You know how I do.
…because I already bought my pass for San Diego Comic Con 2011:
Now I just have to keep my fingers crossed, stay healthy, & not take any more days off other than the wedding so I can even have a chance to be able to go next year. But woo-hoo! 
Jay’s sister’s cat had kittens last month. She has four little white ones who are up for grabs. Technically, these kittens are Zoe’s nephews and nieces, since their mom and dad are both siblings of hers, haha. Don’t worry though, the dad is from Zoe’s litter and the mom is from a few litters later. If you listen to the Lost Podcast with Jay and Jack, their mom is the famous Mommy Kitty.
I hung out with them while Jay and Jack recorded FlashForward Cast yesterday afternoon and this one took a liking to me:
Zoe has nothing to worry about though because we are perfectly happy with having just her, but if anyone wants a kitten, I know of 4 really adorable ones!
Jay and I got iPads on Friday!! Thanks to the very generous Jim for sending them to us as wedding presents. We truly cannot thank you enough, Jim. This was truly one of the nicest, sweetest, and most awesome things that anyone has ever done for us. Thank you, you totally rock dude!
The reason I’m finally now making this post now, on Sunday night, is because I’ve been completely distracted by trying to figure out the iPad. It’s awesome, by the way. It should come as no surprise to anyone that Jay’s had his iPad set up planned since it was announced that they existed, haha. I’m fairly certain that within 20 minutes of opening them, Jay had his completely set up. I downloaded a bunch of apps, but I really need some suggestions on which apps I should try out. Definitely leave me your recommendations in the comments section if you feel like it! Right now, I have the iBooks, the Kindle, Solitaire, FreeCell, Weather Channel, Netflix, USA Today, Jumbo Calculator, Craigslist Pro, a really cool one called Color Splash, ABC Player, Betty Crocker Cookbook, GTalk, Wikipanion, Huffington Post, Twitterrific, and Pandora. So basically, I have a rundown of all of the top apps that appear on the main page of the Apple Apps Store, lol.
I feel as though this is a callback to when I first got my iPod for Christmas 2005 and I spent January 2006 discovering PODCASTS! We all know how that little discovery ended up. This is cool, it’s like I’m exploring new territory all over again. Again, suggestions welcome
Of course, it wouldn’t be a blog post by yours truly if I didn’t have a zillion cheesy pictures documenting everything. So here goes:
As Jay pulls out the card, Zoe eyes her newest potential addition to the box-fort Jay made her.
His and hers, yo.
YAY!
And in the aftermath, a lonely kitty searches for something to play in, knowing she’s going to be ignored for the next two days…
I got halfway through a post on Monday about our canceled JetBlue flight back home from NY on Sunday but decided I’ve had enough of airplane drama posts for the moment. So long story short: Our 4:30pm flight was canceled at 10:30am, I missed the phone call/emails because I was having the BEST nap of my entire life, and by the time I woke up and saw we were canceled around 12:45pm, they couldn’t rebook us on any other flights. Whether or not this is because the other flights were sold out to begin with or what, I don’t know. JetBlue doesn’t work with any other airlines so it was either fly out Monday and get back at 2pm, rent a car and drive the 10 hours back to Raleigh or buy tickets on another airline yet again. Flying out Monday was out of the question. The owner of my company was coming in at 8:30am and it’s only two of us in the office on Mondays anyway. Plus, I’ve missed way too much work lately (funeral then LA) so I really can’t miss anymore. Renting a car was probably cheapest but the least desirable experience ever and on very little sleep, driving back was the devil. So we decided to take the JetBlue refund and go buy tickets on Southwest for the day. I think in the end when all is said and done, we’ll only be out about $300 which also kinda sucks given all of the other shit we owe money for (see previous posts if you really care), all of which is totally travel related. I’m just going to give a big UGH and then move on to the awesome news of the week.
Guess where I’m going sometime before the end of 2010, bitches:
That’s right! My sister Katelyn won an all expenses paid trip to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando, FL!! She won 4 tickets - free hotel (Hard Rock Orlando woot), free airfare (do not comprehend), and 3-day passes to WWoHP and Universal Studios! She won it through a radio station contest, which is crazy. It’s also the second time she’s won something over the radio so now you all know the answer to “Why do you never have any luck, Colleen?” It’s because Katelyn got all of the luck in the family, lol.
Anyway, she’s taking me, Christie, and Jeremiah #2. Weekend is TBD. Hopefully Jay can maybe come to hang out though it’s going to be too expensive for him to come to both parks with us and if I’m flying anywhere, I have to make the assumption that I’m somehow going to end up in more debt. I’m so excited! I really thought it’d be years before I ever got to go to there. So YAY for something else to add onto 2010, the year of awesome!
P.S. I need a project. Now that the Lost Finale Party is over, I feel bored and useless again. Maybe I can organize something for Comic Con or something. I don’t know. I don’t do well with sitting still for long periods of time. I was thinking of writing some kind of book or something about my airline experiences but then I realize I’ve given them all away on my blog and who wants to hear someone bitch about how much LaGuardia sucks for the 30th straight page?
Here are the two hats that Global Cash Card had made for Jay and Jack’s Lost Finale Party in LA:
Here are a third set of items for the auction to raise money for Autism Speaks. The Dharma Barracks poster was donated by a Jay and Jack listener named Brett & it’s pretty B-A. These items will only be up for 5 days, ending when the first set of items are over:
I think this is the final set of items to go up, so tomorrow I’ll go back to boring blogs about life. Maybe I’ll throw in a wedding date one of these days…
Everyone’s probably seen this already but in case you didn’t, our wedding website is ready for viewing. So check out www.jayandcoll.com (the winner of the poll) and book mark it because we’re going to try to update it as frequently as possible.
We still have to update the “Photos” section and once we have more, we’ll add to the “Wedding Party” and the “Registry” sections.
Outtake: This photo is one that we were going to put on the top banner but it didn’t make the cut. It’s from Hawaii on Friday night, which I still need to tell the story of:
I’ll interrupt all these London posts to announce that I got my hair cut again on Wednesday night. I really like it so far. I want to have longer hair for the wedding so I can have an up-do, so I wanted to cut it shorter now and start fresh with the growing out process. It makes sense in my head…
Okay so I guess the Hawaii saga is going to be put on hold for a day since there’s obviously been some new developments in life over the last 22 hours.
So I’m leaving for London to go visit my sister Christie on Friday, Feb 12. I’m going with my parents and other sister Katelyn and we’re leaving from JFK Airport. This has been planned for a while. Back in the beginning of December, I bought my tickets on Southwest Airlines to fly out tonight, Thurs Feb 11 at 7:10pm from RDU & arrive on Long Island. Why did I plan to get in a day early? My mom had read in the Farmer’s Almanac that there was going to be a big storm this week & she was afraid that my flight from Raleigh would be canceled if I left on Friday and I’d miss the JFK flight. After some arguing & ticket-paying-negotiations, I agreed to leave tonight.
You may know that my birthday was on Monday, Feb. 8. Jay had to go to school that night and he has class all day long on Tuesdays (8am-4:45pm), so I knew that I’d have somewhat of a lonely birthday. He’s trying to get some music history classes that he took applied to his regular history classes and because my mom teaches at a college, I had asked her how he should go about applying to do that. She had advised us on some tips & that was that. I talked to my mom around 9:15pm on Monday night. I was talking to Jay around 11pm-ish that night over gchat and he mentioned he called my mom to thank her for helping him. He said this was around 9:00pm.
At this point, I’m a bit suspicious because I said goodnight to my parents 15 minutes after said phone call and no one said a word to me. I question Jay & his story is the same. Then I Blackberry message Kate. She basically tells me to turn the crazy off for the last hour of my birthday & go to bed. The next morning, she BBM’s me before 7am to tell me, “Mom didn’t say anything to you because she assumed you were in the room when he called.” “BULLSHIT!” I thought. “I talked to mom at 6pm AND 9:15pm and both times she knew that I was home alone with Zoe all night!” But that was at like 7:15am & when I went to put my key in my car door at around 7:50am yesterday morning, I had a premonition. I got in the car & that was that.
So we were going to go to Ruth Chris Steakhouse for Birth-entines’ Day. Since there’s only a week between my birthday & Valentines’ Day, we combine the holidays and call it that. It’s kinda like the kid born on Christmas Eve who shares their birthday presents with their Christmas presents ;). I kept questioning Jay on how expensive that place was and I’m going to miss a full week of work this month, so my paycheck would be lower and maybe we should just wait, blah blah blah blah blah. He kept saying “no, no, no”. However, I was talking to a co-worker yesterday & all of a sudden, I decided that I wanted Italian food. I asked Jay if we could switch from Ruth Chris to Carrabbas because I really just wanted Italian. He agreed over text, but in the car on the way there, he was all weird & pissy about how I had changed restaurants. I got annoyed and said “It’s MY birthday and if I want pasta, I’m eating pasta!”
On the way to the restaurant, we got word that my flight for 7:10pm tonight was canceled because I had a layover in Baltimore and well…Baltimore has some issues with some snow at the moment. Since we were in the car, I called my parents to ask them to change my flight. After a lot of trying, it turns out that the only flight I could get on left at 1:15pm & got in to Islip, NY at 9:55pm, with a layover in Tampa, Florida. I was *not* happy because I couldn’t miss an additional half day at work. In short, I was freaking out. Jack & Cyndi (Jay’s parents) ended up randomly being at the same restaurant as us, which was kinda funny lol.
Ohhh, time to board. Brb!
Okay back & it’s like an hour later, even though you guys don’t know that. Continuing, I was on the phone with my parents for quite some time during dinner, as they were trying to find me a flight. After about 30 minutes, it became clear that the 1:15pm flight was my only option. I resisted A LOT. I was panicking about leaving work 5.5 hours earlier than planned & not having packed yet, etc. al. Eventually I had no choice but to agree to get onto this fight. So I very reluctantly told my father that I’d do it.
At this point, Jay seems super annoyed. I think that it is just because we’ve been sitting at the table for 40 minutes and only just ordered appetizers. I felt reasonably guilty about being on the phone for so long & freaking out in public Little did I know…
We end up having a really nice dinner :) I was so distraught that I ate an ENTIRE loaf of bread by myself, then completely cleared my plate of lobster raviolis AND had 3 glasses of wine. Sadly, the 2,500 calorie meal cancels out the 3 glasses of wine lol.
So we get back home and I make a quick phone call to my parents to confirm with my mom that the random shit I’m literally throwing at my suitcase (not in or on, just at) is going to suffice for the cold London temperature. A few minutes later, Jay goes to me, “You look like you need a beer. Do you want me to get a beer?” At this point, my first thought is, “Wine AND beer?! It totally MUST be Birth-entines’ Day!”
So he hands me a beer and I put it down on the coffee table in front of the couch. Then he gets down on one knee and says something very sweet that you’ll have to ask him to repeat 
and pulls out a ring!!! As he got down on one knee and pulled out the box, I subconsciously knew what was going on but at first I thought he was just kidding and it was going to be a bracelet or something. Then I saw it and was completely speechless and I think I said something along the lines of, “For REAL?!?!?!“ But I didn’t cry!! I choked up & sobbed for a minute but I was too busy processing it all and nodding and everything all at once
I called my parents, who had Kate call me on Skype so they could video chat & see the ring. Then we called Christie in London and my grandparents and my aunt and basically everyone. Jay called his families & I called mine. Then we agreed that Jay could have the first Facebook announcement and I would do Twitter (even though by “first” we meant “45 seconds before the other person” lol).
So yeah, good times!! My ring is GORGEOUS. Funny story: I totally forgot that over the summer, Jay, Clif & I had been eating and then walking around Southpoint Mall in Durham for a change of pace. We all ended up in a Helzberg Jewelers in there, looking at all the jewelry, including engagement rings, that they had to offer. So I totally forgot about that when he asked me this morning over the phone, “Did he get you the ’sparkly’ ring?” I laughed SO hard. I was shocked that Clif remembered that day before I even did and that he even remembered which ring it was. Color me impressed
No date will be set until after I get back from London, although it’s going to be at least a year out in order to give friends & family who have to travel plenty of time to plan ahead to get there. It’s going to be in NY though and sometime in a month that is NOT cold because anyone who has ever met me knows that I despise the cold with a passion.
That’s all I’ve got for now and I’m SO EXCITED! So now I have to finish up my Hawaii story, tell all my London stories AND yak about wedding plans! YAY!!! It’s so nice to have things to look forward to!!
Oh, fine. Here is what Jay said to me and honestly, I only know it because he sent it to me.
“The first time I met you I knew you were special. After only a couple days of dating I knew I loved you and a couple months after I knew I wanted to be with you forever. Colleen will you marry me?”
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