Heaven on Jefferson

I thought that today’s thankfulness topic would be a good follow-up to the husband post from earlier this week.

If you know my husband, you know that when he loves something, he loves it with everything he has. One such object of his affection he discovered three years ago while roaming the streets of Italy. While in the beautiful, faraway place, he stumbled across something that would change his life forever: gelato.

While in Italy, Joel would eat several cups of gelato a day, impressing many an onlooker by double-fisting two cones of gelato at a time. He knew once he had found it that he had to have it in his life in some capacity fairly regularly moving forward.

So upon his return to America, he tried to find the best imitation he could of the real thing. He went to Paolo’s in Atlanta, but it wasn’t quite right. Pizzeria Venti was just okay. The Venetian in Las Vegas had a pretty good replica, but it’s not like we are in Vegas on any sort of regular basis.

After a while, Joel just gave up on his hope to get delicious gelato in Georgia.

But then, we started seeing advertisements for a new candy store opening up in Madison. The fliers proclaimed gelato, but Joel had been fooled one too many times. He knew this would not, could not be the real thing. Especially in Madison, Georgia of all places.

Never in his life has Joel been more pleased to be wrong.

We walked in the first week Ella’s Sweet Shoppe was open, skeptical at best. The owner of the place immediately started educating us on the benefits of gelato (1/7 the fat and 1/12 the calories of a small serving of ice cream) and explained that this was the authentic thing. He told us how he weekly ships in gelato from Italy on dry ice through New York into Atlanta and then out to Madison.

So Joel tries his first bite. And at that moment, the heavens opened up, the angels started singing, and all was right in the world. Joel had not only found his authentic gelato, and he had not only found it in Georgia. But he found it in Madison, on our very own street.

We have become regular customers of this wonderful little shop. There is so much to tell about it that I am thankful for that I’ll have to save it for separate installments. Suffice it to say, you should come out and see what all the fuss is about. You’ll be very thankful you did.

For the Next 50 Years

Tonight, my husband looked over at me as we were doing our routine nightly reading and said:

I love that for the next 50 years, unless something tragic happens, you’ll always be right here.

Do you know how thankful I am for that? If I could tell you all of the millions of things like that he says every day, it would probably bring tears to your eyes. I am beyond blessed to have the most caring, selfless man as my husband. I truly don’t deserve someone who loves this well and fully.

Apart from my salvation, he is the thing I am ultimately most thankful for.

If You Know Me…

…then you know that I have one main goal in life: to be a grandmother. Well this story doesn’t exactly pertain to that goal. But it’s related. So I thought I’d take the opportunity to remind you that I want to be a grandmother.

So I’m in the airport yesterday morning, coming back from a pretty awful weekend (minus a few highlights), and I sit down in my chair. More like I fall into my chair and let it support every muscle in my body after the 15 hour day I worked out in the scorching heat the day before with a five hour total sleep. (Gosh, I love venting on here every now and then!)

Well across from me sit this couple. The man has a sweet, quiet look in his eye, similar to my grandfather. And the woman has painted-on eyebrows. Hehe. A perfect couple.

As they sit there, I just observe how in love they are with one another. They talk intermittently. Each time, it’s with a kind tone. As they continue to sit there, I can just see his love for her in the way he looks at her. She’s reading a pirate book. The author has chosen to plaster his picture on the entire back cover – I hope that the face he’s making is done in jest; otherwise, the guy is a tool. I digress.

The whole time I’m looking at them, I wonder how many years they’ve been married. Probably, they got married when she was 18 and he was 21. They had children the following year and learned that she had a lot of maturing to do. He went out drinking late on nights they got in fights and she told too much to her mom, resulting in several years of awkwardness between he and his in-laws. They barely spoke to each other for about three years when their kids were in high school. Then, slowly but surely, he began to tell her he loved her again. After a couple of years, they started going on regular dates again when the kids moved out.

Now, it’s been 46 years of marriage and they’ve never been more in love. It’s not a hot, spicy, passionate love. It’s a more special type of love. One that knows no better friend, that feels no doubt, that remembers years of steady, faithful relationship. There’s a contentment of knowing everything about each other and loving the other more every single moment.

Again, people watching is probably an unhealthy activity for me. But I can’t help but think what their story is. And I can’t wait until Joel and I are at that point. Taking care of a couple of grandkids when our children go out of town. And looking at each other with that look of utter satisfaction at a life well-lived and well-loved.

A Little Sneak Peak…

So I don’t have all of my pictures from the wedding back yet, but our favorite photographers on the planet, Chad and Tina Pritchard of The Long Farewell, did share our wedding slideshow with us!!

I hope you love it as much as I do!

www.thelongfarewell.com/ashleighjoelwed

Week-long Getaway

Joel starts training this week for Northwestern Mutual! We are so pumped about this. God truly provides and takes care of us in ways far beyond what we would imagine for ourselves.

Well, as a bonus to Joel beginning his job, his training takes place in Atlanta and his new company is paying for us to stay near the training site since we live so far away. There’s something so fun about staying in a hotel – especially in the city you work in!

The part I’m most thankful for: This hotel is 23 minutes from my office. That is exactly 60 minutes shorter than my usual commute. I like my normal drive, but I can’t say I’m not excited about that extra hour of sleep I’m going to get in the morning!!

Shake Date

I am thankful for the milkshake Joel bought me at Chick-fil-A. It was strawberry  and he got chocolate. It was a date. Dates are fun.

Finally….

So I still haven’t found my camera cord. However, I realized that Joel’s memory card from his camera fits into a little slot on my Mac. So, wa-la, I have pictures for you! We’ll start out with a little of the honeymoon, then move onto some pics of us in our new home and then some other odds and ends things. I think they got a little out of order when publishing, so I apologize for the disorder. (Please note the amount of pictures from the honeymoon including Joel eating sushi – a delicacy he HATED before we got married!) Enjoy!

We’re Going to the Chapel

Finally!! After two weeks of trying to coordinate venue/officiant/holiday schedules, we finalized a date! 

January 16, 2010!!!!

I’m trying to pull together the wedding website. I’ll include a link as soon as I get it finished! 

Sorry this is short… just wanted to share what I’m so thankful for today!

We’re Engaged!!!

Joel proposed on Saturday!!! Several people have been asking for the whole story, so here you go! (I’m sorry it’s so long… I wanted to include everything!)

A few weeks back, we realized that our favorite band (The Alternate Routes) were in Charleston on Sept. 5. With the concert taking place during Labor Day weekend, I suggested that we go and Joel was totally on board. Little did I know, this spontaneous plan provided him with the perfect opportunity to pop the question! 

So we started planning this fun weekend, complete with visiting our friends Luke and Christine – the reason we’re together in the first place, seeing how we met at their wedding! As plans came together, his brothers decided to come along (they were there the night we met) and Ben and Amanda decided to come as well (Ben was the one who introduced us)! So, everyone instrumental in our meeting ended up being in Charleston, which was so wonderful.

Friday night, Joel mentioned that he’d like to go to the beach just for a little bit on Saturday morning. “You can’t come to Charleston and not see the beach!” he said. So of course I agreed we should go.

Little did I know that Saturday morning, as Joel and I made our way over to Sullivan’s Island, Luke and Christine had built a dune a little ways down from where we parked that let Joel know where to propose. So as soon as we started walking, Joel kept trying to get me to walk in the dry sand. Being a baby, I pulled him over to the water and would not give into his attempts to get me to walk back up in the dry sand. He tried everything from “I don’t like the way my feet get sandy after they get wet” to “That dune got separated from his family. Let’s go see it.” But I was not having it. 

So we completely passed the dune and kept walking down the beach, with Joel racking his brain to come up with a way to get me to go over to the dune. Finally, when we turned around and walked back down the beach, he said that we could keep walking in the water in a minute, but first we had to go do something.

Still not aware of what was about to happen, I followed Joel up to the dune. When we got there, I stumbled across the Cheerwine bottle with an antique-looking message in it that he had written. For a split second, I thought maybe he was proposing. But then I remembered that he had just asked me the week before to start looking at rings I liked so that he could have an idea of what I wanted… so I thought he was a month or so away from being ready to propose. Plus, it wasn’t out of the ordinary for him to do something like this for me, so I thought it was just Joel taking an opportunity to be sweet and romantic. 

We kept on talking for another thirty seconds or so and I was mid-sentence when he dropped down on one knee and asked me to marry him! I was in total shock, but after a couple of seconds, I was able to say, “YES!!” 

Luke and Christine, disguised as a dune and a sunbather respectively, took pictures of the moment for us, so I will make sure and upload those as soon as I get them! 

After the proposal, we went to a delicious lunch together and then watched the UGA game with all of our friends. We ended the perfect day (minus UGA losing) with the concert and headed back to Madison in the morning.

When we got there, Joel surprised me yet again with an engagement party with several of our friends and our families! It was incredible to get to share our joy with those we love so much! 

On top of all of it, because of Labor Day, we had Monday to relax and soak everything in! It was such a perfect weekend and we are so excited about the future!!

Game Night

I love games! A whole lot. So when Audrey asked everyone to save a night for games with the roomies and our significant others, I was completely on board!

Unfortunately though, Joel (due to his new job in Athens – which deserves its own post) wasn’t going to be able to make it. My back-up boyfriend, Ben, was generously willing to fill-in for Joel and be my game partner. As game night approached, I got excited that, even if I didn’t get to hang out with Joel, I would at least get to spend some catch-up time with Ben.

Surrogate boyfriend, Ben, and Amanda, his girlfriend

Me and real boyfriend, Joel

Well imagine my surprise when, as I’m talking to him on the phone, Joel pulls up next to my house right before game night was supposed to commence. I was so excited!! And completely surprised!

The night was a blast, complete with Catchphrase, Apples to Apples and the best cheesecake ever (ADAM’S PEANUT BUTTER CUP FUDGE RIPPLE Creamy Cheesecake Swirled with Caramel, Peanut Butter, Butterfingers® and Reeses Peanut Butter Cups®)!

Oh Poplar Grove house, deep down, I will miss you.