Cold Cuts

Hey folks! It's been a while!  When we were home we had some requests to keep up with this bad boy.   So, we have decided to do a quick one about the proposal!!

I was completely shocked! I had NO IDEA he was going to pop the question.  Everyone was putting it in my head that he was going to do it while we were home because I made such a big deal about being around my family and friends. But honestly, I didn't think he was going to do it.  I thought maybe he would look for the ring and do it while we were in the Philippines (February 2013).

When we first got home we were all over the place! He was out an about with his parents and I was hanging out with mine.  But the whole time Merrick was saying that we had to meet up at some point with some people he wanted to network with.  We always do stuff like that here so I didn't think anything of it.

The day of the proposal we were just laying around the house, eating breakfast with my parents, just being lazy.  That day was the day we were meeting up with those people. Around noon Merrick looked at me and said that he wanted to get there a little earlier so that we could grab a drink just us. I asked him what i should wear and he said jeans and a shirt.  I, of course have a fashion show in my room trying on everything. He wasn't being a big help, so I went down stairs to my parents (my dad knew not my mom) and asked them what they thought.  Lou always whistles and says I look great, but when I went down he said, "thats what you are wearing?" I was like, "What? When do you care about what I wear?"  He then started going on about how it was an important meeting to Merrick and I should dress more business casual.  So, I start putting dresses one, dress pants, and finally Merrick picked my outfit and told me to come on.

We are in the car heading towards downtown and get to Tsunami and get a spot right in front.  I walk right in and belly up to the bar.  Merrick goes to the bathroom and I order two large Sapporo's, a small sake, and baked mussels. I was ready to have an exciting lunch since Merrick said he was going to "expense" it. An event that involves the word 'expense' means a good time. 

We are having a good time and Merrick is just walking around an at the time I just thought he was nervous to meet up with this guy.  But, after a few minutes he starts to tell me that Brugger got him some free New Edition and if we were interested in them that we could get them from the Bi-lo center and I told Merrick that if he wanted to go grab them really quick I would wait.  He tells me that he is going to go outside to grab his jacket and all I could think of was why in the world is he wearing his jacket when its so hot outside.  I take photos all the time and I happened to capture him outside talking to a pedi-cab driver.  And I was thinking in my head that Merrick knows someone everywhere we go!

After a few minutes of being  outside with the pedi-cab driver he comes in and pays the tab and tells me that he knows the guy from Mauldin and he was going to give us a ride to the Bi-Lo Center for free.  I was all about that so I hop in the pedi-cab and there we go! He was struggling to get us around with all the hills in Greenville, but managed to get going. We start picking up some speed and I take a pic of us right before getting there.   We get e Bi-Lo Center and Merrick tells me to come with him. I tell him that I will just stay in the pedi-cab and wait.  It took John to tell me he had to make a phone call so I finally got out.  We walked in and g et the tickets and the man asks us if we wanted to see where the seats were.  In my head I was thinking no.  So, I start small talk with the guy asking him about Bobby Brown.  Not having a clue on what was about to happen. Merrick printed out the confirmation e-mail of our first date and when he handed me the piece of paper, I ignored it.

Merrick gave me this showing our first date. 

I had no idea what was about to come. If you haven't seen the video here it is.  Neither of us knew we were being videotaped. Debbie got her brother-in-law Rick to come and take pictures of us after we got engaged.  None of us knew he was going to do this! I am so happy he captured this!

It happened so fast! We were literally in an out in a matter of 10 minutes. Merrick did such a job! I love my ring and fiance! We are so happy and can't wait to start planning!  We haven't picked a date, yet but hopefully land something soon!! Will keep you posted!!

 After the engagement, the pedi-cab driver took us to the Commerce Club.  Our first date was the circus and commerce club.  Merrick is such a clever monkey.  He wanted it to just be my parents so that I could share this moment with them.  Here are a few pictures we got.  I didn't have my good camera so the iphone did some work,

Minda was one happy mama!

Happy he finally popped the question!

Had a nice little rainbow.

Minda's so cute!

Hey guys Pam wanted me to add my few cents since she has started the blog back up.  Just wanted to thank everyone for being there for us while we were home.  It was great to see that everyone is doing great.  We really do miss you all a lot.  All i can say is that I am a very very lucky man that i have been able to land a girl like pam and i am really looking forward to the future.   Thanks for all the support and i cant wait to see everyone when we come back home for the wedding!!! - Merrick

ps--Minda and Lou are very happy with me...

Heading Back to My Roots.

Hi Everyone! It has been less than a month since we've done an update! That's an improvement! :)

So much has gone on in that last month!  We found out a couple of days after I got back from Sydney that we would have to find a new place to live.  We had originally planned on living in the current house we are in for 2 years.  The couple we are renting from are in their early 60's and had plans on traveling the world for 2 years.  Well, things changed and they wanted to come back a year early.  So, we are getting the boot.  Right now in Perth rental properties are in such a high demand, which makes trying to get one more difficult.  Renting here in Perth is kinda like going through a job interview.  You have to go to a scheduled viewing of the house and meet the realtor who basically feels you out to see if you are worthy of renting the property. Since I am working a 9-5, Merrick has been the one going to all the viewings.  I have been sending him all over the place and every where I sent him ended up being a dud.

Merrick playing at my desk.

We started getting really frustrated and stressed because the clock was ticking and we needed to hurry and find a place.  It was getting to the point where we were going to just start putting in applications for places we saw whether we liked it or not.  After a lot of prayers, I went on the internet one day at work and found this house that gave me goosebumps.  I just saw the front and knew that it was going to be ours!  I immediately emailed it to Merrick and said I've found the place where we are going to live!  He responded so quick and said, "We've found it!"

The viewing was for that Saturday and I haven't been to one viewing so it was going to be a new experience for me to see what the process was.  So, that Saturday we got up and drove over to the house and there were already 3 other couples there ready to see it.  I was so nervous because Merrick was telling me how intense these are and how people usually just throw money down to try and get the place.  Well, we got there and started looking around and it felt like an old shabby chic Charleston home and I just knew I had to have this place.  People were trying to sell themselves to the Realtor by being all cute and fancy. When it was our turn to talk to the Realtor to get an application Merrick turned on his southern charms and got her to giggle, smile, and say y'all.  She of course fell in love with Merrick and I knew we were golden.  She kept asking us when we could move in and that we should hurry and put in our application.

Is there something in his teeth?

So, thanks to Merrick we got our new home!  We move in tomorrow and its unfurnished. So, mama has been shopping. Thank goodness for IKEA. We also have been getting stuff on a website called Gumtree, which is like craigslist (but less sketchy) and there is a section called "freebies" (Merrick found this).  Of course, on Merrick's free time he has been driving around collecting free things from around Perth.  We've gotten a free grill with propane tank, bookshelves, outdoor table and chairs, bedroom suite and a fridge!! I am very impressed with Merrick.  He has found a new addiction.  The only bad thing is that he is hesitant to buy anything because he thinks he can wait it out to see if he can get one for free on Gumtree.

But other than that, we have also been planning our next trips for this year and next.  We are first heading to Tokyo, Japan in August for about a week because Merrick has a conference there on a Saturday and they are getting him a round trip ticket so we decided to make a little vacay of it.  So, I will be heading to my birthplace!  I can't wait to go and check out where I was born, see my elementary school, and eat so much Japanese candy and ice cream!  Second trip on the agenda is COMING BACK TO GREENVILLE!  We are in the process of trying to find some tickets.  I cannot wait to be home with everyone and catching up and meeting all the new babies!  It will be so hard to only be home for 3 weeks, so everyone be prepared to be smothered.  Our last trip we are planning is to the Philippines.  There was a buy one get one free deal on Jetstar and we got round trip tickets for both of us to Manila for $400!  We aren't going until next February.  We decided to celebrate our 4 year anniversary there.  Hopefully, Minda and Lou will get their mind right and meet us out there!

But, we will give you another update soon with pictures of our new place and all of Merrick's free goodies! Miss you all and talk soon!  I'm asking Merrick to put in his 2 cents, but he is being bratty and doesn't want to say anything except, "Blehhh".

You guys need to see if any places in Greenville sell these beers.  They are my absolute favorites! Especially Wahoo! Go, find, and try!!! x

27 & 30

Long time no see,  we are terrible with this blog.  We have been getting a lot of requests for updating this blog so here we go.

Last time we wrote we were talking about Jenny coming out.   She was here and gone with the blink of an eye.  One week was definitely not enough time with her! There was a little hick up before she got here, but she got here.  Merrick and I had bought her ticket, made sure she knew what to do, told her what to bring, and told her to pay attention to all the details.  Well, that bit us in the butt.  We had no idea that you needed a visa to enter Australia.  We thought it was visa upon arrival like most of the places we have been.  We were wrong.  We received a phone call at 3am (our time) and it was Debbie telling us that Jenny can't get on the plane because she didn't have a visa.  Well, Merrick and I are cussing up a storm saying that they are wrong and they needed to get her on the plane.

After some 30 minutes of looking on the internet, we realize that she in fact needed a visa.  Long story short she applies for it on-line and the visa went through 20 minutes after flight took off. She missed her flight.  We had paid for a an expensive round trip ticket from Greer to GSP.  We called the airlines, paid a lot more and got her flight changed to the next day.

We had a girls weekend planned in Sydney with my friend Jenna. When we got to there we had a great time!  We went and did the typical site seeing things like the Sydney Harbor Bridge, Opera House, and Toronga Zoo (where we saw Paris Hilton).  It was a quick trip and since Jenny lost a day traveling we didn't get to achieve as much as we wanted, but had a great time!!

When we got back to Perth, Jenny had a bad case of jet lag and would pass out around 830pm every night and wake up about 6am in the morning and wake us up! "CAPPUCCINO 2 SUGARS!" -Jenny Fogle's saying of the week!

Hey guys.  Im 30 now.  First of all i just want to thank all of you that made the video clips for me, they were hilarious.  It was a nice surprise to see how many of friends and family like me. Secondly, we had a special visitor out here this month (my sister).  We took her around to all the hot spots here in Perth and also got her to eat some ox tongue when we took her to eat korean bbq.  Anyhow, i just want to say hello to everyone and that i miss you guys.  Hope all is well back home and we will see you hopefully in September!!! -- Merrick

Merrick was so cute when he was watching the videos that y'all sent!  He was surprised and very happy to watch it.  I also loved the video! I can't believe there were so many great faces and BABIES on there!! It made us miss home a lot! We watched it like 10 times!! Thanks again to Lacey Hennessey for putting it together for us! We had a great birthday, celebrating together!!

But, other that we haven't been up to much.  Since I have started working and making daddy some of that cheddar we have just been saving up for our next trip. We are looking at taking a small trip to either Indonesia or Fiji in June for our late bday presents to each other. And plan a major trip to Japan sometime at the beginning of next year. I have been waiting to get back there since i've been a little girl! We are going to fit in some skiing and lots of reminiscing of my childhood! I can't wait to eat some ramen and ice candy!

We have decided about 85% that we will be home September 13th -October 7th!! We of course had to wait until we got all the sport schedules to decide on when to come home.  We wanted to see the Braves before Chipper retired, Panther games since Merrick is a season ticket holder and we are actually supposed to be good this year, and throw in some Clemson games.

We also were thinking about renting a beach house for a long weekend in Charleston so that I can eat Papa ZuZu's, Santi's, and drink Kudu coffee.  Merrick wants Pearlz and Ranger IPA.  I cannot wait to be back with everyone!! Keep your calendars open people cause we are going to be throwing ourselves at you!

Hope everyone is well and thank you again for all that you guys do to make us feel loved!!

Counting Our Blessing!

I just got an overwhelming feeling of happiness!  Merrick and I are so thankful for our wonderful family and friends back home and the new ones we have made here.  We have such great families and friends to deal with our antics all the time.  Merrick and I aren't the best at keeping in touch, but you guys deal with us!  And thank goodness for the internet and iPhones!  They have really rekindled relationships (welcome to the world of iPhones: Sam, Dani, and Meredith)!

It has taken some time to really at home here, but we have a solid group of friends and families that have taken us under their wing.  We have some great families here that have invited us into their home for home cooked meals, given us advice, and just support us.

We just want to send a thank you to all of you who keep up with us crazy kids!  We love you very much!

Now, onto what's been going on...

JENNY FOGEL will be making her appearance in Australia at the end of this MONTH!! We are so excited!  She lands in Sydney, March 31st and me and some friends will meet her there for a weekend there before coming to Perth.  We figured when people think Australia, they don't think PERTH they think Sydney Opera House.  So, we will show her around there and since none of us have been there either it will be fun for everyone!

When we get back to Perth, Jenny has made it clear she wants to "beach it up"!  So, there will be many beach days for her and we will make sure she hugs and kisses some kangaroos and koalas!  It will feel so good to have her here!

Other than that, we have been quite the socialites.  Our friends we have made keep us busy with all kinds of things.  We recently went on a wine tour and had a great time!  Merrick of course was the main attraction.  He loves attention and he sure did get it all day long.  The older ladies on the tour were eating him up, the work staff couldn't get enough of him, and every winery we went to he was "the man".

As for the rest of us, we had a great time! We started off on the 9:30am boat ride through the city to the wineries then Ann came and picked us up and take us around.  They had some really good wines, cheeses, and FOOD!  We all got pretty tipsy and I think the final count was about 55 samples of free wine and 2 pints of beer.  On the way back to the city they drove by our place and we asked sweet Ann if we could just hop off here and I think when everyone heard that they started cheering and giving us high fives...not sure if it was because they were happy to see us leave or because they just loved us.  Either way we got a free ride home (cause we trained it into the city)!

So, we got back to our place and got settled and that is when the racing started.  Just to give you some background on that.  Our little crew here likes to get together and race.  We have different pair ups or group races.  We have never documented these races before because it was either too dark or we just forgot.  That day, we had film, cameras, and tripods.  The best one was of course Merrick running in the last group race.  I'll leave you with these. Enjoy.

Hey guys!  Pam wanted me to add my two cents.  For the record, i was winning that race until i hit a little slanted part of the race track.  I know everyone is concerned, but i am fine.  I will live to race another day.  Everything is going well.  We have been hanging out with some pretty cool people here and having a good time.  Work is coming along nicely. Let's hope Pam gets a job this month. I have a good feeling about this.  My lil asian is going to have a big girl job soon. extra monies.  Im excited about my sister coming out too.  Gonna be nice to see someone from home.  Miss all you guys and I hope everyone is doing great!  -  Merrick

The Eye vs The Lip

We're back to Perth!  We had such a great time!  I can't believe we covered so much ground in such a short amount of time!  We met a lot of people and have some funny stories!!

We started off in Singapore and let's just say if Merrick and I were to move somewhere else it would be Singapore!  We fell in love right away.  It's so clean, safe, friendly, and gorgeous! We just spent the weekend there, but we'll definitely be back soon.  The only thing is that it's just as expensive as Australia.

After Singapore we headed to Phuket for a night then took a boat to Phi Phi Island. I am not one to get sunburned, but this brown girl got BURNT! I feel so sorry for you people who deal with that.  The worst feeling in the world!  My whole face peeled like a rattlesnake. It wasn't pretty.

Phi Phi is a total hot spot for tourist.  We went snorkeling in a few different spots and you know I had to get an underwater camera.  Pictures will be hopefully coming soon.  I can't find anyone who will develop film.  They are making me feel as if they don't do that anymore.  Oh, and we went kayaking on the Mekong and I was taking pictures with my little sony...my retard self left the camera on the kayak when we were done.  So, those pictures are being enjoyed by some foreigner.  Oh, and someone stole my havianas at the hotel (you have to take your shoes off before entering hotels--Merrick said they would be fine to leave them there).  I'm not bitter or anything.

Hey ladies and gents.  Pam wanted me to write my piece for the blog so here we go....1st thing i want to discuss is Pam's eye.  I have never seen anything like it.  I actually think that other people thought i punched her in the eye!  i felt so bad for her, but couldnt help laughing at her because she looked completely deformed.

We had this little waitress and I had my sunnies on the whole time and as soon as I took them off she looked at me and said, "yo eye weally look like dat? It look like dat all da time?"

Secondly, i just want everyone to know how well she did in dirty/gross conditions in some of the places that we stayed.  Never complained at all.  Lastly, i have to brag a little bit.  When we were tubing down one of the rivers in Laos they have rope swings, man made jumps, etc... We were hanging out with a couple from Washington state and the kid had just finished up University.  The guy and myself were going on a rope swing and he was to scared to do a back flip off of this swing.  So what did old Merrick do....I cut the nastiest back flip off this rope swing (pictures to come).  Needless to say Pam has never looked at me the same again.  She cant get enough of this young stud anymore.  Basically, im a gymnast.  Love all you guys! --- Merrick

Back again because my woman wants me to tell my side of the story of the "Lip" fiasco.  I had grown a beard and basically from the unsanitary environment that we had been staying in got a little irritation on my mustache.  So to make a long story short i shaved the mustache off (left the beard) so that i could clean the skin on my upper lip more directly.  It made me nervous for a bit, but no big deal.  Pam is going to go through a big shipeal on how i was acting crazy about it.  DO NOT BELIEVE HER LIES.  thanks. --Merrick

Now, my side of the story.  My eyes were being really sensitive to all the dust and debris and I had my contacts in the majority of the time.  Well, in the middle of the night one night my eye was in so much pain.  I got up and took out my contacts and then went back to sleep.  The next morning my eye was completely swollen and did Merrick care?  Nope.  He barely noticed.  All he could say was, "I like you in your glasses." What a chump!!

My eye got better, until we had to get onto a local bus to 4000 Islands.  First off this bus station was in the middle of nowhere!  There were cows walking around, trash everywhere, and all the people looked like they were going to rob us. So all we could do is get drunk and eat chips to pass the time.

It actually ended up not being that bad.  We had some normal people on our bus.  We had some punk kids, an older lady who dressed like she was going to a ball, an a young girl with her cute cute baby.  She breast fed the baby on the ride down there and did not hesitate to pull that boob out and guess who saw it all go down?!?

Picture Merrick made me take so he could see his lip.

The driving was all over the place and there were just dirt roads so all that dust kept getting in my eye.  I kept asking Merrick to see if we could stop and find an eye patch somewhere.  At the time I thought it was a logical request.  Merrick kept saying just put this napkin over it for now.  As soon as that napkin hit my eye I think everyone on that bus started laughing and talking about me.  It was terrible.  I was miserable and looking like this the whole way there. Merrick was happy as a lark cause he got to see some boob.

A Dutch doctor we met on a bus that
Merrick made analyze his lip!

My eye ended up doing a lot better, and as soon as that happened his lip started hurting.  He kept asking me to look at it, take pictures of it so he could see, put anti-bacterial hand sanitizer on it, yada yada yada.  It apparently got worse so he made me walk around for hours trying to find specifically neosporin. We were in the middle of NOWHERE and he made me go on the search for some neosprin.  Of course, we never found it and ended up buying some random cream for osteoporosis, which said it also helped with irritation. Then that didn't keep it "moisturized" enough so he found some tiger balm (which was just like carmex). That burned the crap out of his lip so he then made me search in our packs for his razor so he could shave it off and wash his face with soap and face wash.  Then we went out for beers one night and he kept saying that he wanted to go to the hospital because he didn't want something to be wrong with his face.  I of course laughed and he got mad and said that I was so insensitive and evil.  Guess what "cured" his upper lip?  Nivea's men lip balm.

Sorry to put you guys through that, as you can tell Merrick and I are both still trying to figure out who had it worst.


Back to the trip-- We decided we were going to celebrate our three year anniversary while we were traveling because we were flying back on our actual anniversary.  So, we decided to do it up at a nice resort in Railay for a few nights.  This was the best on the island and we only payed $50 a night!  Pretty darn great!  We got free cocktails by the pool, had a really nice dinner, and basically had a swimming pool in our room!  If we could recommend a place to go it would be Railay.  So chill and not many tourist!


Some of the other touristy things we did are: Killing Fields, Torture Facility, Shooting Range (AK-47's), Russian Markets, Angkor Wat Temples, kayaking the Mekong, and Tubing in Laos.  Those pics are on Facebook.

All those were so much fun except the Killing Fields and Torture Facility.  Those were really depressing.  Seeing the remains and pictures of all the people that were killed during that period was pretty upsetting. I couldn't go into some of the rooms because it just had such a sad vibe.

The shooting of the AK-47's...interesting.  I personally didn't like shooting the guns, but of course my man Merrick was all over the place shooting coconuts.  We wanted to throw a grenade, but we had to drive an extra hour out of the way to throw it and it was like $75 bucks.  But, that was fun.

We had some good pictures of the Russian Markets and kayaking the Mekong, but that was on the little Sony.  R.I.P.  It was a good little camera, but it's now with a new family somewhere in Don Det.  

Pictures from snorkeling and tubing will be up on Facebook soon!!  Love you all!!