Blog 13

Alright. So I'm finding out people actually read this which excites me! And it's good to know it's worth my while. This past Saturday we met with the caterer and took care of all the details that weren't nailed down yet. She has since given us a price on everything. And yes it was more than we had budgeted for, but we figured it'd be over budget and fortunately it wasn't as much over as we thought it could be. And the thing is, Patty is worth every penny so I'm SO excited! I know I probably wont be real hungry when I'm at the reception but I hope I am!!! Because I want to eat it ALL!!!!
Also on Saturday I picked up the Bridesmaid dresses! I went with Deana and she tried hers on, Jessica has since tried hers on and I will take Airika hers when I go to StL next month. Both Deanas and Jessicas dresses were too big on them which makes me kind of upset. When you measure someone shouldn't a dress at least fit a little and not fall off? So they will have to be altered. Ugh. But the dresses are very pretty and the girls look gorgeous in 'em!

Next on the agenda... find some necklaces for the flower girls. Finish the Table Names and make the picture slideshows. Also like I said we are always working to make our house 'purdier' and people seeing it in June is partial motivation (but I for one just love working on my house and decorating). So with our tax return money we are planning on, money permitting, putting a fence along the back of our yard. Right now we have everything but the back because its woods behind our house which is very nice to see. But when you have a mischevious pup its best to close her in completely =) We are also wanting to relandscape a big section in the back. I couldn't figure out last summer how the previous owners had that area, everything grew in all nasty and I couldn't get it to look nice, plus we had a 'mint takeover'. It's indirect sunlight on the Southwest corner of our house. Anyone have plant suggestions?

Oh also I need to start clearing some room for Jake. I've already taken over the 2 master closets, all dresser drawers, made a storage closet in one of the rooms and starting putting clothes in the third bedroom closet. Soooo poor guy needs some space in that house, so I guess I'll see what I can do.

Blog 12

Mill Creek Park

One year ago today I said YES!! At 5:30pm in Mill Creek Park In KC, MO Jake proposed. I typed out the story after we got back to town so here's a little flashback with all the details of the event.... HOW IT HAPPENED We were visiting KC and having dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. It was on the same side of the street as our hotel but Jake suggested walking on the other side of the street on our walk back so we could walk through the park. I thought nothing of it because it sounded nice. While walking through the park we saw a few things. First we saw people feeding the homeless and praying with them, which totally touched our hearts. And then we saw a lady coming towards us on the path but she was walking backwards and didn't see us so we had to walk through the grass to get around her. We had a nice little laugh about that. Then Jake started taking me to look at everything interesting along the path (he was looking for the perfect place to ask) He even took me up to the big sign that lists all the donators. Im glad he didnt do it there! Haha! Then he suggested we walk to the other side of the park. I said "Why? Its out of the way." He said that it looked cool over there. I kept insisting it was silly (mostly because I'm lazy). But the he pointed out a sculpture he wanted to go look at so I said "Fine, lets go" so we cut across the grass and go to the sculpture. We stand there for a second when I say "Lets go on up this path then we'll walk down those stairs over there and cut back across the park" He said it sounded good. Then as we were walking I randomly quoted one of our favorite lines from "Employee of the Month" And he didnt even hear me! I had to repeat myself and even then he didnt seem that amused (he was nervous=) So we walk over onto what I've been calling a balcony that sits above a pretty pond. Then I'm heading for the stairs when he says "Look a crane." I dont know if thats what he actually said and he doesnt even remember but I walked over there expecting to see one of those birds you know... a crane. And then he stops me and says "I Have something I have to confess to you" I laugh a little, because he is the most trustworthy person I've ever met so I know it had to be a joke. He said "Don't laugh this is serious... I lied to you back in November, and I've been lying since. I told you I didn't have something that I did have (ring). And I don't want to lie to you anymore." At this point I don't know if I should be excited or mad so I say "If you're messing with me I'll punch you in the face." And then he puts his hand in this coat pocket and tries to pull it out but he was nervous and his hand was stuck. He finally got it out and I saw a ring!! He said "I love you so much and I know I want to spend the rest of my life with you." He got down on one knee and said "Will you marry me" As he's saying all that I keep saying "Are you serious? Are you serious?" And then when he asks I say "YES!!!" He puts the ring on my finger, I'm overwhelmed by how perfect it is. He gets up we hug, we kiss, we smile. It's amazing.


There you have it, the story. So tonight we are going on a date and I'm excited!!!
Yesterday in the mail I got my "Bride" tank top. I'll wear that the morning of the wedding while I'm getting ready... cheesy or not I've always wanted to do that =)

Blog 11

Woo Hoo! We actually sat down together and got the music all figured out. We have a great list of songs to be playing while people are coming in and sitting down at the ceremony. We have 2 songs picked out for the ceremony. We picked our father daughter, mother son dance songs. And Our first dance song. Oh! and we had to pick out songs to be put into our wedding video so we did that too. I Do Video is who we chose as our videographer and they are great!!! You should check em out. www.idvsite.com
Anyway after all the talk of wedding music, you must know I'm relieved that thats done! Now I just have to download all the songs I dont have and get them onto cds.
So, our new church (Stonebridge) just finished their month long series on Fireproof. It was GREAT. Yesterday the pastor talked about Forgiveness in a way I've never really heard it before. And now Jake and I are planning to attend a "Fireproof" retreat in Branson in mid-march. I'm So excited, its our first Marriage Retreat. So, we love this new church so much already athat we are wanting to see if the pastor will be our wedding officiant. I hope so but I will of course understand if he is unable to.
One year ago tomorrow, Jake and I took a trip to Kansas City, walked through a park and got engaged! So, Jake took the day off work (b/c otherwise we wouldnt be able to celebrate until 830) and we are going to Olive Garden (thank you parents for the gift card!). Engaged for a full year, so you KNOW I'm ready to marry that fella!

This is in our hotel lobby just minutes after he asked me!























We went back the next morning to get pictures where he asked. Thats our hotel in the background.

Blog 10

Here it is!! Do you love it? Only 12.95 with free personalization! I couldn't pass that up! =) I can't wait to use it on our tropical island!

Blog 9

Blogs can get pretty boring without pictures so I'm going to try and start adding some. First this is a picture of the Hilton Hotel room where we will be staying on our wedding night. Ooo la la! This picture doesn't even do it justice. Awhile back we checked out hotels all around the airport and checked out the rooms and when we walked into the room at the Hilton we were in awe, its just so modern and gorgeous and we thought it was going to be way too expensive but as it turned out it's totally affordable.

So, we will leave Springfield no later than 7pm the day of our wedding in hopes to get to the hotel no later than 1030pm. Because the next morning our flight leaves at 6am! Luckily the Airport is right across the street. I'd say hopefully we can get some rest on the plane. But I really don't think I will. I will be SO excited, plus I've never flown with Jake before, so that will be fun in itself. We will stop in Miami for about an hour and a half and then fly to Antigua and I think we are scheduled to get there around 3:30pm.

Sandals Grande Antigua
...isn't it gorgeous!?!

Here's one of the pools.

Dining and Shopping

The Resort!

So, yeah, pretty exciting stuff. And I did get my "The Turners" beachbag yesterday. The delivery guy hid it so well that I didn't even see it! But I found it and its awesome! I love it. I will get a picture of it on here asap!

Blog 8

Well I thought my beach bag would be at my house yesterday and it wasn't but it was ok because the ring bearer pillow I ordered was! I ordered it off of ebay where someone custom makes them with your colors for a very good price. I could not have been more pleased with it. When I opened the box I just kept saying, "It's so pretty".

Any day now the bridesmaids dresses will be in. I hope sooner than later I'm so anxious!

Blog 7

I haven't done too much lately. Except Friday night after Jake got off work, we met up at IHOP and went over the guestlist. We tried to be reasonable about who will come to the wedding and who wont. A vast majority of our list will come but we were still able to squeeze in a few more people on our list.
*sidenote: a notice to all waitresses, if you talk to me about my wedding you will get a very good tip! I think me and Jake gave our waitress like a 60% tip because she was so nice and asked us about our big day!

I still have the music weighing on my mind. So Jake and I will finally get it finalized this weekend. I think I may even go as far as making the cds. One just for preceremony music. One for during the ceremony and one to give to the videographer.

Last night I had a wedding nightmare!! Man I'm still 4 months and 3 days away from my wedding (to be precise=)) and I'm having nightmares! I dreamt that I woke up and it was suddenly the morning of my wedding and there was so much that hadn't gotten done, like the picture slideshow and some decorations and whatnot and I remember thinking... can I get this stuff knocked out this morning? And some of it I couldn't so I just thought, oh well, my wedding just wont be everythign I hoped it would be. Sounds like a classic bride-to-be nightmare. I wouldn't know since I've never been a bride-to-be before but I would guess it's a pretty classic nightmare.

I'm also waiting for it to be nice outside so I can spraypaint some of the stuff of making for the wedding... flower girl baskets and card "container". But unfortunately its still COLD and will be this weekend.

I don't know the official count but I can still say with confidence that I have more swimsuits now than days I will be on my honeymoon! But don't for a second doubt that I wont wear all of them! I'm up to that challenge.

From tracking I saw this mornign that I will be getting something I ordered in the mail tonight!! It's a beach bag that has The Turners embroidered on it. I can't wait to see it! And I'll try to post a picture for you(whoever reads this).

Last thing, to follow up... I've finished paiting the office it looks great, I love it! The redecoration is temporarily complete. We still need pictures for the wall and a new tv stand, which we actually registered for at WalMart. It's pretty expensive so we probably wont get it. But it was worth a shot! and if we dont we'll just be saving up for it.

Blog 6!

I know you are excited to hear about our weekend.... it was great!

I feel like we got a lot accomplished, but we also thought of a lot more to do. Heh. But we had a great time. We went to the church and finally got all the decorations we want to do in there finalized. And we got permission to go in the day before the wedding to set up the decorations when you usually can only go the morning of the wedding. But we just have too many other things to worry about the morning of, like..... getting ready! Plus its an early wedding (1pm). We also "made" our part of the favors, but we'll still need to take what we did and then give it to the caterer to put it all together. Annnd we went in the reception hall and talked to Renee (ECC) about how to set up the room. I was visualizing it and I got SO excited.

Bridal shower: I think it was moved to May 2nd but I'm not quite sure, but who cares, no matter what day it is, it'll be great!! And then another Bridal Shower has been tenatively scheduled for May 16th at Jake's moms house with his sisters and a couple friends. We decided on a theme for it. I think the theme will be "Sandals"(the name of our honeymoon resort) so it will be a tropical theme.

I still haven't gotten the music all figured out. Once I do it'll be a huge weight off my shoulders. The music is really important to me. So I want to make sure I remember to include all the songs I want to include in the day and then figure out where to put em.

So what next, I'm not sure, I've got to regroup and make a good new list of stuff to work on.

On a side note. A tornado touched down 1/2 mile from our house last night. Praise the Lord for keeping us and our house safe!

Blog5

TOMORROW!!!! My Mamacita is coming tomorrow!!!!!
We've got BIG plans while she's here. SO much to do! We are using Friday night just to get completely organized on what we'd like to accomplish. We both have lots of notes.

The bridal shower is officially set for April 18th now. I'm really looking forward to it. I was afraid I wouldn't get to enjoy all the showers and stuff that come with a wedding since my family isn't from Springfield, but fortunately my new in-laws are wonderful!

I'm already working on getting myself in perfect condition for the wedding. I've been working out and even whitening my teeth! Taking the time to take care of yourself sure makes you feel good about yourself. I wonder why we don't do it more often?

So, if you know my history with hair. You know I had many more inches hacked off than I wanted back in the fall of 2006. Well, I've been growing my hair out ever since. I'd say now it's finally back to where it was. I've always wanted super long hair. And it will be good to have long hair for the wedding, for the way I'm wanting it styled. But the longer it gets the uglier I feel! almost like it just drags me down and does nothing for my appearance. So I know it's cliche to cut your hair after you get married but now I'm seriously considering it. I would cut it to probably the middle of my neck and keep the bangs. But I dont know.... maybe since it's already this long I should let it keep growing until it's super long like I've always wanted. Hair is such a touchy subject. Because once its cut it cant be uncut.

I almost forgot to say something about this, but I'm glad I thought of it because I want to share it with every couple!! ... Jake and I saw Fireproof, it was so good! Theres a book you can get for it too. I recommend the movie to any couple. And I also recommend at least trying some of the ideas in the book or even ones you see in the movie. Isn't it amazing what a little effort can do for your relationship? I've already seen us grow in the last few days.

We watched Fireproof last Saturday at Stonebridge church and decided to go there the next day for service. We really enjoyed it. I'd hate to change churches again because i really just want to say we have a church home and after after trying a few churches at the beginning of our relationship, we ended up at NorthPoint and have been going there for a year and a half. But on the other hand I want to follow Gods leading, so we'll see where He wants us.

Blog4

Ok, things are getting exciting now. I really feel like the time is drawing near! A bridal shower is in the works for me in April thrown by Stephanie (Jake's stepmom) and Lori (Jake's aunt). It's going to be at Beths Baked Shop. I've always wanted to go there too!

Also, I feel like I can finally say our registries are complete! And thank goodness! We've been working on those and editing those for so long. We may not even get much on there but I feel like we've set up a good selection.

Another thing about weddings.... a lot of out of town family that would not otherwise visit will be in town so I'm in the long process of preparing my house for tours! We are trying to get the office all fixed up. We had it okay before but once we got a new couch for in there it became a jumping off point for me to redecorate the whole room. I started painting it last night and decided to just take it one wall at a time this week so it will be done in time for the weekend. I'll do more than one wall if I have time, but I have so many other things to get done in the evenings this week. We also really want to relandscape in the back. Theres one whole area of landscaping thats just kind of trashy in my opinion, the previous owners did great on everything else though. But that can get kind of pricey because it's a big area that needs done. So, I dont know if we'll be able to take care of that before the wedding.

Korey, my wonderful soon to be sister in law, came into my work today I showed her around the office and how to do things because she is going to fill in for me on Monday. That way my mom and I can have a nice long weekend to really get things accomplished. It's hard doing alot of planning without her here. Jake's been great at helping me, but, well.... he's still a guy.

...'til next time.