The post you've been waiting for: PICTURES!

It may not seem like, it, but these pictures are shown in chronological order. The sky during our ceremony looked completely different depending on which way you were facing with the camera. These are just a few of the 50 bajillion pictures we have that everyone has taken -- and we haven't even gotten the professional ones yet!

See more about the wedding here and here. See our professional photos here. 



*** Does anyone have a really great photo-sharing site to recommend? I still have so many photos left, and it would be great to have a place online to store them all -- especially if people in other states could add theirs as well and see everyone else's. We're going to compile all the pictures we get and put them on a CD eventually, and we'll send those CDs out to everyone. It would just be great to be able to keep them all online as well.

Wedding weekend, part 2

I’ve already said that Saturday and Sunday went perfect. I blogged right after I woke up on Saturday while CG was in the shower. It was really windy outside, and the weather looked like it could go either way, but Mother Nature looked to be leaning more toward the rainy side.

I got in the shower after CG, and as soon as I got out, she told me to look out the window. When I pulled back our curtains, I saw something pretty unexpected: sunshine! I knew, though, that since the weather had changed from cloudy to sunny in less than an hour, the two and a half hours left before the ceremony would be plenty of time for it to get cloudy and gross again. I held out hope for the best, but I tried not to get too set on the idea that we’d definitely get to have our wedding on the beach instead of our backup location on a covered patio.

At 9:30, though, which was when K was to make the call on where to set things up for our chair delivery crew, it was still sunny. Now, if it rained, we’d have 42 guests moving their chairs to the patio. We took that chance.

I got ready with all of my best girl friends who were there – ER, CG, Rachel and Lindsay. It was a lot of fun. One of our friends brought my flowers to us, and we couldn’t believe how gorgeous they were. They were perfect.

The minister got to our room at about 10, just an hour before the ceremony, and she couldn’t believe how calm we were. I wasn’t nervous at all. We’d just been hanging out having bagels and mimosas (mmm!). I was showered, and my makeup was mostly on. I was about to marry the guy I’d wanted to marry for more than two years. As far as I was concerned, there was nothing to be nervous about.

I put on my dress and then brushed my teeth (my friends said I was the only girl they know who’d brush her teeth in her dress, but you’ve gotta have fresh breath for your wedding!). I finished putting on my makeup, and then the girls helped me fix my hair. My dad came in during that time, and I got teary eyed. That's the closest I came to crying all day.

We finished getting ready, and we all headed outside toward the beach. We met up with the photographer, who again went on and on about how calm I was -- "You're more calm than the guys!" The girls headed to the beach to sprinkly the rose petals in the aisle, and my dad and I hung back waiting for our cue to go.

Our walk to the minister and K was really long. We walk across this small wooden bridge over the sand, and then several yards to the right before walking through the rows of chairs to where K and the minister waited for us. Our hotel had a private beach, so it wasn't really crowded, but there were people out there enjoying the beach. They were all watching us, and a few even congratulated me as I walked toward the setup with my dad.

It was still a bit windy, and the wind picked up through the ceremony. K and I laughed as our minister talked louder and louder over the wind. I was worried the arch might blow over, but it didn't. The minister had a poem about marriage that she was going to read, but since the weather looked a little iffy, she decided to cut it. Thank goodness, because I kid you not, the second the ceremony was over, K and I walked down to the end of the aisle, and the photographer got a couple pictures of us. As soon as we headed back to the arch to take pictures there, it started raining. The drops were cold and huge! Our friends had started popping the champagne bottles, and they hurried to get the cups passed out so we could toast and get everyone inside. Just about a minute after it had began, though, the rain stopped. K and I used our new Tiffany glasses that our friends had sent us as a gift.

After the toast, we all took about 10 million pictures. My friends all know how I am about taking pictures of everything, so thye made sure they took plenty. ER said it had to have been the most-photographed wedding per person. I think she's right. Almost everyone there took more than 100 pictures!

We all walked along the beach to the restaurant where we had lunch reservations. It was only two doors down from the hotel. We had half the outdoor patio reserved. It was covered, which turned out to be a really good thing. The rain came in again as we ate. The people seated at tables close to the "windows" (plastic coverings that were pulled down when the rain started) had to move to new tables the staff brought in because the wind was blowing so much and it was raining so hard that they were still getting wet.

Our lunch was good, though, and we had our cake there too. It was delicious, with buttercream icing. The rain stopped about the time we were all finished eating. We all took the afternoon to ourselves.

We met up again at 6 to head to dinner in Destin at McGuire's. K and I had eaten there in Pensacola last August, and as soon as we found out there was one in Destin, we knew we had to go there! The restaurant just has such a cool atmosphere, and it's so much fun. Everyone absolutely loved it.

After dinner, we went out to Howl at the Moon, which happened to be right next to our hotel. K's roommate's girlfriend had made us "Bride" and "Groom" sashes for the night, and those turned out to be the best idea ever. Not only did we not have to pay cover, but people bought us drinks all night. Lots of drinks. We had a blast!

It was just a fun, silly night. It was so cool to have all our worlds collide like that, and everyone hit it off so well. We couldn't have asked for a better day.

On Sunday, K and I woke up around 9:30 and had breakfast with a few of our friends. We were able to slowly say bye to everyone as they left. It just worked out that the time everyone was leaving was staggered throughout the morning. We'd say bye to one friend, and then another would appear. We were able to spend some time talking to everyone that morning before they left. Everyone couldn't say enough how much fun they'd had, how perfect the weekend had been for them, and how pleasantly surprised they were at how much time we'd all gotten to spend together.

That afternoon, K and I headed to the beach. We were sitting in two chairs relaxing and watching the waves when K said, "What's that?" We looked out into the ocean about 50 yards out, and we saw dolphins diving out of the water! They were flipping and jumping out over and over again. It was the coolest thing ever. We went out into the water for a bit, but the waves were so wild that we were tired after only a few minutes. I even managed to get knocked under by one wave.

We spent about three hours on the beach, and then we took Rachel and her boyfriend to the airport. We headed back to Destin to eat at Mellow Mushroom (yum!), and then we played miniature golf. We had fun spotting all the lizards that were running around all over the course. Then, we got some frozen custard and headed back to the hotel.

K and I couldn't believe how well everything turned out. I had been worried about how things would go, since I planned the whole weekend through the Internet and tons of phone calls. Neither of us had ever been to Fort Walton Beach or Destin, but we were so glad we'd chosen that place for our wedding. We decided we'd have to come back for vacation and that it would even be the perfect place for family vacations in the (far!) future. I told K that even if I'd gone to the Destin/Fort Walton Beach area to plan everything, I'd have chosen exactly the same hotel, the same restaurant for lunch, the same minister and the same place to get our cake and flowers. It was just perfect!

***pictures coming later today***

See Part 1 of this post here. See photos here and here. 

Wedding weekend, part 1

There's so much to tell about last weekend, and I want to make sure I do it justice, complete with my favorite pictures and everything. The weekend went smoothly, and if I had to choose one word to describe Saturday and Sunday, it would be perfection. Thursday, Friday and Monday were all right, but they weren't as awesome as Saturday and Sunday. At least we got the important ones right!


Thursday
I'll pick up from where I left off on my blog on Thursday. We left K's apartment at about 4 p.m. The drive got off to an annoying start. K's dad and brother (His dad is 69 and his brother is 45. I think this info is important here.) thought it was funny to say in obnoxious voices over and over, "Are we there yet?" K's brother, who was sitting behind me, also decided it would be funny to yank on my seat belt from time to time. I thought it was hilarious -- except the opposite.

K and I were still picking at each other, which was frustrating. I felt like he was just being so touchy over everything. I had started calling him crankypants hoping he'd get the hint. Instead, he just laughed about it when he wasn't being cranky.

At one point in the ride, he was talking on the phone to one of his friends, who asked when we were heading up to Pennsylvania for K's leave. K told him the exact dates, which I'd been waiting to hear for weeks. I needed those dates to tell my co-workers so I can get off work to spend time with him. I held up my hands like, "Hello?!" when he said the dates. When he hung up the phone, K said, "No. No. Do not try to tell me you didn't know those dates. We talked about it today."

"Really?" I asked. "When?"

"Well, we talked about it yesterday."

"Yeah," I said, "we talked about where we'd go, but we didn't talk about when."

"Well I know I told you those dates some time."

"Yeah, in June."

"See?!"

I reminded K that their vacations change even the week before (the weekend we were embarking on was originally a four-day weekend for him, but it had been taken away just the week before), so I took the dates he'd told me three months ago as just potential dates to give us an idea of when his leave would come.

Anyway, so we weren't really fighting or even arguing, but things were a bit tense a few times in the car. And the way K and I operate, we get out our frustrations by telling the other person about them. We finish our conversation, sit quietly for a minute or two, and then we're fine. It works great.

Unless you have K's dad sitting in the back seat trying to shush us and play referee. That annoyed me. I had to bite my tongue from turning around and saying, "We're fine. We're not fighting. This isn't your concern. Please stop shushing us."

We got to Florida at about 1 a.m. K and I talked about how tense things had been lately, and we decided it was because we hadn't really gotten to spend any quality time together really since July (He trained through the month of August, so we didn't see each other. Our first day together in September, we got Piper.). We were glad that we'd get some time for ourselves that weekend.


Friday
K and I woke up early and headed to get our marriage license. K was rolling his eyes at me and pretending to be annoyed that I was documenting everything with my digital camera. That's an important step for the marriage, though. And who would I be not to record it?















The woman going over the license with us instructed us to sign our names very legibly and in cursive. K, in autopilot, started to do his standard signature: a big K with a line after it, and his last name. I laughed at him and called him on it. "Well, I sign my name like 300 times a day," he said.

"Oh, I see. You're too important to be bothered with signing your whole name."

He made a face at me, looked at the woman helping us and asked, "What's the form we need to fill out for an annulment?" I think the workers were getting a kick out of us.

As she processed our papers, the woman had us sit down and read this pamphlet the state makes you read before you can get your license. The pamphlet was so negative! It talked about what you have to do to get a divorce, how expensive it is and how long it takes, how hard it is to share custody of pets, how assets get divided, etc. It talks about child abuse and a billion other depressing things, including the fact that the divorce rate is higher than the marriage rate. K and I wondered if anyone ever came in, read the pamphlet and bailed before signing. Was that the state's intention?

After that, we met our minister for lunch at IHOP. K had been hesitant about having a female minister (the whole Catholic thing) at first, but after we both talked to her on the phone, we knew she would be perfect. It was good to finally meet her in person. We discussed the ceremony and told her more about ourselves. When we left lunch, we were both really glad we'd chosen her.

The guys were supposed to play golf that afternoon at 2. I had scheduled a manicure for that same time, so I headed out with Kristin to get our nails done. While we were getting pampered and catching up, the guys called to tell us they didn't get to go golfing because of the monsoon that had hit while we were in the salon. Kristin's husband Tom was really disappointed, and so was my dad (they're both big golfers). Kristin called once the rain had cleared to see if my dad would still want to go, so my dad, Tom, K and my brother headed out again. While they were gone, I was able to call my friends who were traveling that day, see Rachel and her boyfriend (who was one of my friends in college), and finish the last page of K's scrapbook (que singing angels).















K came back to the hotel soaked a couple of hours later. It had started pouring again while they were golfing. He was in a goofy mood and was being silly, so I kept ushering him into the shower so we could head to dinner. I was starving.

As he showered, I called everyone to let them know our plans for the night so they could join us if they wanted. We headed over to dinner, and it turned out there was an OU watch party (we had a Friday night game). There was space left in the room with the big screen, so we sat there. I talked to some friends of ours in the next room for several minutes before joining K and the others in the OU room (there was a flag and everything!).

When I sat down, I was pleased to hear the group of people wearing OU shirts (not with us) doing the Boomer chant: One person yells, "Boomer!" and everyone else follows with "Sooner!" This happens a couple times. Then, if we're playing texas, the person yells, "texas" and everyone yells "SUCKS!" afterward. That part is great -- if we're playing texas.

My friends and I were loudly and happily joining on the "SOONER!" part of the chant, but I hushed when he started yelling about texas. When the chant was over, the restaurant got very quiet right at the time I loudly said, "We're not playing texas!" A moron in an OU jersey (I think he was an impostor fan) turned and said -- to me!! -- "It's an OU thing. You wouldn't understand."

I felt my blood boil. I couldn't believe he just said that to me. I mean, how could he not know? He probably wasn't even from Oklahoma!

"I graduated from OU! I was in the band all four years!" I cried.

Some other idiot from his table passed us on his way to the bathroom. "Well that's definitely different," he said. I didn't know what that was supposed to mean, but I ignored him. How could they not know?

I told my friends at our table that we should all yell "PLAYS TOMORROW!" next time those guys yelled "texas." It was quite a while later before they started the chant again, and I had decided to just keep quiet. Only all my friends were nodding at each other and looking around in agreement. So we yelled it. I saw the guys in the jersey grumble and look over their shoulders at us. Someone had to tell them!

Quite a while later, the guys started the chant again. My friends and I were eating our dinner and minding our own business (yeah, I know -- like the idiots were the first time) when they started it. And they didn't chant about texas this time:
"BOOMER!
SOONER!
BOOMER!
SOONER!
BAND GEEKS
SUCK!
BAND GEEKS
SUCK!"

I tried my best to ignore them and continue as though I'd heard nothing. My friends looked around, confused. "Did he just say Yankees?" "No, I think he said band geeks." "Yeah, he definitely said band geeks." "What a jerk!"

"Just ignore them. It's fine. I started it, technically," I said to them. But they were still trying to be sure he said band geeks. Our friends at another table said, "Yeah, he said band geeks."

Tom, our 6'7" friend, evidently gets pretty protective. He turned toward the guys' table. "What's that? You wanna say that again? What did you say, big guy? Hey 1-8, you got a problem? Do you wanna say something again?"

He kept trying to get their attention. K said, "We don't know that's what they said." Some old guy at their table turned toward us: "They said Vandees." I didn't know what that was supposed to mean. Vanderbilt? We were playing Tulsa. K asked if there was someone on the Tulsa team named Vandees.

"No," CG said from the table next to us. "He said band geeks."

We all tried to get Tom to quiet down, but he was persistent! He'd get quiet for a few seconds, and then start up again. The guys at the other table, who were all much smaller than 6'7" and were severely outnumbered, stared ahead, frozen. "Yeah, that's what I thought." Tom said.

Just then, one of our friends came up to ask me about the flowers, which she was picking up the next day. "Let's go talk about them!" I said to her, and we jumped up from our table and headed toward the bathroom. Just as I told her I was about to start crying, I started crying. Not a lot, but I was frustrated. We were all the way in Florida and stumbled upon a restaurant with OU fans, a flag and a big screen for the game. Why couldn't we get along? I realized it was my fault for (unintentionally) provoking them, but they were dumbasses. They needed to know.

My friend made me feel better, and after discussing the flowers, we headed back to the table. I sat down, and K said to me, "Sorry, we were all picking at your popcorn shrimp."

"It's OK," I said to him. "I'm not really that hungry."

"No. No. Don't even tell me that. Not after all that at the hotel," K said.

Being frustrated already (and having just escaped a breakdown in the bathroom), my eyes flooded and I immediately headed back to the bathroom. The same friend came to talk to me again, and this time, she was followed by three more. We had a mini-counseling session in the bathroom. Kristin and the first girl were both married, and they told me this was all normal -- the picking, the frustrations and the rush of emotions -- before your wedding.

No one had told me this was part of the deal! I figured since it was a small wedding, that wouldn't be an issue. Boy, was I wrong.

After a few minutes, I headed back out to our table again. I was frustrated at myself for being so damn emotional. I felt stupid. And tired. I called it a night not long after that. (I'm sure this makes my Saturday blog make more sense now!)


See Part 2 of this post here. See photos here and here.

Well that's just lovely

We had an unexpected guest arrive for our wedding weekend: Tropical Depression Ten. I never mentioned where exactly in Florida our wedding would take place, but you know how the storm ("thank goodness," according to MSNBC) they were tracking to hit New Orleans headed east and hit the florida panhandle? Yeah, that's where we are.

We're supposed to have thunderstorms and a bit of wind today. Looking out my window, it's not raining right now, but there's definitely more than a bit of wind. But it'll make a fun story, right?

When I woke up just a few minutes ago, the first thing I thought of was the fact it's my wedding day. Then, I realized I felt like I'm mad at K for some reason. Last night wasn't my favorite night, but I'll blog about all that later. It wasn't all K, but at the same time, his fuse -- which is normally pretty long -- has drastically shrank to the length of the width of a strand of hair. It's ridiculous. I know a lot of it has to do with the fact he's stressed about having the overwhelming responsibility of being in charge of 100 guys, taking them to combat for 15 months and bringing them all home safe and alive.

I finished the scrapbook and left it on his bed so he'd have it for this morning. My girlfriends are due in the room in a few minutes so we can all get ready together. I keep wondering when it'll hit me that it's my wedding day. My head knows it, but none of the rest of my body has figured it out yet. I'm sure once the girls get here, that'll change.

I'll post pictures and stories of the last couple days later. As for now, I've got a wedding to get ready for!

Florida, here we come!

I was up until 3 a.m. Tuesday (Wednesday, technically) packing and finishing up K's scrapbook. It's a-l-m-o-s-t finished now. I have the last little page to do, which will have my little mushy letter to him. I've got what I want to say typed out, but seeing as how I'm at K's and he's due back here any minute, I'll wait until we're in Florida and the guys are out golfing to finish that part. Until then, it's well hidden so K won't find it. He thinks the box it's in are my "somethings" (something old, something new, etc.), so he won't go near it.

I left after work yesterday for Louisiana, and I've been working from home today. K picked up his dad and brother from the airport, and we're all going to head out in the next hour. We'll get to Florida sometime this evening, and a few of our friends will arrive tonight too, so we'll get to hang out with them.

Tomorrow morning (eek -- TOMORROW!), we'll go get our marriage license and meet our minister. I can't believe it's here!

Bad timing -- and not enough time!

Sorry I've been so MIA lately! Things are really hectic getting everything wrapped up for the wedding this weekend. Even though it's a small wedding and everything is planned, it's finalizing things and preparing myself that's so difficult.

What makes it harder is that I'm doing all this with a new puppy and a scrapbook with a seriously looming deadline. I haven't been to the gym since last Wednesday, which sucks. Hopefully I'll get to visit the gym in Florida on Friday or something.

I leave tomorrow for Louisiana, and then K and I drive to Florida with his dad and brother on Thursday afternoon. I'm eager for the vacation. And I'll get to see my brother, who's driving down from North Carolina.

The last month or so has been a lot more hectic than I thought it would be, mostly thanks to Piper. She's cute, though, so I don't mind. But still, there are several things (my scrapbook included) that aren't where I want them to be right now.

The biggest thing is something I know will happen again over the rest of our lives together, but I feel like now is an unfortunate time to feel this way. I kind of hinted that I was feeling this way a few weeks ago, but I haven't blogged about it or even talked about it at all until the past week. K spent the majority of August training, so I didn't see him for four weeks. It's not that long, and it's certainly not something we haven't experienced several times before -- or even the longest we've been apart -- but it still takes time to get used to each other again. Even after going a week without seeing each other, it's nice to be able to look at K's face and to be able to curl up next to him when I'm talking to him, rather than snuggling up next to my phone and a pillow.

The amount of transition time for me depends on how long we've gone without seeing each other. The longest it's taken was just under 24 hours, and that was after four months of not seeing each other while K was deployed. But that transition time is important -- that time of getting used to each other again and getting to enjoy each other's company in person. What's funny is so many times through the course of our relationship, I've realized I'm so used to our conversations being mainly via phone that I've found myself thinking, "No! I won't be able to talk to K here because there's no cell phone signal here!" -- and he's right next to me in the car.

The night before we got Piper, K wound up working late. By the time he got to Dallas, he was exhausted and ready to go to bed. We talked for a little while before we went to sleep, but I still didn't feel quite caught up or in the right place. The next day, we got up and busied ourselves with getting last-minute things for Piper and getting ready to host 10 people for an OU watch party. We didn't really have any time to ourselves to relax before we picked up the puppy. We had to shove a fast-food lunch down our faces at about 3 that afternoon because we had no time to do everything. I never felt like we really got to catch up to where we usually are.

And the next weekend, we went to Norman with four other people. Same story then.

Last weekend, K and I relaxed just the two of us in Louisiana. We didn't do anything, which was nice, but we still had Piper to follow around and watch. There were a couple more heated moments regarding Piper (like after she peed on K's bed ...), and although we were together, there wasn't really much quality time. That's what's been missing.

As far as the wedding goes, I have no doubts about it. I have known K is the person I'm supposed to marry for more than two years now. We have a great relationship. Even now, with my feeling like the connection isn't quite what it usually is, we have a really good friendship. It's not that my feelings are gone, they're just not where they usually are.

I'm hoping this weekend before the wedding, we're able to get some quality time together -- just the two of us.

One week from today ...

I'll be MARRIED!!!

Aaagh!

Updates -- I'm getting awesome at these multi-purpose posts!

Piper
Last weekend, I was worried about leaving Piper with a co-worker while K and I went to Norman. Not because I doubted my friend's abilities to take care of her, but because I was afraid Piper would really take to her and forget about me, considering she and I had bonded so quickly, but I'd only had her a week, and my co-worker would be with her for two whole days. It took Piper and I less than two days to get attached.

Anyway, Piper was great when K and I went to pick her up. Things were fine on Sunday and Monday. At work, though, my co-worker stopped by my desk about something, and Piper got really excited. She was jumping on my co-worker and wagging her tail. It was obvious Piper was excited to see her. When my co-worker left my desk, Piper started whining and crying. She even barked. Piper does that when I leave, but not when anyone else leaves.

I'm not gonna lie -- I was a little sad to see that. I mean, it's good Piper and my co-worker got along. I'm glad about that. But Piper was still sitting there with me when she got upset about my co-worker leaving. Bummer.

Thank goodness it was better today, two days after the first incident. There's still a little change in Piper's demeanor when my co-worker leaves her sight, but she's getting better. Piper's also getting better about when I leave her for a bit. I'm glad about that. Having a puppy who gets separation anxiety is tough to deal with!


Mom
After my last post about the latest news with my mom, I decided to do what beingmccrary said and follow my heart. When is that ever a bad idea? I really had been thinking about the whole situation more, with the wedding getting closer. I knew it was the best thing to do.

I emailed my mom and told her I'd talked to the hairdresser. I said that the hairdresser had told me about their conversation and about how upset my mom was. I reminded my mom that she was the one who'd made the decision that they weren't coming, not me. I told her the decision was, always has been and still is hers. I addressed a few of the other things she'd talked about with the hairdresser, and I closed the email telling her once again that it's her decision, and she, her husband and/or his daughters are all welcome.

I got the standard response from my mom where she brings up shit that happened years ago and manages to play the victim even though she did this to herself. The email was hypocritical, and my mom is pretty forgetful for being frustrated at me for things she's done herself.

Although the outcome of the emails isn't good, I'm glad it happened. I let her know -- again -- that she was welcome. And she reaffirmed the fact that it's a good idea that she miss out on the ceremony.

I really wanted to email her back and tell her that even if she decided she wanted to come after all, she isn't welcome. I also wanted to tell her that I didn't want her to attempt to communicate with my anymore, that I'm done with it. I had the (very brief) email typed up, and K told me it probably wasn't a good idea to send it. I didn't, but I still want to.


ER
Things are better now, thank goodness. ER sent me an email apologizing for being so upset when we talked on the phone. She said some nice things and then said she really wanted to forget the whole thing and put it in the past. Sounded good to me.

She called me that night to tell me something that had happened at work, and things are pretty well back to normal.


Deployment
It's still not completely definite, but we're almost certain K will deploy in November. With the report that came out this week, K is thinking he has a pretty good idea of what will happen, and he might only wind up in Iraq for a year. It'll be tough, but a year is better than 15 months. It's insane how long a month can seem during a deployment, much less an extra three.

The area K will go is a safer area. Attacks there are down, so that's a huge blessing. Here's hoping it stays that way.

We should know more in the next couple weeks, but that's pretty much all we've got right now.


End
And that's officially all I've got. Sorry to keep doing lame multi-purpose posts, but it's crazy how busy I've been lately. I still have a scrapbook to finish. Eek!

Can't (and certainly didn't) please everybody

The weekend in Norman was fun, but it didn't quite go as planned. I kind of saw all that coming when K told me on Wednesday that three of his guys were coming with us. I knew two of them, so I didn't mind, but that meant everything about the trip would change -- we'd no longer be staying for free at a friend's house, but we'd have to find somewhere where we could all stay. We might have to worry about finding tickets for other people, which would be next to impossible, since the OU-M!am! game has been sold out for weeks.

I spent Wednesday night calling literally every hotel in Norman. I finally found a vacancy at the Super 8. We'd all stay in a suite. Perfect.

ER, though, had planned on the OU-M!am! weekend being a big us weekend. Originally, it was supposed to be a bachelor/bachelorette weekend. We'd go out separately -- the guys, and the girls -- on Friday night, and then we'd all go to the game on Saturday, then party together Saturday night. It slowly started changing, though.

We were all supposed to stay with ER's sister and her husband at their house in Norman. And since ER's brother-in-law isn't "a big bar guy," the guys would stay at home and play Nintendo Wii. Now K loves the Wii, but he has one of his own. He doesn't want to drive 8 hours to play a video game. Not to mention the fact that if it was truly supposed to be a bachelor/bachelorette weekend, sorry, but it doesn't matter what ER's brother-in-law prefers to do -- it's supposed to be about K.

Plus, K and I only get to see each other two days a week. It's no big deal for ER and her boyfriend, who work together and practically live together anyway, to miss a Friday night together. K and I have so little, and there's the fact he's about to be deployed. We don't give up those few nights we have very easily.

Last weekend at our OU watch party, ER and a guy she hung out with all through college (I became better friends with their group of friends my junior and senior year) were talking about their two favorite places they couldn't wait to visit in Norman. Those places are OK, but I could go to Norman every weekend for 10 years straight and never visit them, and I wouldn't miss anything. Those bars are all right, but they're not my style. I always liked the ones that more people go to. The bars they like are a bit out of the way, and they're more for a low-key night. I don't like to get trashed and dance on tables or anything, but I like to go to the bars where I'll see people from college -- the sports bars on campus corner with the awesome music.

The fact that ER and her boyfriend decided not to go to the game (partly, I was informed, because of the fact they don't get paid before Florida) meant K and I were less likely to spend time with them. ER decided to have a watch party at her sister's house, and she even started calling it "my watch party," which was fine, but it was one more sign of the evolution of the weekend from a bachelor/bachelorette weekend to a weekend she was planning to fit her preferences, but I felt like she was still calling it mine and K's weekend.

When I found out we had more people coming with us to Norman, I called ER to let her know the weekend probably wasn't going to turn out as planned. I tried to get it across to her as best as I could.

K, his friends and I wound up leaving later than planned for Norman, since we had to pick up another tag-along at the airport. ER and her crew left earlier and went straight to her sister's. I'd wanted to just go the hotel and relax, since we had an 11 a.m. game. I wanted to rest and chill so I'd be ready to go for the game the next day. But as we got closer, it became clear the guys with us -- including K -- were not interested in driving so far to sit in a hotel. Since I love Norman so much, I was down for going out too. I wound up being the designated driver, though, and our group decided to close down the bar. I was exhausted, but I still got up early Saturday for the game.

K and I had a blast at the game. We watched the game with (I did have "sat with," but that's a lie, since there's no sitting in Sooner football!) a college friend of mine and two guy friends I ran into from high school. One of K's best friends just got back from three years of being stationed in Korea. He's a grad student at OU, and he and his wife stood with us too. It was an awesome game, and we killed M!am!. Woohoo!

That night, we all went out to dinner, then had drinks at a friend's before heading to campus corner again. I told ER about our plans, in addition to several other people. ER never called me to tell me whether they were coming. They were all interested in a different restaurant that's too hard to seat such a large group.

We had a great time Saturday night, and I was able to see so many people I rarely get to see outside of Norman. I went to text message ER to tell her we were out, but I realized I'd forgotten my phone at the friend's house where we'd had drinks before going out. I knew she'd be upset, since she'd already called me that night to tell me she felt kicked out of the plans.

It was a good weekend all in all, but K and I always manage to find ourselves spread so thin between everyone we want to see and feel obligated to see. No matter where we are -- OK, Pennsylvania ... sometimes even Dallas and Louisiana. There's never enough time, and we only have two days together at a time as it is.

I talked to ER tonight after the gym, and as expected, she was upset. She wasn't angry, but more hurt than anything. I can understand, but I felt like she was giving me a guilt trip. She told me she was spending $650 on plane tickets to see us get married in Florida, but we couldn't even meet up in Norman. I had apologized to her, but she kept saying more things about it. I know she's upset, but I hate having to apologize for something when I don't feel like it's my fault.

I know I could've done a better job about communicating our plans, but the thing is, we just had way too different groups for things to work out. The people I was there with wanted to party and have a good time (and I was more in that group), and ER and that group wanted to do the more relaxed nights with the Wii and the artsier bars. I feel like Norman is my turf, and it's ER's too, but when I go back, I want to do what I want to do. There were just too many people involved for that to happen and for everyone to be happy.

It was a good weekend, but I'm frustrated about that. I'm going to keep quite on my frustrations unless things with ER don't get better in the next couple days. If she still sounds upset in a couple days, I'm voicing my frustrations. It's only fair.

On a happier, non-venting note, here are some fun pictures:





They always have fun stuff waiting for everyone in the student section.









Danielle and I managed to run into each other inside the stadium!







So the jersey and necklace? Yeah, those made a nice sunburn on the left side of my neck. It'll look awesome in the Florida wedding pictures (hopefully all evidence will be gone by then!).





I miss my old roomies! We always have a blast together!







Our classy room at the Super 8 had one mirrored wall in each room. It was nice -- except the opposite. I definitely thoroughly inspected the sheets before going to sleep here!

Don't forget me, Piper!

Since K and I are heading to OK tomorrow & Piper's still recovering -- along with the fact we'll be crazy busy tomorrow -- I left her with a co-worker for the weekend. She usually cries or barks when I leave her at my desk or with other co-workers. I don't want her to have separation anxiety, but it's nice to know that she likes me that much.

We clicked pretty quickly. I only met her for almost an hour the first time, when she was insanely hyper and I wasn't sure if she'd be too much to handle or to take to work with me. That's why I took her the second time, when she stayed overnight. That was enough for me to know I had to adopt her, and when K and I went to pick her up a week later, she remembered me.

At the OU watch party at my apartment that same night, she followed me around, and my friends were saying, "She already knows who her mommy is!" I thought it was cool that she took to me that fast.

That was after just over 24 hours with her. And she's spending 48 hours with my co-worker. I think it'll be good because she'll see that I'm going to come back. She'll see that she'll be OK if I'm not there.

But it's only been a few hours since I left her with my co-worker, and I miss her already. And what if, after I pick her up and bring her to work again on Monday, she keeps trying to go to my co-worker's desk and cries when she's left with me?

Four posts in one!

Take that!
Tuesday night, I finally did pushups at the gym. I only did one set of 12, then one set of nine, but the point is that I did them -- and I didn't cheat by doing them the girl way! Woohoo!


A real mommy
Piper got spayed yesterday. I dropped her off at the vet early yesterday morning, and I got a call at about 12:30 that she was done and everything had gone well. I could hear her crying in the background as she was waking up again. The vet's office told me she'd be ready for me to pick her up at about 3:30.

It was a little slow at work yesterday afternoon, so I left early to pick her up and work from home the rest of the day. I was surprised how anxious I was to see her as I drove to the vet's office. I was worried about her, even though I knew she was fine, and I was so ready to pick her up and take her home, where she could be comfortable and babied. I missed her!

She seemed to be doing fine. She was a little tired and slow-moving last night, but she'd get her puppy energy back in cute little spurts, usually when she was following me around the apartment and trying to stay by me. I noticed she kept licking at her stomach, which I knew was bad from reading the instructions the vet had given me when I took her home. I called to make sure she had regular old stitches, since I couldn't see them. The vet's receptionist told me I'd need to come back and get a cone for her head so she couldn't lick her wound anymore. It was at the height of rush-hour traffic, and the last thing I wanted to do was put Piper back in her crate so I could go get what the vet should have given me to begin with. I called back to find out if I was going to be charged for the cone. When the man who answered told me it would be $15, I decided to just go to Petsmart. The incompetent vet's office had enough of my money as it was.

I'll spare you the list of reasons why that vet has seen the last of my money. But I am going to let the rescue organization that recommended that place know that it doesn't belong on the "GREAT VETS!" page of their website.

Poor Piper!

Speaking of moms ...
I got a call last night from the lady who cut my hair when I was little. She moved away when I was in the ninth grade, and I've never found anyone who got my hair quite like her. She now lives about an hour and a half from my mom, so my mom evidently visits her every few weeks to have this lady cut her hair. My mom had just left, and she'd been telling the hairdresser how I'm getting married in two weeks. She showed the hairdresser the pictures of our engagement, too. I thought that was all kind of funny, since my mom pretty much has no idea of any of our plans, given the fact that we're not talking.

The hairdresser told me my mom was crying about everything, and I was starting to suspect my mom was there listening. I asked if she was still there, and the hairdresser told me she'd just left. It turns out that the hairdresser will be in Florida just minutes from our ceremony the same week as our wedding. Only K and I get there Thursday night, and she's leaving sometime Friday. I haven't seen her in years, so it would've been cool to see her again. We might get to meet up for a bit on Friday.

I talked to the hairdresser about some of the things with my mom. I finally told her that my mom is the one who made the decision not to come to the ceremony. I told her why I'm a little uneasy about my mom coming, which is why I haven't said anything else to her about it. I told the hairdresser that the reasons why I'm frustrated with my mom have very little to do with the divorce and so much to do with who how she was to us when we were growing up. The way she acts now tells me she still isn't quite owning up to everything she's done. If she was, she'd stop playing the victim in my parents' divorce, and she'd stop spreading lies about why it happened.

I've been thinking more lately, though, about my mom and the wedding. I'm still torn on what to do. Every once in a while, I'll start thinking about inviting her (again) -- she is my mom, after all, and I might regret one day that she's not there. I'll start thinking of all these reasons to invite her and how I should just be the bigger person and let her know she's welcome.

But dammit, I'm tired of being the bigger person. She's the mom! And I already did let her know she was welcome, and she accused me of inviting her for money, gave me this huge guilt trip and then shoved it in my face that she's not coming. As soon as I consider inviting her again, I start thinking of all these reasons not to. It's barely two weeks away, anyway. I don't want to go through the mess of talking to her and inviting her if it's all for nothing. And there's still the fact that she annoys me.

Ugh! Why can't my mom just be normal?!


Hurricane warning? Puh-lease! (ending on a good note)
K and I are heading to Norman today for the OU-Miami game. We're going to have several different groups of people to spend time with, so we might be spread pretty thin, but I'm looking forward to going. It's been a couple months since I've been, and it's definitely time to go again. And I'm so pumped about the game. I'm anxious to see the band and to scream my head off during the football game.

A big group of us is planning on going out Saturday night. I'll get to see a lot of my friends in Norman, and we'll all get to hang out together again. It's gonna be awesome!

Boomer Sooner!

Life gets busy when you've got a puppy!

I got to see K on Friday for the first time in almost a month. It always takes me a while to get used to him again after we don't see each other a few weeks. Seeing his face in person and being around him and all his little quirks and mannerisms takes adjusting. I've been around all of that for a large portion of the last two years' worth of weekends, but that adjustment time never fails.

So it was nice that K and I were able to relax just the two of us Friday night and Saturday morning. We got out on Saturday and got a few things in preparation for picking up Piper. We spent about an hour at her foster parents' house chatting, and then we took her with us to Petsmart. She did really well there. Amazingly well. K kept saying, "Look at her! She's the best dog ever!" while she sat watching us trying to decide which shampoo, ear cleaner and treats would be best for her. Even choosing a toy was a big decision. "This dog is gonna be so spoiled," K said. As we carefully inspected all the labels to everything we were considering buying to make sure we had the most nutritious (yet still tasty!) dog treats and the best shampoo for puppies with black hair, K said, "Geez, imagine how ridiculous it's gonna be when we have kids!" We had looked at about seven or eight different kinds of treats, trying to figure out which ones were good for what. K picked up a bag and said, "Why don't we get this one?" I asked him, "What's the flavor supposed to be? We can't be rewarding our dog with the equivalent of vegetables instead of something like a cookie! It has to be a good treat!" We finally settled on a big bag of treats that are good for cleaning teeth. Piper sat watching us the whole time.















After a few more errands, we were back home and preparing to have 10 people come over for the OU watch party. We had the same crew of people, plus a couple, that always came to our watch parties last year -- all of us OU grads who'd met in college, most of us having been members of the Pride. It was a really great time, and I was really glad to have K here this season to be at the watch parties. It's the little things.

Piper was great with all our friends, and they were gushing and gushing about how good she was and how they couldn't believe we'd just had her a few hours. K and I felt like pretty proud parents. :) She's an awesome puppy.

Our game was pretty slow, which was nice -- it meant we were winning. We won 79-10. Next week, we play Miami, so hopefully we still kick butt at that game. I'll be there, and I'm pumped!




















Sunday, we hung out with Piper, and she even let us (especially K) sleep in a bit. Then, K & I went to Reun!on T0wer in downtown Dallas with ER & her boyfriend. It was on K's and my Dallas To-Do List, but I always figured it would be outrageously expensive. Thanks to Karen's recent trip (and blog about it), I learned it's not outrageously expensive. We can check that off our list, and we got some good pictures. Now that's a successful trip.















Monday, K and I went to see Superbad. Neither of us were really impressed. The movie was all right, but what's kind of funny is that the age range of people who will most fully "appreciate" the movie's kind of humor won't be able to see the movie for a few years, since it's rated R.

K headed back to Louisiana today, but not before meeting me for lunch and bringing Piper to my office (remember, we can bring dogs to work). My co-workers loved her. She was really good at work, too. Tomorrow will be her first full day in the office. Hopefully it'll go as smoothly.

Well, after writing this wrap-up post and getting all the pictures added, I'm exhausted. It's past my bedtime. Considering my new alarm clock wakes me up a bit earlier than I'm used to, I'm really valuing my sleep lately. But at least the new alarm clock is so much cuter than a stupid cell phone!