A little less than 6 months till the wedding

Ok, I am going to start off with some sad news. My grandfather passed away on 1/10/07. My mom and I flew out two Saturdays ago and got home last Saturday. It was nice to spend time with my family and remember the wonderful things about my grandfather. My mom spent a lot of time scanning in pictures of my grandfather through all walks of his life and made this huge display of all these pictures. It was displayed at the visitation and the funeral. It was beautiful. My cousins and my sister and brother and I did a eulogy at his vigil service. We also sang some silly songs my grandpa taught us and the all the girls sang "I will Remember You". It was very nice. During the mass was when I got the saddest. My cousins and my sister and I sang at the mass too. At the burial site I was not that sad, because I did not look like my grandfather in the casket. A ton of people came back to my grandparents' house and it was nice to hear all the stories about my grandfather. I am much sadder now that I am home with out a whole lot of family around. I am sad I wont get to see him again and that he wont be able to dance at my wedding. I know as my wedding gets closer I am going to be more sad. I wanted to dance with him at my wedding like my cousin and my sister did. I am sad that I am never going to see him smile again or hear him laugh at himself. I am sad that my grandmother is alone now. I know that my grandfather is watching over us and he is still apart of us through all of our wonderful memories, but we are still very sad. Vicki said, "at least you know he'll be at your wedding and not in a hospital bed" (something to that effect. That was so special because she is so right. He will be there with me at my wedding and watching me and smiling.

Ok on to happier news. I ordered my dress in January because I noticed that it was no longer online. I thought that they were getting rid of the dress so I went to the store that night and ordered it. It came in in less than 10 days. Then I bought my shoes when I picked up my dress. They are so cute. I went to the David's Bridal on Tuesday of this week and picked up the bow for my flower girl's dress so I could have the color of the dresses we are going to order for the bridesmaids. Then Rod and I went to Afterhours that night to pick out the color of groomsmens tuxes so that we could match it to the bow. I hope everything looks ok since they did not actually have a full vest of the color we picked. I can not believe the wedding is less than 6 months away now. It is coming up so quickly. I know it is going to be here before we know it. I still have to order the favors. My mom and I need to sit down and figure out what we are going to do for our reception in VA. Also I need to start thinking of addressing the invitations. I suppose I should finish my thank you cards from my surprise bridal shower over Christmas first. I have a lot of stuff done, I just have a lot of stuff left to do. Luckily, my mom and I have the same spring break from work so I am sure that will be spent doing stuff for the reception here. I need to get together with my bridesmaids so we can pick out which dress they want and order that soon in case they need to get any thing altered. I guess the best thing would be to plan out everything I need to get done and then start figuring out a timeline.

School started two weeks ago. I wasn't in town for the first class because of my grandfather's funeral. This semester is going to be a lot of work, especially since one class is an online class. I hate online classes because I am not that motivated to get work done. Plus, when I have questions, I like getting to talk to my professor face to face. We can go online to have live office hours with our professor but I think that is going to be weird. Unfortunately this class is a research class and I think it is going to kick my butt. Hopefully I can do well and get an A. That is what I always strive for. My other class is counseling culturally diverse populations. This class is going to be very interesting but a lot of work. I ordered my book online, so I hope it comes soon because I am like a few hundreds pages behind.

So this is my life right now. I keep busy with school, work, wedding planning and spending time with my family and friends. I am still grieving the loss of my grandfather as well. Please continue to keep me and my family in your thoughts and prayers as we begin to heal. Thank you all!

Uncertainty

I know it has been awhile since I have posted, but I just haven't felt like talking about what has been going on with me or the uncertainty with my grandfather. Rod and I spent Christmas Eve with my father and his Aunt. We got a lot of great Christmas gifts :) Then on Christmas day Rod and I flew to California to visit my family and get some wedding stuff done. It was a bittersweet trip because my grandfather was in the hospital. I feel like I did not spend enough time with him in the hospital because I had a lot of stuff I needed to get done for the wedding. Anyway, Rod's mom arrived on the 26th. We got to spend a lot of time with her cute doggies. On the 27th, we took Rod's mom to the chapel, then down to our reception site, then we went to get our engagement photos taken. We were going to take them outside, but it was very windy that day (gusts of wind 70 mph) so we decided to take them in his studio. I was not a fan of the first set of pictures he took, but the second set when Rod and I were lying down and doing relaxed poses were AWESOME! I can't wait to get the proofs so we can pick one. While we were there, our photographer planned out the timing for the whole wedding day such as when we will toast, eat, dance to certain music. It was awesome because it is one less thing I have to think about. Then that night, we were going out to dinner with one of my aunts at the Mexican restaurant I had considered having our rehearsal dinner at. We headed down there and to my shock, my aunts had planned a surprise bridal shower for me. It was so much fun! Rod got to stay, and everyone enjoyed getting to meet him. My little 7 year old cousin made wine charms for everyone. It was just so cute! Rod and I got a lot of things from this shower including some of our china:) When we got back to my grandparents' house that night we had sample cakes waiting for us to try. We decided we are going to have one layer as a marble cake with chocolate filling, another layer as a chocolate cake with mocha filling, and the third layer as a chiffon cake with lemon filling. On the 28th, Rod's mom left. Before she left, we decided to book the Mexican restaurant for our rehearsal dinner. We were going to do it at my grandparents house, but when we thought about if we had to rent tables and chairs and hire a couple of people to help serve we decided it would be just as cheap and less stressful to have it at the restaurant. We decided to have dessert, drinks, and coffee back at my grandparents house after the rehearsal dinner. After Rod's mom left, Rod and I met with a wedding planner at the chapel. She was awesome and had some great ideas. While we were there we picked out all our music for the chapel. I am excited because we have so much done. Then after our planning meeting we went to dinner at our reception site so Rod could taste their food. It was really good and we got some ideas of other things we needed to do. Now through this all we had been visiting my grandfather in the hospital periodically. On the 29th we decided to put a feeding tube in my grandfather and that caused a scare because coming out of the anesthesia he went into respiratory distress. Many of us were at the hospital waiting room crying. He came out of it OK, but he wasn't the same. He wouldn't open his eyes, he was not very responsive, and he was very angry. I tried to spend a lot of time with him. That night, one of my aunts from my dad's side of the family took Rod and I to dinner at the brewery. It was awesome and we had a lot of fun. Then on the 30th, Rod, my mom, and I went down to my aunt's house to look for some decorations for the wedding reception which we found and they are going to be gorgeous and then we went to see my cousin and her husband's new condo. It is beautiful. I told Rod I want our own place now. I want to be able to do whatever I want to it, but it's not really possible for us right now since we don't know if I am going to be paid for my internship in a year and a half. Then on New Year's Eve we did not do a whole lot. I remember spending some time with my grandfather and we ate Chinese food, but I don't remember what Rod and I did during the day. On New Years Day we went and said goodbye to my grandfather and then we flew home. It was really hard for me to say goodbye because I don't think I am going to see him again. I never expected that something would happen to him. I expected him to be at my wedding and to dance with me (even though he was in a walker, he got up at my cousin's wedding and my sister's wedding and danced with them). I know if he is not there that Rod and I will do something to tribute him and we will also go to take a picture at the cemetery in our wedding clothes, but it's still really hard. Anyway, we got back at 12a.m on the 2nd, and then we had to get our bags, go back to my parents' house, transfer everything to our car, pack our Christmas gifts in our car, and head home. We did not get home until 2 a.m and I had to be up at 5:45. It sucked. Rod hadn't taken the 2nd off either, but the federal government was closed because of the death of President Ford. Basically this week has been catching up on sleep and trying to pick up our apartment. Also, our one friend had her 2nd baby on the 3rd. We are so excited for her and her family:) Hopefully we'll get down to visit in a month or two. Yesterday, I went to my parents' house and celebrated Christmas with my mom and my dad because my mom wasn't home for Christmas. It was nice to get to spend time with my mom and just be there to support her as she goes through this difficult time. Today we are going to run some errands and I am hopefully going to get all my crap cleaned up so we can vacuum. I'm not sure what exactly is going on with my grandfather, but I think the decision was to take out his feeding tube and bring him home to let him pass at home. Please continue to keep my grandfather and my family in your thoughts and prayers and we try to get through this difficult time. I will update again hopefully soon.