Wedding Advice

At my bridal shower the girls had everyone write down some marriage advice in a little book. I loved the gesture and brought it to the wedding for our other guests to share their thoughts as well. Here are a few of my favorites:

- be sure to babysite nieces as much as possible to prepare you for parenting and to give your sister a break :) (from paul's sister)

- Three phrases a husband must learn for a happy marriage 1. yes, dear 2. you're right, dear and 3. it's all my fault (from paul's BIL)

- Remember to take out the trash, work on the honey do list and always say yes dear!! Oh yeah, I taught him everything he knows (from paul's mom)

- take time each day for each other, one little hug or kiss has alot of mileage, as well as the occasional I'm sorry. (from my friends)

- be grateful and loving to your partner and your relationship will be solid (from co-worker)

Our Vows

I loved our vows so much so I wanted to share them. They are a combination of a few vows I found online.

Vows

Sarah, in the presence of God, and before our family and friends, I, Paul, with joy and in love, take you to be my wife, to be the mother of my children, and the companion of my days. I promise to fully share my life with you, through days of happiness or sadness, abundance or want. I pledge to you my unfailing love always.

Paul, in the presence of God, and before our family and friends, I, Sarah, with joy and in love, take you to be my husband, to be the father of my children, and the companion of my days. I promise to fully share my life with you, through days of happiness or sadness, abundance or want. I pledge to you my unfailing love always.

Ring Exchange

As a ring has no end, neither shall my love for you. I choose you to be my wife this day and forevermore. Take this ring, as a sign of my love and commitment.

As a ring has no end, neither shall my love for you. I choose you to be my husband this day and forevermore. Take this ring, as a sign of my love and commitment.

Condo gardening

I'm doing my container garden again this year, but I think I might have gone a little crazy. We got the majority of it planted tonight. Paul took a bunch of pictures which I'll try to get posted later. Here's what we have so far.

12 beef steak tomato plants
4 roma tomato plants
4 cherry tomato plants
4 grape tomato plants
Green Onions
Spinach (already pulled, season is over)
10-15 basil plants
2 thyme plants
3 sage plants
3 oregano plants
5 cilantro plants
8 yellow bell peppers plants
4 super chili peppers plants
1 serrano pepper plants
1 tabasco pepper plant

His mom has some squash and zucchini going for us at her garden, since those don't do well in containers. She also planted 4 pepper plants though I'm not sure what kind. I'd love to have a few more things, but I think I'm done because 1. Paul will probably strangle me if I bring home anymore plants or potting soil, 2. The majority of this stuff will be ready just about the 3 week of nursing school, and 3. there is no more free space on the patios!!

Who says you have to have land to have a garden?!!

Gem Mining

I wanted to go gem mining while we were on vacation, so one night we went over to pigeon forge and stopped at a gem mining stand. You buy a bucket of dirt and they give you a screened box and you get to pan for gems. It was alot of fun and we did get several nice precious stones. One of the gems was a 6 carat ruby, the gem mining stand had a jeweler on hand and we made our ruby into rings for us. Very cool souvenir.

Me with the gem mining black bear.
Paul with the gem mining black bear.

Lodging

The entrance to the resort. A nice rock waterfall with stone bears.

The initial road went straight up and was lined with stone black bears, these have welcome signs. All the buildings are on the side of the mountain, it was straight up with lots of twists and turns to our room.
This was the view from our balcony. Awesome!!

We're Back

We're back, the wedding was perfect, the honeymoon was wonderful. Here's a few pics friends have sent us. More pictures to come later.

Announcing Mr & Mrs R.
Us watching toast from best man.

We're Off

We're off to go get hitched. The weather is not quite what I had hoped but it's not as bad as it could be, it looks like it will be warm, upper 80s, with a 50% chance of rain, right now it's really breezy and cloudy. Rehearsal last night went well, we're both exhausted and hoping we can savor every moment of the wedding today, but if the rehearsal is any indication it's all going to be a blur. In 8 hours, I'll be Mrs. R *~*~*~ Yeah*~*~*~

Weather Forecast

Whoo hooo!!! The weather forecast for next Saturday the day of the wedding is 86 degrees and 0% chance of rain!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, it's now June 2 and I am now obsessed with checking the weather for Saturday, it's now 80 degrees with a 40% chance of rain. Cooler is much better!!

Nursing School

Oh, I forgot to share, I got into Nursing School!! I'll be doing the 4 yr BSN program, which will allow me to continue working for awhile. The school is considered one of the best in the area and hard to get into so I'm very pleased.

Instant Oatmeal for Pennies

Instant oatmeal is a great healthy easy breakfast. You can make your own much cheaper and healthier than the storebought. First you'll need a box of quick cooking oats, baggies and salt.
Powder 1 cup of oats in the food processor. Put in each baggy 1/4 c oats, 2 Tbsp powdered oats and 1/4 tsp salt. Seal baggie and store in a tupperware container. To prepare add 2/3 c milk or water and microwave for 2 minutes. Add more or less milk depending on how you like the consistency of your oatmeal.

You can make your favorite flavors too. Just add 1 Tbsp sugar and 2 Tbsp dried fruit and enjoy. We try to dehydrate our own fruit whenever we can right now we have coconut, strawberries, apples, oranges and bananas.

A box of instant generic/store brand instant oatmeal is $2.00 for a box of 10 servings. We paid today $2.00 for a box of oats, which will make 40 servings. Plus our oatmeal has 4 ingredients oats, salt, sugar and fruit, not the big list of ingredients we can't pronounce that the store bought oatmeal has.

Update - We made used our homemade instant oatmeal for breakfast this morning (me-maple syrup and brown sugar, him-cinnamon and apples) It was delicious!! So much better than the storebought. The only change I'm going to make is to try 1/8 tsp salt instead of the 1/4, it was a little salty tasting to us.

Make money with your purchases

I've been using a website called Ebates to get discounts and cash back on all my online purchases. It's true, I'm not lying, last week I got my first check for $16.66. There are over 900 merchants on the website, major companies, not places you've never heard of. I don't do alot of online purchases but whenever I do I always go through Ebates. Sometimes I get free shipping, or a discount on the purchases, but more often than not it's a cash back rebate, anywhere from 1%-5% of the purchase. It's free money, very cool!!

If you're interested click here to learn more and sign up - http://www.ebates.com/referral/0508bonusosu.htm?referrerid=FZiZ0Ub8K3sTJWKvP1z4Og%3D%3D

Court Ruling in Texas

"Court: Texas Had No Right to Keep Polygamy Kids"

"An appeals court ruled today that Texas didn't have the authority to keep dozens of children from a polygamist sect in state custody. The Third Court of Appeals in Austin, in response to motions from at least 50 sect mothers, ruled that Child Protective Services did not present enough evidence at a hearing last month that their children were at risk of abuse to justify keeping them in state custody. "

"The court said that the state had not demonstrated that the children were in immediate danger and that Judge Barbara Walther abused her discretion in failing to return the children to their families. "

See entire article here - http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=4911318&page=1

Whether or not you believe polygamy is right or wrong, NO ONE should be persecuted for their religious beliefs.

Couponing

We've been getting into using coupons in the last few months. I had never been one to use coupons, I always forgot them and the paper never seemed to have very many. But living up here the local paper has tons of good coupons. Paul sent me this article last night about a woman that by using coupons is feeding her family of 5 for $10 a week. http://www.11alive.com/news/article_news.aspx?storyid=115698 WOW!! I am no where near able to do what she is doing.

But today I did get some great deals by using coupons. I think my best one today was toothpaste, it was 2 for $4 , I had one coupon for $1.50 off and another for $0.50 off, then the stores doubles coupons so I got the toothpaste for free. Toothpaste seems to be one of those easy things to get for free or next to nothing. There are tons of coupons out there for toothpaste and seems like every week the store has one type of toothpaste on sale. I think we have about 5 tubes of toothpaste in the pantry right now and I haven't paid full price for any of them. Stock up, it's not like you won't use it! My other good deal today was shampoo, it was $6.59, I had 3 - $1.00 off coupons, which when doubled I got the shampoo for $0.59. Awesome!! I' m not sure if all stores will let you use more than one coupon for items, but mine will, so multiple coupons along with double the amounts, really adds up.

It does take time to pull this off, I usually take about an hour on sunday to go through the new coupons and the store ads mentally planning what I want to buy. Now I don't do like alot of people do and go to all the different grocery stores in the area. I have 3 stores I will shop at for groceries and toiletries, Kroger, Walgreens and CVS. I actually only go to walmart about once a month now because they don't double coupons and don't have great sales, but a few of the items we need are always cheaper there. I go through the ads and see what is on sale, because we have a well stocked pantry, I only buy things when they are on sale or if my coupons make the item a great price. Then before I go to the store, I check my grocery list, and go through the sales ad again and through the coupons pulling out the coupons I want to use. I tend to go on Saturdays to shop which is working well because we get the Kroger ad for the next week on Saturday and if something is a better price next week than this week, I know to wait and get it then. For example today Pepsi products are on sale but only if you buy $10 worth of other specific items. But starting Monday Pepsi products are on sale for the same prices but without the restriction of purchasing the specific items.

I don't think we'll ever be at $10 a week for groceries, alot of that is because we cook mostly from scratch and use fresh vegetables as much as possible. Lots of coupons seem to be for prepackaged meals and boxed food. But it's definitely a help. Let's face it folks food prices aren't going to go down, gas prices are rising, you've got to save every penny you can.

Verse on growing old

I was reading a chapter from a book a volunteer shared with me. It's about Spiritual Direction with the Dying, nothing in it was earth shattering, mostly the importance of being there and listening with people as they are going through the dying process. One verse from the Bible they quoted however caught my eye:

John 21:18
"I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go."

There is alot more to the passage than just that and has a deeper meaning than just growing old, but it's something many of us will face as we grow older and can no longer take care of our selves.

Ok, on a happier note, 3 weeks til the wedding!

Organizing

On Tuesday I decided to drag out all the wedding junk and starting organizing it. There were bags and boxes all over the living room so Reese decided to help me out.

Even though she wasn't much help, the end result was still good. We still need another tote, but we have a very nice organized and labeled pile of wedding day supplies.

More Pics

This is where we had dinner on our second date. I call it the first real date. It was such a great date too, we saw Gone with the Wind in the old historic theater and then walked in the arena district to the restuarant, it was lovely.

The exposure is off on a couple of these, but I actually really like the effect.

I think this one is my favorite.

Centerpiece Pics

We are using pictures of us for the table numbers, our friend will be hiding a number somewhere in the picture. Here our a few of the pictures we took last weekend. Hopefully I'll have more to share this week.

Tickling my ear!

I love how we're laughing while kissing.

This is not a real couch, it's a concrete one outside on the sidewalk.

Canning

I got a pressure canner a few weeks ago and have been busy playing with it. In the 2 weeks we've put up alot of food, so far we have chicken, ham, taco meat, sloppy joe, roast beef, and beef broth, about 14 quarts of food (14 ready to eat meals). Below is the vegetable soup I did tonight. Pressure canning is a great way to preserve food either from your garden or when you find an awesome deal on meat. It's very easy to do and if you follow the directions you won't poison yourself or blow up the canner, so there is no need to be scared of canning.

"And the rain descended,

and the floods came,

and the winds blew,

and beat upon that house;

and it fell not:

for it was founded upon a rock."

Matthew 7:25

Sneak Peak

Here's a sneak peek of the invitation. They are going out in the mail this weekend!