Christmas here we come!

Yes i know it's only the day after thanksgiving....well technically it's 2 days now since this is after midnight, but don't get technical with me, i don't like it-i know it's still early, but i'm so ready to decorate the house and tree and wrap presents and bake christmasy things and do a million crafts and wear sweaters and drink hot cocoa and watch christmasy movies. and listen to christmas music-which i have already been secretly doing for about a week now-it makes me feel warm and fuzzy and i happen to like it-i pulled out all of my christmas music for the piano too-it is my favorite music to play by far!  i can't wait to have my own place to decorate next year! i have so many cool things that i keep finding on clearance or am inheriting from others and i am SO ready to have a place to show them off!  next year better come quick!
thanksgiving was good-we had a tiny group of 25 this year, so everything was ready wayyyy earlier than normal, but it was kinda nice cause we had lots of time to just chill and be. i was definitely ready for everyone to go home by 2 though lol. i know i'm such a party pooper, but it's just too much comotion for me, i love my family, but i can only do so much!  small doses is better for my sanity. i even got to webcam with josh for like an hour and a half in the evening and we talked on the phone while he was shopping in walmart-the booger bought something while he was on the phone with me and said it was a "perfect christmas present" so i am curious to see what he found! he is so very sweet, but it sounded mildly suspicious when he stopped mid sentence while talking on the phone, laughed and said, "babe i just found your christmas present, i'll call you in a sec after i buy it!" i think i might want to be mildly afraid. but i love him so i'm sure it will be awesome whatever it is!
today we decided to be super lazy and instead of keeping with the tradition of baking christmas goodies the day after thanksgiving, we instead watched a million episodes of criminal minds and late in the afternoon we ventured out to hobby lobby (yes, it was glorious) and found some super cool dealios and awesome fun things that i would just love to buy. i refrained however and only spent $20.00- i was a good girl! i bought some to die for wrapping paper that was $3 and i found these super cute letter pictures on clearance and bought them mostly for a wedding reception (yes it's early, and yes we're unofficial, but i feel gathering small things that have dual purpose is not criminal and a very good use of budgeting :) ) they hang from a ribbon and spell out "xoxo" and they are super uber cute and i love them, and they look SUPER awesome above my little photo collage of the man and i-by photo collage i mean the 4 pictures ever printed of the two of us, a birthday card, his valentines poem to me and several inspirational quotes bahahah probably need to get working on more pictures of the two of us-we royally suck at taking pictures of the two of us anywhere!
tomorrow we shall venture out to do our annual saturday christmas shopping-tracy, mom and i go every year and it is always a fun adventure-i will miss it next year when i can't come home, and this year we won't do quite so much since tracy has been so sick and uncomfortable-i feel so bad for her! hopefully the doctors can fix her soon so we can get her back in tip top shopping shape! and i think tomorrow i might be a sweet girlfriend and bake some goodies to send to the dorm for the man and jesse-maybe-if i'm feeling super crafty and house wifeish-which i may not since i made homemade rolls all by myself the other day for everyone to devour and leave me no leftovers-cool peeps-but i guess it is a compliment since they could have hated them and not eaten any! :) here's to happy shopping!

So i guess i'm 20 now?

Sunday was my birthday- a rather odd day, birthdays are usually odd to me. it was an okay day as far as birthday's go-other than the fact that i spent most of the day cleaning the house in preparation for thanksgiving, which is now 2 days away!  we had cheesecake at gramma's and i opened my family's gifts-they were very sweet! and after church was over i got to webcam with josh which greatly improved my day because i was feeling rather down about it-he always knows how to make me laugh! he even sent me a cute little video of him singing happy birthday! it was very sweet! and so many friends wished me a happy birthday! i am excited to actually spend a birthday with him next year though and leia has already informed me that we will all need to celebrate together-i am looking forward to it! should be fun! and now i must go clean some more, because mom is stressing out about thanksgiving now lol. tracy and james will be here tomorrow, and i think i'm going to try making some homemade rolls cause i hate the nasty frozen ones! hopefully this is a wonderful thanksgiving for everyone-i'm looking forward to it, but it certainly is not my favorite holiday of all!  i'm sure i will have an update after the big turkey day is over, but for now i'm done typing cause i just had like a million posts and my hands are tired lol!

Birmingham Surprise Trip Day 5

Tuesday-the dreaded day of leaving. lol. i always hate leaving, and i truly have fallen in love with birmingham, so it makes it even harder to leave cause i've made friends there AND my man is there-it makes me want to stay! in the morning joshua had early practice, so i took myself to startbucks and watched the rain-it was more like a hurricane than beautiful peaceful rain and i had NO jacket and NO umbrella-and i was supposed to WALK to Snoozy's Bookstore up the street a half mile to meet my love after practice.......ugh lol, when it finally slowed down enough that i wouldn't get completely drenched and soaked i headed up the street, only to find joshua's car already in the parking lot-and he was an hour and a half early. i felt so terrible, so i went inside to look for him but couldn't find him anywhere-and my phone battery died that morning cause i forgot my charger......glorious. so i wandered the store cause i wanted to get some christmas presents there and about ten minutes later josh comes in and laughs because as i headed up the street, he headed down the street over to find me in the starbucks and then walked all the way back around to the bookstore hoping i would be there since he couldn't call me-oops lol. he got rained out of practice so he had been there a good half hour waiting out the rain too! dang rain! we did lots of shopping and spent too much money probably, but it will be worth it come christmas! after all of our shopping we went back to the dorm and had leftover casserole for lunch and watched some tv and then i helped jesse with his history paper! then josh remembered he had a video game waiting for him at the mall so he took me to see the mall and get the game-it was a fun little date! then shortly after i had to leave :( so he drove me to the airport and i didn't cry this time thank goodness-and walked inside to check my 2 bags, cause i somehow ended up leaving with twice as much as i brought lol. i got through ticketing quickly, but i discovered that the line for security check point was to the food courts...which means nothing to you if you've never been in the birmingham airport but it was LONG. and to my dismay i found that my flight was not at 4 like i thought, but instead at 315, and it was 245. i thought i was really gonna cry, but somehow i made it through the ridiculous line in only 10 minutes, and got to the gate only to learn that the flight was delayed a good half hour probably-such a bummer :( but at least i made it! i ended up stuck next to a lady who talked my ear off all the way to tennessee, through the layover in nashville, and all the way back to phoenix-i was more than happy to be off of that plane, but i was wishing i was touching down in bham again and not in phoenix lol. though my family came to get me and we all went out for wings, so it wasn't too totally terrible, and plus i was super hungry by then cause i'd had casserole a good 8 hours before and a bag of tiny peanuts on the plane-yuck. it was such a good trip tho and i'm SO so glad i got so much time with my boy! he even surprised me with an early birthday gift- a shirt -before i left! one he let me pick in snoozy's as a birthday present :) it is an awesome long sleeve with the blazer logo on the front and down the sleeve-i love it and i wear it often, he's the best! and he comes home in 4 weeks! SO excited!

Birmingham Surprise Trip Day 4

i think that Monday may have been the best day of the whole trip, even though it meant that i only had a half day left with my man. we met up rather early, instead of sleeping the whole day away and had some breakfast, then we decided that we were gonna go back to the Birmingham Zoo, just the two of us and spend as much time as we wanted! i only had my white long sleeve shirt this day because i'd worn all of my others, and wouldn't you know it-it was supposed to rain ALL day-thank goodness it was only a light sprinkle and that i had a black jacket to wear over! it had rained heavy early in the morning but it just continued to lightly sprinkle from like 11 to 3! we got to the zoo a little after 11 and there was NO ONE there. literally. we decided to hit all of the exhibits cause we had more time this time, and when we went to the "barn" which is the petting zoo, the girl inside said we were the first visitors they had seen all day! crazy! but we loved it cause there was no one and we could spend as much time as we wanted! i have no pictures of the two of us of course, but i do have quite a few of joshua playing with the animals! we walked the entire zoo and even got lost trying to find the "predator zone", but eventually we found it, but of course everyone was indoors because of the rain! several animals did make a quick appearance, so that was nice! and the lion came out twice and gave us several loud roars! josh really wanted to see the tigers but they were sleeping inside and never came out :( such a bummer! but we had SO much fun together! it was one of THE best dates we have ever had! and we decided that in december for our 2 years we will go to the Phoenix Zoo cause the weather will be gorgeous! and i just found out yesterday that they actually have koalas for a limited time til march! hooray!!!! joshua made me laugh the entire day with all of his funny voices and comments about the animals! the best one nearly killed me cause i couldn't breathe due to the fact that i was laughing so hard! towards the end of our day in the zoo we went to the reptile exhibits-it was a warm and toasty building so i appreciated it! the desert tortoise exhibit made us both laugh because they have like a jungle scene painted on the wall, a rock, a tortoise and a bunch of wood chips for the ground-ummmmm yeah lol guess they've never seen a REAL desert tortoise in its habitat! anyways so we oohed and aahed at the pythons and lizards etc, then we came to the komodo dragon room. when we went on saturday it was sleeping, but this day it was wide awake and running around its little home, we watched cause we thought it was way cool since we haven't seen one very active before, and it passes in front of us on it's way to the other side of its large cage, and just as it passes in front of joshua it totally craps right in the middle of the exhibit, and as if it wasn't goofy and funny enough, without any hesitation josh turns and says, "well, i can check that off my life list now...." and walks into the other room without even looking back. i nearly DIED it was so funny-it was so totally unexpected and random for him to say, but i loved it-he is such a funny man! and so quick with his humor! gotta love the boy! after the zoo we went to Moe's- it is delish. you should go there too. i always eat too much there, but it is just so yummy! not super cheap, but super yummy so it's worth the indulgence at least once a week i think-i know it will be a regular spot for the joshmeister and i. after our delicious lunch (at 3pm lol) we went to the store to get all of the things i needed to make enchilada casserole (josh's favorite-and now jesse's too lol) and ooey gooey bars (another favorite of the boys). i ended up making 3 casseroles (yes full 9x13 casseroles) and 3 ooey gooey bars (yes also 9x13 pans). i was SO tired and hot after spending forever in the kitchen! but the boys were helpful and it turned out yummy! we had lots of fun eating it together! and then the boys each whisked their own pans off to their fridges for leftovers so no one else in the dorm could steal it lol. jesse called on my birthday and told me to come back and make more cause he was out-and that i should move soon so i can cook more often :) silly boys-but they do love a home cooked meal! after dinner we all decided to watch a movie and i did some of joshua's laundry! and then we decided to have our ooey gooey bars for dessert and made ourselves miserable with all of the sweetness!

Birmingham Surprise Trip Day 3

Sunday was a rather lazy day of the vacation, Josh and i met up and had the left over Krispy Kreme's for breakfast, then we left to meet gramma and grampa but they had to cancel cause the weather was getting bad and they wanted to make sure everything was packed up so they could leave early in the morning. so josh and i went shopping at TJ Maxx and a few other places nearby and then we went to have some lunch, just the two of us :) it was wonderful! and so fun to have a date! after lunch we puttered around town some more wasting time til Josh had to go to practice!  we decided i should stay downtown, but everything was closing and i can't stay in his dorm without him, so i called leia and she and i went shopping and cleaned trey's apartment while they were at practice-well, we more like cleaned the clothes off the floor and then entertained ourselves watching cake boss and the food network-which was incredibly dumb cause we were both starving! after 4 and a half hours the boys were finally done! joshua and i decided to have some hungry howie's and rent another movie-this time it was Date Night with Steve Carrell-it was cute, not our favorite, but cute! then he and Jesse played some more video games while i made the shopping list for the next day's feast!

Birmingham Surprise Trip Day 2

On saturday Joshua and I went to eat some breakfast, then we just chilled for a bit and watched some tv til lunch time! We met gramma and grampa at Jim N Nicks-it is rather delicious and could put you in a food coma for sure-if you ever go to birmingham, or come to see me when i live there, we most certainly will be going! i had a HUGE, and i mean HUGE loaded baked potato with delicious bbq pork. the potato was like 4 regular potatoes combined, and i ordered the small!!! i am gonna be 700 pounds if i live there....anyway after lunch we decided to go explore birmingham a little bit, we went to some freedome trails park or something, then decided that we would go to the botanical gardens! but on the way to the gardens we changed our minds and ended up at the Birmingham Zoo! they were closing early that day but we still got a good hour and a half in and saw so many cool things! it was a beautiful zoo! way smaller than the phoenix zoo, but very pretty, especially with all of the fall colors-which we never have here in az, but birmingham has a BEAUTIFUL fall. loved it. anyway so the zoo was awesome and then we decided that we were all hungry again so we went to the Mellow Mushroom and had some yummy pizza, and i nearly exploded after that delicious meal-the Watson-Patterson-Zahn families feed me TOO much! its always delicious, but dang guys you're gonna kill me! after dinner gramma and grampa had to go take care of the dog and josh and i went to go hang out with jesse! the boys played some video games and we watched some tv! and watching the two of them together is quite comical! after games and such we decided that we were hungry, mind you it was like 1115 pm......yes i know it is terrible. and of all the things, josh decided he had to have some krispy kreme-so we drove a whole 15 minutes to get some krispy kreme for all of us-and i thought they would be closed-but no, the place is 24 hours and i'm not even joking, there were a good 50 people inside and we were 7 cars deep in the drive through......the peeps of the birmingham area must really love their krispy kreme late at night man!

Birmingham Surprise Trip Day 1

So technically Thursday was Day 1 of my trip, buuttt we're making friday day one cause i already named the other post, and i'm too lazy to change it :) so on friday, even after staying up til WAYYYYY too late, i was up at 730-which would be 630 back home-yes it is criminal i know-but that gave me plenty of time to curl my hair and do nothing for several hours til joshua was done with football practice. i even had time to put on sparkly eye shadow haha yay! after he got done, we had a quick bite to eat, drove around a little, then headed off to the park where gramma and grampa are keeping their motor home! gramma made yummy dinner and then we played uno for hours! it was so much fun! i don't remember the last time i laughed so hard playing a silly game! we had such a great time! it reminded me so much of playing games with my own grandparents and all of the fun times we used to have-i definitely miss it, and it made me a little sad, but i was so glad i got to have some fun moments with my man and his grandparents! after several million games of uno, we had some delicious apple pie and joshua was falling asleep practically lol :) so we decided to leave so he could go to bed early, but by the time we got back he was hungry again, but first he wanted to go to the store-so we did some shopping, bought some delicious starbucks, then he decided he was hungry and so was i, so we went to taco bell, then picked up a movie and watched it while we ate! random i know, but it was lovely! after that we decided it was bedtime so we would not be so tired the next day!

operation surprise joshua

okay so the "post the trip story tomorrow" thing worked really well....NOT. haha sorry for the delay-if you only knew the chaos that ensues the week prior to thanksgiving sheesh. so i don't really know where to begin, its all fairly long and complicated so i'll do my best to keep it short or maybe i'll decided to break this up into multiple posts-not too sure how i feel yet!
so wednesday i went for girls day with emily, as we already know from my airport post :) it was a blast, i think i almost had a heart attack 4 times on the way into the airport terminal, twice in security, another 3 times waiting in the gate for two hours and probably another 5 on the plane, but i felt much better after landing, though i'm pretty sure joshua didn't appreciate the 4 hour delay in text (he decided to nap right at 2ish, and my plane didn't leave til 4-hence the need for multiple heart attacks, cause i was sure he wasn't gonna believe my movie and dinner story, but he did, thank goodness :) ) sooo anyway i sat by some nice ladies on the plane, they were sisters and hadn't seen each other in nearly a year so listening to their stories was quite entertaining!  when i got off the plane, i ran to the potty cause i was shocked by the 50 degree weather after being in the warm plane, and just as i made it down the escalator my bag was almost all the way around the carousel-perfect timing! then i called miss leia and she and her friend morgan picked me up. as soon as i got in the car they say "so are you hungry? do you like mexican food?" and i did my best not to laugh because i knew they were just being polite, but i did have to say "uh, i live in arizona....of course i love mexican food!" i was a little iffy of course because how do you really find legit mexican food in birmingham alabama? i thought it was gonna be like taco bell or something lol but we went to a little hole in the wall place called "los compadres". it wasn't too bad-but it definitely ain't no REAL mexican food like we have here, but it will do in a craving situation for future reference. the salsa i'm pretty sure was canned, and those were DEFINITELY not fresh chips-dang we are so spoiled here lol. oh and i ordered the taco platter. um i don't know if you've ever had a taco platter here in the az but it usually comes with fresh tortillas, delicious meat of your choice and a whole lotta rice and beans. yum. unfortunately this does not happen in the birmingham-you do get three very yummy tacos, but you get like grocery store tortillas and some cheese and lettuce  bahahha :) but i had a lot of fun and i met leia's other friend john too and we all had a great time chatting-john was super curious about arizona, it is so funny to see people's reaction when you say you came from arizona-their jaws all drop and they all say some variation of "you came ALL the way from arizona!?" like it's the other side of the world or something lol. after dinner we went back to leia's house and talked for hours and finally went to bed! i woke up fairly early the next morning for me and leia and i ate breakfast-then tried to plan our day full of things so we wouldn't be bored til gametime at 7 pm. boy lemme tell ya it is no easy task to make a whole day go by when you are wishing it was later lol. we ate lunch and went to the park, and ran errands, and it was only 1!! killer. we had so much fun though! i'm glad we had a whole day to just hang! we went early to tailgate-like 430 or 5ish and of course all of the mom's were dying to hear the surprise story, which was sweet! then i met katie and her family and they gave me my ticket to get in-they are so super sweet! and they even stuck around after the game to see josh's reaction. when it was finally time to go into the stadium leia and i walked directly into gramma and grandpa and i nearly died right on the spot! but somehow they managed not to recognize me so we ran up the stairs to get a spot and sat about 15-20 rows right behind them, i could see them the whole game but they couldn't see me! the game lasted FOREVER! unfortunately they lost, but i had so much fun sitting with leia and trey's family! his dad is super funny! and i met so many new friends!
 here is a picture of me right after the game ended trying to avoid the guys on the field seeing me and his grandparents! they are right to the right of my shoulder in the blue jackets!

they had no idea! as soon as we took this we ran out the gates to the spot where the players come out and did our best to hide ourselves so that josh and gramma and grampa wouldn't see! after what seemed like ten years they finally came out and leia told josh she had something for him, he knew something was up cause one of the guys had said "your night is about to get a whole lot better" but he wasn't sure still. when he got to me his jaw dropped and he was like "wow" haha and he just kinda stood there for a little bit-i think we definitely got him good cause he had NOOO idea whatsoever, all he could say was "wow" haha :) that's an extra point for me thank you very much :) his grandparents were quite shocked to and didn't really know what to say but it was definitely fun! and so worth all of the waiting! thank you to everyone who helped get it all together! especially Leia and Jesse who helped me plan the whole thing!

exhausted.

okay, so this weekend was largely a success-even after the big scare of doom!  i am very thankful, and i had a super wonderful time and i super hate that i'm typing this from my desk in gilbert arizona. very much. BUT-it was a super awesome weekend, and i love my man, and i hate flying, and i super love birmingham, and i love date nights and i love the zoo and i love shopping at 10:30 pm, and i love making food for the boys, and i love listening to joshua sing in the car, and i love going out in the rain, and i love birmingham in the fall with all it's pretty leaves, and i love early sweet thoughtful presents from my boy, and i love when my boy gives me his too small t-shirts so i have a million to sleep in, and i love when he tells me he loves me and gives me a super smooch. and i do like being back home-a little. but not nearly as much as i love being in birmingham. and with joshua. BUT-there are only 4 more weeks til he comes home, in fact he actually has a flight home on the 16th of december at like 9am, so hopefully these next few weeks go fast!  i would post all of the awesomeness from this weekend, but to be quite honest, i am currently trying not to fall asleep so i can finish this post! so i think tomorrow i will write out each day's adventures and tell about how the surprise turned out and all the crazy fun things we did, and if i can figure it out, i may even post the video of josh's face cause it's pretty funny! unfortunately, i have zero pictures of the two of us this weekend :( sadness. but it's okay, cause it was still a wonderful weekend and i love him! goodnight!

girls day=huge success!

My nails are did, my bags are packed, I'm chilling in the gate and I'm a total nervous wreck! I can't believe the day is finally here! It has certainly taken forever! I know I said I wouldn't post for a while but there is pretty much no one here and I'm incredibly bored, plus I have to do something to keep my mind off of my nervousness! Emily and I met up a little before 11 to have our nails done-we both agree that it is incredibly relaxing and we both want a massaging chair. And I have to say my legs have never been more moisturized! Holy crap they use a ton of lotion! But I got a hand, wrist, neck, shoulder, foot and calf massage so I aint complainin! And I smell fruity and delicious! Ha :) Emily got me THE cutest diary journal thing I have ever seen! It is a fill in the blank and multiple choice diary about your day. LOVE it!! It will be so much fun to use! I'm hoping I'll actually be disciplined and start using it on my trip or shortly after and keep up with it!
I am slyly looking around me every ten minutes checking for grandparents, but there are only about 30 or 40 people on the gate and no sign of them yet, so maybe they really did drive there! I'm hoping! I can't wait to land in birmingham and have Leia come pick me up! I won't lie- I am worried I will freeze my buns off the moment I step off the plane, but it was 40 degrees here this morning so I probably won't die lol :) still cold and I don't agree so I'm hoping it stays a little more on the warm side for me! It's finally after 3! Hopefully we'll board in about 30 minutes I am dying to get moving! I need it to be tomorrow already! And then once I see my man it needs to go SLOWWWWWW! Ha I doubt that it will last as long as I hope, but it will be super awesome regardless! I'm so sad that there aren't more people here to entertain my people watching love-that always makes the airport so worth it! okay now I'm really gonna go and pretend to be patient while I wait in this tiny gate! Xoxoxo!

t-minus 17 hours til take off!

i thought this day may not ever come! the last week has been such a rollercoaster and it has taken nearly ten years to get here!  but tomorrow is the big day-well almost lol, at least i'll actually be in birmingham tomorrow night! then it's only one more long day of waiting to be able to see my man and hopefully a surprised look on his face!  so i just now remembered while typing this that i probably shoulda checked in for my flight at 4 pm to get a decent boarding pass number.......yeah well i had a migraine today-they ruin everything in case you didn't already know. i slept right through the 4 o'clock time to check in to be in the early boarding category. dang migraines.  BUT there is good news-i just checked in, positive that i'd have some C boarding pass in the 40's or something, but by some miracle i am an A 18. explain that after all my bad luck last week hahah.  but i'll take it, it's right after business class, so if there is any chance of grandparents on a flight, i may still have a chance to hide in the back of the plane if they don't see me in the gate-we'll see.  my secret secret keeper miss jihae has informed me that their vehicle has been gone all day and that she is pretty sure they have left so we're keeping our fingers crossed over here so that this all goes off without a hitch.  leia said she's ready for me to be there-i'm so glad she's excited to! i hope we have so much fun! i can't wait to get there tomorrow night and spend thursday just hanging out and having fun!  she is such a sweet girl so i'm sure we'll have a blast! and katie sent me a message saying she has my ticket! YAY! it's all finally becoming real and exciting again!  josh still has no idea, he's been with uncle rob all week so it's kept him very busy and hopefully very distracted! uncle rob leaves tomorrow, but josh still has workouts and class and then football meetings at the hotel, so hopefully he'll be too busy to notice that i can't talk much, but we do have a back up plan just in case!  keep those fingers crossed folks!
and tomorrow is finally the big girls day!!!! i cannot wait! i have been dying for it to get here! emily and i always have so much fun, but we never get lots of time to do anything too girly! so tomorrow will be super fun and exciting!  ANNND i get to give her her birthday present! i hope she likes it! okay well i'm off to pack the last few things i need and head to bed cause i have a buttload to do tomorrow before i leave! i don't know that i'll get to posting til i get back, but hopefully the next one i will have a super awesome story to post! yay!

happy birthday to nicole!

today nicole turned 16-kinda crazy to think that she's already 16, but i guess everyone must turn 16 at some point.  i wrapped all of her gifts in sponge bob paper i found several months ago and hung a sponge bob birthday banner across the kitchen for her to see-not too sure how she liked it because there was no real reaction when she came home, i think largely because there was the distraction of a boy.  but as long as she had a good day, that is all that really matters.  we had a quiet family dinner at home, which seems to be more and more rare these days, but it was nice all the same, and then we went to gramma's to have some cake and open her presents.  hopefully she liked them all, it was hard to tell.  i think i have come to the realization that i am incredibly lame, well in the world of high schoolers that is, so i didn't get the reaction i originally expected from my gifts. but things change i guess, the things that we used to enjoy we don't, everyone grows up, one day things are not what they used to be, and that is okay. in time i think i will accept it better when i'm not feeling quite so crushed lol.
just two more painfully long days to go! i think i'll do some housecleaning tomorrow after work to help pass the time. and as soon as my last load of laundry for my trip is done i am off to bed cause i have an early day in casa grande tomorrow!

hello curling iron :)

so today while cleaning my room and being super proud of the fact that i only have 2 loads of laundry cause all of my other laundry is already packed-i discovered that i really truly had not finished packing like i thought!  i completely forgot that i need a hair dryer......i can't use the hotel ones anymore now that my hair has grown back in thick and full (hallelujah!) so i need my own-and since it's supposed to be a high of 72 MAX i'm thinking i'll freeze if i have wet hair all day! so now i have to do some rearranging! poo!  oh well-and i'll have to make some room for a curling iron-yes, i have not used one in over a year because my hair couldn't handle it after mono, plus i had no hair to curl cause a) it all fell out and b) it was way super short and thin-so no good for curling like i used to-which was super uber suckish because i used to always do a quick curl on the ends and go about my day-i always got compliments and i never spent more than 5 minutes cause it always just fell into place and looked perfectly imperfect-then mono ruined it and i never realized how much a under-appreciated my hair-i have however changed my ways and i'm no longer ungrateful! i am super excited to report that since i started boosting my vitamins and gained a few extra pounds i have thick and full hair again, it's not quite back to it's original state, but it's getting closer and i am SO happy about it.  i have broken 2-count them!- 2 hair ties in the last month, which i never thought i would do again! and today i curled it for the first time just to see if it would still be an easily manageable thing, and it worked :) it is currently happily perfectly imperfectly bouncing around on my head, and i feel like i could be in a hair commercial today. it is definitely something to be happy about today-it also means that my hair will be super easy to maintain on vacation next week too-not that i spend an excessive amount on myself, but with thin hair it took me way longer to get ready! but no more! i will look beautiful and spend little time! yay! we should all have a celebration because this is a miracle moment for sure-appreciate and love it please!  such a beautiful saturday-maybe this will mean this week is destined for greatness! keep your fingers crossed!

at least it's friday!

this is the phrase i have been using all morning-i am less than my usual bubbly self, especially the last 3 days.  in fact today, i am a super grouch.  i had a headache all day yesterday and it didn't help that i felt achy and sick on top of it, i slept good last night for the first time in a while, so you'd think that would help. but no. i am having super feelings of jealousy today. and none of the things i normally do are shaking it, so i'm kinda at a loss at this point.  it sounds really terrible, but i am totally jealous of the fact that josh's family has been to all but 2 games on the season, which means that each weekend they get 2-4 days with him, ALL to themselves, unlike me who only ever gets to go when someone else is going and i always have to share, and then he'll come home in december and i'll do the same damn thing cause we'll spend every waking moment together with someone else cause its the holidays.  and everytime they are in town, he is super busy hanging out with them so i don't talk to him at all for 4 days.  you'd think by now i'd be used to it, but i still hate it.  and i'm trying to remember that it is great that they can be there to support him, but lately i feel less and less like its a WONDERFUL thing.  that's rude, but it's how i feel right now.  i don't hate them for it, i hate that i can't be there though, and i hate even more that there's nothing i can do about it.
we went to lunch with Lisa today-she is pretty much the sweetest lady on the planet.  she always has great crafty ideas and funny stories.  she was super bummed to find out that we pushed the wedding date back, kinda funny cause i really didn't think that it would be upsetting to anyone but me, but she was genuinely bummed.  which i think is nice-at least i know i'll have good help when the time finally comes!  talking about all of the ideas we have made me kinda depressed, i mean i love to think about it, but i packed up all of my ideas and shoved them in a box so that i wouldn't have to look at them after the huge disappointment of learning it all couldn't happen.  so i haven't really thought about it much since i threw everything in the box in september.  hopefully next time i have to really think about it, i can be excited about it again cause there will actually really  be something happening.  i'm trying to leave that alone for a while cause it isn't time, and i don't need anything else with false hope this week!
i guess i should really get back to work-it sounds less than appealing at the moment, but it is what makes everything happen so gotta keep on keepin on i guess.  i'm hoping tomorrow i can have an exciting post for a change and maybe UAB will win their homecoming game-it would at least brighten the next week!

one week to go!

well we are down to just one week before i leave.....my enthusiasm and excitement is still not back to the level it was before.  i have a plan b and c ready depending on where and when i see the grandparents.  right now i'm feeling like i shouldn't say anything to anyone and surprise them all so it doesn't look like they have all been in on it, because they haven't.  i'm still incredibly disappointed that they will be there since the whole intention was to give Josh a vacation for once and so that he didn't have to balance his time between everyone who came to visit like he always does.  i canceled all of my day trip plans for atlanta yesterday-guess it's a good thing i didn't buy the tickets for the aquarium like i was going to cause it would have been a waste at this point.  we'll just have to hope it all goes at least semi well cause right now i feel like its all gone to crap.  that sounds horrible and selfish, but if you worked for 2 and a half months, you would feel the same way too.  i'm planning another trip for the spring when i can find some money, and i fully intend to make sure NO ONE can ruin anything this time.  and we will go do a day trip to atlanta, and we will go on at least one date by ourselves and we will have a good time-and i will not share or divide my time between anyone for the entire weekend. period. no exceptions at all. 
in other news, i found a super bargain on two pairs of jeans at Urban Xchange a few days ago-less than 15 each, and they are in good shape.  if you want some expensive jeans for cheap, it would be the place to look if you are okay with used!  it's in the strip mall on the corner of val vista and guadalupe if you wanna check it out.  never know what you'll find, but it's worth a shot! and i also found a shirt at marshall's to replace the blue one joshua loved and out grew-maybe i'll take it to him next week, or maybe i'll just mail it-haven't decided which would work best yet!  hopefully the rest of this week goes smoothly and everything ends up and works out fine. i don't know if i can handle anything else going wrong, cause quite frankly the first wrench thrown in all my hard work made me cry. and i haven't slept in 2 days trying to come up with something new.

the best laid plans.

okay, i am not a crazy person who posts multiple times a day, but i am way super overwhelmed and frustrated at the moment and i have to do something.  everything that i have been working so hard for this last 7 weeks is totally in ruin.  Josh's grandparents are going to the game i am going to-not that i don't love them-but the WHOLE point was so there was NO ONE there and that he wasn't expecting anyone to come :( but now he'll be expecting them so my surprise will not mean nearly as much.  nor will we get to do all the cool things i had planned, or double date with leia and trey, or take josh away from his dorm and have a day trip or anything.  ugh. i seriously should have known it was all too good to be true, i didn't tell anyone cause i know its hard for them to keep secrets and now they have changed their original plans and are coming so everything i thought i did so good on is no bueno. i am super bummed out. and now i only have 5 little days to come up with something at least half way decent.  it won't even be a 1/3 of the greatness that my other plan was. it will still mean a lot to him i'm sure, but its not the same and i know it. it will not have nearly the affect that it was intended because there are going to be other people.  quite frankly right now i want to curl up in a large ball. i know that really doesn't help the situation, but i feel totally helpless, i can't call and ask them to cancel even though i want them too. i know they want to be there to see him too, but i always always always have to share when he's home. we never even get to have a date night to ourselves. EVER. seriously in the almost 2 years we've been dating i can count 4-yes 4 actual dates where we were COMPLETELY on our own somewhere at dinner or a movie.  he's never home long enough for us to go out for just us, and i understand that everyone wants to see him, but i thought this would be an actual chance for us to have some us time to talk and see a movie without a family with us or just have dinner like a real couple for a change.  looks like that is not happening until we're married at this rate. oh well, at least i will get to go and see him, it's better than nothing at all. but honestly this news has completely killed all of the excitement that i had this week. it's all shot. i'm still excited to go, i really want to see him.  but knowing that i have no us time and that i have to figure out how to keep more people quiet and find a new plan to surprise him just kills all of it and i feel rather defeated after all of my hard work.  so much for that lol, he did tell me i'd never be able to surprise him fully, and apparently he jinxed me pretty good, cause i had the deal all sealed and now its definitely not gonna work anymore.  hopefully i'll come up with something new, or maybe i'll get lucky and his information will be wrong, but i feel that the latter is not the case seeing as inside sources have already informed me otherwise.  bummage. i guess i'll check back in when i have more news. for now i'm going to go sit and mope and try to find something better and try not to cry lol.

babysitting my lily and toto

november is finally here! it is quite the glorious fun filled month!  it is always busy and usually goes by too fast, but this year i'm thinking it will be SUPER great! there are so many wonderful things to look forward to! and that is awesome!  last night i watched chris and jihae's kiddos-they are certainly quite adorable and i never mind going to babysit cause they are always well behaved and so much fun!  i love that jihae always calls me "aunt aly"-i'm not even engaged to josh, but i guess that doesn't matter! guess i shouldn't worry about being an accepted member of the family eh? ha :) like the kids know the difference anyway!  we watched shark tale or something of the variety, not really sure-it was about fish and sharks and i'm pretty sure will smith was in it, but whatever! it was cute and fun!  the kids are hilarious with their halloween candy-they each got to pick one to eat as dessert after dinner and lily pulled out this tiny bag of candy corn with the craziest look of puzzlement on her face, i tried super hard not to laugh! but it was just too cute! she looked at it then looked at me, then looks at it again while holding it out away from her with two fingers and says, "WHAT is it?" as only three year old lilster can do. when i told her it was candy corn she just raised an eyebrow at me, so i opened the package and let her try them, she studied them for a moment then ate one, then poured the rest (like 7 candy corn-definitely not enough for a bite lol) out and counted them all and lined them up-i think it's safe to say she is not afraid of the strangeness of candy corn anymore!  then toph, good ol tophy, he pulls out a sucker with great pride and says "i want this one!" and hold onto it with both hands lol then he just holds it for a while and when i took the paper off of the little ball on a stick he looks at it with this HUGE grin and wide eyes and holds it out to me like it is a new invention that could change the universe. and then he just sat there in his chair with it for a long time and looked at it, and smiled at it, and held it out to me, and told me that he had a sucker. i think after a good 45 minutes he actually finally licked the thing-such a little goose!  he also showed me his tattoos last night-such a funny little guy, and he was SO excited to take a bath ha. lily had a super headache and almost made me cry when she asked me to please not wash her hair because it hurt :( poor baby, so i put her to bed and she was gone in like ten minutes! and since toph was still a little rowdy i kept him playing in the bath for a little hoping lily would be asleep by the time i had him bathed-when i put a towel on him and pulled him out of the tub he wraps the towel under his arms  and stiffens them close to his sides so i lifted him out to by his shoulders and like a super hero he goes "TOPPPHHHEEERRRR!!!!" hahah it was the funniest thing ever! i almost dropped him right back in the water cause it was so unexpected but it was definitely a highlight of my day-kids are SO amazing and so incredibly funny, they are definitely full of surprises and i love it! the house felt super quiet and lonely (i was at josh's mom's house for all of this babysitting) and it was weird to be there without josh, i kept expecting him to walk upstairs or something!  the only real noise was callie kitty SNORING in the chair next to me and the "little" kitten playing "attack the mat" in front of me on the floor. it was rather relaxing!  then chris and jihae came back from bible study and i got some girl chat time with jihae! i super love her-she has always made me feel SO welcome from day 1 and she genuinely cares about people, she is such a sweet sweeet lady, and i love her husband too! they are so awesome! i can't wait to hang with them when joshy bear comes home! while i was there i told them about "operation surprise joshua" and they LOVE it! they are my super secret secret keepers and they are so excited too! they think it is a super awesome idea-and they are always awesome about not telling, they are not the gossiping type so i'm not worried about a slip! plus there are only 9 more days! they even gave me 20 bucks for babysitting and said to use it toward my girls day! yahoo! thakns guys, you are super sweet! and i super love you a lot! i can't wait to be a real aunt to your kids! and jihae-you are the best unofficial-almost-future-sister-in-law ever!