The Beginning

It was four years ago today that Carrie and I tied the knot and made this blog possible.  It’s been nothing but smooth sailing since that day, hardly a single bump in the road.  We met nearly six years ago.  I, being so shy could hardly muscle up the courage to speak with her outside of a short introduction.  She was an attractive, successful business woman intimidating with those looks.  After that fateful encounter I orchestrated a trip that I thought imperative a woman of Carrie’s caliber needed to attend to close a deal in Alabama.  Since airports are scarce it provided a one-way two hour car drive that I hoped would buy me the needed time to win her over.  By the time that trip was over it was clear that I had a chance and we would have an opportunity to pursue a romance.

Fast forward to 2005 and I continued to use my powers of persuasion and somehow convinced her Florida was better than Iowa.  She took the plunge and decided to move down to Gainesville, Florida, even allowing me to pick out an apartment for her.  Living in sin was not an option with this classy gal. After that kind of commitment it was squarely up to me to man-up and make the commitment myself.  That October I took a trip home to Wisconsin and employed my father to help me buy a ring.  In his business dealings he had a friend that was a successful jewelry store owner and he put me in touch with this gentleman, Ira. 

We met in my Dad’s office, while closed on a Saturday.  Ira comes in happy as a clam to see a young man, such as myself so in love.  He lays down a black velvet towel and proceeds to pull out a small black bag and simply pours out 8-10 diamond stones.  That one there is worth about $25,000, he says.  Right, okay, well, maybe now is time to cut to the chase.  He pulls out his loupe and provides it for me so I, too, can appreciate the quality cut of the diamond.  I, as gracefully as possible, decided upon a stone (one more in line with my just entering the work force salary) and provided him with an idea of the ring I asked him to create.  I knew I had a one a million girl and I wanted a ring to match.  A few weeks later I was able to have the ring in my possession.

I think finding the backbone to propose with the flare that I thought I needed was the most difficult part.  I planned and I planned.  While we were dating we frequently visited St. Augustine beach so I wanted to propose there.  Carrie cancelled on me three times.  Three times! You can imagine the roller coaster ride of nerves as you dig deep to gear up for such an event only to field a phone call cancelling.  In the mean time the ring sat and sat.  My mother was growing impatient with me.   It’s now April of 2006 and I still haven’t popped the question.  I finally decide I am going to do it on Easter.

I called her father the day before because I know once I place that call I can’t back out so I would either be getting a turn down and be the proud owner of one very expensive man-earring or on board the marriage express.  It didn’t go as expected.  I think calling someone’s father asking permission to propose was equally unnerving to proposing itself. I made the call and my soon to be father-in-law picks up so I introduce myself, which was met with, “Josh who?  Um, Spiegelhoff.”  There was still confusion on the other end of the line.  Profusely sweating on my end I say, “You know the Josh dating your daughter…”  I really hoped that cleared it up, because if not I was really in over my head.  He finally recognized who I was and then I just spit it out.  “Well, I was just calling, you know, to ask you, you know, if it would be okay and stuff, if I proposed to your daughter tomorrow.”  I think his exact reply was, “Okay, good luck!  Alrighty then.  Thanks! Good-bye.”  I’m not really sure how those things are supposed to go but it didn’t appear that went well.  At any rate I was officially committed.

The next day was Easter so I dropped by Carrie’s place to hide the Easter eggs we had decorated the day before while she was getting ready to attend church.  I’m dying because I know I can’t ask until after church so I have to hang out with this behemoth secret nestled somewhere between nausea and nervous excitement.  Of course the Easter Sunday sermon is twice as long as a normal Sunday service so I am just sweating bullets until it ends.  We get back to her place to have our Easter dinner and I turn her loose on the Easter egg hunt.  She found the dozen eggs I had hidden and I told her there was one more.  She eventually found it. The first dozen eggs were real and the last one was a plastic egg.  Inside was my and hopefully her future.  She opened it up and I popped down on a knee and fortunately for me she said yes.  And today here we are; a family of four with a fat pooch named Lucky.  I think I’m the lucky one.

Mother's Day, Easter, Carrie's Birthday

It’s been crazy around here.  Too much to do! In the last 3 days I have been on six planes in the states of Kentucky, Ohio, Minnesota (all 3 days), California and Iowa.  Sheesh! I am earning those frequent flier miles! Carrie’s birthday was on Friday so we celebrated Thursday night last week. She turned the ripe old age of 28.  She’s looking better than ever in case you were wondering.  Right before she blew out the candles, with Quinny’s help of course, I think I heard her wish for twins.  I don’t know about that but I guess it’s the fastest way to four kids.  Carrie’s parents came over and we grilled out and I took a stab at making a cake.  I was supposed to meet up with some friends at the Kentucky Derby but ultimately pushed my flight back a day (greatest husband ever) so we could all celebrate.  Since I had an accidental day off I volunteered to make a cake.  Carrie asks if I have ever baked on before.  Um, no, I haven't had a lot of occasions to bake cakes so to my knowledge this was my first stab.  Everything was going pretty well until the frosting came into play.  Keep in mind I’m making this thing from scratch.  I read the recipe and start making it and right away I know I screwed it up.  The frosting had the consistency of water, not a good sign.  Carrie comes home from picking up the boys and I’m pretty despondent.  I really wanted to succeed and didn’t want her to have a hand in baking her own cake but I was clearly beat. The kitchen was definitely winning so in a defeated state Care took a crack at it.  Um, same result.  Am I saving a little face here?  We are now out of powdered sugar and butter so we need Carrie’s mom to pick up some more on the way over.  After everyone’s two cents it’s clear the recipe is incorrect.  We get corrected and the cake turned out to be quite delicious.  A successful family birthday! 

For her birthday the boys and I gave Carrie an iPhone and now we sit on the couch and text each other in between playing games on that amazing toy instead of talking to each other.  Clearly, the secret to a long successful marriage is as much electronic communication as possible.  Speaking of long relationships our anniversary is coming up tomorrow. 23 years!  We are totally making it.  Whaoo! 

We celebrated Easter with my folks in Lake Geneva this year.  It was a nice time with the family. My sister and her two kids along with Quinny went on an Easter egg hunt.  Each child had his or her own specially colored eggs and it worked our pretty well.  There was minimal fighting and stealing of eggs.  It was a nice time had by all.  All the kids got a nice sugar rush and then all the parents go a nice sugar crash.  Kerplunk!  Those crashes are brutal but so it goes.

During the Easter festivities my mom taught Quentin how to pee standing up.  Hey! I thought that was my job!  He was in the bath and alerted grandma that he had to go.  No time for a potty chair!  It's time to man up.  Quinny is excelling better than we could have imagined.  He has his accidents now and then but finds a bathroom better than 95% of the time.  We need to remind him pretty often to remember to go but a lot of times he just takes care of it on his own.  He’s more or less already ditched his potty and uses the big boy toilet full time.  I’ve been very impressed.  We still throw a diaper on him at night, but he wakes up dry probably 40-50% of the time so we are moving into pull-ups and then on to hopefully irregular bed wetting!  I’m proud of my little guy.  Those M&M’s are a very powerful motivator.  And fruit snacks!  The kid loves the fruit snacks.  When he got some in his Easter basket, which was found downstairs he felt the instinctive need to immediately take the pack, march upstairs and put them back in the package in the pantry.  Hilarious!!

Gavin is moving right along and is gaining so much personality.  He loves his big brother and anytime Quinny gets near him Gavin will start cracking up.  We have some great interactions on the video camera.  He’s sitting up and getting ready to crawl.  He exercises those legs pretty good. Still no teeth, though.  He finally got his own bed and we are working on getting him to sleep through the night.  The boys have a jack and jill bathroom they share between their bedrooms so if one of them is screaming the other will wake up but it’s fairly rare.  We are still getting up every day between 4:30 and 5:30, which is getting old.  I mean it’s been roughly three years of the early wake up call.  I’m used to getting 3-4 hours of sleep but wouldn’t mind moving that wake-up call to 7:30.  I'm sure it's worse for Carrie but we try not to compare notes on who is getting less sleep.  There is another tip on a successful marriage - don't dwell on the negatives.  Focus on the positives.  We have two boys! Yipee!

Mother’s day was a bit of a non-event over at our house so I have to make that up to the best mom ever for Care.  We were both traveling home.  Carrie was coming home with the boys from a weekend with friends in Minneapolis and me from the Derby.  By the way that Derby is quite the event.  There were 165,000 people in attendance and the people-watching alone, make it an event worth attending.  If I could just get to a Super Bowl my sports’ bucket list would be nearly complete.  I need to sneak a final four in there too.  By the time we were all home it was around 5pm and everyone was crabby and exhausted.  We made the best of it and promised to do better next year.  Carrie hasn’t had a good run.  I think last year she had morning sickness, the year before some sort of tragedy took place so one of these years we will get it right.  Next year maybe we’ll celebrate in Hawaii. 

I would write about how awful I’ve been about the blog but that’s getting old every post.  We are contemplating shutting it down.  What do you think?  Are people still reading it?  I figure if I can get out a post or two every week it may not be worth doing it.  Leave a comment if you think we should keep it.  I hope everyone had a great couple of holidays!