Kim and I have officially finished our marriage prep classes as required by the Catholic Church. Fortunately, we were able to take all of the classes on our time using online forms and email. Most of the work was done with Catholic Marriage Prep Online over the past couple of months. Basically, we worked on our own to answer questions in various lesson web forms, and after submitting our answers we would get an answer key and response from our instructors. This process worked pretty well, especially since it would be nearly impossible for us to commit to a single day for a series of weeks as often required by the live classes. Though this particular program is only good for the Denver and Colorado Springs Archdioceses, there may be other similar programs throughout the country or possibly the world.

I received my economic stimulus check direct deposited into my bank account today. The glory of having a social security number ending in low numbered digits! Now, I need to decide what to do with it. Obviously these payments are meant for us to spend the money and hopefully get our economy going again. So in the spirit of things, I’ll try to get this money spent very soon. Any suggestions for an extra $600?

Snow in April? Earthquakes in the Midwest? What the heck is going on? Did any of you Cincinnatians feel the tremors from the quake this morning? I know Kim’s family did, they gave her a call early this morning to let us know. Poor Nicholas did not enjoy the “earthshake” as he called it. Fortunately the weather in Denver appears to have cleared up and we’re expecting highs in the 70s for the next few days. I’m ready to get out of here and enjoy it!

If you didn’t already know, we are going to have a band at our wedding reception. We first saw them at the wedding of one of Kim’s friends, and somehow hung onto their business card for years until it became our turn. They were highly entertaining then and I’m sure that everyone will enjoy them.

But the real reason for this entry is that they take a few fifteen minute breaks throughout the night, and instead of having downtime I’m thinking that we should have some music going via CD player. So here’s your chance to help us out, since everyone has been offering anyway. Put together a 15+ minute playlist of songs that you think will be good for our reception and that everyone will enjoy. The mix can definitely go over 15 minutes but it may not all get played, so plan accordingly. Once your mix is done you can either send it to us in the mail or get in touch with me to transfer it electronically. May the best mix tapes win…

I nearly forgot that today was my birthday. I guess that’s how unexciting turning 28 really is. Two more years until that next big birthday. I should make it a habit to start taking my birthday off of work. Instead I worked all day and am now on my way to the airport to fly back to Denver. What a thrilling day! :)

Over the weekend we took in the largest St. Patrick’s Day parade west of the Mississippi River. This parade, of course, takes place in Denver, Colorado and this year had 236 entries, and over 10,000 marchers. To put it in perspective, it started at 10AM and at 2PM it was still going. We watched a good chunk of it from a parking lot along the route, complete with lots of green clothes, lots of beer (none of which was green), and loads of laughs. I wish I would have taken a camera with me, but I forgot to grab one in our hurry to get out the door and downtown. I don’t know if there are really that many Irish in Denver to explain such a large celebration, maybe it’s just the city’s love of beer.

The weather has been pretty wacky recently. Denver recorded a record high temperature of 72 degrees this past Saturday, which we unfortunately missed. When we got back into town on Sunday night, there was a few inches of snow on the ground. This all quickly melted over the next couple of days, and I quickly realized that our flowers are coming up. Last fall we planted a ton of tulip and daffodil bulbs near the back fence. Well the side of the fence that gets lots of sun is already starting to sprout, while the other side is still buried in snow from the winter storms. And just as I think spring is coming, we get another couple inches this morning, with possibly more as the day goes on. I’m sure the snow is great for the ski resorts, but I think I too am ready for spring, just like the flowers are.

Yesterday we attended mass at the church we are going to be married in later this summer. Both Kim’s parents and my parents made the trip as well. Though I had been here before, it had been awhile since I last attended. St. Francis Seraph is a Catholic church in downtown Cincinnati, which is dedicated to serving with and among the people of Over-the-Rhine, one of the poorest regions of the city, if not the most. It is very refreshing to find a church that not only does so many wonderful things in the community, but also has a strong sense of belonging together, and a different take on the standard Catholic mass. The sign of peace is much longer than I’ve ever seen before, and is a time for walking around the church and greeting the fellow parishioners, guests, and clergy. For me this was great, since there was a guy I went to both grade school and high school in attendance as well, and it was very nice to catch up with him. Beyond that there are many things that make this church stand out from any other I have ever attended before. It is an amazing place and something that you have to experience to truly understand.

I’m going to create a new blog category for wedding planning. Since this is going to consume so much of our time, as we are finding out, I may not have much else to write about for awhile. Monday night we went to a church in Denver to meet with the deacon who then told us all about the classes and such that we have to do in preparation for marriage. We also took a focus test, which was like 100+ questions that you either answered with agree, disagree, or uncertain. Kim and I both took the test, separately, and they will score our tests and compare the results. We requested to receive the results as soon as possible, so it shouldn’t be much longer.

Another thing we’ve been busy with is registering for gifts. This is quite a process, and what really stinks is that we already have so many of the standard things that people typically register for. We’ve been finding a couple of creative options that we are hoping to use, but we’ll still have some standard gift registries as well. Feel free to add any suggestions in the comments for something that we may not have thought about that would be a nice wedding gift. We could use a little extra help.

In between wedding planning this weekend, we decided we had to get out of the house on a beautiful Saturday afternoon and headed for the zoo. This was our first visit to the Denver Zoo, but I’m sure it won’t be the last. I was honestly surprised by how big the zoo actually was! The first thing I saw when walking through the gates was a big male lion. With this guy so close to the front gates, I figured that there wouldn’t be much else to see. However, we spent the next three and half hours walking around the entire zoo. They had all of the usual suspects you would expect, and even some I have never seen before, at least not in a zoo: big horn sheep, arctic wolves, and Andean condors to name a few. I was highly impressed and this comes from a guy who went to zoos all of the time when growing up since my brother absolutely loved them.