Wedding Nightmare

My alarm clock was a welcome interruption to my sleep this morning. It didn't take me long to wake up and thank God that my dream wasn't really happening. If any of you are dream doctors, please tell me that this is a sign our wedding will be wonderful, not the nightmare I had last night. I don't remember everything, but enough to know it was bad.

My wedding was a disaster. It was in the church in Bellflower and we didn't have flowers. Following the ceremony, they took the pews out of the church and we had the reception right there. The DJ set up her things up in the pulpit (yeah, she was a woman who was having a blast making my life difficult). She didn't have our first dance song, we didn't have a father/daughter/mother/son dance and everyone left early. Trever was wearing a white t-shirt and workout shorts. Before long he completely disappeared. I remember looking through every nook and cranny in the church for a bottle of wine, hoping to make my reception more enjoyable. Then the few of us that were left (mainly just my bridesmaids) sat on the floor. Eventually, one of my former students showed up. He called me "Miss Builta" and everyone corrected him that I was married now and he couldn't call me that anymore. The last thing I remember was finding Trever. He hugged me, I was sobbing and my alarm clock went off...thank goodness!

Hopefully this is no indication of what our wedding day will be like!

The Wedding Party

We finally have a complete wedding party and I'm excited to introduce each of them to you. We have both been blessed with many friends, unfortunately we can't have all of them standing at the front of the church with us. So, here are the chosen few who will be walking down the aisle with us.

Best Man - Seth McIntyre - Friend of the Couple
Seth and Trever have been great friends since about 6th grade. No matter how much time passes between their visits they can always pick up right where they left off. Seth and his wife, Brianna, are the parents of Eden and Gavin and are expecting a new baby girl any day (or maybe she's already here and I just don't know it).

Groomsman - Ron DeOrenellas - Brother-in-Law of the Groom
Ron is Trever's soon-to-be brother-in-law. He will be marrying Trever's sister, Kyla, on September 8th. Ron and Trever both share a passion for the livestock industry although I'm pretty sure Ron prefers the pigs to the cows. We enjoy frequent visits with Ron, Kyla and his daughter Caisey on their trips back from their home in Ohio.

Groomsman - Kirk Builta - Brother of the Bride
Kirk is blessed to be the brother of the bride. A recent graduate of the University of Illinois, Kirk is employed by the Champaign County Farm Bureau as their Information Director (a position that one of the bridesmaids also held a few years back). Although he is officially in the working world, Kirk's involvement in the University of Illinois and his support for Chief Illiniwek will continue. We've also decided that Kirk and Trever were at FFA Camp together quite a few years ago, even though they didn't know each other at the time.

Groomsman - Josh St. Peters - Friend of the Couple
Josh and I first met at the Illinois State Fair several years ago after being introduced by one of my now bridesmaids. It turns out that Josh and Trever actually knew each other even earlier than that when they both were named Stars Over Illinois within the Illinois FFA. And, Josh ended up marrying my cousin, Maggie, making him part of the family too! We enjoy spending time with Josh and Maggie in a variety of settings.

Maid-of-Honor - Kara Builta - Cousin of the Bride
Kara is my yonger cousin, although she has been mistaken for her niece or sister on several occasions (mostly by her dad). Kara will be a junior at Mahomet-Seymour High School next year and will be heading for Hawaii with the chorus shortly after the wedding. She enjoys water skiing and ice skating when they fit in to her tight social schedule. Trever and I enjoy trips to her family's lake house when we find the time.

Bridesmaid - Kyla Kuipers - Sister of the Groom
Kyla is my future sister-in-law and, of course, Trever's sister. She and Ron (see above) will be getting married September 8th in Onarga. Thanks to a dress fitting trip with Kyla a couple of weeks ago I ended up finding my dress at the same store. We enjoy having Kyla back from Ohio every couple of weeks and are very excited to be part of her wedding one month from today!

Bridesmaid - Marla Todd - Friend of the Couple
Marla was one of the first people I met when I moved in to Armory House my freshman year of college. We both joined Sigma Alpha and eventually lived together for a year in the coolest appartment ever! Marla and Trever also share a passion for purebred cattle, although Marla prefers the white ones to the black ones. Marla, her husband, John, and son, Jeremiah, live in Fisher.

Bridesmaid - Amy Rademaker - Friend of the Couple
I was honored to stand up with Amy during her wedding in March and I'm honored that she will be standing up with me next May! When I joined Sigma Alpha, Amy picked me to be her little sister. We became very close very quickly and I'm blessed that the relationship continued after graduation. Amy works in Rural Health and Farm Safety at Carle Hospital and resides outside of Rantoul with her husband Ryan.

The Life and Times...

I know there are a few of you out there complaining that we haven't updated in a while...some of you have even told me about it. Although there aren't many wedding updates to fill you in on (hopefully there will be more soon), here's what we have been up to.

In July we were on the road more than we were home. The first week we took off for 8 hours on the road together. The quality bonding time didn't kill us but a short bout with food poisoning about did Trever in. Besides that, we enjoyed a couple of days in Tulsa at Angus Junior Nationals where I got to meet more of Trever's cow friends. We headed back to a wedding on Saturday, a night at the lake and back to pick up the kid (cat) from grandma and grandpa's (Kathy and Greg).

We worked for 4 days before getting back on the road for a float trip in Missouri. As aprehensive as I was, It was a perfect weekend for camping. We floated down the Huzzah River all day Saturday with some of Trever's high school friends. He is pictured here with Nicole and April.

Another 4 days of work (I'm really liking all of this time off) and I headed to Milwaukee for a Sigma Alpha reunion. I had a great time hanging out by Dani's pool Friday night with college friends. After an early morning trip to O'Hare on Saturday morning, Trever joined us for a tour of Miller Brewing Company and Sprecher Brewery and dinner at Rock Bottom Brewery (Trever claims he has to drink to spend time with my friends:). We headed back early Sunday for a family reunion in Leroy.

The final weekend in July we "stayed home" although we were busy. Friday night was a family outing to a visitation. Saturday we met with a banker with the hope of buying a house in the near future (I'm pretty sure we'll be broke forever) and then I went dress shopping. Sunday I headed to a conference for work (Yeah for overtime).

We've been very busy but that's how we like it. Look for more wedding updates soon!