It's a Wedding Wonderland

I started writing a blog about the things I’m excited about this spring and summer. It's 85 degrees outside and forecasted to be nice all weekend which got me thinking about all there is to do in nice weather. My first topic was weddings. And then I realized that we have so many upcoming weddings that it deserves a dedicated blog. So you’ll have to wait for the spring and summer blog.

I’ve been told that in your 20’s there is an early wave of weddings and a late wave of weddings. I’m officially at the age that the late wave is picking up and in full gear! In the coming months, Matt and I get to go to quite a few weddings to celebrate our friend’s love. And as we are still planning our own, you can bet that I’m taking notes on all the details.

Here are the wedding invites we currently have on the fridge:
May 2: Quinn and Deborah in Birmingham, Alabama
Matt is a groomsman in the wedding. Quinn was Matt’s first roommate in Knoxville and they are an adorable couple. I’m excited to go to Alabama for the first time!

May 23: Jon and Trina in Spokane, WA
Woohoo! A wedding in Spookaloo! We are excited to see our NW friends and family. Plus we get to squeeze some of our own wedding planning during the trip.

June 6: Lane and Sarah in Charlottesville, VA
Lane is Matt’s friend in the PhD program and Sarah is his awesome fiancé who I started going to yoga with (until my knee started acting up, but I will return soon!) I can't wait to visit Charlottesville! There wedding is at an old historic house and they plan to have BBQ and horseshoes. So fun!

July 11: Megan and Tim in Walla Walla, WA
Megan is a friend of mine from college. Unfortunately we can’t make another trip back west for this one.

July 11: John and Elizabeth in Knoxville, TN
John and Elizabeth were at the same Engaged Encounters retreat as Matt and I. We really hit it off with them and have went to dinner together once since…hopefully more soon. We’re not sure how to manage it, but maybe we can go to two weddings in one day, we hope to pull it off somehow.

July 11: Ann and Wilson in Cookesville, TN
Ann is in the PhD program with Matt, and is actually the only other person he will graduate with. She grew up in Cookesville which is not too far outside of Knoxville. Again, we might try to make a miracle happen and attend two weddings in one day. I’ll let you know how it goes!

Can you believe it? Three weddings on the same day! I wonder if that is the most popular wedding day of the summer. Having all these spring and summer weddings makes me even more excited to have our fall wedding. I don’t think we have to be concerned about our guests having other weddings conflict with ours (fingers crossed).

Cheers to love and marriage! We’re so excited for all of our friends.

Now I need to go shopping for a few dresses and lots of wedding gifts!

What’s up with this darn knee

Today I had my first post-op appointment with the surgeon and am happy to report that my healing seems to be normal. The swelling and bruising I have now is more than some people experience ,but it isn't alarmingly so. (Phew! And I'd show pics but it is really not attractive.) I asked several questions about what I can do to prevent future injuries and knee pain. His main recommendation is to keep my weight down and to exercise. Check and check.

Then I asked a question I wasn’t really sure I wanted the answer to: Will I ever get back to running? The answer wasn’t exactly reassuring. He said you never really know but a lot of people can’t get back to running because the impact just causes too much pain. And that I will be able to physically run but it might cause so much pain that I might deem it not worth it. Ugh. I fought off tears as I thought about the feeling of a run on a sunny, breezy day. I don’t know if anything really compares (though I keep telling myself that I can learn to appreciate a bike ride on a sunny breezy day just as much). As I tried not to cry like a baby, I kept telling myself, SOME people can’t run. That’s not ALL people. Time will tell. The last time I had knee surgery I wanted to run a half-marathon one year after surgery. It didn’t happen. I had nagging pain and never got back to running. I’m setting the same goal this time around and hoping for different results.

So here’s the fun part for you readers, hopefully you’re still with me! The doc gave me pictures of the inside of my knee from the scope they did for surgery. It’s kind of hard to tell what is going on, but I’ll try my best to describe what was described to me. And before I begin with the before and after pictures and poor attempts to describe them…I should give some reference to the readers who aren’t familiar with a meniscus. My way of describing them is the cushion that supports your knee—all the impact your knees take mean the joint needs a little padding. You have two different kinds: the medial which is under your kneecap on the inside of your leg and the lateral which is under your kneecap on the outer side of your leg.

Medial Meniscus: The first picture is before surgery and the second picture is after surgery. On the before picture where there is kind of a black hole, that is where my meniscus should be, but it is torn and flipped forward which shows up as the white blobby, stringy thing to the left of the black hole. (Does that make sense?) If you look at the after picture you can see that the blobby, stringy thing is gone and that shows that they took it out and cleaned it up. And yes “blobby, stringy thing” is an official medical term. And I can’t tell in these pictures but apparently “most” of my meniscus is no longer there.

Okay, so these two pictures are my lateral meniscus. They didn’t know I had a tear here until they got into my knee for surgery. It wasn’t as significant as the medial meniscus because nothing was displaced. They just shaved off the torn part and you can see in the pictures that second one is “cleaner” than the first

Also, I find it really kind of funny that I cry at the thought of not running again while millions of people cry at the thought of having to run and would love the excuse of "I have a bad knee."

Megan and Becca visit Knoxville!

I'm really behind on blogging so I'll try to catch up and will fall back on my standard "high fives."

Megan and Becca made the trek out to Knoxville earlier this month. It is so incredible that Megan was willing to make the journey out to visit. We had so much fun with her and Becca! Here are a few highlights:

1) Just hanging out! I love that just being at home and visiting can be so fun! It was perfect considering how immobile I was. I wish we could have gone on some walks and such, but it didn’t take away from our fun!

2) Having a vivid picture of what Becca is like. Holding, watching and interacting with Becca gives me such a better idea of who she is. Now when Megan tells me she is doing something I can more vividly picture it. I love that.


3) Showing off our home. No one from home has seen Matt and my place since I’ve been here. We have put in some work and added little details to make our house a home and that was really fun to share with Megan and Becca.

4) Getting Megan’s help on the Save the Date cards. We amazingly tracked down every address we needed and I got the save the date designed and printed just in time for Megan’s visit. Coincidence? Definitely not. As Maid of Honor (MOH in bridal speak) Megan was more than willing to help me address all the postcards so we could get them in the mail. It went so quickly between both of us addressing!
5) Playing host! Megan is my older sister who always seems to be the one taking care of me and hosting me whenever I visited. There have been very few opportunities for me to payback the favor. It was fun to plan out meals and outings and make sure Megan and Becca had everything they needed to be comfortable during their visit—which of course included Tennessee gear! Here is Becca in the swimsuit I eyed for weeks before the visit. Megan hasn’t taken any pictures in here UT gear or I’d share that too.

I blame knee surgery...

Having a knee injury = sitting around ALOT

Sitting around alot + pain meds = a total tv-watching couch potato

And that is how I got addicted to Jon & Kate plus Eight. I guess the show has been on since 2007 (who knew!?). I've seen it on TLC and knew the general concept but always refused to watch because I know how TLC shows can suck you in and I didn't want yet another TV show to watch.

But then it was on and I was on the couch for the 5th day in a row and I decided to watch just one episode. Matt watched it with me and we were both kind of annoyed. There are a lot of kids screaming and Kate appeared to be very bossy and negative. BUT I kept watching anyway. I never noticed before, but Jon & Kate plus Eight is on ALL the time! In fact, I'm watching it right now! Plus with our DVR, I have stocked up episodes. A set of twins and then sextuplets! I can't even imagine. And this fascination is why I can't stop watching!

I think if you watch any show back-to-back-to-back you get sucked in. Any TV showed that I have watched on DVD sucks me in so much more than just a show on TV. Instead of waiting a whole week to watch the next episode you get to watch it right away! With my last knee surgery I got addicted to Weeds on DVD. This time...Jon & Kate plus Eight.