Time flies..

So, another three months have gone by since I updated.  I guess time flies when you are having fun - and Lee and I have been having lots of fun lately!  Since I last posted, a lot of things have changed!  First of all, I finally graduated from MUSC and moved to our home in Easley.  Here are a few pictures we snapped at the graduation ceremony, which was held at a beautiful church in downtown Charleston. 

 

With my amazing husband - couldn't have done it without him.

With my two biggest supporters - my Mom & Dad.  They have always been my biggest fans and I couldn't ask for more loving parents.

After graduation, Lee and I worked on getting me settled in to our home.  We also decided to do some renovations and updates, including renovating the kitchen and updating the two spare bedrooms in our home to transform them into a guest room and an office.  The kitchen turned out amazingly and we are so pleased with the results.

Here is the before:

And the after:

Unfortunately, the above picture does not show our new backsplash - white subway tiles that we installed ourselves.  Hopefully I can find a picture to share of that as well.

We also celebrated our first married Christmas together - which was definitely the most exciting and special Chirstmas of our whole lives thus far.  It was wonderful to share the holiday with one another.  We decorated our home this year, and were pleased with how it turned out.  Although we definitely will do more decorating next year, I must say our first Christmas at our home was beautiful and memorable.

 

Now that the holiday rush is over, Lee and I have just been doing a lot of relaxing and enjoying each others' company.  We loved married life and are so thankful that we can finally spend more than every third weekend with one another.  This weekend, we are planning a trip to Savannah, along with my parents to celebrate 3 birthdays: My mom's 60th, my 24th, and Lee's 26th.  We are definitely looking forward to the trip and the time together!

Take care :)

- Gina

The Happiest Day of Our Lives & Living as Husband and Wife :)

Just like a flash, it was all over. Our wedding came and went in what felt like a whirlwind of a day. After what seems like an eternity of planning, everything was said and done in a 24 hour period. But what a perfect day it was! Memories from our wedding run through my mind daily, and they always bring a smile to my face (probably because I am lucky enough to have married this hunk)
I was surprisingly calm when I woke up - I had an overwhelming sense of happiness. At that point, absolutely nothing matter. I didn't care if the flower girl forgot to throw her petals, or if everyone's dress was wrinkle free, or if not a single person showed up. All that mattered was the fact that at 5:00 pm, I would walk down the aisle to the most wonderful man in the world, and we would leave that church as husband and wife, beginning our lives together.
The day was full of emotions, and everything turned out perfectly. We were surrounded by 300 supportive family and friends. And most importantly, we both said "I Do" without a single doubt.
Here are a few pictures that sum up the joy of the day!





After the wedding, we started our life together on a dream honeymoon to one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, Emerald Bay Resort in Exuma, the Bahamas. Lee planned the entire honeymoon, and he could not have done a better job. That week was truly one of the happiest times of my entire life, and I still get homesick for our honeymoon. I dream of the day that we can go back and live that worry-free life for another week. I plan to do an entire post about our honeymooon one day, but here a few pictures to give you an idea of the paradise we got to enjoy for 8 days!



I had to return to Charleston when we came back from our honeymoon. But fortunately, Lee and I have been able to see each other quite a bit. We have spent a great deal of time working on our home, which is looking better each and every day. We were even able to go on a weekend get away with my parents and some of their friends to Tennessee!


We are so enjoying married life and just couldn't be happier. Now, we are counting down the days until December 3rd when I will graduate from nursing school and officially move into our home!!

- Gina

Going to the Chapel...

It is so hard to believe that in 5 days, Lee and I are getting married. I was reading through my earlier blog entries a few days ago, and I saw a post that said our wedding was 14 months away. Back then, I thought I had SOO much time to get everything done. Guess what? I was wrong. Those 14 months flew by! I don't think time has EVER passed so quickly! It has been over two years since Lee proposed! We have been dating for over four years. Where in the world does the time go?! I feel like someone has been sitting on my life's remote control and they are pressing the fast forward button.
In exactly five days, I will be wearing my wedding dress. I will be sitting in the bridal parlor at the church with my bridesmaids waiting on 5:00 pm when my dad will walk to down the aisle to meet my groom. I don't think the reality has set in yet, but the nerves certainly have. For the past few nights, I have woken up nearly every hour thinking of things to add to my growing "to do" list. Add in the fact that I have a Women's Health final exam at 9:00 am on Wednesday, and you can only imagine how stressed I am!
But, even with all of the stress and loss of sleep, planning this wedding has been fun. I have been able to spend so much time with my mom, and she and I have enjoyed every minute of tying hundreds of ribbons and making zillions of bows out of tulle because those projects have given us the chance to spend lots of time with each other.
I have no idea how I would have gotten all of this done without my parents. In fact, I know that it would have been impossible. My mom has been working on wedding stuff every day for the past few months. And dad was always a big helper! He helped us out a great deal. They have been so wonderful and I feel so lucky to have them as my parents!!!
We still have a ton of stuff to do, but I know that with the help of all of the wonderful people Lee and I have in our lives, it will all come together over the next few days, and our wedding will be everything we have dreamed of!
- Gina

The Little Things

Lately, I have been feeling overwhelmed (to say the least). The combination of my rapidly approaching wedding (9 more days!!!) and finals have made me feel like I may have pushed my self to the limit.
So as I was sitting around having a pity party for myself - I read this little quote while browsing one of my new favorite things: Pinterest!

So simple, but so true!
At that moment I realized that all of this "stress" I have been experiencing has came from two of the greatest blessing of my life. Instead of complaining, I should be thankful!!
Nursing school was never a part of my life plan - but you know what they say, we make plans and then God laughs. He had a plan for me from the beginning, and I am so very happy with where my life has lead me. I have made some of the greatest friends anyone could ask for, and have loved every moment of living in Charleston. I occasionally get so focused on the academic aspect of school that I entirely forget about the sweet patients that I am helping every day - something that brings so much joy to my heart.
Also, marrying Lee will be the greatest day of my life. He is more than amazing and I feel blessed just knowing that he and I will share a life together. Our relationship is my rock. I can not wait to say "I do" :)

My new goal for myself is to try and focus on the little things that make the big, stressful, overwhelming stuff worth it all.
Every day is full of blessings - we just have to make sure we stop long enough to see them.

- Gina

Catching Up

I feel like I completely abandoned this blog! I created it to document all of our progress with planning a wedding, buying and decorating our first home, and creating a new life together. However, with all of the craziness in our lives recently, the blogging got pushed by the wayside.

I should probably start with a major update, considering that our last update was back in October. Since that time, Lee has moved into our home
in Easley - he has been staying there since late November. He is such a sweetheart that he decided to stay in one of the guest rooms so that we could "move in" to the master bedroom together after the wedding. How lucky am I? We have slowly but surely been making some improvements to the house. We are so blessed with supportive families that have been wonderful at helping us get things accomplished. We purchased furniture over a few week span in April - May. My goal was to get the living room, dining room, and master bedroom completed before the wedding. We successfully accomplished a great deal in those rooms, and while they are no where near complete, they make me happy :)
Most of our projects have been minor cosmetic changes to make our home prettier - we repainted the living room, dining room, and bedroom. We installed a new chandelier and molding around it in the dining room, as well as installed some chair rail. Once the painting is complete and we return from our honeymoon, we are planning to install picture molding on the lower half of the walls in the dining room. We also have purchased the large furniture pieces for those three rooms - everything came from Haverty's and Pottery Barn and we are so in love with our purchases! There are still some items that we need to purchase - but the overall bones of the rooms are in place!

Here are a few sneak peeks of our progress - Please note: These rooms are NO WHERE NEAR completion - I have big plans for decor and have already made a few purchases of fabrics and project materials that I plan to use to add some "oomph" to our rooms.

New paint in the living room with new sofa, chair, rug, coffee table, and matching love seat & end table (not pictured). This picture was taken with a cell phone camera which makes it look really dark. We are going to have some custom throw pillows made, as well as some drapes. I also have a plan for a wall shelf display on the wall behind the chair that will hopefully look something like this:
Here is the dining room in its current state:
Our dining furniture from PB :)

New paint on the walls and chair rail - picture molding coming soon :) (remember that this room was the most depressing shade of dark brown when we bought the house - It looked like we were in a cave)

I also bought an assortment of white plates and platters that I plan to use to create a wall display similar to this:I have also had my eye on this rug to use in the dining room. I think it would be a great addition :)

Some of our biggest changes have occured in the Master Bedroom and I am soooo excited about how it is coming along! The picture I have had in my mind is starting to come together :)
Let's recall what it looked like when we bought the house last year:

Hmm - plain, plain, plain - and super dark and dreary. The room reminded me of rainy days for some reason, and although those are very nice and relaxing every now and then, I didn't want Lee or myself to develop Seasonal Affective Disorder, haha. So we changed it up a bit :)

Here is what it looks like now:


New bed - upholstered head board from PB = one of my favorite things!! New bedding, new paint, new pillows :) We also bought some other furniture for the room:

These pictures were taken with cell phone cameras, so they don't do a great job of showing how good the room looks now - but I promise, it is such a huge improvement. We also have purchased white linen drapes to hang, but ran out of time - those will be up after the honeymoon. I am also hoping to add a mirror like this above the bed:
So that is the condition of our house right now - we obviously have a long way to go, so check back in for more updates :) I promise to do another one soon and not wait another eight months to update!

Enjoy your day!
- Gina

Update on Life and Becoming Homeowners

I realized today that it has been an incredibly long time since I have updated my blog. I definitely need to being updating more frequently. So a recap of the past several months.
In August, I moved to Charleston to attend MUSC for Nursing. My plan at this point is to get my BSN and then enroll in the Doctor of Nursing Practice program (if I get accepted --- fingers crossed!) to become a Family Nurse Practitioner. Charleston is amazing! I have made a lot of great friends and am really enjoying myself. However, I do miss my family and a certain someone (the future hubby) very badly!
Luckily, Lee and I are able to deal with separation very well. We are both very supportive of each other! And it makes us appreciate our time together even more. We see each other as often as we can and look forward to the time when we can finally see each other everyday!
Prior to moving to Charleston, Lee and I decided to begin looking at houses - you known, just for ideas of what we like! Well, our first day of checking out some homes, we stumbled upon a house that we absolutely fell in love with. After immediately calling the realtor (luckily she was able to meet us that day while we were in Easley) and spending 2 hours walking through the house, we decided that we wanted this to be our first home. We debated about what to offer, but four days later, we made our first offer on the house. Within a week, we negotiated an agreement with the sellers. We filed for a mortgage (which was extremely intimidating and exciting at the same time). We were approved :) On October 12, 2010 - Lee closed on our home. I was in Charleston and was unable to attend the closing!
You can not begin to imagine how excited we were.
I can't wait to start decorating our home! Now we get to look for furniture.
We are planning to do a few things to the house, like repaint a few rooms, install some molding, replace the counter tops, and finish the basement to turn it into a "man cave" for my wonderful fiance!
Here are a few pictures we took when we took our families up to see our house!

Proud homeowners!

We just feel so blessed to have a home that we love! I get so excited to think of all the wonderful things that we will experience together in this home, and all of the amazing memories that we will make here!
God has blessed us tremendously and we are so thankful!
Can't wait to start decorating! I will be sure to share!
-Gina

House hunting

Lee and I have recently began looking for our first home! We are both really excited, but are finding the process to be very stressful. While we won't be getting married until next year, we know that we are going to be extremely busy between now and then, so we are hoping to get a head start so that we have plenty of time to find something that is perfect for us.
We just started the process of looking, and so far we haven't found anything that feels like the right choice for us, but we know that we will find the perfect home soon!
I am just so happy to be searching for our home.
I have already starting decorating in my mind.
I know that no matter what we buy, it is going to be the most wonderful home in the whole world (to us, atleast).