Wedding Slideshow & Video

Our wedding slideshow is up finally!!! And if you haven't seen our wedding trailer, check that out too!

Wedding Pictures from Friends

Rehearsal Dinner Pics

Bachelorette Weekend

Over the weekend I went to Palm Springs with my bridesmaids for my Bachelorette Weekend. While we were away, Brian and some of the guys went to Santa Barbara for his Bachelor weekend. We both had loads of fun and still can't stop sharing stories. :)

1 month left!

Wow - I can hardly believe that one month from today I will be getting married! Brian and I couldn't even be more excited, although I am feeling the stress now. I haven't had much time to breathe since school has been out. I have been working my 2 part time jobs a lot while working on wedding stuff, writing thank you cards, and starting to pack. Busy busy as usual!!

Bridal Shower Pictures

Wow! Only 50 more days to go till the wedding!!! I soooo can't even wait!!! In less than a week I will be officially done with school forever! (unless I am crazy enough to go back later on, which would not surprise me). And Brian graduates this SUNDAY! Very exciting!!!

Here are some pictures from my bridal shower that was at Pam's house on April 24. It was such a beautiful shower!!!

(PS - let me know if you want the original of any picture(s) -
I will happily email them to you). :)

Less than 100 days!!

Less than 100 days until our wedding - now the real countdown begins!! :) We are sooooo excited!!! I still feel like there is a lot to do, but I am not really worried about it getting done - I know it will. It's just a matter of finding the time in the midst of everything else...

Wedding Shower

Last weekend we had our first shower - it was a co-ed wedding shower with our friends from church. A huge thank you to the Wintheiser's for hosting this lovely event! It was amazing!! The theme was "Honeymoon in Europe" and was centered around the 3 countries we will be visiting: Spain, France, & Italy. Click below to view my album of pictures!

Wintheiser Wedding Shower

4 more months!

The wedding is now 4 months away, yet there is still a good amount of stuff to be taken care of (the biggest being my unconfirmed florist). We just keep putting one foot in front of the other, juggling school, work, planning, moving stuff, etc. We definitely have a lot going on right now and a lot of huge changes coming up this summer, but we are very excited about it all! Thanks again for your prayers!!

I thought I would post some family pics - we took these in November to give to our parents/family for Christmas.

Sisters

Dad's Side: Brian, Me, Crystal & Luis

Mom's Side: Us 4 + Joshua (my half-brother on the left) &

Jacob (a new addition to the family - my mom is basically his legal guardian)

1st Wedding Dress Fitting

Today is my first wedding dress fitting! I am really excited! My gown has been in storage for months now because I ordered it so early. Of course I know what it looks like, but I forget just how beautiful it is, so it makes me happy to see it. My friend Tiffany from nursing school is going to keep me company, so that makes it even more fun. :) Soooo exciting ...and time is just flying by! :D

6 Months to go!!!

Six months from today, Brian and I will be getting married!! It is soooo exciting, but I can really feel the stress building up. Since I put a lot of wedding planning on hold until the semester and holidays were over, I am starting to get serious with it now, but have very little time before school starts back up again. So, every day of break right now is a busy one - trying to check things off the long list (not all wedding planning stuff though). I can't believe we only have 6 more months to go - it is going to FLY BY!!!

Update

Wow! I cannot even believe it is November already! Where has the time gone? I am sorry it has been so long since my last post, but here is an update for you:

• School is good - things have calmed down a little, but it is still keeping me busy. I registered yesterday for my last semester!! I can't even believe I only have one more to go! Sooooo exciting! I am really glad that I stayed full time in our program - out of the 65 students who started with me in August of 2007, only about 15 are due to graduate in May!! Crazy! A lot of people started working in January and some are still taking classes part time. I just know it is going to be one heck of a celebration when this is all over in May (hoping I pass all my classes, of course). :) Oh, and my externship is going great! I really love my nurse, Kelly, and I am learning so much! I feel this is such a great transition for me and it is really helping to prepare me for when I get my first official RN job. I am getting used to the nights as much as possible, although some weeks I get very little sleep (mostly from all the assignments and other things going on) - that plus the constant stress do seem to be taking a toll on my body sometimes.
  
• Brian is also due to graduate with his master's from LMU in May and right now he is working on his applications for PhD programs. As many of you probably know, he is looking at schools in Chicago, Boston, New York, ...and other East Coast schools. So, we are preparing ourselves to move around August of next year, but we won't really know until probably March or so. He is applying to very competitive schools, so we will see where he gets accepted and who has the best offers. I am getting excited about moving - some days I wish I was moving now!! I need a break from OC I think...
  
• As for wedding planning, we have most of the big stuff done. We decided on a caterer at the end of September and we are excited about who we went with. We also finally met with our florist and are still deciding on bridesmaid dresses. We feel really good about everything and where we are at now. :) Oh, and the honeymoon is pretty much booked - flights, hotels, etc. We are flying into Barcelona, then going to Lourdes, France, and then to Italy! We are SO excited!!
• As for my family, everyone is doing really well. October events:
  --We celebrated my mom's birthday by having a picnic at Irvine park. We had sandwiches, played games, went to the zoo, and had a potato sack race. It was a lot of fun - brought back some childhood memories!
  --My sister and her family moved into a condo right around the corner from her old apartment and it is really cute. By the time I went to check it out (about 2 weeks later), it looked as though they had been living there for months...or even years! They (Luis) had painted the entire house (many different colors) and everything was in place. I was impressed!! Here is a pic of me and my sis:
  --My dad's birthday is on Halloween, but we celebrated a week early at my sister's new place. We had dinner (Luis' yummy enchiladas) and played some Wii together, which was fun!!
• Over summer, I signed up for a little side job - it was mostly in case my externship didn't work out, but I decided to try and do it even with my current school load (of 16 grad units!). I am doing obesity assessments in kids. I work with registered dieticians and we go to preschools, elementary, middle and high schools to assess kids for obesity. We measure height, weight, blood pressure, waist circumference, and sometimes there is a doctor there to do physical assessments. The doctor may decide they need a referral to their primary care physician or they will be referred if they are overweight or have a high BMI. I wasn't scheduled much for September and October, but I really enjoyed the experience doing it! I never went to a high school - I think the oldest class I did was 6th grade - most of the kids I assessed were preschoolers. This program is through St. Joseph's and during Nov-Dec, the RDs go and teach the kids about healthy foods and habits and then we go back in Jan-Feb to assess the kids again. Then the next couple months I think they do kickboxing or some fun activity and then in May-June we go and do our final assessments. I just got my first paycheck yesterday, which was so exciting. Although it wasn't much (especially since taxes weren't taken out and they don't pay for gas), I still am happy to have a little job...something I can add to my resume!
• Since I am not busy enough (haha!!!), I am a volunteer for the Orange County Medical Reserve Corps and I have been signing up to give flu shots/nasal sprays (seasonal and H1N1) at schools and clinics...but I haven't done any yet, since the shipments haven't come in. But this Saturday I will be giving them. More experience!
• In addition, I have been taking any other side jobs that I can. I have had the opportunity to watch an elderly woman and help prepare her meals. She is so sweet! It is nice because I am able to get some schoolwork done when I am there too. I am still babysitting whenever I can and of course housesitting as much as possible. These little jobs help me pay my tuition (which went up a lot recently) :( , so I am thankful to still be able to do these!

I know this was a long update...and long overdue, but I am glad that I finally had time to post something. I hope you are all doing well!

Fun Video

Sorry this link hasn't been working. I will have to try it again. It was such a fun video!

Just had to make this! :) Click the link below...
MorphYourself

Shared via AddThis

6 Wonderful Years!!

Today is my 6 year dating anniversary with Brian! :D To celebrate, we had our first food and cake tasting for a potential wedding caterer. The food was absolutely amazing and the people were soooo nice. It was fun to have a fancy dinner for free and we left stuffed!
Although this picture was not taken today, it is a recent picture of us. This was taken on my birthday when we went for a day out on my dad's boat. I used my new camera that Brian and my nursing school friends got me - I love it!! :) Thank you to all those who contributed - it truly meant a lot to me!!

Marriage Prep

We "graduated" from our "Marriage in the Lord" workshops that we have been attending every Tuesday night during July. Brian and I LOVED these classes and are sad that they are over already. We are looking forward to attending retreats or workshops like these in the future. They really spark up a whole new/deeper level of communication and really brought the two of us even closer together. We had the largest small group and had a lot of similarities among each other. One girl is in nursing school (a LVN to RN program) and her and another girl both have Dutch fathers, just like me! :) And our moderator couple goes to San Antonio too. All in all, it was really neat hearing from/about other Catholic couples; for instance, I enjoyed hearing about what traditions their families have had and what they would like to keep/start with their new family. These classes were very beneficial and I think all couples preparing for marriage should go through something like this!!

Reception Site

Today Brian and I booked our reception site. It was very exciting for us and we are very happy about it. After much searching, we are glad we found the perfect place that represents both of us (although, this was the first place we looked at). I can't wait to celebrate our big day at the Fullerton Arboretum.

Housesitting in Ladera Ranch

I just realized that I haven't really posted anything for a month! Sorry about that, although there really isn't much to update you on.

I'm in week 4 of summer school and it is keeping me busy, as usual. We are starting our "thesis project" this semester and I will be doing mine on Fibromyalgia symptom management. I am looking forward to it, but I know it is going to be a lot of work. However, it will all pay off in the end right? Less than a year until I graduate...and almost a year until our wedding!

Speaking of wedding...we are in the process of finding our reception site. It has already been fun checking out a few places with Brian, but we have several more to go. Other than that, not much else is going on. We start our marriage classes in July (every Tues night for 4 weeks). We are looking forward to going.

Right now I am housesitting for my sister in Ladera Ranch. Lily, my sister's dog, is one of Sade's puppies from her 2nd litter and she is very close to me. She is so cute and such a sweetheart (minus the 3 am wake up barking and potty trip this morning). Also living in my sister's apartment is her cat Shadow, hamster Lionel, and fish. Brian has been hanging out with me here and it has been sort of a little vacation for us (obviously not really since we are working on school stuff constantly). We watched "Taken" Monday night and last night watched "Doubt" - both were great movies. Oh, today and yesterday I took care of my other Ladera pet buddies. I walked from my sister's to the house where Max and Rose are and hung out, walked, and fed them. It is so nice being able to walk somewhere! I also walked to the grocery store and probably will run to the gym sometime soon too. Everything is pretty close by. I will be here until Sunday morning and I am looking forward to having my "own place" for a few more days.

Wedding Gown

Well, Brian and I haven't really done much wedding planning yet due to the busy-ness of school, but now that it is summer, we are hoping to move more quickly on things. To start this summer off, I went and bought/ordered my wedding gown on Friday. That is of course very exciting and I can't wait for you all to see it! I LOVE it! :)