July 8th - still special

Well, it's my last day of work before the wedding which means I'll not have access to internet until July 9th. Thought I'd leave one last blog entry.

Now don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed this engaged time as much as I think it can be enjoyed but here's a list to leave you with.

Reasons why I'm happy this wedding is almost over :)

1. No more ridiculous little details to make decisions over
2. No more sending Brad home at the end of the night
3. No more wedding favours to put together
4. I'll finally have some time to plan a house warming party
5. No more panic attacks that I've forgotten something
6. Hopefully I'll have something else to blog about now
7. Mexico here I come!

L
(As a selfish little reminder, don't forget
about my Birthday on the 8th :)

Blogging Woes

Sadly, I must admit. I have become one of the things that annoys me most... an infrequent blogger. I've just not been able to keep up with everything I need to do, blogging and the creativity it demands has been the first to go.

So here I am, 4 days before the wedding. Mostly everything is done, there are little things here and there but I feel basically on top of things. I do have this crushing fear that there's something major I've forgotten to do. I have a bit of a cold that's slow to let go and I seem to not be able to sleep anymore... my racing mind keeps me up until all hours. I look forward to Puerto Vallarta and the ocean and the paradise and no more wedding planning. Here are a few pictures to instill a little jealousy.

Hope to see you in 4 days :)
L

Engagement Brunch

What a fun weekend!

Brad and I had an engagement party down in Magrath (my home town), it was so much fun. Exactly how I’d wanted it to be. I’ve been gone from Magrath for a long time so I didn’t feel like I needed a full wedding reception down there but I did want to see those people, most of them wouldn’t drive up to Calgary though. The engagement brunch was the perfect solution. It was super casual, at my parents house. People came, ate, visited and then left, having lots of time left in the day. It was perfect.

The food was so good! We had pancakes cooked on a griddle, there were different toppings to choose from. Butter pecan with ice cream was my favorite. But the apple cinnamon with whipped cream and caramel sauce was incredible too. There were mini muffins, and scones with different flavored butters. Mini quiche and homemade sausage rolls. We drank orange juice and had lots of fruit.

It was fun to see so many people that I haven’t seen in a long time.

Thank you so much everyone who came and everyone who helped. Like I said, it was perfect. Exactly what I wanted.
L

Stories too Embarrassing to Share

So I know that entries are few and far between lately but in my defense, I started an entry yesterday but it ended up being so boring I deleted it. Really, it was no good. It was about this site, it makes for a good read if your bored.

So I had thought that I'd share a story from a awhile ago and was trying to come up with something when I remembered I happen to have my journal at work. So I pulled it open and thought I'd find a good gem or two. Boy was I wrong! That thing is embarrassing! I think I must destroy it! It's all about what boy I'm interested and their every movement that could even slightly be interpreted in my favour... there's no way I'm sharing any of that. It's also become apparent that I only write in my journal when it's about boys. I think I'll make an effort to change that.

So Let's just say that I've grown up a lot. I was silly and a little boy crazy and clingy and needy... thank goodness I learned to be independent and much more mature. Sorry to all those boys I hung out with back then, I'm a much better person now :)
L

Learning Something New Every Day

It seems like lately every entry has been long and wedding related so here's a quicky for you...

Things I've discovered about the new apartment

• It has really random plastic hooks on the inside of the closet door (they make no sense, trust me)
• There's a pull out cutting board (gross)
• The location of the top secret, high security laundry room
• There's only 1 phone jack... for the whole apartment
• Our neighbors seem to have a drinking problem, or so the bottles on their balcony have led us to believe
• There's not enough space

Good thing love knows no limits, cause I sure am in love with this place :)
L

By Request

Oh sigh... the cufflinks...
Thank you Andrew for opening up a wound I thought was healed...This story will make Brad sad when he reads it, especially with the pictures...

After Brad and I got engaged I made the usual decisions, wedding colours, what I want the groom to wear, that kind of stuff. I knew I wanted Brad to wear cufflinks so we started doing some internet searching for a pair we both liked. After not very long we found these ones both Brad and I loved!

They were perfect. The right colour, an interesting style but still simple. They were a great price too £9.99, about $30 with shipping. So Brad ordered them. He got an email confirmation saying his order had been processed and then a second email saying his order was on its way. We were excited. Not too long after he got a third email though... this email said that the company didn’t actually carry this style, they wouldn’t be sent to them and his credit card was refunded. They weren’t on backorder, they wouldn’t ever get more. Didn’t carry the style? But we bought them off the website, there’s a picture! (There’s still a picture and we found them back in April!). We were unimpressed and really disappointed. We couldn’t look for days because nothing compared to the jet engine cufflinks. We would see some perfectly nice ones but compared to these they were awful.

I had a brilliant idea. There has been more than one occasion where Jenn has told me about the google searching powers of her friend Meenah. I figured someone else must make these cufflinks and I was sure if they were out there Meenah could find them. I sent out a plea for help. Jenn also passed the message on to Andrew who, apparently, is also a google master. I really was sure that it would be a mere matter of hours before the 3 of them found something.

Andrew showed the most promise... he found us these and was able tell us that we think the reason we can’t find the ones we want is because they’re a knock off of the ones he found. The problem is we prefer the knock offs and the real ones cost £45, about $135. That’s grossly outside our cufflink budget.

So there really was nothing left to do but forget about our perfect jet engine cufflinks. Brad took a couple weeks to let the memory fade and when he resumed he found, ordered and received something he’s quite happy with. I can’t remember what they look like or where he ordered them or I’d post a picture but I do remember that they’re nice :)
So there you have it, the painful cufflink story.
L

Cell Phone Pain

I know, two posts in one day, I should save this for tomorrow but I’m posting it now.

I very nearly cried...

This month my cell phone bill was $174! The last two months it’s been $140 so this month I really tried to make an effort to be careful... I failed, miserably.

It’s all this wedding stuff. I have these long conversations with my Mom and I have people to call, things to take care of... I can barely afford to eat after this pain though :)

So I’ve done what needed to be done. I called Telus and come Monday I’ll have a land line as well as my cell phone. It’s just a basic phone, the only feature I got was call display, we’ll get an answering machine and be good.

The best part though... I have my old phone number back again! The really easy one to remember that I had for 7 years. So if you ever had my home phone number you’ll have it again come Monday. And if you could do me a favour... please call the land line from now on, not the cell. At least until after the wedding and things get back to normal.
L

The Ring

I have an update on Brad’s ring... I blogged about this on the wedding website, I’ll add the original post so you can get caught up...

“Brad and I went shopping for his wedding band a while ago and found something we loved. They only had it in yellow gold and we want white so we ordered the white gold band and began to anxiously wait the 4 weeks for it to come in.

Last night I called them and they told me it was in so I went to pick it up. I gave the girl my claims ticket and she pulled out a little envelope and shook the ring onto the counter. A first glance was all I needed to know that this ring was absolutely not the one we picked out or ordered. This one has three diamonds on it and in summary was pretty darn ugly. So I told the girl that wasn’t the right ring. She looked it up on the computer and the product number they gave the manufacturer was right but somehow the manufacturer made, and sent the wrong ring.

You can understand my concern... we’re getting married in 4 weeks and that last ring took 4 weeks to get here. They were super nice about it and assured me the ring will be here on June 11th so let’s cross our fingers that they’re right :)”

Okay, now that you know the whole story I can continue it. Karen, the manager called me today to let me know that the ring is in! Yay, right? Well, there’s a catch. The ring we ordered was supposed to be 4 millimeters thick, the one that came in is actually 6 millimeters thick. I’m pretty sure we’re not going to like the thicker band... so Karen called the manufacturer and the right ring is on its way... will hopefully be here next week and will actually be the right ring this time.

Despite this whole mess I still have nothing but good things to say about Charm Diamond Centre. They’ve been so nice and so helpful and so apologetic. I would refer people there as long as you’re not in a time crunch :)
L

Words Can't Express...

So it’s official, I’ve moved.

I now live in this great little apartment almost overlooking downtown. There are tons of trees in the area and beautiful big houses, a park just up the street and Eau Clair Market just down the hill. My favorite breakfast place, Diner Deluxe, is a couple blocks up and I can walk to work. Love it.

Getting to this point was neither easy nor fun.

Wednesday was designated as moving day so I took the day off work and Brad arranged to have his Dad’s trailblazer and a flatbed trailer (with sides) to help. Tuesday night we packed up the kitchen, I’d already packed up the living room. With some help from our friends we packed the trailblazer full of boxes. Wednesday morning I did some more packing and Brad and I loaded up the flatbed. We then headed to the new place. Brad had a dentist appointment we didn’t want to reschedule so he was subbed out by Barb (his Mom). Her and I unloaded the rest of the Trailer and the Trailblazer. We even had time to unpack most of the kitchen by the time Brad came back. We took a break for lunch and then Brad and I went back to the old house to resume packing.

We had some really fantastic helpers that came by later to load and unload the furniture. Here’s my question of the day... how do you properly thank someone so they know just how much their help meant? Remember, this apartment is on the 4th floor and there’s no elevator, Brad, Barb and I had already made a ton of trips up those stairs so the fresh legs were more helpful than they can imagine. Byron, Brent, Al, Amber, Jared, thank you so much! I was almost ready to give up and just wait for Brad to come back from the dentist cause it was too overwhelming when Barb showed up. I don’t think she could have been a more welcome sight. She really came through and gave me the energy to keep doing those stairs, best Mother-in-law I’ve ever had :)

So to those who helped, a Thank you doesn’t cut it, your help made all the difference. Thank you for not making me lift the couch, chair, bed or entertainment unit. When the place is ready we’ll have you over for dinner (in small groups) in an attempt to repay you. Let me know when you move, Brad and I are there.
L