Wedding shower!

My bridesmaids are starting to plan for my wedding shower already! I wanted to have it sooner rather than later so that my friends from school could go.

Last night Bradleigh (sister/maid of honor) and Michelle (roommate/bridesmaid) and I went out and bought the invitations for the shower and they are super cute!

Also, Michael's aunt Iva agreed to have the shower at her house which I'll be forever grateful for! Thank you Iva!

I'm so excited to get together with everyone and play silly games and eat and just celebrate this exciting time for Michael and I!

Love and Respect

so, for our premarital counseling, Michael and I are reading through the book Love and Respect and doing the workbook that goes with it.

I have read through the first section and am loving it. The whole concept of unconditional love and unconditional respect is so simple, and yet so hard to do. I have already seen the impact of the reading on my relationship with Michael and it's amazing.

It talks specifically about how when a woman doesn't feel loved, her natural reaction is to disrespect her husband and when a husband doesn't feel respected, his natural reaction is to not show love to his wife. When I look at my self as an example, I have to agree with this book. It knows me so well.

We have our next counseling appointment on Saturday and I'm looking forward to talking about the book with our pastor and his wife who have been married for a while and who have read through this book before. I can't wait to hear what they think about certain things and what advice they have to make these tools effective in our marriage.

We're Registered!

Michael and I registered at Bed Bath & Beyond last weekend. We had so much fun going through the store and imagining what kind of things we are going to need for our very first home together.

We started out in the kitchen section and I pretty much let Michael lead the way. I already know he is going to be the main chef when we're married so I let him pick out the pots and pans he wanted and whatever other cooking tools he wanted. He loved it. It was fun discussing the pros and cons of the different crock pots and cooking knives. We didn't realize how long it would take to go through the millions of kitchen utensils they had there and so we had to leave the job unfinished so Michael could go to work. When I got home that day, I was looking over the list of things we had registered for and started to see things I didn't remember registering for. It turns out Michael had been scanning items when I wasn't looking. Apparently he really wanted a lemon zester, garlic press, and a soap squirting dish brush. The least I can do is let him have those things. It's not like he doesn't deserve to have them and he's the one that will be using them (especially the dish brush :-))

We went back a few days later and finished up with the kitchen section and moved onto bedding and bathroom stuff. This is where I kind of took over. Michael is also very good at coordinating colors and decorating which is good because I'm not that great at either of these things. I'm lucky to have him around to help me out in this department. It was so much fun picking out bedding and towels and bath mats and soap dispensers.

I can't wait until we get to set all this stuff up in our first little home and actually start using it.

Next on the list of things to do is have a second meeting with the florist.

Until next time...

Counseling

Michael and I had our first session of premarital counseling on Saturday night and are very excited about how God is going to work in our relationship during this time.

Our good friends (our officiant and his wife) Danny and Patty met with us at Panera in Chino Hills for our first session. We ordered dinner and got caught up on each others' lives. We really enjoy their company and they are such godly role models for Michael and I to look up to.

We spent three hours talking about things in our lives that will have an impact on our marriage and how we can foster the good and minimize the bad in order to develop a healthy marriage. They had such great advice and were so open with us about their struggles in marriage. Michael and I know that this is not going to be easy, but with God's help, it will be fun and rewarding for both of us.

We also talked about the book we are going to be working through together called "Love and Respect." It's about how a man needs to feel respected and when he doesn't, his natural reaction is to not show love to his wife and when a woman feels unloved, her natural reaction is to show disrespect to her husband. It sounds very interesting and I know it will help us avoid this cycle.

I can't wait to start reading!

oops

So, I just realized I forgot to post about taking engagement pictures. I guess better late than never, right?

I think it was January 17th that we ended up taking pictures, but I'm not exactly sure.

Mike's aunt has a very nice camera and so we asked her to take some pictures for us. We went down to English Springs Park which is very beautiful and had a blast. His aunt is hilarious and we were completely comfortable so we were able to get a lot of really good pictures where both of us are smiling so big.

We had so much fun and she ended up taking over 400 pictures for us.

Thank-you so much Iva!