Coincidence?

So as many of you may know 2 weeks before my sister's wedding my car got broken into and some tried to steal it. Bad news bears especially since Josh was still in school and we don't work well as a one car family. I luckily got it back the day I left for Chattanooga. The jeep turned out to be clutch at the wedding with all the stuff we had to bring back.

So now here we are 2 weeks before my wedding and Friday night I get into a car accident. My car is once again out of commission and I have no details on if it's fixable or not. I had already planned how my car would once again be used to bring things home from the wedding and put my sister in charge of driving it. Obviously I am just happy no one is hurt and I'm going to St.Lucia in 2 weeks so I am happy!

I just can't help but wonder does my car hate Hoffman's getting married? It was after all Katherine's car first.

In other news we are 12 days away from the wedding I am so excited!!! More things have of course popped up out of nowhere but I find the closer we get the less I care.

Still haven't written my vows..maybe I can wing it?!

Music

So I've decided on some songs for the wedding. I will walk down to 'Here comes the sun' - I can't decide if I want to an instrumental version or the one with the words as well. The bridesmaids will walk down to 'Love and some other verses' by Iron and Wine and then Josh and I will walk back down to 'All you need is love', then Josh and I will dance to 'Something' - Beatles for the first song I can see if perfectly in my head and I'm so excited!!!

We have had the DJ booked for while and he has a website where you can pick out your play list and make a list of must play songs and DO NOT play songs. As most of you know music is super important to me so I feel like there is a lot pressure. However I have seen our DJ do another wedding (Kelly and Adam's) and I am confident that he will do a really good job.

What are your favorite wedding songs??

FOUND!

After what seems like years of searching (really 2 months if I'm being honest) we have found our house! You would think just finding a house to rent would not be that hard but we quickly found it was.

Our new house is super close to Kristin and the boys, Kelly, Josh Lamkin and a couple others - I'm very excited about our new neighbors. It is an all brick house with hardwood floors. 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom and an amazing kitchen the house is old but the kitchen is newly renovated and beautiful!! We really wanted 2 bathrooms but if we both want to be in our bathroom now (at the same time) one of us has to stand in the shower. So at this point 1 big bathroom would be awesome.

We move in the same weekend of my first wedding shower - sorry Josh! I have been looking at home related blogs trying to get ideas of how to decorate on the cheap; we definitely plan to stay there for a while. The owner is being very cool about letting us paint and do pretty much whatever else we want.

I stumbled across this blog, http://www.younghouselove.com/. I basically want this couples life. They blog and makeover things (rooms, houses, yards, etc.) for a living!

Of course we want to immediately get Bacon (the dog) now that we have a house but have decided it's best to wait until after the wedding. Which is in 86 days!!

Girlfriends

I had a conversation the other night with a girl that I don't really know that well and the first thing she said to me was 'Yea - I don't really like girls that much'. This is one of my biggest pet peeves especially at this period in my life I feel like I am leaning on my girlfriends more than ever. There was a time in my life where I used to say the same thing because I thought it was 'cooler' to be friends with the guys. It makes me sad for girls that don't have girlfriends or that think it's fun to fight with other girls. Guys are great and I have some wonderful guy friends..but you need the girls!!

Lately it seems like with Josh studying and working all the time I have had a lot of time to catch up on lost time with girl friends.

It just feels really good to be surrounded by good girlfriends. Those are the people that take you out to Smiths when you make your first sale, listen to you complain when have a bad day, be the first to throw you a birthday party, engagement party or wedding shower, watch stupid movies with you, talk about chick-lit, go bridesmaid dress shopping with you for 4 hours looking for the right color, take the time to schedule phone dates with you from D.C. or half way across the world, not give up on double dinner dates even if it takes 3 years, workout with you, shop and eat with you when you don't feel like working out, dance like an idiot with you, let you send all your wedding presents and RSVP's to their house, send you cards for every occasion, tell you when you are doing something stupid and go for a glass of wine with you after a long day.

I could go on and on but you get my point. Y'all know who you are and I love you - you make my life better everyday.

Today

Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson



It's been one of those weeks and it's only Tuesday..vacation can't come soon enough!

Mason Jars and Purple

Whats on my mind today.....















Decided on Purple (lavendar and dark) and White for the wedding colors. And mason jars are just awesome....

Happy Thursday

(some of) My Favorite Boys

Last weekend Josh and I registered. It was an interesting experience. Originally we were both super excited; 'We get to pick out anything we want and people will buy it for us?!'. We started at Crate & Barrel and I instantly got overwhelmed there are so many things and options I had no clue what I wanted. Plus I have to decide right now what I will want in 6 months and use for years..pressure! It took us about 3 hours we gave up and went to lunch. After lunch we headed to Macy's where I was clearly over it and we left quickly. Josh has said that I am free to go by myself or with Kristin he even offered to watch the boys.

After registering Kristin brought Sawyer over for his sleepover at our house. We took him to the park and spent most of the rest of the day there. We had so much fun; the playground, kickball games, dogs and bicycles. He slept for 12 hours which was awesome and then waited patiently at the table for Josh to make his pancakes. It was for sure a nice glimpse of 'family life' but I'm still good. Josh however...


Discovering Josh's belly button it was apparently the most fun






Josh is his favorite person ever :)

RAMONA!!

I love reading; always have always will. It is probably one of my favorite things. One of my favorite books when I was little was Ramona and Beezus probably any Beverly Cleary book for that matter. I read it a million times and remember trying to make a crown out of burrs just like she did. Yes even though it got stuck on her head in the book and her Dad had to use peanut butter to get it out. I still tried and expected different results.

I found out today that Ramona and Beezus the movie is coming out! I know it's a kid movie but I'm so excited to see it! Not to mention Josh Duhmel and Josh Corbett are in it - oh heyy.

Ramona and Beezus reminds me of simpler less stressful times :)

Puppies & Houses

So if you know me it's almost certain that you have heard me complain about my (really Josh's apartment). It is so small! Josh was certainly not thinking of me when he decided to move in here - Said the girl who swore she would never live with a boy before she got married. Obviously Kalen and I lived in pretty tight quarters as well but didn't sleep together nightly so we had our own space. It's funny because I am not at all tired of living with Josh - I love it! I am tired of living with Josh in such a small place.

For 4 days last week almost everyone at the office worked from home. I on the other hand got dressed (by dressed I mean got out of my PJ's) and went into work everyday but one.Mainly because Aline and I decided 'If you go I go'. But also because it is nearly impossible to work from home. There is nowhere for Josh to go and he has to be completely quiet the whole time. I didn't want to have to explain to potential clients why they heard a toilet flushing in the background.

Also our bathroom is from the early 70's. It has mauve and pink tiles and a pink toilet. That has nothing to do with working from home but needed to be said.

The lease is up in May and I'm getting so excited about moving into a house (to rent). We will actually be able to have space - maybe even an office or a spare bedroom. We can have room to decorate and actually make the space our own. And have a bedroom big enough for the much needed and anticipated California King Bed :) And a yard and a yard means a PUPPY - hooray!!! We have wanted one for so long and of course already have a name picked out.

I have become obsessed with what random house throughout Atlanta must look like inside. We have already mostly decided though that we will move somewhere near Kristin. My oldest sister who is one of my favorite people in the world and she also happens to be the mother of two of my favorite boys.

I am getting so antsy in pantsy to move and get a puppy - can't wait!!



Also new thing to add to the to do list from the list post:

3. Write Kristin's Matron of Honor speech - so she will forgive me for not telling her about this blog.

I now pronounce you..

So like I said in the last post Josh and I finally found someone to marry us! It's funny it wasn't really that important to me who marries us, it was almost an after thought. Alot of weddings I have been to recently are officiated by a mentor or close friend who gets ordained online (for only $200 you can get the platinum business card - ohhh!!). Josh and I ideally would have loved that but we don't have any mentors or older people (who people would have taken seriously as an officiant) in our lives besides our siblings or parents.

As anyone who knows us knows Josh grew up in a world of grey and I on the other hand grew up in a world of black and white; or the 'cult' as Josh so lovingly calls it. So I thought it was going to be complicated or more of a battle to finally settle on someone. Shockingly it was more trouble finding someone then it was deciding on them. We went to the wedding minister.com who married Kelly & Adam and did great! Mostly because Adam wrote the whole ceremony, but I digress. He wasn't available but offered up his first back-up, who then turned out to be unavailable. He then offered his 2nd back-up who was available (woo hoo) so we made our way to Norcross to meet him.

He asked us all kinds of questions about our faith background, how we wanted our wedding to feel and about our family. He was extremely easy to talk and had no problems with us writing our own vows. He left us with a bunch of ceremonies to look through. At first I didn't like the idea of choosing from a several ceremonies that tons of other people had used before us, it didn't seem very 'different'. But since we are writing our own vows I figured it's fine to have the same ceremony as someone else. So we've picked one and I'm really happy with it.

I'm happy to check one more thing off the list (possibly one of the most important things!) and glad it wasn't an argument.

2 more things to add to the list:

1. Write Maid of Honor Speech for Kat's wedding
2. Write my vows - I'm hoping they just magically come to me.

"I feel weird wearing an engagement ring in Athens"

Sick this weekend but sucked it up to go to Athens to see Butch Walker..A-MAZING! I love live shows so much! Butch was beautiful and played awesomely as always. We didn't stay the whole time due to the aforementioned sickness and the obnoxious-ness of Athens girls (seriously annoying) but fun times all around.


**Photo courtesy of Susan Crutchfield**


As always there were some memorable quotes from the evening:

"Everyone looks better in the dark"

"I feel weird wearing an engagement ring in Athens"

"I love when we do things like this it makes me feel like were not old yet, I'm not old yet! You will be in September"

"I love crunk OMG she is my fav"

A band I have never heard of before Ponderosa opened up for Butch. They were awesome; looked and sounded a little bit like Lynard Skynard. Flannel shirts and long beards swoon ;)

Also Josh and I met with a minister this afternoon so the wedding will be legal woo hoo!!!

Happy Birthday Katherine!!

Happy Birthday sister of mine!! Your one of my favorite people and I'm sad that I can't celebrate with you today. Have the best first engaged birthday ever..Love you!




Hopefully there will be lots of singing tonight :)

Honeymoon in.....

So Josh's job over spring break is to plan and book our honeymoon. I have just a few requests. A boat chauffeur, clear water, nice white beaches, hammocks and a hut with a hole in it so I can see the fishies. You know the simple things in life. Ideally this is where we would go...



Kat however is nervous given recent events that if I stay in a hut on the water a tsunami will sweep me away - valid concern.

So it will probably be St.Lucia which is fine with me! All inclusive resorts YAY!! Apparently its a short plane trip but 1/2 of it is in a very tiny plane..so hopefully I will have drinks and my cute helicopter dress to keep me safe (new use for the dress - going away dress!!)




I need it to come quick...rough day at work trying to breathe.


***disclaimer this will not become a wedding blog - just what's going on today******

My Dream Wardrobe

How can I justify this dress? It has airplanes on it and I love it! But it for sure isn't something I could wear all the time and it is quite expensive...Hmm maybe I'll make the wedding theme airplanes.