postpone? {heavy sigh}

i contacted skelly lodge earlier this week to find out if we could postpone our wedding without incurring additional fees. half of me was hoping she would say yes; half of me was hoping she would say no. we can postpone it for up to one year without any penalty. i couldn't even tell travis for a full day. he didn't know that i was checking, but i knew what his thoughts would be since we are unable to contribute to it at this time.
i finally told him last night, and as i suspected, he thought it would be for the best. he wanted to know what my parents had to say about it first though. we called my mom into the room and told her, and she didn't say much. she just started asking questions about what the lady at the lodge had said. my dad had already gone to bed so we weren't able to talk to him about it. i had to run him on a couple of errands this morning because my mom had his truck, and so i told him then. he didn't say a single word. not one word. i explained that travis and i were unable to contribute to the wedding at this time, and still he said nothing.

today was 101 days until our wedding ... we had almost made it to 100 days. now if we postpone it, it will be 465 days away. we were planning showers and parties, i had just finished designing a super cute newsletter-thing to introduce all of the bridal party to one another and provide them with one another's contact information, the ball was really starting to roll.

i'm trying to look at this positively and think that now i have time to make things that i wanted to make for the wedding. now i have time to save more money and maybe even do more things than we had originally planned, things i was going to get rid of in effort to cut corners. at the end of the day, though, i'm disappointed that travis won't be my husband in just a few short months, and i won't be his wife. nothing else really changes.

i'm not looking forward to announcing it to everyone. i know my friends will be supportive, but i still am not looking forward to the conversation(s).

the week has taken a weird, disheartening turn, that's for sure.

andy's getting married! mauiandy!

andrea emailed me earlier this week to let me know that she's getting married in maui next june! 06.10.2010! i couldn't be more excited for her. she has been waiting and waiting for this. right now she and ryan are not officially engaged, but he told her to go ahead and book their location so they wouldn't lose their reservation! i wish i could be there to hug her! i can just imagine how excited she must be. she has already set the ball in motion, working with her wedding planner and figuring out exactly what she wants to do. i can't wait! sounds like 2010 is going to be a great year!

06 jul: tabby & the boys

on monday tabitha and the boys came down for a visit. we hadn't even seen them since cayden was born. the boys get a little shy when they haven't seen us in a while, but tyler and ryan both said my name when i got to the house. travis had pool league, so he wasn't able to come over until later in the evening. cayden is adorable. he is solid, too! he doesn't look very big at all, but i now understand the phrase "solid as a rock."

i forgot to mention that travis has been learning to play golf. he and zach have gone to the driving range a couple of times and then on tuesday they went and played 9 holes together. travis and i went to the driving range on the fourth, and then he and i also went to play tennis on sunday. golf and tennis are two things i've always wanted to learn, so i really hope that he sticks with it and that i'm able to learn as well.

tabitha picked up a set of clubs for travis and had brought them down with her. he couldn't wait to see them. like i said, he and zach went and played golf with them the very next day.

tabitha and the boys are headed on vacation later this week so they were unable to stay very long. while she was down we looked at dresses online that she is considering for the wedding and talked a little bit about everyone's plans for that weekend. it makes me so excited to feel like everything is slowly but surely coming together.

04 jul: independence day

on thursday night justin and lindsay went to georgia to pick up teddy. that night joe church housesat for them, but then travis and i housesat for them the rest of the weekend. on friday midmorning we went to check on them and then ran around together the rest of the day. travis had friday off for the holiday and it was nice to have him around. we stayed the night at the leaches' and sarah and amanda came over to watch a movie with us. we only watched one and then we went to bed ... this is very unusual for a friday night movie fest. the next morning, we took care of the pups and then ran a few errands. my parents had already left for carrie and murray's house (long-time friends of my parents). travis didn't want to meet a lot of new people, so we decided not to go. with everyone out of town it was unusually quiet. it kind of reminded us of vacation. we watched wimbledon and ran a few more errands, then we met amanda at the lears' house for dinner. steve was working and zach was working, so travis, dee, amanda, and i were the only ones there. we didn't let off any fireworks and the neighborhoods seemed unusually quiet. after dinner we watched a movie with amanda at her apartment since she doesn't like to be there alone when zach's working. we were pretty tired that night, too, though, so we went back to the leaches', dried off the pups because they were muddy messes from the rain, and we fell asleep before midnight. it didn't feel like the fourth of july, but we had a good day together just the same.

01 jul: coffee with greg.

on thursday morning i met with greg bright and early to see how his recent trips have been and to tell him about Élever. he was excited to hear what we are doing and said that we could meet to discuss business next week. fingers-crossed that he and his partners actually go for what we propose.

30 jun: mcnellie's burger special

on tuesday night i met up with kate and roxie at mcnellie's for their burger special (mmm, i love their sweet potato fries) and girl time. earlier in the day i had asked kate if she would be our guest book attendant at the wedding, and she said she was honored. i miss seeing her every day. the girls filled me in on the changes at addison. i am thankful every day to not be working there anymore. our evening didn't last as late as it normally does when we're together, but it was great to see them, and we promised to do it again soon.

25 jun: girls' day in tulsa with amelia

on thursday i set up some girl time for myself. i was supposed to have coffee with shannon and then amelia called to find out if i could hang out. i told her that i could probably do dinner. she found out i was having coffee with shannon and suggested we combine the two over dinner. i thought it was a grand idea, so when shannon got off work, the three of us met at cheddars. i hadn't had cheddars in so long! it was delicious. we spent time catching up on each other's lives and then talking a little about the wedding.

shannon and i had talked earlier in the week for well over an hour just trying to catch up with one another and listening to one another's heartbreaks and frustrations.

shannon wasn't able to stay long after dinner because she had to bake for a shower at work the next day. kate was supposed to meet amelia and me after dinner, but her meeting went long and we ended up taking a rain check. i was supposed to pick up my wedding gown the friday before, so amelia and i swung into david's bridal to pick it up. it worked out well because she'll need to know how to bustle it the day of the wedding and the seamstress was able to give her a lesson.

it took longer than we expected at david's. we headed over to dillard's to work on our wedding registry, but the system wasn't able to pull up what i had already created online. by the time a new account was created we only had about 15 minutes. the sales associate was such a sweet lady, though. she told us we could stay until about 20 minutes after closing. we hurried through trying to get a good start on the registry. when we finished there we made our way to target. we were so busy talking, though, we found that i would scan any random thing that caught my eye! we started cracking up. we just hadn't had anytime to talk with one another in quite some time. after the store closed, we made our way outside ... and ended up talking in the target parking lot for an hour after closing! our feet were hurting so bad ... and then we looked up and saw a bench not even 10 feet away that we could have been sitting on the entire time. what crazy girls are we.

13 jun: kendra's wedding shower

the saturday following the weekend we got home from vacation, my cousin kendra's wedding shower was in owasso. it was nice to get out of town again. coming back from vacation was nice, but it was also a little frustrating, too. claudine and i were supposed to meet and all week long she never wanted to meet; one of the proposals we had presented couldn't come to agreeable terms for both parties; vacation was over and i was doing things like laundry and dishes again.

i don't have any pictures from the event, but sierra and i went up, and it was fun getting to see kendra. i can't believe that her shower marked 6 weeks until her wedding! she is my younger cousin; a year older than justin and two years younger than i.

she's marrying a wonderful man dean (but i've not yet gotten to meet him). i hear that he is quite a catch, and that he is really good to her, and i couldn't ask for any more than that.

06 jun: goodbye tennessee. goodbye vacation.

on saturday morning, travis and i woke up earlier than i would have liked and began the journey back to oklahoma. i couldn't have asked for a better birthday present or a better time with my fiance. i'm looking forward to taking trips and discovering new things together for many years to come.

that morning we finally saw why the "smokey" mountains have their name. we had been warned before driving there that we had to be careful of the fog; it sometimes gets so bad you can't see anything at all. we didn't experience the fog the entire time we were there ... until our morning departure.

when we got back to muskogee travis wanted to go straight to the pool hall. he absolutely couldn't wait. i knew we were home ...

05 jun: museum of appalachia

most of the week while we were at her house lou had to go to bed much earlier than the rest of us because she had to get to work so early. travis, cyle, and i entertained ourselves with movies, books, chinese food, and visiting. on friday, however, lou took the day off so she could spend some time with us. she wanted to take us to the appalachian museum.

the museum is a collection of many settlers' old cabins and their former possessions, furniture, and tools. (mark twain's cabin from when he was a child even rests here!) the cabins have been purchased and moved to the museum to be preserved. there is also a huge building filled with old tools, guns, and artifacts. it's incredibly interesting.

john rice irwin, the creator of the museum says, "Scratching through the discards of Granny’s kitchen, I uncovered one small item which simply brought tears to my eyes. It was a tin spice grater. From my earliest recollections, it had hung on Granny’s kitchen cabinet. In this grater Granny kept her aromatic smelling nutmeg, which she used for making pies. . . . A thousand times I had watched her lift the little lid and grab a nutmeg seed and rub it over the perforated grater to shave off enough of the surface for her pie. Here it was, the conveyer of so many pleasant memories for me, and now it was a mere rusty trinket that wouldn’t bring $2.00 at a flea market. It was only natural that I should want to preserve some of these antiques, whose history and background I knew. . . . I began to think about how important it was to preserve these items, and the memorabilia of all the people who represented a passing culture."

(mark twain's cabin)

the entire museum is a preservation of the history of the appalachian's earliest settlers. it is a living museum, and was filled with so many wonderful artifacts and stories. unfortunately, it was one of the coolest days that we spent on vacation and i didn't have a jacket. i also wasn't feeling well, which is evident in the pictures from the day. i never would have dreamed how much fun we would have tucked away in the smokey mountains. it's not a vacation i would normally plan, but i enjoyed it thoroughly.

after our night at the museum, we headed back to lou's where she cooked roast and stayed up visiting with us. she asked about the wedding and kept telling us that we're so quiet. i tried to convince her that we are off-the-wall crazy and act goofy more than anything, but i don't think i was able to convince her. i was sad because i knew our vacation was quickly drawing to a close. i was enjoying being away from anything dramatic and it even felt nice to not have to be responsible. we stayed up late again to watch movies with cyle and spend as much time with him before we headed back to the south/midwest.