I gave her step by step instructions and stepped back to try to capture an action shot. Less than a minute later, BLAMO! Check out the action shot I managed to capture of Amanda cutting the bottle top clean off!
We got off the A train at Canal Street and walked across town to Vegetarian Dim Sum House. This place is incredible. Even if you're not a vegetarian, I encourage you to check it out. (C'mon, it's not like you even know what's usually in them anyway, right?)
....obligatory photos of everyone jumping at the beach! Yay! Take One: Gurj, Scott and Amanda have amazing form in this pic. Sarah, however, failed to achieve lift off.
Later that night a whole bunch of us went to Amanda's for birthday treats and a game of Trivial Pursuit. Everyone was so tired from being out in the sun all day (well, except for Siege of course) and kept falling asleep!
July 26th is Amanda's birthday (and Leigh's too!). On Saturday morning, I rode my bike down to Battery Park to meet up with the birthday girl for a birthday bike ride up the West Side!
We invited a bunch of people to come over to our place to eat snacks, play video games and then watch the fireworks. Amanda arrived around 10, looking summer-tastic!
This picture is great in so many different ways. My favorite part about this picture is looking at Cynthia and Amanda and realizing that they totally remind me of...
...Vin and Josh from pretty much every photo I have of them in college. Here's a pic of Vin and Josh from 1998 for comparison's sake.
Then a couple songs later, Meredith, KT and Siege joined the party and we all nerded out together. Just cuz you're getting married doesn't mean you gotta grow up or anything! Thanks to everyone for keeping the surprise a secret and for coming out to help me surprise Meredith! It meant so much to have so many people we love be there to share that huge moment in our lives!
Indoor grilling in June in a NYC-sized apartment = 1,000 degrees Farenheit. Meredith was like "It's so hot in here, let's go up on to the roof" and everyone had to keep making up excuses about why we were staying in the roasting-hot apartment.
On Sunday morning I told Meredith I was having brunch with some former co-workers that were in town visiting, but I was really secretly meeting up with Amanda, Scott and Leigh to go shopping FOR AN ENGAGEMENT RING! Oh, snap!
That's right! After four years of dating, I decided that I was going to surprise Meredith and ask her to marry me at Sarah Lewitinn's Memorial Day BBQ; it was the fourth anniversary of the very same party that Meredith asked me out on our first date in 2004!
At first we didn't think doing body shots would be that big of a deal. Everyone's done them before right? But what you forget to realize is that usually when anyone does a body shot - it's usually in the back of some dark, shitty crowded bar and you're wasted and everyone is cheering you on. Doing body shots in the middle of a TACO JOINT that people are having lunch at, in the middle of the afternoon, while being STONE-COLD SOBER brings a whole new level of ass-cringing embarrassment to an already embarrassing endeavor!
"Team member doing something dirty to the owner of Urban Rustic (Luis)." 25 POINTS! Hahah. I love how the "something dirty" we came up with was to have Amanda and Scott "peek" up his apron while he's on a slider ladder. (PS - is that the lead singer of Soul Asylum in the background?)
