There's no place like home... There's no place like home...

 

Well, today Joe and I (me, the native Kansan) experienced our first tornado! I was driving home on my lunch break around 11:00 AM to have lunch with Joe and the music stopped mid-song and the robot recording guy told me to take cover for a tornado!! Kinda freaky! It was pretty dark out and it was raining hard, but nothing looked unusual especially since we have been having so much rain lately. Well, then the tornado sirens went off. If you don't know what those are they are basically a foghorn thing on a big high pole that rotates around on top and makes this loud semi high-piched warning sound. If it's facing you it's super loud. I have heard it a decent amount because they set it off on Wednesdays to make sure it works, but I don't hear it often foreal! When I was a little girl, I used to see the sky change to crazy colors every now and again... green, yellow or orange. This time I SAW a real tornado and there were no crazy colors! I burst through the front door to tell Joe what I heard on the radio, but he had the news on -- I'm sure it was on every channel! There had been a touch down about 20 minutes south of us and the wall cloud was quickly headed our way. It was already to where I work -- I had called to let them know what I had heard on the radio and my boss said that everyone was gathering in the bathrooms to take cover. Joe called me to our back door and there it was! We had a huge funnel cloud that appeared to be on the ground although we couldn't see since trees were in the way. Joe took a video of it (here is the link to the video!)and I took a couple pictures! I started to line the bathtub with pillows (which after the fact Joe thought was hilarious) since we live in an apartment and have no basement, but the funnel moved away from us. *PHEW*! According to the weather people on TV, the tornado did touch down several places around us although the only damage done in the entire metro area that I know of was a few headstones were knocked down way south of us. Us Kansas Citians had a crazy little adventure this morning that was both amazing and terrifing, and I think I can speak for a lot of people when I say how grateful I am that all my loved ones are safe and to be safe myself. Oh, and don't be afraid to visit!! :-)

Invitation Adventure

I received my wedding invitations in the mail on Thursday. I was so excited to get them --tracking them even online as they made their way across the United States on their little UPS truck (okay, several) :) They came while I was at work and all day I couldn't wait to open them. It's kind of surreal that I'm getting married, but seeing both our names on 400 invitations definitely helps to make it sink in. What helps make it sink in more is when you open the box and see 400 messed up invitations (!) and the thought, Am I going to have to send these to everyone I know looking like this?! The format was really off in a significant place and part of one line was on top of the line below. At first, I tried not to think about it or be sad about my odd looking invitations. I assumed that it was my mistake and that they wouldn't reprint them for me so I should just not let it sink in that I hated how they looked at that there were two glaring problems on them. I'm just particular, right? No one else will notice? They showed me the proof online before I submitted my order, so it's my fault, right? But after talking it over with my parents and Joe I realized that the proof I had looked at was to double check (or quadruple check in my case... I checked it literally four times because I was so afraid of  making a mistake and having... this happen) spelling and wording. I looked at the example on the picture on the website and the names to the side were lined up. The names on mine did not line up in any way. That's common sense on their part to line the names up and not have two lines touching each other. I realized the error was not mine. I e-mailed the company about the problem, attaching a picture of my invitation the way they'd sent it (I scanned one of the invitations into the computer) just hoping that they wouldn't stick me with 400 messed up invitations because I had seen a proof beforehand. I didn't see any format errors on the proof except that it wasn't to scale. It looked kind of squooshed online, so I just figured the spacing would be normal on the actual invitations. After I sent the e-mail I noticed on the invoice that came with the invitations that they asked to be notified of any errors or problems and on an e-mail I had received that if you aren't 100% happy, the company will give you a full refund or reprint your order. Still, I hadn't received a response from anyone at the company yet, and being Saturday, the day before a holiday and conference weekend (the company is in Rexburg, ID, a primarily LDS town -- irronically where Joe and I both lived and where I went to school for five years) I figured I wouldn't get a response today. I was pleasantly surprised when I did get a response from them saying that they apologized, and that they were reprinting my order and they would be arrived between such and such days. I am EXTATIC! I have been so worried about them saying no! I am thankful for good customer service, though I would prefer not to need them. Oh, well! We have plenty of time. I made sure to order our invitations way in advance (they only take a few days to print and ship -- good for typical LDS engagements of like 2 months, huh?) just in case something happened. Now, let's hope there is nothing wrong with my DRESS! That sucker takes three MONTHS to be made and arrive! Woo, crossing my fingers on that one! Anyway, just wanted to share our little adventure -- or "scare" if you will : ) I'm your typical bride, huh? I promise I didn't get bridezilla or anything, but I was very worried I would have to send out funny looking invitations. You only do this once, right? : ) Hope all is well with everyone.

Love,
Joe & Bren