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Five Years Of Marriage

How it started. @our wedding, Sep. 2019!

Oh, hello – been a while, eh? Just over 3 years, actually, since my last post here; I think that easily fits the definition of “a while.” Rest assured, the Mushakians of Mushakian.com are alive and healthy, we just fell out of practice of writing here. Well, no more! I had considered doing this sooner — writing about life again, sharing new hobbies, and discussing the downs and ups of the last several years. I figured, though, if I’m going to do that, I better start off with the biggest up and the most important person in my life… my wife!

As of today, Sydney and I have been married for five years. It’s been a darn good five years, too, so in honor of our first half-decade together as husband and wife, please join me for a little stroll down memory lane as I look at each year we’ve been hitched. This won’t be an extensive historical presentation (mainly because I’m old and forgetful), but more of an expanded bullet-point list with focus on the relational.

Year One

I previously covered the first couple of months of our wedded bliss in a Thanksgiving Day post, and then shed a little more light on our life together while writing about the first month of quarantine, back when I thought dealing with the initial Covid shutdown for just 35 days was a long time — so young, so innocent.

The first 6 months of our marriage were fairly routine: going to church, seeing family, exploring what living with each other was like day in and day out. We worked in office buildings that were literally right next to each other, so we carpooled to and from work, which was fun. It was all fun, really. For our first Halloween as husband and wife, we took part in an event with our church youth group where we dressed up as a zombie bride and groom, which was a hit, and then for Christmas we bought a real tree which was Sydney’s first real Christmas tree that she could remember. Marriage is interesting, that way, in that there are very obvious first experiences, but then there are the smaller and more subtle firsts that sort of happen organically and can be easy to miss. I think that’s what a lot of marriage is – having first experiences together, positive and negative, and then learning how to address that newness. There was a first time for one of us getting upset by the other’s tone or one of us feeling disappointed when expectations aren’t met, and then we needed to figure out how to work through that. Sometimes we got these things first try, other times it took a while.

One of the more interesting “first experiences” was actually a global one — when the world shut down for Covid. From March 19, 2020, when CA lockdown first went into place, through our first anniversary, it was just the two of us and our new cat in our apartment. The back half of our first year being married contained a couple of years’ worth of togetherness compressed into several months. Talk about a stress test for the strength of a new marriage! Thankfully, we kinda really like each other, so as someone I know phrased it about their spouse, “Thanks, Past-Me, for picking the ideal quarantine partner.”

There were definitely negative sides in this home to the Covid lockdown period, though. After months of it, Sydney started to struggle with the isolation and not being able to go outside. For her birthday, I wrote a short story that was supposed to be a fun little escape (it was a fantasy tale), but when she finished reading she got teary-eyed real fast as we talked about it. Why? Because I started the story by having the characters go out on a date — and it had been a long time since she and I had been able to go basically anywhere in real life. I held my wife in a long hug, laughing at the fact that my big present to her was to make her cry. The next day we went out to the beach, I believe, for some needed escape.

Our first year of marriage in lockdown also saw a damper to our social life. We had been excited to have friends over, host church groups at our home, and enjoy the relational aspects of being newlyweds amongst our peers, but in our new quarantined world, that just couldn’t happen. We didn’t have a huge social circle to begin with, but it shrunk during Covid and then didn’t really bounce back the same after. Oof, I better be careful here or I’m going to unintentionally make my wife sad with what’s supposed to be a fun story again!

I don’t need to explain the lockdown too much, because we all went through it together, but it definitely made for an interesting last half of the first year of marriage.

Year Two

If only stopping real-life pandemics was so simple…

We started our second year of marriage by dipping (then diving) into a new hobby — boardgames. Coincidentally, the first hobby boardgame we bought and played in this new endeavor was Pandemic, which had a strangely cathartic feeling to it, playing to victory in elminating a global pandemic in the game while the world was still mostly hiding away. We weren’t going out to enjoy holidays with family, so Covid continued to put a strange spin on our first experiences as a married couple. Since I worked in healthcare, I was part of the first wave of folks who could get the new Covid vaccine, so in January of 2021, I joined hundreds of others at Petco stadium and took the first step towards reclaiming normalcy. As shots became more available for all, we eventually were all safe enough to be able to see my parents in person again, for a couple of birthday celebrations in May of 2021. The next month we met my friend’s second child, and the world was coming back to normal.

So much so, that we were able to actually do something special for our second anniversary and took a week-long trip to Solvang, CA. It was very good for us to be able to celebrate each other and being together, though as with anything in life, the trip wasn’t perfect at every turn. That’s something I’ve learned a lot while being with Sydney; there are ups and downs, disappointments and hurting each other, and that is all very normal. I grew up experiencing my fair share of my parents fighting, and Sydney’s parents divorced when she was young, so it would be easy for us to be scared of these moments — for me to cling to the fear that when something isn’t going perfectly something must be wrong. But I love my wife, and for every minor rough patch or unpleasant first experience we’ve come across, we’ve also seen it through together.

Any relationship that’s even semi-deep will change you in some ways, and all the more is that the case in marriage. I’ll use myself as the example here, but I can have very strong opinions on art. I strive not to be a jerk about it and unnecessarily tear down something someone loves, but if they ask my opinion… they’ll get it. Sydney, though, would sometimes get hurt by this intensity, and I had two choices: to continue and hurt her a little each time, or to learn. I chose the latter. I remember the impetus of this choice very clearly, when we watched a movie that she really enjoyed, and when it was over, while I kept my negative opinion of it to myself, she asked what I thought — so I told her, very directly, that I hated it. We talked our way through that situation, both in the moment and then later after giving things a bit to breathe (another important life/marriage lesson). She taught me how to soften my approach even more than I thought I already had, and I can say that in this and so many other ways, I am a better person for having known her.

Year Three

Despite vaccinations and a world that had mostly returned to normal, Covid wasn’t done messing with us yet, and in May of our third year of marriage I finally caught it for the first time — and then shared it with Sydney just in time for her birthday. So let’s keep tabs here: I’ve given her a gift that made her sad, given her Covid. Yeesh. There’s a reason she’s the gift-giver in this home! 🙂

My wonderfully weird wife loves Halloween and spookiness, so combine that with her great creative mind, and she’s come up with some really fun homemade costumes. Case in point, in this third year of marriage she made a large paper-mache pumpkin head and transformed herself into the Pumpkin Lady. I enjoyed just being her assistant for this project: being a second set of hands while building the head structure and snapping pictures for a photoshoot. That’s been some of the more fun times in marriage with Sydney, the times when she’s the shining star and I get to just be there alongside her for whatever she might need from me. She’s put that creativity into a lot of different hobbies and projects over the years, and I’m glad to be a helping hand, but more often I’m just her cheerleader, there to encourage her when she gets tired and then to be able to proudly draw attention to the wonderful final product! I’m proud of a lot of what she makes, and I’m always looking forward to her next endeavor.

Year Four

My model wife! Stunning me during a trip to the S.D. Botanic Gardens. I’ve stared at this picture a lot.

For our fourth Halloween together (is this a marriage post or a Halloween post?? Yes.), I took us up to Orange to take part in a haunted city walk. We got to downtown early, and spent the afternoon exploring the many vintage thrift stores and other interesting shops. Her feet started giving out, sooner than I’d planned, so we ended up needing to just rest up and pass the time in my car. We had hours until the event started, so we ended up watching a children’s Halloween movie she grew up with. There was a time when that sort of experience might have put a damper on the day. Heck, that sort of damper even happened during our previous anniversary trip to Solvang, but we’d grown since then. We adapted to the situation and ended up having a fun time together before the spooky night walk… and then we had fun doing that, too! Sydney is really easy to have fun with, and over the years we’ve only continued to have more and more fun together, so long as I can escape the impossible idea of perfection and she can remember to stay adaptable. I married her because she felt like home, but I had no idea just how much more comfortable she would feel only four years later.

Speaking of which, we celebrated our fourth anniversary by attending one night of the local outdoor music festival Ohana Fest. Sydney had lamented how she wished she could see her favorite band, Haim, in concert. They were touring with Taylor Swift, of whom neither of us is a fan, but I discovered that the band would be a headline act at this festival so I surprised her with tickets. That’s one of the more fun things in marriage — getting to surprise each other. It starts with listening, but ultimately boils down to knowing the other person. After being together for several years, it’s been interesting to experience just how much more natural that’s become. It’s a joy to be able to read her better each day, and to have her understand me more and more, and I love that I get to partner with this woman for the rest of our days. If it’s this good now, I can only imagine years 10, 25, 40, etc.!

Year Five

This past year has felt like our most settled and in-the-groove yet, even though it still brought plenty of changes. We finally bought Sydney a new car and I started pursuing help for my ADHD. Marriage is, in many ways, about being entirely oneself and comfortable with each other, so when the October 2023 eclipse happened, we stood out in our apartment parking lot with a simple cereal box sun-viewer I’d made — just looking like a couple of dorks and not caring at all. For our Halloween costume this year, she became an earthy Fair Queen and elected me to be her companion Mushroom Gnome. We worked together to create my giant mushroom hat, but when it was all felted and stuffed, I put it on and my heart sank — it was just too heavy. I tried really hard to move slowly and ignore it, but I knew that if I attempted to wear that thing for longer than a few minutes I was going to be in pain. I felt really bad that we’d wasted so much time and effort in putting that thing together, especially because I was the one who decided how big to make it. I was further disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to participate in her costume with her — at least, not as planned. That was, until I came home from work one day to discovered that in an afternoon she’d simply created a smaller mushroom hat using a wide-brimmed hat as a base. I had been so down about it all, but then she simply went ahead and fixed the whole situation. As well as we know each other, she still manages to surprise me in the best of ways sometimes!

I also started cooking our dinners for us this year. We had gotten into a habit of eating separately fairly frequently, and I wanted to get us eating healthier, too, so I decided to take the reigns of cooking dinner for us every night. The arrangement works out well, because I loathe having to clean dishes, and she hates the stress of having to plan dinners, so we work together to do that which the other dislikes, and it’s been a great plan. I’ve felt freed from the worry of dirty dishes to be more creative and explore making things I wouldn’t have if I had to bother cleaning up after, and she loves that I’m cooking for us. I don’t always want to make dinner, sure, but on those days my doing so is all the more an act of love, so I buckle down and do it.

Or we order a pizza, but that works, too. Marriage!

Continuing Onward

I love my wife, and I wouldn’t have wanted to live these first five years of marriage with anyone else. She’s hilarious and sweet, steady and creative, and every day that I get to know her is an improvement to my life. We are good for each other, and five years of marriage has shown me so much in terms of what love really looks like. I can’t wait until my Ten Years Of Marriage post, to see how much more we’ve explored together, but all in due time.

I could never sum up the entirety of our marriage in a single post — every way we’ve grown, every inside joke and memory. Not possible. For now, I’m going to simply wrap up with a heartfelt “I love you, Wife. Happy Anniversary!” and get ready to enjoy our special day together. And then go out to pay someone else to make us dinner tonight and let them clean the darn dishes!

How it’s going. @San Diego Zoo to see Pandas!

P.S. – As for this blog, I’ve mapped out a few catch-up-on-life posts to come out over the next few weeks, many of which were already referenced in this post, and then I’m aiming to keep up with more regular writing here. At least semi-regular writing. Unfortunately, the handcrafted anniversary gift that I’ve been working on isn’t done on time to share a photo of it here, but keep an eye out for it in my upcoming post… on woodworking. 🙂

Thankful For Sydney

A couple of months after our wedding, and I’m as thankful for her as ever!

The rain is gently tapping into the bushes and dropping a bit harder into the parking lot outside of my apartment window. My wife is in the kitchen cooking up some “eggy bacon cups” (eggs + bacon + muffin tin + oven = oh boy!). And I am sitting here writing to you on this beautiful Thanksgiving day, basking in the joy of how grateful I am for so much in my life!

Let’s rewind, though… it’s been a while.

The Before-the-Wedding Time

The couple of weeks leading up to our big day were some of the most tiring I’ve had. I was working full-time, surviving on cereal for dinner most nights, and almost the entirety of my evenings was spent building furniture and tidying up the home as best I could in-between. I enjoyed it all, and I was working hard to finish the things that needed to get done, but I was in survival mode. Sydney came by for a few evenings together after work, and one day, by the time I got home, this apartment had suddenly changed. It wasn’t just the survival zone I’d been existing in anymore, but it started to look and feel like an enjoyably livable space. She made it start to feel like home. Which is fitting, because that’s how she feels to me — like home.

Not that I didn’t do my part in cleaning up the place, too, of course. I had to, after all, because the weekend before our wedding, I was having a couple of friends over for my wild, swinging bachelor party. I am the type of person who doesn’t celebrate my birthdays, so I almost didn’t even have a bachelor party, but at the urging of these two friends, I decided to go through with it. And I’m glad I did! It was a very Mark day: breakfast out with Scott, Super Smash Bros. on a borrowed Switch (that’s a lot of S’s!), a visit to the pool once Nick came over, and our discovery of a very cool local pizza place. It was the best guy time I could imagine for a bachelor party — easy-going activities and lots of conversation with two men I really love.

The night before Sydney and I got married, we had a date night. After all of the packing and planning, and before the craziness of the big day, I wanted to be sure we took some quiet time for ourselves. We enjoyed a simple dinner at home and watched a movie while snuggled up on the couch together. There was no question as to what movie we would watch, either. Very early in our relationship I knew she was the one for me when she recommended that I watch About Time. And so we sat there together watching one of the most beautiful movies, our movie if ever there could be one, and at the end I joyfully bawled just as much as I did the first time I watched it. This time, though, I had Sydney next to me to hold and that made it all the more special 🙂

The Wedding

So, this day likely deserves its own post, but for now we’ll settle for a much more succinct version. I admit that part of why I haven’t written here in a while isn’t because I’ve been busy being newly married (well, not just because of that), but because it would feel odd just casually writing about something else, anything else, before writing about the most monumental day of my life thus far.

September 28, 2019. You may have been there. If so, I’m glad that you were, because you were able to see me at my happiest. I really loved our wedding. It was such a joy to be there greeting friends and family as they trickled in before the ceremony. Our setting and decorations were all that we’d wanted them to be, filled with quirk and sentimentality. I laughed and refrained from tears during Sydney’s wonderful vows she’d written. In fact, I was so touched and impressed by how well she expressed herself (a trait she doesn’t exemplify by her own admission) that I couldn’t help but lead everyone else in a round of applause after she had finished. My one job during the ceremony was to not cry, because if I went so would she, and I was victorious in my duty… but Sydney sure didn’t play fair when she quoted About Time in her vows.

I had been told that the day would be a blur and that I should focus on taking mental snapshots of special moments to help cement it all. It was good advice, because while I actually felt really grounded for most of the day, there are certain moments that I will always remember from my point of view. We have the photos, and those will help with memories as I age, but nobody will know exactly how my bride looked from my vantage point as we spoke our vows, how I made her giggle as we prepared to make our reception entrance to the Avengers movie theme, or how she smiled at me while we danced our first dance. And then oh did we dance. The evening may have gotten a little chilly and not everyone that we invited was able to make it, but I don’t think I’d change a thing about my wedding day. It was a fantastic time of celebration and joining together of our two lives, and with that Sydney was officially my partner for life.

The After-the-Wedding Time

Sydney and I took a week off from work, and boy was it a relaxing time. We stayed home and just enjoyed being together as man and wife. The day after our wedding we went to Denny’s for a late breakfast and treated ourselves to finally buying a Nintendo Switch. We spent our week playing Super Smash Bros., Yoshi’s Crafted World, and a game about a mischievous goose. We opened our wedding presents (including the best gift I’ve ever received, you know who you are!). We fixed up our apartment together and ordered in food. We watched movies, slept in, and enjoyed a very welcome break from regular life.

And then we went back to regular life, but this time it was different. We had a new regular, and it was an interesting adjustment. It was fun, no doubt, but there were plenty of challenges and growth opportunities in the last two months. That’s the funniest part. It has only been two months! It is actually a struggle to imagine this not being my life, even though I was living in a different city with my family just a few months ago. Sydney is my home, though, and that is why this has all felt so complete so quickly.

Not that this wasn’t a process. It took us some time to get the home in order, and decorating has gone in waves. Moving boxes were thrown away, walls were decorated, patio set up. Likewise, it has been an interesting time of getting used to living together: discovering each other’s quirks, finding our routine, making time for each other and ourselves. Some may hear the words “process” and “challenges” and imagine that these are code words for terrible times, but now that I have this personal peek into what married life is like, I understand. Marriage is a challenge, but in the way that learning a new task is or exercising is. With growth can come some pain and adjustments, but it’s all ultimately a good thing.

And life with Sydney has been a very, very good thing!

She pushes me to do what I do, but better. She challenges my simplified notions of what it is to love, and allows me opportunities to show her true love as God intends it. She is really, really fun to live with. And on top of all of that, she’s one cute, good-lookin’ woman!

I am thankful: for my fantastic wife, for my life ahead with this wonderful partner by my side, and that I’ve finally written this post and can now write about more trivial matters likes movies and stuff. 🙂

An Important Tire Blowout

Plans? Not when there are more important lessons to learn!

Today, I didn’t get to go to church to worship God and see friends. I didn’t get to enjoy a special lunch with my church family. I had to, instead, spend hundreds of dollars and didn’t get home until later than I would’ve liked. My big plans for the day were all tossed to the wind.

And I flippin’ loved it 🙂

If you’ve ever moved, you know that it can be a lot to plan and prepare for. If you’ve ever had a wedding, you know that it can be even more to plan and prepare for. And Sydney and I are doing both of those things this month! To say that our days are a little full and we’re being stretched pretty thin — well, that would be an understatement. I dare say that we’ve even been a little stressed at times.

This morning, as I drove us to church, our minds were pretty scattered: I move into our new apartment next weekend, and am still packing up and getting all set for that, and our wedding is in a few weeks so we’re still piecing together details for that day, as well. Almost every minute of our days has been filled with something “productive” lately, but in all of that, I think we started to lose sight of something else.

So, as we cruised along the 5 freeway, coming up to the border patrol checkpoint, my darn tire pressure warning sign came on with a ‘ding’. That might mean something to most of you in your cars, but for me it’s become a very annoying habit in this car of mine – the darn censor is either hypersensitive or broken, because it seems to go off quite easily. So, I semi-jokingly cursed the warning and kept on driving. Moments later, I noticed a large helicopter overhead. I couldn’t see it, but as we were driving through Camp Pendleton area, it wasn’t unusual. It was really loud, too. And it was following us. Sydney said, “I think it’s your car,” and suddenly the car began to shake. I immediately realized that I had a flat tire, and pulled off onto the right shoulder as the car shook pretty violently. When I got out to check my flat, I didn’t quite believe what I saw.

That image above, the one of a blown-out, shredded tire? Yeah… that’s mine.

I’ve never blown out a tire before. I’ve had a number of flats from rogue screws or nails, but never this. The sucker exploded out from under us as we sailed along at a not-slow 75 mph. My nostrils were filled with the smell of burning rubber, the tire itself extremely hot to the touch. We weren’t gonna make it to church and our Sunday school duties, that was for darn sure, so Sydney texted the gal in charge and waited safely behind me on the big shoulder… keeping an eye out for any vehicles that might smash into my car and make me dead. Long story short here, I popped on the donut spare, tossed my shredded tire in the trunk, and after a turn-around at the next exit, we headed back home. Even longer story shorter, I now have 4 new tires on my car, and all is back to normal.

Well, not quite. Our normal coming into this month had become a bit of a stressed one. I don’t want to paint our wedding planning experience as a negative one, nor am I unhappy about any of these events coming up, it’s just simply been a lot for us to do. And we’d succumbed to that a bit, I feel. So, God let my tire go boom and “ruin” most of our plans for the day. So, what did we do, instead? We spent time together! Sydney and I hung out on the side of a southern California freeway on a Sunday morning, and as I changed a disintegrated tire I was singing worship songs. We slowly made our way back north on that same freeway, commenting and laughing at the crazy drivers who would zoom up closely behind us, even though I had my hazard lights on. We signed up for a Costco membership (thanks to my dad, who wanted to treat us to paying for our first year) and perused the aisles laughing and talking about what we could add to our future home. We enjoyed a peaceful lunch together and met cute dogs. We saw adorable/hilarious animals in the nearby pet supply store. We stinkin’ enjoyed each other, with no other distractions, and it was really wonderful.

After all of the dust had settled and Sydney was back at home, she hugged me and said “We did it!” And we had. We went through what could have been a very trying and negative experience, but we went through it together. As a team; physically safe by the grace of God and emotionally steady by relying on His peace, and what might look like a lousy day on paper ended up being one of my favorites in a while 🙂

Chalk up another point to the reminder that if ya ask God to teach you to have more patience/trust/etc., you should be expecting an opportunity to grow in that way pretty soon.

And if that just so happens to mean that your tire explodes? Well, count yourself lucky. I sure do 🙂

I am thankful

Being thankful.. it’s the hip thing to do!

Is this the cliché blog-thing to do on Thanksgiving? Yes.

Am I going to do it anyways? Yep.

Around election time, one may often hear the phrase “Vote; it doesn’t matter who you vote for — just vote!” I think it’s just as important, if not more so, that we echo that same sentiment about being thankful. You may feel like you don’t have much or perhaps things haven’t been going very well in life, and I understand that life comes with its valleys — several of my own friends are going through some rough things at the moment, and there are a lot of hurting folks out there in the world. A while ago I began opening my morning prayers by being thankful, and I have consistently found that such activity snowballs into increasing thankfulness. The more I focused on what I had to be thankful for, the more other things came to mind.

So, here’s a quick little Thanksgiving day list about some of the things I am thankful for… and I encourage y’all to play along at home. Every day 🙂

God’s forgiveness. I am far from perfect, and that God can look at me as I fall so short of what I was designed to be and still offer me grace by the sacrifice of Jesus on a cross… well, that’s plum brilliant and humbles me any time I really think about it.
That ~~terrifying~~ beautiful turkey with me in the image above. Knowing Sydney has not only allowed God to teach me so much about love and patience (and etc.) through her, but I have also just enjoyed the ever-living heck out being with her. Really looking forward to getting hitched to her next fall, and I’m thankful she said yes 🙂
Bears. Ya know, I really love how cute bears are, with their big, huggable bumbling bodies. I don’t claim to fully understand what the after-life will be like, but my Earthly self really hopes that bears will be there and I can hug one.
Movies. I am chomping at the bit to see what happens in the next Avengers movie (and Captain Marvel before it), can watch the trailer for the new Godzilla movie and get teary because I’m so giddy about it, and am just so darn thankful that I have all my senses to fully enjoy how wonderful movies are… and that I live in this time when cinematic wonder is at such a visual peak.
And speaking of that trailer…

Isn’t music wonderful? The majesty and beauty of that trailer’s version of Clair de Lune is such a joy, but then just the other day I was driving to church belting out Audioslave’s Like a Stone, and it’s such a pleasure to be able to feel both the emotional weight and the musical power of that song.
I have the opportunity in my new-ish job to be a part of something big and interesting, and yet I am also afforded the chance to work from home which has been such a blessing in many ways.
My church’s youth group. I have told them several times already, but these kids really are such a tremendous group of young people… I am very thankful that I get to spend time with them each week. Even though they’re a little insane.
The color blue. I’m looking at my loveseat, and it’s just such a lovely tone and hue, and how fortunate I am that I get to enjoy looking at it!
I ate great food today, but I also have so much access to great, safe food every day.
God has blessed me with a healthy dose of patience, and that has allowed me the wonderful opportunity of being an open ear and encouraging voice for many a friend over the years — something I wouldn’t be able to do on my own strength, for sure.
Today I was stuck in holiday traffic, but in that time I was able to see the sunlight glistening off the crests of waves in the Pacific ocean, I hung out with a German Shepherd for a while as it rode passenger in the car next to me, and I watched some birds do some pretty cool flying about above us as we all slogged along in our cars.
Man, have you seen birds? They just flap their wings and they zoom right up into the air at will. We make sci-fi movies about superheros with those abilities, and here are these little buggers flying around us every day.
Etc., etc., etc.

Feel free to give us your own list of things you’re thankful for in the comments… it doesn’t necessarily matter what you’re thankful for, just be thankful 🙂

We’re Engaged!

A tale of surprises and ring-giving… and the next chapter in an already great story!

The big event happened two days ago, Monday afternoon, but let’s go back a little bit first to set the story.

It was August 31 of this year, and I found myself in a jewelry store in Carlsbad Village where I was about to purchase an engagement ring! Hmm, wait, no… let’s go back a bit further.

It was June 21, 1982, when I first entered the world — crying and covered in goop. Wait, that’s too far back.

September 30, 2016 — my first date with a beautiful girl named Sydney Thiessa 🙂 Ah, there we are! I had met her in an adorable, round-about way that I may retell here one day, but not now. The first time we spent a day together one-on-one, Sydney and I visited the beach in La Jolla Cove. While there, we noticed a cute Italian restaurant, Acquavite, and Sydney mentioned that she would love to go there one day.

I’ll let you guess where our first date was 🙂

A week after our first date, we made things official, and the previous 2 years have been a fantastic experience of loving her and being loved in return. From the very beginning, we discussed our future as if it was a given because it felt natural to do so. Of course, as time went on, conversation skewed even more seriously… we’d mapped out things like the where/when/what of our future wedding ceremony and honeymoon, and from pretty early on it wasn’t a question of IF we’d be married, but simply a matter of when I’d pop the question.

Well, we wonder no more… but the story isn’t quite there, yet.

Defining the ring

Just as Sydney and I meeting was only possible after a long series of events building off of the events which came before them, our engagement story has several steps to it. A while ago we had started discussing just what she liked in an engagement ring. Originally, her thoughts were: rose gold, three-stone, simple band. So, I did plenty of independent research, learned a lot about diamonds and gold, and had actually found what I thought would be our ring. I kept an eye out and about online, but I was otherwise ready… just waiting for the right time.

Then we went to Arizona.

This past August, Sydney and I joined our church’s youth group on a trip to Arizona. There we helped serve at an outreach/school for the local native American population, and it was a really great time to not only bond with our students, but for Syds and I to share together in serving God that way. While that trip is deserving of its own blog post, this adventure played a very crucial part in our engagement story. On the last full day of the trip, our group took a day for itself and explored a national park. In one of the gift shops, Sydney noted a silver-colored turquoise ring she liked, and I quietly sneaked off and bought it to surprise her. She loved how the ring looked on her hand, and the Sunday after our trip was over, she told me that she had changed her mind on ring color! I am a much bigger fan of silver/white-gold than yellow/rose jewelry tones, so I was personally thrilled to hear it, and we went back to my house to explore what exactly she liked. What we landed on was white gold, single stone, decorative band. And vintage… definitely vintage 🙂

The hunt is on

So, I was off… scouring every nook and cranny of the internet in search for the perfect ring for my perfect girl. I had tabs open on my computer for several online retailers that I would refresh multiple times each day. I gathered a list of places I could also visit in person, and I began hitting the streets, as well. On August 31, I had a great lunch with a friend from church, Scott, where we discussed relationship and my future with Sydney. We also discussed my ring search, and I let him know that I had the names of a couple of local stores that sold estate jewelry. We ate right next to Sydney’s work, and I actually got to see her for a moment before she started her shift that day. After a traffic-filled drive down on the freeway (I live ~40 minutes north of my church and her) and a filling lunch, I almost felt like heading straight home afterwards. I was already on the road, looking at both the south and north on-ramps of the 5 freeway, when I decided to just go ahead and check these stores now anyways. So, I headed down to Carlsbad… no idea that when I did finally head north to go home later, it would be with an engagement ring in my possession.

My first stop was Copper Canary, and I chuckled when I saw that it was literally right next door to a boutique store Sydney and I had visited weeks earlier during a street art fair. It was a warm Friday afternoon, and the store was fairly quiet. A gal was milling about, bouncing a baby on her hip, and chatting with a couple of store workers, while a couple was looking at items at the front of the store. I strolled in and started browsing a case of antique rings. I didn’t see anything that fit what I was looking for, so I figured it might be another bust. For brevity’s sake, it ended up that the gal with the baby was actually the owner of the store in on her day off, and she’s the one who worked with me in presenting a lot of ring options from the back. It was a really wonderful experience, and for any potential jewelry buyers out there, I highly recommend visiting Allie and her family-run operation. I was especially lucky, as the owner was able to check the backroom stock while her mom strolled the sleeping baby around the store, and I had very pleasant, relaxed conversation with mom while I waited between batches of rings to view. Admittedly, I was a bundle of nerves — not anxiety, but excitement of the unknown and big steps — and having this family to chat and go through the ring-selection process with is something I’ll always remember and always be grateful for 🙂

I put the jeweler here to work, too; she brought out several trays of options as I pared down what I was looking for. There was one ring that stayed out on the counter from the very first tray she brought me, and as I held one of the last rings, I told the jeweler, “Ya know… I’m holding this one in my hand, but my eyes keep moving past it to that one in the tray behind it.” So, I held that one. I asked Allie to put it on so I could see it on a female hand (which, apparently, most guys think is a weird thing to ask until they realize that most guys ask). I held it again. I took several big breaths. I took another big breath for good measure. And then I said, “Let’s do it.”

1930's vintage engagement ring — I think I done alright!

The ring is wonderfully beautiful — a 1930’s platinum/18k white gold setting with its original European cut diamond. I asked about the color/clarity rating, and my mouth dropped when she mentioned that they were near-perfect stats. I’d been studying diamonds so much that I never imagined coming across such a lovely and near-perfect stone for this price, but there it was… and it was mine. As we wrapped up my sale, the owner, Allie, asked me what my proposal plans were, and I mentioned that I had some ideas, but that I was definitely cemented on waiting until our 2-year anniversary on October 8th. She laughed and wished me well, saying that once most guys had their ring they couldn’t wait.

I understood what she meant as I walked out of the store beaming and ready to burst. While in the store I’d texted my lunch-date friend from earlier that I was seriously looking, and once I was out with an engagement ring in my possession I just HAD to tell someone. I wanted to keep this to myself until the day I popped the question, but I had to share it with at least one person I knew… and he was the one 🙂 By the way, congrats to Scott Hoerner for maintaining the secret right along with me for over a month!

Okay.. so I did tell one more person that day, too.

I had to fill up for gas before hopping back on the freeway, and I was on such a high cloud that I must’ve been a little light-headed from the lack of oxygen in the upper atmosphere. I got out of the car and forgot to open my gas tank, and as I laughed at myself, I noticed the lady at the pump in front of me notice and smile. I explained that I’d just purchased an engagement ring, and she offered an understanding nod and congratulations. I let her know that it was great to tell someone in person, and we laughed as I surmised that I was probably safe to do so with a stranger at a gas station 🙂

The wait

For several days, I kept taking the ring out and just sat on the floor looking at it with a big, goofy grin on my face. I held it. A couple of times, I prayed over it and the woman I was going to give it to. For the most part, though, the ring sat tucked away in my closet. In fact, Sydney came over and spent time here, completely oblivious that her engagement ring was sitting feet away from her.

I went through a lot of ideas of how I was going to do it. Sydney didn’t want a big display, nothing public or with a hidden photographer. This was to be a moment just between us, and so I spent a lot of time trying to find the best venue. At one point, I was juggling around the idea of setting up her DSLR on a tripod as if we’re going to take a photo together, and then just quietly recording video of it. I practiced the speech about 783 times, and it was always different. I spent over a month with this proposal being more than just a one-day possibility, but an impending reality. And that beautiful lady of mine was none the wiser 🙂

So, over a month later, and we find ourselves at the night before. I’d decided that it’d be cool to show my dad the ring, and he and I ended up talking for a long time that night: about how Sydney was completely unaware (I’d originally told her I wanted to wait to ask until after she graduated college this May), about how only a few other people in the world even knew I had it, about our wedding plans, and about why I loved her. When I answered his why question with, “Because she’s comfortable… I’ve never met anyone with whom I am so entirely myself, and she loves me for it,” his eyes watered a bit… and he said that’s exactly how he knew he wanted to spend his life with my mom, too. My sister wandered into the room, and I ended up showing her. My mom was fast asleep, so I left her a note on the kitchen table, with the ring, so she could see it, too.

October 8, 2018

Oh boy, anniversary/proposal day! I picked up my beautiful girl in the early afternoon, and we exchanged our simple gifts/cards in the car before heading out. I’ve been in need of a way to keep drinks on my nice new desk, so she gave me a cool tree-limb-slice coaster. I bought her a nice candle: bonfire scented with a cool crackling wick for added effect. This weekend, during a trip with our youth group to a Christian camp in the mountains, she mentioned that she used to pretend Ring Pops were engagement rings when she was a kid, so as a joke (and to throw her off the trail even more), I also included a Ring Pop in her gift with a P.S. on the card that read “…to help hold you over until I can give you a real one.” Smooth 😉

Sydney photographing jellyfish — A beauty photographing beauties.

We spent the afternoon at Birch Aquarium, and I really enjoyed it… though my nerves were certainly getting the better of me! She was as cute as button taking photos of all of the fish, and I was busy trying to breathe deeply and keep from being obvious. I have the advantage of being a guy who sometimes has to endure the physical effects of anxiety, and I do genuinely get a little dizzy by looking through the warped view of fish tanks, so I had a sound excuse for my slight lack of calm. But I wasn’t shaking, I wasn’t afraid.

I was excited!

Sydney enjoying a drink at Acquavite — Making herself laugh with fancy drinking.

Our day was pretty loose, and since we left the aquarium both ready to eat, we decided to make our special dining experience a late lunch instead of an early dinner. And so, we found ourselves in the restaurant where it all started 2 years and 1 week prior — Acquavite. We ended up being seated at the same table we sat at for our first date, and during our meal one of our songs ended up playing in the background (“Son of a Preacher Man”… because, ya know, I’m the son of a preacher man). So many things just kept working out and it was a really wonderful day. After lunch, I walked us just across the street to a trail that skirts along the ocean cliffs, and we took a seat at a bench overlooking the Pacific. Sydney wanted to take a few shots of the view, so I sat back and enjoyed the view of her doing so 🙂 Throughout the day I took such joy looking at her, knowing what I was planning and that she had no idea, and reveling in how lucky I am to have her in my life. Here, as the actual moment finally approached, I was all but overcome with happiness and excitement… that beautiful, adorable, sweet woman standing just over yonder was about to be presented with this gift and promise that I had been holding onto for quite some time.

Sydney taking photographs of La Jolla cove — So cute, so unaware of what was coming!

La Jolla cove trail bench — The view I took in just before becoming an engaged man.

Satisfied with her shots, Sydney walked back to join me on the bench. We sat there for a few moments talking, my arm around her as she leaned on me, and I kept an eye on the people walking from either end of the trail. I knew that she didn’t want a big public display of a proposal, she wanted something intimate and quiet. I was happy to oblige her desire, and as the trail cleared, my moment had arrived. I will save exactly what I said for just the two of us, but I wrapped up with a, “So… I have this tissue in my pocket,” as I pulled out the folded tissue that held the engagement ring I’d chosen. The ring box I’d been given was far too big to conceal anywhere on my person, so that morning I had gently secured the ring within a tissue folded over several times. I’d been casually sticking my hand in my pocket all morning to feel the tissue and be sure the ring was still there, and now I was bringing it out.

This is when it dawned on her, as I heard a gasp escape Sydney’s lips 🙂

In hindsight, I probably should’ve practiced actually unfolding the flippin’ tissue, because I took what felt like 15 minutes trying to do so in the moment. I jokingly said, “Well, if I can unfold this darn tissue.. but it’s okay, I’ll wait for these people to pass,” referring then to a couple who had just approached us. As I loosened the ring finally, the couple had just passed, and I looked at the love of my life and said, “I would love to spend the rest of my life with you as my best friend, and as my wife.” I gingerly got down on one knee and presented the ring into her view, as Sydney breathed out, “Oh my gosh, is this really happening?”

“Sydney Elise Thiessa… will you marry me?”

Spoiler-alert: amidst the hugs and kisses and smiles, there was definitely a yes in there. I was still in a daze (a LOVE daze!), so I did jokingly clarify again after getting back onto the bench that she had said yes. My heart was booming, no longer in anticipatory excitement, but in a peaceful joy and happiness. My heart wasn’t the only thing booming, however. As mentioned above, I am a somewhat tense man, and yet with Sydney I find myself more relaxed than ever. Due to this, an unfortunate side-effect of my relaxed state in her presence is that I also tend to be a little more… farty. That’s right… I love this woman so much that I’m so physically relaxed that I just fart up a storm around her. Thankfully, it’s mostly amusing to her, but I bet ya didn’t expect to be reading about farts in a post about a marriage proposal! But that’s just what happened — a few moments after we’d settled back onto the bench together and she’d been admiring the ring, my body let things rip… and that old wood-slat bench reverberated so much that the loud amplification doubled my bride-to-be in enough laughter to almost knock her off the bench. I mention this only because, my dear reader, that is what true love really is. It isn’t the romantic location or grand gestures. It’s farting on park benches after a marriage proposal and laughing together about it.

Sydney Thiessa and Mark Mushakian engaged — #joy #love #stopFartingMarkMyMomIsCallingBack

1930's engagement ring on finger overlooking ocean — Le ring on le finger.

An unpleasant turn

So, after a phone call with her mom, a few photos taken, a bit of an explanation of just how much I’d planned without her having any idea, and a few more hugs and smooches, Sydney and I decided to try to make it to Copper Canary to get the ring resized. It was labeled as a size 6, which is what Sydney should be, but it will definitely need to be trimmed down.

A quick aside: the ring is on her right hand on purpose, if you noticed that in the photo above. She didn’t want an extra wedding band, so I offered an alternate tradition I’d heard of while growing up — upon engagement, the ring is placed on the right hand, and during the wedding ceremony it is moved to the left hand. That’s what we’ll be doing, and I had to remind her of the different hand when she offered me her left to place the ring onto. I can’t imagine why she wasn’t thinking clearly enough to remember 😉

On the car ride out of La Jolla, Sydney got a friend on the phone to share the news and we called my dad and chatted a bit. Traffic was a bit rough, so we were going to be skirting into the Carlsbad jeweler just minutes before they closed, but I thought we could make it. Unfortunately, about the same time we got into the car to head to the jeweler, Sydney’s stomach started feeling unwell. As I steered us through traffic on the freeway, she had really taken a turn for the worse, and I asked if she just wanted us to head straight to a pharmacy first and forget the jeweler. She nodded yes. My poor girl was in bad shape by the time I pulled into the Rite-Aid parking lot, and I left her behind with a just-in-case bag as I dashed in first for some stomach pain pills, and then again for a Sprite to help. We were there for a time, me doing all I could to make her comfortable while also giving her privacy when she felt like things might happen. For those not in the know, THAT part of being stomach-sick is just about my least favorite act and subject matter (I don’t even like to hear the word or think about it at all), but that was entirely superseded by the fact that I had to take care of my future bride. At a couple of points I was sure to let her know that she had no reason to feel guilty about suddenly being sick and possibly putting a damper on the rest of our day.

As I told her, my day was made the moment she said, “Yes.”

My aforementioned church friend, Scott, is both my pastor and a married man, so I sent him a quick text about how she was suddenly doing and asked him to pray for her to feel better quickly. He did one better and asked if he could call, and he and I prayed together. I really am grateful for God bringing that man into my life! After a while longer, Sydney said she was ready to just go home, and I drove us as gently as I could back up to Oceanside. I’d rolled up a jacket I had in the backseat for her to use as a pillow as she leaned against the car door, and as I crawled through traffic she eventually dozed off. I felt bad that my poor girl had to go through such a public discomfort, I know how miserable it is to be out and about on a fun occasion and then feel like death. She woke up just as I got us off the freeway, and as we got to her house, she started feeling worse again. I went in to let her mom know, and we all eventually trooped into the house together. I gave my fiancée a kiss on the forehead after she gave me a big, soft hug goodbye/thanks/love-you, and I left her to rest up.

One may think that it’s a bummer we ended our engagement day this way, and of course I wish for her sake that she didn’t have to go through that, but ya know what? Life happens. We can’t say if it was her meal or what, but the important point is that I was able to be there for her and with her… in sickness and in health, as the phrase goes. I felt as much love for her when she took my ring as when she took my jacket to rest her sick head on, because that is what love is (also, it’s laughing at farts). Thankfully she is feeling better, now, and while I made a stop at the grocery store that night to buy myself a carton of lactose-free ice cream to continue the celebration in her honor, I look forward to sharing a bit with her when she’s able 🙂

To the future!

So, that’s it, my friends. I, Mark Mushakian, am engaged to be married to the beautiful, doe-eyed, spunky, God-fearing, artsy, stylish, sweet (etc., etc.) Sydney Thiessa, and I am absolutely thrilled to be able to say so. I am certain that there will be plenty of marriage-related posts ahead, but I will leave this novel-length post at just the engagement story for now. In my introductory post of this new blog/site, I mentioned that I would have a partner in this blogging adventure and that is true… because now, officially, I can say here that my Sydney will soon be a Mushakian, herself 🙂

I imagine I will still be the primary author around these parts, as I’m more the writer in the relationship, but don’t be too surprised if you see posts here and there penned by my bride to be! She will also be the primary source of photography in an upcoming site section, so be sure to keep an eye out for that.

For now, though, I would simply like to conclude with a very proud introduction to my partner, not only at mushakian.com but in life, Sydney Thiessa!