It's Never Perfect All the Time

Well, first of all...I watched the Royal Wedding this morning. I spend the night at Christi's, we both slept on her couches, set our alarm for 4:30am, finally had the strength to turn the TV on at 5, and spend our early morning watching a true prince and princess be married. It did not disappoint. I loved every second of it and I can not wait for it to be my moment to be a bride :) I think I will feel just like a princess on my wedding day. One because my groom is a true prince. Two because I have the most amazing dress. Three Nic will have on a tux with a tail. Four I will be swept away with my groom at the end of the night in a horse carriage. The list could go on and on but my point is, I get to be a princess one day very soon! I have never really been into princes and princesses and actually when I was younger I rarely dreamed of my wedding like most little girls do but I would be lying to say I will not soak up every moment of that day as mine and Nic's and be nothing short of a princess and I also have no shame in saying that I believe I will not feel any different than Kate felt this morning. To me Nic is more of a prince than anyone could ever be and I know in the eye of the Lord and in the eyes of my sweet fiance...I to am no different than a real princess, I am not saying I am viewed that way to everyone but I know that in the eyes of these two I am and on July 15, 2011 I'll get to have my own royal wedding :)

We have had LOTS of planning going on lately and I feel like we are on a role. Although, things have not been as smoothly has hoped for in many areas haha. I knew it would only last so long before the mishaps begun. But so far everything has been fixable :)

My bridesmaid's dresses were suppose to arrive this week. And the company e-mailed me the other day and said that the designer's did them in all the WRONG color! You should know that I ordered those dresses 3 months ago so it has been a long process for them to come in and I do not have 3 more months to wait for more dresses. But luckily since it was their fault not mine they are rushing the order and I will have the dresses in the RIGHT color in 3 weeks. (When they can do it that fast it makes you wonder what in the world they have been doing the last 3 MONTHS?)

Along with that I...
...Ordered my Invitations for the wrong company and they were only going to be able to make me ivory invitations with Burgundy ribbons (PS my colors are purple, black and silver.)
...One of my bridesmaids couldn't get the shoes I picked out for them
...and many other small changes to plans have happened

But on the other hand...
...I was able to cancel my invitations and order them from the right place
...The bridesmaid was actually my maid of honor and she is getting the shoes in black which will actually be cuter, so she will stand out
...my wedding dress has arrived
...we found a great house to live in
...our potential puppy was born this week
...GOD IS GOOD
...I get to marry the most amazing man
...Our wedding will be fantastic no matter if things don't go as planned :)

Mishaps are just mishaps...like I said so far everything has been able to be fixed. They may give you a temporary heart attack but you just have to laugh about it, make a plan B, and keep going. I believe that nothing can take from our wedding day. It is getting so close and I couldn't be more excited. I feel like most of the big things are pretty much out of the way and now we can really begin to focus on the ceremony and the flow of the night. This is the part that means the most to me and I am so excited for the vision to start forming.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Love you

Refreshed and Ready to Roll

I am back and refreshed :) I had such a great time at home this weekend it was unbelievable. I truly missed being in Boone and at my church for Easter but the time with my friends and family was much needed.

Look how cool my shower cake was!! We tested out the lady that we are getting to do our wedding cake and check it out, it looks awesome and it tasted awesome! My wedding cake will look nothing like this haha but it still shows she can do a great job! The shower was a lot of fun! It was sweet to have all my friends together from all different places and to have my family there also was such a blessing. My mom put everything together and I give a shout out to her for being the world's best mom!! I am not kidding, I have the best parents! And my best friend Jackie directed everything and put together the games and she was so great! It is so sweet to see all my friends and family together in one place.

Easter was different but it was really great. I went to church with my brother and his girlfriend and then I went to my home church and met up with a friend there. I haven't been to my home church in over a year probably and it had been a while since I had seen everyone. It was the Pastor's last service after 25 years of ministry in the church, he is retiring. They whole church couldn't stop their tears as he pushed through to preach about the resurrection, faith, and how the Lord has brought him through these last 25 years. It was such a sweet sweet service. After the service I went to talk to all the ministers and other's and it was so sweet to be celebrated by them as they were just now seeing me for the first time since my engagement. It was a quick reminder of how blessed I was growing up to be surrounded by such great, caring, loving, and supporting adults in my church. I am thankful for everyone of them.

Sunday night I met up with my friends at a Mexican Restaurant in town and it was pretty much our entire group and we just sat there and talked about our lives together, our friendships, our memories, and the expected future. We laughed so hard we teared up and I am pretty sure that entire restaurant knew way more than they needed to about us as our voices in love and excitement couldn't help but elevate. When you sit at a table with a group of people you have been with for the last 12 years and realize that nothing has changed so far and it probably never will it will truly bless you. I feel like most my blogs are about great friends but relationships truly bless me. I cherish them, I will fight for them, and I will hardly ever let go of them. Thank you girls for being the best of friends to me. And thank you to all my other friends who are also the best of friends to me! I am refreshed daily by your relationships.

I am glad to be back in Boone with my sweet fiance, back to my amazing job, and great church! This week has already unfolded so many great things :) Will update you on everything at once next time :)

Love you all!

Hello Break!

Here I am sitting at work waiting on my 9:30 parent meeting to show up and I thought I would take this time to catch up on the blog. I am so excited because Easter break is almost here! Although I do not get a full week off like most schools do I still get this Friday and next Monday and I am headed home :)

My mom is throwing me a bridal shower on Saturday which I am super excited about! I love so much to celebrate with my friends and family from home. I do not get much time to spend with them since I live in Boone but I still love them to death. I have been truly blessed to still have such a great community in Wilmington. When I go home, even after 5 years of not living there, it's like I never skipped a beat! I love it. Not to mention I will once again get to be showered with love and PRESENTS. I will admit though, I am going to miss Nic. I like to share these moments with him and I want him to get to open and see the presents too, but the girl and family time will be great!

Now that I have bragged on my friends in Wilmington let me brag on my friends in Boone! 5 of the girls up here are coming to my shower! It is a 4 and half to 5 hour drive but it isn't stopping them. (I think the fact that I live at the beach is influential in this decision but I know that they love me just as much as the beach :) )

I know this weekend is going to be a ton of fun and I can't wait to tell you about it. Not to mention it is Easter, my favorite holiday. I am excited to spend it with my family especially considering this will be my last holiday as a single person. I of course am going to love having Nic with me so much more but I am glad that I get to take this time with them. I know they love for me to come home and it is a rare occasion that I get too, so it will be a treat for all of us.

If you don't know much about my home town, you should know that it is the greatest place! I have always said that it is my heart and soul and I pray my parents never leave there so my excuse to visit never runs dry. Here are a few things I plan to do while I am there.

1. Go to the Beach
2. Wear a dress every day
3. Eat at Tower 7/K-38 (either one will satisfy)
4. Go downtown to the River
5. Go out with my friends
6. Play with my puppies (they aren't really puppies anymore but to me they are)
7. Have my dad grill out in the back yard
8. Go shopping in real stores (poor Boone just doesn't cut it in the shopping area)
9. Get PORT CITY JAVA everyday (maybe an occasional Starbucks treat too)
10. Get crab dip while I am out to eat (Family dinner at Bluewater is sounding pretty good)
11. Go to the Fuzzy Peach for self serve yogurt bar
12. Eat a Robert's Chicken Salad Sandwich
13. Get wedding things done that are impossible to do from Boone
14. Walk the loop at the beach
15. Hopefully talk my friends into taking me out on the boat (love the boat over the beach any day)

Just a view things. I love home. I LOVE Boone, but I still love home! Excited for my break! Can't wait to tell you all about it!

Have a wonderful Easter, I hope you are overwhelmed with love and joy in the realization of our Savior's miracle of redemption!

Love you,

Kira

God's Gift of Oppurtunity

Do you ever get invited to participate in an opportunity, it seems worth it, it seems as if it would be beneficial to you, so you take it but it ends up to be so much more than what you expected it to be?

Last Friday, through my job at the high school, I was able to participate in a Youth Suicide Prevention Training. It was a half day event that I was paid to attend and it was all about training an individual to be prepared to recognize a person's invitation to help when they are dealing with suicidal thoughts and then be able to address the situation. The training was awesome and I am blessed to have this knew knowledge and educational backing to deal with the seriousness of suicide. But the Lord has turned this into something so much bigger for me...a whole new understanding of prevention and having faith behind it.

The training in a nutshell basically taught us to be upfront. When you see that a person is struggling with depression, isolation, and many other indicators you simply sit down with them and address your observations and then bluntly say..."Are you thinking about committing suicide?" You do not beat around the bush, you do not ask them if they are wanting to hurt themselves because their method of suicide may not be painful. You cut to the chase...and if they say no, then great, you can help them find a solution to whats bothering them. But if they say yes, you are able to talk to them and get them the proper help that they need. Almost every person who has suicidal thoughts does not really want to die, they just want the pain to stop. This is serious. Very serious. And to not take it seriously could cost a life....

Here comes the Lord's spin on things. I can not stop thinking about this training and how it does not only relate to suicide. It is a principle that also works in spiritual situations.

The training may have seemed simple but as they went on I really had confidence in the prevention. And it actually seemed 100% easier to be straight forward and to not beat around the bush. It is one question....rather than tons of suggestive comments that are made to hopefully have the other person fess up to what they are dealing with on their own.

When we see something that is going on in our Brothers and Sisters in Christ, or even a lost soul. We can not take the matter lightly. God is big enough to use us. Just like the matter of suicide a lot of times the spiritual matters in a person is the same...life or death. To know Jesus or to not. In my training I learned the simplicity of having faith in the prevention. Doing this rids of the fear of offending someone, making a situation worse, or looking like a freak for jumping straight to the most intense situation. Who care's about all of that when there may be a life at stake. I know this is kinda intense but this is such a huge empowerment to me that I wanted to share it with you.

When we meet someone and they are dealing with something severe and you feel that tug in your heart and that push in your spirit to do something for the Lord, have faith in that. Have faith that the prevention (GOD) will work, because he will, because ultimately He loves that person more than you do, He created them, He is their father. Increasing our faith will give us the strength to save a life. If you dismiss the invitation, which by the way every person who is considering suicide will give out invitations and most of the time it is subconsciously because what is inside them is crying out for help. They want the help, because like I said before they really do not want to die they just can not figure out another way for the pain to end. But people who do not know Christ also give out invitations, to be saved, to receive love, to be helped, to be healed. If you dismiss it, you may have cost them their life. If you acknowledge it and speak the truth of God into their lives, God is big enough to move. Have faith in the prevention. This also goes for your friends and peers that do know Christ but could walk more deeply with him. They long to glorify God, their spirit longs for someone to speak encouragement into them.

Have faith in what he is speaking to you when it comes to the well being of his son's and daughters. He has given us the authority to speak his truth in the earth. Do not allow fear to hold you back from saving or elevating a life. It matters, it is serious. Notice the indications and the invitations of a person who is being held in captivity and by the spirit of God with in you SPEAK freedom into their lives. Do not just walk away in hopes that they will one day find peace with God. You are there, you received the invitation, you have the authority, SPEAK.

It is life or death, it is freedom or captivity, it is wholeness or brokenness, it is healing or sickness, it is peace or depression, it is fearlessness or fear.

God's people need you. Believe in what the Lord can do through you. When you have FAITH in the prevention you will be unafraid to use it. People will be uplifted and a community can be changed.

Engage your faith...step out in fearlessness...touch a life...you were made for this :)

My mind is blown and my heart is increased by this revelation.

I love you!

Kira

Wonderful & Beautiful Weekend

What a GREAT weekend!! Sorry I have been MIA lately but it is because I have been doing so many amazing things :)

Friday Night, Nic and I went to the Watauga High School baseball game. That is the high school here in Boone and it is also the high school I serve in my ministry. For those of you who may not know I lead the youth ministry in my church. It is such a blessing and I will tell you more and more about it as the time goes in this blog site. But it was a lot of fun to go to this game. One: I love Baseball! Two: I love these students and parents and it is always so refreshing to spend time with them. Three: I LOVE when Nic goes with me to my youth activities! A part of me likes to show him off but the other half of me just loves for him to be a part of what I do, what I love, my greatest passion, and one of my greatest joys! Nic and I are funny because we would almost always want to have the other person with us. We feel stronger together, we have the most fun together, and we are just simply each other's favorite and best friends. So needless to say Friday night was a treat. I talked to lots of girls, parents, and coaches and it was such a great time to be a part of their community.

Saturday....GIRLS ROAD TRIP! Two of Nic and mine's very good friends, Frankie and Meagan, are also getting married this summer! Three weeks before we are and we are both in their wedding. This weekend Meagan had a bridal shower in Franklin, NC which is 3 hours from Boone. My friends (Christi, Leslie, and Becky) and I all got in the car and headed toward Franklin for a Saturday with the girls! We started our trip off right with finding a gas station that was selling their gas for a dollar off, giving away free pizza and chips, AND we got on the radio. How random huh?! But yet very exciting :) After some curvy roads, a stop in the middle of who knows where at a Cato for Christi to get a new shirt since she got orange on hers in the car haha, and lots of fun conversation we made it to the shower. It was so much fun, it is so sweet to celebrate such a great friend and bride. Meagan's aunt did a great job of putting it all together and we had a blast! On our way back we stopped in Asheville had some Mexican food outside in the beautiful weather and endured the road trip a little longer before we returned home. Sometimes it just feels good to get off this wonderful mountain :)

Sunday....have I told you how great my church is yet?! The Lord has placed me in a house that is so willing and free to go after the things of Him. I have a great Pastor who is a leader in the ways of the Lord, who has a heart for people bigger than I can fathom, and who truly seeks out the voice of God. Sunday he talked about a new vision for the church. Vision is so exciting to me and it was such a refreshing and empowering Sunday. After church we had connecting point where new visitors get to come and meet the leaders and it was really good to sit down and talk to new people :) Here comes one of the best parts of my weekend...on Sunday for the first time in 2011 I put on a bathing suit and went outside and TANNED!! Woohoo! If you know me you know this is something I dream about the day fall begins all the way to spring. I am a beach girl at heart and sometimes these mountains get the best of me in the cold months! But it was so enjoyable. We finished out the weekend going down to Blowing Rock sitting outside for dinner with our good friends Amanda and John Mark Hamilton, watched to sun go down and talked about life.

I feel like every minute of this weekend was a blessing and was so exciting! Don't you love A+ weekends?! But I have my opinion....almost every weekend the sun is shinning is an A+ weekend! Thank you Lord for the sun you created :)

Love you all! Hope you're week is full of new opportunities and blessings!

Kira

100 Days to Go!

Well Everyone! The 100th day has come!! In 100 more days I will be waking up to the reality of our wedding day! I will say good morning to my girls, relax with them, pray with them, and practice BREATHING with them haha as I know my nerves will be outrageous!

Im sure we will have a bridal luncheon, I will head of to get my hair and make up done and then arrive back at the church for the official time to get ready. To put on my dress, not just for fun or for a fitting, but to be presented to my Groom for the first time. To be surrounded by my bridesmaids, mother, mother in laws, grandparents and my father. Helping me to prepare for the ceremony and become the most beautiful bride I can be.

We'll take pictures...this will be fun! Then we'll return back to the room for our final touchups. All the guys including my sweet Nic will be somewhere close by but unseen getting ready too. The girls will say their last prayers over me before I walk down the aisle and then they will scurry off to be in their places to walk down the aisle before me. Then I will be there....just me..and my wonderful father. What a sweet moment. We'll approach the doors and when the music ques the two of us will step our amongst the crowd. Face to face with my love for the first time on this 100th day away.

Marriage is so beautiful and so are weddings. In 100 days it will no doubt be the best day of my life. Nothing can or ever will touch it. No relationship here on earth will top the relationship I have with my husband and no day will top the day I get to marry him.

We'll cry, exchange our vows, worship God, pray together, be blessed, and kiss for the first time as husband and wife....then....

It's time to CELEBRATE wih all our friends and family! Ah, I can not wait for these 100 days to go by. I am thankful for the time to prepare but I will also be thankful with July 15, 2011 is finally here!

Thanks for joining me in excitement today! Love you all so much,

Kira

A note from Nic!!!

Hey Everyone,(this is Nic)

All things have become more exciting and more real as Kira and I approach the wedding day. What a huge commitment and covenant not only with each other but also with the Lord as we enter into this brand new world. I am Nervously Excited to see the work of the Lord and to truly encounter a new Grace in my Life.....

With all of these great penetrating emotions, thoughts, and feelings I would love to take a moment to embrace this concept fearlessness from a different perspective...

To share this vantage point some times causes a person not to merely embrace the product but the process.

Quoted from a book which the title at this moment has escaped my mind is the story of an Art Teacher and her application to the way the brain functions. At this point please do not check out because I referenced "brain functions" remember its about process not product and my assumption is that you have engaged in reading this in order to in someway connect with the creator of this blog on a detailed level. ( I digress)

Back to the Art Teacher:

In her studies she found out that the left side of the brain controls the part of your thinking that produces for the meaning, the foresight, and to be direct this side of your brain wants the final product. This part of the brain allows you to think ahead while someone as speaking and really get to the point the individual is trying to make....Now then the right side of your brain produces details, angles, creativity, in other words process. I hope this makes sense.. Left side of the Brain:Product ;Right side of the brain: Process

The Art Teacher in order to stimulate the minds of her students took a very famous painting from Picasso and had one group of students paint it right side up and the other group of students paint it while it was turned upside down. The findings were phenomenal!!! The students that had to paint it upside down had created more accurate and more detailed replicas of the painting!!! BY doing this the teacher shut down those students foresight and final product thinking and forced them to use the right side of there brain that accesses detail and process!!!

She shut down those students preconceived notions of that painting to allow them to see it in a different light...BRILLIANT

I share this story as an intro to this concept of fearlessness because in essence I took it and flipped it upside down in order to get another vantage point. With that being said I in reality only scratched the surface of this potent word, "Fearlessness"

"Fearlessness."

Facing Fears:

In the book Seven Secrets to Unfolding Destiny by Dr. Mark Chironna this comment is made:

"You cannot confront emotional pain without confronting the underlying fear. This is true of many emotions including grief, resentment, indignation, and anger (anger being a mask for fear). Much of this processing can be done internally. For instance, when you become angry, you can pause and ask yourself "What am I afraid of in this situation?" Once you consciously make the anger-fear connection, you can confront the emotional root that is driving your reactions"

This anger-fear connection is the concept I really would like to explore.

I. When anger produces success!!

For many Athletes, Business Men, and even Leaders anger has produced success. As we have shown above the manifestation of Anger is the inward expression of Fear. We become happy being angry when we see our anger producing what we think is success. Sometimes we use anger as motivation for our employees to work hard, sometimes it is our fuel for accomplishing a hard task, and also can be used to fend off unwanted conversation or any methods one may prefer. The confusing part arises when these unhealthy acts produce success. If success is seen as material gain or public prestige then we can attach success to an array of individuals. If anger is a part of the process to produce this "Happiness" or "Success" then we never truly face our fears.

To break it down it looks like this:

Happy being Angry because Material Success is present = Fears never faced because I am using my Anger to drive me and others around me toward a my personal Goals

Why change something if it is producing what I want? Why take the time to ask myself this humiliating question of "What am I afraid?"
In the male word this is seen as almost blaspheme but in order to truly face fears our view of success has to be properly aligned. What a skewed image of success we have built when we choose to ride the wave of anger into the sunny beaches of material wealth while we have thrown overboard all sense of identity, family,and integrity. Fearlessness is interacting, pursuing, and effortlessly operating from a realm of self peace that only can be achieved through the realization that fear was never meant for us to cling to...

You cannot operate out of fear and feel whole!! So the question arises in my mind, If anger is a form of motivation how do you achieve true success with genuine motivation!?! Your are motivated through your calling!
I am not afraid of what others will say or do!
I am not afraid of the total outcome!
I am not in fear of the process or the product because I am called!
And because I am called success chastens itself to my every motion surging forward to advance the Kingdom of God!!!
Fearlessness resides in your ability to alter your perception of success and evaluate the emotions the are driving your motivation...

Be Encouraged you are CALLED!!
...more to come!!!

Rings and Things

Oh what a day :) Yesterday, Nic and I went down to Winston-Salem to do some wedding things. Our plan was to pick out his tuxes and to buy our rings and we were sucessful in both! If feels so good to get things done in this whole wedding planning process.

We were on our way there and as soon as we were in a 45 mile radius of Winston Nic wanted Ronnie's Chicken Wings. This is his favorite restaurant and it is a little whole in the wall wing place that he loves more than anything. Unfortunately, I just couldn't do it. I love wings but it was like 11 o'clock in the morning haha and way to early for something like wings. I was able to talk him into letting us go there on our way back for dinner :)

We did tuxes first. The process was a lot longer than I thought it was going to be but it was good. Nic got a little thrown off because I did not prep him for anything and he had more decisions than he thought to make. He is so funny in these situations that I wish everyone could just be with us haha. It is so hard to even put into words the faces and the funny stress that comes over him. He had no idea that the groom normally wears something different than his groomsmen haha so he got completely thrown off when he had to choose something different for himself. The tuxes are sweet and I love the color combos :) Nic will be in all black with a platnium vest and tie and the guys will have purple vests and ties. Here is the best part...Nic got a TAIL! Haha he has been saying since we got engaged that he wanted a tux with a tail on it. I really do not know why other than the fact he thinks it looks cool but the whole time I have told him that he can get one I just want to see what it looks like on him first. It just seemed so silly to me but I didn't want to just say no because it is his wedding too and he should get what he wants. Well I asked the guy at Men's Wearhouse if they had the tux with the tail for Nic to try on and they DIDNT have it! They only had a picture of it. Nic and I looked at it and I asked him repeatedly if it was really what he wanted. He continued to say yes and guess what...he got his tails! Haha I know he will look handsome in them I just think it is so funny that it is what he wanted so badly. He can be so unpredictable sometimes and it is great!

After being at the tux place for longer than expected we headed out to the mall. I already knew what band I wanted so we went there first. I checked it out and Nic found an AWESOME ring at the same place. It was pretty expensive so we (I) decided we should go to all the other stores first to see if we could find it at a better price. I call this good shopping haha but Nic on the other hand could have gone with out it. After going to one more jewelry store he needed a break haha. The poor thing just can't handle all this shopping, clothes, and jewelry type stuff. I giggled at him constantly and we sat down and had a pretzel. We then kept going and about 3 stores later we made a decision. He got the first ring and I am so excited for him because it seriously is awesome! We got a picture after we purchased them and I posted it above :) We got starbucks before we left which is the best treat of coming off this mountain. While in line Nic started making up songs about how bad his feet hurt and I knew I had pushed him to his limit haha. Good thing we saved Ronnie's for last!! It was a great treat for our long day!

But no matter how tiring it was for the both of us the great thing is that we are just happy to be with each other. We laugh, we sometimes complain, but we are not hateful and we seriously just simply have the best time together. Nic is by far the funniest person I know and I am so happy that for the rest of my life I get to experience every bit of it. We had a great day!



Only 3 months and 2 weeks away! We are getting so close!