Congratulations!

A very dear friend from high school (and a bridesmaid in my wedding) Melanie Mims and her fiance Will Curtis.

Another precious friend from high school, Lauren Pond- otherwise known as "Rena P" (but only to me!) and her fiance Joshua Littlefield.

A Tri-Delta sorority sister at Tech, and one of the sweetest people I know, Lauren Savard and her fiance Jarret Scruggs.

A wonderful friend from high school, Becky is not only a blast to hang around but incredibly ambitious and successful- Becky James and her fiance Matt.

I am so excited! I have so many friends who are recently engaged and are about to get married! There was a big rush of gals who got married within that 6 month window after graduating college (that's when Brian and I got married), and now there seems to be another rush of friends who are 3 to 4 years out of school, have lived their lives and found the person they want to marry.

I am so pumped for these friends, and feel like I have so much advice to give them after being married for 4 years (Brian and I celebrate our 4-yr anniversary on Thursday!) It's crazy how much I still don't know and how much I still have to learn about marriage, but I wish I had listened to all that advice that you get right before you get married. "Don't go to bed mad"; "Talk about who's going to handle what within the household"; "Think long and hard about working with your spouse" (oh wait, no one told us about that last one!)

Anyhow, I think all of that advice you get before you get married, you accept with a smile and think in your head "I don't know what this person's talking about, we're never going to fight about THAT." Haha. Don't you wish! But in reality, you will have to learn all those lessons on your own, and no matter what anyone tells you, you have to live it before you can say "You know, I'd probably handle that different if I had the chance again."

This past year has probably been the hardest in our marriage (that's not saying a lot since we've only been married 4 years!) But we've had to deal with things that I never imagined: working together, having my husband be my boss (big one!), being unsure how we were going to pay the store AND the home bills, deaths of some close family friends that affect you more than you ever expected, wanting to start a family and not being able to, going through some pretty big spiritual growth times, moving and trying to decide if Brian should go back in to software. It's a lot to deal with, but you know, I would rather have hard times with Brian than easy times with anyone else. At the end of the day, I just feel SO incredibly lucky that God brought us together, and I'm so excited for my friends who are just starting this journey.

May God bring you as much excitement, joy and laughter as He's brought us. Congratulations!

One Word

I stole this from Jennifer Yeager's blog. Fun little treat for you guys....

1. Where is your cell phone? desk
2. Significant other? Brian
3. Your hair? flat
4. Your mother? beautiful
5. Your father? hilarious
6. Your favorite thing? Brian
7. Your dream last night? unmemorable
8. Your favorite drink? cola
9. Your dream/goal? family
10. Room you're in? store
11. Your hobby? friends
12. Your fear? poverty
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? happy
14. Where were you last night? home
15. What you're not? rich
16. Muffins? blueberry
17. One of your wish list items? baby
18. Where you grew up? Midland
19. What are you wearing? dress
20. Your pets? Goose
21. Your computer? lifeline
22. Your life? blessed
23. Your mood? distracted
24. Missing someone? friends
25. Your car? broken
26. Something you're not wearing? pants
27. Favorite store? loft
28. Your summer? hot
29. Your favorite color? blue
30. Last time you laughed? Monday
31. Last time you cried? Sunday

Your turn...

So Tired....

Well, as I mentioned before, we are moved to Plano. We've spent the week unpacking and trying to maintain normal work hours at the store. We couldn't have done it without Brian's sister, Andrea, being here and helping us out. She packed everything last week while we were working, and unpacked everything this week as we were working.

Some of you may remember me mentioning that in our McKinney house, we had intentionally not unpacked quite a bit of stuff- mostly decorative stuff, books, serving pieces, that sort of thing. (We were planning on only being in the McKinney house for 6 months.) So now, knowing that we'll be in this house for a while, we're trying to get all of that stuff unpacked, and it just keeps coming. We definitely want to have a functional garage this time around, and that's our goal this weekend. We want to get at least one car in the garage.

In order to get all of this stuff unpacked, we've got to get the furniture arranged so we can put the decorative stuff on it, hang pictures, etc. Well, we can put the furniture WE HAVE where it goes, but we're going to have to find some new pieces. For the first time, we have a formal living and dining room, and we literally have NOTHING in it. Nothing. Also, when we were putting the TV on the entertainment center, it cracked through the middle. So now, our TV is on a folding table. Really classy looking, let me tell you... So I'm back to that temporary feeling, because we're going to have to slowly add stuff. (Although if anyone out there has an entertainment center, dining room table or couch they want to give us, we'll take it!!)

On top of all this, Brian and I are both suffering from several strained muscles due to moving WAY to heavy stuff. It's actually pretty humorous to hear us moan and groan... Goose is loving the backyard, though, and we're excited to have some trees and foliage in the back for shade. We'll actually have a place for the BBQ pit now, so get ready for some awesome burgers!! Say prayers for our muscles... More next week...