Bridal Shower

Well, this month has been very busy! Between my ANCC exam, bridal shower, starting a new job, and wedding planning ... lucky to find time to breathe! Passed my exam and am loving my new job as an NP with Hospice; I can't get over how nice and welcoming people are, and it's amazing to be surrounded by people who absolutely love their job and work like a "family".

My bridal shower was absolutely beautiful! My family, MOH and bridesmaids did an incredible job. :) The shower was at Chef's and it was fall themed (and decorated really cool).




We had a deeeeeeeelicious cake from Muscoreil's ...




RJ and I made out like bandits with the amount of gifts and were presented with a really awesome wine basket with wine to be used by month/season by my Maid of Honor ...




Mom and I had to have some fun, too ...




Since the shower, we have been fine tuning the centerpieces, events at Sean Patricks, music, and decorations. I can say that, after this wedding, I don't know how much I ever want to go into another Michael's or Joann Fabrics, haha!

NP JOB!!!

Great news... I accepted a Nurse Practitioner position with Niagara Hospice!!! :) I will be starting Monday, August 16th.

Bridal shower is tomorrow!

Invitations sent today! Still working on wedding details otherwise.. finalizing centerpieces, revising contracts, choosing music selections and church readings, ordering unity candles and memory candles, etc. ;)

Most of our honeymoon is booked! We have our flight and hotel in San Francisco booked, and we are staying at two different B&B's while in Napa Valley (both booked). Now to start booking a lot of our activities, like the Napa Wine Train, wine tours, tour Alcatraz!

House, Interviews, Flowers

First and foremost, we are closing on our house Friday!! Pretty crazy that we will officially be homeowners. An entire house to clean. Utility bills. A mortgage payment. But, of most importance, it means the wedding is coming up soooooon! :)

Lately my life has been busy with worrying about the Nurse Practitioner job situation. Silly, yes. I have a great RN position that I am lucky to have, but I am very eager to begin my practice as an NP. I have been interviewing at a couple of different places lately, so we will see what happens. Tonight I sat down and wrote pros/cons for some of the different places, and the results were pretty surprising. I think that I am missing some key things, though.. it will not be an easy decision should some options become job offers.

Back to wedding things.. today we (Mom, me, and Aunt Neezy) met with the florist for the first time! We are going with Maureen's Buffalo Wholesale; she is supposed to be one of the best. She was extremely helpful when we went in, and of course it probably went smoother because I had a good idea of what I want. I'm very happy that the flowers I wanted most will look good together.. Gerber daisies, calla lillies, and roses.. a mix of burgundy, ivory, and burnt orange.. very fall like! My girls will have fall colored gerber daisies, and the flower girl will have an ivory satin basket with mini-gerbers (so cute!). The florist also gave us some fantastic ideas for centerpieces, which is something that I have been having a lot of trouble deciding on. I think we're going to go with a floral arrangement with fall leaves tied in and burgundy & orange votives. It seems as though fall leaves are becoming the theme of this wedding, which I think will look very classy compared to some of the tackier ideas with pumpkins and gourds that I had before, lol. Tonight ended very nicely with a dinner at Chef's with the ladies. Of course I had my usual.. gnocchi parmed with mushrooms.. mmm! Now this whole weight loss motivation thing needs to start, ha! ...

Graduation

I'M DONE!!!!!

More time ... finally!

Sorry about the lack of updates.. things have been busy with finishing up school and house hunting. I am graduating Saturday and as of June 1st will officially be a Family Nurse Practitioner! :) Still no job.. I interviewed for a Lymphoma NP position at Roswell and there will be a Bone Marrow Transplant NP position (I do this now as an RN) being posted soon.

So... some big news... RJ and I are buying a house! Everything is in order so far, and after many frustrations and issues, we are scheduled to close May 28th. It's a cute house, a perfect starter home. It's a 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath, full basement, walk up attic, and has a nice yard for being in the city of Lockport.

Wedding wise, we ordered the invitations. The theme is pretty much turning into a fall themed wedding with burgundy as the main color; the invite is burgundy and has fall leaves on it, they're cute! We are actually picking them up this week, they're already done. Save the Dates were sent a couple of months ago. My mom and I picked truffles as the favor from a chocolate shop in Clarence, they are very yummy! The chocolate shop also has a fall monogram to put on the box, with burgundy writing, so I was pretty excited about that minor detail. What else ... my dress is in, the girls' dresses are ordered. RJ and I completed Pre Cana with the Catholic Church. Pre Cana wasn't too bad, it was basically learning how to communicate and deal with fighting etc, and they talked a lot about natural childbirth and fertility methods.. I don't necessarily agree with all of it, but whatever. We have also started planning the honeymoon. We're definitely going to San Francisco and Napa Valley, so now it's just deciding when we want to fly out and exactly which hotels we want to stay at (and which B&B's in Napa)! I think that's really it, plans are coming along nicely. Next is to meet with a potential, and probable, florist in a couple of weeks and then to meet with Muscoreil's to design our wedding cake in June (which is going to be fall themed). PS the main flower is going to be the Gerber Daisy. :-)

Limos and Houses

It feels like wedding planning is starting to get much busier lately! RJ and I finalized our "Save the Dates" (magnets, we made them online) and they are supposed to be delivered tomorrow, and we booked our limo! The limo experience was interesting, with jerky customer service and one vendor not even showing up for a meeting we had planned! Anyways, we booked with Timkey Limousine, right here in Lockport. The limo is an SUV, a 2008 Chrysler Aspen; it is sharp looking and is very nice inside!

The bridesmaid dresses are finally picked, they will be the first picture in the previous post (sweetheart cut, lace up back, floor length); now I just have to figure out with the bridal shop how to have them ordered at the same time between the local and out of town girls. The flower girl dress is also picked out, but I just hope that I can order it in a color that matches everyone else! It is not an Alfred Angelo dress, it's Mori Lee, but they have a color swatch that is identical to the AA color; so if they can match it, it'll all work out! If not, I think I have an idea of a back-up dress.

Next step: honeymoon planning. We are almost certain that we want to go to San Francisco and Napa Valley, CA! My mom and I also have to get started on finding a florist soon. It's overwhelming, but I know that everything will fall into place.

Aside from wedding planning, RJ and I started house hunting on Sunday! It's kind of an eye-opener to see that a starter house and the money that it costs for the kind of starter house that we are looking at is not exactly the most glamorous, and it will most definitely require some work in fixing it up. That will probably be fun though, creating a starter house into something that is our own. :) We saw 3 houses: two were pretty old, and one was newer (and this one we liked the best). All were in Lockport. It was so weird to walk through other people's houses, but exciting because we are starting to figure out what we want in a house! This week we are hoping to look at a couple of houses in Wheatfield, and maybe a couple more in Lockport. Finding a house is going to be a process, knowing how easy it is for RJ and I to make a decision (HA!). Hopefully this will work to our advantage, and we won't just settle, and will find the "perfect" starter house!

2010

Happy New Year! 9 months til the wedding, and it's official: We are getting married THIS YEAR! :)