Update on married life

I know, I know. I am not a diligent blogger. It's not that I don't have good intentions or even good ideas, it's just that there are about a thousand things that come first on my to-do list. Oh well.

I wanted to write an update on our lives for the friends and family that I don't get to talk to very often or that live far away (I miss you, friends in Columbia!). That's usually what people ask when they see or talk to me: "How is married life?" Of course I don't usually have the chance to go into a lot of details, so I just say, "Great!" which it is. But I figured this way I could share a little more. :)

First off, tour of our apartment. We are currently living in the Maryland Heights area of St. Louis, for those of you who don't know. We have the best location ever. Seriously, it's fantastic. Everything we need and want is so close by (including an Asian market!). Our apartment itself is really nice, too, aside from the lack of washer and dryer. That's it's major downfall. But a lot of families live in the complex and aside from the whiny dog and the elephants upstairs, it's really quiet except for the sounds of children playing outside on nice afternoons. That sound makes it feel homey. :) Here's the photo tour:

Living room:
This is what it looks like if you walk in our front door and look to the right. We just hung up our wedding pictures above the couch with our cute "Mr. & Mrs. Shadduck" cake topper. You can see Cosmo's throne as well. He loves to sit and watch the birds that land on the balcony.

Side note: our grill isn't normally there. We brought it in because of the ice last week.

Dining room area thing/kitchen:
The kitchen is tiny. We climb over each other when we're cooking or cleaning up after dinner. It's okay, though. :)

Hallway/office:

The office is the door on the left. Cosmo is peering out of our bedroom, which is at the end of the hall. Our office is where we compromised on the decor from our unmarried lives: mine on one side, his on the other.

Bedroom:
Our bedroom is really a great size, and it's awesome that it has two closets. Obviously mine is the walk-in, but Joe's is still decent sized! We have a super comfy queen bed that makes it super hard to get up in the morning.

Bathroom:
Our bathroom has a nautical/beach theme. My awesome friend Hailey painted us the "you anchor me" canvas that you can see reflected in the mirror and the sea shells are from our honeymoon. The picture on top of the hutch is one from when we were on Saona Island on our honeymoon.

So that's home! We really do love it and it really feels like our home. :)

As far as married life goes...

We are truly, truly loving it. I thank God every day because I feel so blessed to be in such a happy, supportive, loving relationship. Being married has been the biggest blessing of my life so far. It is so wonderful to have someone to go through everything with. I know that no matter how busy or stressful my day is, Joe will be at home that night to snuggle up with me and make it all better. It is such a wonderful thing.

Joe is a wonderful husband. I am a super lucky lady. He helps me around the house all the time, warms my car up for me in the morning, always makes the coffee and runs errands on his way home from work. Plus he's a good caretaker when I'm sick, as I found out last week.

We have started to feel like we are falling into the routine of our lives. We both work full-time, and one wonderful thing is that we get home right around the same time. After we get home, we do P90X3 (30 minute workout). It has been really great for us to get into a consistent workout routine, and we both feel really great and healthy. We work out with Joe's sister, Erin, and her husband, Sean. They live across the street, which is awesome. After that, we cook dinner. Joe is super helpful in the kitchen. Cooking together is one of our favorite things to do, and he always helps clean up dishes, even if he helped cooked. We've gotten really efficient at it. He usually cleans up while I pack our lunches for the next day. Things feel very natural and routine. He washes, I dry. I cut up the fruit, he juices it. I serve our plates, he gets our drinks. Etc. etc.

We've also taken up some TV shows and video games together. This is one of the most frustrating parts of marriage, because all our shows we watch together. So when I'm home for a snow day or something, what am I supposed to watch?! I have to wait for him! Just kidding about it being one of the most frustrating parts of marriage. But it is true that I never know what to watch when I'm alone because we watch things together. Boo. Anyway, currently we are watching Friends, we just finished an anime called Clannad and we play Diablo III. Ha.

We plan to take up tennis together now that the weather is nice. We have tennis courts across the street from us, so that's cool. We also live near Creve Coeur Park so we go for long walks when it's nice outside.

We also binge on candy together (THANK GOODNESS Joe loves candy as much as I do), make copious amounts of popcorn, spend basically all of our at-home time in our pajamas, go out for date nights every couple of weeks, laugh at Cosmo "hunting" birds, hang out with friends and basically just have a good time together.

Both of our jobs are going well. I am loving student teaching, and Joe is still working at Trane. He doesn't love it, but it is a good job and it's supporting us really well right now, so we are thankful for it. I am currently on the hunt for a job for next school year. I have at least one prospect so far, and it is really early to even have that, so I am feel optimistic about the search. I know there's a job out there for me, I just have to trust that I will find it.

So that's an update on married life and what's going on with us!

:)

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Flashback to the WORST DAY OF VACATION EVER

Long time no blog! This semester has been really busy with school and wedding-planning and frankly, I haven't felt like my life has been all that interesting aside from those things so I haven't had much I felt like saying.

I was looking through my FB pictures recently when I stumbled upon photographic evidence of the worst vacation ever and decided that I need to share it with the world.

When I say worst day of vacation ever, I'm talking Griswold family vacation style bad.

Apologies for the profanity but....

Anyway, let's set the stage:

Our story takes place the summer of 2007. Joe and I had just gotten together (I mean literally a week before) and then I jetted off to Florida for a family vacation. Sydni and I went early so that we could have a longer vacation. My grandparents live in near Tampa, so we were staying with them. My family then joined us in Florida and after a few days, we decided to go down to Miami to visit my uncle. So, we all six of us piled into my grandpa's van and we set off on the "four hour" drive to Miami.

And so it begins.

Their sad faces are about to get a whole lot sadder.

A few minutes into our drive, we decided to stop at a gas station that has Krispy Kreme donuts. We got a dozen donuts and set back off on our merry way. As I was eating my donut, all of a sudden, I bit into something extremely hard. Being careful not to bite down too hard and break my tooth off, I pulled the mysterious object out of my mouth and discovered A SHARD OF METAL. Not even joking. WHAT ON EARTH.

Naturally, we called the company to alert them of the issue. Later in the vacation, they personally delivered three dozen donuts, coffee and frisbees to us to make up for our misfortune. But that's a good thing that happened later and we're talking about this horrible-ness of this day.

So naturally, I was a little perturbed by my donut but I thought it was hilarious and got over it pretty immediately. As we continued driving, I began to have to pee really badly. I mean really badly. I hadn't asked to stop to pee at all, so was once too much to ask? Apparently. Instead of driving to a gas station, my mom convinced my dad to stop on the side of the road so we could look for alligators. Seriously. My bladder was hurting but no one seemed to understand that. Then my little sister, Lindsey, who was eight at the time, took off running towards the ledge. There happened to be an alligator swimming by right at the moment. Luckily we didn't have to save her from an attack. Here we are looking for alligators:

As my body language suggests, I was ecstatic.

So all-in-all, this four hour drive took us around six/six and a half hours. Pretty annoying, but not the epically terrible day I suggested, right?

We're just getting started.

My mom had booked a hotel on Priceline. It was supposed to be a really nice hotel, right on the beach so we could walk out to it and we had booked a big suite. We got to the hotel right around check-in time, but if I remember correctly we were still just maybe a half hour early. They told us they were still cleaning the room, but if we wanted to sit in the lobby or go out to the beach, we could. Okay, fine. Not a big deal. So we waited. Meanwhile, birds are flying through the lobby over our heads and the area around us doesn't look particularly sparkly clean. Still, whatever. It's a hotel that walks out to the beach so these things aren't that abnormal.

After waiting the appropriate amount of time, my dad went back up to the desk to get our keys. Nope, room was "still being cleaned." What? So we waited again. And again. For OVER TWO HOURS, even though by this point it was well past check-in time. They kept trying to give us coupons for free breakfast, even though HELLO, breakfast was already included! We were all exhausted and crabby and just over the whole day at this point.

FINALLY, we get our keys and get to go up to our room. I wish I had pictures of this because it's hard to believe it if you didn't experience it. When we opened the door, we found the the whole "living room" area was walled with mirrors. Okay, cool. EXCEPT THOSE MIRRORS HAD DISGUSTING SMUDGED HAND PRINTS SLIDING ALL OVER DOWN IT. Clearly they did a fabulous job cleaning our room for three hours. Upon further inspection we discovered pee in the uncleaned toilet. 

We were about ready to walk out when we heard Lindsey shout from the bedroom, "Hey, somebody left cigarettes in here." Luckily I had the foresight to take a picture of this:

Not cigarettes.

My dad shouted, "THAT'S IT!" and told my mom to get the kids out while he called the desk and told them they needed to get up here immediately and that they needed to bring security with them. I don't know what happened in the room after that.

Meanwhile, we went down to the pool to check in out in the off chance that we might stay the night here in another room. The pool had a layer of what I assume was sunscreen grease on the top of the water, as well as hair clumps floating in it, no joke. Disgusting but unsurprising, given our experience so far.

After another hour of waiting around, my dad came out and said we were leaving and that they were reimbursing us our money and sending us a voucher for a free stay at another Ramada (apparently this hotel was a Ramada, although it wasn't called that). Good one.

In the end, we ended up going to a Holiday Inn about fifteen minutes away, which was incredibly nice.

Non-greasy, not hair-filled pool.

It was the longest, most frustrating day of living Murphy's Law. We were all pretty much at the end of our rope by the end.

But in the end, we ended up having a good time swimming in the pool at our new hotel and starting fresh the next day. The good news is that the whole vacation overall was pretty great.

The end.

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Musings on "engagement"

While here at Supercamp, I made a friend who is fairly recently married. The advice that she gave me was to really take the time to enjoy the engagement period, because it's a very special time in your relationship that is unlike both dating and being married. The first time that she said it, I was not sure exactly what she was talking about. I mean, we're planning a wedding. That's different. We're planning on moving in together. That's different, too. But what is this really special time she is talking about?

It is now several weeks later, and after having been away from Joe for so long now and having had time to really think about what she said, I have come to realize how special this time really does feel for me.

Last summer, Joe and I were apart the whole summer. I missed him horribly, but I was busy, so even though it was really rough, I was able to cope. It was an intense feeling of missing him, but the feeling this summer is different. It's kind of hard to explain. It's not necessarily that I miss him more, I just miss him differently. It's like a feeling that I'm constantly forgetting something, sort of. Like a nagging feeling that I'm just not completely fulfilled or present at any moment. I don't know if that makes sense. It's hard to explain, because it's more of a subconscious feeling than a conscious feeling. It's just different, like I said.

The other thing is how special it is to plan and imagine our lives together. We've been together a long time, so we've talked about the future in a hypothetical way and made "plans." Now we are actually making plans. We have registered for wedding gifts that will become our things that we use together every day. We are looking for things to decorate the apartment and discussing the things we'll do together regularly when we live together. We're making plans for where we will live and where we will visit. It's a very exciting time where there are so many possibilities for our futures together.

Another major difference is the mindset change from "me" to "we." People have asked me if I'm coming back to Supercamp or if I might like to stay involved in the company in the future. I can't really say what I'll be doing because now I have to consider that my decisions aren't just for me. When we were just dating, it was less of a big deal to leave for a few weeks to do a camp, but that won't really be true once we're married. I have to take into consideration that I am not just one person anymore, I am two. Changing that mindset is somewhat difficult at times. For example, we'll be getting married right before Christmas. It's important to Joe that we spend Christmas together as a family, which looks like just the two of us at this point. I'm now shifting into thinking of Joe as my family. That means that he will become my first go-to, my emergency contact, my person. I have been so used to that being my mom or both my parents that it is a definite mindset shift.

So that's what is different from dating that I have noticed so far. We'll see what else comes up. I can definitely say that my friend was right, though. This time of engagement is very special. :)

TO BE CONTINUED IN THE FUTURE (maybe)

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Wedding planning all day, err'day

Unfortunately there will be few pictures on this post because I don't want to give away things!

When Joe and I got engaged, we knew that we wanted a short engagement. We had been talking about the possibility of a December wedding for a while and once we got engaged, we knew it was possible. We can plan a wedding in five months, right? Well four, really, considering I'm going to be gone at camp for the entire month of July. WHEW, deep breaths.

So, needless to say, planning has been in high gear for the past week (we've only been engaged a week?)! And by high gear, I mean HIGH GEAR.

My first order of business was to call the venue I had been eyeing for a while to see if they were still available and they were - YAY! So we set up a tour with them for this past Saturday.

Next order of business... dress, obviously! I made an appointment to go into David's Bridal to try on a bunch of dresses and get an idea of what I wanted because I thought I had no idea.

Last week I also asked all of my bridesmaids, flower girl and ring bearer to be in the wedding so the wedding party is set (well, mine... Joe has some things to do this week, still). Finally, I finished up a preliminary guest list of my guests (Joe will be doing his this week).

This weekend has been a complete whirlwind.

On Friday, I went to the Fall Out Boy concert which was INCREDIBLE.

I danced and sang my heart out and only just got my voice back completely yesterday. I thought I would die of heat stroke but it was such an amazing concert. You have to understand: I love Fall Out Boy. I loved them in middle school and I never stopped. I still very regularly listen to them so this was probably the most fun I have ever had at  a concert. Plus, I got to go with all my best friends so that made it even better.

Saturday it was back to wedding planning. We went to our hopeful wedding venue for a tour. Both of my parents got to come, so that was exciting. We were driving along looking for it when suddenly we saw it up on this huge cliff overlooking a lake and all of us just went, "Wow!" Needless to say, we loved the venue. It was beautiful and the people were very friendly, helpful and did not pressure us at all. We took a long time to talk amongst ourselves about what package we wanted, which made me so stress, but my wonderful finance kept us grounded and made sure that my mom and I didn't get overwhelmed and end up going with something bigger than we really wanted, which almost happened. In the end, I got exactly what I wanted and am so happy with our choice. Now that it's official, I can say that we are getting married at Hermann Hill! Click the link to see some pictures and info about it! And the very most exciting thing...

WE'RE ON THE CALENDAR! :) Ignore the crappy cell phone pictures of my computer screen. I should have done a screen shot but whatever. Not changing it now.

After we booked our venue, we went to our favorite chocolate place in Hermann to get some yummy treats and then Joe and I jetted off to Target and Bed, Bath and Beyond to register for wedding gifts. Target was not very fun and they were super unhelpful (I ended up scanning into a list, not a registry so I have to go back and redo it... ugh) but Bed, Bath and Beyond was so much fun! We made it halfway through the store before we got exhausted and decide to finish the next day. Then we went out to dinner at HuHot (yummmm) and then relaxed and watched a movie.

The next day we had lunch with Joe's family, got Joe fitted for a tux for his sister's wedding, picked out probably tuxes for our own wedding and then went to finish up our registry. Joe registered for a Roomba and a tennis ball shooter because he's Joe. We had fun and we're really happy with our registry. It was really fun to choose the things that will be ours.

On Monday (yesterday) I went to my dress appointment with my mom, Lindsey, Amanda and Sydni. We had a really fun time and I tried on a variety of dresses. There were two that I just absolutely loved, but in the end, I came back to one. We left and planned to come back later. I thought about it over the day and decided I needed to try the dress on one more time, so we went back last night and I tried it on again. We put on all the accessories (veil, sash, etc.) and, cheesy as it is, I put headphones on and played the song I am planning on walking down the aisle to and I knew that it was the dress. I can't believe I found a dress that I love on the first day! How easy was that? It's a perfect dress for me and when I looked back at my Pinterest wedding board last night, I realized that almost all the dresses I had pinned were the same style... guess I knew what I wanted all along!

Today I am choosing our photographer. This has proved to be one of the most difficult decisions so far! Choosing a dress was hard just because I'm a commitment-phobe, but finding a photographer who will really capture what I want has been tough.

So that's where we're at. In the past (little over a) week, we have done the following:
1. Choose a date
2. Book a wedding and reception venue
3. Register for gifts
4. Buy a dress and all accessories (except hair and shoes)
5. Choose probable tuxes
6. Finalize wedding color
7. Make guest list
8. Decide on a photographer

Who says you can't plan a wedding in a short amount of time?

I'm having so much fun! :)

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He put a ring on it! (Our weekend in Chicago)

As almost everyone knows, Joe and I went to Chicago this past weekend to celebrate our anniversary (a month early). We were really excited to have a weekend to get away together before I leave for camp and since we haven't gotten to go on a vacation together in a long time.

We left at six in the morning on Saturday (yikes!) so that we could make it there by early afternoon and spend the day going to the aquarium, dinner and to a play. We had a nice drive and got there right on schedule. We were staying with my wonderful cousin, Kaila, she helped us navigate mass transit to make it downtown.

We were dressed up all nice for dinner and the play, but obviously I wasn't wearing my peach dress because it caught on fire. We were the fanciest people on the train and throughout the evening, several homeless people asked Joe for money because I guess they thought we looked wealthy. That really happened.

(Joe is not in this picture because he wouldn't let me ask someone to take one of us.)

Anyway, we got to the aquarium and found out that there would be a two hour wait! We were hot in our dressy clothes and didn't have time to wait in line if we were going to make it to our play that night, so we decided to find something else to do... a water taxi!

(Us in line waiting for our water taxi)

We were really excited to ride the water taxi because it was a beautiful, sunny day and a boat ride sounded like a lot of fun! The taxi went to Navy Pier, which is a place were planning on going, anyway. While on the water taxi, we saw the Ferris Wheel in the distance and I suggested we go on it since I couldn't go on the swings in a dress. Joe (overly) enthusiastically agreed that the Ferris Wheel sounded like fun.

As we were buying our tickets for the Ferris Wheel, I mentioned something about how it was kind of boring, but Joe, once again overly-enthusiastically, assured me that it would be really fun since it was such a pretty view. I agreed and we bought our tickets.

While we waited in line, Joe was acting pretty... weird. He was very happy, first of all. He kept smiling at me weirdly. Secondly, he kept squeezing my hand like he was nervous/excited. Sketch. At this point, I had my suspicions that something was coming so I was pretty excited myself.

We got on the Ferris Wheel and the view was very pretty. I suggested we take a picture of us with the pretty view behind us. This picture was taken literally a minute before Joe proposed. I love this picture because look how happy he looks! :)

So anyway, we're on the Ferris Wheel, I'm suspicious, we're taking pictures and nothing else is happening! We've gotten to the very top and are just starting the descent and I'm starting to think that maybe I was wrong when Joe says, "Hey Brittany..." and gets down on one knee! EEEEEEEE! He goes to pull something (a RING) out of his pocket and can't get it out. He looks embarrassed and panic-stricken and it's the cutest thing in the world because obviously I know what is happening since he's on one knee. He finally gets it out and asks me to marry him and I say YES (of course)!

We are both glowing because WE ARE FINALLY GETTING MARRIED when we get off the Ferris Wheel when a little girl with braces who was probably around 13 comes up, glowing as well, and tells us, "Congratulations!!!" She was in the car behind us so she saw it happen. :) We were really happy that we had one witness to be excited with us.

After that, we walked to dinner while I called and texted all my friends and family. Dinner was amazing and our waiter was great! He even put candles in our desert to celebrate our engagement.

We were glowing all evening and honestly, I still am. I just can't believe it's finally happening and I get to marry my best friend at last! We are so, so excited and so blessed. More on this later.

We ended up missing our play because mass transit takes forever, so we changed our plans and walked around Michigan Avenue, went to the beach briefly (see picture above), then finally back to Navy Pier to hang out at the beer garden and wait for the fireworks. There was live music and the fireworks were awesome - what a perfect way to end the night, right?

When we got back to Kaila's apartment, she had candles and champagne waiting to celebrate with us! It was so sweet and it was great to be able to celebrate with someone who wasn't a stranger.

The next day, we finally did get to go to aquarium.

(This is the appropriately named "Man with Fish.")

We waited in line for an hour and a half, but it wasn't too bad and the aquarium was really cool. After that, we got hotdogs (Joe got Chicago-style, I got a turkey dog) and then walked to Millennium Park. It was sooooo hot and humid that day, so we were dying by the time we got there. We made a pit stop in what we thought was Millennium Park and took this cute picture in front of the fountains, showing off my new bling:

At the real Millennium Park, we took a necessary tourist picture with the bean and then played in the spitting fountains, which felt wonderful since we were so hot and sweaty.

Then we headed home.

Overall, we had a wonderful weekend together and it was a great way to not only celebrate our anniversary, but our engagement, too!

I feel so blessed to be marrying Joe. We have been together for so long and I know that God put us together for a lot of reasons, which I will not go into on here. It has been a long wait, but we have prayed that God would work everything out in his timing and that we would have patience in waiting. We have struggled to be patient, but have always known that when the time was right, God would work everything out for us. God's timing is so much more perfect than ours ever could have been! I will be moving back to St. Louis in December to student teach... what more perfect time is there for me to get married and move in with Joe? Also, a short engagement is perfect for my hyper-planning, type-A personality. If I weren't diving right into planning, I would be going crazy! God knows us so well and I am so thankful that we waited for his timing instead of moving forward with ours in any aspect. He is providing magnificently already for the wedding in the form of support, offers of help, finances, etc. God is SO GOOD!

I leave you with a few more pictures of my ring because I am obsessed with it:

Thank you for reading! :)

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Apparently I caught on fire and didn't know it.

I was not planning on updating this again until after this weekend. Joe and I are going on an anniversary trip to Chicago for the weekend, which will be super fun. I was intending for that to be my next post, but as I was packing for said trip, I discovered something horrible.

Flashback to last month. Semi-formal was the first weekend in May. I had a cute sundress and sandals to wear  because usually it's warm enough for that in May.

Don't be fooled by this picture where we both look nice and warm. It was freezing cold that night. When we walked in, I was shivering. Naturally, we all gathered around the space heater to stay warm. I should mention that it was a big space heater with flames, not a little electric one. I spent the first half hour or so of the time we were there warming up in front of the space heater until enough people got there and it got warmer. We ended up having a really good time, despite the cold. I went home thinking that it had been a good night and that I had avoided any disastrous situations.

WELL... back to the present.

I was packing for our Chicago trip and since we are going out to a nice dinner and then to a play, I was planning on packing this dress to wear again. I pulled it out of my closet and noticed something weird...

Yes. That is a BURN on my dress. Apparently I caught my dress on fire (I can only assume it was from the space heater) and did not know it. HOW DOES THAT EVEN HAPPEN? How does one catch on fire and not realize it?

R.I.P. Pretty Peach Dress

Enjoy this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J91ti_MpdHA

The end.

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Why Joe and I will never own a bakery

About a month ago, I asked Joe if he would make brownies for a party we were going to while I got ready. He begrudgingly agreed to make them and I went to my room to get ready. Once I was ready, I came out to cut the brownies and found that they looked really... strange. I wish I had taken a picture because it's hard to explain what they looked like, but they were very crumbly and dry looking. I asked Joe if he had put water in them and he said, "Brittany, you don't put water in brownies."

Uh oh.

The brownies tasted horrible and looked even worse so I opted to take strawberries for a desert instead. Later, when I went to rinse the pan the brownies were in, it came out in a solid block. Yuck. Needless to say, I have been giving Joe crap for the past month about his inability to make the easiest desert on the planet and accusing him of this:

Karma can be a pain.

This weekend I decided to make brownies because they are delicious. On my first attempt, I realized I didn't have any eggs. No big deal because we ended up getting ice cream that night anyway.

Two days later, after purchasing some eggs, I decided that I was for real going to make brownies. I got out my eggs and water, laughing to myself because of course I wouldn't forget the water like Joe had. After I got out all of my supplies, I opened the bag of brownie mix... well, I tried to. Those bags are so hard to open! If I were smart, I would buy some kitchen shears, but apparently I'm not. So of course, I pulled as hard as I could with both hands and the brownie mix exploded all over me, the stove and floor. RUDE. (Unfortunately I do not have a picture of this, as it was before I decided to start blogging.)

So there I stood, with brownie mix everywhere, confused and sad because I really wanted brownies. There was still about 3/4 of the bag left, but that's 1/4 less brownies! I shouted for Joe, "Joe... something bad happened." He didn't hear me. So I attempted to shovel some of the mix back into the bag from the stove before heading into the other room and repeated that something bad had happened. Joe followed me into the kitchen and started laughing, asking why on earth I would explode a brown mix. OBVIOUSLY I DIDN'T MEAN TO.

Anyway, he graciously helped me clean it up and only made fun of me a little bit. We laughed about how neither of us can manage to make the easiest desert in the world.

But it's not over. I still made the brownies. As I was stirring them, I realized the consistency was a little strange... That's right. I forgot the oil. I hate myself

Anyway, I added the oil and put them in the pan. They never cooked all the way through because there wasn't enough mix but I think they still tasted delicious because brownies are delicious.

The moral of the story is, Joe and I are not master bakers. We'll stick to buying our deserts from U Knead Sweets downtown.

Happy Wednesday.

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