happy future anniversary?

"A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person." -- Germaine Greer

August 23rd. Today is a very important day (for a couple of reasons). First off, my sister is returning from Uganda/Dubai today! Now while this reality may be sad news to her, it makes me quite happy since I have greatly missed her over the past few months (and I can't wait to hear stories/see pictures of her adventures abroad). And now that she's back in the States, she can reprise her MoH duties, which I'm sure she was thinking about constantly while she was being a humanitarian in a war-torn country (just kidding). But all jokes aside, today is also exactly one year from my wedding AND Alphonse is on his was down to visit again this weekend! So happy future anniversary to us... I'm so happy that I get to spend it with my honey (even though he laughs at me everytime I mention "happy future anniversary"). The way I see it, this is the only future anniversary we have, so why not celebrate it, champagne and all :P ?! And if that isn't corny enough, I just thought you should know that it's both the big things (like looking for jobs in DC) and the little things (like unexpected kisses) that Al does that keep me falling in love with him... and I doubt that will change over our many anniversaries to come.

My favorite girl + my favorite boy + me = sallykat

"...And that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."-- Deuteronomy 30:20

a transatlantic wedding

"Live in the moment and make it so beautiful that it will be worth remembering!" -- Fanny Crosby

With classwork starting to build up, I'm finding I have less time to blog (although there's always so much to write about!). To hold you over for a little while, I thought I'd share a fun update about my sister with you. As many of you know she's spending the summer in Uganda again this year, and just a few weeks ago she had the pleasure of partaking in a wedding over there. Since I love all things wedding related at the moment, I thought I'd share a snippet of her experience with you. She writes:

"Last Saturday I got to go to a traditional Uganadan wedding, actually I got to be in it! I met the groom in town, he works for the teso maternity project. It was soo cool, it was the "introduction" which is basically the traditional ceremony before the actual church wedding which will probably be sometime next year. The two families basically meet officially and the groom pays the dowry (it was 10 goats and some cows) and presents tons of gifts to the bride's family. And they do this skit where they pretend to be selecting the bride from a group of women (I think to imitate how it was traditionally done). I actually got to be in the wedding -- picture me carrying a basket of fruit on my head during the procession, which was presented to the bride's family from the groom."

Sounds like fun. Here's a photo of my sister at the wedding in the traditional kikoi with her friends Sarah and Jeje.


"When I smiled at them, they scarcely believed it; the light of my face was precious to them." -- Job 29:24

made of HONOR

"Bless you, my darling, and remember you are always in the heart - oh tucked so close there is no chance of escape - of your sister." -- Katherine Mansfield

First of all Happy Memorial Day. Remembering all the amazing people who have served or who continue to serve our country, I wanted to say a special thank you to two of my favorite officers in training: my cousins, Ashley and Nathan.

I planned on composing a very interesting/applicable blog entry this afternoon about a topic that I was going to come up with some time in the last few hours, but instead I was busy helping my baby sister do some last minute packing for her three month visit to Uganda. And while my sister is flying somewhere over the Atlantic right now, I am lying in my bed quite exhausted from all the running around we did in the past 24 hours. So alas, no thoughtful entry today. Instead, since I was talking about my sister, I thought it an appropriate time to introduce my Maid of Honor! Yes, my sister has the privilege/burden of being my MoH... how lucky that my best friend happens to be my kin?! Apparently the MoH has a lot of responsibilities, but I am confident my sister is up to the task. One such task happens to be serving as my "emotional lifeboat" (according to theknot.com). That being said, I hope I don't go too crazy while she's gone. To say the least, she will be missed, but I'm sure she'll be having a ball while doing her part to eradicate malaria in Africa.

And congrats again to my cousin Rachael, who got married over the weekend.

"Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, 'Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother.'" -- Mark 3:34-35