Tuesday Tribute: Memorial Day Edition

Two great charities have come to my attention this week as Memorial Day was creeping around the corner, and I decided that would be perfect for a Tuesday Tribute...on Memorial Day...on a Monday.. ;)

The first is an organization called Fisher House.



Fisher House was created in 1990 to help military families in need. Because many military members must travel great distances for specialized medical care, these houses were created to keep their families close. These homes (45 currently) are built on many major medical military bases(18) and VA medical centers (15)both here and abroad. The goal of Fisher House is to keep families together during the incredibly stressful time of injury recovery, and the family never pays to stay. Each house has 8 to 21 suites and can accomodate 16 to 42 family members.

Since 1990, Fisher House has served more than 130,000 families for over 3 MILLION days and has saved families over $150 MILLION in lodging and transporation costs. They have provided 19,000 air tickets to family members and almost $7.5 MILLION in scholarships to military children. It's definitely a charity worth standing behind. Even Obama agrees--he donated $250,000 of his Nobel Peace Prize earnings to this fabulous organization!



The second charity that I just came to know about today is a charity called the Wounded Warrior Project.



WWP is a much smaller scale charity, but is fabulous in it's own right as it is just growing. The mission of WWP is to "honor and empower wounded warriors." They offer physical and mental help to those who are wounded and their families, and dispense backpacks with some essentials bedside to those wounded. These backpacks contain such things as clothing, toiletries, calling cards, and playing cards. I'm really looking forward to seeing how this charity grows!



Hope you take a moment of your day today to remember the heroic men and women who gave their lives for us, and to take a look at these great groups who are working to help the heroes who made it home.

On Names

I love names. Names make me super happy. It's like a mini-obsession. The best thing about new babies are their names. I will watch A Baby Story and Bringing Home Baby just long enough to find out what the baby's name is, and then I turn it off. Naturally, whenever I find out one of my friends or relatives is pregnant, my first question is "what are you going to name it?" Due dates are unimportant. I want names. And my 3 pregnant sister-in-laws are not calming my name obsession at all...I want to know the names of my nieces/nephews #6, 7, and 8. Naturally, our children already have names. That's not to say they won't change, but I named my kids years ago.

But, since I love names, I write some down when I come across ones I really like.
I decided a long time ago that I didn't like really common names. I'm not a fan of names that every 5th child has. But, I'm also not a fan of names that are so out there that you can't pronounce them. I'm more apt to choose boy names that are common rather than girl names. And I can't get behind "Imogen." Ever. But I love this awesome baby names blog.

Our daughter does already have a name. But things are subject to change due to name popularity. Her middle name is after my grandmother, and starts with M. That won't change. Until probably...oh, three years ago...Olivia was my favorite girls name. I was probably 7 years old when I made that decision--seriously, my mom can attest to that. My kids have been named since then. I still love it, but it's in the top 3 girls names this year and has been in the top 10 the last three years. Therefore it's been indefinitely demoted. I want my kid to feel like I put some kind of effort into her name.

Some that I love for the girls (save my absolute favorite, because I'm stingey like that):

Aspen, Sylvia, Chandler, Chaney, Cambrie, Maya, Lorelei, Leah, Finley, Anabel, Addison, Adrienne, Makaia, Grace/Greyson, Ava, Eden, Gianna, Farrah, Vaida, Tessa

Some that I love for boys (irrelevent unless we have two boys, because he's already named, but it doesn't mean I don't love the names anyway!):

Luca/Lucas, Caleb, Liam, Joshua, Joel, Jonah, Julian, Everett, Beckett, Garrett, Anthony, Jude/Judah, Emmett

Lucas and Liam have always been my favorite. Liam is what I'm fighting for as a nickname. Lucas I love...but it really doesn't sound very good with our last name :( B loves it too.

Maybe we'll just change our last name ;)

Post Wedding Chop

With my hair, I have a pattern. I grow it out until it's long enough to donate, cut it, then grow it out (rinse, lather, repeat). But this year I didn't cut it when it got long enough because I knew I'd regret not having long hair for the wedding.

But, the 10 minutes it took to dry it and the fact that it was getting just too long to be manageable won out immediately after the wedding.

So after this hair:



It went from this length:



To this length:



I'm not sure if I like it or not, but it's WAYY cooler. And I appreciate that I can drive with my windows down in my A/C-less vehicle and all I have to do to fix it when I get out is ran my hand through the part. Love that little detail.

There's a Tornado! [Just Kidding!]

A couple years ago, the way tornado sirens worked around here changed. I don't know if it's just my state or if it was the entire country, but it changed.

Before, when a tornado siren went off, it was a tornado warning. Tornado warning meant there was a minimum of a funnel cloud hovering in the sky. However, now the sirens go off when we have a thunderstorm warning and a tornado watch. They say this means conditions are favorable for a tornado.



What this really does is a modern day version of crying wolf. When I hear a tornado siren, I want it to mean I have to run for my life. I don't want a "maybe."

Yesterday our sirens went off, we were all sitting up stairs, and our first move was to just turn the TV on because it was probably just a watch with a thunderstorm warning. It took us ten minutes to figure out that it was actually a tornado warning (meaning a likely % for tornadoes, and not actually a funnel cloud anymore).

Good thing there wasn't a tornado, because we would have died sitting up stairs trying to figure out what the siren meant.



No good!

Tales from the Land of Mrs.

Well, we finally made it down the aisle! Saturday was an absolutely perfect day--the only day out of the last ten--and counting--that it has NOT rained! It was sunny throughout the day and overcast for the ceremony and photos (overcast is perfect for photos!) and after our rehearsal dinner and the fireworks show the night before, we just couldn't have asked for anything better!

The ceremony went very well. All of our services for the ceremony and the reception were perfect and amazing! Except for the woman who did our ceremony music...she was pretty horrible...but we didn't really care that much ;) All the kids in the wedding did great! I was a little worried about our older flower girl (who is 3) because she was in B's sister's wedding last year and she didn't walk down the aisle. Not only did she walk, but she smiled for pictures. Brady, however, was a being a complete terrible-2's turd all day and smiled for nothing. BUT, she walked down the aisle too--and even held hands with the other girl all the way down!

I don't have many of the professional photos back yet, obviously, but will post with them as they start rolling in ;)

We have a couple candids that I love from our friends:



I love this one because we weren't posed. We were just genuinely happy and smiling together. This was at the reception, right before we were announced and we danced in under the saber arch. Brady, obviously, was displeased with the amount of noise coming from the room we were about to walk into. (sorry about the small pic size! I edited it in flickr, and couldn't figure out how to get it back off any bigger!)

And, of course, the cake!



For the record we did not smash it in each others faces. But we thought somebody needed to have cake on their face, so our maid of honour, matron of honour, and both best men got a nice face full ;)

B moved in here (with our PCS coming up so soon, we can't justify an apartment), and was awarded 1/4 of my closet--I have a lot more clothes than I thought I did haha! So far, married life has been great. There are a few adjustments that will happen with time, for example the "scoot over, you're totally on my side" "I'm about to fall off the edge!" "you're two feet from the edge!" "am not!" sleeping adjustment. But, we're pretty frickin' happy despite the normal hiccups!

And it'll only get better!


To those of you who just found me from the bloghop link: hi! Great to meet you! I'll be stopping by your blogs as well ;)

Perfect

Our wedding rehearsal ran very well. I do, however, fully expect Brady to dance down the aisle in her flowergirl outfit sticking her tongue out until she gets to B at the end and forces him to pick her up ;) True Brady style right there!

You won't see another picture or post from me for a few days. We aren't honeymooning right away, but will not be internetting for a couple days either!

But, I wanted to take this minute to show you one picture from this absolute perfect night.



Our rehearsal dinner was on the river, and the restaurant happened to be right across from the ballfield, where our team had a game and they just happened to have planned an amazing fireworks show afterwards.

Absolutely perfect.

Tomorrow...

...we're getting married!

Three Days Away!

First, to all those wedding planning books that say "don't try to do anything else while you're planning a wedding, it won't work," I'm here to tell you that you are crazy. One can work, be a full-time student, teach, blog, write, read, AND plan a wedding. And be successful at all of it. So booya.



Really, I'm just excited about these grades! I haven't had straight A's for years and years, since probably my junior or sophomore year in high school! I'm also fully aware of how horrible I am at foreign languages, so that A- in Spanish made me downright giddy.

And our wedding is 3 days away! At the moment, the only day it's not supposed to rain in the next 7 days is Saturday...hopefully it will stay that way! It's pouring out right now; flash flood warnings everywhere. It's so dark out that I had to force my brain to accept the fact that it was morning when I woke up.

Here's hoping for a dry wedding day!

The Weekend Before

We are getting married in 5 days. 5 days. Crazy!

So, with this being our last "single" weekend we, of course, spent most of it together.

Friday it was gorgeous out. 85 degrees. It went straight from winter to summer. Our plants around here were looking gorgeous...





B's best man, Eric, came in from Florida on Thursday, so we all went fishing on Friday afternoon. I caught 2 fish (and a tree), Eric caught 2 fish (and 2 trees), and B...caught nothing. We threw them back, of course, because...well, I wasn't touching them. ;) And, with my dress being strapless, I had to remove the straps from my shirt while we were out there to avoid tan lines. I actually brought sunscreen for my face but didn't use it. Face didn't get burnt, but my shoulders did!



Saturday was our "apart" day, I suppose. I worked and cleaned, and B went out for his bachelor party (You'll remember that I had mine back in March).

Sunday we went to my uncle's for mother's day events. There were probably a good 10 dogs there. They only own two--apparently it's the new cool thing to bring your dogs with you to other people's houses? Don't get me wrong...I love dogs (really, we go to adoption events all the time...it's ridiculous) but...I wouldn't bring Chase over for Mother's Day Dinner?

It was 35 degrees on Saturday night. 85 Friday, 35 Saturday. Someone should get our country some bi-polar medication.

I'm also trying to keep up with the weather forcast for Saturday! It was supposed to rain tuesday until the end of time, but at the current moment it's supposed to be 72 and partly cloudy on Saturday (after four days of rain) so...cross your fingers!

Nobody Loves Ya Like Ya Mum!

Do you remember this song? I don't have any idea where I heard it a few years ago, but I always end up with it stuck in my head around mothers day.

"Nobody ever loves ya like ya mum!
Everything we owe we owe to mum!
Even when she whacks ya on the bum!
Mum's the word and so the word is mum!
That's me mum!"

Well, my mom is pretty awesome. I can't tell you how awesome she is, because this post would never end. She raised me mostly as a single parent, she was there for every important moment in my life and has informed me that she will be invading every important moment in my life to come ;) She's a cancer survivor, a freaking awesome hostess, an amazing Nana, a kickass daughter, a caring sister, and a wonderful best friend.

She's my Mum. And I couldn't ask for any better.



Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

The Coming and Going of April 30th

Our RSVP date was April 30th. We sent out invites out the second week of March.



I mean really guys, it's a pre-stamped envelope.

But, since it's costing us approx. $26 a person for the reception, we just don't like anyone on our list enough to say "well, we'll just put you down as 2 incase you come." So thank you, telephone and facebook and email, for providing me a way to track down all those losers who failed to RSVP. ;)

The good news is, however, that we had more people than we expected who are not coming. Since our hall holds 280, and we invited 350, we were really hoping for such an event to occur. Plus, it let me invite a couple more people that I really wanted to invite previously but couldn't. Win/win.

Also, conversations for (light) thought:

Last week, I had an incredibly strange dream about swimming 30 miles down the highway. No, not driving through water...swimmming. And then all the highways in the surrounding states flooded this week, so I took that as a sign that I have psychic dreams. (Of course, I mean...who wouldn't).

Me: "My swimming down the highway dreams must have been predicting the flooded highways!"
B: "Awesome! Next time, dream about swimming through money."

Mmhmm. That's my honey, always thinking.

Also this week, one of my uncles got himself a pair of dentures. I was not around for when this occurred, but that did not stop it from being funny. It appears that his wife saw his dentures laying out after he cleaned them, gave them a funny look and then announced:

"I just wonder where they got the teeth to make them."

...I would also like to take this opportunity to point out that she was married in.


In 2 days, our wedding will be in the scope of the weather.com forecast!