Jean Of mArc

After well over a month of silence on this blog, at least I have some news to report!!

For the first few weeks of February, I went back to Canada for a two week visit. It was a wonderful visit, but certainly very busy!! It seemed like every day was a packed collection of people to visit. It felt great to be back in Halifax and Wolfville for a while, both at home with my family and among my friends at Acadia.

On February 6th during my return visit, 2 significant events happened for me:

First, I turned a quarter of a century years old. Weird!! I’m half-way to 50!! Mark Moses refers to 25 as the boring age in which people settle down, have families, and all in all don’t do anything exciting or interesting with their life. I guess we’ll wait and see!

The second significant event was that it was the day that I proposed to my girlfriend of three years, Solveig Spielman!! I met her during the beginning of my fourth year, in which I was taking a shift at the Welcome Center and she was a cute little frosh wandering around looking for something to do with her friend Christine. Despite the difference in school years, however, Solveig is only just over a year younger than I am: she took one year off and spent one year at the Canadian Lutheran Bible College in Camrose, Alberta, where she comes from.

She is very musically talented, has tons of charm and care, is extremely beautiful, is very serving towards people, and is spiritually mature. How could I not have chased after her until she agreed to go out with me? And alas, how could I not ask for her hand in marriage after 3 years of such consistent character? She’s loyal, trust-worthy, honest, and handles difficult situations with grace. My grand-mother, Gam, has confirmed that she’s a keeper!! And my sister, Elisabeth, and her Father, Brian Spielman, had given me permission to marry her.

Our wedding date is set for September 4th, 2010. The ceremony will be held at the Manning Memorial Chapel at Acadia University, followed by a reception in Centreville, where Anastasia’s parents Rick and Shirley Brittain have very generously offered their house up for the cause!! I have already been to two receptions at that house: Mitch & Anastasia’s and Jordan & Katrina’s, and we love that we are able to have ours there as well!! Thereafter, 2 weeks later there will be another reception in Camrose, Alberta so that no one who knows Solveig or I will have to miss out on the action.

For anyone interested, James Bainsbridge graciously took some photos of Solveig and I for our engagement photos. You can check them out here. Here are some examples:

The typical smiley “Awwww…. aren’t they cute!” shot.

Solveig always wanted a pearl ring.

I was falling one way, she was falling the other.

For more information on our wedding-related agenda, we will soon be booting up another temporary blog starring Solveig herself as a poster!! We are both very excited about the future, and I am excited to see her publish things on her very own website!!