A Wonderful Whirlwind

What a crazy, wonderful whirlwind these past two weeks have been.  

 

At our rehearsal dinner, I had arranged a surprise for *B*.  One of his best childhood friends, Crystal, is eight months pregnant and living in Montana.  Her brother, *B*'s very best friend, is deployed with the Navy.  *B* was disappointed, but he understood that neither could make the wedding.  Little did he know, Crystal and I planned to fly her up the night before the wedding.  We had a lovely rehearsal and went to a small nearby pizza place for a rehearsal dinner.  

 

 

Me and *B* at the rehearsal dinner

 

  My best friend (and maid-of-honor) and me at the rehearsal dinner

 

My brother, who was picking my grandmother up after her plane came in anyway, got both my grandmother and Crystal.  We were all sitting down when Crystal walked in.  *B* didn't even recognize her!  I had to point her out three or four times.  When he did realize, though, he was so overjoyed.  I love this picture:

Crystal and *B* after he figured it out

Though he didn't get a lot of time to spend with her, he hung out with her the night before the wedding.  She flew home two days before her no-fly date.  Now we're just waiting for that baby!

The wedding was gorgeous.  A few things did go wrong (like when our nephew smashed his hand under a kneeler and no one took him outside) but overall it was great.

The baby pre-wedding

Our bouquets in the choral loft, where we sat before walking down the aisle

My parents helping *B* get ready

 

 My mom and my mother-in-law joking about how my MIL 

tripped up the stairs when going to light the unity candle

*B*'s face when he saw me for the first time


Exchanging our vows

Me and my mother-in-law during the sign of peace

Our receiving line - *B*'s best friend was there in spirit (and picture form)

My favorite picture so far (at least until we get the photographer's pictures)

Our rings

Our gorgeous and tasty cake

Cutting said cake

My closest friends from my high school graduating class

 The gorgeous red velvet capelet that my mother made for me so I wouldn't get cold

After the reception, we went out with some of the bridal party in Baltimore City to a pub.  We had a room overlooking the Inner Harbor with a gorgeous view.  The concierge saw that we checked in with our wedding attire on, and they sent up complimentary champagne and strawberries.  How nice!

The very next morning, we flew to Miami, FL and cruised from there to Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Belize, and Isla Roatan.  I have limited pictures of the honeymoon because we switched off whose camera we used.  I will post others when I can copy them from my husband. hee hee :o)  He has the pictures from Grand Cayman and Cozumel.

So I start in Belize.  We woke up early just to watch the sunrise off the back of the ship.  Isn't it gorgeous?

We took a two-hour bus ride through the marshes and mangroves just outside of Belize City and into the mountains further in the countryside in order to visit the Mayan ruins of Xunantunich (shoe-nan-tun-itch).  I love the houses in Belize.  Though they are rudimentary in many cases, the people look so happy with what they had.

 A typical Belizian house

 

 Crossing a river on a hand-cranked ferry to get to the ruins

So, funny story.  I'm the one who originally really wanted to go to these ruins.  I wanted to climb these ruins.  One small problem - I'm deathly afraid of heights.  On the way up, I was looking at the rocks in front of me.  It didn't even occur to me that I was going up, or that there were no railings (though railings don't usually calm me down anyway).  So I got to the top, and I managed to take these two pictures:

 *B* on the edge of the ruins (those whitish specks on the grass are people)

The surrounding grounds and other buildings (again, specks = people)

*B*'s camera has all of the other pictures, the gorgeous scenery, the ruins themselves, me clinging to the walls.  The reason that I only took these two pictures is that right after I took them, I started crying and hyperventilating.  What was I thinking??  I can't even ride in glass elevators without freaking out.  And I'm standing on top of an 850 foot tall building with no railings or protection from falling.

In the end, a very nice British couple and our awesome tour guide, not to mention my husband hee hee :o) helped me down the ruins.  They helped me sit down and slowly inch to the stairs, which were one brick's width from oblivion.  I wish I had pictures of it, but my fingers were digging into every single little fingerhold I could find.  When it was all over, I was - and am - glad we did it.  But you can't pay me to go up to the very top again.

The next day was much more subdued, though not without surprises.  We went to Isla Roatan, which is part of Honduras.  We booked an excursion to kayak in a clear bottom kayak, snorkel, and meet animals. 

What they called kayaking was really more like shallow canoeing.  *B* and I were in a boat together.  But apparently we misunderstood what they meant when they gave directions, and we took on water.  We missed almost all there was to see in the kayaking portion.

I'm not the world's strongest swimmer, but I made it through the snorkeling alright.  We got to see tons of coral and fish.  It was amazing.  I'll post pictures of the first two legs of the excursion as soon as we get our waterproof cameras developed. 

The third portion involved walking through a "park."  When I think park, I think nature reserve.  This was like a mini-resort with animals on the grounds.  They were cute nonetheless.  *B* wore a towel as our clothes were all sandy after the beach activities.  A monkey crawled right into his towel!  Eventually, it turned around to settle in, and I was able to get this quick snapshot:

 *B* and the Capuchin monkey

 A beautiful scarlet macaw in the trees

 A good picture of us on the third deck of the ship while still in port

 Since it was Christmas Eve, the dock workers sent us off in style :o)

We went to a prayer service at midnight on Christmas Eve.  The next day, we wore Christmas attire all day long.  We drew quite a few stares and amused looks.

 My Christmas outfit - not so unusual

*B*'s Christmas outfit - it fits his personality, and everyone loved it

My two weeks in a nutshell.  It was really great to have time to ourselves.  It's amazing though.  I always thought that nothing would change before and after the 18th, other than my name and demographic information.  It took a few days to get acclimated with our new roles in our relationship.  Everything has settled into a new, but pleasant groove - and I cannot be happier.

Wedding Bells

Two more days left!  Wedding bells will chime on Saturday, then off to our honeymoon on Sunday for a whole week.

And when I get back, a highly anticipated (by me) and welcome (by you) change in frequency and topic of postings.  Hang in there, and have a Merry Christmas!

http://www.pdphoto.org/PictureDetail.php?mat=&pg=7857

It's Been a While

I assumed that as I got closer to the wedding, I'd be posting more.  Boy, am I wrong.  There are not enough hours in the day for all that still needs to be done.

Last night, I had a mini-crisis.  I had been trying to get a hold of our DJ for a long time.  In our contract, it said we were supposed to have a consultation 2-3 months ahead of time, but I never got a call.  So I emailed him.  Then, after a week with no response, I called and left a message.  By the time last night came around, I was a bit panicked.  I called one of my bridesmaids who has an awesome (though I'm sure very expensive) DJ.  She gmail chatted him, and he knows my DJ.  I don't know if she did something or if everything fell together, but his company called me twice today and emailed me.  I was able to cover all of the things that were making me worried (particularly pronunciation of names).  At least that got done.

Tomorrow, I am proctoring the ACTs and I have to talk to the reception place to get table counts.  Sunday, the cat we've been taking care of for two months will be going home.  On the 12th, I teach, and on the 13th, the students start their exams.  On the 14th, my future sister- and brother-in-law and nephew fly in.  On the 15th, my maid-of-honor flies in.  We have to figure out if we have enough decorations and get together last minute things.  On the 16th, I have to clean the church and (if I remember correctly) it is the day of my bachelorette party.  The 17th is the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner.  On the 18th, I get married.  Holy cow.  The day is almost here!

Time is Flying

Today, I turn twenty-five years old.  I can't believe it.  Though my life is not exactly what I imagined at 15 (it was an unrealistic expectation that required mutually exclusive scenarios), I'm very happy with where I am.  I have a wonderful fiance, a house, two cats, a family who loves me, and caring friends.  There's not a whole lot more I could ask for at this point in my life.

As fast as the years fly by, the days are going even faster.  I am getting married in 19 days.  I still have a fair amount to do.  I still have to:

• clean up the house
• decorate for Christmas
• buy and wrap bridal party gifts
• buy and wrap Christmas gifts
• send thank you cards
• call the lady about making a quilt from my dress
• tag and tie wedding favors
• give a final count to the reception place
• call/email DJ and photographer
• call the church's coordinator to make sure we can fit a unity candle in the ceremony
• clean the church the week of the wedding
• figure out how to keep people from seeing me before I walk down the aisle
• pick up my dress
• pick up the flowers
• breathe

We're coming down to the wire!

BUSY!

So much has happened in such a short time!  On Saturday, I had a lovely little bridal shower.  Though it was a small affair, there were gorgeous decorations.  We had games, and my mom made an amazing cake.  As soon as I get the recipe out of her, I'll do a post on it.

On Sunday, I got gorgeous flowers and breakfast in bed courtesy of *B*.  It had been a while since he had gotten me flowers, and I was dead to the world that morning, so he slunk (slinked?  slank?) away and went out to Safeway.

Yesterday, my dad came over to show me how to make steak subs and help with wedding favors.  The subs were so good that I didn't get any pictures.  But trust me, yum.  Here's what I gleaned from yesterday:

Dad's Steak Subs
Slice a large onion into slices that can be broken into rings, but don't separate.  Heat up enough vegetable oil to coat a skillet.  Place the onion in and use a couple of splashes of Worcestershire sauce on each slice.  When starting to turn translucent, break up the rings, but do not slice them.  Remove from pan when brown, and do not let any piece remain.

While making onions, empty canned mushrooms into a saucepan with some seasoned salt and butter.  Keep them warm and stirred.

In the grease, put two sets of steakums.  Sprinkle them with a little salt and crushed red pepper.  Place them on paper towels to drain.  Cook two sets per sub.

In the leftover grease, squirt a large amount of ketchup and a few splashes of Tabasco sauce.  Stir in the grease and flavor bits.  Add more ketchup or Tabasco if needed.

On a cookie pan, place hoagie rolls.  Paint the sauce onto the insides of the rolls.  Layer the two sets of steakums lengthwise.  Put onions and mushrooms in, and cover with mozzarella cheese.  Bake at 350 until the cheese is melted.

Swoon.  Enjoy.  Leave no trace behind.

The wedding favors turned out terrifically.  Of these, I do have pictures.  We made three types: 

 chocolate chip

 oatmeal raisin

  super chunk

 They're so pretty!

*B*'s mom, my dad, and one of my bridesmaids came over to help stuff jars.  It only took 2 hours tops for almost 70 jars!

So many jars!!

A Special Simple Pleasure Thursday

In one month, I will be a married lady.  I have absolutely no jitters.  My feet are toasty warm thank-you-very-much.  As I sit here, sick as a dog for the third time this year, I realize for the umpteenth time that I have an amazing fiance.  He brings me blankets and wraps me up mummy-style.  He runs to get the thermometer even though he was just upstairs a second ago.  Every morning, even when I'm all sick and nasty, I get a kiss and "I love you" before he leaves for work, though often times I'm out cold.

*B* is the most gentle guy I know.  I've never seen him demean anyone, though he does make fun of his mom.  If you knew her, you'd understand why this isn't a bad thing.  He laughs at my jokes (and his own, amusingly enough).  He loves animals, sometimes more than humans.  He wants to make the world a better place even though it means meatless nights and scary lentil dishes.

He does his share of his housework (and often more).  I throw the laundry down the basement steps, and magically the clothes end up clean in a laundry basket waiting for me to fold and hang them.  He clears my "nucleation sites" (for non-geeks, that's the few dirty dishes in the sink after breakfast or dessert that cause a chain reaction of dirty dishes to appear all over my kitchen).

My simple pleasure today is having a mere month left until the beginning of an awesome marriage - and not being afraid of it.

Stress, Sadness, and Sleep

Yesterday was two months until my wedding.  That, in and of itself, is a good thing I think.  Despite the stress and frustration, I am looking forward to it as one would expect. 

Yesterday evening, though, we got some bad news.  My future brother-in-law might be my former future brother-in-law before we even get married.  He and *B*'s sister, who have been having problems since their son was born, are actually talking about splitting up.  She wrote me to tell me he probably wouldn't be coming.

This is not good on three levels.  One, we really like him and don't want him to go.  He's a great guy and an awesome dad.  Two, we feel bad for their son.  She's American, he's British, and their son was born in Germany.  The boy will have serious custody-related problems and either travel back and forth between the continents his whole life or miss one parent for long periods of time.  Three, BIL was to be in our wedding.  Not just because he's the husband of *B*'s sister, but because we genuinely wanted him there.  So not only will we miss him, we'll be uneven.  Since *B* doesn't have many close male friends, it's not like we could replace him.

Given that this happened just before bedtime, I had dreams about it all night.  In my dreams, no one was really doing anything for the wedding.  *B* and other people in it were just sitting around in a random room.  My dad was in street clothes.  And to top it off, the priest skipped out, so we couldn't even get married.  We couldn't get a refund on our honeymoon, so we had to go unmarried or do a quickie wedding, which was not at all the kind of person I am.  It was a complete disaster in every since of the word.  This is my second wedding dream, though probably not the last.  At least they're dreams about the ceremony going wrong, not about *B* being the wrong guy :o)

And Breathe...

I'm doing much better now.  I did quit my job, so I'll have my last day this Wednesday.  That takes a lot off my mind.  My dress fitting was today, and everything will work out just fine.  She's taking two inches of material out of the back.  And I was worried it wouldn't fit!  Updated photos with my veil and all:

That's with everything but my necklace - shoes, unders, and all.  Not half bad if I do say so myself :o)  The day is coming soon.  I've got two months and eight days to go.  I know it's going to fly by.

Tomorrow is the florist, the last thing I'll have to do for the wedding for another month or so.  Finally, a break!

Sheer Exhaustion

I've almost hit the wall.  I'm so very tired.  In order to pay for the wedding, I'm working extra time.  I go to school 7:30-3:30.  Then twice a week, I work at a learning center sort of like Sylvan.  Beyond that, my whole weekend is taken up (besides working) with wedding obligations, family obligations, and renn fest.  Yes, they should be happy things, but really they're too much.

On top of all of this, my mom is chiding me for not losing more weight for the wedding.  I understand why she does it, but it's more stress than I need right now.  I have a really hard time losing weight, but I don't have energy to go to the gym.  I tend to get home and eat whatever I can scrounge up, which is never very healthy.  I really don't know how to fix it.  For a while I had resigned myself to this is how I am, but now that my mom's been pushing again, my anxiety has wound itself back up.

Though I had been doing so well on my housekeeping, it's all gone by the wayside.  There are dishes in the sink, papers on the floor, and laundry waiting to be done.  For a while, I at least had the bed made every morning.  Now the bed is sitting all messed up.

Last night, though, I didn't even go to bed.  I slept on the couch.  I don't know why, I just did not want to go up to bed.  No matter what I did, I could not be happy.  I've definitely had a backslide on the therapy-free road.  I'm going to try to tough it out a bit before I go running back.

Bad Decision?

I sent out the wedding invitations on Tuesday.  We're almost there!  As the wedding is drawing near, I'm starting to question an early decision we made.

When we first discussed wedding plans, we decided not to register.  I've been on my own for three years, *B* on his own (well, with me) for two plus years, and between the two of us, we have all of the necessities for a home.  It made sense then not to register.  In not registering, we were hoping to avoid that awkward "are we asking for something too nice or something too trivial" debate.  There are things I would like that are too much and somewhat unnecessary (Lenox Bellina China - I can't get enough of it), and some things that are practical but seem inappropriate (I'd love better shelves in our pantry).  Now that my grandparents and aunt are starting to ask about gifts, I'm starting to regret our decision.  Instead of having that worry once, we (I) now worry every time someone asks for gift ideas. And now that we're 84 days out (according to theknot.com), it seems to close to the date to register.

Another of the unending, untold downsides of being cohabitators...

New Week, Fresh Start

We are at the beginning of a brand new week, and it feels good. 

Spiritual - Today, *B* and I went to church, and discussed Mass afterward at breakfast.  I really enjoyed teaching him about the things that Catholics do and do not believe.  Think of it as the religious version of Mythbusters.

Wedding - We stopped by my grandparents' house and borrowed a longer chain for the necklace I'll wear for my wedding.  All of the invitations are addressed (minus five for whom we don't yet have addresses).  I have the materials to finish putting the invitations together.  They should be assembled next weekend.  We bought a card box, and a blue garter (woo hoo!).

Housekeeping - For the last few weeks, we've been really behind on laundry.  I mean REALLY behind.  When *B* did laundry, it got tossed on our bedroom floor because we didn't have any more baskets, and neither of us had a neither of us had enough time to put it away.  Clean got mixed in with dirty, and it was a giant mess.  We rolled the whole lot of it down two flights of stairs.  We're two loads into it, and all of it is put away.  We can actually see carpet again!

I'm now off to make zucchini bread for my department as a Monday morning treat.  I hope your week goes as well as mine will!

It's Here!

It's finally here.  I've been waiting about 2 months for this day.  I have my dress!

This is the front.  I'm apparently not allowed to hold my cats in the next three and a half months, as evidenced by a large cat scratch on my chest.

And this is the back.  It's wrinkled, but I was told the seamstress could steam it out.  I bought the dress a size too small in June, and I vowed to get into it.  The dress is now too big!  And I have only lost 5 lbs.  I had lost more, but Indiana killed me.

For the wedding, I'm fairly certain my hair will be in some form of french twist concoction.  I also have a lovely veil, not pictured here.

Left to do to look good in my wedding dress: get skin under control, work out more (arms and neck are trouble spots), and get a longer chain for the gorgeous snowflake necklace my mother bought me.

112 days and counting!

Back to School

Tomorrow is my first day back to work.  Summer has absolutely flown by.  I know that once school starts, the wedding will be on top of me before I know it.  I tried to get everything done this summer that I could.  Between working my full time teaching job (though before the kids come), working my night time tutoring job (my last week), and driving for 24 hours in a three day time frame for a friend's wedding this weekend, I'm so nervous for just this week!  I know I'll survive, but how will I do it!?  I need to focus in, one day at a time, and just hope for the best.  It doesn't help that I've had a sudden attack of super low self-esteem.  I just keep telling myself that I will look fine at the wedding.  In two weeks, I've lost just over 5 lbs - a very healthy loss.  Four months ~ 16 weeks ~ 20 pound loss possible.  We shall see.

Breathe...

It's Been a While

Who would have thought that I'd blog less when I'm off of work in the summer?

I guess it's just that I'm not sure if I have anything to say that's any different than the last few things I've said.  Bearing that in mind, an update:


~The garden is doing fairly well.  We have a rather large crop of tomatoes right now.  The little lovely yellow squash that I was not talking about shriveled up and died before its time.  I'm now not talking about another friend of the yellow squash on a different plant.  We'll see what happens to him.

~I'm excited that I finally picked a wedding present from my grandmother.  She had been somewhat badgering me to give her an idea for a gift that 25 years later we'll still have and remember they gave it to us.  She's going to have my wedding dress made into a quilt for me.  I've wanted to do this for a while, but I wouldn't be able to afford it - even after the wedding.  It seems like the perfect gift idea to me.  And better yet, she liked the idea, too.

~*B* and I merged our finances a few weeks ago.  I thought it would make life a tad more difficult, but shocker, it actually made saving SO much easier.  We had had a hard time keeping savings for the wedding.  Our last prevailing thought was that we'd put expenses on my credit card and immediately pay it off so that we could get the rewards benefits.  But that means that all savings went directly to immediate purchases (my dress) and not long term expenses (the catering).  I am pleased to say that we have saved above and beyond the cost of our wedding!  Better than that, we have a great system in place for our married (financial) life ahead of us.  My insurance agent is also a licensed financial planner, and he helped us set it up for free.

Each of us have our own checking/savings account for personal things - hair cuts, food out, birthday gifts, etc.  We then have a joint checking/savings/money market account.  Our paychecks are direct deposited into the joint savings account.  We then transfer the money needed to pay bills into the checking account.  This means that anything we have left at the end of the month doesn't get used on something frivolous, it stockpiles in the savings account.  The money market account is currently used for wedding related savings, but in the future it will be for big items, like a roof, a nice vacation, or car troubles.  This is where we can put away our emergency savings. 

~We finally were able to take our FOCCUS test.  This is a test that the Catholic church has couples take in order to determine what things need to be discussed before the wedding.  It's 180 questions, and topics include religion, work distribution, sex, abuse, marriage readiness, finances, and others.  While I am pleased to say that most of it we had already discussed in great detail, there were a few issues whose absence in our conversations became apparent.  Number one of my list is the role of religion in our lives.  *B* and I have been going to church for probably a month now.  This is the longest stretch that I've gone to church probably since I was 6.  I might have gone this long once when I was about 14.  And I know for a fact that *B* has never been to church this much in his whole life.  He says he likes going to church, and I believe him, but I fear ending up like my family, where my mom took us to church while my dad stayed home.  Even as a young child, I knew that my dad thought church was ridiculous, and it was really hard to reconcile the two beliefs in one household.  However it ends up, I want *B* and I to provide a united front to our children.


I think that about sums everything up.  I go back to work next Monday, so hopefully I'll find much more to say in the coming weeks.

Freaking Out a Tad

There are 4 months and 13 days until I get married.  My dress ships on August 13th, which means I should get it before August 20th.  When I bought my dress, I bought it one size smaller than I was, and I had never seen it in claret, just in navy.  I'm not so much worried about the size (they said they can alter up to one size either side of the actual size), but I'm nervous about the color.  What if it looks odd with my skin tone?  Though I have color swatches from the dressmaker, what if it ends up looking more pink than dark red (like it does online)?  These what if's will kill me.

Finances seemed to have worked themselves out.  I suppose it was working two jobs this summer that did it.  Either way, I'm actually not so worried about paying for things - as long as our parents help us like they said they would.  If they don't, then I'll keep my second job longer.

I am concerned, however, about how many people will come.  We have to have (or at least pay for) 100 people in order to keep the whole restaurant to ourselves.  We have invited 108 people, knowing that 70 people are likely to come and 38 are iffy.  We didn't include "and guest" in either number though, so we might make 100.  If we don't, we're paying ~$900 for people that won't be there.  But then again, I don't want to lose the whole restaurant, because it might be weird to have total strangers at our reception.  But, it's $900.  I don't know!

*B* and I started dieting together this week, which has led to an initial five pound loss on my end of things.  Yes, it's probably water weight, but I'll take it at this point.  I had bounced within a two pound range for a long time.  This new program should also help with the dress fitting.  I don't have to start with alterations until the end of October, so I have some time.

Ugh.  I had heard that weddings were stressful, but I never believed it until now!

Marriage Preparations

On Saturday afternoon, we had our reception planning.  We're going with - shocker - Christmas themed food considering we won't be home for Christmas this year.  We're having roast turkey breast, mashed potatoes, root veggies, cranberry chutney - yummm!  This will be tasty!  The cake needs to be worked on, because I hadn't even given it any thought.  What kind of cake should we get?  We were thinking a chocolate first layer, a lemon second layer, and a vanilla/chocolate third layer.  I have some work to do.  Well, more work to do - the invitations came in (correctly!) on Friday.  I will be addressing for weeks!

On Saturday night, we met with our sponsor couple.  They're very nice people from the parish in which we are getting married.  We really did enjoy spending time with them.  They have three children - 14, 11, and 9 I believe - so they're a bit older than we.  We did some exercises on how well we know each other and ourselves and exercises on our respective backgrounds.  Soon, we will be taking a "test" to see which areas we should focus on discussing and working through as a couple.  I'm very happy that we are working on our marriage before anything happens, rather than controlling damage afterward.

On Sunday, we went to Mass.  The husband in our sponsor couple had mentioned that he was going to 8:30 mass that day, so we decided to check it out.  *B* even gave me breakfast in bed/on-the-couch-where-I-fell-asleep.  We made it there just in time, even though I was sure we'd be late.  It was much better than the last two Masses I had been to.  I'm thinking that I'm really making some breakthroughs here.  I could really see us going to Mass there from now on.

Simple Pleasure Thurs- errr, Friday - err, Monday?

Oops!  I meant to post yesterday, Friday, but my simple pleasure is exactly the reason I didn't post.  My simple pleasure is reconnecting with my fiancé.

Our first and only real argument, though we never raised voices, was a few weeks ago.  Father's Day to be precise.  We had gone to Mass in a neighboring parish.  I had meant to go many times, but I never got to it.  It was right after Camden, and I had felt really connected to religion for the first time in a while.  The Mass was awful.  Really awful.  I hated it.  But I knew that it was the priest, not the Church, that I was unhappy with.  So on the ride from the church to *B*'s parent's house, we discussed religion.

*B* wasn't raised with any religious education or association.  He had only been to a Bible camp with friends once, and they told him he and his family were going to Hell.  Most recently, he had been exploring non-Christian religious ideas.  I wasn't thrilled with it, but considered it harmless.

When we decided to get married in the Catholic church, we knew we had to answer affirmatively to three questions:

• Have you come here freely and without reservation to give yourselves to each other in marriage?
  
• Will you love and honor each other as husband and wife for the rest of your lives?
  
• Will you accept children lovingly from God, and bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?
  
  

When the priest had first told us these questions, he put the third one as "will you expose your children to the law of Christ and his Church?"  *B* was okay with that.  When the priest at the Father's Day mass reiterated the question as posed above, *B* started to get worried.

So anyhoo, the whole way to his parents' house, we talked about religion.  Since his awful experience with Christians (of some Protestant denomination), he was very leery.  To be fair, I was inordinately dismissive of his current beliefs.  Either way, I felt so cut off from him.

Last night, we went out to dinner.  We had been having a good conversation, so rather than going home, we went for a drive.  We got back on the subject of religion, but in a much better way.  I asked him what he actually believes (because even though you categorize yourself, no one believes all of what their religion says 100%).  The things he identified were not mutually exclusive from Christianity, and forms of it are actually present within Christian teachings.  We talked about how unlikely it was that some dude died for something he something he did wrong, even though he hasn't done anything.  We talked about taking the Bible literally versus investigating the metaphors behind the passages.  Then, we got home and picked out the readings for our wedding.  I haven't felt so connected to him in a long time, and I certainly haven't felt connected to him in that context.

Wedding Drama

Oy vey!  Things have been crazy around here.  As far as the wedding goes, everything has been planned for a while.  We've just been waiting and paying things off little by little.  Unlike many people these days, I refuse to take out a loan for my wedding.  That's just crazy.

So anyhoo, I finally got around to ordering our invitations.  They're so pretty!

 

I originially found them at Papyrus for $500+.  I almost died and resigned myself to hand-making my invitations.  Then, I found a website that sold them for more than half off.  That I could deal with.  So yesterday, I bit the bullet and ordered the invitations.  *B* and I worked together to come up with wording and everything.  

Here's where it got ugly.  We decided we didn't want any kind of a quote on the bottom, so we selected the option "no quote desired".  It turns out we were supposed to delete those words before ordering.  I missed that tiny little direction.  It now appears that "no quote desired" will be on the bottom of my invitation!  I emailed the company twice (two different email addresses) within 15 minutes of ordering.  I am praying and hoping that they can fix it before printing.  Otherwise, I have to pay to have them reprinted.

Simple Pleasure Thursday

My simple pleasure for today is the first day of summer vacation!

Today was my first day off. I treasured it, because it's one of the very few I have this year. If you were around last year, I had off all summer because I took three certification classes and spent nearly all my time working on getting us a house. This year, I don't have anymore certification classes, and I have a large expense looming at the end of the year. I have three jobs this summer - a one-week service trip, a morning camp working with arts and crafts, and an evening job teaching kids one-on-one. I will be one busy chiquita!

Today, I got to spend time with my best friend from Oklahoma, who is planning my bridal shower and bachelorette party for this fall. I'm so excited! We gushed about our respective wedding plans, took her 18 month old niece to lunch and Ikea. It was really great to see them. She's been on (roughly) the same cruise I'm going on, so she was able to give great insight.

What Do They All Have in Common?

What do all of these pictures have in common?

GoCentralAmerica

www.top-things-to-do.com

www.caribbeancruiselinedestinations.com

CaribbeanVacationGuide.com

They're pictures of where we'll be for our honeymoon in December!!! We had originally decided to go to New York City. We figured it's Christmas-y. Then, after careful consideration, we realized it will be packed, and that it'd be really nice to go somewhere warm. We just blipped into a travel agency "just to see" what they had to offer. Long story short, we're going on a 7 day cruise to the western Caribbean. We'll be going from Miami to Grand Cayman, to Isla Roatan, to Belize, to Cozumel, Mexico, back to Miami. I'm so excited!!!

The hard part will be paying for excursions. I didn't realize you had to pay for EVERYTHING (including beach access!) on the islands. Crazy, eh? I'll have three different jobs this summer, while getting paid from my school job, so I'm really hoping to be able to save up quite a bit.

Any tips, advice, etc on honeymooning in the Caribbean or cruises in general?