This will be a Thanksgiving of many firsts. Today, I had the honor of buying my first Turkey. I was not a natural at this task, as I had to call my big sister for some pointers and ask for directions in Costco as to where these rather larger festive birds were to be found. But, now I am happy to say that I can check this task off of my “I’m a grown-up now” list. The next thing that will be checked off is hosting Thanksgiving at my house. If not for my sister, I would be in freak out mode trying to get ready for this occasion. My sister, brother-in-law and nephew will be arriving on Tuesday to get the ball rolling on food preparation. My dad, step-mom and her two grown children will be coming in on Wednesday night from Colorado. Lucky for them, they just have to show up. I don’t think sweet potato casserole would travel well in the cargo hold of a 737.  Despite the stress of being the hostess, I am very exciting to be spending this holiday weekend with my familiy…and there is a little pride involved with having everyone here. (Except Mom and Bill, I will miss you dearly and look forward to spending Christmas with you soon!) So, I’ll let you know how everything goes! I have faith that everything will be just fine…and if there is a little bump or two, no worries.  Happy Thanksgiving to all!

So apparently, I’m the worst blogger in the history of blogging. So what’s happened since my last post? Well, three seasons have come and gone and a few other things have happened. I will not bore my one reader with useless news over the last 8 months. So I will give you the highlights, with mostly pictures.

We started out summer with a few birthdays. I threw a luau party for Isaiah and we grilled out with some friends and had some yummy cocktails.

Just a few weeks later we celebrated my birthday. Mom and Bill came down to Birmingham and we went to Oak Mt. State Park for a hike and a picnic. For dinner that night we went to Stix for sushi.

For our summer vacation, we went out to Longmont, Colorado. The weather was perfect and the price was right. We were blessed enough to get buddy passes for our flights and we stayed at my dad’s house most nights. We used his house as home base and took day trips around the area.  We did an overnight over Trail Ridge Road, that was pretty amazing. I believe its the highest pass in the U.S.? Maybe I made that up. We spent a day in Longmont and went to my favorite place, the cheese store. We also went to Boulder and went skydiving one day.  Toward the end of our stay, Dad took us on a hike up to a snow melt lake. It was a beautiful and eventful hike. The goal was to end up, above the tree line, at a crystal clear blue lake filled by snow melt. I think it was somewhere around a 6 mile hike, not bad right? Well, throw a thunderstorm will hail and the whole nine yards in the mix. It made things a little more interesting.  Up at 11 thousand feet in the middle of a storm is not the safest place to be. We obviosly all made it out alive and are here to tell the story.

The last bit of news is really not news at all, just a few pictures of some recent home improvements. We got some new window treatments, an entertainment center, and we are trying to pick out a paint color for the stairs. We have finally picked one of the 6 colors that you see. You’ll have to invite yourself over to see what we went with!  I’m not making any promises but I will try to post again within the next year or so. : )

We are almost exactly one month away from move in day!  Praise God, everything went well with the inspection and the seller is going to fix the things that we requested!  The repairs are relatively minor which is good. The house should not be falling down any time soon.  Isaiah and I have been pouring over paint colors trying to find the perfect shade. Who knew there were 99 different shades of yellow?! We have about a week between closing and when we have to be out of our apartment. During this time, we are going to try to do as much painting as possible while there’s no furniture in the house. Hopefully we’ll be able to get everything done!  We are VERY excited about moving into our new home. I have added a few pictures to give you a little idea of what we will soon call HOME!

On to other news:  We’re pregnant! Ok, just kidding, that was mean. Sorry. 

This year, Isaiah and I indulged in the $220 million industry of Valentines Day. We made a weekend out of it. Friday night we went to see “He’s Just Not That Into You” and went to the Cheesecake factory for dinner, I picked the movie. Saturday, we were homebodies all day, lounging in our PJs and cooking a fantastic steak dinner at home. Then, Isaiah surprised me with tickets to the symphony! It was amazing! The orchestra played timeless love songs accompanied by an amazing vocalist who sounded just like Sinatra! It was a perfect evening. On Sunday, I asked Isaiah to leave the house for a few hours to prepare my Valentines surprise. I arranged a scavenger hunt around our apartment with some treasures to enjoy. I think Isaiah enjoyed himself and I had fun preparing!

Isaiah and I are approaching our 2 month mark (10 days away!).  At times, our marriage has been blissfully wonderful; holding hands, snuggling close, little kisses and “I love yous.” But then it seems that things can turn on a dime! Why is this? How does this garbage end up in our paradise? Well over the past few days i have been on a journey of self discovery and i have come to the realization that i have worm infested fruit. My fruits of forgiveness, contentment, and caring (and pride but its not a fruit) are skewed. For so long things have been all about me. Since our marriage I have let my pride get the better of me far too often. Last night, I read the familiar story of Joseph and the coat of many colors. He was so full of himself, that his own brothers wanted to first kill him, but then ended up selling him into slavery. “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” -James 4:6 

My sister  once told me, “You don’t know how selfish you are until you get married. But then you really don’t know how selfish you are until you have a baby.” Really? I”m going to become MORE selfish than I already am? Is that actually possible? Although a few weeks late, Isaiah and I have made a new years resolution (its really more like a resolution for the rest of our lives together though, so i guess its OK that it is 2  weeks late), we have finally identified our own faults and we think we know what we need to do to avoid them taking over our marriage. Please pray for us and encourage with Godly counsel that we may bring pleasure and glory to God through each other and our lives on this earth.

 

As the holidays approach Isaiah and I realize how blessed we truly are. We have wonderful families, a nice roof over our heads, at least one job, and the unfailing love of our Savior. Our wedding was perfect! Everyone and everything showed up on time (Dad was a little late for the pictures but I’ll let it slide this one time), the pictures were amazing (http://imelyphoto.com search for Brittany and Isaiah under “events”) and a good time was had by all! Following our wedding we went on a Princess Cruise to the Eastern Caribbean. We had a great time! The first couple of nights the seas were pretty rough, but then things (our stomachs being one) settled down and the rest of the trip was smooth sailing. A few of our interesting destinations were the islands of St. Martin, St. Thomas, and Grand Turk. While in St. Martin we rented a cab for the day and explored the island. Our cab driver took us all over this Dutch/French Island. One of our stops along the way was a nude beach! Why do old people like to be the most naked?! Our next island was filled with day swimming with sea lions. This was pretty fascinating. They played soccer with us, kissed us on the cheek and jumped over our heads. The jumping was pretty scary. Sea lions are not the most elegant jumpers, they’re no Flipper. At Grand Turk we went snorkeling and swimming with sting rays. We got to pet and feed the stingrays. We were in the open ocean probably 10 sting rays came up to us for feeding. It was pretty amazing. We had a wonderful time on our honeymoon and no one went hungry in the least. One night after dinner, we were presented with the dessert menu and literally could not make up our minds. So…we ordered 4…and finished every single one of them! Best night of dinner by far!

                One to more recent news….

I still have no job. I am still fervently looking and have gotten a few small bites, but still nothing. I am trying to stay positive and remember that my life is in God’s hands. We are very thankful that Isaiah has a great job that keeps food on our table.

We are spending Christmas at Steph, Mike and Elliot’s house. Dad, Janet, and Katie will also be there and we are SO excited to spend time with them this Christmas!

So, I have finally taken the plunge. I frequently ready other people’s blog but never thought of having one myself. I guess I think my life is “blog worthy” now. My wonderful fiance’ (I’ll only have to use that word for 4 more days!) got me an awesome video camera for my wedding gift! I had been talking about them for a while and almost bought myself one of those cheap, flip cameras…he picked up on this and surprised me tonight with my very own Sony HD video camera!

I’m leaving town tomorrow to get married, so I should really be packing and getting everything ready for the big plunge into married life!