As most of you may know, Nick and I have known each other for over 7 years, and we’ve been dating for most of them. And you may also know that my birthday falls on New Year’s Eve, and this year (2010) I decided that I wanted to have a fancy party to celebrate my birthday and to ring in the new year. We had been talking about getting married for a while now, so I knew it was going to happen, just not so soon. (He had me believing that it would be at least another year so we could get our finances straight.) At midnight on NYE 2010, we watched the ball drop with about 15 of our closest friends.

After the champagne toast and the New Year’s kiss, Nick made his announcement. He said that it was a night of many celebrations (my birthday, NYE, our friends’ wedding anniversary) and he wanted to add one more. He turned to me and said he was glad it wasn’t the first NYE/birthday celebration we’ve shared together and he wanted to share the rest of them with me for the rest of his life. He pulled out the beautiful ring from behind his back and said, “so I guess you know what this means!” I was smiling and laughing and extremely happy and my response was, “Okay!” We kissed and it was official. My friends were surprised and happy and excited. It was the best birthday ever!

Special thanks to Sheena Latham for taking these photos that night!

It’s vintage, from the 1920s-ish, and I love it!

Flying. It isn’t a big deal for most people. In fact, the majority of you have been flying in airplanes ever since you were small children so it just comes naturally. I am not one of those people. I’ve always felt a bit awkward explaining to others that I’ve never stepped foot in an airport, let alone on an airplane. Luckily, those days are over! On Saturday, October 2, 2010, I took my first flights! I’m sure you know how the process works so I won’t describe the steps of checking in, printing boarding passes, taking off your shoes when going through security, and walking through the jet way to the plane. I consider all of these things, however, to be frequent-flyer discoveries: the little nuances that everyone knows because they’ve been flying for so long but that I just recently learned. Now I know them, too!

My first boarding passes.

I know, I know. I’m almost 26 years old and I’ve never flown in an airplane. But that will change as of October 2, 2010!

It probably would have taken even longer than this (something along the lines of a honeymoon in like 2-3 years) but my job is sending me to the American Public Health Association conference in Denver in early November and the thought of flying all by myself for the first time filled me with indescribable anxiety. So Nick, being the most wonderful boyfriend that he is, agreed to take me on a flight before November so I’ll at least have stepped foot in an airport.