Hello everyone!

As you may have read from Tom's first post, this is intended to chronicle our lives and our family. Soon I will be a Martichuski and Beaves will be my maiden name....weird!!! Weirdness aside, I am very excited to start a new family and see where the future takes us. My posts for the next little while will probably be about the impending wedding and the planning that will consume my time outside of work and play.

So far, we have found the location and have a tentative date in mind, but won't find out officially until November 1st. I think I am already driving Tom nuts with the planning and incessant requests for his involvement. Honestly, I have to give him a lot of credit. He has been very involved and seems interested in the details of the wedding. Either he is a good fiance and is actually interested or his acting degree is serving him well and he fakes it really good!!!! For the sake of my continued enthusiasm about this process I am going to assume it is the former and not the latter.

To rewind slightly, I want to comment on his proposal and give him a big thumbs up about the thought that went into how he did it. Little did I know that the day before he went through with it he picked a fight with me to throw me off track to assume I would have to wait longer to get the sparkly ring and promise of marriage. That tricky SOB!!!! He described it very beautifully, but didn't seem to mention a couple of funny moments that he may have chosen to forget. That morning I had driven to the airport to pick up my grandmother who had flown in from Salt Lake City. I took her and my father to the grocery store and then drove home. When I opened the front door Tom was literally standing just far enough away to not be hit by the door and he greeted me with a very peculiar look on his face. At further examination I noticed that he was sweating. When I asked why he was perspiring he said that he had just put on some lotion and that is why his face was glistening. LIAR!!!!!!!! He was nervous! I knew something was up, but didn't push it.

Later, when we were at the location where he first expressed his feelings for me, Tom's Pizza, we had a very awkward moment as he was seemingly trying to figure out how and where at this place to make his move. A car pulled up next to ours and the driver, who we call "The Cowboy" because of his cowboy-like attire, decided to exit out of the passenger side as opposed to a normal person going out their own door. Tom seemed a little frazzled, I wasn't sure why, but I just sat in the car and didn't really know what was going on. When Tom got out of the car I was still confused and remained in my seat. After standing outside his door for a few moments he bent over and very rudely said "You can get out of the car!" I now know that he was simply nervous and perhaps frightened at what he was about to do. From there Tom covered the rest well. I vividly remember my beautiful ring falling to the ground and thinking to myself "Wow, I'm glad we aren't near a drain. That would just be my luck!!"

I love him very much and can't wait to marry him. While we have our disagreements and differing perspectives from time to time, that is the way of it and it will never change the fact that he is my person and my future husband.

I will post again very soon. This weekend I am going to try on wedding dresses for the first time and I am very excited. My maid of honor, sister Kristine, is making a special trip down to be here and I am very grateful to her. The involvement she has had and offered is beyond what I could have hoped. Since neither of us have done this part of a wedding before we are learning as we go. All of my other sisters, my mother and my niece and nephew will be there. I love my family and can't wait for Saturday and dress shopping.