Down To The River

This past Tuesday was our End Of The Year BBQ with InterVarsity. It was such a great time to eat delicious food with friends I've known for 4 years and some I've just met. The community we have with Mines IV is incredible. It's so comforting to know that if I need someone, I have at least 50 close friends I can talk to.

We also did Senior Send-Offs which is good but hard. I'm saying goodbye to some of my best friends and will miss them dearly. I'm so excited to see where God takes each and every one of them and I know they will be a blessing to all they interact with. I'm so excited to be at Mines for another year to serve and grow with the fellowship, but at the same time it's bittersweet. I would also love to be moving on from college and to take my faith and what I've learned to the next stage in life. Fortunately for me, I feel like next year is doing just that. I want my career to be working on Staff with IV and being a student intern next year is such a huge blessing because it brings me closer to that dream.

But I think the best part of the evening was getting baptized! I was baptized as an infant and although I don't discount infant baptisms, I felt like choosing to be baptized was important; especially since I had no desire to be baptized until this year. I know that we are commanded, as followers of Jesus, to be baptized but really hadn't really seen the relevance to my life until just recently.

I've been spending a lot of time planning a wedding this year. I'm so excited to get married to my best friend and the man I love with my whole heart! Anyone who knows me well knows how much I love Brett, how I live my life to love him; but even though everyone knows that, I'm still planning a public ceremony to commit my life to him in front of my friends and family.

Being baptized is the same thing for me. I love God and live my life pursuing him and people know that. So I thought it was a fitting time for a public display of my commitment to him. It was so special to be baptized in the freezing water by a great mentor, with the amazing IV community surrounding me, and with a dear friend next to me.

Baptism hasn't changed my life dramatically, but I have noticed a difference. It is important, and it is a big deal and I'm so blessed by God. How could I not commit my everything to him??

Dear Josh,

Since you have been pointing out my lack of blogging, this one is devoted to you; rather, written because of you. 

This year is almost done! I am just printing off my Engineering Economics "Investment Game" Report. We've already taken the final so after this I am done! In Process, we are just working on more pesky workshops even though we've already taken the final. He initially said they were extra credit, but after assigning more, no one knows what they are worth... Lots of miscommunication (i.e. lack of any helpful communication at all) in that class.

I'm very excited to be done with school. I am very not excited for Field Session. From what I hear, it focuses on aspects of engineering that I'm not well suited for. I'm not a problem solver when it comes to engineering problems, so hopefully I'll have good groups that help bring that out of me. The 6 days between the end of school and beginning of Field Session are quite full already. There is a day devoted to Doctors appointments (woohoo!), wedding stuff with family, dinner with the family-in-laws in which I ask for financial support for the internship (yikes!), my bridal shower (yay!!), and moving back into the Unicorn House. Busy, busy! But I'm excited to feel productive and to move on from this stage of of the year. Field Session will feel like a whirlwind I'm guessing, so the wedding will sneak up on me! Kinda a scary thought considering what needs to be done but also a super exciting thought!!

What's keeping me going is thinking of being on a beach with my husband. Honeymoon: T-54 days! 

Burning Embers

Sometimes blogging for IV is great.

And sometimes it sucks...
Ugh, hard talks!!

Quite A Process

Today is devoted to studying for Process. Hence a fish bowl filled with hot chocolate.

This thing is seriously 4 inches in diameter. And it makes me happy. I was going to create a Closed Loop Process Diagram to describe my mood with hot chocolate and Process, but I'm too lazy.

My professor has sent out 3 emails in the past 3 hours giving us minute-to-minute updates and his day and when he is available to answer questions. It's like he's trying to make up for something...

Busy Weekends!!

A couple of weeks ago my post was about wonderful weekends and how much fun I was having. It's a little different this week. I'm drowning. Usually during the week I have one homework assignment and one quiz due Monday morning. Sometimes other little things will get thrown in there but I'm typically incredibly spoiled. 

Last week I had the normal Heat Transfer homework and quiz for Monday, 2 Engineering Econ projects due Tuesday, a Genetics worksheet due Wednesday, work and Econ project due Thursday, and Process homework due Friday. It was a bit overwhelming. Stuff is changing with bible study so that's different and new, there was more prep for leaders meeting this week, not to mention the 2 hour long conversation I had with Daniel as well. All of these added things are good and I love doing them but with all of the added homework on top, I was going crazy.

Then over the weekend we had Fund Development Training for our Intern year. It was a great weekend, met some awesome people, and learned a lot. However, talking about money stresses me out and talking about asking people for money stresses me out even more. There is so much time and effort I need to put into fundraising. I know that it is a good thing, I know it's important, and I know it's worth it. But it's really overwhelming to think of it now and all of the meetings I need to make.

Now I'm onto another crazy week. I have four tests this week, one for every class. I also have extra homework due. I'm tired, my brain is exhausted from this weekend, I miss Brett so much, I don't get a break until after the Spring Break Trip, and there is still so much to do.

I know that this is a very busy week for a bunch of people out there. This weekend taught me that God will provide in miraculous, unexpected ways. I'm hoping he will work through my fog and exhaustion and provide me with the strength and focus to study hard this week and serve next week. 

Wonderful Weekends

What a fantastic weekend!! With President's Day off on Monday and class cancelled on Tuesday, I was blessed with a 4 day weekend. As if that wasn't enough, this weekend was Soiree! That did mean missing out on Date Night because the boys were decorating for Soiree all night on Friday. But I got to spend all night on Friday learning about and playing pinochle with the roomies which was fun. 

All Saturday was spent at an adorable Tea Party getting ready for the night. Soiree was themed as a dinner theater and the place looked fantastic! It was fun to introduce the younger girls to the blessing that the boys do for us. It was a really great night!

I think the best part of the weekend though was on Sunday. I spent the day relaxing and being calm and looking forward to a make-up Date Night since we missed out on Friday. Right before Brett came over I was reading in bed and ended up falling asleep. I woke up to my man sitting on my bed with flowers and a card. He even picked flowers that are a color I wear often, even though it's not his favorite color. And it was the greatest way to wake up ever! I'm glad he's mine forever :)

Wedding!

Food:

We are having a morning wedding which means, lucky for us (and you!), we get to eat brunch! I'm really excited about our menu. We are having an Omelet Station, Breakfast Potatoes, and a pastry basket for the breakfast part. For lunch we will have a Pear and Gorgonzola salad with a panini station consisting of Chicken Pesto, Roast Beef and Peppers, and Italian Salami.

I'm so happy with how accommodating our caterers are and the food tastes so delicious!! You should all be just as excited :)

Cake:

The most recent wedding decision made was about our cake. We will be having a 4 tier cake with butter-cream frosting.  The 4 layers are split into 3 flavors - Zucchini and Lime Cake with Lemon Curd Filling, Red Velvet Cake with Fresh Raspberry Filling, and Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Filling.  I'm really happy with all of our flavors, but I really like the Zucchini and Lime because it is like vanilla but with a refreshing citrus undertone. It pairs so great with the Lemon Curd. This might also be my favorite because it is in the layer that Brett and I get to cut and eat together :)

To Do This Week:

We are just about ready to send out our Save The Dates. This has been stressful for me because this means that the guest list needs to be finalized...which has not been an easy process. It's tough combining the lists of  family members and friends, but I think we finally got it down. We had to cut a lot of people out, but these wedding things are expensive so we did what we could. We also have to pick out 4 pictures to put in our Save The Dates.

Along with the Save The Dates we are sending out our wedding website address. Before we send this info out, I would like to have everything done on our website. Based on what I know about people, I don't think many people will keep checking the website after they first see if, but I've been talked into the realization that people will look at the website for info they need whenever they need it. Still, I would like to have everything on the website done before we send the Save The Dates out. In that case we need to finish hotel blocks and wedding registries.

The hotel block has been kinda annoying because the hotel we want is not being very accommodating.  However Brett is doing all of the communication with the hotel and is setting up times for us to go check it out so that hasn't added any work for me. Such a blessing!

Wedding registries unfortunately wont happen before we send out Save The Dates. I'm bummed because I would really like to have them done but it's not possible to everything right now. We are thinking of doing registries at Crate & Barrel and Bed, Bath, and Beyond. I think we are going to put some furniture on there which feels a little weird but I've asked a lot of people and they think it's fine and it really would be helpful. And no harm if we don't get it! Just would be nice if we could.

And last thing we need to get going is Premarital Counseling. This is another thing my wonderful fiancee is taking control of for me. All this takes is a couple of emails! I'm excited to get this started. Being engaged has been good but there have definitely been challenges as well and I'm expecting marriage to be the same so it would be great to get some advice to be able to be better.

Ugh, so much to do! But it's getting done slowly but surely :)