Bridal Showers pt.2

After a full weekend of Bridal Showers, my cheeks are hurting from laughing and smiling so much!

Saturday featured my girlfriends' shower while Sunday held the shower thrown by many of my mothers and mine shared lady friends.

The girlfriends' shower was hosted by my lovely friend, Myra, who is my Maid of Honor, at her apartment. All of my bridesmaids and many of my great friends were there, including Shane who happens to live in the apartment as well. Since he had nowhere to go and he's a pretty awesome guy, we let him stay, haha.

The presents were great! I can't wait to use, read, or wear everything!

The punch was awesome, the food was fantastic, and the company was most enjoyable :D We played a Project Runway game where the girls(and Shane) were divided into three groups with Myra, myself, and Sam being the judges. The groups then designed and created an outfit using toilet paper, magazine cut-outs and various accessories. It really was super fun ^_^ Then it was a guessing game to see who knew the most about me, but it was difficult to find good questions since I've been friends with most of them for nearly 5 years at least.

My teacup, which turned out to be an entire set!

At the shower on Sunday, it was another Tea Party. This one was different, however. Every lady who came brought a tea cup and saucer, which I was then given at the end of the shower. Pictures of these tea cups are spread across this post! Plus, the tea cup I was using turned out to be an entire set of 6 cups/saucers, a little sugar jar, a small pot for creamer, and a teapot! It was really funny - during the "teatime" we all made comments about how beautiful all of the tea cups were, but how the one I was using looked really Steampunk. I loved it! Plus, it's smaller, like more for expresso. Cute! So Carrie was very excited to know she picked a good set to give me, which was great!

Again, a ton of simply lovely presents! Between the tea, coffee, and wine accessories and items, Travis and I will certainly never go thirsty, haha!

We played a word-scramble game, which I was absolutely terrible at :). Then we had the "teatime". Debbie made some unique deviled eggs with avocado, then cherry tomatos stuffed with goat cheese, and cucumber sandwiches (yay!). Everything on that dish was green-colored, so obviously I made sure it sat in front of me ;-). The tea choices were Pumpkin Spice, [something] Chocolate, and another one that was a coffee-flavor (something something latte?) - I tried them all, but had two cups of the Pumpkin Spice ^_^.

Another dish involved almond-covered goat cheese balls, which I figured out tasted GREAT when eaten together with a strawberry! There were also ham salad and chicken salad finger sandwiches, which I thoroughly enjoyed as well :-D. Not to mention the AWESOME mini-finger-cake creations that Sky helped concoct! Oh gosh, I don't really like chocolate that much, but goodness there were ones that tasted like freshly homemade chilled hostess cake! And better! Then the red velvet, and the chocolate-covered strawberries... it was just all around a fantastic meal :D

After "teatime" we played another game - similar to Saturday's, it was "Who knows the most about Brittany". My favorite question was probably "What is Brittany's special talent?" and since no one really knew, I gave the hints "It doesn't involve and movement" and "A police officer might ask you to do this". Which, of course, ensued laughter and the awkward things that could possibly entail.

Obviously, it's that I can say the ABC's backwards, which they had me demonstrate.

Then it was present time, which of course I can't say enough thank you's to really cover how I feel. It's just a surreal experience to be surrounded by so many ladies I respect and for them to show their love and support for Travis and I. Every single one of them is a Godsend.

Lastly, there was a craft. My mother and my mother-in-law (mom^2) had taken several spoons from their relatives' china collections that were sterling silver and had the ends of the handles punctured to create holes. They also had a tin watering can with several holes around the top edges. We tied the spoons to the end of hemp string and then strung several brown, tan, blue, and orange beads until they were at a good length to be tied to the holes in the watering can.

So, the watering can hung upside-down now has 13 strands of beads with sterling silver spoons on the ends of them (there are the china spoons and also a few decorative spoons with lovely sayings on them) and a single heavy knife that was tied in the middle (hanging from what would be the "bottom" of the watering can).

If you haven't figured it out yet, it's a Wind-chime. And oh my goodness does it make a beautiful sound! I will post a picture and a video when I can!

So, needless to say, with one more shower to go in a couple of weeks, I'm completely overwhelmed with generosity, love, and kindness. God has always been a big part of Travis and mine's relationship, and I can see Him clearly in the people we are surrounded by.

From the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU, everyone!











(I will post pictures and anything else when I get them from other people ^_^)

The Engagement Party

Sorry for the late update! A lot has been going on, but I've mostly been waiting to get some pictures from the engagement party from anyone, haha!

The party was fantastic! It was an absolutely brilliant time! I liked my outfit, we had Abuelos (a very nice Mexican restaurant) cater, so we had a fajita bar, the cake was so terrific, and the way we had the room set up was super fun!

Everyone seemed to have a great time and enjoy themselves. I'm not use to having so many people that want to talk to me, haha.

We created the cutest cards to give to everyone - they were folded in half, so had four columns. The front column described Steampunk. I took a lot of it from the wiki article, but elaborated on some of the concepts a lot of people don't generally understand.

While gifts weren't necessary, we appreciate the gift cards and other gifts we received - trust me, the majority of the gift cards have already been put to a very tasty use :)

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All of the bridesmaids are measured! Stephanie has been kind enough to offer to streamline their dresses so we won't have to just buy them at David's Bridal, which would look terrible next to my dress. Which, oh my gosh, I'm thrilled beyond belief with how my dress is looking so far! My mother has been in Florida since the engagement party, and when I tried to tell her today what we've been talking about with the bridal party - I couldn't even finish talking. She's completely handed it over to me, which is a large responsibility since she wants the ceremony to be a little more traditional in a way and I want to respect her wishes the best I can while still maintaining the vision I have for this epic wedding.

Getting ready for the Party

The engagement party is inching closer and closer, and it's in our sights! It seemed so far away when we first talked about it, but I guess that's how it goes. I'll be saying the same thing when the wedding comes around.

Can I be honest with you for a minute? Of course I can.

I'm just crazy with emotions and thoughts. I like to blame it on stress of everything going on in my life, and that does add to it, but a good chunk I think is that... well... I'm nervous.

And don't get me wrong. It's not the idea of spending the rest of my life with Travis, because he is the only one for me. If you've seen me and him together, you understand. Everything in him is everything I've ever hoped for.

Even when I was younger, when I said in middle school, "The man I marry, I want our first date to be going to church and then hanging out afterwords." In which everyone replied to, "You're getting your hopes pretty high for that, dear, you'll scare him off if the first thing you do is go to church." or some other negative comment.

Our first date, we went to church. We then went to the Cheesecake Factory (a relatively expensive restaurant, if you didn't know), which he paid for (I wasn't expecting him to).

What I think I'm nervous about, is if I'll be a good wife. I mean, I've spent the majority of my life being the child, living in my parent's basement. I know I'm ready to be out of here and on my own, but it's like I'm skipping a level of life.

Or maybe it's more like... I'm a growing balloon and about to burst into independence and I'm afraid if I'll be good at it. I'm just a bit scared, I think. It really has nothing to do with Travis and that "is he the one" crap, because that's never even crossed my mind as a serious question. I couldn't even say I was compromising anything for him. He has a heart for God, he's intelligent and creative, he is financially stable and capable, I'm attracted to him beyond all belief, and I still can't believe how lucky I am.

I just feel out of my element. It's like this whole "wedding" thing is just some big party and nothing more.

I'm going to cry at the engagement party. I really think it will be then that something inside me pokes a hole in the balloon of my emotions and I start accepting that my life -is- actually this perfect and I -am- worth it.

God is good, and I am blessed beyond all belief.

So yeah, glad to get that off my chest. A little scared of "growing up" is all, right?

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I drew this up for you all, since the majority of you won't be at the engagement party.

It's really bad, and done quickly, but it's a basic idea of what the tables at the wedding will be set up like. We'll have the tables at the engagement part set up the same way.

...the big grey squiggly thing is a mirror, haha. Beads are inside the bottom of the vase that match the runner linens.

And then the silver wear at the wedding will be gold. I think we're using some silver plasticwear at the engagement party, though.

My dress that I will be wearing also arrived. A couple alterations have to be made, but overall I'm very pleased with it :-)
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I took some awesome pictures at the Wild West Fest this past Saturday. I also had a new costume, but I didn't get any pictures of that. Anyways, here are some that I did:

 That's all for tonight! I'm going to go dream sweet dreams of Travis ;-D