One thing to note was The Dreamboat still had to work while I was there (he’s saving vacation days for actual trips). I had the use of his car during the day, which I took full advantage of. I was also given a map which saved my life. Twice.

I love getting flowers.

A real-live, Southern California snail!

The Dreamboat is quickly learning to photog. And well.

And lastly, I love it when he drives.

Mike, Laura, kiddos, thank you.

Then I met his family. Then he met mine. And that first date was just four weeks ago.

Crazy, right?

The Dreamboat and I met in NY (he moved there shortly after I moved away) and knew little of each other for months. During my first vacation of the summer (I may have alluded to him when I referenced new friends in this post), he and I spent a bit of time together at church and various social gatherings. Upon my arrival home, I sent him a HUGE list of must-listen-to Coldplay songs and two weeks later, we were email BFFs. Respectively speaking, of course.

A week or so after that, my second NY vacation was mentioned and The Dreamboat asked me out on a date.

Um, yes please?

We hung out every night I was in town and it was glorious. And foreign. And oh, so comfortable.

I don’t want to bore you with all the details at this point in time; as things progress between The Dreamboat and I, I may start filling in some holes. For now, know that we’re really excited about this new relationship. And by “excited” I mean overwhelmed with joy.

Ok fine, one quick story: A week after date #1, we had another epic excursion that involved amazing coffee, a used book store and reciting Charles Dickens. If you know me well (or have been following the blog for more than three months), this was the best.date.ever. Followed closely by the evening that involved sushi, ice cream and 200,000 miles.

For those of you inclined to pray, please pray for us! I may have met The Dreamboat on the East Coast, but he lives in California. CALIFORNIA.

P.S. I apologize for making you all wait for this post! I threw up Part 1 in haste, not thinking that Part 2 would need a little more time; we wanted to take a few weeks and tell people, versus them finding out via social media.

And on a completely unrelated note, when I was checking out at the Mart of Walls earlier this week, my cashier took a moment to tell me one of my purchases was silly. A flash drive. She had seen it in another store for less money. I graciously thanked her, made my purchase anyway and came home. When I pulled my brand-new, hot pink flash drive out of the packaging, I found a coupon for 50 free song downloads.

Win. I win.

I got four CDs + out of the deal. One of those CDs has been rocking.my.world. this week. Keith and Kristyn Getty‘s Awaken the Dawn. Check out some of my new favorite songs:

The arrangements on the CD are much better (you should probably get a copy) than these TV studio recordings, but the words are so stellar.

Last summer, Jeff found his way to Speculator, NY from Connecticut. Daniela? She made it all the way to NY from Ecuador. Randomly, they met outside the town’s only Chinese food restaurant. North America meets South America in China.

That first encounter propelled them into spending more and more time together as two hearts were gently being guided towards “forever”. These two hearts will be bound together in marriage this August and I’m terribly excited for them.

Their engagement shoot started out with Jeff suggesting we go to that Chinese food restaurant to take some portraits. “Um, excuse me? You want to celebrate your love in front of a hideous, green building?” Thankfully, that thought only lasted for a minute before creativity began oozing out of me and I found myself eager and up for the challenge.

That green building turned out to be a gem!

I was told by Jeff and then by Daniela herself that she was nervous because she didn’t like having her photo taken. Nervous or not, Daniela WORKED IT for me. I must have stopped to drool over the photos I was taking 50 times that afternoon.

Are you sure you’re not a super model in Ecuador?

After bebopping around town for a bit, we wound up at CAMP-of-the-WOODS, where Jeff and Daniela are working for the summer. Our first stop was the little pond in the center of Camp…

…then we moved up to a magical spot behind the auditorium. The lighting was uh-maz-zing.

Epic.

When I look at this next photo, I have a huge desire to go to Daniela’s house for dinner; she’s so engaging in here, I instantly feel at home.

Love.

We finished the day with the sun setting on the lake. I’m so glad we came back to do these; some of my favorites are here!

To be honest, I was nervous about this shoot because I hadn’t spent any time with Daniela since she’s been in Ecuador this past winter. After taking my first photo of these two together, I was in photog-bliss. I cannot wait to document their wedding day; it’s going to be EPIC.

Enjoy!

She had originally approached me for store-maneuvering advice; I gave her what my three-week old perspective could give in such a situation. Then she told me to keep quiet.

A whole week, she made me wait.

Then the others knew so suddenly that there was no time for me to even relish in my prior knowledge. That’s how these things go, though. Engagements are so full of perspective and love that each individual story holds significant value. There’s her story. Then his. Then her father’s. And her mother’s. His parents’. Her grandparents’. Her little sister’s. Then there’s mine. Her twin. The girl quietly keeping significant news under wraps for a week.

A whole week.

I haven’t blogged about this here yet, because I’ve been so busy with it: I have a new “part time” job at a fine Jewelry store here in Delaware. They hired me for my personality and graphic design skills, not because I’m oozing with gem-knowledge. What color is a citrine? It’s been a month now and I still don’t know without looking at all of them together.

The twin and her beau came into the store to get some advice on a diamond ring and a few short days later they came in to look at some loose diamonds. Surprisingly finding something they liked that evening, they picked a setting and scheduled to have the diamond set and the ring made. The Twin, after telling me to keep quiet about it all, bowed out of the equation; The Beau was to take over and prepare a proposal.

I was fortunate enough to be in the store when the diamond was being set. And with the hesitancy of a new employee pushing her boundaries, I asked if I could take a photo of the work being done. I’m so glad I documented this; The Twin will cherish these photos for a long time.

Here’s The Beau, waiting patiently for his engagement-instrument to be cleaned and polished.

The ring:

Before The Beau came into the store, I was so excited I needed to know what time he was coming by. The following is our text-conversation:
Me: What time are you coming by the store?
TB: I called and your boss said come by in 2hrs.
Me: So…3:30ish? I’m too excited to wait patiently.
TB: Maybe like 3:15. Me too.

The Beau told me he was to propose that evening. I guess The Twin was expecting him to wait a week or so; he wanted to catch her off guard. He would pop the question that evening after she came home from work.

Which I thought was going to be around six but in all actuality, she wasn’t scheduled to arrive home until eight. When I got home from work I thought they were already an official to-be-wed couple, but my dad, who had discussed this with The Beau earlier in the day, informed me that I would have to wait a wee bit longer.

I had been anticipating this for a week now; my parents had only known for a few short hours. Sufficient to say, I was starting to get antsy. Freaking out, is really more like it. So I decided to continue documenting it all. Here we are waiting “patiently”:

Then the phone rang. We all rushed to it to see who it was. Then walked away in defeat. Yep. I took a photo of that too. That’s how excited I was.

In a bout of miss-communication, we finally called them and congratulated the newly engaged couple and made plans to go out to dinner. At 8:30pm. I decided to forget the two slices of pizza in my stomach, the packing and gift-making that needed to be done that evening and go with them. Your twin sister only gets engaged once.

Here we are in the car.

I told you I was antsy, right? Yeah. I just snapped photos all night long. Hellos. Dinner. Proof of dinner. The ring. The chamange. I got it all and therefore will bore you with it. Why? Because I’m still stinkin’ excited for them.

Congratulations to The Twin and her Beau. It was a privilege to hold this in for a week.

A whole week.

Hung out with this girl:

In an long-overdue endeavor, I drove to Philly for the day to see the BFF. Since the weather has been moderate ’round these parts, we beboped through the city all day: used bookstore in Old City, Liberty Bell, that one really random clothing store Center City that sells immodest clothing and really cute shoes,  Rittenhouse Square, back to Old City where a cute guy thought I was checking him out but I was really just looking at his dogs, back to Center City where we became immediately thankful for the bomb squad, dinner with the office of Governor Rendell and back to Old City again.

It was great. Great conversation, great food, great urban hiking.

Then I went to church. And loved it. Which has been hard to come by these days. Church hunting was starting to take its toll on me more than job hunting. I have longed for a community since moving down and have hopefully found one. I was blessed yesterday by the pastor’s sermon and equally blessed by the people I met. I’m looking forward to settling in and getting involved.

I wish I had taken more photos for y’all, but alas. I kept the camera in my bag. Sometimes being a city girl turned country girl back in the city again makes me a little nervous.

AND IN OTHER NEWS: I’m thinking about doing another “Photo a Day” project starting in February. This time it’ll be a photo a day with my crappy camera phone. What do you think?

Things have been a bit quiet here. And for good reason; I went on vacation. A vacation from my “vacation”, if you will. I took a road trip up to Central New York for a bit of reunion. I spent four-ish days with dear friends.

This is from just after a lovely overland hike, complete with trees covered in snow:

This is what happens when the girl with the camera gets sassy:

I didn’t take many photos; I spent most of the time enjoying my friends without the pressure of capturing the memories in data-form. We hung out, we hiked, we cross-country skiied, we prayed, we witnessed miracles, we celebrated the dawning of 2010 in a truck, we celebrated Texan 2010 an hour later, we lit a Christmas tree on fire.

And it was great.