2010, a year of amazing dreams come true

[kitt1027]

It has been entirely too long since I’ve written any kind of update. However, this has been the busiest, most chaotic and most fulfilling couple of months in my entire life! Let’s run through 2010. I’ll try to remember as much as possible.

2010

January - Really don't remember much!

February - Shaun and I celebrate our 7th Valentine’s Day together with dinner. Can’t quite remember exactly what we did…may have to consult him on that.

March - My cousin Meaghan Pugh Barwise and soon-to-be husband, Brad Barwise, welcome their first child, Blake Stephen Thomas Barwise. Meaghan had a C-section delivery as there were complications with natural. Blake arrived healthy, skinny and cute as a button. He has only grown cuter as time has gone on.

·      My friend Ann Culpepper asks me to be a bridesmaid in her wedding to Louie Flores. One of her girls dropped out less than 2 months before the wedding. I help to plan the bachelorette party, a venture out to Pete’s Piano Bar in Fort Worth, TX.

April - I attend the DFW Writer’s Conference in Coppell, TX for a weekend. I hear several agents and published authors give advice, answer questions and tell their own tales of receiving 20+ rejections before the first Yes for their book. What was the overall lesson of the weekend? Never stop writing, if it’s what you love to do, just because someone tells you they don’t like what you say or how you say it. First of all, you should write what you like to read. Second of all, eventually, you will find the people who do love what you say, how you say it and will keep coming back for more.

·       I serve as bridesmaid in Ann’s wedding, on 4/16/10.

·      On a clear Wednesday evening, 4/21/10, Shaun asks me to marry him, as we lie on a blanket, in a park, looking at the stars. I of course say yes amidst tears of joy and relief. We are both overwhelmed with love, to the point of bursting.

·      We decide to plan the wedding for November, before Meaghan & Brad’s wedding and cruise. The plan is made for several reasons, but since we had already made reservations to go on the cruise on 12/11, we figured we could use that as our honeymoon, as we couldn’t afford anything else. This decision is discussed among the family members and unfortunately causes disruption and unhappiness. I try to quell this by considering moving the date, but other days don’t seem to make much of a difference. I am distraught about the fact that my family is unhappy with me, and especially that Meaghan is hurt. We have dinner and discuss it and come to a point where we are Ok. In a few months time, everyone seems to have gotten past it.

May - Shaun turns 30 years old on 5/28/10. I plan a surprise birthday dinner at The Magic Time Machine in Dallas, TX, with about 20 of our good friends. Teresa Holt (Twiggy) helped pay for the dinner. Afterwards, we went over to Brandon Tucker’s (Brando) to party. Shaun stays up till 5 am and I wake up in the guest room looking for him, prompting him to finally go to sleep. He is quite the party animal now that he’s 30. J

June - It’s hot and only getting hotter. I am working away in the air-conditioned Chase Lewisville office building. Shaun is working at Birraporetti’s waiting tables and looking for jobs in his spare time.

July - It’s hot. Can’t really remember what we did. My mind usually turns to mush at this point in the year...it's melting slowly a little more each day. I know we went to the Rangers games a few times.

August - My nephew Caden Davis turns 6 years old on 8/1/10. I have been gluten-free officially for approximately two years.

September -

• My niece Catherine Davis turns 8 years old on 9/2/10.
• On September 7, I get a call on my cell while I am working, giving me news that prompted me to leave work to help a family member. This was an emotionally draining and mentally tiring day. I take September 8th off for a personal day, to recuperate from the drama.
• My cousin Meaghan turns 20 years old on 9/11/10.
• My college roommate, Victoria Honey, turns 20 years old on 9/11/10.
• About a week later, I get a series of texts on my cell from friend’s boyfriend telling me she is in jail for drunken and disorderly conduct, assault on a family member and assault of an Arlington Police officer. This friend and I have been friends since we were children, for 17 years. We were planning for her to be one of my bridesmaids in November. This plan was changed and she did not serve as bridesmaid, but came to the wedding, thankfully. This friend turns 26 years old, in jail.

October -

• 10/9: My sister Anna and her husband Brad throw us a Bride & Groom Shower/Party at their home. Several family members and friends come to enjoy the festivities. We had amazing gluten-free brownies, delicious homemade peach/raspberry/orange bellinis, and other snacks. We had a blast with the newlywed game, Shaun and I tying with each other. Next we played a game where our guests had to guess answers to questions like: “What is Krista’s nickname for Shaun?” and “where did Krista and Shaun meet?"
• The Texas Rangers go to the World Series for the first time in team history. They play the New York Yankees, splitting time between New York and Arlington, TX. It is one of the most exciting times in Arlington’s history. I was very proud to be an Arlingtonite!
• 10/27: I turn 26 years old. Shaun takes me out to an amazingly tasty dinner at The Melting Pot. We enjoy several types of meats, seafood, veggies and a delicious chocolate and caramel dessert dish.
• 10/28: Shaun and I go out for a night at the new Louie Louie’s Piano Bar in Lincoln Square in Arlington, TX. They piano players/singers sing several of our requests since we are two of the about 15 people in the entire bar on a Thursday night.
• 10/29: Shaun and I go to the Rose Chapel to do the final walk-through and pay the final payment for our wedding and reception. We then come back to the Arlington court house where we get our Marriage License. I am very excited, but Shaun enjoys reminding me “it’s not official yet.” He gets disapproving looks from me.
• 10/29: Grandma Pugh & Aunt Theresa Pugh join us for dinner at our house. A lovely time is had by all.
• 10/30: We all enjoy a pasta dinner and drinks, provided by Grandma & Theresa, to celebrate the Meaghan & Brad Barwise’s marriage in the summer and my upcoming marriage to Shaun McKinney.
• 10/31: Halloween is uneventful. Shaun works and I stay home, as I don’t feel very well.

November -

• 11/6: The girls come over to start my bachelorette party, with yummy snacks brought by Stephanie and Twiggy and drinks. They bring me various fun lingerie products and such, prompting several inappropriate, but entirely fun quips from my party-Krista vocabulary. I wonder several times throughout the night if my big sister, Anna, is shocked by me. However, she told me later she had a blast and thought I was hilarious. We all head out to Louie Louie’s Dueling Piano Bar which is very crowded and rocking and rolling. We get a group of tables toward the front and are immediately noticed by the piano players, making for a very fun night. I was called up to sit at and on the piano a couple times, one of which had me being questionably touched by an older woman who apparently thought I was too cute to resist. I eventually slid right off the piano and stayed at my seat after that. Ha ha! We saw Jennifer Brown, a Lamar buddy, who took Shelly, Stephanie and I up to the bar for a shot. Very sweet!
• 11/6: My old roommate from UTA, Victoria Honey, graduates from Baylor Law School.
• 11/12: Shaun and I attend the reception for Victoria held nearby. It’s beautifully decorated and put together by her loving family. Everyone is filled with pride for little Victoria. I am so proud of her and proud I can say I know such an accomplished person.
• 11/17: Shaun & I go to the Rose Chapel to do a rehearsal with the wedding coordinator, Tamara. She says it’s the smallest and easiest rehearsal she has ever done! We take detailed notes.
• 11/18: Shaun’s parents, Kathy & George McKinney fly in to stay at our house for the weekend, kicking off the wedding weekend!
• 11/19: Shaun’s sister, Lisa, flies in to stay at our house. Later in the night, my brother Corey & his girlfriend Eva, and my brother Devin fly in to stay at our house. Shaun, our siblings and I stay up late chatting and laughing, starting to catch up.
• 11/20: We all get up and have breakfast. My family heads off to meet up with other Pugh family and Shaun’s family heads off to the store. My mom and Twiggy come over to meet and we head off to the Sanford Salon & Spa to get manicures and pedicures. Anna & Catherine show up a bit later and we all have a very relaxing and much-needed girly afternoon. We head back to the house where we get ready for the rehearsal and dinner. All of the bridal party and family head to the UTA waterfall area between the Fine Arts Building & the Architecture building for the rehearsal. Shaun’s best man, Dave Deatherage, is stuck in Canada due to weather. We are all a bit worried he won’t make it for the wedding, so a back-up plan is made. Next we go to dinner at Birraporetti’s, paid for by Shaun’s parents. It’s a lovely buffet, previously selected by Shaun and me. A great time is had by all. I am the happiest I’ve been in my entirely life. I love seeing all my friends and family together, getting to know each other and laughing. My heart is so full it’s about to leap out of my chest.

o        At about 10 pm we find out Dave got into the DFW area safely. Phew!

• 11/21: Wedding day!

o      The girls and I go to the Legacy Salon where Kathleen Kerin, Stephanie’s sister, and Liz, are doing our hair and makeup. Twiggy’s big sister has made a bunch of snacks for us and we have screwdrivers. I am only allowed one - a very smart decision on Twiggy’s part. J

o        I leave with Twiggy and we go to grab my things at the house, then head to the chapel. Twiggy almost kills me on the way to the wedding, because a truck cuts us off and almost crashes into us. Ha ha! It was totally not her fault, but it was fun for her to tell Shaun later she almost killed me on the way to the wedding.

o        I am told throughout the day that I am the calmest bride anyone has ever seen. I felt calm and happy because I knew that Shaun was handling the chapel and reception stuff, so I didn’t have to worry. I never worry when he is handling something because he knows how to get things done. It was a huge load off of my back that day. Also, I was just happy that nobody was causing any drama in my wedding party and I know that each of my girls are very trustworthy. Having all of those wonderfully supportive friends gave me the chance to sit back and just let the day happen. There was no doubt for me about my decision to marry Shaun. The marriage had already happened in our hearts and we were just expressing it to each other and all of our family and friends, and making it official. I will be writing more about us later and expound on all of the reasons I think our relationship works. I have a lot to say and I hope it can possibly help other people who are struggling with a current relationship or who are having trouble finding true love. We have had 7 and ½ years of experience, after all!

o        The ceremony is BEAUTIFUL and goes off without a hitch, as does the reception. The only bone to pick was that the DJ seemed to have forgotten the full list of songs we sent him and only played some of the ones we wanted, and played way more country than we can stomach. Then, in his announcements, he misstated my name as Kristen - TWICE. Our guests yelled their correction at him, “IT’S KRISTA!” but he seemed to be somewhere on another planet. We were not too pleased, but all of the other amazing parts of the night made up for it big time! J The food was delicious, the cake was awesome, I had my own tiny, cute, gluten-free cake. The toasts were great, other than the moment Mom couldn’t read her notes and we all waited with bated breath after her first line, “I wasn’t too happy when…” Yeah, good times. LOL! Don’t worry, she eventually said some nice things that were unexpected, but very much welcome! We have an after-party at the Sheraton with our out-of-town friends and family, rounding out the night with a beautiful wine-bottle guitar solo by our good friend, Mrs. Kyla Deatherage. J

• The week of Thanksgiving we have Shaun’s family with us and do an early Thanksgiving meal, since they have to leave on Thanksgiving. We have his Uncle Kevin, from Tennessee. We have Uncle Mike, Aunt Amanda and little cousin Samuel, who is an absolute joy. I love that kid! The McKinney/Mahans are a great family. Family is important to both Shaun and me. From my own life experiences and some in Shaun’s family, we both have a reverence for the fragility of family relationships. Shaun’s family is a great example of one where they all allow each other to BE who they are. They accept each other. They don’t try to force each other to fit into a mold in order to be acceptable. They laugh easily. I never felt tension one time in the six days they were with us. Not once. Granted, I may have just been out of the loop. But, really…for such a high-stress situation, a wedding, everyone handled it with grace. If anyone had issues with anything, I didn’t hear about it. We had a blast laughing and watching random hilarious videos on YouTube, hearing about Lisa’s recent study abroad in Japan, catching up and watching the new Harry Potter movie.
• By Wednesday, I come down with something and am pretty under the weather, but grin through it because I wanted to have as much fun with the family as I could. I eventually go to CareNow and find out it’s an upper respiratory infection.
• After we say farewell to the family on Thanksgiving, Shaun and I decide to head to the only place open on Thanksgiving - Denny’s! We had a fun dinner there. Our waiter was really cool and nice, especially considering he was working at Denny’s on Thanksgiving night! It’s sinking in that we are married! We continue talking about the wedding for at least a week.

December - Cruising & CHRISTMAS!

• We go back to work for about two weeks, then we leave for our cruise. We drove down the 4 ½ hours to Galveston on Friday, 12/10 to meet up with the family and stay at the hotel. The next day we boarded the ship and enjoyed the first rocky night aboard the ship. I felt pretty nauseous in the afternoon on 12/11, once we set sail, because the water was really rocky in the Gulf of Mexico. However, I eventually got used to it and we all had fun.
• 12/12 was our day at sea. We searched for a sunny spot to sit in the sun and read. We toured the boat, ate, drank and just enjoyed being outside. We also went to a champagne art auction in one of the big show rooms. It was educational, as neither of us had been to an auction before. The fast-talking auctioneer was from Wales and was pretty funny. He took the time to explain how the auction worked and made sure everyone knew that they weren’t bidding if they scratched their nose. There were some good deals, but not on the art pieces we really like. Of course the ones we really liked were way too expensive for us to afford, even at the lowered price. We came back to the auction the last day of the cruise and they had even more deals. They also had drawings and I won! We had to come back later in the evening to the gallery and got to pick a print of a painting that we really liked. We had to pay $35 for shipping - I don’t know if it was worth it or not, but the print we picked was really beautiful and now we can always say we got it on our honeymoon!
• 12/13: We landed at Progreso, Yucatan in the early morning. We had some breakfast in our room then headed out to see the sights. We had to go through the Duty Free shop in order to get farther into the town, so we explored in there for a while. Shaun bought a couple bottles of alcohol - some vodka and some Appleton’s Jamaican Rum. We took it back to the boat before heading on so we didn’t have to carry it around the whole day. We walked through some of the shops run by the locals. Some interesting finds: the chess set carved out of stone, “mota” pipes and a couple very erm…fallic statues, the big version and the little version. I found those especially amusing, of course. After Shaun got harassed for a little while by a guy trying to sell him, what he said were “real Cuban cigars,” we hopped on the bus into the actual Progreso area, about 10 minutes over this very long, very narrow strip of land, bridging the docking area to the actual city. The water was gorgeous. I couldn’t stop staring out at the expanse of ocean around us. We explored the wares being sold by the locals in the outdoor marketplace, then headed down the road to the beach. It was pretty windy and cold on the beach out of the sun, so we ducked into Eladio’s Mexican Food Restaurant for lunch and margaritas. The restaurant had wide glass windows facing the beach so we could watch all the tourists running around the beach. The Corona Beach Party was wrapping up on the beach, so we headed out there after lunch and observed the drunken 20-somethings stumbling around, much to our amusement. We walked down to the East side of the beach where it was quiet and sat in cracked beach chairs looking at the ocean and watching a guy wind surfing. He was amazing, dipping and jumping over the waves crashing in quickly with the winter currents.

o        Witnessing a frightening, possibly fatal accident - When we were heading back to the ship, walking with my aunt, uncle, baby Blake and Tessy, we walked by this outdoor bar. There were girls standing on the bar dancing around and I remember my Aunt Kathy saying, “Krista, I’m glad you’re over here with us and not up there with them.” I laughed and said “yeah, I’ve got a husband now, can’t be doing those sorts of things anymore.” We were laughing when we noticed a young man running with another guy slung over his shoulder, from the bar, straight toward the wall of the Duty Free Shop. Shaun remembers me saying “he’s gonna drop him. He’s gonna drop him over in the grass I guess.” Well, the guy dropped the other kid on the concrete, smack on his head. Of course all the other cruise-goers around us let out a collective gasp, with some “Oh my gods.” So, we walk toward the scene, and Shaun and my aunt kept saying, “just keep going, just keep going. Walk past them. There is nothing we can do.” But, of course, I don’t think my eyes could have been peeled away with a crowbar. The guy on the ground is completely knocked out, the other guy is trying to wake him up, lifting his arms up, but they just drop limply back to the ground. I’m thinking, oh my god, this kid is dead. Then, security starts surrounding the two boys, and by this time their other drunk friends have come up to see what’s going on. The dropper-guy starts drunkenly screaming at the security guards, pushing them back, yelling “don’t touch my brother! Don’t touch my brother. Get the f*** away!” My aunt is a nurse, but of course, if she were to help, she could have her nursing license revoked since she is not licensed anywhere but the U.S.. Well, so, the kid regains consciousness enough to puke profusely on the ground. By this time, there are at least 100 on-lookers, including my Uncle Steve who has the stroller with him, and is nowhere to be found. Shaun and Kathy are telling me to go tell him to come on, but I can’t find him. So, we just move forward and get as far away as possible. We are all really freaked out as we walk back to the ship. Next thing we know, as we are boarding, we hear behind us that those guys are trying to get the sick guy back on the boat in a wheelchair, telling Carnival security that he is just really drunk. My Uncle is not having that so he stays down there and talks to the security guards so they will know what really happened and that the kid needs real medical attention because he could have a brain hemorrhage or something. They eventually found the kid’s family and I hope he got some medical attention. I never heard anything after that.

• 12/14: We landed in Cozumel early in the morning. We had made reservations, thanks to Aunt Kathy, for an excursion to Playa Mia Beach Resort. We boarded a bus and road for about 20 minutes where we were let off. We walked through the resort shopping area and it opened up to this view of the ocean. It was breath taking. A smile spread across my face and was plastered there the entire day! The excursion covered unlimited open bar, so we grabbed a couple drinks, commandeered some chairs on the beach and commenced the relaxation. I just admired the ocean for the longest time and laid out getting sun. There were palm trees swaying next to us and the sun was nice and warm, beaming through the cold wind. We started discussing how we could live in Cozumel full time. I was not even kidding at all. I know it seems like the easy way, but I figure if you can make a living in a job somewhere like that, you would be at peace always.