Lovely

Wedding Week: 2 years

My friends, I am so sorry for abandoning wedding week.  I have so many special details that I had wanted to share with you all, but only have time to share some of them. I am also struggling with drawing a line so that I am not sharing to many of the "things" that could overshadow the most important part of all of this which is the sacred union between Brian and I. 

Today marks two years of marriage for us.  So crazy how quickly it flew by. We were two young lovebirds when we got married.  We're still young, but with each year we get (hopefully) a little bit wiser and kinder.  Our first year was marked with a lot of unknowns and surprises, good and bad.  It was a tough year for me.  I'm quite independent and like things my own way.  But once married, things can't always be my own way, and marriage when aligned biblically does not mirror my independent attitude.  Our second year was much better. We learned more about each other, we respected more, we loved more (the action not the feeling) and most importantly I sincerely believe we glorified God more through all of it. What's crazy is that we (God-willing) will have the opportunity to continue on this path for many years to come.  My prayer is that we would continually seek Him first, each other second, and the rest to follow.  I am thrilled for what is to come as God peels away layer by layer his plan for us. 

Now a few reasons Brian swept me away and continues to do so: he has the kindest heart of anyone I've ever met, he's bold and courageous, gentle and caring, he's the sexiest stud I've ever laid eyes on, he puts Jesus first and me second, he's extremely goofy (I mean really goofy, like you wouldn't believe), he loves to work on projects with me, he provides for our family, he is a rock, he has pretty blue eyes, he likes random things like ultimate frisbee and the real-deal camping, he makes the best breakfast - ever. I could go on and on.

So in tribute to my babe and in wrap-up to our wedding week, I thought I would share some pictures from our wedding two lovely years ago:

Thanks for sticking around during all the wedding "festivities"! :-)

P.S.  If you are at all interested in hearing more about our wedding, let me know because I'd be more than happy to share.  I just don't want to inundate you with wedding-related things if you're not all that interested.  Ok, all for now - have a great night lovelies :-)

P.P.S.  I really need to work on sizing all the pictures to be uniform.. I'm working on it....

Lets Play Catch up

Ahh, life took over and these last couple of days have completely passed me by.  I have so much I've been wanting and meaning to blog about..  feels good to be back :-)

I came home from my travels early last week (Wednesday) and it was such an incredibly refreshing break.  I took a bit of time off Friday, we had a wedding Saturday (it was so beautiful at the Arcade downtown), and Sunday we had a great church service and spent the day outside landscaping and enjoying the incredible weather.  Lord thank you for such beautiful weather, for the relaxation, and the time off.   

So what did we miss?

Happy Cinco De Mayo!!

We replaced these sad dead bushes in the front of our house. I have more pictures but since I'm not home I don't have them.. :(  We planted these Spirea bushes that look like this now

But will eventually look like this in a few weeks! just not so big quite yet..

Saving the best for last - Mothers Day!! I am so blessed to have the mother I have.  She's beautiful, smart, and kind.  She raised me well, taught me to work for what I have, taught me diligence, and persistence, respect and honor.  Thank you mom for all you are and all you've done. 

Lets see what else... on my drive in this morning I listened to two Mark Driscoll sermons.  He sure can preach the word.  Straight forward, sort of blunt, Spirit led, goodness.  I think I have a new little tradition for my drives out here.  More to likely come on this topic soon :-)

Wedding Week: Rehearsal Dinner

Our rehearsal night was really fun.  To be honest, I felt like I didn't have to worry about a thing and someone magically had it all under control.  There were probably a whole lot of people that were handling lots of little things to make that work out just right.  If you are one of them, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. 

We had our rehearsal at the Renaissance Hotel; Ahh, I was so excited/anxious/nervous/anticipatory this night.. I can remember thinking to myself that I was going to be visibly shaky the next day since I had so much anticipation built up.  What came of all those emotions though was a very giggly, laughter-filled rehearsal that led our pastor to proclaim that it was going to be a very fun weekend.

Can you tell I was excited?

For dinner we went to Trattoria in Cleveland's Little Italy district. A few people stood up and blessed us with well wishes, and we were able to share gifts with the wedding party. 

Let me start with a few photos Rit (our cousin and photographer) took earlier in the day.  I'm so grateful she was there and blessed us by capturing some of these moments. 

This is Chris, Brian's brother. He's single, ladies!

I wish I would have gotten better pictures of the gifts we bought/made for the wedding party.  Brian bought his men a classic razor, and I bought the ladies a little assortment of things (Red jcrew bangle bracelets, Evian water mist spray, Cliffs bars, Lip Gloss [can't remember which kind, maybe mac?], and a few other things) that were all packaged cutely into these little suitcases (to the right in the picture below).



One of my favorite set of photos from our wedding are in the series below.  Before anyone left, our photographer made everyone stand in front of this brick wall and basically just express themselves however they saw fit.  She called it their "mug shot".  You'll see that some people took 'mug' seriously - mainly those that never make a mug face, but that's what makes it all the more entertaining. 

[Now, I do apologize because for some reason I am not finding these photos electronically, but I have them in our wedding book and snapped them with my iPhone.. sorry!]



FUN - Right?!  Wishing you all a very happy Thursday :-)

Wedding Week

May 9th will mark Brian and I's 2 year wedding anniversary.  As it is a little under a week away, I'm starting to get excited.  I'm not sure if we're still in our honeymoon phase - does anyone know when that saying actually goes away?  All I know is that I still love him like I did when we first got married.  In fact, I would even venture to say that I love him more, but in a different way.. a deeper way.  We've been through a lot these last couple years, and he has been a rock through all of it.  Anyways, I think I will share some of my favorite memories with you over the next week if you don't mind.  We had such a fun time planning and executing our wedding and I would love to reminisce..

Photos by the incredible Kristen Cordova

Can you spy

what I am dreaming of today?  With summer lingering in my thoughts, I'm wishing that I had a hammock to snuggle up in... once it gets warm.  It has to get warm and less rainy someday, right?  Or maybe I could just get an indoor hammock?  I'm quite ok with either right now.

All images via pinterest

Hmm..

I'm not quite sure what to say today.  While everyone is talking about the death of a terrorist leader, I would prefer not to on here.  I hope that's ok. 

Instead, can I just post a few beautiful pictures?

Images via la dolce vita