Wedding Bells

What better reason to head back to the USA then a wedding!! I'd been talking about Kara and Chris's wedding ever since Kara's trip to Scandinavia back in September when she announced the news, so I was ecstatic that the day had finally arrived. As with most wedding weekends, there were lots of events and last minute details to attend to, but Kara and her mom were (of course) super organized and things went incredibly smoothly and we all had a lot of time to relax and spend time together celebrating this great couple.

I flew on on a Wednesday so I could be sure to be over my jet lag before things really got rolling on Friday. On Thursday we ran some errands, I got my haircut, and did some prep work for the evening barbeque that the Wallace's were hosting to kick off the wedding weekend. The bridesmaid's had all gotten into town and it was fabulous to see so many friends as well as meet some of Kara's friends from high school. Friday started with a bridesmaid luncheon at the Swan House in which Kara treated us to monogramed canvas bags and a pair of black, gittery Reefs to wear post ceremony...nice one! From there we were able to relax a little in the afternoon before heading off to the church for the rehearsal. The rehersal dinner was at a great local Mexican restaurant...margs and guac, what better way to start celebrating with Kara and Chris!
Satruday morning Kara treated us to manicures and Lindsay and her mom organized a delicious breakfast. Later that day is was off to the salon to watch Kara get her make-up and hair done. And then it was time for the main event!!!

The ceremony was fabulous...from Kara's adorable nephew Charlie marching down the aisle with the rings, to the Scotish bagpipes shortly before Kara and her dad walked down the aisle, to Scott Thompson's amazing solo of a Chris Tomlin song that Kara and Chris has selected.

From there is was onto the party bus which took the wedding party to the reception. My parents flew in for the weekend too which made the weekend even more special.

The night included some incredible food (shocker!), fantastic toasts, great company, and lots of dancing which included a competition between the groomsmen/Chris and bridesmaids/Kara on the dancefloor. The boys made a noble effort with Mustang Sally, but they were no match for the ladies (complete with our many years of sorority experience) who sang along to Brown Eyed Girl.

I could go on and on about what a great weekend it was and what a spectacular couple Chris and Kara are, but I think I'll just go with.... TILLYKKE!!!

Back to Blogging!

Whew! 4 months without posting, I am the shame of the blogging world. But, I'm back in action and have a lot to catch up on! But first a little time to reflect/confess on why I dissapeared for a little while. I wish I could say it was because I was traveling all over Europe and the world and was busy having so much fun. While there were definitely a lot of fun times...the majority of it was that I lost my perspective.

What do I mean by that? Well...any of you who know me at all, know that I tend to push myself a little too hard and don't really accept anything short of "perfection" from myself. Well, the job I have here is managing a project that is far from perfect and at the beginning of the year I inherited a new, more complicated part of the project and in the middle of a huge organizational change. Instead of accepting that this is a normal situation in the business world, I pretty much freaked out and started working insane hours trying to figure out the "perfect" solution, worrying about work all the time, withdrawing from spending time with friends, not exercising as much because I was so exhausted, not eating well, etc....basically obsessed with work to a point where I was making myself sick. And then, to make matters worse I started looking at all the things that were wrong with my life instead of all the things that are right with it.

Thankfully I had a lot of great friends and family here and back in the US who stood by me through all this mess, constantly encouraging me and speaking Truth into my life. And thankfully, I've finally been able to see that God was using this situation to teach me more about Himself and reveal some of the areas in my life that I need to work on. I had to depend on God's strength and God's grace to get me through each day Believing that every circumstance in my life is under His soveirgn control and is working together for my good. Trusting that God never wastes an experience.

They say you learn more about yourself through adversity and challenges and I could not agree more. And while these were tough lessons to learn, I am grateful for them. And grateful that I'm back to feeling myself and back to exloring Scandinavia..Europe...and the world. Now to catch you all up on the past few months....