Happy Earth Day!

Today is Earth Day... I challenge each of you to do at least one of the following:

1. Hold onto items that can be recycled... bottles, cans, paper, and plastic. Hold onto that 20 oz. until you get home and can place it into a recycle bin. Don't have one? Start one.

2. Turn off your lights for at least one hour tonight. Enjoy an evening playing board games by candle light or even watching a movie.

3. Turn off your computer when you're not using it. It'll save you energy and it will also help your computer live longer.

4. Don't let the water run while you're brushing your teeth. Use water only when you need it.

5. Send out an e-card to brighten someone's day... many are free and it'll save you on postage and paper!

6. Take a shorter shower without super hot water. This can also save you money!

7. If' the weather is nice by you, start a little garden or plant some potted flowers. Perhaps you'd like to try growing some of your own herbs and/or vegetables.

8. Go through old magazines and newspapers you've got laying around the house and recycle them. Don't just throw them away.

9. If you've got nice weather go for a walk. The exercise will be good for you and the sunshine is a great source of Vitamin D. On your walk notice the changes that are taking place all around you, Mother Nature is beautiful! Take the time to appreciate her.

10. Do a little spring cleaning. Go through old clothes and household items that don't seem to excite you anymore. Box them up and donate them to an organization. For example, Goodwill, PASS Pregnancy Care Center, or the Salvation Army.

Again, Happy Earth Day... let us take the time to show God how much we care for the beauty that he has created for us.

Well, moving on. Here is my weekend report.

Friday, April 17th Dan and I drove up to Minnesota to visit with friends and family. We stayed with his sister, Stefanie, and her husband, Thomas. Kathleen drove down from Fargo/Moorehead and stayed with us on Friday.

Saturday, April 18th we all got off to a late start but still managed to put in a full day of activities. Kathleen, Stefanie, Dan, and I met up with Lauren at the Mall of America where we all did some shopping. I believe everyone bought something, which doesn't happen too often these days. After shopping, Kathleen, Dan, and I met up with Brian and Erin (our wedding photographers). Brian and Erin took us to Minneapolis where they took engagement photos for us. It was a blast and I can't wait to see how they turn out! Dan and I both wore new clothes that we bought at the mall (totally not planned, but worked out great). After pictures the five of us went to Chatterbox Pub for dinner. There we met up with Stefanie, Jonathan, Emily, Lauren, and Scott. It was a blast! In between all the chatting we even managed to squeeze in a game of Apples to Apples. From dinner Kathleen went back home.

Sunday, April 19th Dan and I went to church with Stefanie and Thomas. I ran into an old camp friend and some of Kathleen's Bethel friends. After lunch Dan and I hit the road and began our journey back to Illinois. It was a great weekend!

Matthew and Lynette's Wedding

On Saturday, April 11th, 2009 I made my way to Indiana with a van full of camp friends for Matthew and Lynette's wedding! We had a blast on our mini road trip and the wedding was absolutely wonderful! It was very nicely put together and the food was delicious! Since Matthew and Lynette are now Mr. and Mrs. Voss... they had Voss water at the reception! So good! Plus, the water was in glass bottles, even better. Well, congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Voss... I wish you two a lifetime of blessings together! Only 72 days until my wedding... Woohoo!

Well, yesterday was a very rough day. I had some major computer issues with my personal computer! While I thought that all of my photos, videos, music, and documents were lost forever... I only lost about 20% of my files. My music and documents are all gone, but my photos and video seem to be in tact. Some stuff that was lost is heartbreaking, but it's not the end of the world. I'm just grateful that I have my photos! Can you imagine almost 10 years of photos gone in an instant? That means I would have lost almost every picture of Dan and I since we've been together! But God is gracious and he spared my lost photos. Thank you, God... and thank you to Larry, who is in the process of saving my computer and most of my files!

The majority of invitations have been sent out. I'm still waiting on a couple of addresses, but for the most part they are out and people are already notifying me that they have received their invitation! I know that I have made some errors, so I'm expecting I'll get some returned. Hopefully not too many.

I'll be gone this weekend with Dan. We're going up to Minnesota to visit friends and family. We'll be staying with his sister and her husband. Kathleen will be coming down from Fargo/Moorhead to spend all day Saturday with us. Dan and I are having our engagement photos taken this weekend and we're also planning to have dinner with friends and family on Saturday. It should be a fun weekend. I can really use a weekend away.

Wedding Invitations

As of right now I have all the supplies needed to send out my wedding invitations. Printing directly onto the envelopes seems to be giving me some issues, but I think that I have a game plan! Once they're all sent out I'll be happy. That's for sure. Still waiting on a few addresses, so hopefully that'll come together soon.

Kathleen drove back to Fargo/Moorhead on Sunday. It was so nice having her home for an extra week! I'll be seeing her in about 2 weeks... so that'll be nice!

It's official... I saw my name on the silver screen this past weekend at Gargalese's premiere in Chicago! Dan and Kathleen joined me for this wonderful moment. I really enjoyed the movie! Props to everyone who worked on it!

Kathleen "Flees" Fargo/Moorhead

Above is an image from Jenna (Kathleen's roommate). She took this picture from her parents' house looking into their backyard. Praise God... it looks like the sandbags are going to hold! The water has reached record level, but God has been providing for this family and protecting their lovely home.

Well, everything is pretty much shut down in the Fargo/Moorhead area. Schools are closed until at least Monday, April 6th... so Kathleen took the opportunity to just come home for the week. Honestly, there was no point in her staying up north. The water is nasty, no buisnesses are open, and driving around is limited. She drove to the cities this past Saturday and drove home on Sunday. It's nice to have Kathleen around for another week!

This weekend there will be a premiere for an indi film I worked on last year, "Gargalese." Basically, it was a bunch of professionals getting together to film a horror movie for fun. Things just kept growing and now the movie will premiere on a big screen in Chicago! Here are the details:

Date: Saturday, April 4, 2009
Time: 7:00pm - 11:00pm
Location: The Portage Theater
Street: 4050 N. Milwaukee Avenue
City/Town: Chicago, IL

"Gargalese", a campy horror short film about the Tickle Monster who comes to earth to torture its ticklish inhabitants.

Adult tickets: $10, Kids 12 & under: $5

Tickle... Tickle...

Fargo, North Dakota

Poor Kathleen... she is caught up in a horrible mess of weather up north! ABC World News had some amazing coverage of Fargo, North Dakota as the citizens race against time to build a wall of sandbags to protect their homes and their lives. Posted above is a picture from ABC's website, click here to view more images.

Thankfully, Kathleen does not live by the Red River. Regardless, she is still being inconvenienced by this nasty of weather and how it is dramatically effecting her town. However, whenever she has a chance she is out as a volunteer to help build the 12 mile sandbag wall. Go Kathleen!

Please pray for Kathleen and everyone else who lives within the Fargo, North Dakota area. As of right now they are expecting this horrible weather to peak on Friday, March 27th... that's tomorrow.

Invitations, Flowers, Papers, and Nasty Weather

It has been a long time since I had a bad dream about my wedding. Honestly, I feel like I had way more wedding "nightmares" before I got engaged. Silly me. Anyway, my main wedding priority at the moment is getting the invitations printed and mailed out! Once that is done we'll be on top of things. Yay!

Dan and I worked on flower details this past weekend. We haven't ordered anything yet, but we've still got lots of time. The flower place only needs 2 weeks notice. Good to know. We just have to decide what kind of flowers we want and figure out how many we'll need.

Dan is super busy working on his senior research paper. Poor guy. He has so much on his plate right now! Please pray for him if you think of it. He can use all the support he can get right now.

Last night I went to the mall with Carrie. We stopped in at Williams-Sonoma so that I could check up on my schedule. Boy was I surprised when I found out that the work schedules have been made up until Sunday, May 3rd! Geez... so much for requesting off a day in April. I guess if I need time off in May I have to figure out everything right now. No worries... my wedding and honeymoon dates were submitted months ago! Ha ha.

Kathleen is having some major weather issues up North. Just before she came home for spring break they got hit with a ton of snow and the whole town had to shut down. When she got back the snow started melting and they got hit with a lot of rain. Then they had to deal with floods and the National Guard is came to help! I just spoke with Kathleen and she said they're getting snow! No fun... she is not enjoying the weather at all. Especially when everything has to keep shutting down. Pray for Kathleen's safety and sanity as she deals with this annoying weather.

100 Days Until My Wedding

Um, wow... WOW! Only 100 days until my wedding? Geez... that seems so close! I love it! For some reason this moment feels rather significant. Maybe it's because we're about to break the 3-digit countdown and enter the 2-digit numbers. No matter... 100 days, that's wild! That's almost 3 months... again, wow.

Right now my main goals are to get the invitations done and then work on the flowers. The invitations are coming along. I feel more secure once we get some ordered. Same thing goes with the flowers.

Today is also significant because the maid of honor [Kathleen] and the best man [Myk] are going to meet each other for the very first time! Ha ha... this has been an ongoing joke because whenever these two were supposed to meet something would happen and they'd just miss each other (for 3 years). It's pretty wild. Kathleen and Myk know each other and they are friends on Facebook, but they have never met in person. These two have been joking that they were going to meet for the first time at our wedding, when they have to walk up the aisle together after the ceremony. It almost happened that way... ha ha! CrAzY!