My friend is getting married!!!

One of my very best friends is getting married today - to my husband's brother! It is so exciting that we will get to be family now for the rest of our lives! :)

I've known K. since I was 6 and she was 7, when our families moved to Arizona and into the same apartment complex, and she was the first friend I had here (although we had a bit of rocky start...). It has been such a blessing to have her as my friend, for many reasons! We are practically opposites - she is outgoing, gregarious, practical, friendly, open, and a little bit dominant and aggressive, while I am shy, reserved, idealistic, and can be withdrawn, inward-focused, and passive (at least when it comes to conflict :P) So it has been very beneficial for both of us, I think, to grow up with each other - we've helped moderate each other's personalities, and we've helped each other learn how to interact with and love people who are very different from ourselves. I know it's been good for me, anyway! K. draws me out of my shell and listens to me talk and helps me to relax and enjoy spending time with other people :)

This past year we were roommates and I got to see firsthand her love for her future husband, R., as they dealt with the particular difficulties of a long-distance relationship during his first year of grad school - the excitement and anticipation in the days before she would travel to see him, the tears of the bittersweet return, the Skype dates, and so on. We had a lot of late-night conversations about our men, too, especially after we both got engaged during winter break, which was a lot of fun for us both :)

So I am incredibly excited for her now as she prepares to enter into marriage this afternoon with a wonderful man :) She will be such an amazing wife, and such a blessing to him through the years to come, with her serving, other-focused heart and her deep, self-sacrificial love for the people in her life. I know the two of them will have so much fun together, as well! They will be for each other a secure place to rest their hearts, a sanctuary of love and peace from which they can go out with confidence and joy to bless and serve the world they live in, and their home will be filled with life and laughter.

I wish you all the best in your marriage, K. and R.! You will be in my prayers :)

I'm getting married tomorrow!!!

So tomorrow I'm getting married and I am finding it a little hard to fully comprehend. It is going to be so different than life has been before! I keep fluctuating between crazily excited and horribly nervous :P Everything will be so wonderful, but there's still so much to do and remember and I hope I don't forget anything important!

I think one of my favorite things about this wedding, besides the most important part of all which is that I get to marry the man I love most in all the world and who loves me back so unreservedly, is that all the different aspects of the wedding have been managed and carried out by people I know and love. The food for the reception, the music for the ceremony, the wedding cake, the photography, and more, were all made possible by people I've known for years, which makes things a lot more comfortable for a confirmed introvert such as myself :) It also makes everything a lot more meaningful and personal, which is very special to me.

So to all of you who have helped make this day so precious to me - from those of you who put in days of time and effort and thought to those who gave whatever few hours you could - thank you so very much! It means so much to me, and I feel so blessed and honored to begin this next chapter in my life with your love and community surrounding and supporting me.

People are so nice :)

At the lab where I work there are these two middle-aged facilities guys who are just awesome. Basically every day, they are down in the basement where I work to fix something, usually together, and they always stop by to say hi and joke around with us. They especially like teasing my boss, Jason, which is quite amusing because Jason is a pretty fun guy too :) But we tease them back so it's ok! When Shrek the Musical was in town, for example, we decided that they were Shrek and Donkey - one of them is taller and bigger and happened to be wearing a green shirt, and the other is shorter and smaller and was wearing brown so it was rather fitting - and asked them how the show was going whenever they came by :)

Anyway I was talking to "Shrek" yesterday about how I was working extra hours to get comp time so I could take some days off the week before the wedding to prepare, because he had asked how long I'd be gone for the wedding (my answer was essentially until I run out of vacation time!). In response he said he should talk to my boss to see if he'd give me another day or so off for the wedding, which kind of surprised me. I kind of thought he was just joking, and I thought he meant he'd talk to Jason (and I don't think Jason has the power to do that :P). But when I ran into him again today he said he'd talked to Mike, the lab manager, and told him he should give me extra time off for the wedding! So I don't know if anything will come of that; I don't really expect it to. Regardless, it was a really nice thing for this guy to do for me :) I am always blown away when people do nice things for me like that, when they don't know me that well and I've never done anything for them! It definitely made my day :)