One year later

Well, it is just about that time. Quoc and I are reaching our 1st year of being engaged. It's amazing, time really does fly by. I won't lie, wedding planning thus far has been frustrating. We spoke about getting married when we were dating and we both agreed that we wouldn't get married while I was in school. It really isn't feasible. However, this makes planning a little, well, different. Things don't follow the normal timeline. How far ahead of time can you plan something? Will that place you are planning to use for catering or flowers still be in business in 2+ years? Quoc and I have many ideas of what we want to happen at our wedding, many of them conflict with the strict regulations facilities impose. So we decided to have the American ceremony and reception at my parents home. Well, that puts restrictions on when we can have the wedding. Our original idea of having the wedding in November when I graduate is not feasible due to the weather. We then thought about stretching it into early October b/c most of my heavy school stuff may be at a lull at that moment. For my parents, October would be stretching it with the pool and weather, and for me and Quoc it would be stretching it with school. Wow, now what? Well the next time that would work would be Spring of 2011. But in all honesty it would be the best option, I will be done school (hopefully earning some $). The weather will be nice and the yard will be in bloom. I'm excited to have a date (estimated June 4th 2011). It gives me something to look forward to while I'm in school. Hopefully it will give us time to do all of the things big and small that we want for this special day. Man after 3 years we better live up to all of the hype! Haha.
3 years of being engaged sounds like a long time, but wow one year has passed already! We decided to celebrate our engagement and we used my "spring break" to do something nice. Originally Quoc had wanted to take me somewhere, but I knew I'd still have school work to do and some other things around the house that we nixed that idea. Instead we took a day to ourselves in Philly. Living in a house with multiple people and being the social people that we are, we rarely have much time to ourselves. So on Thursday Quoc took the day off for our date. We both went for a run in the morning and then caught the train downtown. Our first stop was Sabrina's in the Italian market for brunch with mimosas. After that we walked to jeweler's row to get my ring appraised. I know I know, it has been a year and we haven't done this yet. Honestly I was scared to take it any place I didn't know anything about. Unfortunately after finding a good place, we didn't realize you needed an appointment. Woops, honestly who needs an appointment on a Thursday afternoon. After that we both got a massage at the Philadelphia Massage School. Lily got us gift certificates and we finally made it down to get one. It was Quoc's first time having a massage and we both enjoyed it. Then after taking a detour through Reading terminal market for some browsing it was off to Rittenhouse for some afternoon drinks and people watching. We first hit up Drinkers, then over to Tequilas for a margarita. The last stop on our route for the day was a BYOB birthday dinner for Di with good friends, good eats, and of course good drinks! It was a beautiful day and I couldn't have enjoyed it anymore just walking around the city enjoying spending time together.