. I was on the radio station home page one morning, procrastinating on finishing the kitchen project Charles (my brother) and I were working on. I happened to catch a blip about a guy who won a contest I had debated entering myself. The contest was to create a set list of music from the Smashing Pumpkins catalog. The winner would present their set on the Sunday evening coup d’état, and also have a round-trip all expenses paid trip to see the Pumpkins reunite in San Francisco.

The blip that I caught was the winner’s explanation of how he became a music fan, or his first experience with music. His story made me laugh, really laugh out loud and I decided to congratulate this guy who to me was a very deserving winner.

I copy and pasted Mike Moore into a friend search on myspace and found the same picture. I perused his profile and laughed some more at his comments on life and growing up in Fresno California etc. I sent him a message congratulating him on winning the Pumpkins contest, it was short and sweet and I added my own first concert experience, which was the Monkee’s at Jack Murphy Stadium.

Mike wrote back the same day thanking me for my nice note of congratulations. He added some to his story of seeing Alvin and the Chipmunks live; again making me laugh. This exchange led to frequent exchanges on-line, which led to chatting, and eventually meeting in person.

Our meeting for the first time is a whole other story… ;)

Mike Continues:

It really was a true case of happenstance. The promo director at the radio station emailed me, and wanted me to write a blurb, for them to put up on the site, about myself, so people could get to know, and I guess become insanely jealous, or in some cases (see above) infatuated with the guy who won the contest. I had NO IDEA what to write. I mean, all I did was compile a list of songs to win a contest. What did they want me to say? ‘Yeah, my name is Mike, and I was more creative than you, I’ll be thinking about all of you while I’m in San Francisco, witnessing quite literally, a once in a lifetime event?’ Certainly, not. I also doubted that they wanted me to give out some long 5 page essay on my life story, which some of you know, that if I were to write my life story it would be about 2,000 pages, especially if I chose to go into longwinded rants about various points in my life sort of like what I’m doing write now… hahahah… I accidently typed ‘write’ instead of ‘right’ but now it comes off as punny, so I shall leave it…

So I decided to be covertly sarcastic, and go for the complete obvious, which is to talk about my enjoyment of music. So I did some little 100 word rant (The radio station was smart enough to hold me to 100 words) about my beloved Fisher-Price record player (Queen, and Elvis Presley, The Chipmunks and the Cars on very heavy rotation), and my first concert experience which was Alvin and the Chipmunks at Selland Arena. Before I knew it the Promo guy emailed me back saying ‘Perfect’ and some random girl was claiming I was funny, (a claim, I know I now force her to question every now and then) and congratulating me on my good fortune…

Stay tuned for our next episode: “Sir Guinness, meet Stella.”

Lord of the Rings, or How we met our Ring Master ;)

So Mike and I had been talking about marriage for a while, of course there is a ring involved in the process. I had been thinking about using my Grandmother’s engagement diamond as the center piece of my ring. One day while at work, relaxing in the shade of palms at the bay, I started drawing what I would want my ring to look like. The drawing was simple and I was happy with it.

I shared my doodle with Mike and we decided to look for a Mom & Pop jeweler as opposed to the enormous diamond galleries that are advertised 24-7 on San Diego radio stations.

Fast forward a few weeks later: We were in Ocean Beach of the annual street fair & chili cook-off, collecting signatures to get Ralph Nader on the California ballot and eating various chilies. Mike suggested looking into the jewelry stores and inquiring if they did custom work. The first shop we tried did not do custom rings however they suggested a little hole in the wall across the street called “The Golden Seashell”. I have been to OB on many, many occasions but this was the first time I had ever seen the Golden Seashell.

Upon entering the store we were greeted by a hearty “Hello There M’ Lady, and Good Sir”. I was a bit surprised, thinking this guy is just being silly. It ended up however, that he was not being silly; this was just his natural demeanor. He continued referring to us as M’lady, and Good Sir throughout our conversation, and when all was said and done, we could not refuse his charms, and decided that this would be the man who would assist us in making Rachel’s design a reality.

A couple weeks went by and we returned our Lord of the Rings, with Rachel’s design in hand, and he assured us he was up to the task. Exactly one week later (3 days early!) Mike received a phone call, letting him know that the ring was finished and ready to be picked up. He snuck off, claiming he had to pay for his car insurance (which he really did have to do!) and went to pick up the ring. He was completely shocked when he saw the ring. It was EXACTLY how Rachel had it drawn out. He thanked the good sir a thousand times over, and had to wait another few days before giving it to Rachel, which proved to be VERY difficult, as he was very excited over how well it turned out.

The proposal story will follow.

Welcome to our blog!

If you are here than there is a great chance that you got one of our unique announcements. Horray! We spent a lot of time perfecting, and REperfecting, to get them JUST the way we liked them.... you know, simple things like NOT having the border block out half the lettering, etc.

So, why have an engagement blog, you may ask? Because we have loved ones all over the world, quite literally. Our announcements traveled to places such as: Dublin Ireland, Ghana Africa, Vancouver Canada, KL Malaysia, Brighton England, and beautiful, AMAZING, Fresno California! So having a blog makes perfect sense. We want all of you to be a part of our experience. Feel free to leave comments,and if you are having issues with our blog please email us.

-Mike & Rachel

We're Engaged!