Thoughts after Coffee Cup # 2

It's 6:30am and I'm on my second cup of coffee, feeling pretty awake at this point. I woke up at 5:20am to see my future husband off to work this morning and you know what, it felt good. I am looking forward to taking care of him in a new way as we start combining our lives. With an endless list of honey-do's between now and June 16th (our wedding), moments like this recenter my focus and remind me why the crazy is worth the anxiety and stress.

I feel such a sense of peace making his morning coffee or packing his snack, especially when I beg him to let me cook up a breakfast sandwich at 5:30am while he groans with that look that says "Thank you, but my stomach isn't quite awake yet." I understand that the novelty of all my new wifely duties might wear off, but for now I am basking in the contentedness I get from taking care of my soon to be husband. I pray it never gets "old" and that I continue to enjoy the whole taking care of a household role. I have a feeling it runs in my genes to feel complete and satisfied with a life centered on taking care of my family....I know this because my mom was always so good at it. Of all the things I could say about my mom, she was born to care for a family and taught me how to create a home just as she did.

Aannnndddd, with 37 days left before the wedding, my wedding website checklist says I still have 60 of my 120 tasks left to complete. Two more things to get done this weekend, RINGS AND TUXES!

I'm a prisoner to my sweet tooth

My horrible sweet tooth has taken me prisoner and I can't curve the craving of the peanut butter and chocolate ice cream sitting in my freezer at work from the San Francisco Creamery. How I wish I could indulge right now. Instead I will (try) and focus my energy on the realization that I gotta keep motivated to be healthy and get my boot-ey to the gym 'cus there are less than 8 Mondays till my wedding day is here. Maybe someone should stop buying me ice cream during lunch...

What do you all do to curve the after lunch sweet tooth cravings?

mmmm doesn't that look tasty.....

 

Maybe just two bites will be okay??? It's not like anyone will know....

Invitations: It's all in the details

 Our entire family came together for one special night to help make our wedding invitations. Moms, Dads, Brothers, Sisters, Nieces, and Aunts all united in an effort to produce a unique and personal invitation for the wedding of our dreams. 

Here are a few pictures of the details, to share.  The first two photos are what we call "Morea Vision" as they were taken from the perspective of a four year old, pretty good we think!

Notice the wine and girl scout cookies...these are what got us through. 

That, and Round Table Pizza. 

 

My sisters and Godmom working with intense concentration. There was a strict time constraint and I was NOT messing around that night. In fact, I vetoed my mom off of the embossing station for working too slowly at one point and made potential candidates audition their handwriting for the addressing of envelopes. It was serious business.  

These lace pockets were sewn by my mom the week prior. The lace was a bargain at Hobby Lobby and cost us roughly $25 for all 80 invitations.

 We did a LOT of embossing that night. We embossed this lace detailing on the cards as well as on the backside of the envelopes. In addition to the lace stamp embossing, we embossed our names' and RSVP stamps. All cards, inserts, and envelopes were done with just a single embossing gun.

 My sister Kristina (also my Matron of Honor) designed this stamp special for the invitations. Using varying fonts for different parts of our names, we used Photoshop to create this custom stamp reading "Kaitlyn & Daniel." We then uploaded that to a site that created the actual stamp for us, based on our prototype.

Here you can see the sleek and simple fonts we used for the wedding details. MarthaStewart.com came handy for getting the wording just right and gave us inspiration for explaining the dynamics of our families.

 Instead of having our guests RSVP via the traditional method of returning a postmarked card, we asked that they log-on to our wedding website. This saved us money and also allowed us the chance to advertise other details of our wedding day that we were unable to include in our invitation, such as our love story and our engagement pictures.

Homemade invitations, sealed with love and invaluable family memories. 

Vwaa-laa!

The Top 5 countdown of what we've been up to as of late:

5. For the past 6 weeks, we have been feverishly searching for a home! This is proving to be on of the most taxing and frustrating, but potentially most rewarding, experiences this year. We are praying things are figured out in time for the wedding which means, as you can imagine, I am concerned freaking out about where we will be living come June.


4. I go in for my interview for the teaching credential program THIS FRIDAY! If all goes well and they think I'm qualified enough for their program, I will be on my way to becoming an elementary school teacher beginning June 25 (the day we come home from our honeymoon, so I actually will be missing the first day of class.)


3. Wedding planning. Lots of wedding planning. We recently did our invitations, Daniel had his bachelor party a few weeks ago, my bridal shower is in two weeks, we are working on getting our passports for Cabo, and my dad built these awesome centerpiece boxes for the tables out of reclaimed fencing wood! So, lots of wedding planning going on.


2. Daniel has been going to school and it looks like he'll be taking several summer courses also. Drill is this weekend which bums us both out because we like to spend our weekends TOGETHER, of course. How many more years of this??? I think 3 1/2...wow that's a long time. I'll be almost 28! Just in time for babies maybe??? Just kidding, more like, just in time to buy a house/travel/have lots of selfish fun before the kids come time.  


1. My birthday was yesterday so my lovely fiance took me out and spoiled me Saturday (since he had school till' late last night.) He bought me a new bathing suit for Cabo and all of our friends joined us for dinner at Sasa Restaurant (an amazing sushi place in Walnut Creek.) Then my dad treated me to Chinese food last night and we spent the evening catching up on Grey's, Toddlers & Tiaras, and Army Wives. My mom is cooking me dinner tonight, Amanda & Chels are coming tomorrow to take me out, and Saturday I am going antique shopping with Sue in search of a pillbox hat with a bird cage veil for my shower! I have been spoiled with love this year, turning 24 has turned out to be a fruitful age and Daniel says it is a big birthday this year because it's the age I'll be when we get married! He can be so romantic when he wants to :)

Invites and Champagne Tasting

I sure haven't blogged much lately, but no one really seems to mind. We have been very busy, Daniel has been busy with school and I've been making a lot of wedding plans lately. Yesterday we did a blind taste test of champagne to see which ones we wanted to serve at the reception. We categorized each type into (a) Toast only, (b) Toast and/or Drinking all Night, (c) Don't even serve for the Toast. My dad insisted that we not know which kind of champagne we are trying so we would give an unbiased judgement towards each. I must say, it was QUITE the experiment.

Surprisingly, we ALL loved one of the lower end Champagnes the best. Us girls were certain our favorite one must be super duper expensive, which of course made all the guys giggle because they knew all along that our "sophisticated champagne tasting palette" had chosen one of the cheapest options. Actually, one of our most favorite tastes was an Almond Champagne from Trader Joe's that costs around $6 a bottle, it was so yummy! So I guess the dads and Daniel win this round and prove their point that just because it costs more, does not mean it tastes better.

I also spent all of last weekend at my sister's house making our invitations. We have decided to hand make every single one, including sewing the outer lace envelopes, stamping and then embossing our names on each invitation as well as "rsvp" on the response cards, and embossing a lace stamp detailing along the edges of each invitation and inner cards. My sister designed a beautiful directions card as well, which will hopefully keep everyone from getting lost on their way up the mountain. I am pretty much impressed with our efforts and I can't wait to finish them all in a few weeks. I have to get them out by April 1st so I better get a move on collecting addresses, that is sort of scaring me at the moment.

Here are some pictures of our mock designs, in case you are curious:

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These are the stamps we had custom made (except for the lace stamp, that one we found online)

 

This is the basic idea of the invite. It's not the real deal because we had just ordered the stamps that day so unfortunately these were made with images of the stamps, using Photoshop. "Kaitlyn & Daniel" will be embossed in black, and the lace stamps in the corners will be embossed in bronze. 

 The lace envelopes are going to hold the invitation, response card, and directions card. This was the un-sewn version of the lace envelope, just to give you an idea what it may look like. 

My sister, Nina, made this card. I know the image quality kind of sucks because it's a picture of the computer screen, but you can really see how much work she put into it. I love it and think it is a great way to make sure no one gets lost (not to mention it's way cooler that a boring old google map)

Pretty awesome, huh? We think so, actually we are pretty darn proud of ourselves. 

Today I am thankful for the GI Bill

It's been almost one year since I said goodbye to my Marine and sent him off to the Asian Pacific to learn the art of jungle warfare. This time last year we were preparing for goodbyes, spending ample time with friends and family, soaking in the moments before the big departure. Then I worried about my broken heart for 6 months, waiting in angst for his return. Upon his return, new worries began, worries that have only recently been resolved and resolutions I wish to share with you all tonight as I am OH SO PROUD of my soon to be husband.

The resolutions, you may ask, why of course! Let me share! Drum roll please...........We finally have a plan!!!!

Okay, so a "plan" may not seem like such a big accomplishment to some, so let me explain. After Daniel got home, the reality of our approaching nuptials brought on quite a scare in terms of our financial status. We realized that it was time for us to figure things out, he needed full time work and I needed to decided what the heck I was doing with my life (going to school or keep working). Daniel had so many directions he was pursuing, it seemed that we were running without feet (think road runner when he's running in one spot and not going anywhere.) It was getting scary, let me tell you. The stress was high as I was pressing him to make up his mind and pick something, anything!


I was honestly starting to lose hope that we were ever going to able to move out. I started thinking, maybe we'll just be one of those married couples that live at home, that'll be okay, it will HAVE to be okay. I'll just work this little job, making enough money to pay the bills, and we'll live on unemployment forever. OKAY, so I wasn't exactly happy with this "plan", actually it was causing more stress than I'm really letting on.

It's not like when active duty military return home from deployment, they go right back to their job after a nice little break. No, Daniel was flat OUT OF WORK. He was not coming home to a purpose or a cause, he was coming home to me and nothing more (and I don't pay much). He had been caring for his grandfather before he left, full time. Right before the deployment they transitioned grandpa into an assisted living home, then Daniel boarded a plane and headed to Japan. So when he came home, he really had absolutely no direction and although I didn't want to admit it, I was losing hope that he would figure it out in time. The crappy economy in our area and the lack of opportunity did not equal a quick remedy for our situation.

That's when he figured it out.

He made a brave and bold choice to use his GI Bill and return to school to get an education. THANK THE LORD FOR THE GI BILL! If it wasn't for the GI Bill,  he would not have taken this opportunity to receive an education and complete this Process-Technology program he's so excited about. This has given us new-found hope and the chance to really make a positive step in our life together. I am beyond thankful for the American Government's generosity in affording us this opportunity. I could not be more proud of my husband-to-be as he ventures out to conquer his future with excitement and motivation, giving us BOTH a chance at the life we desire to share together. This is the direction we needed and I am so thankful it is in our grasp.

God had a plan, I just needed to wait for it. Here begins the next chapter of our life with a clear plan and a path we can see to follow. Thank you Lord.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, school starts tomorrow. Wish him luck!