Greatest Bridal Shower!

My bridal shower was on Saturday. It was amazing. It was done as a group effort by a few of my friends, namely Jill, Holli, and Janette. It was perfect. The food was amazing. Tons of people came. I got a lot of great gifts including twelve, yes TWELVE pieces of lingerie. Now, some of my friends were very dirty in their gifts, but it was fun. Brandon's aunt was there and she gave me some lingerie, but it wasn't very scandalous. After she saw all the other stuff I got, she was so mad that she didn't get what she really wanted to. She thought that Pollyanna could have worn what she got me. All in all it was a perfect shower and I have the best friends in the whole world who are spoiling me rotten! Thanks girls!

On another topic, (still wedding related), we finally got our invitations in and sent out on Friday. They were delivered at about 11 am on Friday. At noon, Jill, Jackie (my sis-in-law), Lynda (friend), Josh (brother), and Brandon were all at my house folding and stuffing about 400 invitations. They were all in the mail by 1:30 pm. Good job everyone!

We also narrowly avoided another wedding catastrophe this weekend. My flowers are all calla lilies. White ones for the tables and deep red ones for my bouquet (which were a bit difficult to find). Well we ordered them a couple months ago, apparently when my wedding date was still May 19th. I guess we forgot to tell the florist that the date changed to June 2nd because the flowers came in this weekend and the florist wanted to know why we didn't pick them up. Plus, they said they had a hard time finding the red lilies and didn't know if they could get them again by June 2nd. Well my mom talked to the owner of the flower wholesaler today and he didn't make her pay for the first order and said he will be able to get more flowers in time for the real wedding. Isn't it wonderful when people are just nice? Thank you Mr. Flower Man. You are a very nice person.

12 MORE DAYS!!!!

Wedding planning keeps on going...

So, we had a slight catastrophe this week. I was supposed to get the invitations on Monday, but when they came in, they were horrible! The biggest (one of many) was that they spelled Brandon's parents last name wrong. So they are reprinting them and we should get them back on Friday. We have a crew ready to stuff at noon so we can hopefully get them out by Friday afternoon. Most people won't get them before 10 days prior to the wedding, but I guess there's nothing I can do about that. I'm getting my facial today and my spa day on Monday. Don't I have the greatest friends? We finally booked our honeymoon this week. We are spending five nights at a resort in Cancun! Yay! I'm so excited about that. We can lounge around in luxury for a whole week! My bridal shower is this weekend. I'm pretty excited about that too. I think some of my friends might try to embarrass me, but I doubt that's possible. I just can't believe how close it's getting. Before you know it, I'll have been married for 50 years!

23 days to go!

I know I have not been a good blogger. I really want to. I just need to try harder to make time for it. Okay, so I get married in 23 days! Wedding planning started out to be more stressful than I could bear, but I stepped back, took a breath, and relaxed. It's been pretty smooth sailing ever since. I guess the thing that I've noticed so much in this whole process is how little I care about the event and how much I care about the actual marraige. I really could not have chosen a better man. He is truly amazing. He tries so hard to make me happy. He works endlessly on communicating with me and solving all problems before they can cause contention. I'm not saying everything is always perfect, but he tries so hard to understand me and thus inspires me to try hard as well. I never thought I could be this happy.

Okay, now getting past the sappy stuff, I am also excited about the actual wedding day. I have my dress and it's beautiful. It's ivory with darker ivory embroidery and a deep red sash around the wasit. I'm wearing a strand of my great grandmother's pearls for sentiment (plus they actually go with the dress). My colors are cranberry red and ivory. I've designed the reception myself and it will hopefully be different than other receptions I've been to. There will be no trellis or ivy or picket fences. It will actually be quite simple, but hopefully elegant and I'm excited to see how it all comes out.

I think I'm almost done with most of the planning. We're still waiting for the invitations to come in. I am still in search of fabulous earrings. I still need to craft some type of mechanism to hang a bunch of round, Chinese paper lanterns from the ceiling at the reception. I have a dress fitting on Friday. We still have to book the honeymoon too!

Luckily, I have a lot of very talented friends. One of my friends is an extremely talented photographer and has already done some fantasic engagment photos for us. I'm excited to see the wedding pictures that she does. I have another friend who does makeup and skin care. She has provided me with some great products to get my skin ready for the big day and is taking care of my makeup. My cousin does my hair. We've already practiced my wedding hair and I think it will look great! And I have several other friends that are planning my bridal shower and have shopped with me and have planned with me. I am very lucky.

23 more days!

GETTING MARRIED!

Hey everyone! I'm engaged! Yay for me! Okay, so I've been engaged about 2 1/2 weeks, but I wanted to make sure to tell everyone before they read it on my blog. We're getting married in May (date is still up in the air). I'm so happy and have no doubt at all that he's who I have been looking for my entire life. I'm so in love and cannot wait to be with him for eternity. I'll write details later about how it all came to be, but for now, here's a picture my grandma took of us the other night. Everyone, meet Brandon, my future husband...

More Gushing

One of my friends told me that I gush about B. If you are tired of hearing about how great B is, then stop reading immediately. The other day, I got a home decorating project in my head and at 9:00 at night after we had already been out for the night, B helped me measure and hang and staple and anything else I needed until the project was done. He didn't even complain once about it. By the way, the project turned out GREAT! Then, yesterday, another bouquet of flowers mysteriously showed up on my piano, right below the recently completed project. The saddest part is that I didn't even notice the new flowers. I felt so bad. I'm so spoiled. So happy... Did I mention how cute he is?

Headaches and tattoos

Have you ever felt like something was just off. I don't know what's wrong with me, but I haven't been quite right lately. I'm all achy, I have had a headache for 4 or 5 days, and I'm so tired all the time. It's not a lack of sleep and I'm eating healthier than I was. Shouldn't I feel better? I don't think I'm getting sick because I don't have any sick symptoms. I wish I would feel better because everything seems harder to accomplish lately.

On a different note, I'm willingly letting a woman run a needle along my eyelids for an hour or two tonight. About 6 weeks ago, I got permanent (aka tattooed) eyeliner. It was the most painful thing I've ever experienced. Apparently it takes two visits to really complete. I can't believe I'm going back for more! What am I thinking? Although, I love having it. It means that when I wake up in the morning or just get out of the shower or pool, my eyes are defined and I don't look sick. Also, my eyeliner doesn't wear off by the end of the day. Oh, what glory! I guess beauty is pain.

Best Boyfriend Ever!

I am so lucky! B is so good to me. For Valentine's Day, he had a huge bouquet of roses delivered to me at work and then cooked me dinner that night. It was perfect. Last week, he noticed that I was frustrated when I was cooking because I don't have any good pans, so a couple days later he showed up at my house with a really nice set of pans. This weekend I was struggling and somewhat emotional. Even when others may have thought I was being crazy, he just loved me and was so patient. Plus, he came to my house on Saturday and mowed and weeded my backyard and cleaned my garage. Yesterday, he brought me a book about how to fix my car (he said mostly for him), a gas can for my lawn mower with stuff written all over it about how hot I am, some Stargazer Lilies (I'm running out of places to put flowers), and a Costco card (he added me to his membership). He's wonderful and I'm in love!

Beehives

In my church, we all have what are called "callings." Basically, a calling is the job you are assigned to do in the church, which could be anything from the librarian, to the greeter, to the organ player, to a Sunday School teacher, to the Bishop. You don't get to choose the calling. Instead, the Bishop and his counselors "call" you (with inspiration from God) to a calling. So, after that lenghty explanation, I got a calling today. I've been called to be a Beehive Advisor. Beehive is another name for 12 & 13 year old girls.

What that means is that I teach a lesson on a couple Sundays a month and I attend weekly activities and just generally help out. It also means that I have 13 girls to love now. I'm so excited. They are excited and full of life, and yes, even a little obnoxious, but I think I will have the greatest time. I'm excited to get to know all these girls and hopefully to have some impact on their lives. Wish me luck!

The Story of B

Most of you who read this already know the story of B (that is IF anyone reads it anymore). However, I thought I'd write it down for posterity anyway.

Over a year ago, I met OB at church. OB and I became good friends and eventually OB was assigned to be my home teacher (someone assigned to visit you every month to give you a spiritual message and make sure you're doing alright). Well home teachers come in twos and for some reason, OB needed someone to come with him to home teach me so he brought his friend and next door neighbor B. Now I had never met B, but I had heard about him because my friend had a big crush on him and things didn't really go well, so I had heard about what a jerk he was. Anyway, OB and B came home teaching and we had a great time. B was really funny and I think we became friends.

A couple weeks later, my roomate hired OB to do some electrical work for her at our house and B came along to help. That's when B and I started to get to know each other. I told him what a jerk he had been to my friend and he agreed. After that night, the three of us started hanging out more frequently. At some point during all this, B rekindled things with an ex-girlfriend in Utah and had a long-distance relationship going with her. Since she wasn't in Arizona too often, B had a lot of spare time and he and I continued to be friends. He was around last year for all the main events in my life and helped me celebrate. At some point, he got engaged to the Utah girl.

Well, I bought a house in November and B liked to come over and do a lot of home projects for me. We hung out a lot and spent a lot of time together, but we never crossed any friendship lines. My mom and I were going to drive up to Utah for Thanksgiving and B asked if he could hitch a ride to go see his fiance. We had a ton of fun driving up and I remembering giggling a lot. We also had some really good, long talks about life stuff. When we got up to Utah, I dropped him off at his fiance's house for the week.

The day after we got there, B called to tell me that he was headed home because he and his fiance had broken up. My mom's cousin was driving home the next day, so B caught a ride with him.

When I got home from Utah, B kept coming over to help me with house stuff. One night I was tired of doing projects so I just suggested we make a pizza and watch TV. It kind of started with a joke, but B kissed me in the kitchen while we were waiting for the pizza to cook. At first, I just kind of laughed it off and wondered what that was all about, but we ended up kissing again later when we were watching TV (or supposed to be watching TV). After about 3 days of this, I finally asked what he wanted. That night, we decided to start dating and see where it would lead us.

So two months later, things are wonderful. He treats me like a goddess. He makes me feel like the most beautiful amazing woman in the whole world. He makes me laugh every day. My family loves him. He makes me happy.

I'm back

Well I hope I'm back. I will try to be back. There is just so much that happens, that it's hard to find the time to get it all down. I'll try and give a quick timeline of the last few months.

11/03/06 - Closed on my house and moved in! Yay!
11/04/06- Had the first floor of my house painted. My great room is blue and my kitchen is orange. I'll post pictures soon.
November - Worked on various house projects like unpacking, taking down wallpaper, painting, putting up shelves, seeding the backyard, fixing sprinkler system, general decorating, etc.
11/18/06- Left for Utah for a week for Thanksgiving. Spent part of the week in Idaho visiting my sister.
11/25/06- Get bad news from work. My firm isn't doing well financially and a rumor starts that attorneys are no longer getting paid. Stress!
12/04/06- Got myself a boyfriend!
12/15/06- My last day of work at the law firm.
12/18/06- Start preparing to open a new law firm with another attorney from the old one.
12/21/06- New law firm opens up with my name on it.
Christmas - Christmas Eve and Christmas were wonderful!
New Years - Had friends over and got a great New Year's kiss! Lots of fun.
January- Working hard to get the new law firm going strong. Got a niece and lost a great-grandma on the same day. Was the organist at two funerals in one week. Trip to Utah for one of the funerals. Hired and fired an office manager at the new firm. Hired a much better office manager. My dad got bucked off a horse and landed himself in the hospital. He broke seven processes on his spine and fractured his sternum. Ouch! Apparently he thinks he's a cowboy.

Today is the first day of February. Things are great. I have the world's most wonderful boyfriend with whom I'm madly in love. The new firm finally seems to be running smoothly. I still love my house. What more could I want? I am a happy girl.