It's all starting to feel real...

Ok, so I know I haven't blogged in a long time! So, here it goes...

Before I get you all caught up, I have to talk about today since it was one of the best days I have had in a long time!! I had my 3rd observation of teaching today, and with it being Donuts with Dad day this morning and some of my kindergarteners had 2 donuts, it went really well!! The kids were a little chatty, but what 5 and 6 year olds are not chatty, especially when they have 2 donuts. I don't know what it was today, but today really made me realize that I am meant to be a teacher! I absolutely LOVE my kids and teaching!! Every day is so rewarding just to know that I am helping students with one of the most important things, in my opinion, education!!

After school, I came home to my wedding dress!!! YAY!!! It was all in one piece with no hole, rips, tears, ect.!!! The wedding is finally starting to feel so real!!! 

This evening Ricky and I took pictures for our save-the-dates, that are suppose to be going out Friday (Ooops!!). Thanks to a great friend, Amanda, Ricky and I will get to choose from a lot of pictures for our save-the-dates!! Amanda was so patient with Ricky and I, since we were not the most cooperative couple...well, actually it was more Ricky than me, but oh well!! ;-) 

After we took pictures, Ricky and I went to dinner, Best Buy, and YoLo!! It was one of the best nights we have had in a while, since we really have not had many nights just hanging out lately because of all of my school stuff! I cannot wait until we get married and we get to be with each other every night!! 7 months from tomorrow!! 

So to catch up on other things...

I did the Color Run with one of my really great friends, Cecilia. We decided we would run to one color, walk to the next, run to the next, etc. since I forgot my inhaler in the car. I know smart move huh? In short, we ended up walking the majority of it because of me. We did end the race by running to the finish line. I kept telling Cecilia to go ahead, but like the great friend she is, she stayed walking with me. It was so great to catch up on everything, and just spend some time with her!! She also shared some good pointers on getting back into running that will help me out a lot! I am so blessed to have such a great friend to stay with me the whole time!! Here are some pictures from the Color Run...

After the Color Run, we went bridesmaids dress shopping with ALL of my bridesmaids!! I am so excited they ALL found a dress they liked!! I am so blessed to have had all of them in town to go shopping!! Then we had a girls night out. It was so much fun!!! We missed Melissa because she could not make it, but next time she will have to come with us! 

I am completely done with my huge TPA paper, and it has been submitted!!! Yay!! Now the wait for it to get scored!! I have also completed all the steps to prepare for graduation! I cannot wait! It will be here before I know it. Until then, I just get to focus on teaching my kindergarteners and enjoy them while I am with them! I have some cute activities planned for some upcoming lessons with them that I think they will really enjoy and am looking forward to it!! 

So in all, everything has been going great! I feel like weights have been lifted off of my shoulders when it comes to school, but the weights are getting added on when it comes to wedding planning! But I will get through it! I promise I will try my best to update more often! Off to try my wedding dress on and then to bed!!

Emily

Still not use to this...

So, as you can see I am already slacking on keeping up with this blog!! I promise I will get better as time goes on. 

To update you on what has been going on since last post....

I had a bad week at Weight Watchers! I gained 0.5 pounds!! I know what you are thinking...a half of a pound is nothing, but to me a gain is a gain!! But I basically expected it because I got out of the habit of recording my daily points in my WW app. I thought I was doing a good job on keeping up with my points in my head, but obviously I did not do that good of a job! So lesson learned from that....take the minute it takes to put the points in my app!! Hopefully I will have a better weigh in on Monday! 

I am running in the Color Run this Saturday here in Memphis with 2 of my best friends, Cecilia and Allison!! If you are not familiar with what the Color Run is, click here to learn about it.  This will be my first 5K in a VERY long time, but I am really looking forward to it!!!! It will be a great time exercising while getting tie-dyed by colored powder!! This is a short video of what the Color Run is about...

I was not having a good day on Monday because well...it was Monday, so I decided when I got home from WW I would go for a run to blow some steam and clear my head. I was texting back and forth with my sister-in-law Melissa about my weigh-in and told her I was going to go running, and she asked if I wanted to run with her. My first thought was not really because 1. I never really ran with someone other than Ricky, who I might add tried to kill me by pushing me way past my limit to where I almost got sick in the end!! Note to self...do not run with my fiancé!! ;-) And 2. Melissa has been running a lot longer than I have. I told her I didn't want to slow her down and everything, but she said that we would go at my pace and everything, so I agreed. She walked my niece, Presley, over to my house and then we went running while Pres played with Lucy and Daisy (our dogs). Melissa has a 2 mile route that she does, so we just did that. (Now keep in mind I am just starting to get back into running because I stopped months ago.) I won't go into the details of the run, except that we probably ran like half of it and fast walked the rest. It took us about 30-35 minutes. I really enjoyed running with her because it made me push myself more because I wanted to keep up with her as best I could. I will definitely have to start running with a partner more often because it is more enjoyable, even though we still listened to our music and talked some!!

Now onto school and wedding planning....

School: Well the good news about school is that I am officially on Fall Break as of 3:00 this afternoon!!! Yay!!! Bad news is I have spent the rest of the day today finalizing my TPA paper that I will submit tomorrow night at my seminar!! I should be still working on it right now instead of typing this blog, but my brain and eyes needed a break from it!! The other bad news about school is that I still have to study for my last Elementary Education PRAXIS test tonight because I take it in the morning. So basically tonight is going to be a VERY LONG NIGHT!!!! But after all that bad news....the good news is that tomorrow at this time I will have taken my last PRAXIS exam AND have submitted my TPA paper, which means all I have to focus on between now and graduation is...TEACHING!!! YAY!!

Wedding planning....
Well I have not done much for wedding planning lately except make a list of things that I need to get done because they were suppose to already have been done!! Like our save the dates...they are suppose to go out in like 2 weeks and I have not even ordered them or selected a picture for them!! Ricky's sister Christina is coming in town this weekend to go bridesmaids dress shopping after the Color Run, and she has a really good camera that takes great pictures, so Ricky and I are going to take a few pictures to choose from to put on our save the dates. I am looking forward to going dress shopping with all of my bridesmaids this weekend!! Erin and Christina are both coming in town to go!!! I am so blessed to have such a great group of girls to be by my side through all of this wedding stuff!! 



Well I think I better get back to finalizing and studying so I will be able to get some sleep tonight! I will update after the Color Run and hopefully I will have some pictures from it! 

Getting started...

So after going back and fourth on whether to join the blogging world, I decided to give it a try! I am not exactly sure how everything works yet, but I will figure it out as time goes on.

My goal for this blog is talk about my journey through planning a wedding, finishing up student teaching, and reaching my weight loss goal before my big day!! But first, I will explain a little bit about my life...

My fiancé, Ricky, and I have been engaged for 5 years this coming up December!! I know what you are thinking, what has taken so long?!? Well, we just wanted to wait until we were both done with college and all of that good stuff. We have finally set the date of May 25, 2013 to begin the next chapter in our lives as husband and wife!! I cannot wait to marry my best friend!! With the wedding less than 8 months away, I am in the middle of all of the planning! I have the major details set and down payments down, but now it's time for all of the small details of the wedding like flowers, cake, church decorations, reception decorations, bridal luncheon, rehearsal dinner, sending out Save-the-Dates, thinking about invitations, bridal registry, etc.. If I would have known there was so much involved in planning a wedding, I think I would have saved the money and stress and eloped!! haha 

Ricky graduated from the University of Memphis this past summer with a degree in Accounting. He has applied for a few jobs, and has had some interviews also. Keep you fingers crossed he hears from at least one job soon!! In the mean time, he is a waiter at Red Robin until he gets another job. I will graduate in December from the University of Memphis with a degree in Teaching All Learners, which is Elementary Education K-5 and Special Education K-12. I am hoping to find a teaching job after I graduate or at least substitute to get my foot in the door. 

I am in the middle of my last semester of Student Teaching in Kindergarten!! I really wasn't sure if I would enjoy kindergarten, but I love it!! It is a challenge for me everyday, and I am constantly learning something either from the kids or about the way I teach. I have an amazing mentor teacher who has taught me so much about teaching kindergarten and just teaching in general! I cannot wait until I have my own classroom! 

So in between student teaching, lesson plans, final papers, and wedding planning, I am finding time to get back into running and eating healthier so I can reach my weight loss goal of 20 pounds before the wedding!! Thanks to my sister-in-law, Melissa, I joined Weight Watchers, and it was seriously the best thing I have done for myself! It has taught me so much about what I would eat and how I need to eat! I have lost 7.2 pounds so far! So I am slowly getting closer to my goal! I am in the process of getting back into running. I wasn't able to go the past couple of days due to getting over strep throat (Oh the joys of being with 20 kindergarteners all day 5 days a week! ;-)) I am running in the Color Run next weekend with one of my best friends, Cecilia! I know I will never be able to run with her the whole way, but thanks to her, I signed up for it and I will complete it no matter how long it takes me!! I am really looking forward to it and getting back into shape!! 

Well, that is a little bit about me and my fiancé and what this blog will be about! Hope you all will enjoy this blog, and I will do my best to keep it up to date!