we just finished up our last marriage counseling session last week...it was a fun experience. we actually learned a lot about ourselves, and about each other. we took a compatibility test that compared our ideas and thoughts on different situations in marriage and life, and found out that we had matched all our answers after talking through them. it was pretty cool to hear that all the areas were "strengths" for us and not "growth areas." i guess you learn to really know someone after so many years of being together! our counselor told us we are one of the happiest and healthiest couples she's had in pre-marital counseling :)

one of justin's aunts is throwing him a "groom's" shower this weekend. all of his family will be coming over to our house to grill out and visit since i have gotten to see them more in the last few months then he has! he is getting a very special surprise, but i won't give it away because i know he'll peak! we are excited to relax and catch up with his family...

the past few weeks have been a whirlwind! it's getting down to crunch time :) justin and i spent all of last weekend focused on our invitations, which we'll hopefully get done this weekend so we can send them out next week. we made the final decisons on the menu, and are meeting with our florist next week..things are finally coming together! there is only 10 weeks left until the big day.

job news-i found out that i was nominated for caregiver/teacher of the year award for minnesota by the parents at my school, which was a nice surprise! i love my kids and i love teaching. justin is hoping to get a job in the 833 district, and is applying for other long term sub positions as well. we are praying he gets some interviews this spring and summer! i think that's it for now!

mission accomplished

we were very productive this weekend which felt great! i designed and created our invites from scratch, using my amazing creative skills ;)...and we started cutting and assembling the invites this weekend, with the help of jenni and meghan. i think they turned out pretty good, and it saved us a ton of money. we wanted a modern, fun style with bright summer colors. we also started assembling our wedding favors--old fashioned rock candy, in cellophane bags that identically match our invites (i'm good :) we are going for a modern theme with a vintage twist. here are some pictures...justin is tying bows, how much more "hands on" can you get??...enjoy!!

of course we also made time for friends, fun, and...hockey! we celebrated sarah's birthday on friday and watched the wild's amazing victory!

thanks mom!

my mom gifted justin and i with a 12-piece china set. we are so lucky and excited to have it!

it is so beautiful.

wow! my bridesmaids did an awesome job on my surprise shower. i walked into my own home and thought everything was professionally planned and catered (oh yea, that's right...it was!) jenni and meghan used their event planning skills to pull off one flawless party... and rachael ray (aka monica) helped them bake some delicious food. i can only hope to cook as good as her some day. the shower doubled as a honeymoon/mexico theme (where we'll honeymoon) so we had an amazing assortment of mexican food and drinks. 17 people came so it was fun to visit with everyone. i got very, very nice gifts (some embarrassing, but fun!), which justin liked probably just as much as me! ;) everything was so carefully planned and put together and we all had a great time! thanks girls!

we also made our (hopefully) final decisions on the food and wine at our tasting on friday. the country club's food is absolutely incredible and we were very happy with the selection we picked out. it was fun to try so many delicious foods!

i ended the weekend with my hair trial.....and to my surprise it was a success! i am really happy with the way it turned out, and it stayed put all day even through all the errands i had to run and the rain :) i love rainy sundays!

justin and i had a wonderful weekend! we are so blessed with great family and friends. we visited with friends on friday night, and family on saturday. saturday morning we headed out to justin's dad's house and spent the afternoon there. it's nice to be able to see family after a long week at work! justin's dad and vonn helped him with his taxes and we did some wedding planning. after that we headed to mike and cindy's for a fabulous mexican fiesta! we taught them how to make guacamole and cindy made us some good drinks. she also made us the most delicious chicken enchiladas i have ever had! it was fun to see them again and to catch up on everything. we came home and relaxed and on sunday we did a whole lot of nothing--and it was amazing :)