"US"

As the wedding creeps up, I am getting more excited by the day! This is because finally, everything is nearly complete. The escort cards are ready, programs are designed and printed, gifts are purchased and wrapped, centerpieces are packaged up, etc etc... there are only tiny things left to do which means I get to sit back and enjoy these last couple weeks before the wedding!

The other night I was looking over all my decorations and all the things I've done. I realized that I am very excited to show everyone a true reflection of ourselves through everything from the stationery to the centerpieces. 99% of things were done by myself, with barely any input from anybody else. That means that the things you will see on our wedding day, are things that WE like and that WE had the creativity and ability to create them. Nothing is over the top, but it is US. WE are not over the top about anything! It would be unfitting to have an elaborate wedding with hundreds of flowers (I like flowers, don't get me wrong, but I definitely don't believe they are worth the price!) and chiffon hanging from the ceilings... it's not us. We are simple. Our house is decorated simply with just enough warmth to call it "home." So I am excited to share with our friends and family US. Our style. Our desires.

21 days :)

Wedding Woes

26 days. 26! In 26 days, I will become Mrs. McKenzie Rude. I will become a wife. I am so excited, but so nervous. Not nervous to commit myself to 1 person for the rest of my life, but to throw a major event. I love planning parties - I always have. But planning a wedding is so much different. You never truly know all of the little things that go into a wedding until you start to plan. And I'm not even sure that with 26 days left to go, that I know of all the little things that are required to make a wedding run smoothly. Thankfully, this is my first time. I plan on it also being my only! So how am I to know everything that I need to think about to make the day a success in other's eyes?

Thankfully I have a wonderful mother who has helped to remind me that it's not the little things that make the day special - it isn't the flowers, the centerpieces, the food (although I can confirm the food is excellent!), the drinks, etc... it's about the love between two people. If it's about the love Gary and I have, I think we can knock everyone out of the water. I like to believe that our love for each other is written all over our faces - and I imagine it will be even more so on the most important day of our lives. But impressing others by the decorations and the little details is also an important thing to me. People are taking the time out of their day, and spending money for their drinks (we simply can't afford to pay for alcohol) to be at our wedding, and I want to make sure it's worth their while.

This wish has taken emotional and physical tolls, but I am hoping everything I have done will pay off on October 2. At the end of the day, no matter what goes wrong, I need to remember that I will be MRS. McKENZIE RUDE... which is such a gift! I am marrying not a perfect man, but the perfect man for me.

So 26 days to go. I am so excited to become Gary's wife, and am looking forward to have our closest friends and family there to help us celebrate this major milestone in our life. I just hope I can do everything right, because I will only have 1 wedding day in this life!

Rambling

I can't help it. Every day I look at my "RSVP Tracker" for the wedding, I get more and more frustrated. I added up the totals today... I am missing 49 RSVPs. I sent out 99... the math adds up to 50% of the people who received invitations have not RSVP'd! I set a deadline of August 15, which is just 9 days away... I'd say it's highly unlikely that the other 50% are all planning to send the RSVP in within the next week. Hmm...

On a happy note, Gary is coming home on Sunday! I've kept myself busy while he's been gone, and my best friend Mishele has stayed over a few nights, but there hasn't been a moment I haven't missed him. Even hearing him work in the garage was comforting... I'm looking forward to the loud noises again!

I don't have much to say today - I was up way too late last night looking at wedding centerpiece ideas and then worked bright and early this morning. Planning on cleaning the house a bit, then lounging on my couch watchin' movies... GIRLY movies, since Gary isn't around to tell me no ;)

Gary's first day of "vacation"

How lucky am I to get to marry a man who is so easy going, that even when every plan he had for a day goes south, he can still manage to sit back and laugh?

Today Gary was scheduled to leave Minneapolis at 6am to go to Milwaukee for a connecting flight to Tampa. Well, because of a hydraulic leak on the plane, the flight was delayed. Finally, at noon, the plane had been fixed and Gary was on his way to Milwaukee. Obviously, the flight to Tampa ha already left and there was no way he could get on another flight to Tampa today. Instead, he asked them to fly him into Atlanta. He figured Ese could then start the drive (since ultimately they had to go through Atlanta anyway) and pick him up at the Atlanta airport. Well, Ese's car broke down about an hour 1/2 away from Atlanta. What a mess! Ed sent his friends to the Atlanta airport to pick him up and told them to stay at a hotel for tonight. Luckily, from what I have read in texts, they are all reunited and will get a trailer for Ese's car first thing tomorrow morning. The original plan was for Gary and Ese to drive the little 2-seater (without AC) CRX to Cali, but now that will not be possible.

Despite everything going wrong today, when Gary called to tell me, he was laughing. He found it so humorous and said, "I actually really like being left alone with nobody I know in an unknown state." It made me so thankful for him, because in his shoes I'd be freaking out... I'm so happy he is still looking forward to this road trip, and that he can laugh about it :)

Still pray for him...

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

It's so true what they say... "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." Gary left this morning (I took him to the airport at 4am!) to help our old roommate drive from Florida to California. He is such a wonderful friend! He took an unpaid week vacation to help his friend out- I'm so happy to know that he will always take the shirt off his back for his friends, family, and ME! There aren't many people left in this world that would do that.

I've cried. A lot. Last night I tried focusing on the movie we were watching, but couldn't help but think about the week I'd spend alone... nobody coming home at night to ask about my day and give me the hugs and kisses I need so much, nobody to eat dinner with, nobody to fall asleep next to... Sigh. It's only one week... but that is a long time to be without someone you want to spend every waking moment with. Today has been a rough day. I've been finishing some wedding things (and they look so great... a picture of our city-themed stationery is above!), but every now and then my mind will shift back to Gary being gone for a week and my eyes fill with tears. Believe me, I know what you're thinking and I completely agree. I'm such a SAP! I'm such a wuss that I can't handle him being gone for even 1 week. But I'm thankful he left- because sometimes I get "used" to having him around. I don't always make it a point to appreciate the fact that he's around. So when he leaves, I'm reminded that I could never do life without him. I'd never WANT to. After a week of me without him, I know I'm going to jump out of my car next Sunday and run into his arms and appreciate him more than I have in quite a while.

I can't wait to see him...

If you think of it, please pray for his safe travels with his friends Daniel and Ed! They are driving across a lot of unknown territory, in a 2-seat car without A/C.

Wedding Planning

Today, I have decided to blog about wedding things. Obviously, our wedding has consumed a lot of my mind, time, and money. To be totally honest, I'm not like most brides... I don't actually enjoy this stuff. A few "projects" here and there pique my interest, but overall, wedding planning is not for me. If I had the funds and had the chance to do it over again, I'd hire somebody to do the planning for me. I can't count the number of times I have said to my mom, "Mom, I've never done this before!" to explain the mistakes I've made. Anyways...

Another thing about weddings is that they can be tough; you learn a lot about the people around you who you consider friends. Let's start with my former "best friend." She was very close to me while I lived in Florida. Before I had moved to Florida, we had only met a couple times. Her and I stayed in touch when I moved and she made a few trips down. I thought "Dang! This girl really cares about me to take the time off work to visit!" So when Gary proposed, I was so excited to ask her to be my Maid of Honor. I was so excited to do wedding planning with her when I moved home! Well, when I got back to Minnesota, she didn't have time for me. She had a busy schedule; understandable, but it seemed like she was mostly busy with everybody else but me. When we arranged for her to come see me in the dress I had picked out, she met me at the bridal shop. I was already in my dress standing under the bright "stage" lights, so excited to see her face when she walked in. Well... she walked in and all she said was, "It took me 45 minutes to get here." We were at the bridal shop for a good hour, and never once did she comment on my dress... I felt like I should have been in sweats; then her reaction would have been appropriate.

After the bridal shop, we headed to dinner with my family. I was already raging internally at this point. Well, over dinner my mom started talking to her about her plans to move out of state... she responded to something my mom asked with, "Well, I have to come home for Kenzie's crap.." TO MY OWN MOTHER. Obviously, that was the final straw. I quickly cut her out of my wedding and my life completely. While it hurt to experience that in what was supposed to be a very happy day, I got the best thing ever out of it... the best Maid of Honor on earth, Mishele! Mishele should have been my first choice all along, but I hadn't remembered how close we were while we were living in separate states (believe me, no matter how much you say you're going to keep in touch with someone, it's not as easy as one may think!). Once I moved home we got right back into the groove of our friendship. Now I couldn't be happier to know she'll be by my side on our wedding day!

Next story... well... someone deleted me from her facebook once she found out she wasn't invited to the wedding. This is someone I have seen once since moving home, and talked to maybe a total of 10 times (via facebook only!). I had to laugh at the immaturity. When I got engaged, I had been warned that you'd find out a lot about your "friends" during the engagement... so true!

I never thought things would change when we got engaged, but they absolutely did. Not necessarily to our relationship or to us, but the people around us. It has been quite the journey, and while I am SO excited for the day to finally be here, I am also excited for it to be over and for Gary and I to be husband and wife without all of our time and money going into a single day's event (although it will be the event of my life!).

That's all I've got... useless rambling.

Happy Thursday :)

What a weekend!

Wow! What an amazing weekend!

Friday night I made it to the Frolics for fireworks. I'm impressed... Crystal didn't do too shabby! We were in bed decently early (midnight..) to prepare ourselves for Saturday morning. We were up and out of the house at 7:15am Saturday to go run the Boston Scientific Heart of the Summer 5k around Lake Nokomis. My goal going into it was to finish in under 35 minutes, since I hadn't been able to do it under 39 minutes on the treadmill. WELL... I did it in 34:50! I had gotten close enough to see the timer when it was at about 34:40, and so I used every last bit of energy I had to sprint (yes, literally sprint!) to the finish line. I was so happy to be done, and to have reached my goal. I'm also so proud of my fellow 5k finishers, Robin, Christin, Christine and Gary :) Congrats guys!!!

After the 5k, we went to the Red Bull flugtag event at Harriet Island. It was absolute MADNESS but so worth it! The world record was set there (of course, leave it to Minnesota to kick ass!) at 207 feet.. the previous world record was 195 feet, and the US record was 155 feet. Miami's winner made it 54 feet, to put it in perspective. You can see the amazing world record-setting flight here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Im8VtLQgh4

After we got home, we had a couple friends over and made our way over to a Frolics pre-party. All I will say about the party is that it was interesting. We went to Frolics again and had a good time running into a few old friends! Finally I got to go to bed and Sunday morning woke up for the BIG weekend event... SKYDIVING!!

I can't even begin to explain the skydiving experience. It was a mix of emotions, but mainly it was excitement!! I was not nervous on my way up in the plane- I felt I had finally gotten rid of my nerves by then and was ready to just go. I actually yawned on the way up, and Gary's tandem instructor looked at me and said, "was that a YAWN?" Finally, I was up. I made my way to the open door 13,000 feet above land, and all the nerves came rushing back. But there was no time to change my mind, and the videographer wanted to see me smile. I put on the best fake smile I could, and the next thing I knew I was falling. Free falling at 120mph! It was the most insane feeling I ever have, and probably ever will, have. I was scared out of my mind, and freezing... it is COLD up there! When the instructor tapped me after a minute of free falling, I knew it was time to hang on because the parachute would [hopefully] be opening. Well, IT DID! After seeing the amazing view (of sky and farms...), we came down to land. Well... although I KNEW I was not supposed to put my feet down at all, I didn't want to get serious grass stains on my jeans, so after my butt hit, I put my feet down. BAD IDEA. We weren't done moving and my feet/ankles took a beating. I woke up today barely able to walk- but if that's the only injury I have from skydiving, I'd say it was a success!! I got extremely nauseous while in the air and it lasted until about an hour after the jump. I'm glad I had the video and pictures to remind me how much fun I was having when I wasn't thinking about puking! :) I WILL do it again, and I can't wait.

So that was my weekend. It was slam packed with amazing activities, but I'm extremely happy to be back at work to "relax" ;) I was thanking God this morning for a desk job...

Happy to have lived through the weekend!