20? weird.

I'm always the last of my friends to turn a certain age. Hence why I have not been able to go out with any of them on their 21st. The benefit to that, however, is that ALL of them get to come out with me on mine, strategic, I know :)

So last summer I welcomed in my last year as a teenager with my very best girlfriends with a Freaks and Geeks party. Everyone dressed up AWESOME. We had characters such as:


Followed by these hooligans:


In a nut shell it was so much fun being our inner goof balls and dancing the night away. I'm truly blessed with the best friends, ever. But this year will be slightly different. Courtney will be in Hawaii....so we are going to have to replace her with a cardboard cutout. And Lance will be home!! So I think that I'm bringing in my first year that doesn't end in "teen" we should be sophisticated. Maybe a black tie affair? Maybe everyone dresses like they are from the 20's? Or maybe we'll be low key and go out to dinner. Either way, I will be spending it with my very best friends and for that I am forever grateful :)

And it begins!

We put our deposit down on our venue Monday night. Let's just say I was like a kid in a candy shop, all wide eyed staring at all the beauty that was now going to be ours...well for a day. We are getting married at The Vue, it's close to home, relatively inexpensive compared to other places, and fits us perfectly. Finally booking it made everything seem so real and we may have finally chosen our colors! Hopefully. It is simple, but elegant, classy, but homey, modern, but we'll add some classic touches. I've been planning forever, but now it's so real :)

A Love Like That...

Out of all the mushy gushy posts I've ever written I believe this will be the very most mushy and it begins like this...The summer of 2008 my parents, sisters, and I caravan ed up to Squim Washington, never heard of it? Neither had I, it's a very small town about 6 hours from Albany...give or take. Anyways it was for our first family reunion/ 60th wedding anniversary for my great grandparents. Yes my fantastic Grannie Annie and Granddad had been together for 60 wonderful, beautiful, inspiring years. If you had ever seen these two together you knew instantly that when you found the one who you were going to spend the rest of your life with you wanted to be lucky enough to be just half as happily married as they were. They had a spark that had somehow had grown brighter and bigger through every year they are together. When they look at each other you can just tell that they are head over heels for each other. They raised a beautiful family and have gone on to live side by side with great devotion to themselves and God.

A little over a year and a half ago my Grannie Annie was diagnosed with cancer and my Granddad was glued to her side. We all believed that she fought it off by the help of his love and the big guy upstairs. My Grannie Annie is such a strong woman, for goodness sakes she raised a family of 7 kids, 6 of which being girls! Sadly though she relapsed about six months ago and has been fighting strong ever since. My Granddad was just taken to the hospital last Monday after a heart attack. He isn't doing as well as we all had hoped but we know he is such a strong fighter. They are in our prayers every night and each day he's holding on just a little bit more.

Now the point of this whole post is to explain how lucky we all have been to have such wonderful life examples. My great grandparents are two selfless, independent, devoted, loving people in the whole entire world. By witnessing their wonderful life thus far I'm inspired to carry on the fantastic traits that they have passed on to our family. They granted me to ability to love, deeply, with all of my heart and I intend to devote that to Lance. He is the one that I look at every day and feel the spark get bigger and brighter. Without saying a single word, he understands me, with great patience, he teaches me, and with great devotion he loves me. I want to thank my Granddad and Grannie Annie for teaching me some of the most important life lessons, to love, to inspire, and to simply be you, in the best way possible.