Guess What?!?!....I'm engaged!!!

Well, it is true, as of last night, I am now engaged to Kazu Kato! For all of you in Alabama I will be home in two weeks for Natalie's (my best friend) wedding! I will only be home for 4 days...so I hope to see you then! I am so excited and have never been happier! I am so thankful and blessed! I am so excited to see what God has in store for my life in the future! Well...yesterday Kazu and I had planned to go to Saratoga Springs to pick up our friend, John's birthday present. When I arrived to Kazu's he told me we could go out to a nice restaurant so I thought that would be nice, since we haven't been to a good restaurant in a while. I thought maybe something was up but later thought absolutely nothing would happen because he was acting so normal. We just went to our usual stops in Saratoga and browsed around in several stores. He was just taking his time...which made me think nothing would happen. He also mentioned to me that since Emi was coming up next weekend, we might go to the city (NYC) so I then thought, well maybe next weekend. After hours of shopping and looking around he asked if I was ready to eat, and I was so, we then left for the restaurant. We were going to a place I had never heard of called Longfellows, (www.longfellows.com) once arriving I realized it was much nicer than I was expecting. It was perfect…fancy but very inviting and warm. The hostess and waitresses were very friendly. We went downstairs and had a table right beside a fireplace. The setting and atmosphere...just the whole ambiance was great! So we order our food and during the course of our meal he told me to save room for dessert, and that even if we didn’t finish our meal we could get a take-out box, but that their dessert was really good. So, just the fact that I was going to get dessert at a nice restaurant excited me. Well, when our waitress brought our dessert out to us, it had this silver cover over our plates. She sat one in front of him and one in front of me, except mine had an envelope on top with my name on it. That was when I was thinking “Hmm?!?!” and was getting super excited inside. I proceeded to open the envelope and on the card inside was written, “Will you spend the rest of your life with me?”!! I then took the silver cover off and sitting on my plate was a little blue Tiffany’s box with the classic white ribbon around the outside. I untied the ribbon and took the lid off, to find a little black box inside. He then opened the black box for me and asked “Will you marry me?” I obviously said “Yes!!” and he slipped the ring on my finger! Afterwards, tons of waitresses came downstairs and asked to see my ring. Since it was upstairs with them during my meal they were so curious to see what it looked like. It was perfect.

Well, I need to go for now, but here are some pic’s.

Also, you can go to www.tiffany.com and lokk for "The Tiffany Setting" for an upclose look. E-mail me!!

After 3 hours of writing our adventure...technical difficults led to the complete deletion of  the whole thing. I am very upset and it is 12:33 a.m. so I am going to bed. Sorry for the delay. A shorter more brief conclusion of the story along with pictures are soon to follow.

A Tale of Two Roomies   part 2

If you are just now joining our story refer to part one (the last update).

...the first thing in devising a plan to obtain the 360 was research. I called every retailer in the surronding 4 counties to fugire out just which one would be my best bet. With each phone call I asked a serious of questions...such as how many systems do you have....what time will you be selling them...and what is the mode of distribution, was it lottery or first come first serve? After much inquiring and gathering and analyzing my data, I settled on Supercenter Wal-Mart in Ft.Ticonderoga, New York. Due to the working class nature of this community, probability of work-skipping parents would be slim compared to nearby shopping centers of Saratoga Springs and Glens Falls....this translates into a later start time of line formation enabling an arrival on Monday afternoon rather then Monday morning for the 12:01 a.m. Tuesday sale of the console. This plan I had developed and planned for a week and counted down to the day. Imagine my distress when just 2 days before the BIG event I came down with the nasty cold my roomate had been carrying for a week. If millions of holiday-crazed parents could not intimidate me, surely no mere cold would stop me. On Monday morning I had 2nd thoughts when I woke up to find myself with the same fever I could not shake for the past 2 days. But those thoughts soon vanished when I thought of how happy and excited Kazu would be when he held the system in his hands (As Brian would say "tasting the sweet nectar of the gods"). From the very earliest stages of my planning, it had been decided that my roomate Liz would join me in my vital quest. And so on that Monday in late November through my coughing fits, Liz and I set out on the journey for Kazu's fulfillment and happiness. And this is where it all began..... Stay tuned to learn of the various encounters we would endure for the next 9 hours of our lives.

A Tale of Two Roomies

First let me explain...Kazu is a gaming console fanatic (but not just any gaming console fanatic, an XBOX 360 gaming console fanatic)...this is the key....if you do not understand this, none of what follows will make any sense...with this in mind, I knew I could do nothing else but get him this for Christmas..."What a perfect thought!", I said to myself...and then I read the news! For those of you who don't know or understand this "world" of electronic gaming...the XBOX 360 far exceeds any other "craze" within the past few decades...including furbies, tickle me Elmo, and yes, even the cabbage patch craze of the 80's! For the past week, the associated press of the nation have been warning consumers that unless having pre-ordered (In which case if you do so now, you will not recieve until February) the very limited supply of 360 would vanish almost immediately from the shelves to which they would arrive at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday, November 22, 2005. One might think that my resolve might have weakened but on the contrary, it was only strenghtened...I was determined that I would purchase one so he would be one of the few...the chosen....

But HOW was I to do the impossible task?!?!?!?!  Stay tunned for the riviting conclusion of the Tale of Two Roomies....