The Girl Who Kept Me Sane

So I'm in Houston this weekend for a very exciting event.  My best friend Jonna is getting married! I'm super jealous of her.  We have shared a lot of experiences over the past couple of year but I'm sad to say that she won the race to the knot.  Although at times I thought that bride wars might erupt, we kept it clean and i graciously moved aside so she could have the glory of getting married first...

So here is to Jonna Lamb... sadly probably the last time I will type her name that way.  For all the drives to College Station, all the times we ate cookies, cookie dough, copious amounts of ice cream, cyclones, the fun times playing phase 10, the margaritas in my blender, the tornado slumber parties, sonic runs, target runs, heb runs, slc runs, the year of extreme, hungry girl, cooking and freezing, whispers during meeting, burning our faces off at homecoming, kinappings, the times you watched lucy, all the hugs, kind words, and sincere apologies, being with me on april 12, 2007 and any other day i needed you.

On the off chance you read this before sunday.  Thanks for everything.  You helped me survive all things Phi Lamb and Baylor and everything else too.   And before people start to think I'm writing your obituary... I can't wait for everything to come in our future.  I can't wait to visit you in CS. I can't wait for you to stand beside me as I take the leap you are on Sunday.  I know you will continue to be there for me (like you have shown this week... which I am so thankful for) and I will always be there for you. I'm so happy for you and Bryan.  Congratulations Mrs. Sonnier!

I love Myra Kim!

Tonight I won the wedding lottery! The myra kim  of twigs and honey responded to my convo on etsy.  Now this is in no way meant to make her feel bad for not getting back to me earlier, but I'm just so excited because I was beginning to think I might never get to order one of her designs.  We are doing an amazing design that I think will go great with my personality and the colors for my wedding.  YAY! One more exciting fun thing to check off my list.  

Frosty's and Kids

William came with me to Dallas on Monday.  It was kind of weird because I had to go to school and work and he didn't have anything to do except work.  It was fun to come home to him though.  Monday and Tuesday night he cooked me dinner and last night we went out to dinner at California Pizza Kitchen.  Monday after dinner we went to get Frosty's.   

William saw a commercial for the new Coffee Toffee Twisted Frosty and apparently fell in love.  He yelled at me while I was doing the dishes "I don't believe it... a commercial just made me want to rush out and buy a product."  It was pretty amusing.  We called Megan, Taylor and Hayden to see if they wanted one.  We all got Frosty's and sat and caught up on life since I hadn't seen them in two weeks.  Hayden showed us his newest book.... Here is an example (its a phone book by the way):

Apparently, according to Hayden (my 4 year old cousin), this book contains information about horses that race.  He has a "horse" named Cactus.  He was showing me all of his stats in the book (listed under A for Cactus)... how fast Cactus can run, where he lives, who his jockey is, even what team he is on.  I didn't know horses were on teams at horse races... but you learn something new everyday.  I told him he should try to memorize his new book.  

My friends and I were discussing at school yesterday how helpful it is to be exposed to normally developing children on a regular basis.  It is very easy to forget how amazing children are.  When you work with disordered children all day long you can quickly forget how much they learn every second of the day and fast they grow and change into little people.  I'm blessed to be able to see my cousins all the time and also nanny for two great kids! 

2nd day of the rest of my life!

So as many of you know I'm in graduate school at UTDallas working on my master's in Speech Language Pathology (SLP).  Today was my 2nd day of my 2nd semester of grad school.  I can't believe that when this semester is over in only 7 weeks, I will only have a year left.  It's so exciting! This semester I'm taking dysphagia (in non-SLP terms that means swallowing disorders) and Auditory Verbal Therapy.  I'm also doing two practicums.  In one I'm working with an adult client with Traumatic Brain Injury and in the other I will be working with children with cochlear implants in a very fun camp setting.  The auditory verbal class goes along with my cochlear implant practicum.  Anyways... all of this was to say that I'm soooooo excited about this class and practicum.  I love kids and I LOVE kids with cochlear implants and hearing impairment.  I know it seems so strange but these kids really hold a special place in my heart.  Most of my SLP friends know that deaf children pulled my heart strings so much that I moved across the country to pursue this very degree, just so I could work with them.  So here I am in my 2nd semester of grad school and I get to drool over the population I love so much!!!

Here are a few pictures of a cutie with a cochlear implant.  These kids are simply amazing and I'm so honored to get a chance to enter their lives.  I can't wait to graduate so that I can work with them every day!

Photo from hearingpocket.com where you can buy clothing to accomodate CI's

If anyone has questions about cochlear implants or anything SLP related please send them my way.  I'm not certified yet but I'm always willing to talk to people about what I'm doing or direct them to people that can answer their questions! 

It's been a while... sorry

So I know I'm a bad blogger.  It's been a week since I've written.  A lot has gone on.  William finished the corps!!! Yay! I only cried a little at the last step off ever.  And I definitely skipped the second pass which shows how much I will truly miss William's corps lifestyle.  We packed up all of his stuff and put it in a measly three large plastic bins.  Kinda sad... but very easy to move! Here's some final review pics:

The Seniors

Wiliam and I - hopefully the last picture with him in this uniform

The girlfriends/fiances... we keep each other sane!

He moved into a new duplex with a bunch of his chemical engineering friends so this semester will surely be a blast.

I accomplished a ton of wedding stuff and also celebrated my birthday. We went to the Melting Pot with my mom and her family and my dad threw me a "Robey birthday" complete with fajitas and margaritas. 

We also made a few trips to the bay.  It's still surreal going down there.  I have been going to San Leon, Texas since I was 2 months old. And it doesn't even look familiar to me.  There are places where you used to not be able to see the water and now you can.  My mom bought a motor home and my aunt and uncle bought a trailer.  So we have gone from 4 houses and one motor home to 1 house and 3 motor homes. We joke that we are becoming trailer trash.  Although, my aunt insists that our new arrangements are only temporary.  We are waiting for the new laws to emerge as far as building codes go.  After they quit fighting about how tall new buildings have to be, we will start to rebuild.  William and my brother, Colton, put our brand new jet ski in the water. William had fun riding it around... but it's still very dangerous in the bay.  From our house there are several places where we can still see large debris sticking up.  My aunt let my two cousins ride with William but her (and I) were terrified that he would run into something.  Oh well... things are starting to get back to normal... but there is still a long way to go. 

Off to College Station!

I've decided to head to college station until Saturday night.  It's going to be a much needed visit with my future hubby. Not to mention final review which can't come soon enough!

I'll post some pictures when I get back!

If it fits... wear it!

So my dress fit... good news! It actually only took three pins for her to get it to "fit" perfectly.  Pretty good.  Although I also paid extra so that it was cut to my height when it was made... which was probably well worth it.  That's called ordering "hallow to hem" which I highly recommend to anyone who is vertically challenged and ordering a very expensive dress.  I also tested earrings with my dress.  The pair I have wasn't "enough".  So I'm going to order some others.  Anna Bellagio was recommended to me by someone... can't remember who... and they have some great earrings. These are the ones I think I'm ordering:

In other news... I haven't see William in a month.  And I'm going a little crazy.  I came home to Houston last Friday and it's always a little weird being here without him.  He finished his last final today but has to stay up in College Station until Friday to move out of the dorms, turn in his uniforms, and attend FINAL review.  I put final in all caps... because it really is final review... the last corps event other than his commissioning that we ever have to attend again. I really love the idea of the corps... but as we call it "corps crap" it really all starts getting annoying.   He (and I) are ready to live normally without all that stuff going on. Even better he gets to live in a real normal apartment.  He's living with 2 other guys on his side of the duplex and 3 others that he is friends with in the other half.  Should be very interesting... I'm hoping they get work done. (I know they will.) It will definitely make going down there a whole lot more fun for me!

Anyways I think I'm going to rearrange my schedule so that I can visit him tomorrow! If you want to see pictures from my dress fitting just let me know... I can't post them here because William has this web address.  

Big Day Tomorrow

So tomorrow is a big day.  I'm going for my first dress fitting... I've got my shoes (well at least shoes very close to the one's I'll be wearing on the big day), and my "undergarments" and my dress is waiting at the dress shop.  So I guess now we just have to pray it still fits.  It fit in March when I went looking for veils so I'm sure it still fits now.  Along with working on the fit of my dress they are going to cut my veil tomorrow.  It's going to be even with the bottom of my dress so they are going to cut it while my dress is on.  Seems like a good plan to me.  Today I bought two dresses for my showers and my birthday which is coming up. 

This one is from Ann Taylor and for once I think it looks better on me than the model.

I got another dress too, but I can't find it online.  It's Tahari but I got it from TJ Maxx.  It's a shirt dress with a really nice print on it in blues and greens and reds.

I need some good shoes now.  I'm thinking brown shoes since I don't own any brown heels.  

Now I'm really excited about the showers! I can't wait!

Things I'm Excited About!

Here are things that I'm so excited about for our wedding....

A card box from For the Modern Bride 

It's going to be in the wedding colors of course!

A Fascinator from myra's Etsy site: Twigs and Honey (I basically love all things etsy... so get used to it)

The programs I picked up at Michael's... yay for do it yourself!

Also, my mom and I have been doing wedding shopping since I'm home for two weeks.  I bought some great fabric for really cheap at a Joann's that was going out of business.  After that we did a pretend candy bar in the kitchen to see if we had enough containers. I think we finally do! Here's a sneak peak of the candy:

Okay I guess that's enough wedding stuff for one night... I won't post my to do list... but trust me it's long. Off to bed for me!

So I finally caved...

After several months of reading many other people's blogs, I decided it's time to start my own. I've had this site for a little while (mostly so I could stalk everyone else's blogs from one page), but I had never written anything.  I guess I think I'm going to suck at writing this... or suck at making sense, but I guess everyone has to start some where.  The other reason I'm finally starting to write is I guess I just feel a little alone in my life. Writing about it couldn't hurt... 

So basically I'm planning this wedding.  I'm having fun planning it.  But it is consuming my life.  I feel like I'm constantly thinking about and rethinking about wedding plans.  As if the life-consuming qualities of it weren't enough, I feel like I'm doing it all alone.  William is so busy with school, and the majority of the time I'm not in the same city as any of my bridesmaids or my mother.  Nonetheless, it is getting planned.  So I guess along with updates on my life I'm going to use this site to recap the many things I have planned... kinda like planning therapy.  Maybe it will help me bring all the ideas together and put everything in perspective.  

Now, where to start... I guess the beginning... the love:

William and I got engaged on November 30, 2007.  I can't believe it was in 2007... that's the first time I think I've written the date and realized how long ago it was.  

So here we are after dating six years and finally 200 days from getting married.  I guess the most important part of this wedding and marriage is that William and I are truly happy with each other.  Sometimes we are sad that we have to be apart, but I know that he and I were meant to be together.  God put us in each other's lives and has been growing our relationship since some time in middle school.  Is that enough back ground? I mean most people should know all that... but you know... just in case you missed something.