Save the Date!

Steve and I have set the date and found the perfect location for the wedding! We are going to be married on February 28th at The Allan House in downtown Austin. We walked the dogs by it tonight and got to peak in at another nighttime wedding. The dogs all agreed it was perfect too - Zeke kept trying to crash the wedding but we told him no! Then we high-tailed it out of there before they called the cops on the weird stalkers outside.

The proposal

We got engaged on 888 - August 8th, 2008- on the Riverwalk in San Antonio, Texas.

After spending an afternoon in New Braunfels, TX at Schlitterbahn (recognized by the Travel Channel as the #1 rated water park in the world!) we hurriedly drove the rest of the way down to San Antonio to make a dinner reservation at the Caliza Grille in the Westin on the Riverwalk.

After a quick shower, we raced along the Riverwalk, eventually making it to a tiny little island in the river known as Marriage Island with two little benches with hearts carved in them, and a giant, ancient tree towering over it. Stephen pretended like his feet hurt and took Cara onto the island to sit down for a minute on one of the benches. After getting Cara to look away for a second by pointing to the water behind her and going "what's that?", he proposed...

Legend says that couples who get married or engaged on Marriage Island will have a long, happy and prosperous marriage.

But the funny thing is earlier as we were racing to get to dinner Cara had put on new shoes and they were really bothering her so we had already stopped once on the way to dinner because of foot pain! Basically Cara tried to ruin it all by stealing Stephen's carefully planned yet lame excuse to get her onto the island.

How We Met

Once upon a time Stephen adopted a dog from the Town Lake Animal Shelter (a labradoodle named Zeke) to befriend and occupy his other dog, a mentally retarded golden retriever named Sampson (see Sampson's popular YouTube video below!).

One of Zeke's littermates was also adopted by Stephen's good friends Danny and Susan. They named him "Brother". It's a weird name, we agree... Anyway, Danny and Susan discovered a dog training and dog day care business that they would bring Brother to every Friday named Buddy's Chance that was conveniently located really close to Stephen's house. Zeke loved every opportunity to play with his brother Brother, so Stephen began also bringing Zeke in to day care on Fridays...

Needless to say, the dog day care business was owned and run by Cara and is named after her rescued former racing greyhounds- Buddy and Chance. Zeke and Brother were/are little terrors when they get together, yet despite them trying to mess things up by making Cara want to kick them out of daycare several times, she didn't, and we eventually started dating and the rest is history...

One interesting note is that Stephen and Cara both grew up in New Jersey... Cara in Summit and Stephen in Westfield. The two towns are virtually adjacent yet had never met until they both ended up in Austin! Even weirder, Stephen's father and Cara's mother both grew up within a few blocks of each other in Jackson Heights, Queens (NYC)! Even weirdererer-er-er, Cara's sister Emily and Stephen's sister and brother (twins) all share the same birthday... December 3rd!