Done

Today needs to be over. Is it just me, or has this day just dragged on and on? I don't feel like being at work anymore and I definitely don't feel like stressing out anymore. I could really use a vacation, but I'd settle for a hot bath, a glass of wine, and a good book. Is it Friday yet???

Bridal portrait day!

1. French manicure and pedicure? Check.
2. Hair piece and jewelry? Check. 
3. Wedding heels? Check. 
4. Wedding dress? Check.
5. Bridal bouquet? Check.
6. Hair and make-up beginning at 2p.m.? Check.
7. Beautiful locations? Check.
8. Incredible photographer? Check.
9. The best mother of the bride ever? Check.
10. Bridal portraits beginning at 4:30? Check!!!

I am SO excited! Today is the day that my wedding ensemble officially comes together. I can't wait to take pictures with the wonderful ladies of Journey Tree Studio. The weather outside couldn't be better and I just know we're going to have a fabulous time!

Love love,
Sara

TOMS Summer Lovin'

Everyone I talk to about TOMS Shoes has a different opinion. Some think they "look funny," some tell me that these are the most comfortable shoes they've ever worn, and others simply love TOMS because of their mission. I happen to think that these shoes are comfy, cute, and serve a great purpose!

Yesterday morning I received an email from TOMS Shoes announcing their new summer line. I'm in LOVE! I always love their summer shoes because they are colorful and light. I've already picked out 4 pair that I really want to buy, but I'm pretty sure that if I buy 4 pair of TOMS, Luke will want me to buy him 4 too. Ha! We are TOMS lovers, what can I say?

{I love this color and that they're linen!}

{Crocheted. Are you kidding me? Adorable!}

{These are my absolute FAVORITE! I will be purchasing these in the next 24 hours}

{Sweet little yellow wedges}

Needless to say, I'm head over heels (pun intended!). I'm impressed TOMS. Way to go on the cute Summer 2011 line. I will be making my purchases soon and so should you!! One For One. <3

1 year ago today...

{Happy 25th birthday Aubrey!!! Love you!}

1. I accepted my first full-time job out of college.

2. I signed a leased on an apartment and moved my life to Corpus Christi, Texas.

3. I postponed my wedding.

4. Unfortunately, I missed Aubrey's birthday dinner because of these highs/lows.

I seriously cannot believe it's been an entire year since these life altering events occurred. I am no longer at the same job (but at an even better one!). I'm still at the same apartment complex, but in a bigger apartment. I'm going to be marrying my best friend in five and a half weeks. And today I will be attending Aubrey's birthday dinner (and I can't wait!).

Thank you Lord for constantly reminding me that Your timing is perfect. <3

Whirlwind Waco Weekend, Part 2

**To get caught up on the story of my weekend trip to Waco, click here.**

After our trip to Common Grounds, the girls and I went our different ways to dinner. I got dressed up and went to dinner with Kelsey's family and friends to celebrate her graduating from Baylor with her masters in accounting (my bridesmaid is a smarty pants!!). I was so happy her parents invited me to dinner with them because I hadn't seen the Marshall family in a long time. Plus, we ate at 135 Prime, an amazing steakhouse outside of Waco. So yum!! We toasted to Kelsey's success and even had a little graduation cake. Congrats Kelsey!!!

After dinner, the gang all met up again to grab a quick drink at Texas Roadhouse to celebrate Kristin's birthday. There were many celebrations this weekend! We had a great time doing a little more catching up and reminiscing about college. We can't ever seem to do enough of this. :)

That evening, Cat and I headed back over to Claire's house and got ready to spend our last night ever in 1006. Claire and her friend, Janet (who also lives at 1006), are studying abroad in Europe next fall and after they return, they will be moving into an apartment just the two of them. We were all a little sad about this since it means that we won't be able to go back to our old college house anymore, but we know that God's plans are better than our own and we know that everything is going to work out for the best of our little Clarabell. Speaking of, check out this hot mamma...

{She dressed up for us on our last night in the house; glasses, bath rob, and all! Someday she will make some man very happy, HA!}

The next morning we got up and went to breakfast with the whole gang to Cafe Cappuccino. "The gang" included: myself, Catherine, Christine, Kristin, James, and Claire. After talking over a few last-minute flight plans for the wedding, we all hugged and parted ways. Cat and I went back to Claire's house to pack up our stuff and hit the road. But of course, not before buying something from Bush's Chicken. Seriously, how much more food could we have possibly attempted to eat this weekend?!?! Most of the Bush's got throw away, but we just HAD to, ya know...:)

{Goodbye 1006!}

{Hello Bush's Chicken!}

Cat and I had a 3ish hour drive home, so most of the way we chatted about life and the upcoming wedding. Cat's little creative self is going to be playing a very fun role in the wedding and I'm so excited about having a little of her creativity displayed on our big day! About 45 minutes out of Houston, we decided to make a quick stop at a local farmers market. Ohmygoodness, this place was AMAZING! I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...

{Pottery}

{So many watermelons!}

{I love how colorful veggie are}

{Fresh fruit anyone?}

{More pottery and beautiful flowers}

{Pretty in pink}

My weekend concludes with getting to Cat's house, moving all of my stuff from her car into mine, and then another 3.5 hours of driving from Houston to Corpus Christi. I'm not going to lie, I wasn't the biggest fan of driving so much and was extremely tired once I got home, but the weekend was totally worth it. I had an amazing time with some of the best friends a girl could ask for. We definitely did as many "Waco things" as we possibly could and, if you haven't already noticed, ate WAY TOO MUCH food! 

I love what Baylor did for me; what it's given me. Friends, family, a home, a network, an incredible education, life skills, a greater appreciation for my family and Luke, the chance to live and work in New York, and a future firmly grounded in faith. I love going back to Waco because I love talking about and reliving old memories with my Baylor family. Thank you Lord for allowing me to be a part of something so incredible and ordained by You!!!

And that's the end of my whirlwind Waco weekend. I still think I'm a little sleep deprived from this weekend, but I'm hanging in there! Did you do anything fun this past weekend? If not, do you have anything fun planned for this upcoming weekend? I'll be running in the 2011 Beach to Bay Relay Marathon with a team from work on Saturday and then taking my bridal portraits this Sunday with the fabulous ladies of Journey Tree Studio. Another crazy/busy weekend ahead!!

Tuesday Blog Hoppin'!

Click here.

Click here.

Monday Blog Hops

Sorry I'm a little late posting these! Monday's blog hops can be found here and here.

If you follow and leave a comment on this post, I'll be sure to follow back. :)

Happy Monday!!

-Sara

Whirlwind Waco Weekend!

I can't even begin to put into words the amount of fun I had this weekend!!! On Friday after work I drove home really quick [as quick as 5 o'clock traffic allows], threw a bunch of clothes in a bag, and hit the road for Houston. A couple of weeks back, Catherine and I had decided that I would meet her in Houston and then she and I would take her car the rest of the way to Waco (for those of you who don't know who Cat is, she is one of my amazing roomies from college and will be one of the house party ladies in my wedding!). I was already delirious at this point due to an extremely long week at work, but I made it to Houston in 3.5 hours thanks to Taco Cabana, Celine Dion, and way too much coffee. Cat greeted me at her cute little house with another skinny vanilla latte for me, and we were off to Waco!

{Of course, we had to take a picture at Cat's favorite gas station on the way to Waco. This was at about 11:30 p.m. Goodness, our hair...}

We arrived in Waco at our old college house, now my little sister's college house, at 12:30 a.m. and crashed. I hardly remember walking up the stairs to bed and I don't know if I've ever slept so hard in my life. Pitiful, I know!

{We've all lived at "ten-oh-six" at one point or another. We love this house!}

We woke up Saturday morning and headed straight to Panera to meet up with Kristin and James. Panera was our favorite place to study when we were in college. Aww memories! While eating breakfast, we ran into my Tri Delta little and future bridesmaid, Kelsey! It was so fun to see her and her momma pre-graduation. Kelsey graduated this weekend from Baylor with her masters in accounting. I'm SO incredibly proud of her and excited she'll be working in Houston now! 

{Love Panera Hazelnut coffee!}

After breakfast, we stopped by Rack Room Shoes in the Central Texas Market Place because I needed a pair of black dress sandals. This was my favorite place to get a good deal on shoes of all kinds in college! I grabbed not only one, but two pair of dress sandals in black and teal. They were buy one, get one 1/2 off so I couldn't resist! After shoe shopping, Cat, Kristin, James, and myself picked up Claire and we all headed over to Bloom and Bee Swanky, an adorably vintage gift shop in downtown Waco. How had I never been to this gorgeous place?!

 {Artsy chandelier at Bloom and Bee}

This little shop is the kind of place that carries old photographs, picture frames, glass figurines, house decor, luggage, linens, etc. I bought a couple of vintage pieces to use as decor for the wedding and I'm super proud of myself for picking them out on my own. I'm not naturally very good at the whole artsy/vintage thing, but I'd like to think that I'm getting better due to the many artistic friends in my life. :)

After our adventure to Bloom and Bee, we decided to go for a little ride through campus. I had only been on the Baylor campus once since my graduation a year ago and was really excited to re-live student life, even if only for a few minutes. I made a special request and we stopped by my old stomping grounds, Castellaw Communications Center. I took all of my major courses in this building and it really felt like a second home while I was in college. Many late nights were spent studying in this building, which smelled like freshly printed newspaper all the time (since the school paper is printed in Castellaw). I walked in for just a couple of minutes while we were on campus and it smelt so wonderful, so familiar. 

{"The house that built me."}

After our trip around campus, poor James had had enough girl time. So we dropped him back off at his car and went to grab lunch. We decided to eat at Food For Thought, a local Baylor college student favorite. This hole-in-the-wall health food restaurant serves salads, nachos, burritos, smoothies, etc. Cat and I split the chicken nachos and they were so good! I had forgotten how much I love Food For Thought. After lunch we made a quick stop by the bookstore to pick up an alumni sticker for my new car.

{Food For Thought's chicken nachos}

{Alumni sticker on the new car--taken after I had already gotten back to CC}

You would think that at this point we had to be too stuffed to eat anything else all day. Nope, it gets worse. I don't know what our deal was, but apparently we had all missed our favorite college foods so much that we decided to subconsciously eat as much as possible in 36 hours. It's sickening, really, the amount of food we ate this weekend! Well, after FFT, we went on a little shopping spree to Ann Taylor Loft. I'm guessing the "30% your entire purchase all weekend" sale had something to do with motivating four very full women to try on clothes. We all walked away with something too! Got to love those ATL sales!! After shopping, we took Claire to 3 Spoons Yogurt, a new fro yo place in Waco that she had been wanting us to visit. We really had no room for fro yo (obviously!!), but we did it anyway and again, so good!

{I didn't get too much, but what I did get was gone in about 14 seconds!}

We FINALLY went back to Claire's house and all I wanted to do was take a nap. However, my sweet friends (Lord knows I wanted to hurt them...) did not let my napping last long. About 30 minutes later I was woken up and told that we were going to Common Grounds. Ohmygoodness. I had been wanting nothing but a cowboy coffee for weeks and now I was too full to even look at coffee! But we went and had a glorious time. I ended up ordering an Arnold Palmer (Luke's favorite) and buying a bag of coffee beans to take home.

{Our drinks}

{What a lovely place full of coffee-stained memories}

{CG to-go!}

Alright, so this blog post covers about the first 24 hours of my whirlwind weekend in Waco! But it's midnight and I'm falling asleep at my computer. I'll tell you about the rest of my weekend tomorrow. I also have so many wedding updates to share! But again, these must wait until tomorrow when I've gotten enough sleep to remember it all. 

Sweet dreams,

Sara

Wedding Update: 6.5 weeks and counting!

{This is what my parents' kitchen table looked like a few days back. Invitations, I will not miss piecing you together! And yes Cat--that is salsa and a bag of chips in the bottom right-hand side of this picture. What do these items and an open laptop remind you of?}

Holy moly, where getting SO CLOSE! I call Luke about once a day to remind him what number we're on in the countdown (44 days!!). So much is going on right now with finalizing wedding details. I can honestly admit that I didn't have any idea how quickly these decisions would be upon us and now I'm swamped! But in a good way. I can't wait to marry my best friend and officially begin our married life together. :)

Here's an update:

1) Wedding invitations go out tomorrow (praise the Lord!!!).

2) The bridesmaids shoes have been ordered.

3) I'm going for my final wedding dress fitting today with my momma.

4) I'm also headed out to The Ranch with my mom and wedding decorator this evening to finalize room layout, decor, wedding day schedule/time line, etc.

5. I've scheduled my hair/make-up consultation for bridal portraits and the wedding day.

5). Bridal portraits are on May 22nd!!!

6. The rehearsal dinner is organized/planned and is going to be an awesome party!

7. Wedding music is picked out.

8. A few more pre-marital counseling sessions are in the process of being scheduled.
9. Groomsmen and bridesmaids gifts. Hmmm...:)
10. And thank you notes are STILL being written (and I'm seriously grateful for all of the gifts we've recieved, but whoever came up with the idea that thank you notes are the most proper way to say thank you needs to be hit upside the head. Just sayin'... ).

There are actually about 1,000,000 20 other items on my immediate wedding to-do list that didn't make the cut on this particular blog post. These listed items are just the first 10 that come to mind. But I'm making progress and before we know it, this wedding will be behind us, Luke and I will be husband and wife, 3 more of my awesome friends will be married this summer, and the world will continue to spin madly on. However, I don't want to be there just yet. God's timing is perfect down to the very second and I plan on enjoying every one of these seconds (even the most stressful!) of this precious time.

Tuesday Blog Hoppin'!

Today's hops are some of my favorite! If you follow my blog and leave a comment, I'll be sure to follow you back! Happy hoppin'!!

Five Question Friday

I guess I'm a little into these blog hops lately! This is a fun one because I feel like I'm actually contributing a little bit of myself to it. If you'd like to participate in Five Question Friday, click here. 

Here's how it works:

1. Copy and paste these questions to your blog. Personalize them with your own answers.

2. Follow my blog and leave a comment so I know you stopped by.

3. If you do so, I will make sure to share the blog love and follow you back. 

Enjoy!!

1. Have you ever had roommates?

I've had a roommate since I was about a year and a half old. Up until my senior year of high school, I shared a room with my sister Emily. Although there were many days I thought one of us might kill the other, I wouldn't change the past. I remember us saying our prayers together before we went to bed or talking until all hours of the night. I always felt safe and secure, but never really realized it was because I had a buddy. Love you bigger Emmy!! I had roommates throughout college, but I was closest with the ones from my junior and senior years of college. Cat, Kristin, Christine, Amy, and Kara, I love you girls SO much! I can't imagine life without our (slightly tipsy) sleeping bag races down the stairs, counter top dancing/study breaks at 2 a.m., and weekends at the lake house. I know we've been out of college for a year now, but it makes me happy to know that not much has changed, ha!

2. How many names do you/your children have? (i.e. Prince Charming William Phillip Arthur Louis John Jacob Jingleheimer-Schmidt)

My entire name is Sara Evelyn Martisek. Ironically enough, it wasn't that difficult to learn how to spell as a child. Cursive was another story...

3. Did you watch the Royal Wedding?

I was up at 4 a.m. and still TVOed it. :)

4. What is the messiest room in your house?

My bedroom. This is where the clothes and shoes get thrown on the floor. Plus, it's connected to my bathroom, where you can find make up, perfume, hair products, etc. all over the counter top. Yup, Luke's going to struggle moving into this apartment, lol. 

5. What is your ideal mothers day?

Since I'm not a mom yet, I guess my ideal Mother's Day is one where I get to hang out with my momma, which is exactly what I'll be doing all weekend. Get excited for more wedding planning mom!!

Thursday Blog Hoppin'!

I'm excited to be participating in my first ever Thursday blog hop this week!

To participate in the blog hoppin' with me, click here or here. 

Follow my blog, leave me a comment, and I will follow you back!

Hope you are having a fabulous Thursday and Cinco de Mayo!!

What I'm Loving Wednesday!

{I've linked up with WILW, if you would like to participate, click here.}

Today I'm loving...

1. This new show on my DVR.

2. This Frilly Lily Dress.

3. My new glasses (I'm a closet nerd).

4. This duvet comforter/sham/accent pillows set Luke and I have registered for.

5. This view from the company suite at the Hooks game.

**Sorry I'm so late posting this. It's been a really crazy day!**

What a weekend!

I will embarrassingly admit that I am just now starting to recover from the royal wedding. After waking up at 4 a.m. on Friday morning to watch the couple's nuptials live and working all day (Fridays always being the hardest day of the week to get through), I was plum tuckered out! I don't know why I just wrote that. Anyway...

 {How incredibly gorgeous was she?}

On Saturday morning, my momma drove into Corpus Christi. She and I went to lunch with Luke's aunt, Brenda, to plan the wedding rehearsal dinner (It's going to rock!). After this, we met up with my baby sister, Becca, to help her find outfits for her senior pictures that were scheduled to be taken Sunday morning. The rest of the evening was spent prepping wedding invites to be sent out. Oh my goodness, this process is draining! I will be the happiest bride once this task is behind me!!

On Sunday, mom, Becca, and I woke up early for Becca's senior pictures. One of my wedding photographers, Jamie, took her pictures and I already know they are going to be amazing!!! We had such a fun time. Of course, these pictures don't do any justice because they were taken from my iPhone, but I just love this young lady. I can't believe the last Martisek girl is about to graduate from high school! What a beautiful young woman, both inside and out.

After Becca's pictures, we all went back to my apartment to get ready for my last bridal shower. My awesome Corpus Christi girls put together a sweet shower for me today and I feel very blessed to have them in my life down here in South Texas. Quite a few of them are friends that I made back in my Zephyr days, only making our connection that much stronger. I love how God provides in this way. Thank you to all of my beautiful friends that made this final shower so special. I love you all very much and I can't wait to celebrate with you all in less than two months!!

{Cute food and decor!}

{So sweet}

{I love our bath towels!!}

{Some of my beautiful friends at the shower}

{So happy my mom and Becca could be at the shower}

After my mom and Becca took off to go back to Hallettsville, Luke and I went to dinner with our favorite married couple, Jay and Morgan. Jay has completed two tours to Iraq in the Army and his father is a Navy captain who has served on many tours, so our dinner conversation usually involves some military talk. This evening we had actually been talking about Osama bin Laden and whether or not he is still alive, what our government was keeping from us, why he hadn't been killed yet, etc. How crazy that on our way home we found out that bin Laden had just been killed?! GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!! Finally, we have some justice for 9/11! I know that this awful man's death does not bring the thousands of men, women, and children that were killed almost a decade ago back to life, but I do pray that their families will sleep a little more peacefully tonight knowing that this murderer is no longer walking on the earth. But seriously, how ironic that we happened to be talking about exactly this right before it was announced! Crazy.

What a weekend, right? I hope you've had a relaxing one and that you have a great start to your week. And happy 1st of May! I always love the fresh start of a new month. Do you have anything extremely cool/fun/exciting planned for May? If so, I'd love to hear about it!

"And I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free. And I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me!!!"