the secrets

finally! i can let the whole world know i'm going to be an aunt! brian and irina are expecting their bundle of joy august 2nd. we learned the news on thanksgiving but i've had to keep it under wraps til today. i'm not that great at keeping secrets so let me tell you this was EXTREMELY hard. congrats to you both!

another secret i had to keep were nate's plans on proposing to katie. i thought i'd share katie's version of the proposal with everyone. i thought it was super sweet on nate's part.

Friday, December 19, 2008

It was 5:30 at night and Nate was leaving work early to go "Christmas shopping". He told me to just lock up and come home after my 6pm appointment. Well, I was cutting Lauren's hair when I got a few text messages from Nate. One said "there's a surprise waiting for you there.." I thought okay... hes home already?!?! (totally thinking he got me a puppy or something) So, I had to stop and put air in my tire on the way home-I'm pulling into Murphysboro, when my phone rings...

Nate: "What are you doing?"
Me: "I had to stop and put air in my tire and now I am creeping through Murphy-I'll be home soon"
Nate: "well stop lollygaggin!"

I get home open the door-look around and don't see a puppy, still wondering what the surprise is. Jason Mraz "I'm Yours" is playing-Nate walks up to me, takes my hand and says "I recorded this song for you-I know how much you like it..." I thought, okay. "So this is my surprise, thanks honey, I love this song!"

He grabs my hand and says "Come here, I bought you a tree topper!!" I look to the top of the tree and see a little sparkle at the top. HOLY CRAP its a ring!! He grabs it, slides in on my finger and gets down on one knee and asks "Katie-will you marry me???" I am bawling outta control and say "YES!!!"

It was super intimate and romantic and shocking! I am still pinching myself to make sure its actually real!!! I am so excited to marry the love of my life!

so not only is the rich family expanding but so are the westphals. and what's good about having two families and two secrets? i can tell the westphals the rich secrets and the richs the westphals secrets. totally a win/win for me! congrats to nate and katie too!!

jamaica bound

tomorrow morning we leave for jamaica. i can't believe by tomorrow afternoon we'll be lounging on the beach. yay! so my prediction came true thanks to aaron! what an awesome husband i have! not sure if i'll blog while we're down there, probably just journal. i may pop in for a brief update. happy 2nd anniversary to the westphals!

this time last year...

pretty much the phrase of the weekend. the whole phrase: "can you believe this time last year we were in jamaica getting married?" jamaica...oh how we miss thee! seriously, we do.

we've officially got a whole year of marriage under our belts.

we thought we'd try and take one of those "spur of the moments" vacations/weekends, but that didn't pan out too well. (i don't think those work unless you live in a city with a major airport.) we even considered reliving the moment in jamaica. poor planning on our part. two nights cost just as much as five days. so that was a bust. instead we decided to have a date weekend. friday night we went out to dinner at one of our favorite "fancy" restaurants, the artisanal. food was fabulous.

saturday we went to the movies and watched dan in real life. a cute, romantic comedy. yes, cute. we don't like spending $16.50 on a movie we know is going to be so-so. we bit the bullet and splurged.

on our official anniversary we went hiking. a big difference from last year. since this was going to be the last nice weekend of the year, we decided to take advantage. we climbed 1000 ft. in a little over a mile. elevation on elk knob: 5520 ft. i thought i was going to die. it was pretty much uphill the whole time. but when we made it to the top it was totally worth the climb! aaron slathered on the zinc sunscreen so his lips are stark white in the pic. but we wanted to commemorate the occasion with a photo. slightly resembles the photo we took last year this time!

it was pretty much a low key anniversary. we shared a few gifts, relaxed, and were probably a little more lovey-dovey than usual. i think we both agreed we'd plan a little better next year. this time next year, i can't believe we'll be in jamaica! ;)

in confidence

saturday i went out on watauga lake with vivian and the crew. we weren't sure when mark would be arriving so aaron stayed back and planned to meet up with us later. i got a text from aaron: we're going to do our own thing, call me later. i just assume they're gonna do some father/son bonding and get the whole "jane" situation sorted out from the get-go. when i arrived home i asked aaron if he said anything. "no, he mentioned something about karma when we were talking about getting him a digital camera for his birthday. he didn't elaborate and said he'd tell me more about it on the bike ride."

okay.

"should i bring it up?"

"sounds like he will soon."

backstory: apparently mark and jane are no longer a couple. we've heard this from both danny and nate. but he hasn't said a single word to aaron and it's been 2 months. he's talking and acting like they are still an item. do we keep pretending we don't know?

yesterday we went on the 17 mile virginia creeper bike ride. (i'll have pictures to post later) afterwards i decided to take a hot bath. when i got out and went downstairs the conversation aaron and his dad were having went down to a whisper. it's THE talk. a little awkward, so i grabbed a water and headed back upstairs. i could barely hear what was being said...something about fake sprained ankle, parade, funeral homes. it's so out of context that i decided not to listen plus i know aaron will tell me later. so i thought. he comes up an hour later.

"so?"

"he asked me to keep it in confidence and i want to respect that."

WHAT? hello?!? wife here!

nothing more was said. it was late and i knew it'd be useless to argue, especially with mark in the next room. i'll be saying a lot tonight. mark went down to asheville til tomorrow. do you think aaron should tell me or not? i was just wondering if i'm in the wrong here or at least get other opinions.