T+365 days
Well, kinda. More like 365 +++++++++ days to be exact.
Procrastination is my best friend so this post has been sitting here in draft mode since 28th Apr 2015.
Yeah, it has been more than a year since we got married. In all possible ways you can count. That's because we sorta got married like, three times.
#1 ROM: 28th Apr 2014, in the chapel
Yay! We are officially married! Which means that what's his is ours and what's mine is mine =P
We had a mini ceremony followed by some food with family and close friends. I was busy flying around plus getting all the stuff ready for the massive medding ceremony to be held a month later so this wouldn't have been possible if I didn't have amazing people help me out for this. Big thanks to both families for stepping up to all the last minute duties, and also to Sister Christina and Brother YM for all the beautiful decorations.
We spent the night at Swisshotel and the novelty of the day (and night, haha) kinda wore off the next day - until we came home to a lovely surprise.
Mummy Rita roped in Cheryl to decorate our honeymoon suite at home =D
That was pretty cool.
#2 Wedding Dinner and all the ching-chiong-chiang: 23rd May 2014, at (mainly) CHIJMES
That was one fun but exhausting day. Sending my love to all those to made it so wonderful!
#3 Church Temple Sealing: 27th May 2014, in Hongkong
We were sealed for time and eternity in the Hong Kong Temple. This means that our family is forever. Isn't that awesome? If you'd like to find out more about what I'm talking about and how you can possibly enjoy the same promise of eternal families, you can click here.
I would love to show you some pictures that I am certain we took but somehow no one seems to have it. Weird.
So there, with three very important dates, we had some trouble picking our anniversary. Despite having so many choices, Mark has been trying to convince me to shift it to 8th August. He claims that it will be convenient because we will always have a public holiday right after our celebrations so we can party through the night -.-"
Sorry, not happening.
I guess I decided that we would celebrate our anniversary on the 28th April, so that it gives me more leeway when I actually forget it and thus will be able to make up for it in a month.
Sorry to bore you with all these details but I have to confess that I'm blogging all these more for my sake so that we can remember the true dates of all these events.
I'm so bad at this that I have to confirm with Mark on the accuracy of these dates while typing haha.
Anyway, the point is, I thought it'd be nice to do a mini #throwback on our entire journey together, from how we met, what we've been through and how we got to where we are now.
We met while playing Settlers in 2008 at his place in Causuarina with his friends and my friends. You know, the sort of friend's friend's friend's friend kinda thing until it became a geek board game party.
There were probably eight of us, half were noobs who never played the game before and the other half were addicts who stayed up till 3am whenever they could to play. Since the game could only play up to four people, we decided to split into pairs, with one noob and one addict in a team.
No points for guessing who I ended up with pairing with.
Of course, I was excited. But it was because Mark was apparently the best at the game and I'm the competitive sort the likes to win ALL THE TIME. Sadly, we ended up with a whole hand of green - meh mehs (my way of calling sheep) and wood - which were really useless and thus we lost the game.
(I got him this shirt 7 years later because of that green hand we had)
But I guess it was a worthy loss since we both got alot more out of it. (although we could have won it and still date after haha) Mark still insists to this day that it was not a chanced coincidence that we ended up pairing and that he instigated it. I have my doubts on that claim, he couldn't have been that smooth.
After a couple of SMSes (yes, last time no what's app) and the whole trilogy of LOTR, we went for our first date at the zoo.
Oh man, we look so young.
We also did a photoshoot just for fun.
I remember Mummy Rita joked that if we got married, we could use those shots.
Boy am I glad that we had Amanda take our pre-weds instead.
We spent our first Valentine's together in 2009, picnicing at some secret garden that we had to sneak into. It was quite thrilling trying to get there in the dark. Oh, don't bother asking, I'm obviously not going to tell you where it is, otherwise it wouldn't be so secret anymore =)
Yea, I was trying to dress like a boy that day for the fun of it. That's not really my usual style, as much as my fashion sense was probably a disaster in 2009 anyway. lol.
Wonder if it is still there.
After dating for about a year, Mark left for his mission in February 2009.
We sent letters to each other during those 18 months but decided to take a break half way through.
He came back in 2011 (a little more chubbs haha ) and we met up.
But nothing much happened.
He left for BYU (in Utah, USA) soon after and I stayed back in SG. We dated other people and were pretty much Facebook friends. (FB friends = people who just say hi once every quarter on FB)
In December 2012, however, Mark decided to come back to Singapore with all the kit-kat flavours he could find in Tokyo on his stop-over to surprise me.
Kitkats are my weak spot and this guy knows it and capitalises on it. How could I have not fallen for them (or him). Times were a little tricky then though but well...
We started dating again at the start of 2013 but because he was studying in the States and I was working in Singapore, we had to cope with the distance.
I know, it seems like we were destined to have long distance relationships no matter what. Ah well.
Long distance was hard and we saw each other mainly through Skype. I was going through a change of jobs which gave me some off time in between jobs and training to head to the States twice.
I got to see him in Provo in February 2013 where we climbed some mountains.
And again in August 2013, in Seattle, while he was doing his internship at Microsoft.
By the time I got back to Singapore, I was ready to start flying as a Singapore Girl.
For those who don't know, cabin crews' lives revolved around one thing - our roster. We go through a short period of heightened anxiety every month when it is released. It's like participating in a mini 4D draw (lottery). Our roster for the month will determine where our "holidays" will be, what kind of flights we get (trust me, all flights are not made equal), and ultimately how much ka-ching we will be bringing home.
Imagine how excited I was to receive my first ever roster. When I opened it, I discovered that my first three flights were horrendous turn arounds (TAs). TA flights are those that you work your way to your destination and then work you way back without collecting a chop on your passport. And horrendous are those that I got because the total duty time for one of those flight is about an average of 11.5h from dusk to dawn.
But, thankfully, things got better after I paid my dues. SQ was sending me to Maldives and then, to San Francisco (SFO)!!
And SFO = States = Mark. =D
Actually SFO also = long flight = more money. So =D =D
Mark came to join me in SFO even though he was interning at the time and had to take leave to come. It was worth it though because we could stay together in the nice SQ hotel.
While we throroughly enjoyed each other's company, we didn't think much of SFO that trip. I think it's because we didn't have someone who knew the palce show us around. And also plus the fact that that clueless guy made me walk from Union Square to Good Mongkok Bakery in Chinatown after I conquered the 13h flight. Don't be fooled by google maps, it is a 1 mile walk uphill that is as steep as going up Lombard Street. It felt like hours before we got there.
Saying googbye at SFO was hard because I didn't think I would have the chance to see him again until he next came back to Singapore for Christmas. Can you imagine my surprise when I opened my door to my hotel in Munich and saw him standing there?!? He had joked that he would come to Munich to visit me and even sent a fake itenerary but I didn't believe he would actually come!
Of course he came with a greater purpose - the first thing he did when I opened the door (my sleep was interrupted and I was dressed in robes, had ugly hair and was half awake) was to get down on his knees and pop THE question. Once again, he took advantage of my vulnerable half asleep situation. Tsktsk.
Heh, duh I said yes, if not you won't be reading this.
From there the next major step was of course to get married. In case you don't already know, prepping for a wedding is not easy. I did the bulk of the work, largely because I was in Singapore but also because I wanted things my way and Mark didn't really care that much.
After the ROM, we decided to take a pre-honeymoon trip to destress, since wedding preparations are so stressful. Haha. No lah, the real reason was that I have a free ticket from SQ and I could transfer it to Mark since he is now legally my spouse. We had to use the ticket soon as I will be leaving SQ and going to the States after we got married. So after all the calculations and meticulous planning (I wouldn't call it scheming, I just did my homework to make sure we enjoyed all the priviledges we possible can before I resigned), we were able to arrange it such that Mark flew as a passenger on a flight to Johannesburg while I worked. I was bringing my husband along on my work trip. Free flight and hotel plus I get paid too. Not bad a deal huh. =D
It was nice that he was able to experience my SQ service and that I could finally ask him the most famous stewardess question, "Chicken or fish?"
Little did I realise that I will be asking him that for the rest of our lives, when I have to decide what to make for dinner.
And then we got married.
Too much happened on the wedding night to recap here. I could possibly write a whole other post about it but you might have to wait like 20 years. Haha. Well, it suffice to say we were exhausted by the end of it.
So exhausted that we needed another honeymoon! The real one.
So off we flew to Paris. And as romantic as that sounds that was only our first stop. The main bulk of our holiday was actually spent in Greece. We visited Meteora, Athens and Santorini. According to Mark, Santorini is the only real part of our honeymoon. Everything else was just to help us get to and from there.
We went on our honeymoon with me jobless and Mark still in school so we pretty much did budgety stuff. Except for one night in Santorini where we extended our stay and put ourselves up in the most romantic Katikis Hotel. It won the World Travel Award for Greece's leading luxuary hotels in 2014!
We only could afford it because they had some last minute discount, probably because someone cancelled. It was totally unplanned - I loved Santorini so much that Mark decided we should stay another night and booked Katikis as a surprise for me, on my credit card.
As fun as our honeymoon was, it had to end sometime. We eventually flew to Provo for Mark to finish his last semester of school. He didn't really study all that much (as usual) and we mostly just used the time to adjust to married life.
Until of course, we went for his cousin's wedding in Hawaii. Which was really just an excuse to go on our third honeymoon.
Got 3 weddings so must have 3 honeymoons mah. Only fair.
Here we are, 365 +++ days after the big day. Kudos to Zichun for capturing that moment, not forgetting Annabel who was behind the scenes struggling with Tibbers and Charcs throughout the whole shoot.
And now that we have had many firsts together, may I add Just one more?
Say hello to our newest, tiniest member - our first little angel =)
We are really excited to meet you, darling!
Love,
Belle
