Lots of January here

Here's more from January:

Tuesday, 3rd:
Not much happened today. Got up at 6:30, had a good morning and quiet time and then went into work at 7:45. It was actually nice to be in the office and not working from home. It just feels better I guess. :) Work went very well and I got a lot of stuff done. I was off at 3:45 and Liz surprised me outside work and said hi for a few. Then Iwent and paid rent, went to the bank, got some groceries and went to the post office. Was home around 5 and then spent the evening around the house. I worked on setting up my new IPod Nano which Phoenix bought for me as a Christmas present. That was very cool of them and I was pretty excited about it. I did that, lots of laundry, cleaning my room, the kitchen and the house, playing with Shadow, paperwork, etc for the night. Liz came by to hang out for about 20 minutes at 6. And I had a good omelet and cheddarwurst dinner a little before 8. So, all that stuff I was working on took me up until about 12:30 when I finally got to bed. It was a productive evening and it was nice to just toodle around the house and get things done. :)

Wednesday, 4th:
It was a nice day today. Up at 6:30, good quiet time and to work at 7:45. I got a couple good things done today and worked until 4:15. Got back home, played with Shadow a little and then took about a half hour to pray and think about things. That was really nice and then I got to Liz's house around 5:30. She made a neat spinach, rice and cheese thingy and we had leftover pork roast for dinner. Then off to Awana at 6:30. Awana went really well tonight. I had fun with the kids during game time and with the JVers later in the evening. It was fun and Liz had a good time and was encouraged also. Good Awana night. :) After Awana, we came back to Liz's house and then went out for a walk around her neighborhood because it was pretty warm out and the stars were incredible. It was so much fun. :-D It felt so much like old times, walking around and talking about good stuff and being friends. I was so thankful to do that with Liz. We even chatted on her porch a little like we used to back in the day. :) All in all we were out for almost two hours and had a great time. We got back in around 11 and then made some hot chocolate and had that with Liz's dad. Then, when we were winding down, a huge possum came up on the back porch. Liz's dad grabbed his gun and went out to pop it. He was out there hunting it for a long time and I stayed there to make sure that everything went okay. He finally came back in about 12:15 after putting like six or seven shots in the possum and apparently it wasn't dead yet! Crazy... So, I left around 12:30, came home and went to bed.

Thursday, 5th:
Well a lot happened today for sure. The morning went well and I got off to work at 7:45. I worked until 3:45 and then came on home. As soon as I made it home, I got a call from Sperry Marine saying that they were offering me a job. This was pretty exciting news as Sperry is the job I'm most excited about. :) So that was cool. I had a little time to pray after that and then Liz came over around 5:30. We warmed up a pizza and made some carrots for dinner together. We had a real nice talk too which was exciting. Liz said that she's just about sure we should get married, which is very exciting! :-H we hung out until about 7 when Curt came over, Liz left and Curt and I went out for the night. We first went over to El Rodeo because Josh Baker randomly decided to drive cross-country. So him and a bunch of other cool people were there so we hung out for an hour or so with them. Then Curt and I went over to Underground to hang out. Drank some very tasty Winterhook and had a nice time talking about stuff. A little later we headed to PKs and chilled there for a bit too. I had a nice time talking with Curt. I miss hanging out with him more like we used to. Hopefully this spring semester will be nice. We stayed out until about 11:30. I came home, played with Shadow a little and then got to bed a little after midnight.

Friday, 6th:
Nice day today. I worked from 7:45 and got off at 12:15, which was nice. Then I went home and packed up my stuff and went to go pick up Liz. We headed out and went to Christiansburg to meet her parents at the shop. We four went out to lunch at Burger King around 1:30 and that was nice. :-) Then, Liz and I stopped at the Post Office and then hit 81 northbound for Sterling. The drive was very nice and we made it there in about four hours and got home at 7pm. I had a real fun time with Liz in the car just talking and being friends. :-) So, we got to my house and had an excellent dinner with my family. :) Then at 8:30, we headed over to Tims house and hung out with him and Tony. Had a nice time catching up and reminiscing and whatnot. Liz felt a little out of it, but it was fun for the most part. I think we stayed there until a little after midnight. Came home and went to bed around 12:45.

Saturday, 7th:
Today was packed with a lot of stuff to do. I slept in a little until like 8:30. I had a nice quiet time and prayer time downstairs before stuff got moving. Liz and I had breakfast a little later and mozied around the house getting ready for the day. We finally left around 11:45 to drive over to the Lexington Park area and check it out because of my DCS job offer out there. It took us about two hours of crazy DC-area driving to get out there. We first stopped at DCS and had lunch/relaxed in their parking lot. We did that until just before 3 and then drove around the area some. We saw some nice neighborhoods which was encouraging and then drove over to St. Mary's city and college. That was pretty neat because its all historic and stuff. We walked around the "settlers village" area a bit and stuck our heads in the stocks. It was a pretty area along the water. After that, we just drove around some more and looked at more residences and whatnot. We wound up in the ghetto for a brief bit, which was a slight bit scary. :P The last hour or so of sunlight, we drove across the big Pax River bridge into Calvert County and spent time there. We stopped by a realtor and got some good info from them. Then we drove down to Solomon's Island area and spent about an hour there. We took a lot of pictures and watched the sun go down over the Chesepeake Bay. It was beautiful. :-) Also, there just happened to be a gazebo overlooking the Bay with some miseltoe. ;-* Good times. After the sun set, we drove back into the Solomon's area and ate dinner on Solomon's wharf. It was VERY cool. We were right on the water and the Redskins game was on, which was fun. The food was great too. I had some jumbo shrimp in some amazing sauce. Liz got a pretzel with fish stuff on it which was incredible too. SO good. :-H After the Redskins won, we left there around 8 and drove on back to Sterling. We got home around 10:30. Then had some great dessert with my family and we talked for a long while. I showed my Mom and sisters some silly shockwave animations and movies online and we had a fun time with that. I finally got to bed a little after midnight.

Sunday, 8th:
Today was another packed day. Liz and I got up early, were both pretty groggy and raced over to RBC for the 8:15 service. I really enjoyed the worship this morning. They played a couple new songs that I loved the words to. :) We got back from service and then helped Mom make a massive brunch for everyone. We gobbled that up and then left Sterling a little after 11. We headed back towards Blacksburg, but went down 29 first and stopped in Charlottesville for the afternoon to check out the area because of my Sperry job offer. The weather was just incredible today. We spent a little while driving around the area and then stopped and parked by the library and old town area. Then we walked all around the old town and shopping area and stuff. It was very neat. I enjoyed it pretty well and Liz really liked it a lot. :) We then walked around on some residential streets looking at all the really unique houses. They're pretty awesome. :) After a bit, we found our way back to the car and then drove around the area some more. We looked at a few housing areas and suburbs. Then drove back into town and parked at the UVA campus. We walked around campus as the sun went down. It was very pretty and a fun walk. It started getting cold, so we found our way to the other "downtown" area by the campus. We ate dinner at College Inn and got an excellent pizza that I was excited about. It was pesto, tomato, onion and mozerella. When it came out, it looked amazing. :) So, we had a nice dinner there and then hit the road back for Blacksburg around 7:30. Had a chill trip back and we got back to Liz's just before 10 and unpacked her. I think I might have even hung out with her for a little while before heading back to my place and going to bed just before midnight.

Monday, 9th:
Today was rather lousy. I woke up at 7:20, threw on some clothes and went in to work at 7:45. Work was not very good today...had a hard time finding a crash in a third-party dll. Anyhow, I got off at 3:45 and then headed home and worked on cleaning up my room and the house a little. It was a mess. So, I got organized and up to date on some paperwork and whatnot. I went over to Liz's a little before 8 and had dinner with her family. Afterwards, Liz and I just spent some time in her room. We looked at some houses and apartments in the Charlottesville area. Then just talked a little about stuff. She was a good encouragement to me, because I had a hard day and was really discouraged and anxious about all this job stuff. She read Psalm 42 to me and we went over it a couple times. That meant a lot to me. Liz is cool and God has blessed me a lot with her. :) I was tired and left Liz's around 11. Came home and went to bed around 11:30.

Tuesday, 10th:
Didn't really have a good day today either. I got up earlier at 6:30 and had a sort of busy morning, but had a little quiet time for 15 minutes. Then to work at 7:45. Work wasn't so great today either and I had a hard time fixing what I needed to. I was off at 3:45 and then had some errands to do. I went off to the bank, around to the three bookstores and found two books, to Kroger and picked up gas. I was back at my place a little after 5. Then I spent some time buying the rest of my books online and then researching salary information to write my counter offer to Sperry with. I raced over to Liz's house for dinner around 6:45. We ate and then Liz, Laura, Doug and I went to Janis' at the retirement home to be with her and watch a movie. We brought a pizza and watched Secondhand Lions with her. Such a cool movie. :) I spent most of the time out in the hall on the phone with my parents. I had a good talk with my dad for almost an hour about job stuff. Then talked with my mom also about job stuff for 20 more minutes. They were encouraging to me in some ways, in others not so much. But I did appreciate them chatting. I just had a real hard time today with trusting God and I was pretty overcome with worry and anxiety all day, to the point where I couldn't really function. Anyhow, we finished up with movie with Janis and headed out of there at 10. Doug, Laura, and Liz went back with Doug and I drove home to my place. I spent another hour or so doing some salary research online. Then Liz called at 11:30 and we talked for about an hour about some good stuff. :) I went on to bed after that talk.

Wednesday, 11th:
Today was better. I was up at 6:30, had a decent quiet time and then into work at 7:45. Work was more sane today. I got a couple things fixed and was able to move on to something new. I was off at 3:45. Then came home and spent about a half hour in prayer, which was good. Then I spent the next hour doing some online salary research for my degree and different areas. I also started into writing my counter offer letter to Sperry. At 5:30, I went to Liz's house for dinner. We warmed up some scrumptous Italian meatloaf leftovers. :-) Then raced off to Awana at 6:30. I had a nice time with the kids tonight. They weren't too crazy and it was pretty fun. :) We also had ice cream with the JVers and got our cool new shirts. Liz and I went back to her place after Awana and around 9 I started back into writing my counter offer letter. I worked on it for a couple hours and wrote a letter that I was pretty happy with. Then for the next hour, Liz's dad helped me critique it and organize it a little better. The final product turned out pretty well. :) I was finally done with it around 12:45. I chatted and prayed with Liz a little bit and then left her place a little after 1am, got home and to bed by 1:30.

Thursday, 12th:
Pretty nice day today. Up at 6:30, nice quiet time, into work at 7:45. Work was painful today as I was doing a very repetitive and mind-numbing process. I worked until 4:45, got off and was dead. I came home and slept until about 6:15. Then I prayed a little and went to Liz's at 7. I stood around and drooled in a tired stupor while she made dinner for us. She made some experimentally flavored chicken which was "interesting". ;-) After dinner, Liz and I left around 9:30 to go out on a date. (!!) We tried Deets but they were closed and we finally decided to go to Wendy's and get Frosties. So we hung out there for a little over an hour and had a nice chat about stuff. :) They closed at 11, so we left and went back to Liz's. We ended up just talking in the car outside her house for about an hour. Good times. I really enjoyed myself with her tonight. Like old friends. :-D So, I left around midnight, came back and played with Shadow a little and off to bed at 12:30.

Friday, 13th:
My last day at Phoenix today. It was a pretty busy one. I started work at 7:45 and worked until 11:30. Liz met us at the office and we all went out to Backstreets for my parting lunch. Awesome pizza buffet as always. :-) Then I worked until 3:45. I had a big project to finish up and I finally got it all done and submitted around 3:20! Hopefully it all works okay. :P After work, I went home and chilled out for a little while. I went over to Liz's a little later. We went out to Pizza Hut to grab some pizzas, brought them back and had dinner with her, Doug and Laura. After dinner, us four watched the movie French Kiss. It was a little odd, but there were some funny parts too. Liz's parents came back after the movie and we had some dessert with them and chatted awhile. Liz and I talked some more after that and stayed up a little late. I left around like 12:30, went home and on to bed.

Saturday, 14th:
I slept in a little today, until like 8 or so. Then I lazed around the house for the most part this morning. Got a few good things done. Liz came over for lunch around 12:45 and then stayed until almost 3:30. We had a really nice time talking as always, but she left a little later than she had wanted to. At 4:30, I went to the living room and watched the Redskins play the Seahawks in the playoffs. It was a pretty lousy game for both teams, especially the Redskins. They played horribly and ended up losing. :-( The game was over around 8. I grabbed Steve W and we went out to China Inn to pick up some Chinese food and brought it back here. We watched 12 Monkeys together and ate Chinese. It was pretty fun. The movie got over around 11 and we lazed around watching stuff on TV. Liz called me a little after that and we chatted a bit before I headed off to bed around midnight.

Sunday, 15th:
Today was pretty nice. I woke up at a decent hour and then got ready for church. I picked up Liz and we went to Sunday school at 9:45 which wasn't all that great. Then service at 11 which was okay. Dennis Kirkland spoke today and had a pretty nice message. After church, we stayed for the business meeting and pot luck lunch. Had some good food and really enjoyed talking with Jesse today. Apparently he grew up in Lexington Park (where DCS is), so I had some good talks with him about what to think and expect out of that area. The business meeting wasn't extremely exciting and we left Harvest around 2:30. Afterwards, went back to Liz's for a little bit. It was decently nice outside, so we went for a little walk over to the park in Woodbine and threw her frisbie for awhile. We had a good and fun talk about marriage and planning as we were out there. :) It was pretty encouraging and I had a nice time with her. We went back to her house and made some hot chocolate and talked a little more. Then I left around 6 and went back to my place. Liz had to go babysit for a few hours tonight. My parents had come into town this afternoon to drop Kristin back off at school. So, I met up with the fam around 7 and we ate dinner together at Wendy's. That was pretty fun. Then, went over to Squires to shoot some pool around 8:30. The sign said they closed at 11:30, but we found out that they messed it up and it really closed at 9:30. So that was a bummer, but at least we got an hour of fun in. :) We went back to my townhouse and Liz met us all over there. We had some cookie cake to celebrate her birthday early and then just kinda sat around in the living room talking and not doing too much. Liz left just after midnight and then I went on to bed.

Monday, 16th:
A pretty amazing occurance happened early this morning. I set my alarm to wake up at 3:40 and randomly call Liz. But when I got up, I felt bad because she was already so tired, so I didn't and went back to bed. Then, at 4:30am, she called me out of the blue! I was so confused at first, but then we figured it out. We had both decided on the same random night to call each other no more than an hour apart with out the other knowing at all! It was so awesome. Sometimes it seems like our brains are directly linked. :-P Anyhow, today was Martin Luther King day, so we got it off. My first real vacation day in like eight months! :-H I was so excited and took full advantage to sleep in until like 9. In terms of job stuff, I decided today not to pursue the opportunity at RRI in Blacksburg for various reasons. Also, Nathan called me to verify that they couldn't hire me this summer, but that I might be able to come back in the future. That was really cool of him and those two things helped to officially narrow my decision down to DCS or Sperry. It's a tough pick. So, the morning was good and I got a few other things accomplished too. Around noon, I went and picked Liz up and then we met my family over at El Rodeo for lunch. It was really good food as always and nice to be with them. We were done and they left town around 1:30. After lunch, Liz and I went back to my place and chatted for quite a while. She left a little after 2:00. Then, I did a little weight lifting in the basement to try and get in shape. :P Around 5:00, I went back to Liz's and picked her up and we went over to Jesse and Ila's house for a cookout. They invited us and some of Jesse's friends from school over. Jesse grilled up a ton of AWESOME food! Ribs, Italian sausages, cheddarwursts, and chicken. Ila made some spaghetti, bread, and some amazing beans with ham. So much food! To top it off, they made us root beer floats. :-H It was nuts. Everybody fled to the couches after dinner and we lazed around for awhile playing some fun games together. Broke out some great chocolate ice cream a little later too. :-P I really had a nice time with everyone there. Liz and I left around 9:00 and went back to her place. We hung around a little bit and were going to go out tonight, but it just got way too late and we were exhausted, so we decided it would be best to delay our engagement talk until tommorow. I left her house around 11, came home and was to bed around 11:30.

Tuesday, 17th:
Today was decent. First day back to class. :( I dragged out of bed around 8 and then lazed around a little bit. I went over to campus around 9:30 and walked to the War Memorial Gym. I wanted to start working out, but the weight room was closed and then all the treadmills were being used. So I ran a few laps around the wrestling room and did some situps, which was plenty for me anyhow. I was so sore as it was. After that, I walked around a little to burn some time and then went to my first class in McBryde. It's a computer multimedia course which seems like it should be pretty fun. Then went over to my next class in Randolph- Intro to Software Engineering. I think this class is going to be a little hard, but its going to be extremely valuable for my career, so I'm glad to take it. Class got all over and I came home and did a few organizational things. I prayed a little while too. This job choice has been killing me. I went to Liz's at 3:30 to pick her up and then we went to Harvest to set up a little for her students' piano recital tonight. At 4:00, we made it over to Deet's for our big long engagement talk. We got some coffee and a very cool dessert and talked for about two hours there. Didn't quite make it through all I wanted to, but it was a very great talk. :) I'm pretty excited about stuff. We left Deet's just after 6, went back to Liz's to get some stuff and change, and then went back to the church and finished getting stuff ready for the recital at 7. The recital was very nice. All five of her students did pretty well and then we had some good snacks afterwards. We finished cleaning up and then got out of there around 8:30. Went back to Liz's house and hung out for a little bit. Then Liz and I continued with our long convo from before. We talked through a few more things and it was really fun. :) It seems like we talked for about another two hours and we closed by setting a date to decide to get married by Friday. It was late when we finished up- about midnight when I left and then went to bed.

Wednesday, 18th:
Second day of class. I got up early today, had a quiet time, and then was off to my early morning classes. I had my CS theory course at 8 in Derring which will probably be hard. Nice professor though. Then my second class was CS professionalism in Pamplin. This class seems fairly simple, although a little bit of writing. The professor was pretty funny and sacrastic. :P The last class was Internet Programming. Should be a lot of work, but interesting stuff. Professor was pretty nice too. So, class was all over at 11. I did a couple of errands and then came on home. I worked on some stuff this afternoon and that was good. Then Liz came over for dinner around 5:30 and she made us some chicken and scalloped potatoes. :) Then, we raced off to Awana at 6:30. It went pretty well tonight, nothing out of the ordinary. Then, we both went back to Liz's house and spent some time hanging out, chatting and whatnot. I didn't stay too late and came home around 11:30 and went to bed.

Thursday, 19th:
Not a bad day today. I woke up a little late today and ran a couple of errands before classes today, so that was good to get done. I ended up having to park at the Math Emporium and jumping on a bus into campus from there because I couldn't get parking anywhere else. My two classes today went pretty well. Nothing much. After class, I took the bus back to the emporium and then did a few more errands. I got home around 3 and then spent pretty much the rest of the afternoon and evening alone doing research on Charlottesville, Lexington Park, and the two jobs themselves. I talked to some people on the phone and on IM and I emailed a few people who I Googled and found that they had worked at either business. I also looked more into real estate and rental costs and opinions from other people about the areas. I put forth a pretty hefty information-gathering session, but it was really, really valuable. I learned a whole bunch of stuff. :) I had a little dinner also which was a good break in the middle of all of this. Around 11, I called Liz and we talked for about an hour. It was an awesome talk; I was so thankful for it. :) She really delved deep into how she was feeling about the job/area decision and stuff. It meant so much to me and really opened my eyes to a lot of things. I went to bed around 12:30 full of feelings and information and leaning a little towards Charlottesville.

Friday, 20th:
Today was great. :) I woke up early and had a good quiet time. Then off to class from 8-11. Nothing very exciting there. After class, I ran into Curt as I left campus. He was coming into campus even though he didn't have class today. We ended up talking on the stairs of Derring for about 40 minutes and it was awesome. I really think God brought us together because it was just what I needed. We talked all about the stuff I learned yesterday and he really helped guide me more towards a final decision about this job stuff. So, I came home and had lunch and spent some this afternoon thinking and praying about the job decision. I felt really at peace about choosing Sperry in Charlottesville. I talked to Mom for awhile too and she helped to encourage me in that. :) I went and picked up Liz around 3:00 and we headed out driving because it was warm and beautiful today, not to mention it was the day we set to decide on getting married. :) So, we drove down to the Pulaski area and cut across towards Claytoor Lake. We actually found the same area that I had randomly come across three months ago when we were split up for two weeks. I was very excited to have found it again. :) We spent a little while hiking across an old train bridge on the New River trail and then we drove down my "secret" road alongside the lake/river. We stopped and sat along there as the sun went down. It was probably the most amazing sunset I can remember. And, it should be noted that at one point there were sections of little bubbles coming up that were forming hearts in the water. It was wild. I really mean that they looked like hearts! It was just something else. :):):) We spent a little time talking and a lot of time deep in thought and silence. I really was trying to finalize my decision about Charlottesville in my heart and praying throught that. I finally felt ready, so I asked Liz if she "wanted to get married and move to Charlottesville with me". She answered that she would. :):):) After that, we spent some more time quietly basking in emotion and watching the end of the sunset. We prayed for awhile after that which was really nice. Then took a few more pictures of the very end of the sunset and left around 6:30. We headed back into civilization and stopped at PKs for dinner. Liz had never had their chicken wings to we got two dozen of them with four different flavors. They were SO good! :) We spent about two hours there and then headed back to Liz's house. We spent some time with her family and had some dessert with them. Liz and I stayed up a little later chatting and looking at a few engagement rings. :) I left a little after midnight, came home and went to bed.

Saturday, 21st:
Pretty good day today. I slept in a little until 8:30 and then cleaned up a little. I ended up talking to Big Steve for over an hour about all sorts of stuff, including religion and God. It was really cool to get to know him a little better and to get to share a little bit about Christianity with him. :) After that, I went over to Kroger to get some tiramasu incredients and other stuff. Came back, showered and had a little lunch. Then I went over to pick up Liz a bit after one to go out engagement ring shopping. :) We first went to Radford to a small shop called Harry's. Harry was an older guy and he was pretty nice. He was going to look into some diamonds for us and he sized my watch. :) We went to two other jewelers in downtown Radford that were okay and then to Lemon's which was lousy. We headed back into Blacksburg and went to Capone's which wasn't so great. Then to the new jeweler in Kent Square. They were really nice people in there and we spent some time talking with them and looking at thing. Pretty cool. :) After that, we headed back to Christiansburg and stopped into Ginger's. They were really nice in there, but a little pushy and VERY expensive. I wanted nothing better than to get out of there, but we got stuck looking at stuff forever and I probably wasn't the kindest person. We finally got out of there around 5:30 and went back to Liz's. I hung out with her a little and left around 6:30. She went out to go shopping with Laura and then spend the evening with her family. I went back to my house, had a little dinner alone. Spent most of the evening hours searching through hundreds of engagement ring settings on stuller.com. I found about 50 that I thought Liz would like, so I emailed her those. We talked on the phone for a little while tonight too. I went on to bed just before midnight.

Sunday, 22nd:
Got up early at 6:30 today and went over to Hardees for a coffee around 6:45. Then I spent a couple hours making a tiramasu for Liz's birthday today. I was really tired and messed up a little, but it turned out great. I got in done with just enough time left to clean up and put on my nice suit for church today. I picked up Kristin on campus and we went to Sunday school at 9:45. Gene Ziesel spoke today and was really strong in his message. Made me think about a lot of stuff and be just a little more thankful for my life. Then service was at 11 which was really cool. We had a pastoral candidate who used to go to Harvest years ago. I enjoyed him pretty well for the most part. My friend Andrew came out to Harvest today for the first time and it was great to catch up with him. We ended up talking after church until everyone else had cleared out. :-P He's a great guy. So, me and Liz dropped Kristin back off at her dorm around 1 and then we headed to my house and I surprised Liz with flowers and tiramasu. :-) Then we went back to Liz's house for lunch and birthday party. Her mom made and AMAZING lasagna and we had my tiramasu for dessert. So good! :-D After that, Liz opened her presents up which was cool. She got a new stereo which I helped her set up in her room. Then we spent an hour or so looking at engagement ring settings and discussing the possibilities there. We narrowed it down to three that I want to look at tommorow with Harry. I left Liz's house around 5:30 and went home to get some things done. I talked to my Mom on the phone awhile and fixed my insurance stuff and the wrote letters to Sperry and DCS informing them of my decisions about their job offers. So, that makes in official: I'll be moving this summer to Charlottesville, Virginia to take the job with Sperry Marine. I also worked with Kristin online for awhile about transitioning and getting roomates for herself to move into the place next year. Hopefully she can get that all taken care of. I also ate a small dinner by myself tonight. Around 9:30, I went back to Liz's house. We had more dessert. :-) The big reason I wanted to go back was to annouce to her family of my informal engagement with Liz. I was REALLY nervous about it and everybody started finishing their dessert and getting up to leave. So, I quickly stopped them, sucked it up and spit out the news to everyone. Then it was like a party broke open! Everyone was so excited and they had actually been EXPECTING it today! I was so surprised. :-P They even had bought Liz a wedding book for her birthday contingent upon our engagement today, so she opened that present up tonight. The rest of the evening was just kinda a "buzz" around their home. It was pretty cool. :-D Very encouraging too. I'm pretty excited about getting married! Liz and I just spent some time chatting after that and then I left around 11:30 and came home and to bed.

Monday, 23rd:
Back to school today was no fun. I got up a little late- like 7:20 and then went out to my 8am Formal Languages class. It was okay, then professionalism, and then Internet programming. Nothing to exciting there. After class, I went out to Radford to Harry's to talk with him about diamonds and settings for Liz. He wasn't there, so I went over to the Radford Wal-Mart for awhile and then back to Harry's. He was still gone, so around 12:45 I finally gave up and just headed over to Christiansburg. I called Harry througout the afternoon, but I guess he's not open on Mondays. In CBurg I went to Office Max and Michael's in search of graphing paper for Laura. It was hard to find. I drove back to Blacksburg and searched in Tech Bookstore and Mish Mish to no avail. While I was there, I decided on a whim to go back into the custom jeweler place in Kent Square because they were really nice to us. I ended up talking with them awhile and they were great. I had Liz come in and talk with them some more with me on her way home from work around 2. We decided on the setting we wanted and then Liz had to leave for North Carolina so I say my goodbyes with her. Then I talked with Cary some more about the diamonds. He was pretty nice and I felt really comfortable there. Later that afternoon after researching a little more, I called him back and we decided on a diamond that he ordered for me, so that's exciting. :) Then, I spent a couple of hours doing some preliminary searching for apartments in Charlottesville. At 6, I met Curt over at Krazy Mays for wings and drinks. Had a nice time with him for the most part. I feel a little disjoint around him these days, I wish we could be a little more involved like we were in the summer. I came home at 8:30 and spent the rest of the evening doing more apartment stuff. Had a fun 40-minute Oreo time at 10 with the guys. I got on to bed a little before midnight.

Tuesday, 24th:
Today was really nice for the most part. Got up at 6:30 and had a nice quiet time. Then I worked on getting some stuff taken care of around my room and whatnot. Went off to campus around 9:30 and had to take a parking place back in the stadium lot. Then walked over to the library and spent about an hour in there. I got caught up on this blog a lot. :-P Then I walked over to McBryde for my Multimedia class. It went pretty well. I grouped up with Matt from 3 semesters ago in my HCI class. So that's cool to be working with him. After that class was Software Engineering which went pretty well. I came home around 2 and ate some lunch. Then got a few things done and then spent a couple hours working on finding an apartment in Charlottesville. I called a bunch of places and gathered some more information and then organized it all in a spreadsheet. That took me until a little after 6 when I made some dinner. Chicken and spicy, cheese, brocolliy tomato soup. :-D Liz popped in around 7 as I was eating and that was a huge surprise because she wasn't supposed to be back until a little after 8. It was exciting seeing her. :) Her and Laura stayed about ten minutes and then I finished eating. After dinner, I worked on organizing my schedule and figuring out all that I need to do for my classes. Then I headed out to Liz's around 9:20. I came in just in time to have some dinner with her family. Then Liz and I spent the rest of the evening in her room talking about wedding plans, looking at dresses for her, etc. It was pretty fun. I think I really am starting to like this whole marriage idea. :-) I left her house around 12:15, came home and slept.