Thanksgiving at GRANT'S PASS OREGAN

I am having a blast here with Joy, Quin, Tian, Noelle and Meredith and Ashley! What an awesome vacation. So far, we arrived on tuesday night and chatted and got to know everybody and ate some pizza and had fun. The next day, Ashley and I went on a run in the morning up through the pine trees and the fog and it was gorgeous. Then we went to get our teeth cleaned and Bleached at Quin's work. That was awesome! I thought that bleaching was going to be a super scientific and complicated process. In reality it involved a mystical crystal that sucked out our essense like in the dark crystal. Our teeth look fantastic like hollywood movie stars, and the sweetheart of a man did it for F-R-E-E! Cool huh? It was neat to watch Quin at work and see how a young hip professional does his thing. I got to watch him drill and fill a cavity in Ashley's mouth - really neat. She held my hand and sqeezed it when she was scared and it was really tender. Then after that we came home and watched a movie and just hung out with the kids and it was really fun. Then as we were going to sleep, Ashley Meredith and I watched IronMan with Robert Downy Junior. (important in light of what happened the next day)
Thursday was thanksgiving. We woke up early and went SHOOTING with some family friends of joy and quin. That was really manly and fun and made me feel like ironman. We shot a 22 handgun, a glock police handgun, a few big shot guns and I go to shoot a semi-automatic machine gun - good times needless to say. Oh and we shot moving clay pigeons and I hit like 4 of them! It was really fun!

TIME CONTINUES TO PASS (6 WEEKS LEFT)

Well . . . Things have been all over the place and so much has happened! The other night, Ashley brought me a special surprise - she brought me our favorite desert, Tres Leches from Costa Vida, and on top of it was my MAN WEDDING RING! What an awesome and sweet surprise. It was really cute because that night when we went to the gym, she was really excited to get home because she wanted to give me some surprise. She is so tender sometimes. She let me wear the ring all night and then took it away from me, because we are NOT married, and sometimes we already have enough trouble remembering that!

I love this woman with all my heart. She is more important to me than anything else in the world. I was afraid to let her get this far inside of me . . . but like I have been finding recently, the greatest joys we could experience are often stifled by our own doubt. As soon as I did the counter intuitive and let her inside, I found a great treasure I never thought I could have.

Ashley Rodgers! Ashley Rodgers! I am so amazed at her patience with me in my week moments (which I have FAR to many of). I am so grateful to my father in heaven for helping me to treat her right. She is all I have ever ever dreamed of - and somehow she seems to be getting better looking everyday! What's with that?
We have been trying to find housing recently and it is really hard! Today we are seeing 2 places and hopefully we aren't so desperate that we make a rash decision! 6 weeks is a very short time! It's like a transfer! I am ready - oh man we are so ready. Sometimes we just say goodbye at 12 and laugh because we are so married and yet not and yet on the brink of both and it is really weird and crazy!