Wedding Bands & Registry

About a week before Robin and I headed to Virginia I purchased a mountain bike (Next Mountain Ridge) as well as a Thule trunk bike rack; Robin has a bike and now we can bike together. The bike has shocks on both wheels which really helps on some of the Bangor Trails which is where we spend most of our time biking. There are many different areas in Bangor that the Bangor Trails cover, our favorite area near the Orono Board Walk which spans over 10 miles of smooth man-made trails and another 5 miles of rough bike-trodden trails that consist of large deciduous and coniferous tree roots along with tips of ledge, partially biodegraded pine cones, branches, etc. Last Friday we biked from my apartment to a wild life preserve where we are planning on living that is roughly 5 miles outside of Bangor. We biked up a logging trail that will soon be a road for the second phase of the development to look see if the new lots have been cleared; on our way back from the trail as we were crossing a portion of the trail that had large round boulders I spotted a Black Bear 50′ a head, I quietly told Robin to stop since she was a head of me as well. We were able to watch it sniff the ground for about 30 seconds until it heard Robin make a noise (err!) and it ran off into the woods- I have not had my heart jump with fear/excitement like that in a long time (actually, the last time was when I asked Robin to marry me). One of my goals this summer is to photograph a wild Black Bear; of course I didn’t bring my camera- a mistake I will not make again. Not to far a head two rabbits hopped in front of us and ate clover while we observed their little cheeks jostle back and forth. We both said to each other that this area is definitely to our liking.

Last week Robin and I went to GM Pollack & Sons to choose our wedding bands; we both wanted simple yellow gold bands verses some of the flashy bands. After trying on a few different styles we both picked out our bands and sizes, to my satisfaction GM had a retirement sale (the owner is retiring and his sons are taking over) which saved me $200. I have been looking for a watch for some time now and found one that I really like, it’s a Swiss Army two-tone watch (Gold and Silver) with a white face and red Swiss cross. It’s perfect due to the Swiss red cross (a symbol that I really like- I have it on multiple things) and that it matches my “to be” wedding band. I’m going to wait awhile before purchasing this though; maybe after the wedding- I made sure that Robin knows that I like this watch.

This weekend consisted of heavy rain & lightening with sporadic 1-2 hour breaks to allow for the sun to come out; while I hoped we could have kayaked or climbed a mountain, Maine needed the rain due to very dry hazardous conditions. Yesterday we registered our wedding at Bed Bath and Beyond (feel free to purchase one of our items- search for James Ogden and Robin Billings), I didn’t realize how helpful the staff were with the process of picking out items as well as helping wedding guests purchase items. We spent 2 and half hours picking out items that we will need for the apartment and future house.