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! :)

Bridesmaid Dresses

I'm very close to choosing the bridesmaids dresses! I already know that the color will be "berry", but it's the design that I'm debating over. One of my awesome bridesmaids helped me out and went to a bridal shop near her place and tried on two of the dresses that I am considering, and I really like them both! It's going to come down to which one is more comfortable for the majority of my girls. One is more form fitting, while the other might not be so much. Both have a lace up back, which is something that I really want (because my dress laces up). Here are some pictures:

This is the actual color, and the dress would be long (I'm leaning towards this one)

Again, this is the actual color. This one is more form fitting, so I don't know, comfort wise.

My cousin, and maid of honor, is coming up around Christmas time, so we are going to go look for her dress at that time. Then I will make my final decision about the bridesmaid dress. I also have to figure out the dress for the flower girl, but that will probably happen when I decide about the other dresses. I am the worst decision maker, ha!

So, I must say that I have learned a lot about dresses and dress shopping over the past month. I have mine and was so excited that my girls would get a discount on theirs ... until I found out why that was. I went to a local bridal shop with my mom and aunt so that they could check out dresses, and apparently places like Alfred Angelo and David's Bridal offer money off, but jack up the prices on alterations, unlike going to a private bridal shop. I called Alfred Angelo to ask questions about alteration prices, and they were right. So, I'm thinking that my girls will want to probably go to local places for their dresses. I know that I will be bringing my gown to Tattler's Lane in the Falls for my alterations!

Also, I think my mom has come very close to choosing her dress! :) She would kill me if I posted a picture of it for all to see, but it's gorgeous and perfect for the "Mother of the Bride" dress! Love it. She's thinking about going with wine for the color, which I think would complement the color of the bridal party well.

Aside from dresses, I've started working on Save the Dates (I love Shutterfly.com), and on Tuesday Ryan and I are going to go meet with our photographer to put together our engagement portraits for Christmas gifts for family (hopefully they will be done in time!). We have also started talking to a realtor and mortgage consultant to begin planning for buying a house! Because of my school situation, it is unrealistic to start looking until February-ish, and at that time I need to make sure that I at least have a full-time RN position available in case I don't find a nurse practitioner one right away. Our realtor wants us to start looking with her in mid-January though, because apparently sometimes they can talk the sellers into extending the time until closing for us to prove our financial status. Very excited! :) Plus, if we have a contract in by April 30, we can qualify for the new homeowners tax break, which is the goal.

Hmm, well I think I've typed enough, and that's about it for now. More to come after the holidays, I'm sure!