Changes in My Life

Well, I still cannot access the internet on my laptop, but the family computer is up and running. I had several posts I had planned on doing the past couple weeks and lost all of them halfway through writing them out.
Things have only really started slowing down for my family within the past couple of days. It felt so strange throughout the days just before the wedding, I knew what all was going on but none of it really felt like it was actually happening. On Thursday the 16th, we did as much of the more "last minute" shopping that we could, there were still certain things that had to be picked up the day of, but we designated that to other people. Thursday was supposed to be a fairly relaxed day, our friends from Ohio were flying in, we were going to pick them up at the airport at about noon, then spend the afternoon visiting them. They ended up missing their flight so would not actually arrive till midnight. So we came home and unloaded everything, then ended up meeting with some friends who had flown up from Arizona for lunch. My grandparents arrived late afternoon, we had dinner with them, then went to a "sister shower", Roman's sister Rayia had put together for Caitlin. Rayia, it was lovely, thank you so much! A great time of getting to just spend some "sister" time together, I think Caitlin really felt that she was able to get to know you all and bond a bit more through that.
My father, Hayley and I went to the airport about 11:30 to pick up the friends and our aunt. After getting them settled and everything down for the night, went to bed about 1:30 a.m. The next morning was spent doing the flowers( Again, thank you so much Rayia!), making frosting for the 312 cupcakes (much thanks to my aunt Anna for that!), and loading up all the decor, food and various little things you need to pull a wedding together.


At the church, it was mostly getting the reception area put together, Caitlin likes things very simple so the sanctuary was very quickly put together, mostly just candles up there.
But downstairs it was a little more hectic, trying to get a bunch of round tables set up in the most advantageous way can be very difficult, especially when you have several different people who have very different ideas of way it should be done, eventually it all came together, mostly due to *ahem*, myself... well, it's true! =D
After that it was fairly simple, getting the decor put out and all the lights put up, although, really there has got to be a better way to store swag lights so they don't get that tangled! I think the most trouble was just getting some doorways and such covered up so that we didn't have certain "ugly" things showing.
Rehearsal started about 4 p.m. and went pretty quickly, they had written out the order of everything beforehand so we just had to follow directions. Ran through things a couple of times, mostly to get the timing of the music just right. All the music was played by friends, Caitlin walked down to The Seaside from BBC's new Emma, a gorgeous piece wouldn't mind using myself.
After rehearsal went to the dinner, Rhonda did a wonderful job putting it all together, though I'm afraid I wasn't really able to appreciate it all as I was pretty close to falling asleep on my feet by that point, and because of all the activity and being on my feet all day was in a lot of pain from my hip. When we got home I did Caitlin's nails and took a shower, slept very well, thankfully, not sure I would have made it through the next day otherwise. Most of the morning was spent doing hair, I did Caitlin's, which took about an hour to curl and another 45 minutes to put up. Then had mine done by Megan (fabulous job, Megan! and you used 18 less pins than the last time.=). Also helped with my two younger sisters hair and did Hayley's make-up. We got to the church about 11 a.m. Got dressed then did pictures of the ladies. After that it was pretty much just sitting in a back room waiting. It felt really odd, usually with events and such I'm out in the midst of everything, setting things up or making sure that all is just as it is supposed to be. To just sit and wait without any idea of how things may be was an entirely new and not extremely pleasant experience.
But everything went quite smoothly, the whole ceremony seemed rather surreal to me, I wasn't at all nervous or anything like some warned I might be, wasn't even emotional, mostly because it just didn't feel to me like it was all actually happening. But now for some pictures, we havn't gotten the photographers yet, these were taken by a friend and my grandma.

Anna, putting the "cake" together.

Waiting for the bride...

"By the authority of God, I now pronounce you husband and wife!"

They walked out to Marie's Wedding on bagpipes, how cool is that!

I couldn't resist, isn't she adorable!
The Mallery and Carstensen families, a little lopsided, but we're working on it. =)
And the Carstensen family, finally with a son in there!
The bridal party, we were told to do something goofy, as you can see, some of us are good at it... others not so much
"Oh, you horrible man!"
And victory for the guys...

So after the wedding things just seemed to fly by, as maid of honor I had to give a speech at the reception*shudders*, not my favorite part. I tried to write something out but it wasn't working for me so I ended up just winging it, you'll have to ask someone else how it was, as I really cannot remember what even I said. Then there was signing of the marriage license, and I assisted Roman's brother's in kidnapping Caitlin and then holding her for ransom, we were able to get about $280 for her.
Then went out sabotaged their car, mostly just writing on the windows and some balloons, but we also wired the horn to the brake.
I didn't feel like I really got a chance to say goodbye to my sister as there was so much going on and so many people around, but then it's not like she was really leaving, they live close by and I really see her quite a bit, but it is definitely not the same.
Finished cleaning everything up about 7 p.m., much thanks to the Underhills, Haymonds, Mason's and River and Rosh, we would have been there a lot later if not for all of you. After cleaning up, we ended up having all the family from out of town come to our house, picked up some sandwhiches from Subway and just visited for a while, everyone left around 11 p.m. Then I got to bed around 12:30 ( it took a while to wind down). Got up a 5 the next morning to go with my dad to the airport to see the Fellraths off. It was really the only opportunity I got to visit with Kirsten, otherwise I probably would have just stayed in bed. When we got back I wasn't pretty well awake so did all the dishes from dinner the night before and cleaned the kitchen, then went downstairs (yes, the kitchen in our house is upstairs) and organized all the boxes of stuff that had just been unloaded and dumped the night before. We went to church (I was running on lots of coffee) but didn't stay for the meal and afternoon service, came home for a quick lunch then visited with my dad's family from California(most of my mom's had left that morning).Showed then Roman and Caitlin's apartment and went out to dinner.
The next few days were spent getting all the wedding stuff back to it's rightful owner's and/or packed away. I am now moved downstairs, the upside's of which being that I am no longer sharing a room and even have my own bathroom, the down being that it is unfinished, about 3/4 is sheetrocked, the floor is plywood, no paint and no outlets. But we hope to get it finished up gradually so hopefully someday I'll be able to post about my finished room!
So, I was asked to post about my birthday which was 2 days ago, I am now 19! Really, it was quite a relief to me to be done with 18. I didn't really do anything for my birthday, so don't have much to share, and no pictures were taken... sorry, they would have been rather boring anyway.
I did have my new brother-in-law and his wife over, and we had a quiet, relaxing evening together.

My father brought me a dozed red roses!

My parents gave me a digital camera, so maybe you'll start seeing more pictures of my life in general on my blog.

And my sisters gave me a new jean skirt(they are staples in my closet, like a pair jeans, but a lot more expensive and difficult to find). And from Caitlin and Roman, the Horatio Hornblower series, can't wait to watch them again.

Okay, so this is really long and it has now been several hours since I first sat down at the computer. Soon I hope to get back to the Lady in Waiting posts, as I will have a lot more time now for doing all that. Hope you got a glimpse of the blessed day in our life and big change and that I didn't bore you all too much.
In Christ, His Handmaiden