Dave 'n' Jenny

It's been far too long since we've blogged here. 2009 left us with many challenges and financial difficulties. It's a bit long and personal to get into it here, but we're trying to do our best to recover. One of the steps we have decided to take is to postpone our wedding until likely early 2011. It wasn't an easy decision, but we feel it was the right one for us right now. Postponing our wedding has nothing to do with our relationship; it was truly a financial matter. We're still very much in love! :)

Postponing will give us some more time to be able to prepare and properly make this step forward together. As attractive as eloping is becoming, we still very much want to celebrate with our friends and family.

We will try our best to keep this blog updated throughout 2010. Thank you to everyone who has been so helpful and understanding during this time.

It's official! We are going to be having our wedding on March 20, 2010, or the day before the first day of spring. We will be getting married at the Durham Western Heritage Museum in Omaha, Nebraska. We also will be reserving a block of rooms at the Holiday Inn at the Ameristar Casino in Council Bluffs, Iowa, only about 5 minutes away from the Durham and the rest of downtown Omaha. You can read more in the Wedding pages as we get more details! We look forward to celebrating with everyone!

It occurred to me that the last mention we made of our kitten on this blog was before we even brought her home! This must be remedied! Plenty of pictures after the jump!

I took some vacation time from B&N this past week, so Dave and I went to Omaha for a couple days. We plan on moving to Omaha around the time of our wedding (no final official decision as to when, and I haven't talked to my managers yet), so we wanted to look at the brand new apartment complexes that are being built in central Omaha, and we needed to do some wedding planning stuff. So we drove up early Thursday morning. My best friend/maid of honor, Kaitlin, came to town from Wisconsin, so I was able to see her (yay!) and she lent us moral support in our endeavors, hehe.

Jenny and I went to three places recently to scout out possibilities for our wedding ceremony and/or reception. You can view the pictures of all three at http://flickr.com/photos/davereid20/sets/72157612372737873/show/.

Location 1: Magnolia Hotel
Pros: Very pretty, super-awesome honeymoon suite (it has two floors!), close to everything in downtown Omaha, nearly everything is included
Cons: Very out of our price range

Location 2: Durham Western Heritage Museum
Pros: Very pretty and classic, within our price range, close to everything in downtown Omaha, Jenny's favorite museum (she stayed there overnights as a girl scout)
Cons: We'll have to rent our own tables, chairs, linens, etc. and do our own decorating

Location 3: A View at Fontenelle Hills
Pros: Cute, cosy, very pretty views on a golf course, everything included, you basically get a wedding planner included
Cons: It's in Bellevue kind of out in the middle of no where (harder to get to for those traveling and in bad weather), not as handicap accessible, it just opened up in November and hasn't even had a wedding there yet, just a tad out of our price range

So far we're leaning heavily towards the Durham Western Heritage Museum, but we're still considering any other options. Have any comments or options? Comment!

After four years, he finally did it.  Dave proposed!

The day before Christmas Eve, I worked until 4:30.  I'm always a little frazzled when Dave comes to pick me up from work, especially during the holidays, but he was particularly sweet that day.  He asked me if I would grab him one of our gift card boxes—just a free, little cardboard box.  He said he wanted to play a trick on his sister for Christmas.  I didn't think anything of this request (Dave and his sister tease each other often, hehe), so I grabbed the box for him.

Whew...the holidays are over. Dave and I celebrated our Christmas (and engagement!) together on Christmas Eve after I got off work, and then we went to Omaha to celebrate Christmas with my side of the family. First, just with my parents in the morning, then over to my aunt's house for the big family party, and then a stop over at my good friend Amanda S.'s house to visit with her and her parents. On Sunday, Dave and I drove up to South Dakota to celebrate Christmas with his parents. We originally planned on staying there until after dinner on Monday, but Dave's dad and sister woke up super sick Monday morning, so we left in the early afternoon. What a bummer. But it was still a fun time, even though it was short.

Then for New Year's Eve, we had a bunch of friends over to celebrate at our place: Amanda S., Jessica B., David G. and Ian all came down from Omaha and spent the night. Liz and Perez and Kaitlin and Doug also came by for part of the time. We had lots of food, and I had lots of wine...too much wine. Much too much wine. Ick. Oh, well. On New Year's Day, the Huskers played Clemson in the Gator Bowl, and we won! So Dave was very happy. And Amanda's mom sent homemade chicken noodle soup with her for us, so that helped my hangover, which made me happy, too, hehe.

Let's review 2008, shall we?

My original proposal idea was to propose to Jenny in her favorite used bookstore in downtown Lincoln, but upon realizing the sheer terror of proposing in public, I had to rethink my idea. I found an old edition of Jenny's favorite book, Gone with the Wind. Inside the book, in the section where Rhett Butler proposes to Scarlett O'Hara (page 835), I placed the diamond certification card for her engagement ring. I kept the book and the ring (inside the ring box) back behind all the files in the file cabinet because I knew it was the very last place Jenny would go snooping around for it since she never comes close to doing any of the household paperwork. :)

At five minutes past midnight on today, December 24, I finally popped the question and Jenny was foolish enough to say yes. :) We'll post both sides of our story shortly on http://davenjenny.com/wedding/engagement (yes, I'm a dork and we'll have our own wedding website coded by yours truly). But I'll just say I was very sneaky, very nervous, and she nearly couldn't wait for me to finish the question before she said "yes."

Jenny had to work a short shift at work today, but our day has been otherwise filled with sharing with friends and family, calling all the best friends, and treasuring in the moment. We are tentatively planning for a wedding sometime in early 2010 and we couldn't be happier. We've both been smiling out of control today. :) There's a slide show of more pictures in the full post below or you can go look at the photoset on Flickr.

I love my fiancee. :)