A Shopping We Will Go

I had six bridesmaids (yes 6!) in our wedding.  I wanted to be fair to everyone, so I placed them in order, not of importance, but by how long I had known them. 

Lauren is my sister and I've known her, well, her whole life.  She was surprised to be asked to be my maid of honor, but she's been my best friend for her whole life!  I couldn't imagine having anyone else right next to me holding my bouquet and fluffing my dress.  :D 

My other sister, Tabitha would have come next, but she wasn't able to make it to the wedding because of travel expenses.  She was standing with us from afar though.  :) 

Leslee has been one of my best friends since our freshman year of college.  I thought about putting how many years that's been, but then it makes me think about how many years it's been!  We met at a little table outside of one of our classes three weeks into the school year.  I had been determined to go to school without making any friends--just concentrate on school.  She recognized me because I had extremely long hair.  She's the one who convinced me to cut my hair...it took her until our senior year and I only cut it to my lower back.  She's the one who I can call and talk to once or twice a year and it's like we've never been apart.  I spent a week with her helping potty train her oldest daughter.  That's the kind of friends we are.  The kind who is willing to fly in from Indiana to be a bridesmaid in my wedding.

May and I also met in college.  She'll tell you she was only my friend because of the food.  She lived on campus about 12 hours from home and I lived at home about 12 minutes from campus.  She would come over to eat, but in the process she became like a little sister.  We were room mates after college and traveled to Thailand together.  She came from East Asia at just the perfect time and the whole wedding was planned around her time in the states.  ;)  Well, at least the dates she was available and going to be here!

Sarah became my friend really through her sister.  I was friends with her sister, but Sarah was a little out there.  She went to France for a few months, came back, and we were friends.  She probably wasn't ever as weird as I first suspected.  :D  We've stayed up crying together, gone on missions trips together, talked about what she should do when she grows up, and then sent her away again this past fall.  She is a great encourager and she also holds me to a high standard--the standard she knows I'm called to live by.

I actually met Erin when I stayed at her house with an incredibly large group of teen girls for a youth conference.  She knew a lot of people at our church and eventually moved to Central Oregon.  She then started a single girls Bible study so I got to spend every Friday night with her.  She is the one who makes sure all of our friends stay connected and celebrated.  She hosts parties and shindigs galore and makes sure everyone feels welcome.

People at church had been trying to get Michelle and I to be friends for years, but it took Erin moving to town before it actually happened.  I knew her sisters before I ever knew her too.  We're both teachers and I was blessed to have her help in my preschool classroom while she was working on her Master's Degree.  I love hearing stories about her fourth graders just as much as she enjoys hearing stories about my little ones.  Our students keep us laughing.  We both like cooking and having a clean house.  Sometimes that's enough (although in our case it's far from all).

So, the Saturday before Valentine's Day the four local bridesmaids, my mom and I loaded into a borrowed Suburban and headed to Salem to the closest David's Bridal.  We stopped at Sisters Coffee on the way out of town for the caffeine needed to get us through the day ahead.  I had packed goody bags for each lady, but they insisted we throw away the banana peels even though I had brought a bag for compost too (apparently the peels were smelly in the back).

  We left Central Oregon in plenty of time to stop by Chipotle for lunch before our appointment.

 

 

David's Bridal on a Saturday is anything but the relaxing experience I had shopping for my wedding dress.  It was packed and noisy and the clerk assigned to us was also busy with other customers.  Luckily Sarah and Erin had already done some research online so we knew what we were looking for.  Armed with the product number we just had to find the dresses on the racks in the right sizes.

 



Once we had accomplished that, it was into the dressing rooms!

They tried on two different dresses before deciding on the one with the straps.  The store didn't have the color Pewter in the dress to try on so we had to guess what it would look like.  We placed our order and texted it to Leslee and May who went to their local stores and ordered their dresses.  Then the waiting began.  We got the dresses only a couple of weeks before the wedding date.  Turns out Pewter was a very popular color.  Any other color and they would have been in weeks earlier.  Too bad we didn't know that when we ordered as which gray wasn't super important to me.  At the time I didn't have time to think about it though.  I went home that night and woke up in the middle of the night with a kidney infection which knocked me out for the next week.  And there was so much to do, including engagement photos...but that's another story.

Finding "The One" (A Dress That Is)

At the wedding expo one of the scavenger hunt questions was "How long before the wedding should you have your dress?"  The answer: 6 months.  Uhh, problem!  I only had four months TOTAL until the wedding and Josh's wedding app was ticking away.  I was sure I would never be able to find a dress in Central Oregon, let alone Oregon in general.  My mom was sure I would never be able to find a dress in the whole world.  (She happens to know I'm picky and had been planning this day since, oh, forever!).  Her plan was that we would make one.  First though, we headed to a local dress shop.

I tried on about 10 different dresses and narrowed it down to two.  By the time we left, they had one on hold for me.  They would hold it for a week.  Uh oh.  Another problem.  Ummm, I wanted to try on about 100 dresses, not just 10, and the girls and I were scheduled to go to the valley to look for bridesmaids dresses at David's Bridal in two weeks.  Should I buy the dress that looked like it was made for me, they had in the store so I could walk out with it (rather than having to rush order one), and was on sale, or should I wait and see what they had at the other store and risk having someone buy my dress from the local shop?

In the end we went back and bought the dress just a couple of days before the girls and I headed to the valley.  And let me just say that six women in a suburban driving for three hours, having lunch at Chipotle and dress shopping in a packed bridal shop on a Saturday was quite the trip...but that's another story.

The very first wedding dress I tried on.

Don't worry, I was enjoying myself.  I just had a very serious decision to make.

The runners up

Trial #2 involves walking, a veil, lots of mirrors and pictures of course!  The wonderful Kelly in the background.  Unfortunately she quit because of a family emergency before my actual wedding.  :(  The service wasn't the same without her!

It only took two people to get the underskirt on for the trial.  Just wait until the wedding day!



Erin practicing for the real thing.



And because every girl should have a reason to wear a tiara...

...and a veil.

 

This is it.  It's the one.  It's the one that Lauren said made me just look happy.  It's the one that made my mom cry.  It's the one that fit me perfectly.  It's the one!

Let the Wedding Planning Begin!

With a ring on my finger I felt much better about my wedding planning process.  Danny had told me I could start planning when we had decided we would get married.  There was just something weird about it though.  I was planning and saving pictures I loved and ideas I wanted to use and I had started my wedding planning binder to organize everything into, but I still wasn't sure when I was going to be able to use all my stuff.  After all, the planning process had really started when I was about five.  Weddings were all about the beautiful frilly dresses.  That was also the year I was in my first wedding.  Never mind that as the flower girl I cried the whole way down the aisle.  The point is that I have LOVED weddings since I was little.  It's why I do wedding planning on the side.  So of course I couldn't wait to start the Official Jenna Sheridan (and Danny Sheridan too) Wedding Plans.

My family was great!  (Well, after they quit fighting over my room!)  Josh loaned me his IPhone after he loaded the wedding planning app onto it.  With that I could check how many days and hours I had left to plan.  I could enter my budget and it would automatically calculate how much I had left.  Plus it was pink, and who doesn't need more pink in their lives?  Then my dad decided they should give me some money to help pay for the wedding, in addition to the beef they were providing.  And my grandma said she would make the cake (and eventually almost everything else that needed to be made).

I was also blessed with the MOST wonderful six bridesmaids a girl could EVER ask for.  And the weekend after the proposal was also the Central Oregon Wedding Expo.  So, Sarah, Erin, Michelle, my mom and I headed to the conference center to, in their words, "Win me some stuff!"

Michelle, me, Sarah, Erin

This was in the parking lot before we went in.  They didn't make me wear the tiara and boa throughout the show, mostly because I had so carefully chosen my outfit for my first outing as "the bride."  They were very understanding!

 

 

We did win some stuff.  I got a $10 gift certificate to a local restaurant.  Michelle won a cake (which she then used at my shower) and we got lots of goodies throughout the event.  However, mostly the vendors were for things that I already had booked.  What I really needed was a venue, a DJ, and a caterer.  Those were the pamphlets I focused on when I got back home. 

 

Oh, and we were going to need some dresses...but that's another story.



The Proposal Revisited and Updated

So some of you may have read this post when it happened. For others, this will be the beginning of the next chapter of Danny's and my life together...the chapter called "Engagement."

Danny had planned on us hiking Smith Rock. However, we also got invited to a very cute little girl's Star Wars 4th birthday party. So before we went to hike, we went to her party. Then we headed to the park.

We parked across the street from Smith Rock. Here's where we were headed:

Danny really misses rock climbing and bouldering, so he climbs any chance he gets...yup, even the little rock walls on playgrounds.

We are undecided what kind of bird this is, but it was sitting all alone in the middle of the river, watching a bunch of ducks actually.

We took the Burma Road trail. It had the coolest pine trees with the branches draped all the way to the ground. So we dipped inside and took a few pics.

At the top, Danny decided he wanted to explore the rocks. I decided to sit in a little hidey hole out of the wind and watch him.

And then I noticed my camera battery was getting low, so I put it away. Danny finished exploring and lured my out of my hidey hole to a spot that overlooked everywhere we had just been. We could see all the way to my car. It was too pretty not to use some camera battery.

And then we sat on the rock talking...well, he talked and told me I couldn't. Then he had me close my eyes and he gave me a present. When I opened my eyes he was on his knees in front of me. He told me to open the box, he took out the ring box, opened it, and asked me to marry him.

And I said...

YES!

This is from the bottom, looking up to where we had come from. I will say that it took a lot longer to get up there than to get back down. I think it's because coming down I was floating on air!

I called my mom from the top. Her response, "Finally!" Everyone else at home's response, "I get her room!" Danny's parents were a little trickier to get ahold of because they were in Mexico and he couldn't make international calls from his phone. He called his brothers and asked them to have his parents call him if any of them heard from them. We wanted parents and immediate family to know first. Then our special friends. We definitely didn't want anyone to find out on Facebook (sorry about that Leslee!).

We went to Mi Cielo for dinner. If you haven't been there, they are in Redmond. You need to go. It's owned by the sweetest family, and you will be hearing more about them later in the next chapter! :) One of the owners helped us as Danny called his parents because the answering machine was in Spanish and he wasn't sure if he had the right number. Funny story, Alma is Filipino, not Mexican, but luckily she speaks Spanish too! And then a friend of mine came into the restaurant and I had to do my best to not show off my beautiful new ring. It was tricky as we sat talking while she waited for her to go order.

Danny drove me home and I got to show off my ring there though. We still couldn't tell lots of people, but friends found out before all of our family because we had church the next day. I was still floating so people couldn't help but notice! My friends were so excited and the wedding planning began (ummm, continued?...ummm, could "officially" begin?)...but that's another story.

Delayed Proposal

We had a busy time between Christmas and New Year's.  I didn't know it but Danny had told my mom the ring was almost ready so she expected a proposal at any time.  She didn't let on though--she's good at keeping secrets.  I also didn't know that my friends expected a proposal at our annual New Year's Eve party.  I knew Danny wouldn't ask there because it was too public of a place.  I knew that when he popped the question it would just be us and he would have it all planned out.

What I also didn't know was that he did plan on asking me to marry him on New Year's Day.  Here's what changed that plan:

Josh and I drove home to our house after the party and Danny drove home to his house.  We all made it home safely.  When we got home, our 9 month old puppy, DeSoto, was asleep up on the hay bales where he always was with his unstuffed toy dog right beside him.  He barked at us a few times but didn't get up since he knew it was us.  That was two or three in the morning.  January 1, 2012 was a Sunday and I'm pretty sure everyone in my family was scheduled to work in a children's classroom.

But when my mom went out to do morning chores, which includes feeding the dogs, she couldn't find DeSoto.  She also noticed that the cars driving by the corner of our property were swerving weirdly out of their lanes.  She just knew.  She hopped in the truck and drove down there.  DeSoto was lying in the middle of the road, dead--like the yucky, gross kind of dead.  Our laid back, nine month old puppy, who weighed close to 80 pounds and came almost to hip height had been hit by a car.  Well, more likely a big truck.  She went to get Josh to load him into the back of the truck so he could be buried.

They covered him with a sheet so Lauren and I could pat him goodbye as we bawled.  I was the only one who went to church that day and just had all the kids come in with me.  I called Danny before I left.  Needless to say, the day's events changed his plans, but I didn't know that, and wouldn't know that for another week...but that's another story.

DeSoto at 8 weeks old.  He was a border collie mix from the Jefferson County Humane Society.  He was being trained up by Sydney (another dog) to be a farm dog and was going to begin to learn how to herd in the Spring.

Christmas 2011--The Year of the Christmas Banana

*Warning*: Not everyone looks as cute as Lauren on Christmas morning.  View pictures with caution!

The Cast:

 

Mom

Josh

Lauren & Kim



Erin

Danny (of course!)



Pocket (because she's cute, not because she's part of the story)
















And me (of course again!)

So, the banana really has nothing to do with Danny and I.  It's just that every year for Christmas morning my family makes cinnamon rolls from a tube for breakfast.  That's a big deal for us since practically everything is homemade.  It's like a special treat to have prepackaged food.  But this year I just didn't feel that cinnamon rolls and whatever candy I had eaten while opening my stocking were very healthy.  I wanted a banana too.  I felt that it would balance out the sugar or something.  Anyway, I started planning on having a banana for Christmas morning weeks beforehand.  There is a possibility that Christmas could have been ruined if I hadn't had a banana to go with my cinnamon rolls and pounds of chocolate that morning.  Luckily, I had a banana.

Here's where Danny comes in.  He spent the night with us Christmas Eve, just like the year before.  We had some dear friends over that evening, and after they said goodnight we got everything ready for the morning (including my banana!).  Then we went to bed.  One of my very best friends was coming straight from work the next day to spend Christmas morning with us.  She works nights in the Emergency Room and every other Christmas has to work which means she doesn't get to be with her family on the actual day of Christmas.  And holidays with gifts are VERY important to her!  So we were excited to get to share the day with her.

I had no idea what Danny had gotten me. His lawn mower had broken, so we had all pitched in to get him a new (well, mostly thank you Craigslist) one. I was SO excited to give it to him. It was well hidden in the tack room and I had written and wrapped a little poem to give him clues as to where to find it.

 

Secret about me, which isn't really a secret if you've ever seen me open a present.  I love the opening experience.  I like the way the presents look when wrapped and I like to open them and be surprised by what is inside.  It doesn't even have to be for me...I just like to open.  And I take my time doing it.  Some people may even say I take my time and theirs when they could also be opening their gifts.  I won't name names, but it's pretty much EVERYONE in my entire family.  If you remember, we take turns opening by going around the circle.  I was blessed to have Erin come after me because she understands the excitement of a gift.  Danny, however was sitting next to me and I had to swat him away a few times when he decided to "help."  (We are still working on this problem, by the way.  If you know of a good counselor...)

Danny and his presents. 
As you can clearly see there was no need for him to "help" me.
He had plenty to open on his own!

Me and a good view of most of my presents.

I opened a small box.  It was a beautiful ring, and when I held out my hand Erin almost jumped.  Then she noticed it was on my right hand.  Then she realized it was from my grandma.  She was slightly disappointed, but I still had hope.





I came to a present from Danny.  It was heavy and shaped like a book.  Hmmm.  Maybe one of those hide-a-books where you can put little things im?  Little things like an engagement ring?  Nope.  It was a cookbook.  Erin had told him to go with a purse, but he had decided I had enough purses.  (Have I ever mentioned that he grew up with four brothers?  He has since learned that there is no such thing as too many purses or pairs of shoes.  I like teaching him about girls!)  So I got a cookbook with lots of yummy recipes, like one of our very favorite ways to prepare fish.

Everyone else around the circle opened a present and it was back to me.  My next gift from Danny was shaped like a tube.  I'd like to say I was curious about what it could be, but I already knew.  Josh and Lauren had already opened theirs and they were the same.  It was a very cleverly wrapped flashlight.  My idea of an emergency kit and Danny's idea are not the same, so he thought he should put something useful in mine.  It is a great flashlight and I keep it in my car in case of an emergency.

We finished opening all of our gifts, said goodbye to Erin so she could go home to sleep, and ate our cinnamon rolls (and my banana).  The day progressed with lots of yummy food, farm chores (the animals get yummy things on Christmas too), and naps throughout random movies Kim was watching.

There was no little tiny box wrapped up from Danny.  I had tried not to get my hopes up, but sometimes hopes have a mind of their own.  Christmas was over and I still wasn't engaged.  I was beginning to doubt if we really ever would be. 

Danny had a plan though.  He knew that my ring was being sized and was almost ready for him to go pick up.  And he knew when he was going to propose...but that's another story.