September 21, 2005

• It's Official!
  Yes, Esther officially visited me.
  
  

  True
  story. I found the girl in Chicago on the 9th and brought her up to
  Mil-town late at night with Chris. Gave her the tour of his new house
  and started the first of many visits to the C-Haus that weekend with Kristen and Mandy
  and Amanda and Lindsay. On Saturday, I gave her the full tour of
  Milwaukee starting with the Crawford shop and my messy office. My
  highlight was taking a dump truck for a ride with her. The lucky girl
  that she is, I dragged her along to look at some tree work, a sick
  shrub, and a yellow lawn. I think that was her highlight.
  

  
  

  
  Since she's planning on applying to
  Marquette for grad school, the two of us waltzed around the campus for
  a bit while she complained about how hot it is in Milwaukee. Favorite
  memory of the campus? We're chilling out at the little chapel in the
  academic core when a wedding party starts strolling by us. The groom?
  Carrying a Miller Lite no less. And the groomsman. And every
  bridesmaid. With cigarettes to boot! It was a great cultural experience
  for the Oregonian.

  That night I took her to the lakefront where we walked out on Government Pier. Brent and I strolled on this pier back in August.
  It was a little different this time with a girl in hand. Past the
  fishermen with their lanterns. Past the passed out. But not all the way
  to the end due to a making out couple. We talked for a while, and I
  asked Esther to be my girlfriend. She paused for 20 minutes. She says
  it was a dramatic pause. I say she was being dramatic. In any event,
  she asked if I was serious (I had said "in all seriousness..."). I was
  serious, and I am now her boyfriend. OKAY. *breathes* Is that what you were waiting for?

  For
  you romantic types (so yeah I am), we had a city skyline backdrop with
  fireworks and all. My fireworks people were a little slow on the
  timing, but they pulled through as you can see in the picture.
  Hopefully you can see our silhouette.

  The next morning, we made it to Church in the City
  with the C-Haus and Chi Alpha gangs. The message was good, the music
  was.... Well, we had lots to talk about. Good thing too, we had a long
  drive ahead of us to Chicago. But first! Another stop at the lake for a
  photo-op. This Esther girl was standing on a huge concrete block so we
  could be in the same frame.

  Wanna
  hear something funny? I thought this was funny... Chris's fiance Cassie
  took some of her out-of-state classmates to Chicago for a weekend, and
  they rolled past Lake Michigan at one point. A classmate of hers from
  the West Coast had told her all along that Cassie really needs to see the ocean, she really needs to the ocean cuz it's sooo big...
  Then her classmate sees Lake Michigan and says, "You can't see the
  other side! Oh wow!" DUH, I tell Esther. Can you imagine? Who thinks
  you can see to the other side?! Seriously, the Great Lakes are the
  biggest freshwater lakes in the world. .....she confided that she had never realized you can't see across Lake Michigan...I promised not to tell anyone else, so shhhhhhh

  So back in action. We hit the road and made it to the University of Chicago. We actually drove past the spots where I had met Carolyn and Shari this summer,
  too! This was my first time to the campus, and it....is.....beautiful!
  The buildings feel prestigious, and the landscape? A+ That's saying
  something.

  I told Esther that wherever she goes to school, I'll
  visit her, including England, her top choice. Actually, that would be
  fun.... But you know, Chicago's looking good too if you ask me. So is
  the girl with me in the picture. Snapped this one for the memory.

  You know, looking at these pictures, I really need to shave my face or get some real facial hair going on...

  I
  kept on having this weird looks in pictures since I would end up
  wondering if I was pointing it in the right direction or not and forget
  to smile. Plus, the batteries were threatening to die at any moment.

  Oh,
  that's right, the narrative. So I gave her a driving tour of downtown
  Chicago and enjoyed watching her jaw drop over the buildings and the
  flurry of activity into the night. If you asked her, she would probably
  first tell you about the Muslims she saw! She was so excited, I can't
  even explain it. The girl was jumping up and down when we saw a mosque
  just down the road from the University of Chicago. fyi...she has a
  strong interest in the subject....like thinking of it for grad school,
  yeah....
  
  To
  top off the evening, and this entry, we walked Navy Pier and soaked in
  some live music, more photo-ops by the ferris wheel and at the bottom
  of this entry, the Chicago skyline.

  So yeah, I like Esther. She rocks my socks off.
  

  Credits: Thanks be to God. The short long story is that Vic
  is a Chi Alpha campus pastor in Portland, Oregon and a good friend of
  Esther's who was getting the word out about Esther's site by leaving comments on people's sites, including mine. He found me through Earl's
  site which I heard about at SALT in January. I checked out Esther's
  site (which I had seen before), then we exchanged comments (me then her). It really got going here
  where we both got mad at each other and decided to see if the other
  would come to their senses. I think we're still waiting and watching.

   

  
  

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