This Is What Happens When You Decide to Get Married!

Life explodes! The past two months have been the busiest months of my life! Here's a quick update on whats been going on :

1. Chris was able to make it out to Utah for a week-long visit and some much needed face time :) He got to see where I lived and meet a whole bunch of family up in Idaho. It was such a wonderful trip and I loved having him see what my BYU life was like. Being engaged long distance was pretty much the least favorite part of my life last semester. I love being home and close to Chris now!2. Four trips up to Idaho filled with photo shoots, wedding dress surprises, bridal shower, wedding shopping, and lots of driving!3. I graduated! BYU and I had to say farewell. The past four years have been such wonderful years and I will miss being in Provo. But, it is certainly time to move on. I walked across the stage and picked up my empty diploma envelope and felt a slight sense of accomplishment. I'm sure it will kick in eventually :)4. I moved out of my apartment in three hours from start to finish and drove across the country with my parents in a '93 Park Avenue pulling a U-Haul. That was exciting. We made it with only a few stops to see to the car. Nothing big though... just the breaks going out and the car smoking is all :) We made it though! Something tells me I will not be driving that far with that car ever again.
5. I got to spend a week hanging out with Chris before he started his job in Ann Arbor, MI. It is about an hour commute WITHOUT traffic so we see each other only in the evenings now. During our week before work we went apartment shopping, played at the hands-on kids museum in Ann Arbor, went mall shopping, ate at our favorite restaurants, and started reading together. It was so nice to have that time with him and we are so excited to live in Ann Arbor in the fall!
6. Mom and I have been wedding shopping like crazy the past week. We are having a large sit down reception here in MI and Mom and I are going to be doing all the decorations so we are keeping quite busy with that! Here is the inspiration picture for the tables- only replace the green with Tiffany blue. Oh, and all the flowers will be white. It should turn out pretty! 7. I found out last night that I have been accepted into the Graduate School Program for Speech Pathology at Eastern Michigan University! I started the grad school process last summer as I studied for the GRE. I took the GRE in November and had my applications in by February. I then spent a whole month calling schools to make sure they had my paperwork in order (most of them didn't). Then after being wait listed by two schools and rejected by another Eastern informed me LAST NIGHT (its May already, a little late for acceptance letters) that they had accepted me to their program! Eastern is located about 15 minutes from where Chris's new job is so it really is such a blessing that I was able to get in. Now we can be in the same city and both get to do what we were hoping to do with our lives! And we get to be married.... that's nice too :)

Thoughts on My Current State in Life

I should probably break the silence and share something with you all....

A little while back
Last summer to be exact
I met a boy named Chris
Eventually we did kiss.

We talked all summer and semester long
At Valentines he sang me a song
We have become rather close
Of his character I love to boast.

At Christmas we became a big deal
Yes this is happening for real
All doubt and fear have been buried
WE ARE GOING TO BE MARRIED!

The big day is August seven
We will be sealed on earth and in heaven
We sure are excited
And our parents are delighted.

Today

Today I am sitting in the computer lab. The soft pitterpattering of keyboards all around me. It's comforting really, to know that there are atleast that many fingers feverishly typing. I check out pictures on facebook. Next next nextnextnextnext. Good wedding. Click Next next nextnextnext.... I drool over cooking blogs and committ myself to making Pomegranite Cheesecake for Christmas Day.
Its snowing outside. In a few hours I will have to scrape my car off again so I can drive. Third time today. The guy who was sitting here before me must have been awfully smelly. Or maybe its the guy next to me...Oh good. He's married. Someone loves him. Even if it could possibly end up that he is the one being smelly around here. Hmm... he's discussing life goals with his mother..... Moving on. I have a huge paper due Wednesday and grad school applications galore to get done. Thursday is the last day of school and finals start Monday. I just rocked a quiz.
But really, the only thing on my mind is going home for Christmas in 10 days!!!! Can I just hit fast forward??

Editing The List

Ladies and Gentlemen! Or rather Ladies and Ladies because I doubt that there are men out there reading this. I would like to announce that I have eliminated a few things from my list of things to do. No no, I am still sane and I haven't killed my roommates :) I have the privilege of sharing the wonderful news with you all that I have FINISHED my GRE! I scored 100 points above what I needed to qualify for the schools I'm interested in. This is also 100 points higher than the highest score I got on my practice exams! I feel like a million pounds have been lifted from my chest! I have been truly blessed and I know that Heavenly Father helped me through every question.

I have also reached the halfway point of losing my million pounds. Yes yes I have lost 500,000 pounds! Heh. That's slightly exaggerated. Slightly. But halfway point! Yeah!

Things still on my list? School, work, grad school applications, dishing out money in order to get accepted to further dish out money (approx $7,000 a semester! OUCH!), being nice, and staying sane. I've given up on dating and not eating cake :)

I leave for California in four sleeps and after Thanksgiving I have three weeks of school til the end of the semester. Life rocks.

Piece of Cake

List of things to do in my life:
1. School
2. Janitor job
3. Research Assistant job
4. Study for the GRE (NOVEMBER 19 is coming quick!)
5. Apply for Grad School
6. Claim some kind of residency somewhere
6.5. Pay hundreds of dollars simply to apply to grad school and take entrance exams. I love my parents.
7. Lose a million pounds
8. Do 10 miles of cardio every week
9. Be nice
10. Stay sane.

Oh wait. I left out reading scriptures, dating (?!), not killing roommates, studying for my classes, and attempting a semi-normal college social life. See? Piece of cake. Sadly, refer to #7 & 8. No cake for you. Except a piece of cake would really help me though all this right now!!! Thank goodness for fat free sugar free pudding with cool whip free. I may survive yet :)

Another Happy Place

I have been blessed to have the most fantastically fun summer with my parents. We even had a fantastic visit from Jessica, Ryan, and Emily. This whole summer has been one fun thing right after another and it has been surprisingly busy! This past week we had one last hurrah before I have to head back to school. We got to go camping at one of our favorite campsites up in Canada. Its called the Pinery. Its on Lake Huron and the grounds are a mixture of dunes, forest, wetlands, and beach. We had so much fun!!

We had one major set back for the whole trip. No it was not the lack of space in the car. No it was not the screw we got in our tire. It had to do with the fact that we were there during what must have been a MASSIVE Daddy Long Leg hatch. They. Were. EVERYWHERE. One night we counted over 80 on our tent. And that was on a lighter night. The first night we could harldy keep them off the door of the tent in order for us to get in! We would brush them off and more would come crawling off the top of the tent! The pictures of the tent show a lighter version of that first night. Anything that looks like dirt on the tent is in fact a daddy long leg (with a few real spiders thrown in for fun) It was enough to give me the heebie jeebies for the whole trip :) They were all over the coolers, the tent, the bikes, the ground, in the trees and underfoot. Upon further research though, we found that they are NOT spiders. But they still looked enough like a spider for me to mildly flail upon contact.



Aside from the plethora of long legs running this way and that, we really enjoyed working on our tans, swimming, canoeing, riding our bikes all over, eating smores, and more smores, and playing games with each other and the bugs :)

Never say never about people who don’t fit your mold of what you think you want

I have joined the ranks of Pioneer Woman Worshipers. I started reading her blog a week ago and have spent two FULL (like 4 am full) nights reading, laughing, crying, and feeling like an idiot for laughing out loud and crying about a stranger's life. The title of this blog is my latest favorite quote from her. She blogs about everything in her life. From cooking to remodeling and children to cows. Its all there!

She has written her whole falling-in-love story on her blog (along with EVERYTHING you could EVER want in a blog) and its brilliant. She is a hilarious writer and has a way of making you feel like you're right there. Right there amidst all the sweat and cows and muscly arms.

So if you have a few moments, or a few REALLY late nights, or maybe an extra week or two laying around, take a look. Its my new happy place.