Our Story
Ted & Lara met in August 2008 in Lansing, Michigan when Ted was working as Production Manager at the BoarsHead Theater. Lara was hired as one of BoarsHead's four Second Company members for the season. After three weeks of working together at the theater, Ted left BoarsHead to start grad school at MSU to pursue an MFA in Production Design (Lighting Design). They started dating on Ted's birthday (coincidentally, Lara's birthday was the next day...happy birthday to us!) right before Ted left BoarsHead and started grad school.
With the exception of Lara working at the theater and Ted in grad school, they spent almost all of their free time together. They went to the movies, played board games, met for speed dinner and ice cream dates on weekday evenings between work and show call, watched football and ice hockey at the sports bars, played ski-ball and arcade games, and went for walks in Fitzgerald Park. Ted took Lara to Uncle John's Cider Mill in St. John's, MI so she could enjoy her first real autumn with a corn maze, apple orchard and pumpkin patch!
Later, when the pumpkins they'd picked and put on Ted's back porch were destroyed and eaten by raccoons (R.I.P Clyde and Clifford) and Lara was sad that she wouldn't have a pumpkin to carve, Ted searched for days until he found her the perfect, and probably only, pumpkin left in freezing Michigan in mid-November.
Lara made dinners and kept Ted company when he had weeks worth of late-night school projects and light plots to work on. He helped her shop for warm snow boots for the winter, shoveled her car out of the snow and ice, and drove her to work when the roads were really icy (more times than he probably would have liked to). Ted brought Lara home for Thanksgiving to meet his family, and they had an awesome time.
Lara took care of Ted when he caught a horrible flu bug. When Lara caught it the next day during Hymn & Carol tech, Ted wrapped her in blankets, carried her to the ER and stayed with her all night. Here they are at the Hymn & Carol opening night after-glow party.
They went to a tree farm in Grand Ledge, got their first Christmas tree together and spent all day decorating it while the bunnies that lived at Ted's apartment (Bam-Bam, Charlie and Lucy) ate carrots in the snow.
They also enjoyed Lansing's Silver Bells in the City and the reindeer. It was COLD.
After spending her Christmas break back home in Texas, Lara flew to Wisconsin so they could spend New Year's Eve together with Kate, Tim and Caleb. They also met Kim, Tom, and Lochlan in Chicago on the way back to Michigan. In the spring they took a day trip to the Hands-On Museum in Ann Arbor. They went to church and had breakfast on Sunday mornings, and spent as much time together as possible. Ted bought all the materials and built an awesome Washers game for them to play in his backyard. At the end of Lara's internship at BoarsHead, Ted helped her pack everything up and move out of the intern house. They spent three days driving across the U.S. to bring Lara back to Texas for the summer. On their road trip they drove on Route 66, passed through a bunch of cool towns and enjoyed a lot of awesome sights along the way. The second they crossed the border into Texas Ted immediately began complaining about how hot it was. Ted loves Texas.
Ted got the tour of San Antonio and Boerne, met Lara's cats (he was thrilled) and some of her closest friends at a welcome-back dinner at Mi Tierra's in downtown San Antonio.
In July Lara flew to Ohio for a weekend to meet the rest of Ted's family during a 50th anniversary celebration and family reunion. They had a lot of fun and Lara really enjoyed meeting the whole family and spending the weekend hanging out with everyone. In August Lara flew to Wisconsin for a long visit. They went to Lara's first professional baseball game, spent a day in Door County, and did a lot of fun stuff in Milwaukee and Green Bay (including hanging out with the family, touring the Miller brewing factory, Heritage Hill, Bay Beach, and visiting the Harley-Davidson Museum).
To celebrate their one-year anniversary, Ted & Lara spent the weekend at Cedar Point, the roller coaster theme park in Sandusky, Ohio. Yes, Lara chickened out on riding the Millennium Force after standing in a 45-minute line... twice. But she will be riding it on the next visit.
At the end of August Lara took a job at a children's theatre in San Antonio and they decided to go long-distance while she worked and Ted finished grad school in Michigan. In September they went to Lara's first Packers game ever at Lambeau Field - the home opener against the Bears. It was awesome!!
And finally, in October, Lara flew to Michigan for the weekend so she and Ted could go pumpkin patching again at Uncle John's Cider Mill.
Our Engagement
On October 23rd Lara flew into Detroit to spend a weekend with Ted. He loves it when she books the flights where the plane lands at 11 p.m. and they still have a 2-hour drive from Detroit to Lansing. Those are definitely a favorite.
On Saturday morning they went to St. John's, MI where Uncle John's Cider Mill is. They went last year...
...and they had so much fun with the corn maze and pumpkin patch that they decided to make it a point to go again this year! It was cold and a little rainy, but the autumn colors were still beautiful!
They discovered a hiking trail that they didn't notice last year, so they went for a walk through all the gold and red leaves and around a pond.
They walked past the apple orchard...
...and came to the pumpkin patch. There were pumpkins as far as the eye can see!
They ran around looking for a pumpkin together, then Ted ran off to search the pumpkin patch on his own. Lara kept looking on her own, on the other side of the pumpkin patch.
After a few minutes, Ted called Lara over ("Hey, you!") to see a pumpkin he liked. He told her he had found the perfect pumpkin, but it was hidden behind him so she couldn't see it. When Ted finally turned Lara around to see the pumpkin, she looked down to see a small, round pumpkin with an engagement ring sitting on top of it! Ted wrapped his arms around her and whispered in her ear asking her to marry him. It was really much sweeter and much more wonderful than all that, but that's enough with the sappy details.
Of course they had to keep "engagement pumpkin" and they looked until they found a giant pumpkin to take home along with their little one. To celebrate they headed out of the pumpkin patch and over to the wine tasting building.
They bought some wine to share with family on Thanksgiving and New Years Eve and then took a long walk through the corn maze.
The very first thing Ted & Lara decided on was that they wanted to get married in Door County. They also already knew that they wanted to get married in October, since it is a favorite season for them both. That evening they went to Clara's Lansing Station for a celebration dinner in the romantic little train car room, and, in typical Ted & Lara fashion, came home to play board games and watch Garfield's Halloween.
And they got the perfect pumpkin.