Mr. & Mrs.

Well hello there. A lot has gone on since my last post. I mean, almost a month has gone by. My appologies for neglecting our dedicated readers. But, as had been hinted at in previous posts, our wedding day has come & passed. The week leading up to the wedding (on July 19) was fairly hectic. Once we got to Austin, we had the rehearsal & rehearsal dinner & those were successes. For the day of the wedding, I woke up at my Grandma's & went for a run on Town Lake with my dad. We had breakfast at this good Mexican place on Congress, & returned to Grandma's to hang out & watch the British Open until it was time to go to the vanue to get ready. We picked up a few beers on the way & my groomsmen all met us out there, & we relaxed & got dresses, took pictures, & then it was time to get married. I think you could say my day was a little more relaxed than Kate's. The wedding went perfectly & surprise.......neither Kate nor I cried! We were solid. The reception was a lot of fun & we'd recommend Vintage Villas to anyone.

The next morning we had a car pick us up at 5:30 for the airport & our honeymoon in Negril, Jamaica. After connecting in Dallas we landed in Montego Bay & stood in an endless line at customs. A 6-seat shuttle van drove us to Negril. Now, about the driving experience in Jamaica. The drivers are insane, & the pedestrians walking on the side of the road are even more insane. Numerous times we thought we were about to see a wreck from all the cars passing slower cars & barely getting back in the appropriate lane milliseconds before impact. Then, you had walkers & bicycle riders on the side of the road who seemed to have a mission to walk as close to speeding cars as possible. Kate & I swore our driver was about to take out this one lady. I still don't know how we didn't hit her.

Anyway, we got to Couples Negril & the relaxation set in. Well, it took about a day for the wedding stress to subside, & then the relaxaion truely began. Our resort was awsome. Great beach, great food, friendly staff. We had no phone calls, didn't check email, & watched little TV for the next 8 days. It was great. On our last day there we made the perilous drive back to Montego Bay & the airport. Departing the gate on the plane we suddenly stopped & noticed a flight attendant having a very stern conversation with a passenger. In short: the passenger thought her opnion was important enough to delay the flight for 150+ other passengers, & ended up being kicked off the plane. I hated her. We already had a layover in Dallas that afforded us a little time, but now we'd have to rush to make the flight to Austin. We ran off the plane in Dallas, went thru customs with our bags, rechecked our bags, & ran up an escalator to the train. While running with my bag in 1 hand & belt in the other, my foot caught on a step on the escalator & I busted. Hard. It hurt. I was bleeding, but ran up the stairs & got to the train to inspect the damage. I had scrapes on my foot & that was throbbing, & a hole in my knee spewing my own blood. A nice lady in our train gave me a band-aid which seemed to just make the hole mad & bleed more. Luckily, I had a pair of underwear in the bag I was carrying & used that to absorb the dripping blood. I'm sure along the way, some onlooker was grossed out. But we made the flight & got back to Austin OK, stayed the night at Kate's folk's, & drove home with a carload of stuff the next day.

It feels good to be married. Kate & I were talking about it the other day when she asked me if it felt different to be married & I told her yes. She agrees it does, & we both feel it's in good ways. It's nice to know we have each other to love & depend on for the rest of our lives, & that we've made the ultimate committment to each other that we're not going anywhere else. We're home together where we want to be. We know it'll take work & somedays will be good & some not as good, but I wake up every morning thankful & excited to have Kate as my wife.

Sorry for the length of this post, but it's been a while. We'll try to write more often. Until next time, you can find me in Plano, living the dream!

--Josh