Quick updates

I can't seem to find much time or interesting things to blog about these days, but here are a couple updates...

~ Wade and I ordered a new camera when both of ours broke right after Christmas and it finally came in yesterday! I haven't seen it yet, but I can't wait to start using it :). It's a Nikon D-60 for anyone into that sort of thing.

~ Wedding plans are going well. I ordered our favors and got them in this past week - and even put them all together. I also ordered our invitations, and am told they have been shipped. But I got the slowest shipping because it was the cheapest and I have plenty of time, so it might be another 3 weeks before they arrive. I have a hair "consultation" next weekend, and then my dress and the bridesmaids' dresses should be in next month. 127 more days to go!

~ I bought 2 new bathing suits yesterday for Mexico! Yay, fun :). Target has some cute stuff right now.

~ I started doing yoga over the past few weeks. It's a really good workout - so different from what I've done for years that I can really feel where I'm not strong and I don't have the muscle memory for the yoga poses yet. It's nice, too, because I feel like I'm going to the gym to relax, even though it's still working me out, so I'm more likely to go. It's a fun new challenge.

~ Wade has been driving a 2007 Acura MDX for at least 3 weeks now while his 1999 CRV is in the shop waiting on a part (we think - not even sure what the hold-up is). We don't know why the Acura people don't seem to want their loaner back all that badly, but we're not complaining in the meantime with our heated seats and GPS and XM radio!

~ Paisley is quite the snow dog. She played outside for hours on Tuesday when it snowed - eating it, rolling in it, running around, chasing Duke. I guess she likes frozen water much better than liquid water.

~ I've been making dinner for Wade more recently, trying to get us in the habit of "normal" evenings at home together, and that has been fun. It's also surprising every time to me how much Wade eats! And he's not even working out a ton right now because he doesn't have time between teaching & coaching. I can't imagine what I'll need to feed him when he's burning a lot more calories a day. Last night I went through a dozen eggs for one meal! Granted, I made french toast and scrambled eggs, but it would normally take me 6 months to go through 12 eggs. We will welcome a membership to Sam's or Costco as a wedding gift :).

I guess that's all for now!

Tagged!

This is a fun tag!  I've been tagged by Kristin to go into my 6th photo folder and post the 6th picture in that folder, and it just happens to be this picture of my beautiful mom with her two girls.  

It was taken outside Maggiano's at SouthPark around Labor Day 2007.  Mom had just found out she had (we thought) two months to live, so we sped up the meeting-of-the-families since Wade and I had only been dating a month or so.  All the Johns and all the Tapps (and even all the Steeles, my cousins) went to church together at Christ Covenant and then had lunch at Maggiano's.

Everyone got along so well, and mom was so excited for mine and Wade's future :).

Letter to mom

Dear mom,
A couple days ago marked 6 months since you've been gone. Half a year that has been filled with more change than I can handle at times. It's hard to believe you haven't been here for all these new things.

Wade and I got engaged in October... you would have been SO excited to hear the story of him whisking me off to New York for the day. And you would have dived into the planning with me and had fun thinking of all kinds of creative things to do. Hillary and Laurie were sweet and excited to go dress shopping with me, but I still missed you a ton. I kept remembering our trip to Dar-Lynn's the year before and how you said you were going to take those new drugs and be there for the real day. We're doing pitchers with hydrangeas for our centerpieces in honor of your love for collecting pitchers. Our first dance song is going to be Me and You by Kenny Chesney, which I played for you in the car once and you agreed it was a great first dance song. My ring is beautiful with Mama Dyke's diamond in the center and the ones from your amethyst ring on each side. It means so much to me to have that reminder of you and 2 generations of Dykstra women before you on my finger every day.

Hillary is just 6 weeks away from having your first little granddaughter! I was going through your attic looking for Christmas decorations a month ago and came across all the toys and dolls and books you saved for when the grandkids came to visit grandma. You would've had such a blast getting all that stuff out and playing with her, as well as sharing long talks with Hillary and me, advising us on our new roles as mother and wife.

We celebrated Christmas so differently this year. It is nowhere near the same without you! I missed the cute things you would find to put in our stockings, although dad did get the basics at least, putting baby food peaches and animal crackers in a pair of his socks to bring to us :). Everybody came to my house for pancakes, which was fun, but it just didn't feel like I was ready to be hosting Christmas morning yet in my life. You would love the ornaments I got from a couple people marking our engagement though - one is a big diamond ring and the other is a boy and girl with a "diamond" on her finger.

There have been so many situations in the past months where I've missed your wisdom, your counsel, your smile and laughter and just your presence. It's been so long since we've curled up on your bed and dreamed about the future together, imagining how it could all turn out. It's good that Wade and I are starting to build our own traditions and imagining our life together, but it sure seems like a very sudden way of doing this.

By the time I get married, it will have been one year since we got your final diagnosis of the cancer coming back. It seems like eons ago, to be honest. But I'm glad that for you in heaven it also seems like a thousand years that you've been there, and your pain and suffering here on earth is nothing but a distant memory to you now.

I love you!

Baby boom

People always said it would happen this way, but holy cow, I think just about everyone I know who is married is pregnant!  That's a little bit of an exaggeration, but not much.  I find out about somebody else every day!  

There are 2 girls in my community group and at least 7-8 other women at my church, my sister, a friend from high school youth group, a family friend from pre-kindergarten days, my high school small group leader, 5 friends on my blog list who just had babies in about the last year, plus another 2 fellow bloggers, numerous friends-of-friends that I just hear about through the grapevine, and at least 5-10 friends who have had their babies in the last couple months...

This is crazy...  but wonderful.  Congrats to all the moms-to-be in my world! :)

5 months!

Today marks the official 5-month countdown until the wedding! I don't know whether 5 months is that much more important than 6 months or 4 months, but it feels like one big, long homestretch now that it's (just about) 2009.

I didn't get as much done over my 10-day vacation as I would have liked, though it's not surprising since I was out of town and/or busy pretty much the whole time.

A few of my next to-dos are:
(1) get back to working out regularly again
(2) finish designing and order the invitations
(3) think about wedding hairstyles, cake styles, favors, bridesmaid gifts, etc.
(4) come up with a plan for flowers & ceremony decorations

We've started our pre-marital counseling (just 1 session so far) and we're looking forward to the rest of it... it's so good to have that to help us focus on preparing for our marriage, when it's so easy for me to just plan the wedding.

We're also thinking about all kinds of home improvement projects and what we can or should afford... painting, upgrading the kitchen, upfitting the bathrooms, putting in more security like kickproof doors and tempered glass (after increased break-ins in the area, including my neighbors across the sidewalk).

And finally, less than 7 weeks until Hillary's due to have my first niece! I can't wait :).

Christmas-ish

Holy cow - I do not know where all of December has gone!  Sorry for the lack of post in the last 3+ weeks!  This has been a very strange month and season for me - it's hard to even put into words how it feels.  I've been feeling a lot less festive than in previous years, mostly for the obvious reason of not having mom here.  So the Christmas season just hasn't had its normal appeal, and I can barely remember what it's supposed to feel like and be like.  I thought I'd have these vivid memories and more acute pains of loss at this time of year - and I certainly have missed mom a lot - but it's more of a dull emptiness than I expected it to be.  Just the feeling that things don't matter and there's no reason to do anything special.  The fun is taken out of gifts and surprises and parties and baking and everything.

Plus, Christmas just seemed like a minor deal this year, since the real things I'm looking forward to will happen in the coming months - my new niece and my new marriage :).  I'm just focused on those things I guess.

But nevertheless we did have a little Christmas celebration today.  Hillary, Allen & dad came over to my house around 11:30 this morning and we had some sad pancakes with thin batter (my bad).  We weren't really doing gifts this year, but dad did give us gift cards to Harris Teeter, me a couple shirts and Hillary a check for her windshield replacement.  Then Hillary gave me the luggage she got as a Harris Teeter giveaway and I gave her a couple baby outfits I've picked up at random times on sale.  We watched some of the Christmas Story movie and later made some potatoes to take to my aunt's house for dinner.

Christmas dinner was dampened by the fact that my uncle spent the entire afternoon & evening at the emergency room with his dad who had fallen and needed stitches in his ear.  But the rest of us had a subdued dinner and gift-giving and that was that.  Tomorrow we'll go to Hickory to see my dad's sister and her family.

I do have some pictures and a video though to make this post worth something :)...

These are my wonderful Christmas presents from Wade and the Tapps.  Wade got me (us) the 42" flatscreen, and his parents bought us the TV stand and graduated shelf.  All together it makes the house look so much sleeker - and I finally, for the first time in my life, don't have the smallest TV of everybody I know!

I joined the Tapps and their good family friends in Kiawah for the first half of this week, which was fun and relaxing.  (They stayed there for Christmas, but I came back Christmas Eve.)

Paisley had her first experience with the beach and had a blast!  What's not to love about running free on a wide open beach with 3 other dogs and tons of new things to explore?

In typical fashion, she had to chew on all the new things she saw - including dead horseshoe crabs - gross.

She's not a fan of water, but she did ok with the ocean.  She was scared of the tide, but it was hilarious to watch as she tried to escape it when it came toward her.

Here's me and Whitney (Wade's sister).

This is the Tapps' dog Duke who is quite a character - we all love him and his crazy antics.

Duke and Paisley are two peas in a pod, just running and chasing each other - they had so much fun.

Some more running.

Here's Wade probably trying to get them to fetch a piece of driftwood in the ocean.

Aww, so cute.

One more of us.

I had a little video of Paisley being scared of the ocean but it's not wanting to upload, so I'll try again later.

Engagement pictures!

Our engagement pictures are finally ready!

Click this link to see them: http://bellaloren.zenfolio.com/p92703892/slideshow

The password is Bella.