DIY, What was I thinking?

So being the graphic designer that I am, I of course wanted my invitations to be a reflection of my own personal style and taste. It's been challenging finding paper that will work with my color scheme and design, but finally I found the perfect stock. TextStyle Designs is the cheapest company that I found you could buy Envelopments from and PaperSource is where I found the most beautiful and rich chartreuse green card stock I've ever seen. Everything was going so well. I found my paper, I finished my design, I then ordered my paper, but when it came in there was a problem. My original design of was a 5x7 folded gate card, but I ordered those from TextStyle Designs and the beautiful chartreuse A7 envelopes from PaperSource and the cards didn't fit inside the envelopes. Oh No!!!! Just one more mistake in this bumpy ride I'm on called "Wedding Planning". Well I couldn't panic, I wanted to but I really couldn't. Unfortunately I wasn't going to be able to return the paper stock and I wasn't going to order more because I have already spent too much as it is on these things. So I had to come up with a new design that I could use everything I already had and use it to come up with a fabulous result. This all really reminded me of problems I faced in design school. After a long night of thinking I came up with a new design that I liked even more that my original design. However, it was going to take some work. So it began. Yesterday my mom and I sat down to start our invitation "pocket making" adventure. We worked about 6 hours and got 100 pockets made. That's pockets only, not invitations. That means only 150 pockets to go. Then we have to assemble the invitation part and then put them all together, address them, apply postage, and then mail them off. I think there is about 20 steps to this project so for those of you who receive one next month, just know I put a lot of blood sweat and tears into the making them. I will post the final product when they are completely assembled.

London Bridge is Falling Down on the Eiffel Tower

Strange title, I know, but it got your attention right? As my wedding is nearing (Only 2 months and 5 days to go) I think reality is finally sinking in that this whole amazing event is actually going to happen. I'm so excited about the wedding. I've been taking charge of planning everything, and while Brandon is quite the involved groom, his main contribution has always been the honeymoon. I realized that I haven't talked about our honeymoon plans. So here goes.

Well at first we thought we would take a cruise. It's safe. We know what we would be in for, and we could afford it. Then we thought well maybe we would take a trip to New York. I've always wanted to go there, but we just didn't know if that was something we really wanted to do. We kinda put off thinking about the honeymoon when out of the blue we get a very exciting email from Brandon's uncle Dewayne that changed everything. You see, Dewayne's wife Sharla, works for Continental Airlines, and since they love us so much, they decided as a wedding present they would fly us wherever we wanted to go to in the world. Isn't that amazing? I mean what do you do with that kind of information? Well first we were in shock. We then jumped up and down in delight. We then sat down and not calmly but rationally started to write down places we might want to go. We thought about Ireland, Australia, Greece, Hawaii, Italy, and even Japan, but when I really thought about the one city I've always wanted to go it was Paris. Paris, France can you even imagine? I'm just a simple girl from Lubbock, TX who is obsessed with culture and art and I'm going to the center of the renaissance world for my honeymoon. It's too good to be true. After doing some more research, however, the trip got even more exciting when we decided to make it a double city venture and take on London as well. So it was set and now it's really happening.

We got our itinerary this week from Sharla. We will leave the Thursday after we get married and fly to London. We will be in London for til that Tuesday and take the train to Paris. We will be in Paris from Tuesday to Sunday. What a whirlwind!!! I'm so excited. In London we plan on doing all the main site seeing stuff as well as seeing a play and taking a tour out to Stonehenge, Windsor Castle and Bath. In Paris, we of course will be going to the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Versailles, river ride on the Siene, and the Orsay Museum and so much more hopefully. I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with Brandon and what a wonderful way to start our life together. Thanks Dewayne and Sharla!!!

Brittany & Jonathan's Wedding

The day finally arrived. My baby brother got married this past Saturday in Austin. It was amazing. I loved every minute of it. I cannot believe how perfect the day was and how wonderful everyone looked. Of course he cried. What a sap! But can you really blame him, his bride was so beautiful. Now I have a sister :) Here are some pictures from the gorgeous event.

Rehearsal Dinner Stubb's Bar-B-Q January 2, 2009







The Wedding Day January 3, 2009

Where Have I Been? I've been Cruising :)

Well the last couple of weeks have been pretty eventful. I was really busy at work and then Thanksgiving was here and then we left for our cruise Nov 30th. We had a blast. I decided to just relax this vacation and I was really able to do just that. We went to Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel on board the Carnival Conquest. We went to Margaritaville in Jamaica. The beach there was a lot of fun. We ported in Montego Bay but went of a journey to Negril. It was really interesting. The people were so nice and funny. We then ported in Grand Cayman. It was raining that morning so we didn't get to swim with the stingrays like we had planned. We did however get to go to the Turtle Farm which was amazing, we visited the town of Hell and the Seven Mile Beach which was so beautiful. Our final day at port was in Cozumel which was a different location than the place we ported last year. It was really clean and not like Mexico at all but it was such nice weather and we had a lot of fun. Our friends Shane and Lori got engaged that night. He took her up on stage and asked her to marry her in front of a lot of people right before the show that night. It was so sweet. Good job Shane!!! I had a chest cold the entire time we were on vacation and am still fighting it off. We got back yesterday afternoon and I was ready to get back to work. Here are some photos from our week in the Caribbean.

Brittany & Jonathan's Wedding Invitation

So I finished designing my brother and future sister-in-law's wedding invitation. They really wanted something unique and I think it turned out great. I also recently designed another wedding invitation for a friend who is getting married in January as well. I'll post that later. Here are some poor quality photos of the invitation. Next thing to do is to get my Save the Date's in the mail.

Through Sickness and in Health...

So I don't really have ever talked about Brandon and my medical struggles from this past year. We both were pretty sick and were misdiagnosed and lived with being misdiagnosed for about a year each. My problems started way back in 2005 and continued to get worse until I went to see a doctor in January 2007. I had severe pain in my abdomen which I thought were female related. I went to a doctor at that time and he diagnosed me with Endometriosis. It was very painful and I missed a lot of work and could barely function at the time, but I thought at least now I have a diagnosis. He put me on birth control and told me to take Advil for pain. Because I didn't have a laparoscopy I was forced to accept that diagnosis but there was no way to say that was it 100%. I went for about another year still in pain. My job situation was crazy at the time so I was without health insurance for almost all 2007. In January 2008 I went to a different doctor Dr. Warren to get another opinion. She went through a lot of tests and an invasive ultrasound to come to the conclusion it was not Endometriosis. I was now back to square one. I then took a proactive approach and started doing research on my own. Together we concluded it was not female realted but rather bladder related. I was diagnosed with Interstitial Cystitis or Painful Bladder Syndrome. I was put on a treatment medication which caused the disease to go into remission for a while. I still struggle with the pain some but it's bearable now.


Ironically, as this was all going on with my body, Brandon was also having his fare share of health struggles. A year ago he began having symptoms that we thought were not normal. After a routine health screening his nurse saw his blood sugar levels as well as other levels were through the roof. We rushed to a doctor who told us he more than likely had Type 1 Diabetes. We went to the ER and they diagnosed him as Type 2. Even though he had no family history and was not over weight by any means they thought the best route to take was to put him on oral medication and to change his diet. To make a long story short, he went several months with a misdiagnosis and even thought he was cured from Diabetes for a while. No such luck. The symptoms came back worse than ever and he was the incredible shrinking man. It was very scary how much weight he lost dropping at his lowest to a shocking 126 lbs. Finally, a few months ago, he found a new doctor Dr. Bisbee, to listen to him. After more tests the original diagnosis of Type 1 Diabetes was concluded. Brandon has been on insulin for a few months now and is better than ever. I know that it is going to be a challenge being married to an insulin dependent diabetic. This became so clear to me this past Saturday. We invited my mom over to watch the Tech vs Texas game and Brandon was going to cook out. He was grilling outside and my mom were inside getting ready for the game to start. Brandon had brought in the food and seemed normal but he went back outside. I really didn't think anything of this but then I got a loud knock at his garage door. I thought it was him needing help with the door. I opened it and it was a lady saying she was driving in the alley and saw him stumbling and he fell off the grass ledge on the side of the house onto the walkway. I raced over to the side of the house and to my surprise an ambulance was there with Brandon. The EMS guys asked me if he was on drugs or had been drinking. Of course not!!!! I told him he was insulin dependent diabetic. Then it all made sense to them. They checked his blood and is was at a frighteningly low 22. Brandon was sitting up but very incoherent. I think he knew something was wrong because he got out his phone to call me even though I was sitting right next to him. So scary. They gave him a glucose injection and got his blood sugar up but it wasn't until then that he came to. He doesn't even remember going outside. It all happened so fast without warning but I'm so thankful someone called 911 and I was there to tell the EMS he was diabetic. I'm also grateful it happened at home rather when he was driving or something. I never want anything like this to happen again, but I know living with a diabetic will have it's challenges. I love Brandon with all my heart and accept whatever is to come. I will say those vows officially in March, but I think we have already made that commitment to ourselves in sickness and in health. I trust God has everything under control and he will see us through this. We have already experienced so much as a couple but I think it has only made us grow stronger and has reassured us of our love for each other and how strong our commitment is to one another. I love you Brandon, and I always will.

Wreck Em Tech!!!

On Friday at work we had a Chili Cook-off to raise money for Children's Miracle Network. Each department had a different theme and dressed up to match their booth and served chili. It was a lot of fun. Our department's theme was Texas Tailgate. Our team was Bevo Brand Chili :) We decorated our table with all Texas Tech gear and served chili and beer (creme soda) and candy. There were two mishaps however. One, Krista was responsible for making the chili and decided to warm it on the stove before the event and burned the bottom of the pot. We unfortunately had a stinky booth. So we burnt the Bevo chili. The second minor mishap was Susie was suppose to get white Christmas lights to string up on our tent, but she ended up purchasing Chirstmas lights made to use outside to lay on a bush. Needless to say they don't string up very well. We put them on the table though and they looked good anyway. We didn't win any of the categories but we still had fun. Maybe next year. I would like to give a loud shout out to the Texas Tech Red Raiders for winning an awesome game over the UT Longhorns 39-33!!!! It was amazing. We're now ranked #2 that's amazing. Go Tech, Beat OSU :)