Fire & Ice

thirtynine

After the proposal, there was this new light in mom. This new found peace and happiness that chase away the last lingering thoughts of PJ's passing. Mom continued to see Doctor Gamble bi-weekly and she has really been improving. Since I've been home, mom and I have been to a few sessions together to work through the things that happened during that time. It helped mom finally start to let go of the guilt she has held inside this entire time after we got out from under PJ. While I see Doctor Gamble for our group sessions, I still have individual virtual sessions with Doctor Ellis. He has already helped me through so much at school, I wanted to continue to have sessions with him over the summer.

Since the proposal I talked it over with mom and Alyssa and they both wanted to get married soon. They didn't want to wait or have this big grand wedding. So they thought of having it weekend after the 4th of July party. Most of everyone we wanted to invite would still be in town from the 4th party. What they decided on was to get married at the court house and then have a little ceremony at the reception. With so little time, we didn't have much luck finding a place to hold the reception.

But in the midst of trying to plan things out, I posted a picture of mom and Alyssa on Instagram showing off mom's new ring and wishing them congratulations. That's when I got a phone call from mom's sister with a venue. Turns out she works for Westbury Manor a traditional Victorian mansion with formal English gardens that would be perfect for a summer wedding. She was able to pull some strings and booked mom's wedding for the weekend after the 4th. During the phone call, mom was concerned about how expensive this reception just got but my grandfather got on the phone and told us that everything is going to be covered. There was a bit of fighting back and forth about that, but he wouldn't back down. He is going to be paying for this wedding no matter what mom said.

With all of the venue stuff now taken care of, Aunt Rosie got to work to get everything else ready for the wedding while I hopped onto a flight to visit Cassie. Getting caught up in all of the wedding planning almost made me forget about my trip to see my girlfriend. Though when I got to the airport for my flight out to Wisconsin, I did change my return flight home by shortening my trip. What was supposed to be ten days turned into six so I could help with the rest of the planning.

Seeing Cassie waiting for me at the airport was a sight for sore eyes. I missed my girl so much and I was happy to be able to still see her. At first I thought I might have to cancel the trip to see her. Cassie told me that helping to plan my mothers wedding was more important then the visit, but I still insisted on coming to see her. And I made it work. I wanted to make sure that I put the effort into coming and see her after being away for so long, even if I shorten the trip.

We spent our days together mostly in her backyard enjoying the warm weather. Chad joined us for some of it and even blew up a small inflatable pool for us to dunk into. Sunny had a lot of fun in the water and it made me want to get a pool like this one for my own home to see if Frank was a water dog.

On a particularly warm day Cassie took me to out to Lake Koshkonong to enjoy the sun by the water. The lake was definitely different from the ocean but we had a nice time together. We hiked around one side of the lake to a little sand area that didn't any other people around and made a little camp for the day. Cassie surprised me and pulled off her yoga pants to relieve a pair of small tight swim trunks then pulled off her tank top to show off a bikini top before running off the little dock and jumping into the water. Her good mood was infectious as I stripped down to my own bathing suit and followed her into the water. We spend the whole day in and out of the lake and having a picnic.

That night it just so happened that Chad was out at a party and Willa and Marshall went out with friends to a show, so we had the house to ourselves. After having dinner and taking a shower to wash the lake off of us, we ended our night together in bed naked. It was definitely my favorite day with her while I was in Wisconsin.