The Time Is Near!

The Big Day is almost here and I am officially done with work for the next two weeks! I headed home today to relax with my family, spend some time with them before the wedding, and get everything ready for the wedding. There isn't A LOT left to do but still....some things need to be done.

Before I left I had to take care of a little business.......Getting Our Marriage License!!! Woo Hoo!!
I cannot believe that the wedding is in 4 days! Words cannot express how excited I am to be marrying Luke. I have been ready for this day for a long time!

Friends: Please be praying for us this week.

Thank you friends - hopefully I will be able to give an update before the big day!! Sorry I have been a slacker in my blogging lately!

Luke and I after getting our mariage license:

Let's Hear it for the Parents

I realized that I recently devoted a post to my wonderful bridesmaids - so to continue on with the spirit of Wedding'ness I wanted to devote a post to two people that have made this 'Wedding Day' possible. My wonderful parents.

Growing up I always had the youngest parents in the class. For some reason this embarrassed me to no end.

I can honestly remember in kindergarten coming home from school because the kids sitting at my table (remember how you sat at tables in kindergarten) all had older parents than me.

When most kids grew up listening to oldies, I grew up listening to Michael Jackson, Bobby Brown, and Prince. Seriously. I knew every word to 'Beat It' (or maybe it was just the 'Beat It' part)

It wasn't until I got older that I realized how great it was to have young parents.
My parents have worked hard to provide for my sisters and me and I am so thankful for everything they have done and continue to do for us.

Thank you mom and dad for everything!

Me with my parents. 1984. (as if you couldn't tell from the hair)

My mom was able to stay home with me as a baby and Kati wasn't born until I was four, so for four years it was just me, mom and dad. So mom and I got to have fun all day long. I love this picture of us.

My parents and I on my graduation day from college. A glorious day!

Winding Down...

Well we are in the final stages of wedding planning. We are wrapping up all the finals projects. I think I said this before but planning a wedding long distance is starting to get difficult. We are having to schedule all of our final meetings with the vendors - but they are all 1 hour and 30 minutes away from where we live.

Monday night we drove home to meet with the church people. The good thing about all of this driving home is that we are able to spend time with my family.

Monday after we met we headed to a favorite restauraunt of my families. I asked the waiter to take our picture (my family was mortified; they put on good fake smiles for the pic). After dinner we headed back home to hang out for awhile. Luke and I practiced our first dance. I wanted to try it in front of people. Seriously I am the MOST uncoordinated person you will ever meet. One time in college I took a week long dancing class. The instructor would go around and help students as needed. I am not kidding when I say by Wednesday she would just avoid me. I have no dancing abilities what-so-ever. I wanted to skip the first dance thing all together, but I think there is something special about dancing with your new husband at your wedding. So here we go....

Please pray for me! I am soo nervous about it!

In other news: This weekend as Luke and I were cleaning/decorating our apartment we watched Back To The Future. Not just one of them. No, we watched the entire triology. I have seen them a million times but they still keep me on the edge of my seat. The second one really stresses me out when they go back to the alternate 1985. It was really a great time. Just relaxing watching our favorite triology.
We are clearly perfect for each other.

We can't dance and we love watching Marty McFly and his crazy time traveling adventures.

Great Scott!

Hair and Keys

From the very first year Luke and I started dating there have been two things that I have battled with him over.

His Hair.

and

His Keys.

I know they seem like minor things but they have both been the source of many headaches for me.

Let me explain.

1. His Hair - I will have to save this for a later date. This post is about his keys.

2. His Keys - yes this one is weird, but just stick with me. Luke has always swung his keys. I don't know why he does this but he does. He swings them around and around.

I am told he did this in high school; I wore big white clunky shoes in high school. Some things we must leave behind.
One time when I was complaining about him swinging his keys, one of his high school friends informed me that I was never going to 'break' him of this. People, I do not want to 'break' him of this I want to EDUCATE him. Normal adults do not swing their keys in public.

I promise you, he has almost knocked several people out with these keys while waiting in line . I will never forget the time we were in line at Braums, he was swinging his keys and they flew off his finger (as they tend to do when being swung) they almost hit the very large, muscular man behind us. He gave us a pretty bad look and I was honestly scared for my life.
I have many key swinging stories I could share...

But I have to admit the swinging has been less of an issue lately.

Until recently....

Well this weekend as I was unpacking my millions of boxes Luke ran to his car to get something - he comes back laughing hysterically, I start laughing with him - I was caught up in the moment and I thought I would think whatever he thought was so hysterical was funny.

I have never been so wrong.
He then informed me that while running out to his car, he was swinging his keys and his apartment key flew off and went down the sewer drain.

Hillarous.

Immediately any smile I had on my face disapeared.
What the heck was so funny?

I did however refrain from reminding him of how I have told him to stop swinging his keys for 4 1/2 years now. I simply went back to unpacking my boxes.
Luke changed into his 'going into the sewer' clothes and ventured outside to find his keys.

I decided to capture this moment to forever remind him of what will happen when he swings his keys:

I have decided to add the following sentence to our wedding vows:

I promise to always take your advice in life, even if I don't always agree. Without your advice I will find myself head-first in a sewer. Thank you for educating me.

Life in Fast-Forward

Well it has been over a week since I last posted. Currently I am away in the middle of the woods (seriously) at a work retreat. I have no cell phone service (GASP!) but luckily we do have Internet - I don't really understand that oxymoron but I will take it! So now that I am nestled away in the woods I have found some time to blog!

With less than 3 weeks left till the wedding everybody keeps asking me: "So is everything done for the wedding"? Well the answer to that is a big fat NO! Not only is everything not done yet, but for some reason time has picked up speed and the days are shorter and the weeks go by much faster! My life is in double time right now!

Last week Luke moved into our apartment, our furniture was delivered two days later and we have been in the process of getting everything together. Every time I go over there I try to take a load of stuff from my room. OK, let me tell you: My stuff more than DOUBLED. I had no idea just how much 'stuff' I have. We are currently trying to squeeze all of our piles of 'stuff' into a two bedroom apartment. I will let you know how it turns out!

Now that we are in the last couple of weeks of the wedding planning I have been making a lot of trips home to get the finals plans taken care of. Planning long distance is starting to prove a little difficult - but I enjoy the trip home. Every time I go home I get to see this cute little guy:

O yeah and I get to see the rest of my family also!

Here are some pictures of our mess, also known as our apartment (pre-furniture):

Luke in his first husband duties, putting together our computer desk:

This picture looks staged. Its not. Believe me, Luke would NEVER pose for a picture. This my friends, is a full action shot...

So there it is. That is my past week - pretty boring but definitely busy.
Time for me to go to bed. Our conference starts at 7:00 in the morning. I'm going to look it up on the Internet. I'm pretty sure starting anything before 8:00 is illegal.

Also, thank you to all of you who have been praying for us during this season. I have definitely felt those prayers lately. Even though everything has picked up speed, lately I have had much more peace and been much more calm about things. Instead of being filled with such anxiety I have been filled with such excitement to get married to Luke and share my life with him. I know exactly where this peace and excitement comes from!
So thanks to everyone for your prayers.