Summer Fun!

I'm not sure what it is about summer time. As a kid, it was always a glorious time of slowing down, getting to do things we didn't have time for during the school year, playing for hours on end. I realize I'm not a kid anymore, and that my summers as an adult aren't going to look exactly the same, but for the past several years summer time around here always gets so much busier than normal! But nonetheless, I love it :) For those not on facebook, I thought I'd do a bit of a recap of our summer thus far. Summer has found us:

Enjoying LOTS of fresh produce from Farmer's Markets
This was our dinner the other night, huge fresh salads and homemade bruschetta using delicious heirloom tomatoes.
Seeing lots of friends from years past
This is me with my dear friends Jean and Kelli from college, along with Jean's two little munchkins in San Diego.My husband has had the chance to reconnect with a few friends from his Florida days, and we're looking forward to having another of his Florida friends stay with us in August for a night.

Leisurely Conversations
I've always loved my small group, but this summer we're going through The Good and Beautiful God together which has provoked some great conversations with one another as the evening fades away and wine is sipped over dinner.

Games!
We've enjoyed a couple different evenings with friends playing games together. 4th of July we played a lot of Banagrams (kind of like Scrabble) with friends from church, and we've enjoyed a couple games of Settlers of Catan and Ticket To Ride with other couples.Church Stuff
GPC gets its new pastor in just 2 weeks! We're pumped! We've had some fun youth stuff this summer, seeing movies, going to a Dodger's Game, and of course, coming up in just two weeks--HOUSEBOATS! Charles has had fun playing Ultimate Frisbee with youth and leaders on Thursday afternoons (not really my thing...especially in the mid afternoon heat!).

Hiking
We have done a couple hikes around here, although lately it's been awfully hot!Weddings!
Yes, it's the theme of 2010 for us. So far we've had three weddings this summer (I think we have a break now until October) which have all been very different from one another and very fun in their own ways!

Peter & Susan
This was the wedding Charles was able to officiate which was very honoring for him. It was quite the event, in the grand ballroom of the Hilton with over 300 people there!Jen & Eli
This one was SO fun for me, it was a fantastic reunion of college friends in my favorite city on the planet!
The happy couple2001-2002 Hill-Moyer Peer Adviser StaffRoommates! Heather & IMissy, Darbee and IDavid & Joy
This was definitely the most unique wedding I've ever been to. And honestly, in many ways, the most beautiful. The wedding industry is out of control, as anyone who has planned a wedding is aware of! David and Joy are a couple from Fuller who are 100% committed to some rather counter-cultural ways of living that I think are so needed in today's society. They are both vegetarian, both very environmentally conscious, in love with nature, and completely invested in and immersed in community living more so than pretty much anyone I've ever met. They wanted their wedding to reflect all these values. And they pulled it off! About 300 of us gathered in the Redwood Forest near Santa Cruz, CA last weekend to celebrate this couple. Just about everything used in the wedding was either natural, recycled, donated, or reusable. Guests were told to bring their own plastic plates, cups and eating utensils (which did not seem to phase anyone, people literally just showed up with picnic baskets, it was great!). The wedding was a vegetarian Mediterranean feast that was also potluck. Guests were asked to bring something from their list, and we dined on hummus, pita, feta cheese, olives, tomatoes, cucumbers, falafel, and tabbouleh--it was delicious. Decorations were bright and festive and handmade. Table cloths were butcher paper that could be recycled. Centerpieces were glass jars with ribbons tied around them filled with wildflowers. Donated fabric from family friends was ripped into strips and woven onto fishing line for festive ambiance. The weekend was truly a labor of love, from their community to them and from them to their community (the wedding party saw their job as servers, so they served us our meals which was a beautiful touch). They also wrote some of their own vows, which I'm not always a huge fan of, but both my husband and I agreed that these were the best set of personalized vows we'd ever heard--well done David & Joy!I'm sure there's been more to our summer, but that's probably enough for now! Stay tuned for what August will bring!

don't read if you get overwhelmed with details easily!

All I have to say is, "wow."  Weddings are a LOT of details.  I am a detailed person, I always catch the little things and think about things people often overlook, but until this weekend I don't think I realized how many details are going into our wedding.  It has been a bit of a whirlwind weekend, starting Thursday night when I caught a red eye flight to Minneapolis.  I landed at 6 AM, got about 45 minutes of sleep at the house (because I couldn't fall straight to sleep) and by 9 was at the county clerk's office getting our marriage license.  (Yes, I even had to raise my right hand and swear one of us was a man and one of us was a woman...I couldn't help it, I was so tired I almost laughed at the poor woman...guess we are not in California anymore...)  From there we headed to the arboretum where we met with our event planner, completely redid the seating chart I had been working on for the reception--literally the only table left untouched was mine and Chuck's (this is for the better, but was still a lot of work and discussion between my mom, dad, and I), finalized all the details with her for the day, tried to mentally arrange how we're setting up the ceremony room, how many chairs, rows, etc we wanted set up and on and on.  

Then, we dropped dad off at home, and made our way to the mall where I was to meet with the woman who is going to do my hair and make up.  I walk in to meet her, glasses on, bags under my eyes from a grand total of 45 minutes of sleep in over 24 hours and let her attempt to wow me with her work.  I was impressed, I walked out of there still not having slept looking pretty fabulous...I'm pretty excited about the actual wedding day when I will hopefully have had a bit more sleep!  I finally got to go home and sleep for a few hours, and then we spent the rest of the evening talking about details--who is renting cars, how are we getting everyone from the hotel to the rehearsal/wedding, who still needs places to stay, how are all these people going to eat, are we feeding them all or are they going to be expected to eat at restaurants?, what time do us girls need to start getting ready if pictures are starting at about 3, how many family members will still be in town for brunch on Sunday, who haven't we heard back from etc etc.  I was pretty amazed at all the details that had to be worked out!  

Today we headed out again this time for my final dress fitting, which was SO great because it fit perfectly and looked awesome--I cannot wait to put it on again, i LOVED it!  I can't breathe super well, and won't be able to eat a ton, but it's not moving once it's on, which was my goal :)  This afternoon mom and I went to Michael's and Party City for various items, went by the Men's Warehouse to ensure all the tuxes had indeed been ordered to be picked up here in MN, bought pens that hopefully won't smear for our guest book, found the place cards for the tables so people know where they are sitting, went to the hotel to find out who had not reserved rooms who still needed to, bought paper products for the Sunday brunch, and I think that maybe that was it?  It was a BUSY weekend!  I have my list of tasks forming for my bridesmaids who will be here that week (assembling programs, filling out place cards--those kinds of things), but I think that everything will get done and things should be beautiful, I can't wait!  Exactly 1 month from right NOW I will be married and with my husband!  

All I know is that Chuck and I owe my mom HUGELY for all the work she is putting into things, she's spending hours of her week figuring things out for us and there is absolutely no way we could pull this event off without her and her amazing event-planning skills, she did a beautiful job with Megan's wedding two years ago and I can't wait to see the finished results of mine!   We're pretty lucky girls, we have a pretty incredible woman to look up to :)  

super wedding woman!

I'm catching a red eye tonight to fly back to Minnesota for the weekend (ok really for 48 hours--I land at 6 Friday morning and leave Sunday morning) for my last trip before our big week! My mom and I have quite the to-do list for the next two days, which I have been told my poor dad is being dragged on "so he doesn't feel left out." :) I'm hoping to get a few things crossed off the to-do list in the next two days. We're getting my dress fitted one last time, hoping to find pens for our guest book that won't smear on the shiny pages, finalize the seating chart for the reception dinner, get our marriage license, make signs for parking/drop off for the wedding, buy the place cards that will tell people where they are sitting, meet with the event coordinator at the arboretum so I can tell her how many tables of each number of people I need and where I want our table to be located, look for paper for our programs for the ceremony, meet with my hair stylist to figure out how to put it up with a veil, choose and order the wine etc etc :) It'll be a busy weekend, but hopefully I'll feel pretty productive on Sunday.

I finalized our ceremony yesterday & emailed it out to our pastor, readers, and musicians--we finally have all our music, scripture readings, etc chosen, and I finalized who is escorting whom down the aisle and in which order, so I have the whole processional figured out and typed up too. (I have learned after being involved in several wedding rehearsals that is an important thing to finalize before the rehearsal--otherwise there could potentially be drama when it comes to having to make those choices of who is going to stand where at the last minute--so that's all been decided already). I also typed up a rough draft of our program, just a few more details to add before that can be printed and assembled. And I have managed to stay on top of thank you notes for all the gifts that have been received so far...So we're getting there--SO close! 30 days from tonight!! The guys keep asking Chuck how wedding planning is going and he just laughs saying, he thinks it is good, but he hasn't had to do much, except offer feedback (which he says he is fine with). And yes, he does have his to-do list, they are just tasks that will be done that week, like getting decorations for our beach party, checking us into our hotel room for Saturday night earlier in the day, ordering his groomsmen's gifts, picking up tuxes, making sure our pastor has rides from the airport etc. So don't worry, he'll be busy!

In other random updates, I'm preaching my last sermon of my seminary career tonight in preaching practicum, basically on how we as Christians are often way more like the Pharisees than we are like Jesus. It was an incredibly convicting passage for me and I am hoping for others who will hear it and what I am saying about it.

I am down to 2 assignments of my MDiv! One group presentation on the concept of "white privilege" and one 12 page paper on that same topic. The presentation is Wednesday and I'm going to have the paper done by Monday March 2nd, so I will be DONE then! In fact I've even lined up people to go out to happy hour that night with me to celebrate so I have some real motivation and accountability to be finished by then. I have to have my apartment totally packed and ready to move before the wedding, so I wanted to be done with school work by the first week of March so I have 2 weeks to pack, take stuff to Good Will, finalize wedding stuff etc, before I head off to Minnesota. That's the goal, we'll see how it goes :)

Those are the latest updates from here! Chuck is going on a surfing/camping trip this weekend with the guys for his bachelor party--he decided that sounded like way more fun than any other type of party they could throw him (and I whole heartedly agreed--a guys-only camping trip sounded like a much better option to me than alternatives...) So while I'm off in wedding-world he'll be surfing (hopefully with good waves, I feel so bad for them, they have had such crappy waves/weather this quarter, he deserves a weekend with amazing waves--he has worked SO hard this quarter and needs a break before heading into the final crunch--so I am keeping my fingers crossed for them!). Off to practice this sermon...I'll post another update after this weekend!

more shower photos

I received some photos in the last couple days from my bridal shower and thought I'd post those for you all...

Here is Becca, ready to catch the train to get to the showerAlethia, Christina and JennMegan and IThe beginning of present openingI did get one present that is appropriate to show off :) Christina and Jenn gave me two things, but one was a pair of warm and comfy pjs...the other, well, it's not pictured here...:)The whole group of beautiful womenJenn and I--she was the one who made this whole thing happen!

6 times a bridesmaid...now i'm the bride!

It was time for another bridal shower! This time, here in Pasadena with the fabulous women of Fuller :) My small group picked this weekend to celebrate because Sophie was able to be in town, so the 8 of us went to a beautiful (and yummy!) formal tea on Saturday morning instead of holding our regular small group. The girls got all decked out, Tera even found this amazing hat to wear--and there was talk of white gloves although no one had any they could bring. Since I am not a traditional bachelorette-party kind of girl (no clubs, shots, random pranks, or sleazy bars were going to go over well with me!) they decided to do a classy tea party with...well...traditional bachelorette type gifts. Which means present opening pictures will not be posted for the world to see---only one person will be seeing them, and that's not for another 40 days...:)

I don't have most of the photos--they were on other's cameras, but here are the few I do have, and more will be posted as they are sent to me.

Tera and her amazing hat. We called her Sunbonnet Sue all morning :)Alethia and ChristinaThis is Becca. Becca despises the color pink. For some reason though, Becca owns one pink flowered dress. This was Sarah's party. Sarah LOVES the color pink. Becca loves Sarah enough to wear the pink dress just for her. Now that's a good friend!Sophie stole Tera's hat to pose with AlethiaWe each got our own tea pot with our flavor of teaSophie, Alethia, Christina, and JennWe had all pre-chosen our food, so they brought it out on these trays--half the tray was my food and half was Megan's who was sitting next to me. It was SO yummy! I had a cafe mocha scone and a cranberry/chicken/cream cheese sandwich.This is one gift you can see pictures of, because I think it is pretty fabulous. Chuck does too and can't wait to see if I actually have the guts to use it :) Jenn made me a card that I can carry in my pocket the week of the wedding and if anyone argues with us, questions our decisions, complains about ANYTHING, fights with me about who is sitting where at the reception, or whatever, I can just pull out the card and flash it :) "I am the bride...thanks!" You know, just in case anyone forgets whose wedding it actually is :) She offered to make Chuck one too that said he was the groom, but he said if anyone gives him a hard time or complains he'll just point them to me and let me play the "I'm the bride" card :) (Like he said, being the bride probably carries a little more weight than being the groom when it comes to wedding details but he did promise to be my body guard and have my back defending any decision I make!)

Being Tourists

Sunday we went to worship at Bethany, which was fabulous of course :) Then we were invited to a family's home (friends of mine from Bethany) for tea and homemade scones, which were so yummy! It was great getting to introduce Chuck to Karen and John! From there we drove north for about an hour to Everett, the town my grandma has lived in for a long long time. We met my mom, grandma, 2 aunts, and uncle for lunch on the Everett waterfront by the ferry docks. We had wonderful seafood (Chuck got his first taste of Alaskan salmon FRESH from Alaska--he says it's nothing like the Alaskan salmon you can get in Florida!) and got to enjoy the beautiful view.

These are the Cascade mountains--part of them anyways!The Mukilteo to Whidbey Island ferry--a boat I took a LOT growing up to get out to the beach house my grandma would rent.That's Mt. Baker in the distanceThis morning we went to Golden Gardens, the beach I spent the most time at in college, and gathered sand for our wedding. Instead of doing a unity candle, we are going to combine two vases of sand into one vase--his sand from Jacksonville Beach and mine from Seattle--the mixing of the east and west!Missy and Heather came with us :)Then it was off to the Space Needle!The view from the top! SUCH a pretty day! This is looking north--Lake UnionLake Union with Mt. Baker in the distanceThe Cascade Mountains to the east Downtown with Mt. Rainier--i LOVE this city!A ferry coming into SeattleLooking west, to the Olympic Mountains and Elliott BayMissy and IHeather and IHeather, Jeannette, Missy and IThe group: Heather, Missy, Jeannette, Brian, Chuck and IThen it was off to the famous Pike's Place Market so Chuck could see a fish be thrown :)A fresh crab being thrownAll the beautiful fresh produce!Chuck at the very first Starbucks ever--it's down at Pikes Market