Last Song for us

Oops, I forgot the last song we wanted to dance to and did, ending our night where it started, out on the dance floor, the night over our heads.




By the time this played it was midnight. The rain had ended and most of our friends and family had retired to warmer, drier cabins and homes. I don't know who the crew was that manned the firepit but thank you.

Jaime's girls made me carry her to our cabin, which was about 100 yards away and if you remember, had a slight incline... so thanks for that, ladies.

Soon we will be getting our wedding pictures back and should have some posted on here over the weekend.

-jay

Our Ceremony Songs

We had four, five songs which we used to set the tone of the wedding; here they are in case anyone is interested or, like us, may have forgotten them by next year.

Wedding Party Intro
"Heaven's Already Here" -Collective Soul

Bride Intro
"Pretty Donna" - Collective Soul




 The Signing
"Better Together" Jack Johnson



The Introduction
"Best Day of My Life" - American Authors

The First Dance

"Always You" - Sophie Zelmani

This last song was a close second to our first song (meaning this was Jay's choice not Jaime's). But in hind sight, he sees Jaime's choice was a lot more memorable for not only being part of the soundtrack of My Best Friend's Wedding but also now part of our own soundtrack.

Baby I Love You - The Ramones

I saw friends shaking hands, saying how do you do.

And I think to myself, What a Wonderful World.

More to come.

Last week notes

So... deep breath... here we go. It's the last week before we get hitched. We were just up at Aspengrove today deciding where to place the tents, tables and dance floor. We're thinking it's going to be a pretty nice night for some outdoor dancing.

It's time for the last minute things; the things we say 'what about...' or 'have you heard from...' .

We will send off another mass email either tonight or tomorrow regarding last minute thoughts and concerns if you have any.

Reminder there is a pot luck/social at Aspengrove on the Friday night. If you arrive early enough, you might be able to see a bit of the rehearsals. If you don't, as Kennedy says, "No big deals."

Jay will be staying that night as Aspengrove, doing the guy thing with anyone who likes to sit and share laughs at the campfire then run around naked after midnight in the woods trying to catch a deer.

Jaime will be spending the night at the house, doing whatever girls do while men are being men.

Saturday morning, there's lots to consider doing, from waterslides to the amazing beaches to old-fashioned middle of the woods fishing at Nicolen Lake resort, which also rents boats.

The ceremony starts at 4 so please arrive with plenty of time to spare and socialize.

Dinner is an old fashioned BBQ, Burgers/hot dogs corn on the cob and salads.

We will have some friendly bartender/hostesses providing some refreshments. If you have a specific beverage, bring it.

Unlimited Juice!

Marshmallows are sticky and will be supplied.

Casual dress is fine and encouraged.

Remember to bring a sweater or jacket - while it could be up to 30 degrees, it does drop off quickly after 8 pm, when the sun goes down.

 Quick directions; Google map it.

Not-so-quick-directions; Head down Highway 6 to Lumby, turn right at the Petro Canada (about 12 kms from Vernon), go up School Road to Learmouth, take a left. Go up the mountain as far as it goes (there is a hairpin turn). Take a left at the T - you will see a sign we made. Then follow the road up the mountain - it will turn to gravel. Go up the gravel road for about 2 kms. There will be a couple more signs. Turn right into Aspengrove and follow the driveway up.

Update

Ok so we have decided that since many people will be camping at Aspen Grove or up there helping set up, we will just have a potluck meal there the day before the wedding. No sense in driving down to our house to make a mess of it!

I was up there the other day and there are still some cabins available. If you haven't rented one and want to, or are planning to camp in a trailer or tent, please contact Aspen Grove so they can make sure your accommodations are ready for you. They won't prepare cabins that aren't booked. You can contact them at http://aspengrovecountryresort.com/

Let us know if you have any questions!

Met the Marriage Commissioner

28 days...

not to be confused with ....

the worst wedding party ever.

Yep. I guess we are heading into the home stretch now. We went and paid for a marriage license at London Drugs because apparently you can do that. That was last week. Then a couple of days ago we met a nice lady named Karen (coincidentally also the name of the mother of the groom) at the Tim Horton's where Jaime and her talked for an hour. I, as usual, kept my involvement to a minimum as I tried not to cry.

But I did find out my Dad's middle name is Roy, which was the nickname of my Grandpa. I knew Dad's middle name was his father's, just as my middle name is his. And while I knew Grandpa's nickname was Roy and his real name was Cedric, I didn't know he gave Dad his nickname and not his real name. Make sense? Anyways, my Dad's real name is Kenneth Roy Royston, not Kenneth Cedric Royston as I thought. Thankfully, that's where it ended. Who knows where I would have wound up if my name was Roy Roy Royston.

But I digress...

We went through the rough timeline with her. It starts at four, takes no more than 20 minutes including the signing and we are done. We discussed/edited down our vows to keep it as simple and painless as possible. I said we didn't need to have the whole bit about what a marriage is - you should all know the theory behind it by now, right? So that was cut. We know what rings symbolize - cut. Making out with Jaime for an inappropriate amount of time - cut.

We talked about entrances and timing, whose doing what, the music that will be played and our thoughts on photography. Just so it's no surprise, we would prefer if there were no pictures during the ceremony, unless of course your camera phone has a silent function. Hearing clickclickclickclick kind of takes away from hearing me mumble and/or sob like Michael Jordan winning the big game (so happy crying, not sad crying). We will have a photographer there who will be taking pictures and we will be sure to upload them after all is said and done so you can pick and choose which ones to download.

We aren't going to be having a receiving line either. Just come up and give us a nod or tuck some gold bullion in my pockets. That will do.

We do want a group picture immediately after- that means everyone there is in it, like a high school graduation photo - Karen has agreed to take the picture for us. It's going to be awesome. If you are in the can or at the bar and you're not there, sorry. Karen is on the clock.

Then we go take some private pictures, you guys all entertain yourselves with drinks and lawn games or even just a picturesque walk and we start eating around 6pm. Then a couple of speeches and dancing. Just like any other Saturday night.

Jaime has been doing a fantastic job on the crafts and decorations for the wedding. She's loving Pinterest and I'm loving she's not telling me how much all these craft supplies are costing.

Food And Drinks. A Primer.

Rub A Grub Grub and Boozey Booze Booze

So, here's the plan for feeding y'all. Seeing as how some of you are camping up there, the cookhouse will be available for you. It has all the basics of a regular kitchen including fridge, stove and plates. The only thing missing will be the food, which comes on Saturday. There will be a brunch of sorts of Sunday morning, probably involving pancakes.

Saturday's Dinner

Food

Remember it's a BBQ wedding so be prepared for BBQ'd things like...

Hamburgers
Chicken burgers
Hot dogs
Grits
Corn on the Cobs
Really burnt unidentifiable meat substances


There will be some salads, the kind you expect at a BBQ; Potato Salad, Maybe some type of spinach Salad. Bean salad.


Later snacks might include things like cupcakes, popcorn, seasonal fruit and smores (fire pit permitting) for the kids, both young and old.







Booze

We can't sell booze as we would need to apply for a liquor license. However, we will have a keg of Jay's favourite draft beer (Okanagan Springs 1516) and some of the Okanagan's 2nd or 3rd least expensive bottles of red and white wine (to be decided after a complicated and convoluted wine tasting tour one day this summer.

If you want to bring your own preferred liquor, we will have a bartender who will guard/pour it for you so you can avoid all the hassle of trying to remember where you stashed your bottle as you are grinding it out on the dance floor.

6 weeks...

This isn't as easy as I thought.

Hey everyone;

It's getting close to crunch time (so says Jaime, as she's been saying for the last couple of weeks) - we are in the food planning stages now. If you could help out my not making us track you down and just telling us how many kids or dates you are bringing, that would be great.

That was way too much text to meme

I've been trying to keep up on the invite list but... things.

We are going to have a BBQ and the kids will be eating hot dogs and corn on the cobs. We will also have s'mores for later. Grown-ups will have a variety of burgers, potato salad, cobs and fancy breads that you can eat with biodegradable toothpicks and then use for poking people that annoy you. 

There's a dessert involved too and a complimentary keg and some wines. We will also have mix but we aren't buying a liquor license. So, if you have a favourite drink in mind, we are asking you bring it on up. We will have a bartender who can guard it for you while you are busting a groove or herniating a disc on the dance floor.

If you are still wondering about gifts, we feel we have so much already that all we are asking for is some help for a honeymoon. We've fixed our link if you would just like to donate to that. You can click here and forgo all the shopping.

As always, send us any questions and/or answers and we will get back to you asap.

jay and jaime

That Honeymoon Link is fixed

It was brought to our attention that the honeymoon link on the side there wasn't working. After countless hours avoiding looking at it, and given the choice of thinking about ties and suites, I've fixed the link.

As mentioned, we have blessed with an incredible life of happiness, laughter and dirty diapers which we are going to be happy to be finally rid of in the next couple months as Kennedy graduates to full-time potty usage.

As such, the best thing you could give us is your presence on our wedding day. Ha, nice pun...

Anyways, if you would like to avoid the hassle of going into a store and wondering what we might possibly need, you can always contribute to our honeymoon fund. We will determine the destination after the craziness of the summer and will keep people informed of our adventures via this blog.

Thanks everyone who has RSVP'd or declined. We will be chasing down the rest of you for firm answers in July so we can arrange our food budget accordingly.

-jay and jaime

Our Homes through the years

Westwood 2008-May 2009

Sanderson June 2009- September 2010

Calgary September 2010  -Aug 2011

L&A Road Sept 2011 - April 2012

Lavington Way April 2012 - Jan 2014

Glendora Way Jan 2014 - ongoing..

On Fighting

Fights. We've all had them. We've all won some and we've all lost some.

This isn't going to be a list of our Top 10 fights (that's next week) because unless something relates to a particular instance or circumstance you are going through our disputes are between ourselves and I'm not going to tell you about them. Unless maybe I find something about a certain argument funny. Sometimes Jaime finds things I am mad about funny and she laughs and seeing her laugh makes me laugh although I am still mad, it's no longer as important to me as seeing her laugh.

Whether you personally think this or not, I believe all relationships are based just as much on the fights as it is the make-ups. In some relationships, in only takes one fight to destroy everything you've built together. In others, it can disintegrate into unhealthy relationships based on fear, disrespect and dishonor.

This was a casebook bad relationship...

Jaime and I have had our share of fights. I think it's impossible not to be in a relationship you care about and not have a heated exchange or two. It's how you choose to react in these times that define your future. I'm not going to speak for Jaime on this matter but I don't think she will disagree with me on too much of what I'm saying.

If so, we'll fight about it later.

I honestly believe that you need to have a few disagreements under your belts before getting married. Get it out of the way now before it's too late and you're riding the Divorce Train to Single Town. Just like we needed to experience moving to a big city with very little in the way of a support network to address any compatibility issues we had.

I'm not ashamed to admit it but we did have some bad patches in Calgary. We went to a couple marriage counselling sessions. To be honest, I wasn't impressed with it or the counselor - we vented our mutual frustrations to our therapist, who said nothing, offered no feedback, and then promptly told us she was taking a two week break and for us to come back after her holidays. She didn't even offer a band-aid solution. We were on our own to try and figure stuff out until our next appointment but she had no problem taking our money. I doubt she even went on vacation. She may have thought we were more trouble than it was worth, Or she knew something we didn't; we will either fix this on our own or one of us will be gone in two weeks. It was up to us to figure out where we wanted to go.

But here's what I did get out of that experience; Reflect what you heard your partner say. It's pretty simple - your partner says "blah blah blah" and you repeat back "What I hear you saying is blah blah blah". That allows your partner to either confirm or rearrange their thoughts into a more coherent concern. I use it often, at home or at work. I think it helps.

My other take-away; What's the Win-Win?

In hindsight, that might not have been from that counselor. But the theory is simple - what solution can the two of us arrive at where we both felt we 'won'? It involves compromise and finding a middle ground. It might feel good to be in a situation where you win and your partner loses but in the end, one day you're going to be on the losing side and it will suck. All I can say is try to be graceful in your loss, humble in your win.

I am grateful to Jaime that we try to find the Win-Wins. I think that is very important. Although I said I wouldn't dig into our closet of arguments, I think she's okay with this one 'minor' disagreement we had a few years ago.

The Case of the Ugly Utensil Holders

Ugly

Awesome

I absolutely hated a utensil holder we had - it was a wire bar thing you'd see in an IKEA kitchen display. The handles would poke out and basically it drove me nuts. Of course, there was a lot of other stresses going on in our lives but that utensil holder, at that time, represented all that was evil in my world. I loathed it more than the when Messier and Keenan became Canucks and destroyed all I held true to hockey (okay, not that much). 

I tried to replace it with a Heinz ketchup can because I thought it was 'hip' and 'retro-cheap' but that became the bane of Jaime's existence (probably for the same reasons I preferred it). We fought with way more passion and intensity that would be expected over a utensil holder. In the end, Jaime bought a decent looking cookie jar which we now use. Win-win.  

Anyways, I guess I'm saying is that another reason why I love Jaime so is our ability to have these disagreements and at the end of the day or week, we are able to apologize and move on with our lives. Sometimes in the heat of the moment we might forget about the Win-Win or the 'what I hear you saying is...' for a couple of days but with time, I think we get to it. Sometimes I have no idea what she is mad about and I am sure she feels the same towards me sometimes. I've since learned not to keep my issues bottled up and not think things like 'if i just don't address it, it won't bother me'. I've learned that from Jaime.

And as the day gets nearer, we will be arguing a lot more. I am apparently not allowed to man the BBQ after the ceremony nor can we have a magician. And for her part, she promised to ... well... I'm keeping that story in my pocket until another day.

In the end, as long as we continue to grow and parent from a position of love and respect, I'm happy, which sure as hell beats that other option entering a marriage.

Okay, 70 days to go...

Our year in Calgary 2011/12

Calgary. 2nd worst. winter. ever.

So we moved to Calgary, found a decent little house central to the main highways that crossed through the city. We lived across from a closed school, our view was the school field with a playground so we had that going for us.

I remember receiving some advice from a friend who had been married for nearly 10 years. They thought the best thing they ever did was make a big move together. To be taken out of your comfort zone, to go on a great adventure together and experience the joys, trials and tribulations that come with that can either forge a relationship or strengthen it. We were lucky in that Calgary definitely did all of that for us.

It wasn't easy; we worked hard at overcoming schedules, distances, and disagreements. The winter was horrible, made doubly so because of our jobs driving to and from appointments or home visits. We both worked in family services in some way; Jaime helped families work on plans to reunite, I was predominantly shuttling children to and from family visits and/or schools and foster homes. I put a lot of mileage on my little PT Cruiser and soon learned a lot of the back ways to avoid traffic congestion the Deerfoot or #1. But it was still a lot of time on the road. I was involved in only one accident, with minimal damage to my car when someone ran a light. I got three speeding tickets in a month (2 were those sneaky ones, where the cops hide about 30 yards down from where the zone goes from 60 to 50 km/h and another was a photo trap. Not cool.). 

By late Spring we had enough. We were shuttling Jordan over by plane from Vancouver 2x a month and I was steadily paying for that via credit cards. The winter was long and traffic awful on those mornings when snow was in the forecast. We would never be able to afford a house. If we stayed where we were, Avery would never have had a baby brother. All our friends lived too far away for a simple 'let's just pop over and visit X'. It was an all-day excursion if we were to attempt that. I really missed the mountains and trees and native Calgarians would say 'Oh, you can just take a short drive to Banff.' But if we couldn't find the time, money and energy to go to visit friends, we sure weren't going to drive for an hour just to look at trees. But we did take a few trips up north to Mike and Sonia's which gave us the opportunity to catch up on some lost years where we only saw each other at Christmas dinners at our parents' homes so that was nice.

Calgary was amazing for other things though - wind being one of them. We did go to a cool piano bar once and it was a lot more multicultural than you would have thought. But maybe that was the area of town we lived in.

Oh, and there was an Olive Garden.

Wedding Update - 3 months and counting.

Okay, so it's really like 2.5 months away.
August 27th. August 27th.

It's gone past the point where I can be a passive observer as Jaime kicks it into 3rd gear...maybe 4th. I'm not sure if she's one of those people that have 5th gear, like Cole Trickle. I guess I will find out in August.

Anyways, as it's now June 11th and here are some things I am to start thinking more about. She would prefer if I already had an opinion which earlier I thought I did (for the record, it was 'whatever you think, Jaim'). But now, I'm expected to have an idea.

Here are some of the questions I have yet to answer this week/month/engagement;

What do I want to wear?
What colour is your tie going to be?
What are your groomsmen wearing?
What do you think of these centerpieces?
Have you read the wedding vows yet?
Do you have an opinion of the wedding vows?
Read the fucking wedding vows already.
Have you got an RSVP from (basically any of your friends)?
Do you need to get new shoes?
Who is going to be the DJ?
What is our first song going to be?
What about the second song?
What song will be playing during the processional and the recessional?
Me - What is a processional and recessional?
(Jaime rolls eyes and sighs. Closes her wedding binder and walks away)

And those are just the questions I remember. All I've been doing is trying to speed along with this 'This Is Our Life' blog and all the other maintenance on 'This Is Really Our Life With Kids' non-blog we have going on. It's been hard. Like today, we went to Lumby Days to watch the kids have a blast at the fair and for us to see how quickly a $100 can go when you are with 2 kids under seven. Answer - very fast.

But here's one update;

I've changed the guest list to reflect those who have confirmed they are coming. I know a lot of you had said 'maybe' and so I put you all in italics and if it was, your names are now gone. Why did I do this? I don't really know. But it's too late to fix it.

But if you are getting this email, you were (and still are) invited. If you aren't sure if you confirmed already, head to the Guest List. If your name is there in bold, we are expecting you. If you aren't, expect a phone call or more personal email in July. We need to have a true body count by the end of July for the food order.

Any questions?

Thanks, Jay and Jaime

The Big Moves, 1 and 2

Off to Calgary... August 2010

So we were settled in at our house on Sanderson Road for about a year. Our new home was just around the corner from my 1st house on Westwood. It was a nice little set-up, about 700 feet in total if I remember but not really conducive to 2 dogs, a cat, Jaime and a baby. There was only 1 bedroom on the main floor and a steep (today we call that slant illegal) staircase going up to the two small bedrooms upstairs.

But so it goes, I sold that for a healthy profit and let it ride into our second home on Sanderson. There were some troubles with the previous owners who decided to leave a broken motor home and a shed full of junk behind (use those subject clauses and demand penalties in the sales contract people). A few calls to the Realtor to get them to move it and hey, a month later we finally had the house to ourselves.

It was a handyman special but had lots of floorspace, nearly quadrupling in size from the Westwood home. I saw lots of potential but I also encountered a lot of problems as I realized the person who renovated it before had less experience than myself and a drinking problem. The house was painted completely primer white inside, the best feature being a fish tank situated in the wall above the entrance room and in what we made the kids' bedroom. It was a weird floor plan, like a bunch of boxes all linked together.

We repainted everything, Jaime worked hard on preparing the baby room, with help from my Mom. The colours were nice. During this time, I was working a couple of jobs (as usual) - I worked for Carrier Sekani (as did Jaime) providing family visitation support/supervision. I also worked 24 hour shifts at Taborview and graveyard shifts at ENCAAS. It was sad situations I was going into but over the years I have normalized it.

The burn-out in social services personnel is incredible. I can't believe Jaime picked this incredibly hard life as a career and I respect her so much for choosing it. I've worked with people whose only education was they knew how to play second base and were great at the job. I worked with others who I believed did more harm than help and they have their degrees. I've worked with families where I could see no reason why the kids were in care and with parents who should not have their children near them at all. I worked in gov't approved homes you would swear were crack houses, not foster homes. I supervised one mother who would later turn out to be one of the victims of that Ft. St. James serial killer and then went on to supervise visitations with the father and their two young kids two and three years old. Imagine them asking in later years whatever happened to mom. I talked in my blog about that kid who committed suicide in Abbotsford just days before aging out of care and the problems inherent in a system that hides these problems so I won't really go into it here. This is supposed to be a 'good memories' blog.

So we needed a change and wanted to be somewhere optimistic but still close to family and Jordan. Jaime applied to an agency in Calgary. She was offered a job over the phone. When we moved there, I applied for a job in their group home division and was accepted. I don't recall much of that time, can't even recall our trip over there to house search. I just knew I was getting out of Dodge, finally heeding the call of Alberta like my brother had done fifteen years before me. The new job was still graveyard shifts but honestly after PG, I couldn't imagine it being any worse.

Typical Mt. Robson picture

So we let my family know and Mom tried not to cry. After all Avery wasn't even a year old yet when we made this decision. We had another garage sale, managed to rent out our home to two nice ladies, one also a social worker, packed up a U-Haul with a car hauler on it for the PT, threw the cat in the CRV while the dogs came with me and we headed out east...

Even the sewer manholes showed some pride

Our little rental of $1200/month, I believe.

1st week exploring the city

Memories...on FFWD. Ending 2009

Wow...what I thought was going to be a routine posting of a timeline of memories turned out to be a pipe dream. With the last memory being in October 2009, the way this is going the wedding will be postponed until 2020 sometime.

So let's speed things up here...

To A Tyler Burbee Memory... "Look, magenta!"

1st Halloween costume, although I don't
recall going out.

Mandatory Spaghetti face picture. Jaime says every family needs to have a
spaghetti face picture to embarrass their kids in later years.

Mike Currie and I, during my custody trial for Jordan. 4 day trial. To sum it up,
I basically lost however in a pre-trial I did win 1 week a month access and made the
mistake of thinking the new Judge knew what the basis of that decision was. 

"Daddy, you look like a man!"- Jordan

1st Christmas!

Jordan and I doing Father/Son bonding during our 1st Christmas together.

Avery facing the usual problems of being a cutie-pie on Christmas

Brother/sister combo!

Our 1st Family Portrait - a gift from D'arcy and Claudette