Somewhere outside Vegreville...

As Natasha hinted at in her post about our Thanksgiving weekend, the most exciting part of the trip was saved for our drive home. Although we had put off the topic of marriage until we were settled in Edmonton, the combination of two long car trips and watching a movie about love, marriage and relationships brought the topic back to our attention. We realized that we -- and our relationship -- had indeed survived the trip out West, and that we were ready to take the next step. Unfortunately for you traditionalists out there, this realization did not come in the form of a proposal, nor was it accompanied by an engagement ring. Instead, we came to this conclusion while driving back from Saskatoon -- somewhere near Vegreville, to be precise. We got to a point in our conversation where we realized that we had essentially decided to get married, and immediately pulled off the highway and onto a dirt side road to let this settle in. Once it had, we got out of the car, hugged, and jumped around excitedly for a bit.

Since then, we have been a bit more organized in our plans for the wedding. We have bought rings -- plain gold bands, which we're wearing on our right hands until the wedding -- and have booked a place for the reception. Now we just need to figure out the ceremony (and an interfaith ceremony, to boot), a guest list, invitations, flowers, food, etc., etc. The wedding planning is a bit overwhelming, at times, but we're generally quite excited about our decision.

We spent a bunch of hours on the phone telling people our news and thanks to everyone who has congratulated us, and been happy with us, whether through phone, e-mail, and in person. We also went out for a celebratory engagement dinner at The Creperie and enjoyed really good food and champagne.

Now for some pictures.

Us playing around with our friend, Marika's, engagement ring in April. Who knew???


The picture we took of us after going out for dinner to celebrate.


A better picture of us, Alissa took when we visited her in Calgary, about a week after getting engaged.


We have rings!!! We're wearing our rings on our right hands until the wedding. Then we will switch them to our left hands. Dave's hand is on the bottom and Natasha's is on top. It's harder to take pictures of your hand than you might think.