My ears!!!!!

This past Sunday was our first Easter as a married couple. Jake has actually been to the last 3 Shafer Easter get-to-gethers. Easter was the first time Jake was thrown to the wolves so to speak with my family, so Easter is always special to me. Jake and I made each other Easter baskets, I had planned on getting up early Easter morning to hide jelly beans in the house for Jake to find. That is was they did when he was a kid, but the warmth of the bed overpowered me and I stayed there for another hour.

We went to church with the whole family taking up 1 and a half rows while Jake sat up front to translate the meeting for the Spanish speakers in our ward. He was also right behind the two musical numbers we were "blessed" to hear that morning. He had to keep a straight face while one woman was belting out "HIS HANDS!!!!!!!!!!!" into the microphone for nearly a ten minutes. Jake sent me a text that read "DAMN! My ears!" It was hard to keep a straight face. I don't understand why musical numbers in the church have to be a night at the Rhyman and can't just be a hymn. I guess that is a curse of living in Music City.

update

So I haven't updated this blog since before Jake and I got married. Life is going well for both of us. Jake is currently working at Best Buy until we leave in January. He enjoys it well enough, but he is learning retail isn't as fun as it could be. Being told by managers that you have to sell a customer something they don't want or need is really hard for him.

I am working at Advanced Alarm Technologies where my sister, Jennifer, is the office manager. I am also working as an Artist in Residence at the Scarritt Bennett Center in Nashville. I have a studio space to work in and a gallery space to show in. I am really enjoying it, and it will be something to put on my graduate school applications.

We are both just enjoying the time we have until we leave in January. Now we just have to find somebody to stay in our apartment while we are gone :) Any takers?

two weeks notice

Well, in two weeks from today we will be getting married! I am so excited to be sealed to Jake for time and all eternity. I got back from a month in Italy about two weeks ago. It kind of sucked to be away for a month, right before we get married. It just made me want to get married even more. I guess it means the poor sucker is stuck with me if I missed him as much as I did while I was gone. I guess all the walking in Italy did me good, because my wedding dress fits now! I was going to have to alter it a bit, but not now! Sweet!

On a non-wedding note, the 4th of July is huge in my family...HUGE! We always go to my brother's (Sam)n house. We grill, we swim, we play games, we have a blast! This year my sister Jennifer, my brother Philip, and myself went to play volleyball at the church before the big gathering. We played non-stop for 3 hours.....we are very sore...my muscles hate me...a lot.

I hope everyone had a great holiday and we will see you all very soon! Two weeks! Kind a weird! Love you all!

photos

here is the link to my sister's web page. She has put up the photos from the shower! Thanks Becky!

http://www.davis-homepage.com/

May Showers bring....oh nevermind

So my shower was May 10th! Tracie and Jennifer did a amazing job with it! It was lots of fun! They made so much good food! They even bought Fulin Sushi for me! That rocked! My sister Becky flew in for the weekend so she could come to the shower! That was great too! She had to leave Sunday morning to get back in time for Mother's Day with her family! She will also be posting some of the photos she took at the shower on her website, which I will post a link to later.

Jennifer made a video called The Daily Report, which is basically a huge joke on Jake. I almost peed on myself while watching it! For those of you lucky enough to be coming for the wedding will be able to watch it when you come into town. For those of you not coming, you will miss it!

We got a lot of good stuff! We got cooking ware, dishes, Foreman grill, those can-things that you put sugar and stuff in, dish towel, shower curtain, lamps, measuring cups, rolling pin, Annabeth painted me a picture, and Kate-Lin Mae got Jake his transformer towel! There was also a cake decorating contest Top Chef style! It was a great day and I am so thankful that Tracie and Jennifer were able to do that for me. Thank you to everybody you came. Thank you MaryJane for letting us use your house and for all that you are doing with helping me plan the wedding.

Philip took photos of Jake and I at Centennial Park that morning before the shower. I added them to the photo gallery link. Go check em out!

I know it has been a while since I posted anything. I've been a little busy with school, work, actually planning this wedding, getting everything done for graduating. So sorry for the delay on any news.

It looks like I am going to get to go to Italy for a full month now. There are still a few kinks that need to be ironed out, but the trip will be May 20th to June 20th. Last week I went with MaryJane to scout out a possible place for the reception. She had found a place in Franklin. There is this place called "The Factory". It is so cleveryly named because it is located in an old factory. It has a huge ball room where I had my proms, but it has a bunch of little shops, stores, and resturants. There is an art gallery upstairs that hosts wedding receptions. MaryJane hit the nail on the head. It is perfect! A husband and wife own the gallery and the husband told us that we should talk to his wife for she was the all knowing with dates and other things. So we've been calling and seeing what days are open and we have settled on July 19th. I am very happy! It is going to be wonderful! Way to go MaryJane!

Stormy Weather

I have lived in Tennessee my entire life and have been through some bad storms and tornados, but last night really did some damage. I live in Bellevue which is about 20 min from my home town of Fairview. I was in my apartment alone on the phone with Jake (I know you're not supposed to be on the phone during a storm!) sitting in the bathroom floor while the hail was hitting the bedroom windows. Jake was talking to me so I wouldn't freak out completely. I can handle a thunderstorm no problem, but tornados scare me to death! He was just casually telling me what the news was saying and says "Oh there is a house down in Fairview on Cold Water Road". My head popped up and I asked him to repeat what he said. My mom lives on Cold Water Road. My heart just about skipped a beat. I hung up on Jake and called my mom six times but the phones were down. So after about a 2 min freak out period, I got a call from my brother. She was ok, she had no power. She said she had some trees down, one on her car and one through her front door. I called her cell phone and talked to her for a bit.

This morning my sister Jennifer, brothers Jay, Philip, Sam, and his wife MaryJane, my Dad, my aunt and uncle, cousin, and one of Jay's friends went there to clean up. I was driving all through Fairview and there were no trees down, not even a hint that there was a storm the night before, until I got the right before her driveway. There were trees everywhere, uprooted, scattered. There were 4 houses along the road that were completely destroyed. One of her neighbor’s house was sitting about 15 feet from its foundation and front porch. There were 3 more along the road with really bad damage. The driveway to the house is very long and runs along a forest on the left side and a cow field on the right. The trees in the forest were either uprooted in the driveway, or in the cow field. The tornado had touched down right in the valley of that forest. I would say that over 1,ooo trees were destroyed. It came to about 100 yards from her house. When you look at the damage that was done, there is no way that house should have been standing or that my Mom should be alive. There were only 3 trees left standing in her yard. What is amazing is that all the trees fell around the house. The tree that fell on her front porch would have ended up in her living room if the wind had gone in another direction. She had a tree fall directly onto her car and there wasn't a scratch on it. It was amazing. The garage was completely gone, the roof off the water pump was gone, there were trees everywhere; it was a horrible disaster.

We spent the entire day out there cleaning it all out. I am sore from the top of my head to the bottom of my toes. The power is still out but at least the driveway is clear. My mom is staying with Sam and his family for a few days, but at least she is alive. There were 12 people killed in that tornado last night all along Tennessee and Kentucky. I feel horrible for those people and their families and am grateful that mine was safe through it all.