4 days left

It's 3am and I am rarely up at this house. However, this is not a  normal week. Paul and I are getting married on Saturday. In 4 days time. AND while I have most of the major prep done there are still many tiny details left to finish. Until the last couple weeks I had not felt stress, and normally when stress has appeared over the past few weeks I could shrug it off. Tonight it was much harder. Though now, 8 hours of wedding administration later I feel much less stressed. I have completed my seating charts; the arrangement, the individual table markers & seating board. I had already purchased all the cardstock to go with these documents so this week I can, at my leisure, put these pieces together. I feel much better.

Sarah and I went out for Japanese noodle. It was tasty and strange. It was also pouring out and we got very wet and 'Sweet Love' Morgan came to pick us up. I love him so much. He told me tonight he is amazed at how much work I have done for our wedding and that he has some big plans to show me how much he appreciates me....things like having my ring engraved (which he accidentally told me) and other things I do not know since they are a surprise. i feel very loved.

Paul's mom comes to town tomorrow. More family comes to town Thursday. All family will be in town Friday. Friday we will decorate the reception hall from 9am til 1pm. Then myself and my bridesmaids will make bouquets from 1 until 2:30. Then we will get mani/pedi's at 3. At 5:15 is the rehearsal. 7pm is the rehearsal dinner for our entire family; 60 people! I am pretty excited.

(Weird, as I type this I just had a major flashback to writing a blog entry when Jenna was getting married with a similar timeline)

Saturday Paul and I will sneak away early to have breakfast together before our big day, and after we part ways there I will not see him again until I begin to walk down the aisle. Oh!

I am so excited to marry Paul. He is amazing.

And now I should sleep as it is 3:15am....and I have a staff meeting at 10am....I will be waking up at 8am, spending time with God, going tanning, then bussing to get my car....THEN going to the staff meeting. Phew.

2 weeks until the big day!

Today is the only day of my life that I will wake up and realize that in exactly 2 weeks I will be getting married. Weird.

With this in mind I set off on to complete a marathon of errands...all while hanging out with amazing women, of course. I met up with my friend Mila (Paul’s groomsmen Daniel’s little sister) for breakfast at Bon’s (home of the $2.95 breakfast) and a trip to the printers to price our programs and table numbers. They were more costly than expected. Mila, being amazing, came up with a cheaper and better solution. I am in awe of her genius.

After a painful (but timely) visit to a beauty salon (for threading & waxing—my face is so smooth now!) I met up with my dear friend Stefany. Stefany is from Quebec and soon she will be heading home (Oh I hate to have that be true) but she has been living here since June and I have so enjoyed getting to know her. She has been so huegely helpful at every step of the wedding process. When I needed a dress fitting, Stef was right there to tie my corset & take photos. When we needed to register for gifts but Paul was getting tired of walking around the store, I took Stef with me on my next trip. Whenever I have a day full of wedding errands that I know would bore Paul, Stef is always ready and excited to come along. So today, as Paul is away on his Stag, Stefany and I set out to kick some wedding errand butt...and boy did we.

Errands completed:

· Bathing suit purchased—Addition elle on sale!

· Sundress for honeymoon purchased—Reitmans (Thanks Nancy for both of these!)

· Fabric purchased for pocket squares (and later tonight sewn) - Fabricland

· Paper purchased for card box (and later tonight box was wrapped & decorated) - Micheals

· Paper purchased for table numbers (though later realized I am short 10 yellow pages of cardstock, eep. Will finish buying yellow card stock tomorrow.) - Paper Poet & Micheals

· Wedding shoes purchased—Payless on sale! Came with 70% off another pair of shoes + 2 necklaces for half price

· Tie purchased (for Paul) - Walmart (will be covered with orange material to make it match my sash)

· Wedding favors priced out (at Superstore—unless the grocery manager was wrong, and I kind of think he was, Lyndors are super pricey, yikes).

· Home Décor bought on sale in antique shop in New West.

· Marble Slab Creamery ingested on sale! MMMM

· Guest book/photo frame for signing purchased—Micheals, also on sale!

 On top of all this Stefany and I (with the help of our friend Candace—who is also amazing) made tasty pizza’s and potatoe skins. We even tried a new invention: perogie pizza with real perogies boiled, fried, cut up and layered right onto the pizza! Tasty! We watched ‘When Harry met Sally’ and SNL while cutting papers, sewing pocket squares and wrapping boxes. Productive and fun.

As I mentioned earlier Paul is away on his Stag. He is away with his groomsmen, best man and father. My stagette was about a month ago and I went away with 15 of my female friends. We both got to do what we love best for our time of celebration. I got to enjoy telling stories, drinking martinis and hanging out with great friends. Paul is enjoying being in the woods (despite the pouring rain), fishing and being with his 3 best guy friends and his Dad. I always miss Paul when he is gone but I enjoy hanging out with girlfriends, and doing girlie things. As I write I am still at Stefany’s house. We are having a sleepover with Candace. While the girls are sleeping I wanted to take a moment to update here. It has been such a busy few weeks that updating seemed stressful and a huge goal of mine through this whole process has been anything that is stressful gets left until it is no longer stressful.

After today the wedding is very much still under control. There are still things left to do: pick dance songs, pick worship music & pick reception music (I have been putting off everything music related). We also need to finalize our ceremony details with our pastor (my uncle) and create a run-sheet for the day so that we have a plan for every detail. There are a few other details still left to work out but mostly we are ready. It feels pretty great.

I am so enjoying this final time of being single, while looking forward to a future with Paul. I feel badly for him though as he is finishing this school semester. He is finally done with his papers but now is entering a week of exams. He could definitely use any prayers you would send his way! I am enjoying cheering him up. It’s fun to learn how to love him when he is stressed.

Alright, It is late, and I should sleep. Good night all!

2 weeks until the big day….Wow!

I will quickly add 2 photos:

1 includes Stefany and I and was taken in December, hence my long hair. But it does show Stefany and I enjoying each other. Normally Stef is the photographer so this is a rare treat, seeing her on the other side of the lense, hence how not recent this photo is. And the second is of Lyndsay, Candace and I at a sleepover 2 weeks ago at Stef's. It was a great evening, almost identical to tonight's great sleepover, minus the lovely Lyndsay who is having a sleepover of her own in Port Moody with other friends. 

Pictures 3,4 and 5 are of a very happy couple. 3 is us posing of so naturally in front of water. 4 is us excited for marriage *wink*wink* and 5 showcases how much fun we are. 

Vein? possibly. In love? Definitely

27 days to our new home!

27 Days until the wedding! Oh my gosh; it's so exciting. Seriously I can not believe that in 27 days Paul and I will be married!

Yesterday Paul and I found our new home! It is a basement suite at 39th and Cambie. For those of you not from Vancouver that means it is in a medium nice area next to Queen Elizabeth Park (a beautiful park in the middle of the city). It is a 5 minutue walk to the Skytrain (which is like our subway but partially above ground), the 41 Bus (which goes straight to UBC - Paul's school) and Oakridge mall (which has shopping, food and grocery stores). 

Google maps tells me I am close to family and friends:

Driving Distances:

to Jenna & Colin's (my sister & her hubby): 5 minutes

to church: 5 minutes

to my parents: 7 minutes

to my aunt and uncles (many of our friends live on the same street): 7 minutes away

Transit Distances: 

Half and hour to all the above places!! plus 40 minutes to UBC

The place is a basement suite, 1000 sq feet, 2 bedroom, giant living room, dining area, kitchen and bathroom. There is shared laundry and TONS of storage. 

To top it off we get all of that, including all utilities, for $850 a month! This is truly a real estate miracle. Our God gives good gifts!

The only negative is we don't get possession until May 1st (the day of our wedding) so we will have to move in on the 2nd. Any help would be appreciated, eep!

The following photos were taken quickly on my camera phone. They are blury and full of the current renters eclectic belongings. Please see past the decorating to the house itself. Though I love the red walls in the master bedroom! It's totally made me rethink our bedding!

Master Bedroom

Paul's Den & Guest Room

Small living space or Dining space

Living Rom

Bathroom - Lots of storage space!!!

Kitchen - brighter in real life

Dining Nook or shelf space

We are very happy. 
We are about to be married. 
We are very loved by our God.