Our Weird Marriage

A little over a year ago Dave and I had our second wedding. It was on the beach and was perfect. You can read about it here, here and here. To celebrate our second wedding I'm sharing some weird / funny things about our marriage.

What really triggered this post happened the other day. I was sitting on the couch and my husband was packing and whistling. He wasn't just whistling to any tune. He was whistling to the Johnny Appleseed Song. Have you ever heard of it? I hadn't either until I got married. Dave started singing it one day and I thought he had lost his mind until he taught it to me and now we both sing it. So let's just get to this list...

some weird / funny things we do in our marriage

singing - I know I mentioned Dave whistled the Johnny Appleseed Song but the real truth is sometimes we sing that song out loud, together. If that isn't grand enough sometimes we sing songs before we go to sleep and sometimes they are songs 'in the round'. You know, the kind you grew up singing in church. Think 'King of Kings and Lord of Lords, glory..." Oh my goodness I can't believe I just wrote that out. It's true though. We sing ... in the round. I hope our neighbors don't hear but if they do #weareawesome

food - for starters, I can often out eat Dave with little no shame. #ilovefood! If that isn't bad enough there have been numerous occasions where we go out to eat and the waiter / waitress comes out and this happens: 

waiter: "Sir, here is your steak and baked potato". 

me: "Oh, um ... that's actually mine". 

waiter: weird look followed by "Sorry about that. Here is your steak ma'am and here is your chicken with steamed veggies sir". 

I then eat about 90% of that steak and Dave eats about 10%. 

cookies - Dave has to have milk with his cookies. Me? I have to have water to go along with the 213412 cookies I eat. I don't do milk unless it is in a latte or cereal. I think it's gross. Oh and Dave HAS to have his cookies warm. 

gps - You don't want to be in a car with me when I have to re-route / route a new trip. Me and the gps officially hate each other. I've said a lot of mean things to to that gps and it isn't pretty. 

traffic - Dave feels the same way about traffic as I do the gps, especially construction traffic. 

documentaries - Most newlyweds watch cool movies or actually go to the movies. Well, Dave and I have never been on an official date to the movies together and we watch documentaries at home. We are watching a documentary on Yellowstone as I type this... ha ha! I really do enjoy documentaries. You can learn all about different countries, cultures, foods, wildlife, etc.

animal voices - Dave and I are pro's for giving animals voices. There really should be an award for this because, hands down, we would win! We 'speak' all the time for our cat and dog. We speak for the cows, birds, animals we drive by and we even make up voices for animals we see on the internet. One time I at crossfit someone brought a dog and I started speaking for it in my awesome animal voice ... and that got awkward real fast. Apparently not everyone in the world speaks for animals, but they should. ;)

There you have it - our little list of fun / weird things we do. I honestly think the 'weird' things are what makes marriages fun. I think each relationship has unique things that bring laughter and joy, and that, in and of itself, is a blessing.

What weird / funny things do you do? 

Fujifilm Polaroid Camera Giveaway

One of my favorite things that I discovered and purchased while living abroad in Korea was a Fujifilm Polaroid camera. I absolutely love that little camera. I take it with me on special occasions as well as on special trips. Sure, it is a bit bulky and adds to my luggage but it's worth it. When Dave and I went to Hawaii this past March I took it with us and got some fun little pictures to remember our trip with. 

    

My favorite polaroid pictures were from my beach wedding. The total number of guests at my wedding came up to a total of 24 people - family and my closest friends. My friend Alisha went around and took polaroid pictures of everyone. That picture was then placed in a scrapbook where they wrote a message next to it. They could write a word of encouragement, a verse or whatever they wanted. I love that it was so personal and that their picture is right there. I also really cherish having wisdom on marriage from my parents, siblings and friends. Godly wisdom from those closest to you is just something special that I can't really put into words.

I've also used the camera at special occasions for other people. My friend here in Woodward opened a crossfit gym and I took some pictures with the Polaroid and gave it to her. When I visited my friend in California and met her baby, more polaroids! These little pictures are great for memories, showers, guestbooks and more.

Today I'm teaming up with Felecia, Rachel and Alex to give away a Fujifilim Instax Mini Camera + 1 pack of film (10 pictures) to one lucky winner. The pictures are pretty equivalent to the size of a credit card and are just so much fun. I've been wanting to give away this camera on my blog for a while now and I'm excited one of you readers will get it. The giveaway is open internationally as long as the international winner agrees to pay for shipping. The winner will be verified, etc. etc. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Beach Wedding - Part 3, The Reception

I’m thankful for my friends in Pensacola who recommend Hemingway’s Island Grill for a reception. Hemmingway's did a fabulous job. They decorated the tables, let me tweak the set menu and had fabulous service. Another big perk they offered me was to allow me to bring in my own dessert, with no fees. I’ve worked in the service industry so I knew the deal was great. Most companies charge you to bring in any extra food of your but not Hemingways. 

Having a big cake and feeding each other never appealed to me. So, instead of cake I picked crème brulee and cookies. My brother-in-law and sister-in-laws like crème brûlée too so I asked them to make it for the reception. I got them all the ingredients and they made me some of the best crème brûlée I’ve ever tasted. 

Let’s not forget the cookies!!! I made two big batches earlier in the week, froze them and then Kirsten was nice enough to bake them up the day of. Not gonna lie, I worried that Kirsten and Shenel would devour a good portion of them before the wedding. Those girls can't be trusted with dessert. They did good though and left some for the reception.

 Also, my brother and I have this gross tradition that we started randomly at thanksgiving. You take one small bite of everything, chew it up and show it off to each other. The first person to show off their chewed up nasty food wins! So, without exception we did this with the cookies too. Just the cookies though, not all the other food this time. 

The reception and getting to visit with everyone was a favorite part of our wedding day.

Can you tell who was done with weddings by this time??? Poor Dave. He didn't stay like this for long and still had a great time. 

After we stuffed our faces and visited we went outside and lit sparklers. I especially love that my sister Holly looks as though she is on the verge of torching Dave’s head in the pictures. 

Well, that is it folks! The day went perfect, just as I imagined. I couldn’t have done it without all of the help from friends and family. I've said it once and I'll say it over and over THANKS for helping Dave and I have a beautiful wedding.

Beach Wedding - Part 2

After Dave and I took lots of pictures, we headed to the beach where our family awaited us (we were late to our own wedding...). We walked down the aisle together to The Piano Guys version of Over the Rainbow / Simple Gifts. I think Dave and I have funny expressions in this picture. 

My Dad got to marry us twice. He spoke about Christ's work on the cross for us, the true meaning of what a Biblical marriage is, and he read us a poem reminding us that the small things add up to big things. 

I'm not sure what was so funny here but it makes for such a fun picture of Dave.

It’s always nice when a John Deere ATV comes driving by too … classy dude…real classy! 

After Mr. John Deere left, our families gathered around us. Cherrel and Alisha led us in singing the hymn How Great Thou Art. I couldn’t have picked two better people to sing for our wedding. Alisha, Cherrel and I sang and led worship together in Korea. Having them sing at our wedding was a treasure. 

Dave and I said our vows that we wrote and exchanged our rings. Has anyone else felt awkward saying vows out loud infront of people or is it just me? 

Followed by our vows and ring my brother and our good friend Jeremy prayed over our marriage. 

And then walaaa we were married, for the second time! 

 I loved the small beach wedding. I felt relaxed and comfortable surrounded by our family and close friends. I can’t think of a better way to say our vows and dedicate our marriage to God. We then took a lot of family pictures (which I loved). 

The entire wedding party.

This is the first family picture since the babies and Dave were added to our family. I love love love this picture! 

 Dave's family - who have been so welcoming and kind

All my wonderful sisters. 

Our supportive and fun friends

We took a few more pictures after the ceremony. Here a few of my favorites

So there you have our ceremony. Blogging a wedding is a lot of work =) However, I thought it would be good for family and friends to see and read about it. I have one more post about our reception and then I'll be all done with the day of wedding events. Thanks for reading and following along. Again, I can't say thanks enough to our family and friends who have supported us over the years. 

Beach Wedding – Part 1

First off let me tell you that there was 40%-60% chance of rain all week for my wedding. Saturday morning came and the rain.poured.down. You better believe I prayed all week for no rain! However, I’m thankful because the rain stopped and it was overcast for our wedding, which was perfect; it wasn’t too bright or too hot. 

Saturday morning began by getting everyone together for breakfast. We had lots of fruit, bagel head bagels, coffee and juice. Nom! Nom! Daniel also had a great time with the water balloons... =)

Dave’s family later surprised us with these awesome matching unicorn shirts. I still don’t 100% understand why, but Dave’s family loves to tease him about unicorns and babies and anything else they think is embarrassing. =) It's hard to see on the photo but the shirt has a unicorn with Dave and I photo shopped on top of it. It's a fun family joke although Dave will tell you 'that's lame'.

Breakfast came and went and us girls headed on over to the condo to get ready. I just love this picture; it says ‘girl time’ in so many ways. 

No one ever told me the great task getting a wedding dress on was. My sisters were scared that my makeuped face might smudge my dress, so Holly decided it would be best to suffocate me by putting a t-shirt over my face. She thought it was hilarious and I love her face of laughter in the pictures.

 All ready ... I went to meet Dave. He patiently waited for 20+ minutes for me to finally get down to the beach … This was kind of our ‘first look’. He had come to the condo earlier while we were getting ready. I don't think he realized all the girl things that simultaneously occurred. 

I decided that I wanted to go somewhere where it was just Dave and I to take pictures. Being around lots of people who would be watching made me nervous, besides check out these girls who leaned over the balcony for our first look ;) 

Dave and I first went to Ft. Pickens to take photos

And then we went to the beach

There is part 1! Stay tuned, I’ll be posting more about my wedding soon, including the ceremony, reception and some lessons I learned along the way.