~J
Almost 3 weeks had gone by, James was doing amazing in his recovery, and he started his on-ice workouts again. Between working, packing up the old house plus my apartment, moving into our new house (so exciting to say OUR house) AND planning a wedding on top of that…I was such a busy girl.
[[This is the house...def not the house by the Lemieux's...but just imagine it to be...and gated too :)]]
I had already been preparing for another trip home by myself, before we went to another appointment for James. The doctor walked in with the look on his face saying, “You’re not going anywhere,” and that really bummed me out. Then, out of nowhere, he said that a wedding should be planned by the bride AND the groom, so James was cleared to travel. I was so excited that I jumped out of the chair to give him a hug.
“Hello?” I say, as I’m doing last minute packing
“Ello! Are you guys ready?” Vero says on the other line, her and Marc are taking us to the airport, before they head to Ottawa for All Star Weekend
“Almost! Are ya’ll outside?”
“Yep,”
“Yep,”
“Hurry up!” I hear Marc yell in the background
“Is someone a little impatient today?”
“Yes and I have no idea why,”
“Tell him to take a chill pill, we will be out in 2 minutes!”
Our flight back to New Mexico was the fastest flight ever, seems like we got there in no time, I guess it did help that we flew nonstop too. We got our luggage and walked out to the pick up area to find my parents waiting for us.
Even though I knew it was going to be a somewhat stressful weekend, it was good to be back home again, with my fiancé this time. All my friends here would be meeting him, so it was a pretty big deal.
Today is the day that James and I would be going to the casino so he could see where the reception would be. I called Nicole in advance so she knew we were coming. We were able to pick out the centerpieces; they were vases of blue and yellow flowers. The food was an easy decision, a steak plate or a salmon plate; both would be served with green beans and a salad. I was glad that we were able to get that taken care of. We were also able to give her the final number of 218 guests. And James loved the casino and was glad that we could work it out.
I had sent an email to an old high school friend who has a photography business with her sister-in-law to see what their wedding packages included and if we could book them, so meeting up with them was our next stop.
When we got to Starbucks, Amanda & Nicole were already there with coffee in hand. After everyone meets, we all sit down and figure things out.
“So when’s the wedding?” Amanda asks
“July 7th,” James responds
“And where is it going to be?” she asks again
“At my church, down on Montano, then the reception is going to be at Sandia Casino,”
“Good choice!” Nicole exclaims
They went over the list of what they do and ran prices by us, which was pretty decent; it would be $750 for all day, plus a CD with the edited pictures, and 120 prints. Plus I had seen their portfolio, and all their work is amazing.
After that, we went home for a while, James took a nap & I decided to knock some more things off the planning list. The DJ was booked; and appointments were made for our hair, makeup and nails. More check marks on that list=1 happy bride-to-be.
Before we knew it, it was Sunday, last on our list was to go to church. James loved the look of my church and thought it was the perfect place for us to get married. He also met my pastor, who added that once we got our marriage license to bring it to him and he would keep it until the ceremony.
We spent our last night in, watching the All Star Game, before turning in to catch an early flight back to the Burgh.
“Hey guys!” Mario says as him and Natalie greet us at the airport
“Hi!” we say
“How were things back home?”
“Good! We got a lot of stuff done!”
“That’s good! Bet it’s taking some stress away?”
“That’s good! Bet it’s taking some stress away?”
“Definitely!”
The boys were back in action on Tuesday against the Predators. Even though James had been progressing, he still wasn’t cleared for contact, and he still had to attend games. It was weird being at home and not going through his game day routine; it was also weird not going to the arena 3 hours before the game.
It was a close game the whole time, Engelland got in a fight (yeah, so what else is new) with Mike Fisher! Somewhere Carrie Underwood was probably wincing, no offence Carrie, but fighting Engo is never a good idea; and we won 4-3.
Doctor’s appointments had been going well, I was getting back into the swing of working. It was hard going almost anywhere without someone asking me how James was doing, but I said what I was told to say (instructions from Ray, Dan and Mario), that James is progressing well, and that was all.
We were able to find a cute little store in downtown to do the wedding invitations, they looked amazing and I couldn’t be happier with the people we chose. The package we got included the invitations, reply cards with an envelope and our engagement photos that we will be taking next week.
To say the next week flew by and had better news everyday, well if I didn’t say that, I’d be lying. The team photographer knew another local photographer that agreed to take our engagement photos for us. We chose to take them at the arena, got a good wide range of different shots and we were happy with them all. The one we chose to add with the invitation was a shot of us one the bench and James is down on one knee, tightening my skates while we’re looking at each other.
The other good news that had happened that week was that James was cleared to play in games again, we were so excited for him to get back into action.
I was so busy again, to even realize that it was almost Valentine’s Day; the boys were off that night, with a road game the night before and a home game after. The WAGs had given out roses on the game around this time before, but this time, we picked 100 roses to tie yellow ribbons around, and the women that got those, got free tickets to an upcoming game of their choice.
Valentine’s day was amazing to say the least, James and I went to my favorite restaurant, and one that we usually only go to for special occasions, The Melting Pot. We spent the rest of the night in our new hot tub at the house and it was so relaxing after the last couple weeks.
James first game back was against the Blue Jackets. He was excited because his best friend Jared plays for them and he hadn’t seen him in a while. I finally got to meet him, before the game, when him and James were talking about going to dinner afterwards.
Pens got the win with the help of James’ 2 assists, and then we met up with Jared for dinner. James and Jared together were so funny, and it was good to see James coming back to being himself again. Jared was excited to come down to New Mexico for the wedding this summer, and that made us happy too.
