没事 (Mei Shi) No Problem

Our Wedding Video

How the day went down!!!

10:30-11:00 The music from CD 1 is playing and the people are coming into the building, when they sit, they will be writing well wishes on cards while they wait.

11:05 or when people appear to be settled, cd 2 will start. Once CD 2 starts, there is one song during which, I will enter and it lasts 4:30 seconds. I will walk down the isle with my parents and sit them in their chair. Then I will ascend the stage. After that song finishes, Here Comes the Bride begins.

Jiao Jiao will enter to this song, bringing her mother and father to the front, sitting them and then joining me at the altar.

After the song stops, Lee will say his introduction and then the Chinese entertainment will say his. Jiao jiao and I will say our vows.

First I will say my vows and then Jiao jiao.

Then, we will ask for the rings and exchange them.

We will exchange a drink.

We will bite apples which end in a kiss.

We will bring moms and dads to the stage and exchange tea.

Then we will take our wedding photos, somewhat like this order.

Parents (hers, mine, both)

Whole family

My friends

Her friends

Then she will throw her bouquet…

End of ceremony Jiao Jiao will go and change her clothes, which takes about 15 minutes. During that time I will draw cards from a basket to read. – Later those people will help open Champagne.

Once Jiao Jiao returns, we will light the candle, cut the cake, do the champagne tower and then open champagne and then we will have a large group toast which then will start the party and hot food will enter.

We will go around doing drinks after.

That was how it was supposed to go down. However, people were late, so we started much later. Also, the Chinese entertainment just did things how he wanted and we just followed. Her are my vows.

Jiao Jiao, from this moment forward, all that I am and all that I have, I joyfully offer to you in love. I will love and comfort you and prize you above all others. I commit myself to years of growth and sharing. I will be with you in times of plenty and hardship. I will laugh with you and cry with you in success and loss.

从这一刻,所有这些,我和所有我,我高兴地向你的爱. 我会爱和安慰你,你奖以上的其他所有问题. 我本人多年的发展和共享. 我将与你的时候很多和辛劳. 我会笑,你哭,你的成功和损失.

I look forward with great joy to spending the rest of my life with you, caring for you, nurturing you, being there for you in all life has for us; our youth, our children and our old age.

我期待着喜悦落叶归我的生命与你,爱护你, 培育你,在那里你的一切生命对我们; 青年人 我们的孩子和我们的晚年生活.

From now, we are not two people, but one. We shall work together to improve our family without ego or thought of self. Together we shall control our future and make our lives great.

从现在开始,我们不是两个人,而是一个. 我们应共同努力来改善我们的家庭没有或自我思考自我. 在一起,我们会控制自己的未来,使我们生活的伟大.

I have put some of our MANY pictures on the website, you can look at them by clicking this link.

Ji Xiang 2 The End

Yesterday was a day of extreme highs and extreme lows. A day in which all folks involved have manic emotions. We were all zapped from a long day at the forbidden city and so we decided to take it easy.

Jiao Jiao and I had some passport issues to deal with, she needs to get a visa for our trip to Malaysia and I was in desperate need of new passport pages. We first went to the embassy of Malaysia to get her a visa and after searching long and hard, we found it next to the embassy of Israel at Nu Ren Jie. We walked up to the gate and showed our passports, we got past the traditional Chinese 16 year old security guard, only to be met by and official guard who told us that we were not properly dressed to enter the embassy of Malaysia. Jiao Jiao was wearing a sleeveless shirt and I was in shorts. To fix our problem, Jiao Jiao wore my shirt into the embassy and I stood outside the embassy shirtless until she returned. There was no shortage of stares. Jiao Jiao was unable to apply for a visa because she is under 25 and needs her mom to come and express permission for her travel, since we have not actually signed any government papers, our marriage is not valid in their eyes. We have to go back Monday to reapply for the visa. We then went to the US embassy and I got my pages and we returned home.


For lunch, we traveled to the Lidu area and had some excellent Indian food at Ganges, my parents first experience with Indian and a good experience for them. Then we went to the movie transformers which was superb. We came home and called one of the wedding photographers to pick up the last of our pictures and he said he would deliver them, so we waited in anticipation for his arrival.

I was nearly asleep when he arrived and his pictures were magnificent and we were all excited by the fact that he had done such a fantastic job of printing us a book as a keepsake and his pictures were far better than the other photographer. When he was leaving, we walked him to the elevator and we did not close the door tightly behind us, we decided to ride the elevator with the photographer to continue to thank him for his extra effort. We walked him a ways out into the complex and returned home at around 7:30 where we continued to look at the photos. Then we talked about what to eat for dinner. We ordered from Annie's,  we had a nice dinner.

At about 8:20, the satellite tv essentially exploded - the tv flickered, put up two error messages and then started flickering wildly until it had no signal what so ever - it has no power and is useless now. This is the time I believe Ji Xiang passed away.

After the tv went down, we put in Jackass 2, my dad has never seen it. We ate dinner while watching this movie. We realized Ji Xiang was  missing at around 10, when we were going to take him out for a walk.  We immediately  rushed downstairs,  I took the stairs down calling Ji Xiang the whole way. Jiao Jiao ran outside, she was frantic by the time I found her. She was frantic by the time I found her, she had talked to the woman that watches the bicycle parking area and that woman had seen Ji Xiang at around 8. We continued running about, the whole family, until Ji Xiang was found, laying still in the bushes next to the road.

The security guard told us he had seen a dog outside crossing the road, we ran out shouting his name. Right to the crosswalk, I heard one guard say, "man yi diar (go slowly or be careful)" as we approached the road. Jiao Jiao turned to the guard and asked where he had seen it, he pointed and she looked and screamed. I was looking all around and she was crying. I asked, "Where???" and she could not talk, only pointed her finger in the direction while covering her mouth. I saw him and immediately grabbed her. I could not believe what I was seeing, but it was true. I held her for a moment and then had my dad take her into the complex while I gathered Ji Xiang. I was terrified that his body would be mangled, but to my surprise, and relief, there was no blood or dirt. I think that he stuck his head into the road and got hit by a bumper and someone put him in the bush.

We took him inside and called his former owner. We buried him near his apartment in the dark of night.

Today we are all moving quietly and slowly. I keep remembering that first view of him, the sound of Jiao Jiao's wail...I never want to hear that again.

We all have if's, how's, why's, should've, could've and none of them give us any options. He is gone and it is hard.

We will move on and be ok. Today we gathered his things and put a tuft of his hair together, it still smells like him, we will be ok.

I never cried once for Shawn, never felt sorry for him and did not feel much regret. But no, all of us are filled with nothing but regret, but we will be ok, but we will never forget.

We Love You Ji Xiang!!!

JiXiang and the Barbarian

We just got back from Dalian and we are all relaxing at home. I looked through some of the pictures and video that I have now and found something funny. There are a couple of stories behind all of it so I will spend a little time telling the stories and then end it with a video.

In the spring, Jiao Jiao's elementary classmate had to get rid of his dog of nine years, Ji Xiang (Lucky). The man, Yan, had lost his mother not long ago and the dogs had become too big a burden for his father. His father told him to either find another place for the dog or he would take it to the countryside and drop it off. Yan felt that it would be better to kill the dog then allow it to be dropped off in the countryside, spending the rest of it's life scavenging for food. He asked us to take the dog, so we took Ji Xiang into our home and have had him ever since.

The next part of the story has to do with the wedding. My soccer team got together and bought us a wedding gift, a stone statue that looks like a barbarian...our soccer team is named the Beijing Barbarians. When we brought home the statue, the dog did not notice for hours...but when he did, he did not like it much.

7-7-07 Wedding

We did it. On the morning of 7-7-07, we got married at the Iowa Steak House in Beijing China. There is a new Mrs. Harding out there and that is fantastic. Most of the wedding is on video and in picture and I will be putting that on the net as soon as I can.

Tomorrow we will go to Dalian for a week, then back to Beijing. Maybe at that time I can do some editing of the video to get it online.

It was a good day for sure, about 130 people joined us for the party and we did not even dent the beer, but many of us got a champagne shower. We all were sweating like pigs. Jiao Jiao, her mom and dad and my mom all had a cry.... And we made it home alive.

Bachelor Party

It was a blast. Saturday the 29th, bowling and boozing until i got home sometime. There was throw ups and lost stuff and my best man slept in front of a door at the wrong floor of his apartment complex. On guy passed out watching dirty movies and everyone was totally wasted.

I did still make it to the airport to pick up my parents at 5 in the morning. I was still wasted. I loved the time, but I am glad I do not have to do it again. HAHA

You can view the photos by clicking here.

Buy Shawn's Books

                        

Read chapters 1 and 2 of Shawn and I's adventures together.

 

New Photo Album

If you look on the left sidebar you will see a new photo album. This is our wedding pictures. You can view those pictures by clicking on any of these words. Put comments here on what you think the best ones are or worst or anything you would like. Cheers!