"I wish I could have known you better."

Along with "I love you," these were the last words that David's grandfather said to me.

Me too, Pops. Me too. I wish I could have known you better, too.



From the first time I met you, you made me feel completely at ease and like a member of the family. You told me your stories from the war days. With such pride and a heart full of love, you told me so many stories about David and the times he spent with you growing up.

In the short time I knew you, I grew to love you like a grandfather. I saw in the first moments I spent with you how much you loved your family, especially your wife.

I'm glad your passing was peaceful today, but you are already missed. I know how much David loves you, and that makes it hurt even more. I'm so sad that you won't be there to see us married in October. I know how much you wanted to do everything you could to be there celebrating with us on that day. And on that day, you will be in our hearts. We are honored that you wanted David to wear your ring. Every time we look at it, we will remember you and how much you meant to everyone you knew.

I love you. I miss you. And I wish I could have known you better.

Smelling sweet

I'm working at Yankee Candle again. But this time, I'm one of the store managers! I'm still in training right now, and there's a lot to remember. I had no idea there was so much involved in being a manager. It's going to be great experience, though, and I'm really excited about it!

I'm at the same store that I worked at in college — The Streets at Southpoint. You should come visit me sometime at the store and smell all the nice, new scents! :)

The company is encouraging employees to find out people's favorite scents, so they have a small hutch in each store with the employees' favorite candles on it. So there is a Lemon Lavender candle up in our store with my name on it. :)


Do any of you have a favorite? :)

I'll be in training for another week and a half or so, so that means I'm working a lot of closing shifts. Closing the store is much more complicated than opening it, since you obviously have to count the money in both registers and make sure everything adds up and is ready for the next day.

Come visit me at the store! You know you want to. ;)

A beautiful start

Our new house is absolutely gorgeous! We're so blessed to have such a wonderful home!

I haven't posted pictures yet for two reasons: I wanted to get things straightened and set up a bit, and I also just realized my camera is broken. The screen on it is shattered, so I'm taking it in tomorrow to find out if it's worth it to fix the screen or if it would be more cost efficient to just get a new one.

Anyway, all of the web sites online have taken the photos of the house off since it's off the market. So Google maps is all I've got at the moment ...


That's our beautiful house!! :) If you can't tell, it's a pale yellow color. I wasn't crazy about it at first, but it's grown on me — I LOVE it now!

We were afraid we wouldn't be able to close on time because our mortgage lender was not cooperating! The night before we were supposed to close, they wanted "one last thing" that we provided for them at 9 a.m. the next morning. At 11 a.m., the closing time, we were at the attorney's office with our Realtor, and our packet of information hadn't arrived yet. No one bothered to call and tell us it wouldn't be on time.

Anyway, after about 45 minutes, we finally hear from our contact at the lender. He wanted "one more thing." So we drove to David's office, picked up the info and drove it over to the lender's office. We kind of tried to rush him along a little bit, but he didn't seem to be in any hurry.

At 2 p.m., there was still no packet. The lender said it might be by 2:30. We gave up about 2:45 and headed to the courthouse for David to close a case. At 3:15, the lender called for "one last thing." As David tried to explain to him the misleading meaning of "one last thing," the lender was still very unsympathetic.

It turns out that was actually the one last thing, since they got the closing papers at 4:30. We booked it down to the attorney's office and were able to fill out the paperwork by 6 p.m. Go figure! It was a day full of "We're closing!" "We're not closing." "We're closing!" "We're not closing." But in the end, everything went well, and we were able to get our perfect home!

I have been a painting fool in the past week! I have painted the large guest bedroom, primed and painted the small guest bedroom, painted the guest bathroom and primed the downstairs half bath.

Today, I tackled the impossible master bedroom! I am exhausted, but I finally made it through the walls in that room. The bedroom is huge, first of all. But second, the ceiling vaults from a standard 8-foot ceiling to a 12-foot ceiling. There's also a ledge about 11-feet high that I had to paint. We're still not sure what we're going to use to decorate it. This photo is similar to our ledge (this is not our house, just something similar) just to give you an idea what it looks like:



The room looks beautiful in the gray-blue paint to match our bedding set:



I'm so excited to set everything up! There are tons of boxes everywhere, and we're still not sure where all of our furniture will go, but we'll figure it out. As soon as I get a working camera, I'll take a few more photos of the rooms that are set, clean and ready to be seen! :)

I can't wait until after the wedding when I can live there, too! It's hard setting everything up all day and then leaving in the evening. :) David's staying in the house before the wedding.

We can't wait for you all to come see it!