Today, I was at the funeral of an amazing man.  Russ Summay lived an incredible life.  He was passionate in all that he did.  He lived his life to the fullest.  He served his Lord faithfully and extravagantly.  He's part of the reason that I am living in Louisville instead of Cincinnati.  (He was part of the missions board that invited Team Expansion to move from Cincy to Louisville 10 years ago.)  Several of us from the office went to the funeral as his son and daughter-in-law are serving with us in Eastern Europe.  I got to spend a few days with them in country back in 2005.  After the funeral, I'm hugging the daughter-in-law and what does she say to me?  "I love reading about your wedding plans.  You need to update your blog!"  That's right.  So, in honor of you my dear friend, this blog's for you. 

Plans are coming along.  We're right at 92 days.  Tomorrow is the 3 month mark which freaks me out.  Things are coming along.  At my mom's urging, I am outsourcing several manual labor jobs to her.  She says she's bored; I say I can easily fix that.  She'll be doing several small projects that are mindless, but that will take time.  Things like putting the cards detailing where to view our pro pics into their appropriate envelopes, putting the right label on them and then sealing them with the little heart sticker.  That job would take about 3-4 hours.  Letting her do it while she watches TV in the evenings means I have more time to work on things like invites and programs.  Yay.  I've been faithfully addressing things for the last few weeks.  I need to kick it up a notch if I want to get done soon though.  These invites go out April 1 and I still have a lot to address!  Plus, I need to put map cards in several of them and then they all have to be sealed with our wax seal on the back of the inner envelope.  Then, taken to the post office and weighed and the proper postage bought and put on.  Yeah, invites are a lot of work.  And, I'm still not done with the program covers.  I had hoped to be done with this weeks ago, but I keep running out of tape!  It's so frustrating.  Last night, I went through 500 squares of tape.  And I still need more.  I tried to buy more at Hobby Lobby, but this was the last thing they had of it.  Argh. 

In great and awesome news, Jake comes in tomorrow.  It's his spring break and he'll be here for a WHOLE WEEK!!!!  Woo Hooo!!!!  It's been since the weekend of Valentine's Day that I saw him last and it's just way too long.  3 weeks without my honey is not fun.  He's been studying hard for this mondo exam that he takes on Saturday morning at the University of Louisville.  Called the MPRE, it's the first of 3 tests that he takes to be a lawyer.  It's pretty important, so your prayers would be greatly appreciated.  I know we'll be doing lots of wedding stuff while he's here.  Next Thursday, we'll be in Indy to meet with the florist, have my hair and makeup trial, meet with the pastor, and meet with the DJ.  Whew.  It's gonna be a crazy day!  Oh, and if you have any suggestions for our first dance song, send them my way! 

It seems like I am blogging less and less lately.  Things have been pretty crazy around here.  I pretty much go to work and then go home to do wedding stuff.  I usually do errands after work and it's rare that I get home before dark.  I finally took down my Christmas lights this week because I was finally home before dark when it wasn't freezing/raining/sleeting.  Yay!  My Christmas tree is still up though.  I just like looking at it...it's so pretty.  I need to work on that this weekend.  It's time to put out the spring stuff.  I'm ready for green and sunshine and flowers.  Bring on the beauty! 

Last week I had to take a break from wedding stuff...it was just way too overwhelming.  So, I went to the library and picked out some fluff books and spent a few days reading and taking some me time.  I need to do that every now and then to re-center.  I've been off lately and just haven't been feeling on top of my game totally.  Please pray for me to have energy and focus.  I find myself getting easily discouraged and I need your prayers more than ever! 

Jake and I got some not so great news this week.  We've been hoping and praying that he'd be able to be a visiting student at the University of Louisville next year.  He'd still be enrolled at ASL in Grundy, but would take all of his classes at U of L.  It would save us a ton of money because we could just live in my condo and not have to pay rent in Grundy plus my mortgage.  Well, ASL denied his request to visit U of L.  So, we'll be in Grundy next year.  It's not really what we wanted, but it'll work out.  In a way, it's nice to know so early because if he had been able to apply, we wouldn't have known until the end of July if he was accepted into U of L.  That would have been hard to plan for moving and where to live, etc.  A couple coming to work in the office will stay in my house next year and watch it for me.  It's going to be very tight financially for us because I'm not allowed to rent out my condo, so we'll have my mortgage to pay, plus rent on a place in Grundy.  Rentals there are very expensive because the demand is high and the supply is low.  Jake's begun checking out apartments and houses already, so please pray that his search is fruitful and we'll find the perfect place for our first home together.  I also have the added task of packing up my house before the wedding...not much fun.  I'll need to get things ready to put into storage and move to Grundy.  Not everything needs to go with us to VA, so we'll be renting a storage unit just down the road from my complex for some of my larger furniture pieces.  We still don't know where we'll be this summer, so I'll just pack it up and leave everything in my house and then we'll either store it or load it in August when we get back.  Oy, that's a lot of work! 

Okay, that's plenty for you to read for now.  Have a great weekend.  I'm home this weekend and am going to enjoy it.  Going flower girl dress shopping with my aunt and cousin, which will be fun.  And I'll be working on wedding stuff, too.  No surprise there!  Gotta start addressing invitations!  Love ya'll!

I know you've been waiting for it, so here it is!  Pictures from Christmas break are here!  Enjoy!

  
With Jake's 2 best friends Dave and Dan on Mt. Lemmon outside Tucson.  It was snowing like crazy up there!  I joked that I had to go to Arizona to see snow!

Jake and I at Seven Falls coming down from Mt. Lemmon

  
Me eating sushi for the very first time!  Yummy!  I love California rolls!

  
You can't go to AZ and not get your picture taken with a saguaro!  The mountains surrounding Tucson.

 
Christmas morning!                             On Lake Tahoe.  It was sooo pretty.  Cold, but pretty!

    
Vikingsholm, a castle on the shores of Emerald Bay.  Emerald Bay looking out toward the main lake.

   
Our boat, the MS Dixie II

   
Bundled up and ready to go tubing!  Tubing is so much easier than sledding because you don't have to walk to the top.  You just ride the line!

It's so good to be home.  Jake and I flew back in on Friday and got out of CA just before the major storms hit.  We actually flew out during the leading edge of the storm....lots of rain and strong winds.  I was glad we flew out in the morning instead of the afternoon.  As it was, we were delayed about 45 minutes.  Got back to Louisville around 10:30 that night.  Jake headed back to school yesterday afternoon to start the spring semester today.  I HATE long distance right now.  After spending every day with him for the past 3 weeks, I got used to it.  I loved it.  I get to see him this weekend, which will be very very nice.  But then I have to go 3 weeks before I see him.  The good news is that today is the 5 month mark.  Just 5 months until we get married!  YAHOOO!!! 

Before we left CA, we drove up to Tahoe for a few days where his dad has a timeshare.  Went to the sales things and got free tickets for a 2 hour cruise on the lake and 2 free dinner buffets at one of the casinos.  Had a great time.  It was really beautiful there.  On our way home, we stopped at one of the ski resorts and went snow tubing for a few hours.  Jake would have rather been snowboarding, but since I don't do that, we went tubing.  It was a lot of fun and we had a good time.  We didn't stay the whole 2 hours though because I was rather frozen and the storm was coming in.  We lasted about an hour and a half, though. 

Pictures are coming soon, I promise!

Happy New Year!

I hope that you all have had a wonderful holiday week.  Mine has been pretty good.  I was sick on Christmas day and for a few days afterward.  It was pretty rough.  I'm feeling much better now, thanks to plenty of sleep and excellent care from Nurse Jake.  Unfortunately, my nephew-to-be Josh was pretty sick yesterday.  Hopefully, we'll be on the mend soon.  Jake and I have had a good time here in CA.  We had several days of rainy weather, including Saturday when Jake and I went into the city to get my ring sized.  I'm very happy to say that it now fits perfectly on my finger and doesn't need a sizer!  YAY!  While we were downtown, we ate at Cheescake Factory on top of the Macy's overlooking Union Square.  I'd never had actual food there and it was very good.  Then, we walked across the square to the 4 story Williams Sonoma store and registered!  Woo Hoo!  It was so much fun and I was way excited.  We registered for our nice flatware there and for our cutlery so that they will last a very long time.  Those are knives that I will be able to use when I am 75.  It looks a bit funny on our registry because they told us to register for the full set and for each thing individually.  It's a lot cheaper if you buy the set, but some people may not be able to do that, so we registered for both to give people options.  Plus, then it's on the registry and we get a completion bonus if it's not purchased.  Fun stuff. 

The end of 2007 means I get to look back on the best year of my life so far.  It's the year I met my amazing husband to be.  It's a year that will only be surpassed by the coming one, when I he becomes my husband.  What an unexpected joy this year has been.  Hard to believe that I didn't even know him a year ago.  Our one year anniversary of our meeting is January 6, so it's been nearly a year.  Can't imagine life without him. 

Okay, time to go get food!  Happy New Year!

Hello from San Francisco!  Jake and I are here with his parents after spending 4 days in Tucson with his family and friends there.  It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks of me.  I had my Christmas open house on Monday the17th and spent 17 hours baking the weekend before that.  I made 14 batches of 9 different kinds of cookies.  Had tons of cookies left over, but what's new about that?  I'd rather make too many than not enough.  I think that I will not make the pistachio cherry cookies next year...not too many people like them other than me.    Also as usual, everyone loved my grandma's recipe of pecan tea cookies.  They're like little pecan pies...yum!  And, my two new cookies for this year were pumpkin softies and chocolate thumbprints with candy cane kisses.  They were great! 

Jake finished his semester after frightening and scary finals.  He's gotten 3 grades back so far with 2 Bs and a C...I'm so proud of him.  He read 3,000 pages in the last month and has worked super hard this semester.  Way to go honey!  This next semester, he only has 4 classes, so it should be a bit easier.  Things are looking good for a placement this summer in Knoxville.  I really hope that works out.  Your prayers would be greatly appreciated on that end, as well as for next school year.  We're trying to work it out so that he'll be a visiting student at UofL's law school and we'd be living in Louisville, but need some serious prayer that it will work out. 

We had a fabulous time in Tucson.  I'd never been there before and was struck by the beauty.  Tucson is a valley completely surrounded by mountains.  It was quite gorgeous.  We went up to Mt. Lemmon with Jake's best friends Dan and Dave on Friday.  That's where Jake grew up, in a small cabin on the mountain.  It was snowy up on top and started snowing pretty heavily while we were up there.  I joked that I had to come to Arizona to see snow.  There was snow on the ground in Indiana, but Kentucky just got rain and I hadn't actually seen it snowing yet this year.  We ate at some yummy restaurants like Oregano's and Losbetos in Tucson, saw the movie I Am Legend with Will Smith (great movie...girls, I highly recommend seeing this with a guy whose arm you can squeeze), and then went out for Japanese on Jake's friend Dave.  I got to have sushi for the first time and it was actually very yummy.  My rule was that it had to be cooked, so Jake helped me order.  I love California rolls!  Last night I was craving it.  Went to his old church on Sunday and then out to lunch at a Mexican restuarant called Macayo's with his friends from there. 

Flew out of Tucson at 4:30 and now we're here in San Francisco.  Had dinner with his parents at a place by the waterfront last night.  Today it's a craziness of cooking, last minute shopping, and Pam and I are going to get mani/pedis here in a bit.  I've never had that and am rather excited about it.  Should be a fun time for sure. 

I'll post pics as soon as I can get them off my camera.  Have a fabulous Christmas everyone!!!

If you have not heard, a gunman opened fire at a training center for YWAM missionaries near Denver last night shortly after midnight.  They were cleaning up from their Christmas party, he came in and asked for a place to stay, they said they couldn't do that, and he shot four people, killing two of them.  According to the latest update on CNN.com, they have not caught the shooter.  My thoughts and prayers go out to YWAMers everywhere; I have several dear friends within the org.  Please also pray for the two who are still fighting for their lives in the hospital and for the gunman who is still at large.  They aren't sure if the shooting at New Life Church in Colorado Springs this morning is connected or not.  Either way, that church needs prayer as well.  For more information, check out http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/09/colorado.shooting/index.html.

 Six months from today, I will be a married woman!  We'll probably still be at the church taking pictures.  But, I'll be a Mrs.  Yahoo!  I'm super excited and can't wait to spend the rest of my life with Jake.  Now, if I can just get everything done in the next six months and get there, we'll be good to go.  As long as I have my dress, the rest is just details.  Details I'd like to have, but still.  Not that important in the grand scheme of things.  All that really counts is that I get to be married to this handsome man:

So, it's been a while since I last updated.  Sorry about that.  Last week was rather crazy with just trying to get things done around the house and Christmas cards addressed and wedding stuff taken care of and then I went to Indy on Thursday night for my great uncle's funeral on Friday.  First off, I have to tell you about his funeral.  Great Uncle Earl was a pretty awesome man.  He was my grandma's oldest brother and had cancer and was very sick, so we weren't surprised when he passed.  I went up for the funeral and it was a really good one, if you can say that about funerals.  He and my great aunt were married for 64 years.  I hope and pray that Jake and I get that many years.  What an awesome thing that was to see.  Uncle Earl was also a Sargeant in WWII and served on an island in the Pacific.  At the end of the service, the Indiana Veterans Honor Guard came forward and each man saluted the casket.  Then, they read a special thing, then shot off 3 rounds before playing taps.  After doing the flag ceremony and giving it to my great aunt, they thanked her for supporting her husband as he served our country.  It was definitely amazing to see them respect and honor my great uncle and watch that. 

Tons of wedding stuff has been getting done lately, too.  I've bought all the supplies for the unity candle and now just need to decorate it.  All of our Save the Dates are addressed and ready to go out as soon as I get stamps and seal them.  I bought nearly all of the fabric for mom to make the table squares with, did a trial run of a centerpiece and decided to do it, met with a florist in Indy, found ribbon for several projects, and bought our cake server set.  And the most fun part is that I ordered my dress on Saturday!  Yay!  It's gorgeous and that's all I'm saying about it.  I'm just glad to have gotten some things done here recently. 

Yesterday, I hung all my Christmas lights outside.  That was a big job.  I had put up the little 3M hooks on Saturday and then took advantage of a 2 hour break in the rain to put up the actual lights yesterday.  Yay!  I love Christmas lights.  Still have to get my tree up, but that's it.  The plan is to get that done tonight, so then my house will be all pretty!  Yay!

Happy December!

In Loving Memory Of Sam Whicker
1978-2007

Gone, but most definitely not forgotten.  Sam touched a number of people.  I doubt that we will ever know exactly how many people's lives he impacted through the years.  Back in January when the doctors told him he had just a few short months left, I'll never forget how bravely he faced the news.  How strong he was and how unashamed he told the doctors that God wasn't done with him.  And now he's Home.  No longer suffering, no longer fighting, no longer in pain.  He's able to rest and praise Jesus and be restored to a new body.  Sam, you are missed, but I don't wish you back here for a moment.  I'll see you someday my friend.  Until then, enjoy being Home.