Our Relationship Timeline
Posted on December 20, 2010 by Ching under Life.
1999: Brian and I met in the Spring. I was dating his coworker at the time. I attended one of their work get togethers at Walt’s on Central and Rock Road. That’s where Brian and I met for the first time. Brian and I ran into each other a few more times through their work functions and became friends. My boyfriend dumped me by the time Summer rolled around. We weren’t together for a year, but it was the longest relationship I’d been in at the time. I was devastated. Brian was there for me. He helped me mend my broken heart. In Fall, I fell in love again. This time with my best friend. By the end of the year, we were practically living together.
2000: This is the year I moved in with Brian and Kevin. They were living in a two-bedroom townhouse on 32nd and Rock Road at the time. Brian and I occupied one bedroom and Kevin took the other. Brian and I had quite a few sleepovers prior, but I didn’t actually have any closet space until this year.
2001: We bought a house! Little did we know that it was going to be a big mistake. LOL. We were so excited at the time. We moved in on April 14, 2001. Three weeks later, Brian proposed.
2002: After being engaged for almost a year and a half, Brian and I got married on August 10, 2002. It was a really exciting time for us. Neither of us had ever been married before. For our honeymoon, we went on a seven-day Caribbean cruise. It was the first time that Brian had ever been out of the country. We had a blast!
2003: When Brian and I first met, I was in the Engineering program at Wichita State. I was on a four-year scholarship that ended in 2000, before I could complete my degree. College was not a priority at the time, so I dropped out. Brian tricked me into going back to school in 2003. I changed my major to Management Information Systems and attended the Barton School of Business at WSU.
2004: This is the year I became a naturalized US citizen. I had been holding out to do it with my family, but they were taking forever and my green card was about to expire. Well, technically I had a while (about another year or so), but those of you who know me know that I don’t like waiting until the last minute. So I went ahead and did it. This is also the year that Brian lost his job. Thankfully, I had just gotten promoted at work so that helped out a little. This was the year that changed our lives forever.
2005: Our first year in credit counseling. This was a really rough year for us. We had to completely change our spending habits. Brian got a job at Cox Communications and we got introduced to Ogame. Life was challenging and stressful. Thank God for poker. It was a great way to destress after a tough week of fulltime school and fulltime work. This was the year of the Park City Poker Roundup. After several tries, I actually qualified. Brian didn’t stay at Cox for long because he got a job at LSI. He only worked at Cox for a couple of months.
2006: I finished my bachelors degree. I was actually going for three minors: Management, Accounting, and Computer Science. I didn’t get my CS minor, but two out of three ain’t bad. My graduation gifts were Molly (who lives with Tita Sol now) and Bebot, the first brand new card we’d ever bought. I wasn’t done with Wichita State just yet, though. During the week of finals, I took my GMAT, applied and was accepted to graduate school.
2007: Brian got Crichton. It was the first time that we’d ever paid cash for a car. We felt like such grownups. LOL. We finished credit counseling and celebrated by taking a trip to Jamaica. We spent a week at an all-inclusive resort as an early anniversary present to ourselves. We had to go in July because I didn’t want to miss any classes. It was our best vacation yet.
2008: Brian started his new job at Viega. I graduated from grad school — got my MBA (with Finance concentration) from Wichita State. Finished with school, we finally had the freedom to travel. We didn’t have much money to do so, though. Lucky for us, Kurt hired us as dealers on a poker cruise. We got to return to the Caribbean. The ports were the same as our honeymoon six years prior, so we got to relive some of the happiest days of our lives.
2009: This is the year that I completed Leadership Westar. I couldn’t do it before because it was a huge commitment and I didn’t want to miss any classes. Being out of school, I could finally participate. Brian got to visit both the Philippines (pleasure) and Germany (business) for the first time. He did quite a lot of traveling this year.
2010: Brian got to visit San Francisco for the first time. We finally got rid of our house and are taking advantage of our new found freedom. Without any pets or a house to take care of, we are pretty much free to pick up and go whenever we feel like it. We took several road trips this year. We learned a lot about our relationship and each other this year as well. We both went through individual therapy and also couples therapy and it has helped us a lot.
2011: I’m looking forward to what this year will bring. We are ending the 2010 and starting 2011 in Las Vegas, which should set the tone for the entire year. If 2010 was the year of therapy, 2011 will be the year of adventure. So far we also have a trip to the Philippines planned. I am every excited. I hope I have some exciting things to share with you guys in the coming year.
P.S. Did I miss anything babe?
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Have You Seen This House?
Posted on December 19, 2010 by Ching under Things to Do.
This is probably the most festive house in Wichita. Located just South of 13th Street on Lawrence, West of Rock Road, it’s definitely worth checking out. Have you seen the house in this photo? What do you think of it?
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Working Again (on a Sunday)
Posted on December 19, 2010 by Ching under Life.
This is starting to become a Sunday tradition. An unwelcome one. Yuck.
Brian has a pretty nifty set up, though. He’s got Pandora streaming on his personal laptop while he’s working on his work laptop. The only downside is that there’s no talking to him when he’s in the zone. LOL.
I’m like, “Baby… Baby.. Baby!” and he doesn’t hear me. I actually have to get in front of his face and start waving my arms like a frantic person in order to get his attention.
By the way, I found some more old Christmas photos to share with you guys. I’m posting them here because I promised that I would post any that I find and I deliver on my promises. Ching delivers on her word. =P
This one was taken December 25, 1999. Brian still had long hair back then.
This one was taken December 25, 2000. The year Brian lopped off his hair.
I had gotten these plaid pajamas for Christmas the year before and I wore them on Christmas Day the following year. For a while there, I was getting PJs every year. And then I would turn around and wear them the following Christmas. LOL. Now that’s a tradition I don’t mind having.
Anyway, break time’s over. I hope everyone is having a fabulous Sunday that doesn’t involve working.
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Tron Legacy in IMAX 3D
Posted on December 19, 2010 by Ching under Movies.
Brian and I got to check out the new IMAX theater that just opened yesterday. We went to watch Tron Legacy there this afternoon. The script was somewhat lame and I thought there would be more 3D scenes than there was, but the movie was still entertaining overall. The visuals and the action sequences were great and the musical score was cool. I just didn’t get “wowed” by it. The IMAX theater is huge, though. It is by far the largest screen that I’ve ever seen. That, I was actually impressed with. I’m looking forward to my next IMAX 3D movie.
Me, in my goofy 3D glasses. It felt like it was falling off my face the entire time because I don’t have a big enough nose to hold it up.
They looked oversized even for Brian’s big head. =P
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Ghosts of Christmas Past
Posted on December 18, 2010 by Ching under Family, Life.
Christmas 2000
This is the year that Brian and Matt got their barongs.
We generally spend Christmas Eve with my family and Christmas Day with Brian’s. We didn’t want Hobbie to spend Christmas Day by herself so we took her with us to Brian’s parents’ house so she could spend Christmas Day with us and the rest of the animals. No one should spend Christmas Day alone.
We piled ourselves and all of the presents into Neo, the Neon. The car was packed!
Brian looks like he’s barely in his 20s, but he was actually 26 in this photo.
This was also the year that we all went in on a digital telescope for David.
Christmas 2001
The first and only Christmas that we hosted at our house. We had both Brian’s family and my family over on Christmas Day. The pictures are somewhere, but I think they haven’t been scanned. I’ll have to check my old photo albums.
For now you can check out pictures of our tree…
Our living room was filled with presents. There was hardly any room for people!
Christmas 2003
I’m not sure what happened to the rest of my pictures from Christmas 2001 and I can’t even find any pictures at all from Christmas 2002. They are somewhere. I just can’t find them right now. Anyway, we are going to fast forward to Christmas 2003.
Logan was only three and so cute and adorable. He is still cute and adorable, but he’s on his way to being a teenager now. How time flies!
As with our tradition, ever since Logan was born, the Cannadys were present for our Christmas Eve celebration at mom and dad’s house.
Logan took this photo of me that is one of my favorites to this day.
Some more photos by the little guy…
By the way, that’s sparkling apple cider that Brian is drinking. We discovered that we liked it after we had some in the limo on our wedding night. They put a bottle of sparkling apple cider in car for us in place of champagne because we told them that Brian is allergic to alcohol. He didn’t drink back then. He didn’t realize that he could drink until recently.
As always, there was an insane amount of presents at the Brubakers’…
There are way too many pictures for me to post here. If you want to see the rest of the pictures from Christmas 2000 or Christmas 2003 just follow the links. When I find the missing Christmas pictures from 2001 and 2002, I will post them here also.
I will be posting other Christmas pictures between now and Christmas Day so please check back for updates. 🙂
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