Very long update...

Well, I haven't written anything on here in a while. I was planning on writing something earlier this past week, after the bridal faire that we went to, but we had a tragic accident happen Wednesday night that has just made me very sad and bitter for the past few days.

I don't feel like explaining what happened because I'm at work right now and don't want to start crying in front of the guys (The only person I feel "comfortable" crying around, is Chop. I don't even like crying in front of my family). But, to make a long story short, Chop and I lost our adopted baby, Bella, due to a VERY freak accident on Wednesday night. It was nothing we could have helped or that we would have thought to happen and be able to prevent. She was strictly an inside cat and we thought that nothing could happen to her with things being that way, as long as we took good care of her and loved her. Well, we were wrong and it was probably the only thing that could have possibly gone wrong to hurt her...and it did. Not only was that tragic enough, but we then had to watch her die while we couldn't do anything to make her better or hurt less.

We have both been very upset about it for the past few days and so I haven't felt like doing much of anything. We finally got out of the house last night, and I wasn't even able to manage getting through the whole night without tearing up several times. It may sound stupid to some people that we let something like a pet dying get to us so much, but she really was our baby. She was our first big responsibility that we had together (besides the dogs, but they are always outside and they walk around to his parent's house sometimes) and we were taking care of her so good and doing things that were best for her...and then she ended up dying. She wasn't like most cats where they like to be independent and be alone a lot of the time. She was always waiting at the door when we'd pull into the yard, she would stay right underneath us any time we walked to a different part of the house, and she'd lay around and be lazy with us on days that we were too. We could even put our head down next to her and she'd starting nudging her face up against our cheeks, as if she was giving us kisses. Chop didn't even want a cat to begin with. I had to beg him to let me get her...but, she was full grown, fixed, fat, and lazy and I was finally able to talk him into it. He ended up loving her and being just as attached as I was.

Anyway, that's enough about that...I just wanted to talk about how much I loved her for a minute. Then, I'll try to get onto actual wedding stuff. Here are a few pictures of our "Bella Button."

She loved on him every night when we'd go to bed. This was actually only a couple of weeks before she died on March 4, 2009. :'(

The day we brought her home, after getting her settled in...I was sooooo happy.

She was such a priss pot. Even if no one had told us she was a girl...we would have known that she was.

After giving him hugs and kisses, she would conk out on top of him...and then move over to me a few minutes later and sleep under my arm or on top of my legs.

Anyway, about the bridal faire...
It was freezing outside. I've been to two others and they were inside and it was so hot because of all the people running around like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to get their papers signed before the prize drawings. I wore a short sleeved shirt and brought a jacket because it was cold outside, but figured that SURELY it would be inside, since it was one of the coldest days all winter (it was the day that it snowed as close to us as Dothan and Troy). Well, we pull up to Pier Park...and it's outside. The wind is CRAZY and it's freezing! Chop and his mom were going to meet us there, so they brought a couple of blankets and Chop's extra jackets so we could bundle up once we saw that it was outside. We went around to all of the vendors as fast as we could and signed everything in record speed. The idiots that were supposed to put up the siding on the tent were about 3 hours late...and then once they got there, they acted like they'd never done it before.

The whole thing was very unorganized. While most bridal faires seem to last about 3-4 hours...this one was over the span of 6 hours. They had the drawings split up where they did a few of them every hour or so...but, it was never exactly a specific amount of time between each drawing. So, basically, it made it where you felt like you had to sit there the whole time to see if your name was called because you had to be present to win. Well, we pulled up the Excursion as close as we could, where we could still hear the announcer and just decided we would get out and run up if we won something. Well, my name was called during the first drawing and it was finally something better than a picture frame! I won a free Groom's cake, as long as I use her for my Bride's cake. I went to her website and her cakes are awesome. She had the best tasting cake there, that's for sure. The best part was that it wasn't dry like a lot of cake ends up being. (cakesbytanis.com if you want to check out her cakes)

We also went to Dillard's and registered for our flatware and our casual dinnerware.
A few days later, Mom and I went to Bed, Bath, & Beyond and registered some more, picked out formal dinnerware (china) and Chop and I have to go back and finish when we both have time and have a day off together.

Then, today...I got a phone call from one of the vendors and it was to tell me that I won her drawing for a free engagement photography session. I went to her site and she is just starting in the wedding photography, but she's been traveling, taking pictures of objects and people from a distance. She doesn't have her wedding photography site up yet, but she sent me to her traveling photography site and she's pretty good. She's not GREAT, but she's good...and a lot better than somebody that had no clue what they were doing. She also seems to have a good eye. Her camera just doesn't seem to be of GREAT quality...plus she uses transparencies and not digital. So, I think that could be why. I don't know much about photography, but I am pretty sure that digital pictures turn out better usually. But, free is free is free, so I'm not complaining. I'm still very happy about it. She also wants us to come to Panama City instead of her coming to DeFuniak or Chipley. So that's going to keep us from being able to do pictures in the ambulance that Chop works on, for our save-the-dates. I think we still may try to get that to happen though if our friend Katie is still willing to take them for us before she pops (she is pregnant and due next month). She was going to do them for free because she just takes pictures for fun. She's not a professional, but she takes pictures of her son and niece and she's pretty dang good...and she has a good camera.

Anyway, I think that's about it.
I'm going to leave you with a picture of Chop and I while we were in Dillard's. He's smiling SUPER HUGE in the picture because I had just told him that he could "shoot" things since I got to "shoot" when we registered at Target. He ended up going nuts with it when I wasn't looking and registered for all sorts of RIDICULOUS things, that I ended up having to delete online once I got home. What a dork.