Irie

(‘irie' is a word in Patois - the Creole language commonly spoken in Jamaica. It refers to a state of mind that is relaxed and happy, filled with the wonder of creation, with love and unity.



I just posted our JAMAICA PHOTOS on flikr! Let me just say thank you to all of you rooting us on and sending us your love vibes...it was exactly the simple, sweet, and CHILL wedding we dreamed of...we wouldn't change a thing!

right time, right place, right love

I am so sleepy I can barely keep my eyes open. We are still trying to figure out how everything will fit, and I want to crawl into bed so badly...but I cannot...we're almost there...

Our send-off dinner at El Meson was perfect. Dinner of ceviche, sangria, and paella was delicious, everyone was there, Arthur ordered one of every dessert, and I got to dance with Annabelle. It was lovely. And earlier in the day Kate surprised me with a girls' trip to the Refinery for manicures, pedicures, and facials! I was drunk on pampering. lucky, lucky me.

But it's the small details that I hope I can remember down the road...catching sean's eye at dinner and feeling full-to-the-top with familial love...yukiko and sam chatting about ancient Japan...and the old black and white Wuthering Heights on in the background while packing into the wee hours. There's no stress, no hesitation, it just feels right...right time, right place, right love.

So I guess this is goodbye for a couple of weeks. I will write up a little travelogue when we get back at the end of the month and upload the photos to flikr. Thank you so much for all of the love you've been sending our way. We are blessed to feel you in the here and now. BIG love, Jesse

the home stretch...

I am giddy with anticipation. My tummy is all aflutter this morning as I get ready to head into work for my last day office day before we leave. Yesterday at school was sweet as I said goodbye-for-two-weeks to many of my favorite kids--many who begged to be invited to crash the wedding or stow away in my suitcase. It's fun to share a little bit of this excitement with them. I even made too-cool-for-school sassy Astreja laugh pretty hard when we were walking up the stairs, looking out the window at the sleet that was falling all afternoon...I pretended to be musing to myself 'man, that weather's nasty...I wish I could go someplace warm...and sunny...maybe a beach somewhere..." and Astreja turns around laughing 'you mean somewhere like JAMAICA?!'

Well I'm going to try and write a couple more posts before we leave on Tuesday, and Sean promised he'd write at least one, so stay tuned. Love you all.

Auntie Carol wants to see the rings!

These are our lovely rings, which we are actually excited to get to start wearing soon. And the photo was taken using our brand new Panasonic DMC-TZ5 (thanks mama)! Sean finally got an outfit today--it is so annoying that he can go to the mall and find everything he needs in just a few hours--and have it look so good. I also talked to a guy in Jamaica who's going to take photos for us during the ceremony, yeah! Everything is coming together and I can't wait.

April showers bring...

...Jamaican flowers! Hee he...time is really flying by, in a matter of weeks we will be seaside. I need a vacation so bad. And a husband. Ha!

Yesterday marked the end of a really huge project at work--the culmination of months of planning with our third and final family workshop. Three workshops over the course of three days, a beautiful experience but a monster event planning feat. Makes me glad I didn't try to plan a big ol' wedding at the same time.

It probably won't surprise you that Sean still doesn't have an outfit to wear for the wedding, and we can't go shopping today since he has an extension on a paper that was due for class last week. Oh, isn't it comforting to know that he's still the same Sean after all these years? But the earrings Kate and I picked out arrived this week and they are beautiful, like a Balinese princess. And Cindy and I found the perfect material for the veil. And mom is helping us find the perfect new camera to invest in so we can capture the wedding in all its lovely simplicity to share with you all when we get back. And dad...well he's dad...he makes me feel like I'm the most special girl to ever get married. And the best news of late is that Sean's mom Yukiko is going to fly into minnesota for our send-off party at el meson the night before we leave. We really are so lucky to have the families we do--even though the wedding will be an "intimate" affair, we look forward to sharing a rainfall of new memories with our families as we move into that chapter of life where we start adding our own contributions to the Sand/Suzuki/ Jahnke/Sadowski/Madsen brood.

The List

We've already gotten our plane tickets, arranged lodging and transportation, found our passports, I have a dress, we've ordered rings, and we've gotten the minister to pencil in April 20th. It almost seems too easy...I worry I am forgetting something.

Here's what's on my list:

• Find something for Sean to wear (easy since he's so good-looking)!
• All those finishing touches like a veil (cindy's making me one) and jewels and shoes
• Figure out the whole "ceremony thing"...sean has some cool ideas
• Possibly purchase a new digital camera and an mp3 player to bring along (thank you tax return!)
  
• Get some White Strips to make these coffee-lovin' teeth pearly again

Am I forgetting something huge?

falling in love

Sending out all the wedding announcements has gotten us all sentimental, and so I thought it would be fun to reminisce again about how Sean and I met...how we became "We".

The summer after high school my best friend Vita and I moved out to Seattle to live on our own and have some adventures in the Wild West. Before heading out there, the two of us had arranged jobs with AmeriCorps. Well, half way through my year of service one of our team members resigned and someone new was hired to take her place...Charles' buddy from Japanese class. Sean and I both remember the exact moment we met...I was making copies in the office and Sean was being given the tour before his first team meeting. He had on his jean jacket, baseball hat, and his sparkly red messenger bag. Neither of us claims 'love at first sight', indeed neither of us would ever have guessed how our lives would be changed by whatever twist of fate it was that had us in the same corner of the world at the same time for the same reason. But no doubt there was some connection from the first day...an easiness in each other's company and sweet admiration for a kindred spirit. And of course we're both pretty funny, so we made each other laugh.

But who knows how things might have been different if not for Sharon Davis--an older member of our AmeriCorps team, an outspoken firecracker of a lady, with a huge heart and some crazy strong intuition. "I saw the way you looked at her!" Sharon leaned over and whispered to Sean during that first meeting. She saw something that we didn't realize until several months later, and she played matchmaker nudging us along right from the beginning. Now we joke that she was some kind of guardian angel since she seems to have disappeared...we haven't been able to find her and tell her how right she was. "That man's gonna love you forever," she once told me.

We don't really have an "engagement" story....we just kind of knew. Before a year had gone by we realized our fantastic luck...to find a love story when we weren't even looking. Our seven year anniversary is on March 13th...the date of our first kiss. We never looked back.