a wedding is a day, a marriage is a lifetime

this is the central theme of engagement encounter - how to focus on your relationship for your marriage rather than picking colors and arranging seats. and it makes a lot of sense. there's so many things to remember about this weekend but i think my fondest memory was something called the betrothal. one of the facilitating couples read theirs out loud to each other and to us and then we were supposed to write ours to our fiance. they played this song called "i will never be the same" and i wish i had heard who the artist was but i didn't. and the words were so perfect. i really am not going to be the same - i'm going to be mrs. joseph lopez - a wife, a lover, and a best friend. always. from this day forward. and it made me happy.
i told joey that before we met, i always had the same prayer - i asked the Lord for some direction in life - what did He want of me? what was my purpose? would i journey by myself? this was during the two years before i met him and i prayed about it all the time. and i really didn't know what i was doing in all walks of life - relationships, career, everything. and i told Joey that God gave me many blessings that year. I told him that I didn't think that it was coincidence that God gave my vocation for nursing at the exact time that we got together. So God gave me another vocation - to the married life - the same time that He gave me my vocation to be a nurse. He is a clever one. and through it all, we've grown and we continue to grow, not separately, but together. strength in unity, unity in faith. i use this a lot in a lot of my own talks and it's very true. i learned a lot this weekend and so did joey. we're both happy we went. it was so nice to see people two by two all weekend. everyone in couples introducing their fiances. so nice and so natural to all.
one of the other facilitating couples were named Kathie and Joe. and Joe's first story was about how it would take him 5 different alarm clocks for him to wake up and Kathie would still have to call and wake him up. and Kathie was a nurse too. later that weekend we asked Kathie if her name was Kathryn - and it was! so they were Katherine and Joseph and we were Kathryn and Joseph. They're our twins except fourty five years down the road! But if they can do it, so can we =)

an encounter

joey and i are going on our engagement encounter this weekend. he is so not excited. he looked up the website and there's these two guys sitting on the grass journaling. joey's not a journaler ;p anyway, keep us in ur prayers. i heard the food is decent and the scenery is beautiful. i'm looking forward to it. have a good weekend. there's so many things that are going on that i'm going to miss - how to days, frances's baby shower mark and audrey's wedding shower. who knew this date was so popular when i booked it in november? anyway, have a good time all.

happy bday Gomez

to my one and only priest godfather: HAPPY BIRTHDAY! please be nice during our wedding homiily because I'm really worried that you have too much inside information so BE NICE!

love your goddaughters and one godson

my image of today

this is my image of today.
sweet, innocent, and pure goodness.
this is baby lara if you haven't see her recently.
you have to smile.
she's too cute not to.
have a good day.
i'm going to bed.

crossroads, cocaine and nash

no i'm not at a crossroads and contemplating about cocaine. those were the encore songs that eric clapton played tonight at the concert. it wasn't until the last two songs did he play wonderful tonight and leila - the songs that i recognized. wonderful tonight is 100x better played by the one and only eric clapton. i kept telling joey that it must be nice to have talent - he makes it look so effortless. i got joey eric clapton tickets for valentines day and we saw him last night at staples center. i kept insisting to joey that i was the youngest asian person there - and i think i was! but it was worth it - he is an amazing artist! we saw paul mccartney last year and this year was eric clapton, maybe next year we'll see either tom petty or elton john. they are truly one of a kind.

on another note, i just watched the espn replay of the phoenix suns vs. dallas mavericks double ot game and it was awesome. i think besides kobe, steve nash is my favorite player in the league - he truly makes him team better, a facilitator. but if kobe had amare stoudamire, shawn marion and barbosa on his team like steve nash does, the lakers would be better too.

signs

so my parents took out all of the popcorn off the ceiling last week and in the process i had to pack all of my stuff away and i am now in the process of putting it all back. in the middle of my process, i came across a movie ticket stub for signs - remember with mel gibson and the aliens and the water? and all i remember is screaming in jerome's ear when the alien appeared in the background. and i laughed heartily then and i laughed heartily last night. it was funny. poor jerome.