Me and Mer. Thanks for all the presents, lady! Look at Maddy gazing up at Meredith with total adoration. I love how she's squeezed herself in between us.
We spent the afternoon watching DVR'ed episodes of Wife Swap. The episode where the black dude ends up living with an entire family that's into renaissance reenactment made me laugh until I cried.
Meredith and I have the same exact eye-glass prescription which is awesome because either one of us can pick up and use the first pair of glasses that are around. Here she is wearing my "Larry Davids" (they polarize in the sun...noooo!), while I'm rocking her sassy "Sally Jessys"!
...in the back of a cab! For those of you who don't live in NYC, this is pretty hard to pull off. The strategy usually consists of three people hailing a cab while a fourth person hangs back from the group. After the cab has pulled over, the group of three distract the driver while the fourth ducks down, and climbs in the back ninja style!
We got out of the cab on 3rd St and got ready to perform another difficult photo stunt...
And then much later on, Lisa and Pauly came over for family night. I set up the timer on my camera and put it on top of the TV to take this FAMILY NIGHT PORTRAIT.
See? It was so unbelievable. This photo looks totally staged with her little paw draped over my shoulder, but this was how she wanted to ride right from the get-go. It was about this time that we realized we'd gotten a weirdo.
As soon as we got her into the warmth of a cab, she stopped with all the strange mewling noises she was making and immediately settled down. We were trying to hold her on our laps, but she kept climbing up and wedging her self between our backs and the seat. It seemed like she really wanted to sit perched up on our shoulders.
Brett had asked me to be his best man and I needed to get a suit that would match the one he'd be wearing. Here's me and Brett with the two soon-to-be Mrs. Battjers!
A couple days after the party, we all received an email from him with a link to a surprise video he'd edited together with all the clandestine hula hooping video he'd shot. It. Is. Amazing. My favorite part is the highlight reel of everyone throwing their hands up and leaning that starts around the 1:45 minute mark (right after Siege does the "white man's overbite") and just keeps getting better. (PS - Make sure you check out Ellen's sideways "tit-sway" at 2:14. Amazing.)
...and took the golf cart out onto the empty course for some eagerly anticipated High-Speed Drunk Driving on the Totally Empty Golf Course (highly recommended, btw) and watched the sunset. Haha. Yay, Christmas in Florida!
Before she could answer, I got down on knee and popped the big one! She was so surprised that at first she didn't say anything. She just kept looking around totally surprised trying to process what was happening.
As the surprise wore off, she just started laughing and laughing. Her first words back to me after my proposal were inspired by Bret Michaels and VH1's awesomely terrible Rock of Love. She asked, "Will you stay in this house and continue to rock my world?" Hahaha.
While Meredith sat on the couch, all of the roof guests quietly sneaked into the apartment but stayed by the door out of Meredith's sight. With everyone in place, I took a deep breath and tried to pretend that I was just casually joining her on the couch. As soon as I sat down next to her, the noisy party instantly went completely silent and Meredith noticed that everyone at the entire party was looking at the two of us and aiming cameras at us. Before she could ask what was happening, I asked "Remember four years ago when you asked me out on this couch?"
Here's the whole thing captured on video courtesy of Siege. (My favorite part is after all 15 seconds of kissing and the room yelling of the word "woo," it gets quiet for a second and Sarah goes "WAIT, DID SHE SAY YES?")