I love wedding planning.

I really do! And not just for myself. In the process of figuring details out for my own wedding, I've planned about 10 other weddings in my head. Maybe I should be a wedding planner... but then again, I think I would get very frustrated with some of the choices people might make. 
Right now I'm most excited about my flower girl dresses and the ceremony music! My mom sent me fabric samples for the flower girl dresses because I'm actually kind of designing the dresses myself... I say dresses because I'm having TWO flower girls. I decided one wasn't enough. Okay, actually I saw a picture in Billy Grubbs studio of two little Asian girls walking down the aisle together and I immediately thought, "I'll be having two flower girls in my wedding, thank you very much." Anyway, after looking at hundreds of flower girl dresses, I basically decided I hated all of them and for some reason, I need to love the flower girl dresses. Maybe its because I was never a flower girl, and I always wanted to wear some kind of pretty, frufru dress, and walk down an aisle daintily throwing petals. So now I'm taking my flower girl frustrations out on making sure the flower girls look perfect. #Flowergirlcomplexat22. 
So, I'm having the dresses made by a friend of the family who use to make wedding dresses. This friend of the family is also taking my wedding dress from a size 8 down to a size whatever-the-heck-dress-size-I-am. So she's amazing.  

The little girl looking at the camera is wearing the dress that is similar to what I want for my flower girls. The skirt will be that length, but a little less full and the sash will be the same color and material as the bridesmaids gowns. The sleeves are 3/4 length (This is a winter wedding after all) and there will be lace that hangs off the end sort of resembling dresses in the 18th century. Think, Felicity, if you happened to ever receive an American Girl magazine. 


As for the music! Well, I'm not going to spoil ALL the fun. All I'm going to say is that I'm so so so excited about the song I'm using to walk down the aisle. It's an SATB choral arrangement composed by Eric Whitacre. The movement, timbre, dynamics, words, and basically everything about the first 53 seconds of the song, is exactly the way I feel about walking down the aisle to spend the rest of my life with Matthew Castleman as his wife. 
The music the bridal party is walking down the isle to is also perfect, in my opinion. It's soft, it's delicate, it's a classical piece, and it reminds me of snow lightly falling on a beautiful wintry day. Yes, that's right, it's the Leanne Rhymes version of "Let it Snow." 
.... 
No it's not. I would never. It is a classical piece though, and it does have a wintry, elegant feel to it. Both of the songs kind of have to have a slower pace because, unlike Kate Middleton, I don't have five minutes of Abby to walk down. It's actually the one draw back about the chapel in Crossroads. I would like a longer aisle. Oh well, I'm forcing everyone to keep it at about .05MPH. 
I'm still looking for music for the lighting of the unity candle. I don't know if that's just a Catholic thing or not, but I like it, so I'm doing it. 
As for the recessional (is that the right word?) music... the music that Me, Matt, and the rest of the bridal party walk back down the aisle to... Well, it's going to be great. I'll just say that. 


YAY! I actually listened to all the songs while I was typing this and it got me even more excited. It's a little more than six months away! YES!!! 

Consecutive Blogs!

Crazy, huh?! I haven't done two blogs in a row for a while but I feel like blogging... not about anything in particular. It's sort of a question I ask myself whenever I get online. "Do I feel like blogging today?" ... "No." And I basically go off that question. Sometimes, I feel prompted by God. I would say if anyone ever responded to one of my blogs by saying, "Oh wow, that is really insightful!" ... It didn't come from me. I'll have to start tagging God in those posts.
I got Matt's care packages today!!! YAY! My camera is perfect, I got all kinds of teas and organic honey to sweeten it with, leave in conditioner, snacks, and my bathing suit! Hurray! No more worrying about silly pool people come up to me asking me if I can cover up my shirt and shorts, which cover more than a one piece... but as a general rule for the army - if it makes sense, it's not authorized.
When I opened my packages, I just stared at its contents and reveled in the feeling of being loved by husband. I love that one of the most secure things in my life, is my relationship with him. Even from thousands of miles away, we're so much in love. Sort of sappy and sentimental, I know but I'm so proud of us. We are not one of those couples that are naturally good at long distance relationships. But God has given us the strength to get through it. Not only that, he's blessed our relationship in such a way that I've only grown to love Matt more from the time we've spent apart.  It's going to be 1000 times more amazing when we get to see each other again :)

Ta-da!  New swim suit! Complete with combat boots, M16 and trashy smirk! I sort of decided against putting this up on facebook. I have too many friends on there in the army and I don't feel like dealing with their comments. Yes, they can read my blog but I'm about 85% sure that none of them do. The suit is a little bit big, but I sort of like that it turned into a little mini dress thing instead of a swimsuit... It's better that I don't wear skin tight anything to the pool. 

Things to look forward to!

Time seems to be moving faster than I realized... until I realized it. Now, I feel like the days are crawling. Actually, I'm pretty sure that the last two weeks of the month go by slower than the first two weeks. It's very annoying. I'm trying to just look forward to July. Lots of fun things happen in July... and by lots I mean like one or two. Mainly, Elizabeth will be here! HURRAY! But we'll also be doing some preemptive packing to get up out of herr. The idea of packing makes me o' so very happy.  I've always enjoyed packing. I'm not sure why. Whenever we went on vacations, packing was never an issue for me... not that I pack things well, but I enjoy the process of getting ready to leave. I guess it was the anticipation of the vacation.
I'm currently counting down until I get Matt's care packages! They should be here any day. I'm excited to have a camera and a swim suit! Yay for husbands being awesome!

Matt and I have kind of narrowed down our puppy search to two breeds. Shetland Sheepdog (Sheltie) or an Australian Shepherd (Aussie). We decided against anything tea-cup or toy breeds because of health problems and yappy-tiny-dog problems because we've heard these issues are pretty prevalent in smaller breeds... even though they are so stinkin' cute. Both the Sheltie and the Aussie are herding dogs, but they are easy to train, highly intelligent, and love being with people constantly. They both require a lot of exercise so they don't get destructive, but I'm okay with that.  Really Matt and I want a dog that can be a great companion to the both of us. I know it is going to be a while before Matt and I are financially able to have kids, so a little puppy to chase after and train will be a good :) We decided we would wait until after the wedding and the honeymoon before we officially adopted our little pooch and I'm SO excited!

 This is a red merle Australian Shepherd. I LOVE the merles. They come in Blue and Red and I think both of them are simply gorgeous.

This is a blue merle Sheltie. Shelties end up looking like miniature collies when they're full grown, which is perfect :)

Yay puppies! 

Stretched

You know the feeling you get when you forget a paper is due an hour before you're supposed to turn it in? Or the way you feel when you know you're about to get in trouble? What about the nagging feeling that something is wrong, but you simply can't put your finger on it? 
That is sort of how I feel almost all hours of the day. 
I can tell that God is currently stretching my faith right now. I mean, this entire deployment has been quite a learning experience in faith already. Recently, God officially took me out of my "deployment comfort zone." I don't want to go into all the details but lets just say, this shit just got real. The events don't really matter. More importantly, is the way I reacted and continue to react to the trials put before me and my fellow soldiers.  
I can't say that my faith is such that I don't worry about anything that happens over here. I do worry. There are times that I'm scared, that I'm terrified, but those are the times I simply have to give it all to God. I simply have to put my trust and my life in Jesus. What's interesting is that "simply putting my trust and my life into Jesus' hands" is a constant prayer I have to have. My fears are never completely dissipated, however my fears do not control me, and that is how I know I'm growing. 
It is hard. I want to come home so bad. I want to come home and stay home. I want to feel safe. I want to eat good food, and kiss my husband, and bask in the feeling of security. But that isn't where God wants me right now. Right now, I'm on a journey that requires complete separation from my normal comforts. I believe it is Gods way for me to make it a habit to continually talk to him. And I am certainly getting there because if I wasn't in continual conversation with God, I really might have gone crazy by now. 


Well. I've now had two blogs in a row that were spiritually in depth. Not that there is a problem with that, but I believe too, that serious conversation should be balanced with light hearted conversation. 
I tore out all my favorite photographs from Vogue, Glamour, and various other magazines I've collected since being here, and taped them up on my wall. I'm very pleased with this and I think my friend, Shelbi, would be pleased as well. It definitely helps my chu feel a little more... I don't know. I don't want to say "at home." This is not home. But it makes me feel better when I see vintage-esque Dior adds hanging up on my wall. 
PS: Everyone needs to feel GREAT about being allowed to, basically, wear whatever the hell they want. Wearing the same uniform every day for over 365 days, to include nights and weekends, is NOT fun. 

 This just needed to get on here because it is an a-mazing shot taken by one of our crew chiefs during an awesome lightening storm we had the other day. 

                                                   And this is on my wall. And I love it.