Seems like all I do on here is catch up.

This past weekend Britt and I had another celebration of our "1 Year" together. You see, the place that we purchased our wedding cake from has this deal where on your 1 year anniversary you can come back with a picture of your cake and they will make an exact replica of your cake topper for $10. That a way you still get to have the tradition of the "Eat your cake topper on your 1 year" and have good cake too! Basically, 'You get to have your cake and eat it too.' ;) Pun intended!

Here is what our actual cake looked like! :)

Here is the cake topper!

Not too bad! It was a lot of fun to eat and talk about the past year.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Other than eating cake our weekend and life in general has been filled with a lot! A few weekends ago my little brother Justin came to stay with us and it was a great time! the week following that I had work and Western Hills was having their VBS which they call "Character Week". I helped out with that some too and it was fun because it was like the 'old times'.

This week has been full! Britt found out that next Wednesday is his last day at Hobby Lobby *happy dance* and he will finally start his new part-time job. He is going to be working for a guy in our church who has a roofing company. The hours will work out great with everything going on at the BSU. This summer, until school starts, he will be able to work full-time which is great too! Although, he is going to be out of town for 2 weeks coming up because they have a work project in Tulsa. So, if anyone wants to hang out PLEASE let me know! :) And then after he gets home just a little while later he will be going to CA for some BSU training. Like I said, if you want to hang out.... :) I am available!

For those of you who did not know I am working as a nanny for a family in Norman. They have three little girls. Two identical twins who are 18 months and a newborn that is about 8 weeks. They keep me on my toes for sure but the job is a really blessing and will work out great with my hours at the BSU too! The Lord has really provided some great jobs for Britt and I both and we are so excited to began doing the work that we know God is calling us to. Our next big step is raising our support. It is not going to be an easy task but the Lord has already proved so faithful in this I am excited to see all that He will do!

Well, Happy Thursday to you all! I hope your weekend is going well and cheers to an "almost here weekend!" :)

Update on the month of May

Wow! Life has been CRAZY and has not slowed down. I think that I am finally in the clear and might be able to actually take a breath here and there for the next few weeks.


We have been out of town the last 2 weekends and we were busy both weekends before that as well. That has taken up a lot of time not to mention everything that we have done in-between.

I am home though and able to actually update the blog.

Here is a picture of Britt and his two best friends from the second week in May. I just had to put them up here, I think they are really good pics!

I don’t have a lot of pictures from our trips but will post the few I have. Our first trip was to Dallas, TX and we celebrated my birthday and our 1 year anniversary. My birthday is on the 29th and our anniversary the 30th but we decided to celebrate a week early. While we were there we mostly swam, ate and shopped. It was nice to just relax and have a good time together. :)

Britt in the car on the way there...and half of me. :)

Here I am! haha

And again. :)

Our room! I loved the bedding!

Another view...

The bathroom...

The outside. - I did not have a picture of the outside so this is from the hotels website. :)

The swimming pool. Once again thank you to the Hotel website.

Downown Dallas.

I love this building!

This past weekend we went to St. Louis, MO to see Britt’s best friend Todd. We brought Todd’s girlfriend with us and had a great time hanging out and just having fun. Todd is leaving to go to North Africa for the summer so it was good to see him before he left.

Britt and I at Crown Candy. GREAT place to eat! :)

Katie and Todd!

The counter! haha

The outside.

Again.

I did not take many pictures this trip other than this day. We were really busy the whole time and since we had been to St. Louis before we didn't do a lot of the "tourist" things.

Now we are home and it is good to just take a deep breath, let it out and then of course tackle the massive pile of laundry. ;) Seriously though, this week SHOULD slow down a bit and it will be nice.

The main thing going on this week is that my little brother, Justin, is coming to stay with us for a few days. It should still be pretty chill though. If you did not know Justin was in the car accident with my dad and busted up his right ankle, right shoulder and two fingers on his right hand pretty bad. He has been in a wheelchair since the wreck but last week he was able to graduate to a pair of crutches so he is now able to climb the stairs at our apartment. We are going to have some fun this weekend but with his injuries most activities will be pretty calm so I think we will be hanging out by the pool, going to see a movie and eating lots of yummy sno-cones! It should be relaxing and I am looking forward to it!


I am going to jump back a moment here and talk a little more about Britt and my One Year Anniversary. I would have really liked to write a post on the day of our anniversary but we were out of town and it would have been crazy so consider part of this post the “One Year Tribute”! :)

When I look back over the past year it has FLOWN by. I never knew time could go so quickly. People always tell us, “Wow! You made it through the first year; it is always the most difficult year!” If that is truly the case then I am excited beyond words because this first year of marriage has been a joy and not even close to a struggle! I personally believe that marriage will get more difficult when kids come into the picture but for whatever reason a lot of people say it is the first year and that was just not the case for us.

It is probably because I married one amazing man! Seriously! He is so great and I am beyond blessed to have Britt as my husband. Until you are married and actually share your life with someone it is hard to understand exactly what people mean when they say they love their husband/wife more and more everyday. I can truly say that I love Britt at LEAST 365 times more then I did last year at this time. ;) So it is true, you do love the person more and more each day. Is marriage always perfect? No, in fact it can be quite difficult. Am I always an angel as a wife and Britt always a Saint of a husband? No, not quite. But the thing is that the Lord is the center of our relationship and because of that we have a great marriage that is full of lots of love, laughter and fun! I am so thankful to be married and there is no doubt in my mind, in fact one year later I know even more, that I married the perfect man for me.

Here’s to another year and then 60+ more!

Update on Married Life:

Ok - So here is the deal. I really wanted to start this update with some of my favorite wedding pictures but I can not get anything to upload right now. It is so retarded. So, for those of you hoping that is what this update was going to be I am sorry, you may want to stop reading at this point. For those of you who would like to see wedding pictures but who would also like to know how things are going in our life (because it is OUR life now :D) keep reading....

As you all know our wedding was two weeks ago tomorrow, May 30. I was so pleased with how everything went at the wedding. I don't think there is one single thing that I would change. Not one. When I say that some people say "Even the kiss?" All I can say is that I think it was perfect for us. I am not one who likes a lot of "PDA" (Public display of affection) and I think that it was just really sweet. For those of you who were hoping to see us make-out on the stage,
1) Weirdo!
2) To bad so sad. ;)

Ok - by to what I was saying... I don't think there is one single thing that I would change. I was so happy with it all and I feel like the Lord was truly honored in the ceremony as well as our families and that was the goal that I had. I also feel like the gospel message was beautifully portrayed which is something that was important to Britt and I. I am so thankful to the Lord for the awesome dads that he has given us. What and honor to have them a part of the ceremony the way that they were. We are truly blessed.

After all the wedding festivities Britt and I decided that we would not leave for our Honeymoon until Monday. I am so glad that we made that decision. It was fun to be in our apartment Sunday afternoon-evening and to open all of the gifts that we got at the wedding.

Monday morning we headed out for San Antonio, Texas and we had a blast! We both feel like we picked the perfect place (for us) to go. We could do as much as we wanted or keep it as low key as we wanted. It was perfect. Some of the highlights of our trip were: The River Walk (of course), the great Mexican Food, Schilterbahn (Worlds largest water park), the Alamo, the River Center Mall and the Outlet Malls.

Now we are home, we have been for almost a week now. It does not seem like a whole week at all. We hit the ground running for sure when we got back. We went to my brother Jonathan's graduation party the night we got home, had church the next day and then on Monday I had a job interview. I had interviewed at this place before for a different position that they filled but apparently they knew this position was opening up and thought it would be a good fit for me. So, I went in on Monday morning and they hired me right there on the spot. I started work Tuesday morning and now here I am. It truly was a blessing for sure! Perfect timing. God had it all worked out! If you want to know more about my job give me a call or something... I think that it will be good, a challenge for me in some ways but good at the same time.

Now, today is Friday and the weekend in almost here! I look forward to the weekends, I always have, but I think I do even more now because I know I get to spend them with Britt! :) A couple friends are coming over for Dinner tomorrow night which should be really fun. It will be a good weekend all together and I am really looking forward to it.

I hope all it well with all of you and that you have a great weekend as well. I promise to post pictures as soon as I can so just hold your horses! ;)

Love!

May 30, 2009. Be there or be square!

I would just like to say that I am getting married in 3 days and the next time I write on this blog I will be married!!!! :)

One week tomorrow and it will be the wedding day! I can hardly believe it! Time has been going by so quickly these last few weeks. Tonight is my bachelorette party and then Saturday-Monday is Britt's bachelor party. His friends are taking him to the Illinois river for a float trip. I think they will have a lot of fun although I am going to miss him while he is gone.

Britt's two older sisters come into town tomorrow. It will be really good to see them!

Today is my last day working at the capitol. I had a job interview two days ago and I am waiting to hear. They interviewed several other people and so I am just keeping my fingers crossed. I know the Lord has it in His hands and if He wants me to have this job I will get it, no problem. If not, then He will provide something else, something better for me.

This weekend after my bachelorette party my good friend Hannah is going to stay at Britt and my apartment with me while Britt is away. I should be really good! We plan to get a few things done that we need to do but also just relaaaaax. Oh yes!

This next week will be a lot of wedding preparation. Monday-Wednesday I will be doing last minute things, getting stuff together, and TRYING to relax a little. Thursday and Friday will consist of a lot of decorating and such things... And then we all know what is going to happen this next Saturday! :)

Sine this post is about as random as they come I thought I would post this really cute pic that Brooke took on her phone and edited while we were working on our apartment....


Isn't it cute? lol... I think that our personalities really come out in it.

Well, that is all for now. If your calendars are not marked for next weekend, Saturday, May 30th at 2:00pm you should mark them and come to our wedding!

Things are still crazy!

Not that I expect them to be anything but crazy... haha. The wedding is 19 days away. It is so weird because I know that 19 days is not long at all but it still feels like the wedding will never come. I know of no other way to explain it.

We are both still praying for jobs. I have a few leads but leads is all that they are. I am praying that something will come of one of them but if nothing happens then that means that God has something else in mind. At church on Sunday morning pastor said "If you aren't trusting God you aren't obeying Him. The two cannot be separated." Let me just say, that was convicting for me.

Britt graduates this week! That is so amazingly, wonderful and crazy all at the same time! Pray for him as he is taking all of his finals! For those of you wondering about the graduation he has actually decided to not walk. He said that he would rather just do something with his family then sit through a 4 hour ceremony where they call his name once and that is it. So... Some of you may think that is great and others of you may think he is crazy but it is what he wants to do and I am just happy that he will be done! *Hallelujah!*

We move into our apartment this weekend! Well, we are moving our stuff and Britt is moving in. I keep telling people "We are moving in this weekend!" and they give me a funny look. haha...

I will try to take pictures. Maybe even some before and after shots. No promises though... haha...

Randomness

I feel like….
I always start my blogs now with how many days until the wedding. I can’t help it though! It is getting so close! 26 days! :) haha….

We had our second shower this past weekend. It was really good. We truly are blessed! My personal shower is tomorrow night and I am excited about that as well. It should be fun!

Britt has 2 more weeks of school! I can hardly believe it and I know that he really can’t! It is so crazy! He is happy about it. I think that if we were not getting married it would be more difficult for him but he has that to look forward to and I think that it helps.

We are still praying for jobs, one for Britt specifically. He has been looking at some positions at Hobby Lobby Corporate office and we are praying that something will possible come of that. It would be a great place for him to work!

I was thinking today about my birthday. It is coming up… It is actually the day before our wedding. I am sure that my birthday will get lost in the excitement of the wedding. I don’t find that to be a bad thing at all… I would WAY rather be getting married then celebrating my birthday. But…. At the same time I will be 21. It is exciting in a way! Most of my “Birthday gifts” our actually wedding things but if I could make a “Me only, Birthday wish list” this is what it would be….

-Wicked Tickets
-A Massage
-An ipod touch
-New Tennis shoes
-Gift Cards to: Target, Charlotte Russe and New York and Company.
-Tom’s Shoes
-Smash Box Photo Finish
-Bare Essentials gift card
-To go Swimming
-New Shorts

What is really at the top of my list though…getting married and a week all alone with Britt. Which… I will be getting! I am a happy blessed woman!!!

31 days...

...and I am getting married! Wow! For those of you who did not know, that is 1 month! We started counting down at 10. 1 seems SO doable!

Excited about:

• Our shower this Saturday and my Personal shower Tuesday!
• Britt being done with school!
• Moving everything into our apartment!
• Family coming into town!
• WEDDING!

Praying that:

• We can find a car.
• Britt can find a job.
• I can find a job.

Reminding myself:

"I have been young and now I am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or His descendants want for bread." Psalm 37:25

"Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known unto God!" Philippians 4:7

Those two verses hang by my desk and I look at them often and remind myself of who my God is:

The God who owns the cattle on a thousand hills.

The God who will supply ALL of my needs.

The God who loves me and gave it all for me.

Provider!

Sustainer!

Comforter!

God!

40 days...

and I will be getting married! I can hardly believe it! April is almost over! I am grateful for that because I know that May will fly by! We have so much going on I don't see how it could not.

I only have 4 more weeks at work here at the Capitol. I am going to start job hunting soon for something at least during the summer. Please pray that I find something! We are still praying for a job for Britt as well. He has a few leads and is going to start applying.

We got the wedding band for my ring this week. It is so beautiful. Mr. Manison, a guy that goes to First Southern and is David's (Britt's good friend) dad, made it for us. He is the same guy who made my engagement ring. The wedding band is SO beautiful! I was able to take some diamonds out of a ring that I had and do not use and have him put them in the engagement band to save a little money. We went to pick up the ring yesterday and when he told us the price for it both of our mouths dropped open. It was WAY less then what we thought it would be even with the discount of using my diamonds. It was SUCH a blessing. Just another thing that God has blessed us on. The Lord truly is our provider and I can rest in that!

This week is going to be decently busy which I am actually grateful for. These days I like things to be busy because times goes so quickly.

Tomorrow night is Lizzie (My niece) Birthday party. She will be 2, I can hardly believe it!

Wednesday is Date Night. Britt and I talked about going on a picnic because the weather is supposed to be SO nice!

Thursday night we have Paradigm. There are only a few more weeks left of Paradigm. It is kind of weird. Britt is going to be done with school so soon! 4 weeks left! CRAZY!

Friday I am getting my hair trimmed and highlighted! I am really excited about that! I have not done anything at all to my hair since October so I am due for a trim. Friday night.... I am not sure what we are doing. We might go to Spring Banquet that the BSU puts on. We are still trying to decide.

So, it should be a pretty busy week. The weekends are always full these days it seems as well. I had to call CHA and let them know that I will not be able to sub anymore this school year. Every Friday there is something going on between now and the wedding. It is so crazy!

Hope you all have a good week!

Wedding Shower!

Like I said below, Britt and I were SO blessed at our shower. Here are a few pictures

All of the Bridesmaids and Groomsmen that were there...

Hannah and I

Britt and I with his friends that came from OU.

My bridesmaids (Minus Kristen) and I

Gifts!

and more...

and more...

and more... (Notice, it is a "C" for Clay.)

Mr. Manis (Host) was encouraging us on a few things...

Opening a gift from the Manis's

Cupcakes!

You can go to my facebook to see the rest! :)
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=634321687&v=feed&story_fbid=86765765785#/album.php?aid=89074&id=634321687&ref=nf

Showers. Weddings. Grace.

Britt and my first wedding shower was this past Saturday. It was hosted by friends from the church I grew up at, Western Hills. Britt and I both felt blessed beyond words with the shower of gifts that we received. By the time it was all over with I felt somewhat overwhelmed. We have another shower hosted by friends at First Southern on May 2. I can hardly believe that we will be blessed with two showers!

The wedding is really coming up. The funny thing is that right now it still feels like forever away. I know that it is coming fast and sometimes I look at the calendar, and everything that I have to do and think “WOW! It is coming so quickly!” But yesterday was one of those days that I felt like it was still forever away.

I was telling a friend that it really just comes down to the fact that I am tired of waiting. I know that God gives the grace but sometimes it comes in a form that I cannot recognize if I am not looking for it! I guess that is because He wants us to be looking for it. Otherwise we would probably come to expect it.

So – I know that the grace is there and made available but that doesn’t mean that it is not hard. Everyone tells me to enjoy this time, and I do enjoy it, but I have a feeling that I am going to enjoy marriage even more! Basically, I am ready. End of story.

I will try to post pictures soon of the Shower on Saturday. I know that we have a few readers who would enjoy them! ;)

Well, hope you are all having a good start to the week. Happy Monday! (If there is such a thing! Haha)

Time is flying and...

...today is April 8. I don’t know why that is significant other than the fact that it is April and next month I am getting married!

I am so excited about so many things right now! Thanks to “The Wedding” that is bringing these exiting things!

1.) Our shower this Saturday. It is going to be fun! I am already cheating and looking online at what people are buying. It is so exciting and I know that we are going to feel SO blessed!
2.) May 2nd is another shower as well that is being hosted by First Southern. We feel double blessed that we have two showers!
3.) May 5th is my bridal shower. My matron of honor Amy has been so great and I am so grateful to her for doing this. It will be a lot of fun to get together with all the girls.
4.) May 8th I am taking my bridal portraits. That is going to make me SO ready for the wedding! Putting on that dress and getting all ready is going to make me want to just have the wedding that day! :)
5.) May 16th we get to move into our apartment. Well… We get to move our stuff and Britt is going to move in. haha… May 16th is also BRITT”S GRADUATION!!! I cannot even begin to tell you how ready I am for him to be done with school! I know that he is VERY ready too! AHHHH! It will be so nice!
6.) May 23 Beth and her kids as well as Becky will be coming to town! We were so blessed to be able to see Becky and John last month as well but it will have been a year since we have seen Beth and her kiddos. It will be so good to see them!
7.) That whole next week will be a blur I am sure as we prepare for the wedding and everything that will entail. Then…. After much planning and preparation…. After the sweat and tears… WE WILL GET MARRIED! *Exhaling long breath…* Yeah, I am ready!
8.) Then my friends we will be off to San Antonio on our honeymoon and as much as we love Oklahoma and everyone here I doubt we will think much about anything but each other which is just going to be WONDERFUL!

The fact that I can, in 8 points, talk about the upcoming events leading to the wedding is exciting alone! It is coming so quickly! I guess the fact that April 8 is significant is because I can’t believe it is already the 8th! Wasn’t yesterday March?!?! WOW!

Happy Wednesday to you all! :)

Looking forward…

I am looking forward to…

Friday and Saturday:
Movie
Starbucks
Girlfriends
Shopping
Laughing
Being….a girl.

10th Avenue North concert

Our Wedding Shower

Getting my hair cut and colored

Another shower

Bridal portraits

Britt graduating!!!!!!!!!

Getting married!!!!!!!!!

Going on our Honeymoon!!!!!!

Being Mrs. Clay.


- The above order does not show priority but chronological order. :)


Here are some random pictures... Because I was looking through them and thought I would share. :)

Rest to the Real World

For those of you who did not know Britt and I were gone this past week in Glorieta, New Mexico. We had a really great time of learning, relaxing, fun and friendship! It was a much needed break for the both of us!

I did take some pictures and will try to post some of them soon! For those of you that have facebook though, they are on there…

The week started with us leaving on Saturday morning. We had to be in Norman at the BSU there at 5:30AM!!! It was very early. I only got about 3 hours of sleep the night before so it REALLY felt early to me. We loaded the bus and headed out somewhere between 6-6:30am. I was able to sleep on the bus for quiet awhile which was really nice.

We arrived in Glorieta that night at around 5:00pm. We ate dinner and went to our first session of the week. We had two speakers that week. Max Barnett who is the former director at the OU BSU and Dan Woolridge who is a business man who speaks at many conferences. It was really good. Max taught on how Discipleship begins with Evangelism and Dan talked about the work place and our influence there as well as the world we will in and where it is going. God spoke to my heart in many ways.

Sunday was more session and we also had “Workshops”. There was a list of workshops that we could pick from. Britt and my favorite was “Developing a Heart for the Lost” by Brian Zunigha. He was really great and his heart for the lost was evident. It was very convicting for Britt and I.

Monday and Tuesday were “Free Days” for us. A lot of the students go snow skiing on those days but since Britt and I are poor we opted on the skiing. ;) On Monday we went to Santa Fe, NM. It was…. Fun. (That is a whole other blog post). After Santa Fe we just hung out and rested.

On Tuesday Britt and some of the guys went hiking. Ashley and Hannah (the two girls in my room) and myself went and met up with them after a little while. We ended up hiking for about 4 hours. It was a lot of fun!

Wednesday and Thursday was more worshops and session, as well as a night of "Follies" on Thursday.

Really, the whole week was so nice and refreshing. God really spoke in my life in a lot of ways. I had a really great time getting to know some of Britt’s friends better and on a different level. They are some really great guys and great friends for me as well.

We are home now… Back to the “Real World”. I THINK I am ready. :p Are you ever REALLY ready though?

68 days until the wedding! I can hardly even believe it! Time is going by quickly and I could not be more grateful! I am so ready to be Lauren Clay! God has been so good to Britt and I. If you think of us please continue to pray for a job for Britt and that we would find an apartment soon. Apartment hunting is so difficult and frustrating. As for the job, that is something that we just really have to trust God on. He is in control though and he has a plan that is better than anything we can dream up.

So – That was up there with some of the longer posts I have published. I tried to reduce everything as well. A lot happened in the last week. Like I said, I will TRY to get pictures up soon.

Have a great week!