2 Year Anniversary

Preston and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary last Thursday and it was the greatest day ever! Our original plans were to go to dinner Thursday night and then to the Four Seasons to spend the night on Friday but unbeknown to me, Preston had a better idea.

He stuck with the first part of our plan on Thursday and took me to Wolfgang Puck's new restaurant, Five Sixty at Reunion Tower because I had taken him there in college before we were dating (when the restaurant was still Antares). He told me he was going to give me my gift at dinner but when we were seated I noticed he had brought nothing with him. I gave him his card (since his gift was the TiVo) and then he proceeded to tell me that he had good news and bad news about my present. The bad news...he canceled our reservations at the Four Seasons. The goods news...we are going to Palm Beach, Florida instead!!! Needless to say I was nowhere near disappointed with the bad news when I heard the good! I have been aching to go to the beach for a while now. In fact, Preston has been planning our trip for 3 months and said more than once I would mention my desire to go to the beach and he would silently rejoice at the fact that he had already read my mind. We leave this Thursday and return on Sunday and will be staying at the Bradley Park Hotel. I am so excited!!!

Typical anniversary picture with the holding of hands at the table.

The peonies Preston brought home for me.

How are these not everyone's favorite flower? And they smell wonderful.

Since our weekend was all of a sudden cleared, we were able to go to dinner and a movie with Chris and Amanda on Friday night and we chose to go see The Proposal, which turned out to be one of the funniest movies I have seen in a long time...I mean laugh out LOUD funny. I don't remember the last time I laughed that hard in the movie. There is only one scene with nudity but it's the scene they show in the previews where they accidentally run into each other with their clothes off and it is much more hilarious than it is awkward.

After the movie we were lucky to get to spend some time with our dear friends Mark and Elizabeth who we met while living in Lubbock. They drove in from Amarillo (where they live now) and spent the night at our house so we could take them to the airport in the morning. It was so great to see them since they are a part of our best memories in Lubbock. Ironically enough, they were headed to Florida also!

I am so excited about Palm Beach I can hardly stand it! Thank you Preston for the best anniversary gift ever AND for taking such good care of me for the past 2 years. I love you!

Craig's List Anniversary!

I am happy to announce that Preston and my first Craig's List buy was a success! We got a great deal, I got the anniversary gift for Preston that he REALLY wanted and we didn't get shot, kidnapped or held for ransom, which was really our biggest concern.

Preston has wanted DVR for our house ever since we moved in to my grandparents' house. He said at the beginning he would do ANYTHING to have it but of course, our financial situation does not allow us to do ANYTHING just to record a few tv shows. At my grandparents house they only have basic cable and long story short, it was going to cost them way too much to upgrade just so that we could get a DVR box. Initially, I attempted to make this a surprise for Preston but there were so many important decisions to make that I ended up having to tell him ahead of time that this is what I was trying to get him for our anniversary.

So we surveyed several options: buying a tv tuner, hooking it up to my cousin's computer and recording shows that way or...buy a TiVo. The first option was faulty because as soon as my cousin moves out of my grandparents' house (which could be within the next 6 months) we'd lose our DVR unless we bought a new computer to use as our memory. We might have also had to buy another hard drive. Don't ask me to explain why because I am only repeating what my cousin Edwin told me.

The second option, buying a TiVo, wasn't ideal because we would have to buy the actual unit and then pay a subscription fee every month in order to record our shows. We finally decided we were just going to do the first option. It seemed the most plausible for now, but at the last minute I decided to take a quick look on Craig's List to see what was available. Turns out there was a guy in Dallas selling his TiVo AND a lifetime subscription for $100. We paid $100 for four months of DVR in Lubbock so really we'd be getting our money's worth if the thing only worked until the end of the year! It sounded like the best deal we were going to get...there was just one problem. Neither of us has ever bought anything off of Craig's List and to be honest, we were nervous. Luckily the guy selling the TiVo was just as nervous as we were and insisted we meet in a public place before coming to his house. This made us both feel much more cmofortable. We met him (Bryan) at a Starbucks and then went to his house where he showed us how to hook it up and that it did, in fact, work. He even told us that if we had any problems or were missing any wires to give him a call! So now we have tv recording capabilities and I have a very happy husband!

Speaking of Craigs' List, my cousin Chandra got engaged recently and met her fiance on Craig's List. We are in the midst of planning her wedding at my grandparents' house (technically our home too at this point) and I am so excited! You know how I feel about weddings...

And speaking of weddings, this past weekend we did a wedding at the Four Seasons and everything went wonderfully. I just found out this morning that Wade Phillips (Dallas Cowboys' head coach) was in attendance. I never saw him (if I had I would've taken a picture) but the planner I with whom I worked told me she just kept forgetting to tell us the other night. We are actually going to be staying at the Four Seasons this weekend for our anniversary so it was fun to do a wedding just to get my bearings as far as what there is to do at the hotel.

Speaking of our Anniversary...it's tomorrow!!! Yay for 2 years!!!

10 Secrets to a Happy Marriage

I am currently in the midst of reading a Christian fiction series by Karen Kingsbury and today read a chapter in which the mother, who has passed away, left a letter for her children with her "10 Secrets to a Happy Marriage." I thought they were really good...good enough to post and good enough to print out and hang in my house. Feel free to add your own to the list...

1. God has you here to serve one another. Love acted out is serving.
2. Women need respect and nurturing. Love your wife so she knows you'd lay down your life for her. Continue to date her and admire her. Share a hobby--find something you can do to have fun together.
3. Laugh often.
4. Be Patient. Love crumbles quickly under the weight of unmet expectations.
5. Spend more time trying to fix yourself than your spouse.
6. Keep short accounts. The Bible says, "Do not let the sun go down while you are angry." Make a habit to forgive.
7. Determine up front that divorce is not an option. (I think this one should be #1)
8. Learn about love languages. Not all people show love or receive it the same way. You want a back rub and your spouse wants a clean kitchen. The love languages are fairly simple: acts of service, time, physical touch, gifts, and words of affirmation. Learn them. Love is better received when it's in the language that person speaks. (If you haven't read the book The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman, you need to. It's life changing...and not just for marriage/dating relationships...it is beneficial to all relationships.)
9. Words of affirmation are a love language for all men.
10. Men are born to be leaders. He cannot lead unless she gives him the confidence to do so. If you love your husband, build him up. Confident men do not seek love outside the home.

Great words of wisdom. I truly believe divorces would be fewer if everyone adhered to these "secrets." Speaking of marriage, our TWO YEAR anniversary is almost here!!! I can't believe it's been two years. Cliche' to say that, I know, but really, where does the time go? I feel like Lubbock never even happened.

I helped coordinate an out-of-town wedding this past weekend (more on that later) and was reminded again how much I loved my wedding. My favorite part of weddings is actually the end of the night when the couple leaves. That sounds funny but let me explain. It is always about this time in the reception that I get really sentimental and often send Preston a text message telling him I want to get married again (to him). Not just for the party (though I do love a good party), but because I am always reminded about how it felt to start the rest of my life with Preston and know that from then on we were one entity. Preston and Shelbi. Shelbi and Preston. No me, I or my....just us. There are no words to describe how wonderful a feeling that is, but it is the reason that after hours upon hours of planning our wedding day, nothing, not ONE thing, could have ruined it for me, because it's not about the cake or the flowers, the guests or the dress or the rain, it's about receiving the ultimate blessing from God: someone who will help you walk through the rest of your life, share in your burdens and blessings, and shape you to be the best person you can be. Not that I think you don't need a wedding planner. You do. Look for a post soon about why I think all brides should hire a wedding planner (ahem...me).

By the way, I also like the part of the wedding when they cut the cake, but who doesn't right?

More on my fun-filled weekend in good 'ole West Texas to come...

There's no place like home

So earlier today I saw that it was going to storm and was really excited. I love storms. Rain, thunder, lightening...bring it. Well at about 6:30pm I decided I wanted frozen yogurt from this lovely little shop in Carrollton called Yogurtland . Preston and I headed out fully aware that the storm was on its way, but not really concerned about driving in a little rain. Upon arriving to Yogurtland we heard a loud, piercing noise when we got out of the car. I said it must be a tornado siren (even though I have never heard a tornado siren sound like that in my lifetime) but Preston said it couldn't be a tornado siren because we weren't in Kansas. I told him that just because we weren't in Kansas didn't mean it wasn't a tornado siren...there are tornado sirens in Dallas.

Anyway, we walked in, chose our yogurt and headed back out to the car in less than 10 minutes. As soon as we got to the front door of Yogurtland we couldn't believe what we were seeing. The wind was incredible. Debris and random particles were flying in all directions. The sky was black. We made a run for it and arrived at the car halfway blind from the dust stinging our eyes. Preston had received a call from our friend Mike who said he was in Ft. Worth and that the storm was pretty fierce. Still, we really didn't think much about it...until we got onto the highway.

All of a sudden cars were slowing to minimal speeds and pulling over to the side of the road at an efficient pace. At first we were a little confused. Was there a wreck? Why was everyone pulling over? Then we felt it. The wind. It was violently shifting our car from side to side as we steadily proceeded down the tollway. Preston handed me his yogurt. Now was not a time to drive with one hand. I noted how stupid we were to leave the house without knowing what kind of storm we were getting ourselves into. Despite all this we did not learn our lesson in stupidity yet. We made a quick decision to try to head home to Farmers Branch instead of to Coppell. Coppell was closer, but the storm was headed in from the West, so we would be driving directly into it if we headed that way. If we headed toward home, we'd be going south, parallel to the storm. What we didn't take into consideration was the tall overpass we would have to conquer in order to make it from the George Bush Turnpike onto I-35. As we began to enter the ramp we both knew it was a bad idea. All drivers were going slow...but all drivers were also being pushed and pulled by the wind. I was sure that at any moment that wind was going to speed up and send us flying over the edge. You better believe we said our prayers out loud the entire way up and down that overpass. Halfway there we saw lighting strike nearby and sparks fly. Then the highway lights began to flicker on and off. After what seemed like half an hour on that dumb ramp we finally made it back onto the highway. We had turned the radio on by this point and realized what we'd gotten ourselves into. The announcers were reporting a funnel cloud in Addison...right in between where we had been and where we were going. Cars ahead of us were taking shelter underneath an overpass but we persevered. We were not about to get stuck under an overpass in a tornado only 5 minutes from home.

Luckily we made it home safe and sound. We waited out the storm in the living room of the big house just in case a tornado decided to whip through and take our servant's quarters with it. It wouldn't have taken much effort really. Our home is already breaking at the seams.

Now we're watching the news. An 18 wheeler is on its side on the highway in Carrollton. I swear I remember that same truck driving past us while we were headed home. I also remember telling Preston not to get too close to those trucks. Direct quote from Channel 4 news: "The weather was at its worst tonight right around the George W. Bush Turnpike." ...and we lived through it.

Happy Birthday Preston!

Today is Preston's 24th birthday! So far we have celebrated by going to lunch together at the Corner Bakery and then Chuy's for dinner (of course) with my family and a yummy cookie cake from Great American Cookies (Preston's absolute fav)!!! Now I'm eating all of Preston's cake and he's playing on his new toy: the Xbox 360.

Tomorrow we are going to dinner with friends and then to Inwood Theater to see the new Pixar movie "UP" which I have heard is wonderful. The movie will be playing in the theater's special screening room which has couches, loveseats, ottomans, and LoveSacs (oversized bean bags) instead of those rigid old movie theater seats. There is also a private bar in the theater where you can purchase cocktails and soft drinks without ever leaving the auditorium! How fun is that!? So that is our plan of celebration for Preston's birthday tomorrow. Then on Saturday I am working a wedding so Preston is going to celebrate his birthday with all his guy friends! We are just so excited Preston was born we've decided to celebrate all weekend!