House Work

My (Liz) Dad got here Tuesday safe and sound! We are very excited and blessed to have him here to help out with the house. There is lots of work to do and we are so happy that we have someone who knows what they are doing so that we have confidence in living in our new home! Previous owners had done their own "upgrades" to the house and now we are trying to fix them to make them a)legal and b)safe. We have already completely torn out the downstairs bathroom and it already looks tons better! We have to pix some shoddy plumbing issues and redo the walls but it was definitely fun to tear everything apart! We are so excited to see all of the transformations in the house because it has so much potential. My Dad is really enjoying helping us and showing what needs to be done and just dreaming up things to do in the future and how to make things more accessible. We will be keeping you posted with pictures and updates I'm sure so be watching out for them!

Wedding Woes/Frustrations

As most of you know we are both in Florida now but we are still having our wedding in Oregon. This has been a bit of a challenge along the way to make it workable for as many people as possible to be able to attend. Having Liz work on wedding details while being on the opposite side of the country has been a little crazy. Most everything has been planned out which has made it a little easier but there have still been a few snags here and there. We had originally found the perfect rental space for all of the wedding party and their spouses on Russell's side. Yesterday when Liz called to check up on when they wanted us to pay them we found out that they shorted us our weekend days to give to someone else. Big let down and now we are stuck looking for another place with only 5 months to go. We are hoping that this is a blessing in disguise as that rental was fairly far out of the way. God knows what He is doing but sometimes the things people do here on earth can be quite frustrating! Everything else is a go though and we still have each other. 148 more days until we are married and we are super excited. We can't wait to share that day with our friends and family from all over! We can't say for sure if we ever thought wedding planning would be quite this stressful but we are definitely learning along the way and it has been good to learn how do deal with life's little surprises together.

The Beginning

Well as we only have 5 more months until the wedding we decided to start a blog. Being as how we have family on both coasts we figured it would be a good way for people to see what is happening with us. We got engaged in June 2009 when Russell flew out to Oregon and we have been having so much fun planning for the wedding in June 2010. God saw fit to bless us with our first home (in Florida) and we closed back in Septmember/October but boy has it been a whirlwind since then. It was a forclosure and was sold "as-is" but we got an amazing deal on it. Needless to say we have pretty much been working on it since. It's a split level 4 bedroom 2 1/2 bathroom house with a semi-detached mother-in-law suite that adds another bedroom and bathroom. There is a small pool out back and it's in a great neighborhood. Apparently Russell thought we would need the extra room for all the visitors we would be getting haha! It has already changed so much just in the last few months with what work we have been able to do on it with Russell working full-time and me being in Oregon. Being on opposite coasts was starting to take it's toll so we decided that I (Liz) should move out to Florida early. So I have been here since about mid-December staying with Russell's parents who were nice enough to open their home to me :-) My Dad is going to be coming to visit and help us get some more work done at the house (I pick him up in the morning) and we are so excited to have him here! We are very thankful that he will be able to help us get the house move in ready so that it will be ready for us to move into after the wedding. Having the wedding in Oregon and planning partially from Florida has been interesting but we are super blessed to have a great team including Liz's good friend Nikki. So with 5 months to go, wedding plans to make, jobs to do, and a house to prepare we will certainly be busy! We will try our best to keep you all updated :-) If you are interested we have a website for the wedding and that address is www.ourweddinginoregon.com you can also find us both on facebook! We want to start putting up pictures soon of the house project process so we be looking for updates on that as well. We love you all and God bless!