601.

The wedding invitations are officially in the mail to 601 (yes, you read that correctly) of our nearest and dearest!

I've basically been working on the guest list since the week we got engaged. We decided early on to be inclusive rather than exclusive, which saved some heartache and what would have been many heated debates on the sensitive subject as to who to include or not include in the big day. Hopefully this will not but a ginormous hole in our pockets when it comes to paying for this party (we're hoping that we have overestimated the actual number of attendees in all of our budgeting).

When it came to the design of the invitation (which I'm not posting just yet), I scoured the internet for inspiration and looked at hundreds of fonts. My cousins own a printing company in Lufkin and they very generously gifted their services as a wedding gift, which meant that I not only got to design the invitation from scratch but it was also free! The invitation is very simple, and classic, and I LOVE it.

With 300 invitations, the cost of paying for a professional calligrapher to address the invitations would have been ridiculous. Originally, my brother Brad was going to do the calligraphy (let's just say he's had lots of free time in the past to cultivate his art skills), but decided that his style was just a little.... well, not my style, so I decided to do it myself. I'm estimating that it took close to 30 hours to complete this task. When I first started it seriously took 5 minutes per invitation, but then I got the hang of it and was probably busting invitations out in less than 2 minutes per envelope. I decided to showcase our parents' invites on the tops of the stacks, but they sadly aren't my best work... it took me until about the Gs to really get the hang of the style I was going for.

I enjoyed every single second of the invitation experience and I'm excited for our family and friends to receive them in the mail! Now comes the fun of receiving the response cards!

Happy Love Day!

Couldn't waste the opportunity to show off my favorite Valentine's Madelyn and Jace (don't tell Steven). I just adore the look on Jace's face. Absolutely precious:

It's still pretty difficult for me to get used to the idea of having a Valentine. I think this is like the fourth year, ever. When I was a kid my dad would always send flowers to me at school (pink carnations, my favorite at the time), so I guess I could count those years.

This Valentine's Day I am thankful for so much love in my life: the love of my wonderful fiance, my caring family, all of the super cute kids in my life, and my great friends. An engagement really is a celebration of all of that love, not just the love that two people share, but the love that surrounds them. I am reminded of this almost daily, and for that I am grateful. I'm pretty sure it's what has kept me from slipping into bridezilla mode. Now let's just hope it stays that way!

A not so happy birthday

Today is Steven's birthday. The big 3-9. The last few steps up the hill before he is officially over it next year.

Want to know what he got for his birthday? To spend $1500 on a new water heater and fans to dry out the wet ceiling in the second bathroom. Happy Birthday to him!

It all started this morning when I went into the second bathroom (my bathroom) to take a shower. I stepped on a damp bath mat and thought that was strange since no one had been in the bathroom yet. At that moment I felt a drop of water on my thumb. I looked up and saw water slowly dripping from the ceiling. Uh oh. I immediately alerted Steven to the problem and he went into the attic to inspect.

There was a hole in the bottom of the drip pan and the vent exhaust pipe was not properly installed. On top of that, there was a bad pipe in the water heater which was the main cause for the flood/leak. Luckily the water did not spread beyond the ceiling to the walls, but it was still so wet that the bathroom will have to be dried out with fans for the next two days and the ceiling will have to eventually be replaced (but can wait until after the wedding).

On top of all of that, the new water heter won't fire up so the repairman has had to go get a replacement part. For the NEW water heter.

I think it's possible that I have transferred my bad birthday luck to Steven, since mine tends to always be a disaster... you know, grandmother's dying, mother's being diagnosed with life threatening illness, car needing major repairs, to name a few standouts. Guess it's a good thing he's choosing me for better or worse!

A New Year.

2011 was quite a year. Quite. A. Year. There were extreme highs and some lows. A quick recap:

The good: Got a promotion at work, which included playing a role in passing some pretty major legislation. Received a pretty wonderful surprise proposal from an amazing guy, and said YES! Became a big girl and ended my 12 years of apartment dwelling and moved into a house, which will be our home. Got to watch all of the adorable cuties in my life grow another year older, including a nephew and niece-to-be who enjoyed their first year of life. Enjoyed some fun travels with some fun friends and attended many a fun wedding. Ran my second half marathon, even if it wasn't the prettiest.

The bad: Suffered many an injury this year including: back spasms (and had to come to work anyways), bizarro foot injury, and more than my fair share of running falls that I'm still sporting the scars from. Got tonsilitis, and once again still had to go to work (love Session). Had a flood in my apartment and was homeless for almost 2 weeks. And most recently, suffered the lost of my good friend and mentor, Travis.

To be honest, I didn't even really think about resolutions for this year. We all know that 2012 has lots in store for me already. I am going to make one resolution. I resolve to not let all of the little details that come with planning a wedding take over my life. I will continue to enjoy planning a wedding and will not stress out about the things that are out of my control. I will (try) to not spend too much time on controlling the details I can. I will remained focus on what a wedding is supposed to be: saying "I do" and agreeing to spend the rest of my life with my wonderful guy. Oh, and I guess I will try to blog more. And not always about the wedding.

Tis the Season

I'm not really sure where December went. I still haven't really even started my Christmas shopping, there's nothing like waiting until the last minute!

We did put our tree up right after Thanksgiving. I was really proud of it until we were at my future in-laws this past weekend and saw their magnificent tree. It looked professionally decorated. There was a theme and everything!

I guess I should make a New Year's resolution to blog more.

With Thanksgiving

Well, it's been awhile.... and of course, I'm writing a post about Thanksgiving in December, so I'm obviously behind. November wasn't the easiest of months, so I'm thankful that it's over! There's so much to be thankful for this year!

I'll start off on a bit of a sad note, and the biggest reason why November wasn't easy. It's been a month since one of my best friends and mentors, Travis, died very suddenly of an aortic dissection. He was 32. I first met Travis when I started working at the Capitol. I'm not really sure when our first introduction was, he was just a guy I always knew. During the 2007 Legislative Session we worked some together as my boss was on the committee he was the Committee Clerk for and I was the staff member assigned to follow that committee. Then in the 2009 Session we worked together on the Corrections Committee. We were quite a team! Travis was a pretty passionate guy and we were always baffled as to how we made it through six months of working in such a small space together for such long hours without ever once getting into an argument or disagreement. He taught me so much during that time and I will never be able to thank him enough. Today, and every day, I am thankful for the friend and mentor he was to me. He was my very best friend in the Capitol and I miss him dearly. It's still hard to believe that I won't ever hear him yelling after me in the hallway or enjoy a lunch at Cisco's with him or see his smiling face. I'm thankful for his friendship, one that I will forever cherish. I am also thankful for the friends who were there and have helped me cope with this sudden loss.

I'm thankful for my wonderful fiance. I'm so lucky to have him in my life! It is such a wonderful feeling to know that you have a partner in life: someone to celebrate the triumphs with and to bear the hardships with as well.

I'm thankful for my wonderful family, both current and soon-to-be. We are so blessed to have loving and supportive parents and siblings and some of the cutest nieces and nephew around! Thanksgiving was so much fun because we got to spend time with each of the 8 kiddos that are in our wedding party. I played some quality "Just Dance" on the wii with Brooke, walked sweet Paige around the living room, we took Ella and Eric to see the Muppet Movie, and enjoyed fun time at the lake with Madelyn, Jace, Will (who can say my name now!) and Braxton.

On the wedding planning front: Save the dates have been mailed out! Bridesmaids dresses and flower girl dresses have been picked! We had a successful meet the family fish fry at the lake over Thanksgiving (minus the rain), so Steven's parents and sister's family could meet all of my aunts and uncles and their families. Came home from Thanksgiving to the invitation to our engagement party later this month in Lufkin, so exciting! We're less than 5 months out, people!

Random Observation

I've noticed something recently, and I just wanted to share. Hopefully this doesn't turn into a glass crashing situation for all of you How I Met Your Mother fans.

I'm guessing you've noticed that whenever you see someone and ask "How are you doing", they usually respond with "well" or "good"? Most common answers ever. So no, that's not my observation. My observation is your response. If the person answers "well", you respond with the ever so not grammatically correct "good" when they ask how you are. And if the person answers "good", you respond with "well" when they ask how you are.

You might be asking how in the world I would care to make this observation. It's simple, in my line of work you see lots of people in passing in the halls on a daily basis. People are friendly, so they ask the simple question of "How are you?" Also, whenever my boss' legal assistant calls, we have the exact same exchange every single time. And it never fails, one of us says "good", the other says "well", no matter which the other person says first.

So, there's my random observation. I know it's lame, but thought you might enjoy a non wedding-related post. Though speaking of weddings, I'm going to have to share about my experience at a wedding this past weekend the next time I get around to posting. Oh, the suspense.