school, wedding, Christmas

Dear Family,

All is going well here in Idaho. I'm taking 16 credits at school and will be starting work back at Payless again shortly. I spend my evenings doing homework and talking online with Aaron. My classes are going well, and I'm learning a lot. This semester I'm taking Family Foundations (religion class studying the Family Proclamation), Art History II, Typography, Watercolor, Culinary Fundamentals (I'm learning how to cook!) and Safety & Sanitation (how not to kill people with food). I was rather intimidated by this schedule at first, but the classes I thought would be the hardest are actually the most fun so far.

Wedding planning is all going well. Lots of ideas floating around and lots of talking with Tawnia and Mom. You can read all the details at my wedding planning blog. If you haven't gotten an email invite for that, let me know, and I can resend. One thing I wanted to mention here though was what people should be wearing. The main color of the wedding is royal blue - like the color of the sidebar on insanityinc.net - along with white and silver. I'd love for the guys to all be in black suits, with blue or white shirts and blue ties (patterns are okay, as long as the dominate color is blue). I would love to see the little boys in ties too! Girls have a little bit more flexibility - a blue dress is preferable, but a black skirt with a blue top is alright. If anything, a white top and black skirt works too. Silver can also work, for the guys' ties as well, as long as at least a few people have silver (and not just one). I'm not particularly picky on matching color exactly, or the style of the outfit. I want this to be stuff you already have or if you buy it it'll be something you'll wear again, so it isn't a financial strain at all.

So why does any of this matter? Well - I really want to make sure the WHOLE family is there for the wedding... because my Christmas present will be kinda pointless without us all! I'm planning on hiring a photographer to take family pictures of us. I've already talked to Lindsay Zook (married to Mike Zook) about a few ideas and such but haven't set anything in stone just yet. I would love to get a full group shot of all of us in the coordinated outfits (including me - I'll get something besides the wedding dress), along with the smaller family pictures to go above the fireplace. They would all color coordinate and look fabulous. So I sincerely hope that everyone is planning on coming to Oregon for Christmas and sticking around for the wedding a few days later - I'm really looking forward to being in the temple with all of my brothers and sisters together for the first time.

Love,
Mindy