Life Abbreviated (where my time has gone)

Update on life:
Since May, Steve was in Spencer & Laura's wedding in Dallas, Texas, at the beginning of June (such a beautiful ceremony at Watermark).
Steve spent a month in front of the TV watching the World Cup.
We went to the wedding of one of my coworkers in Point Loma.
I went to see Switchfoot at the Del Mar Fair with some old Kaleo folks.
I took the train to Santa Barbara for Emily Harms' lingerie shower and then hung out in Orange County with the cousins for 4th of July.
Our nephew, Jack Bailey Mavis, was born. I drove to Santa Barbara the next weekend to be a bridesmaid in Emily's wedding (beautiful!), and Steve met me up there. We stayed in the Coast Village Inn, which we booked for really cheap on Priceline... but we had to sleep in two twin beds. Serves us right.
We went to a wedding in Balboa Park for one of my old roommates, and we went to see Jim Gaffigan at Humphrey's on Shelter Island (where we got engaged just over a year ago).
I'm now in Calgary on my first travel assignment, for which I wrote a race report and will write a travel feature.

Still to come:
No more weddings till October.
Brother Andrew moving to Paris at end of August and friend Emily West moving to China in mid-August.
Trip to San Antonio for Labor Day. There are plans to float down the Guadalupe River.
Chris and Tiff (our friends and neighbors) are expecting a baby girl in late November.
Alex and Alison (my cousins) are expecting a baby boy in early December.
Week-long trip to Europe in January with the Leach family to visit Andrew (and take a bike tour).
Tim and Leslie (my cousins) are expecting a baby in February.

BMavis'ed

I am only halfway through the process of changing my name from Leach to Mavis after getting married more than two months ago. It's an incredible headache to change a name, and especially so when I'm changing from a Texas to California resident in the process. Today, my name was officially changed at work, forcing me to surrender my e-mail address beginning with "bleach," only to be replaced by a much less clever-sounding "bmavis."*

The wedding was beautiful. Everything fell into place so much better than I could have hoped. I was an emotional wreck the last month, but it turned out better than I could have hoped. After a blur of a wedding, Steve surprised me with two nights in an ocean view room at the Hotel Del Coronado, plus a one-hour massage the day after the wedding. We then flew to the East Coast to spend the remainder of our honeymoon in The Berkshires in western Massachusetts. It was a little brisk (29 degrees the day we left) but beautiful and sunny. We took day trips around the area, never passing through anything larger than what could be considered a "town," stopped in local book stores, coffee shops, hole-in-the-wall restaurants and a couple art museums. We slept in every day, and RedBoxed movies to watch at night by the fire.

We got home to Escondido to a pile of wedding gifts and unpacked boxes (all mine), and are just now starting to feel settled. I returned to life as an assistant editor, and I'm loving my job. I'm published in the current (June) issue of Triathlete magazine. We traveled to Texas in April for a post-wedding reception at my parents' house, and I just got back from my brother's high school graduation in San Antonio. I'm currently overwhelmed by the remaining things to change my name on, but I'm taking them one step at a time.

*Rest assured, the name of this blog will not be changing to "BMavis'ed."

The Golden Ticket

My college years instigated a caffeine addiction that has stuck with me. My post-collegiate years have ushered in an era of caffeine addiction on a budget. I don't want to even speculate how much money I have poured into Starbucks coffee. My junior year of college, I moved off campus to Clairemont Mesa. The 25- to 30-minute commute combined with a lack of campus parking forced me to leave the house 45 minutes before class started. During that year, I purchased a Starbucks beverage every single day from the Starbucks half a mile from my house. And not just a drip coffee--but a "fru fru" coffee, as my dad says. By that time in my life, I had graduated from caramel frappucinos and upside-down caramel macchiatos to vanilla lattes (I hadn't added in the "nonfat" to my order yet). And at that time, it cost $3.60 per beverage x 7 days a week = way too much money.

My senior year of college saw less financial help from my parents and more drinking coffee from home. The French vanilla Coffee Mate was always stocked, and my roommates and I worked out a routine of making coffee for each other. I kept going to Starbucks, but maybe only once or twice a week. After returning from Peru, Starbucks didn't sound appealing to me, especially with the abnormally hot summer San Diego had.

Now that the chill has set in, though, I've gone back to craving Starbucks. I still drink coffee from home every morning, but I sometimes need a grande nonfat vanilla latte pick-me-up in the late afternoon.

This week has been especially exhausting for me--waking up early to train for a half marathon, writing a newspaper article after work and trying to maintain some semblance of a social life. It's Thursday afternoon (which is like my Friday afternoon because I don't typically work Fridays), I'm running out of work to keep me occupied, and I needed a little liquid energy. I drove over to Starbucks, which was busy for 1:30 on a Thursday, and ordered my beverage. The price has gone up--it's now $3.85 for my grande beverage. I grabbed it from the bar but was a little distracted by a phone conversation. I drove back to work, sat at my desk and continued working when I took my first sip. Blech. I removed the lid--it was the color of mud, not vanilla goodness. I was so mad that my $3.85 Starbucks drink, which is now so rare a treat, was ruined. I stormed out of the office, starting to picture myself walking toward the counter angry, demanding a new drink and a free one. Or maybe a venti one.

Of course, conflict-hater that I am, I patiently waited in line until the ignorant lady in front of me ordered a "medium" mocha with "not that much chocolate." I then got all mousy and my hands got all shaky. I told the manager, "I was here about 10 minutes ago, and I ordered a vanilla latte," and then revealed the color of my beverage. "And that is not a vanilla latte," the kind bearded man replied. He took the drink from my hands and poured it out in the sink before wiping up the spill (from shaky hands) on the counter. The teenaged barista tried to defend himself, saying I had grabbed the wrong cup, but the manager defended me, reading "grande nonfat vanilla latte for Bethany" off the cup. I confirmed with a head nod.

The new beverage was out in a jiffy, and with it the embarrassed barista handed me the Starbucks golden ticket, good for any size or kind of beverage, even with extra shots. Merry Christmas to me.

Engagement Photos

In mid-September, our friend Laura Lewis took some engagement photos for us. I thought it'd be fun to take pictures in the Point Loma area--Cabrillo National Monument, Sunset Cliffs and Shelter Island. Steve thought it would only take about half an hour to take engagement photos (it took us about three hours). He was a good sport, other than the above photo.

In this photo, you can see Young Hall, one of the freshman guys' dorms on the Point Loma campus. There was a big swell that day, and we had planned to go down toward the water. Instead we watched the surfers try to paddle out while avoiding being crashed against the cliffs.

Touring S.D.

One of the things I appreciate about Steve's and my relationship is that we try to take advantage of the fun things to do in San Diego. We spend the last few weekends of summer doing fun stuff with friends around town.

After Oregon, I paid for Steve and I to see the musical "Wicked" while it was in San Diego at the Civic Theater, and we went with our friends Chris and Tiff (Steve didn't want to go to a musical without another guy there). It was amazing -- totally worth it.
We also decided to go to the horse races at Del Mar with Chris and Tiff, and my friend Amy. Amy and I dressed up, as is traditional, and I finally got to wear my big hat (which I bought last summer specifically for the races but never got to wear it). I actually did great on my betting -- over the course of the day I placed about twelve $2 bets and ended up making about $35. Out of the five of us Tiff was the only other person that won any money, and she only won on the last race, so they all kind of hated me for it.
After the races, Steve, Tiff, Chris and I used our Wild Animal Park passes to ride the tram and see the animals for the last hour it was open. We saw lions, giraffes, rhinos, zebras and all kinds of antelope things. So much fun.

Where does everyone summah?

About a week and a half after getting engaged, Steve and I met my mom's side of the family in Brookings, Ore., for a week-long vacation at a beach house. We were celebrating my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary, and since Grandma's from Medford, she wanted us all to spend some time near her hometown. The photo above is the view from the house, and the photo below is some of us on our (almost) private beach.

We saw all kinds of wildlife this trip. The water was freezing, and the beach was very rocky, which was kind of painful to walk on, but eventually your feet got numb (from the temperature or the pain) and then it was OK.

One day we all went on a six-hour riverboat tour up the Rogue River. It was amazing... definitely recommend it. On that trip we saw a harbor seal, bald eagles, ospreys, river otters, a black bear and deer. We went over rapids and got soaked, and then we had a quick dinner on an outdoor patio at a restaurant along the river. This is cousin Timmy and I right before we went on the trip (and before my hair got put in a ponytail from being so gosh darn wet and windblown... those boats are fast).
Another day trip took us to the lighthouse at Crescent City in the very northwest corner of California. The lighthouse is on this little island that is only accessible at low tide. We just barely made it back across the rocks before the tide came in.
On the way back from Crescent City, we stopped in Fort Dick to pick some blackberries. Charlie and Timmy were amused by the name.
Toward the end of the week, we went to the redwood forest -- this is in Jedediah Smith, where part of "Return of the Jedi" was filmed. We went on a hike for maybe a mile, but turned around because we were really hungry.
The last night, we went to the nearby state park to watch the sunset. It was chilly but beautiful. Andrew brought that hat back from Ireland to give Stevo.
After the sunset, we had cake and champagne to celebrate Grandma and Grandpa's anniversary. We also spelled out "Happy 60th" on the beach using driftwood.
Grandma and I posed with the sailor dude outside our incredible rental house right before we left for the airport. It was an incredible week of quality time with the fam. I'm glad Steve and I were both able to take the time off work to take a week-long vacation.

The Proposal

On Friday, July 31, Steve and I headed to Shelter Island, which overlooks the San Diego skyline. We've been planning to go see Jim Gaffigan, a comedian, at Humphry's in celebration of my birthday (because I was in Peru at the time). Steve got off work early, got to my house at about 3:45 or 4, and we decided to get to Shelter early because of traffic and we wanted to eat dinner before the 6:30 show. We got there around 4:30, and--since it was a little early for dinner--we took a walk along the water, something that we do pretty often in San Diego. We walked on the sidewalk for about 10 or 15 minutes when I asked if we should turn around. Steve said, "No, let's go a little farther." I was even talking about people that I knew that had gotten engaged on Shelter Island. I had brought my camera along, and we took a self-portrait (our favorite) in front of the San Diego skyline. We walked a little farther, and Steve suggested we step down onto the rocks by the water (it was his attempt to be lower than me, as well as to make it a little more private for us). I'm standing there, taking pictures, and he asked, "Do you want to take a picture as an engaged couple?" I stood there dumbfounded, thinking, "It's not funny for him to joke about this when I've been pestering him for months." But before I could react, he had the ring in his hand and asked, "Will you marry me?" He went for zero intro -- complete shock factor. I stood there, jaw dropped, for about five seconds before I shreaked, "Yes!" I kissed him about a dozen times, we took another self-portrait (above)-- our first as an engaged couple! I still look a little shocked and amazed and pretty much on a cloud.
The ring is amazing. Steve designed it himself, and he had actually only picked up the ring from the jeweler on his lunch break that day. He had been working for months with the designer to make the perfect ring. It's hard to get a good photo of it, but it has a .7 carat center stone that's round, and it has diamonds lining the split shaft on the sides. On the front and back of the center stone, there's an "M" for Mavis, with the symbol of the trinity on either side. It's completely unique and completely perfect for me.

We headed over to Point Loma Seafood, and while Steve waited for our bread bowls of clam chowder, I called my parents and grandparents, who were very excited for me. Steve had flown out to Texas in May while I was still in Peru to ask permission from them, so they somewhat knew it was coming, but he hadn't given them a timeframe. I think they would have had a little chat with him in Oregon on our family vacation in a week if we weren't engaged. It was so nice that no one really knew about it, except for my family, for a few hours. We were sitting there at Point Loma Seafood and then later at the Jim Gaffigan show as a newly engaged couple, and no one around us knew. It was such a sweet time.

The show at Humphry's was hilarious. Jim Gaffigan is so funny and very clean. Steve and I shared a Stella Artois during the show as my "birthday beverage." On the way home from the show, Steve and I both started going down the list of people we needed to call to share the news. We got to my house a little before 9 p.m., and as I walked to the door, I saw one of Steve's best friends, Josh Lewis, down the hall in my house. Confused, I was all flustered to find my house key. I couldn't believe there was more to the surprise. I walked in my kitchen to find about 15 people--church friends, Steve's friends, Steve's brother and sister-in-law--yell "Congratulations!" I turned bright red. They had shown up with champagne and a beautiful cake (that Josh's wife Laura made) to celebrate with us. Steve made such a sweet toast, and so did Josh. I was so caught off guard, and now that whole night seems like a blur. Josh was the last to leave, and he prayed over us and our relationship before he left. Steve and I made a few more phone calls to family and friends, and then we hung out for a bit before he went home. He felt like a huge burden had been lifted from his shoulders--with all the stress of getting the ring in time--while I felt as giddy as ever. Steve slept like a rock for 10 hours, and I had one of the most restless sleeps of my life. The night had been perfect and it was completely worth the wait.