3 years ago today

it's 12:37 am. i should have been in bed eons ago.  but let's be honest--does one ever sleep the night before what is to be the biggest day of your life? i mostly doubt it.

3 years ago in August, a cute boy came into my equipment room, never said two words, just grinned stupidly while he picked up his equipment. I came home from working football practice.  it was the first night in the history of the world i had come home and OUT LOUD mentioned that i thought a boy was cute.  he had blonde hair and blue eyes and a big goofy grin.  after mom's shock was over, she told me that it might be best not to date someone in the middle of season just in case things didn't work out.....5 days later i woke up to a text message from a number i didn't recognize, from a boy oh so excited to have found my number.

3 years ago on September 16th, 2009. a black jeep followed me home from football practice at 7pm.  my heart nearly jumped out of my chest when i realized it was actually following me into my driveway.  and in it was that blonde haired blue eyed boy, with a big goofy grin on his face.  and he asked me to kiss him. i was so scared and nervous that i avoided it for what felt like ten years, then i finally gave in and swiped my lips across his in less than .02 seconds and quickly ran away like a fool.  the next week i watched a football game at his house.  he took another girl to homecoming and my heart nearly broke. then a few weeks later i began to wonder if i wasn't just a game to him. but i wasn't. cause...

3 years ago on November 4th, 2008, in the parking lot outside of the rockin r ranch after a varsity football banquet, that same blonde haired, blue eyed boy with that cute goofy grin walked me to my car.  told me i was beautiful. and before he closed the door of his jeep, he said the words, "I love you." and drove away.

3 years ago on November 22nd, at a giant 18th birthday bash in my yard, that sweet blonde haired, blue eyed boy brought me pink roses. with a card that read, "someone like you only happens once in a lifetime"

3 years ago, the day after Thanksgiving, I woke up to a text from that blonde haired boy telling me what he thought of me and how we should grow old together.

and

3 years ago today, on December 1st, that same blonde haired, blue eyed boy, with that silly, irresistible grin, sat me down on the couch in the living room of his mom's house and said, "i know the next 6 months will be uncertain, and we may be far away at colleges next year, but would you be willing to take a journey with me to see where it leads? will you be my girlfriend?"

and

here we are, 3 years later on the same day.  again ready to start a new uncertain journey together. the last few years have brought many changes and challenges, many blessings and opportunities.  and i know this new journey will be the same-but this time it is a little bigger, and i get to be the wife :)

I love you Joshua Zahn.  I love our crazy life, where we have been, and where we are going.  I am so proud to be your wife and share another whirlwind journey with you on a grander scale than before.  I am excited to take on this new challenge with you by my side, and to know that as we discover our journey this time, we will be doing it united as one.

Today I will marry my prince charming and begin a new life with my very best friend.  It may be a crazy life, but it will be a wonderful one, and it will be ours.  A life full of love. A life full of laughter.  Everyday. :)


xoxo,
Aly

insert creative title here....

it is technically wayyyyy past my bedtime..... and i have yet to post pictures of the house....oops. the good news is however that i FINALLY found the camera charger! HOOORAY!  josh's ring is in, my dress is picked up, our cruise documents are printed. i need a bathing suit.... but thats another story. i royally sucked at my diet and keeping up with the new meds i'm supposed to take. super great since i have a follow up in 4 days. ughhh. there has been so much stress and crap and drama that i'm just ready to be done right now. that sounds so awful and depressing, but it is what i feel. hopefully tomorrow will be a much better day and a great start to the week!  i will soon have pictures. really. it will happen.

much loves but i'm going to sleep now......if i ever get sleep between now and december first i will consider it nothing short of a miracle!

Invites, Countdowns and Missing Camera Chargers......

Okay so i totally left everyone hanging on that last post. SUPER apology. please accept it.  let me just give you a quick rundown of how the whole "share the big news thing" really went down.

So I posted that the day before we had a scheduled appointment to sign our closing docs. I probably single-handedly jinxed us, but i like to blame it on josh's brother chris who kindly texted us as we entered the appointment saying something along the lines of "hopefully you have no curveballs!". good job chris.  we got there at 4. waited til 8, finally signed docs sometime after 8 (which consequently meant that we couldn't watch chris's kids for the evening-that'll show him! just kidding jihae- we love your husband and your kids and we still feel super bad for not watching them that day!)  so anyway, docs were signed and we were supposed to get a call the next day for our keys............3 days later on friday at 4 pm we got the call that we officially owned the house.  i will let you guess how those three days full of phone calls went. you can imagine it well i'm sure.  SO ANYWAY..........we are home owners!! josh moved into the house the first weekend of october, despite the fact that we had no appliance and only one working sink. but no biggy.  a boy can survive just fine with his dog and a dorm fridge!  last week we officially got all the appliances, brand new faucets for the sink and finished building the table and the entertainment center.  it is all starting to come together quite nicely!
in the middle of all of this, i somehow found time to send invitations out nearly a week late. successful i know.  at least they are out people!  life is a little hectic right now!  the good news is, that everyone has their assigned jobs now, everything is all in order, invites are out, and life is good!  so now we are officially done, we just have to get to the wedding week and all will be well!
i promised some folks some pictures of the new house..........i fully intended to have them in this post.......i cleaned up the house too, vacuumed, dusted, put all the boxes away neatly, put dishes in cupboards and picked up the dog toys daisy conveniently spread across the living room floor. and i was pleased with the effort despite the fact that the dog brings in massive amounts of dirt on a second by second basis. and then i learned that my camera battery is at 4%. and we cannot find the charger anywhere. and the only other camera we have is a 5 mega pixel and will not provide us decent photos.........so please bear with me.  it is most likely in one of the last few boxes i have left to move
from my parents house to our new house.  i must say, as nice as it is to almost have our house in order, it is becoming increasingly difficult to live out of two houses and try to remember which house contains what.....only 5 more weeks tho! thank goodness!  and i promise some pictures will arrive as soon as i can find the blasted charger!

65 days and counting

We are SO close to the 2 month mark people! I am beyond thrilled right now-but SO ready for the wait to be over lol.  Not that anyone really cares, but I have to tell you anyway because it excites me.
I have checked off a TON of stuff in the wedding to do list this last month!  We are SO close to being 100% done with it that I could throw a party!
Here is my list of accomplishments:

• Bridesmaid dresses ordered (plus one extra)
• Meeting with Michelle from idoparties to finalize plans. (she's amazing check her out please www.idoparties.blogspot.com)
• Ordered boys bright blue socks
• fitted everyone for vans
• after 4 failed attempts for the vans i originally wanted, we came up with a new planand ordered a total of 17 vans, half from the store and half delivered to my door step-FOR FREE. yes.
• ordered unnecessary "mrs. zahn" hanger for photos. i love it, so everyone can stop asking me why. because i said so and i can and it was on sale on etsy and i got 2 dollar shipping and because my photographer will do something super cool with it, kapeesh?
• found super amazing thank you gifts and bridesmaid gifts on etsy
• ordered said amazing gifts
• ordered matching necklaces for my girls (again from etsy, love that place)
• ordered shrugs for dresses
• ordered 2 boxes of wedding sparklers, got FREE shipping, and gave half of one box to Lindsey and Michael Carter for their wedding
• handmade 35 ceremony and 235 reception invites with Tracy, Lynn, Mom, Emily and Nicole while they boys had a "play date" with guns in the desert. it took us 8 hours, but those girls are awesome
• scheduled my dress fitting despite the fact that i majorly failed at working out and will probably be to big for the durned tiny dress in 2 weeks. don't judge me. i went on vacation. then halloween started advertising and there is a stupid candy bucket on my desk. i have no self control. i have since realized i picked a super terrible time to plan a wedding if i wanted to be smaller not bigger. halloween, 4 birthdays, bridal showers, thanksgiving, wedding, christmas. holy food and excess poundage. ugh
• found blue sprinkles for dessert bar
• picked more desserts to finalize menu for dessert bar
• found a projector for the wedding video
• finished a folder of pictures to be dumped in said wedding video
• ALMOST finished the wedding website where all people will rsvp and find registry information. talk about ridiculousness. i still have to input the entire guest list before the invites depart my humble abode, that may take me a week, literally.
• ordered an amazingly hilarious sign for our guest book table (again from etsy. yes i realize it is a terrible habit okay? it's not over yet tho, i have super huge plans for my money and that website....)
• talked to Kalea Taylor about wedding flowers, she is super awesome and designed a bouquet far better than my original idea. AND it includes bling. i'm in heaven. oh and i get a zebra ribbon. take that.
• found a scrapbook for our guest book-and my cousin Lynn is going to help me make it if i can ever get to Tucson! such a sweetie!
• WE FOUND OUR FIRST DANCE SONG. this is a big deal okay? it's been in debate. but we found the most perfectest one ever. now we just need to fill two more hours with music lol thank goodness we meet with Joey tomorrow to discuss dj-ing business.
• MOM found the most perfect necklace and got it for 4 dollars because she used her super kohls cash. i just said one day, i think i want a pendant like "insert my description during convo here" and she nailed it AND saved super big money. solid
• found a picture of a hairdo i would like. sick.
• scouted out jewelry shops for josh's ring-which we will be buying this next month for sure because i feel as if we are already WAY behind in that.. no biggy. can be handled.

as for now, that is all i can come up with off the top of my little noggin.

hate to leave you with a cliff hanger but i'm going to.........tomorrow i have a HUGE story to tell you. and hopefully lots of pictures!  Joshua booger wouldn't let me tell you so you have to settle for this sad little wedding countdown list instead. forgive me. i promise tomorrow will be worth it.
xoxo

DOUBLE DIGITS

We have finally hit the double digit stage of our wedding countdown!  Yes, 99 days does sound long, but not nearly as long as the 234 we started at!  I am ready for it to be here even though everyone tells me its about to be stressful.  I don't feel like it will be, in fact i think it will be fun since we have everything in order and everyone has assignments.  And in all honesty, I'm tired of waiting.  I'm ready to be out-and yes i know its a lot of responsibility and it isn't all a picnic............tell me what i don't know.  We are in the process of buying a house. it is incredibly stressful and nerve wracking.  and i feel like people i don't know are living in my bank accounts-literally. they are money sucking leeches too and i don't even have the dang house yet.  hopefully soon. it is a beautiful 3 bed 2 bath fairly close to gilbert and in a gated community.  it has just enough yard miss puppy can play and we can still do a little teeny tiny bit of landscaping-like really teeny tiny, but it's much better than most of what we have seen!  in all honestly i am uneasy about it at this point- we were looking just over 5 weeks, our agent found it at 1130pm, we saw it next day, completely bank owned, put on offer in, beat 4 other offers, the call came through that they accepted our offer while we were on vacation, all the paperwork was done for the loan before we even got the executed documents, the inspection came back with all things fixable by even me, and it only needs landscaping and a few ceiling fans. seriously, right now its all too surreal, its too good to be true or something. i'm a paranoid psycho right now-i cannot even explain. pray for it all to go well from here please!
puppy is doing good-she weighs in at more than 50 pounds now and has hit the 6 month mark, we had her spayed last month and she seemed to do well-let me tell you it is not easy to keep a cone on a lab puppy, nor is it easy to keep her from running, jumping, hopping, playing, moving......we are glad that those two weeks are over!
last week we got the opportunity to go to spokane, washington to visit josh's uncle rob and his girlfriend rhonda. it was a good time, it was so nice to be away from home for a little while, and spokane is beautiful and green and COOL. we even got to go to a theme park in idaho (which is where i gave the go ahead to purchase a house......yes i bought a house on vacation, i'm awesome)  i super sucked at taking photos this go round, wish i would have tho.  too bad cause it was so pretty, i was just so enjoying relaxing that i didn't even think about it!  but i did learn how to make homemade rolls, bread and cinnamon rolls- it was awesome. i am so using it so i become the ultimate house wife-i am determined to learn to make much from scratch!
today we bought the runner for the yard-and we did flowers with miss kalea taylor-they are going to be so much better than i thought, she can get everything whole sale because she is that awesome and when you get it wholesale you can get anything you want at anytime of year and even though daisies are not in season in december. kalea is my new favorite. we will have beautiful beautiful flowers-and they will have bling- i am so excited! 99 days could come a little faster please!

life update.

WARNING: this post contains a major complain-a-thon in roughly 50% of the post. yes i know thats negative. but its necessary. and i can't even have a full vent cause this is public and i can't monitor who reads it all the time. that being said, sometimes life is just rather sucky. the last few weeks are definitely that way. so please pray for the family since thats who needs it more than me right now.
on the upside, Chase FINALLLLYYYYY came back with our preapproval on a home loan yesterday. after 3 1/2 weeks. yes 3. they said it took 3 days max. but she forgot about us. annoying. BUT we have preapproval so home hunting is about to begin. i am hopeful that we will find something we can stay in a while with the way the market is and will probably stay.  but we will see. only time will tell. maybe we'll get super lucky and be in by september (only downside of that is i gotta pay bills much sooner than i was hoping for, but at least we'd have a roof and be nearly settled by the time december rolls around!).
Josh and I also went to Verizon this last week and created our own phone plan, another expense i didn't want to take on early, but it is boosting his credit score and we caught the last 2 days of the unlimited data plan deal. sweetness. and i have a lovely new android phone that i am currently much in love with since it operates so much better than my blackberry. in fact i think i might even figure out how to blog on that thing cause i could directly upload pictures. that would be glorious since i never seem to have my own computer any more. (and yes i know i have still failed to upload engagements, life is busy. ugh)
last week we also ordered his tux for the wedding. he will look rather dashing and handsome i do believe. he picked it all out himself (i'm not so sure im a fan of the bow tie yet, but maybe he will convince me).  i also had a make up trial with amber and i have a hair appointment with Lindsays hair dresser next week. she sounds awesome, if she is i will give you her number.
our daisy girl is doing well-minus the bladder infection she has had the last week. that was oh so fun, not. at least we only have 6 more days of meds, and hopefully she'll quit waking up to go out at 530 every morning so that i don't die of exhaustion. (i promise to post pictures of her too.)
our save the dates went out last week-well most of them, minus those few that have come back because people failed to give me apartment numbers or to tell me they moved last month lol. but its all good, they come out pretty!  and michelle is coming this week to look at the house. so we will officially be done after that. how lovely! i will post a picture of the save the date since not everyone got one, i only sent them to those out of state (sorry!).
alrighty, i'm at my desk so i should probably get to work since i still have 3 boxes of papers to put in the file drawers and probably about a million other activities. have a lovely wednesday!

busy busy busy

well things are crazy as usual!  between starting classes and moving into a new office, babysitting, premarital counseling, work and a new puppy, we are non-stop around here!  at least it is helping time to go by a little faster since lately with all of our wedding planning done its feeling more like 20 years!  we had cake tasting the other night with mandy (she's amazing check her out- sassycakesaz.blogspot.com). and i cannot WAIT to have her cake for our wedding. seriously, i need an excuse to have her make one before then because it was AMAZING. and i need more. which is totally not a good way to think since i should be working on a wedding diet and bikini ready bod for summer, wedding and cruise.....ugh. anywayyyyys, we have a new puppy, her name is daisy, i should post pictures since she's a freaking giant, but i'm 4 weeks late on this post anyway, so lets just at least get this up and i'll give you an update on that later, promise. we are waiting to hear back on preapproval for a home loan so keep your fingers and toes crossed it comes back decent so we can get a decent loan and house, very soon! we are rolling on the final stages of wedding business, we have a tux appointment, make-up and hair trial all in the next week, i'm ordering the girls dresses this week and i scheduled my alterations. whew. good to have it almost done.  we went to the bridal expo about a week ago. mom and i had a blast, and we were oh so thankful that we did not come intending to plan a wedding then and there, i tell you it was an overwhelming mess for those of us who just came to play, i can't imagine what it would be like if you had NEVER done any planning and intended to pick all your vendors right there that very day. NO THANK YOU. but it was still fun and i found lots of cool stuff to look at!  we also had engagement photos taken nearly a month ago by miss nicole burt.......i suck since i havent posted anything about it or put any pictures up yet, again i apologize.  but totally check out Nicole Ann Photography on Facebook, or her website which is nicoleannphotography.com we are very excited that she will be shooting our wedding since we had so much fun with her for engagements!  and shes an awesome price for her pictures! oh and i am sending out some save the dates this week, for those of you out of towners, you will be getting those sometime this week if i can ever get a chance to drive by a mailbox.......which reminds me i need to get my butt moving on a passport, especially since we have 3 payments left on our cruise and we are done! yay!  okay enough of this jumbled mess cause its all too much word vomit, there's not even chaotic order to it.  blah, i hate that.  guess i really need to get a routine going and add blogging to my daily list of doing better.....like that wedding workout and taking the dog out for a run.....peace out loves!

The Engagement

The post you have been waiting for.......drum roll please........ we're engaged!

As you probably have guessed, our trip to California was aaa-mazing!  After much anticipation and countdown.... We'll need a little bit of background so we'll start from the very beginning of our trip!  Please prepare yourself for a 9 page post and picture overload :) sorry, it must be done!

Uncle Rob and Rhonda came down on Saturday and we had a big family party (at which Josh DIDN'T help me get the groceries and it bugged me... strike one, little did i know, this is where he informed everyone else on planet earth of his giant plan), we stayed up way too late playing wii, and got up wayyyy to early the next morning to go get breakfast before heading out on the road!  We had a blast goofing around in the car the whole ride there!  After we got settled in our hotel we took Rhonda to the beach cause she had never been before! EVER! can you believe this?! it baffled me since she is 30 something and has always lived in the US, so of course us beach loving people HAD to take her! i think we ended up at seal beach about 4ish in the afternoon, it was sunny and a beautiful 75! I had to laugh when Rhonda stepped into the freezing water and let out a scream, probably shoulda warned her that pacific water isn't too warm in march...or ever lol :)

After the beach we enjoyed a ridiculously hilarious dinner at BJ's, full of much too much adult jokes that are wildly inappropriate but extremely funny.....I'll let you guess where it all started since you know where we ate....ha :) 

On day 2 of our trip we decided to go to Universal Studios since 6 Flags sucks and isn't open Monday-Friday.  I had never been, so I was excited, and it was totally cool!

the boys and their mummy, which made them even more stoked to ride their favorite ride of course!

please note that shrek is loving on josh's head

no lie, we rode this thing about 14 times, rob lost his glasses, and the hotel key.  (sidenote:  Rhonda was also ridiculous about her purse this entire day, i have never seen a woman so tightly hold a purse under her arm ever in my life, especially one with a zipper and a snap and straps that leave it perfectly placed in your armpit.  nor have i ever seen anyone test a purse locker for a ride so vigorously....)

After a full day of adventure at Universal we had a lovely dinner at Olive Garden where much laughter commenced, so much so that we even had our waitress giggling! It was at Olive Garden however that we discovered that Rob's debit card was missing, so of course we frantically searched through everything trying to find the dang thing.  I offered to help, but everyone was like "Don't touch my stuff!" I thought they were all just a bunch of weirdos....little did I know they were all secretly plotting together!

Then on Tuesday, it was FINALLY time for Disneyland!  We met up with Wendy, Curtis and their 2 kids, Jalen and Kyle to start the morning at the park.

Wendy decided that we should go to the Finding Nemo ride first since that one always has the longest line and it was already a 35 minute wait at 8:20 am.  I was excited to go because the last time I had been to Disneyland the ride was just 2 months shy of opening, and I loved the movie so much and the orginial submarine ride as a kid that I had to go on it at least once!

After a short trek back to the ride Wendy asked us to please stand in front of the sign so she could take our picture..........my first reaction was "OHH, they are one of THOSE families that takes photos at every ride they go on to document every FREAKING second of their Disneyland adventure. It's going to be a long day."  But I happily obliged since they allowed just the man and I to be in the first picture together, ALONE, which almost never happens, so i was pleased.  Then she says, "that one didn't turn out so good, let me get another!"  and Rob and Rhonda also pulled out cameras to get one on my camera too, very sweet.  So we get ready for take two, but JZ was no longer standing next to me, so I look over to my left where he had just been attached to me at the hip, and he was on a knee.....it took my tiny brain a moment to process, but once I realized he was on a knee with a sparkling thing in a box, you could say i freaked out.  I don't know that the next few pictures really need any words, cause they pretty much captured it frame by frame. ( we are still waiting on the video which Wendy has on her camera, i promise i will post it as soon as i snag it!)

take one

the "oh my gosh" freak out

"I love you! Will you marry me?"

"YES!"

seal it with a kiss!

still freaking out, but very happy

He sweetly told me he loved me and asked if i would marry him, to which i immediately replied yes! somehow though, i forgot the part about needing to put my hand out for him to put the ring on my finger, so while still on a knee he kindly says "hey babe, i kinda need your hand." since my hands were still stuck over my mouth.....oops.  whats a girl to do when you nearly give her a heart attack in the middle of a crowded Disneyland?!  I don't hardly remember it, but if you watch the video you can see lots of people in the line for the ride clapping and hollering, even the line attendant was like "WOO! way to go man!"  Unfortunately some oblivious people walked right through the video, but i think you can pretty much see all the action, so it's okay!  After all of that craziness, I learned that Rhonda had been hiding the ring in her purse since I had left to get groceries and Josh had refused to go with me......those stinkers, they got me good!  Lucky for josh he wore his cargo shorts that day, or i probably would have noticed the large lump on his thigh prior to the ride! (sidenote #2:  about the time i had my second round of mono, i guess he got the rings and showed my parents, so they knew what was up, and they were all praying that i would get better before the trip and that my hands would stop peeling so that i could wear the ring.  then about 3 weeks before we left, i was helping clean josh's room, when i moved some stuff into his closet that i thought was just another bag of stuff like he has in the corner of his room already, but he got SO mad at me and told me i shouldn't have moved anything and if i saw something and didn't tell him that i would be sorry for lying. needless to say, i was highly upset since all i did was nicely clean the corner of his room and his heavy accusations felt uncalled for.  i guess i had picked up the gift bag that on one side says "Michael's Creative Jewelry" which probably would have been a dead giveaway had i been paying any attention....oops :) good thing he's got a blonde!)

Everything after that was kinda a crazy big blur, but it was OH so wonderful.  We had always talked about doing a low-key sort of engagement, i didn't want to be on a jumbo tron at some game somewhere, Disneyland on Spring Break with like 3 million people wasn't exactly a jumbo tron but it was close! somehow though it was all lost in the fairytale moment.  i have my prince charming, in the happiest place on earth, and i couldn't be a luckier girl!  it was definitely more than a dream come true!  immediately after as we were boarding submarine for the ride, 8 year old Kyle asks me if all of that business meant we were now married. of course i told him, not yet, we will have to have a wedding first.  then i said, "will you come to our wedding?" and he says, "well, i don't know, will there be any cake?"  trying not to laugh i said, "yes we will have cake there" and he replies, "okay well since there's gonna be cake i'll probably come, but if there isn't any, then i might not be there." ha oh kids!

the rest of our trip was absolutely amazing and SO much fun! we had a blast!  our vacation could not have been any more amazing and could not have come at a more perfect time!  I love my Joshua so SO much and I'm so thankful that we are now on the path to married life!  As you can tell there is never a dull moment around here, so i'm sure the craziness will continue as we begin our new journey together.  The big day will be December 1st, 2011, exactly 3 years since we began dating.  It seemed rather fitting to continue with the second half of our journey where it all began.  We will have a giant party to celebrate on December 2nd, 2011 and we will go on a honeymoon cruise the week following.  I will do my very best to keep everyone updated with our new stories and adventures as we get closer to a wedding, there is all sorts of exciting stuff going on around here! And hopefully soon we will even have some engagement photos up after our photo shoot with Ms. Nicole Burt! 

XOXO smile on :)

So much for a new years resolution......

Okay, so I have SUPER sucked at blogging the last two months.  Though I have all of two readers, so I don't think it reeeeeally matters, butttt, i still definitely need to update, considering we have recently had much life change!  I promise I am working on it, I will have many pictures and stories and whatever else belongs on here.  First order of business will be a blog on the engagement of course, and then we'll breifly discuss the rest of that trip even though the second half is much less significant then the first and not nearly as exciting, OBVIOUSLY :)  i'll get crackin on it, but since i don't have access to photos at the moment you'll just have to be waiting a few!  and i promise i will also get a hold of the video so that can be posted too!  much love!

breakfast dates

so my new favorite thing is going to breakfast with my joshua bear. i'm not normally a breakfast person-but half off coupons and my man seem to have changed that....well and maybe being waited on, i can't much object to that now. today we decided to go to ihop and got half off our meal! sweet dealio if you ask me! then i got the last few things i need to take on the trip next week, did the boys laundry since he's gone working all work, and now i just have my own laundry to do.......uh yeah about that. bleh. i'll put it off til friday i think.....maybe ha.
tonight we got to go with the whole watson clan (wes, kim, gramma and grandpa patterson, grandma and grandpa watson, wes's brother and fam) and patti and mike work for dinner at logan's and to see a play in which wes's nephew was part of the orchestra (he was on drums. and it was way cool.) the play was called All Shook Up and was SO cute and funny! i loved it! it was based in the 50's in a small town and used mostly elvis songs to communicate etc. definitely one to see if you ever get the chance! and grandma and grandpa invited us for a game of uno again-funny cause not 2 days ago in the car on the way to a job Josh and i were talking about how we should call them again and ask to play since we had so much fun the first time!
well i guess i'm off to bed now since i haven't had much sleep the last 3 days....poor joshua bear has to be up at 4:30 for work tomorrow......and he got home at midnight....and tomorrow night he'll be at a suns game that starts at 8:30 and be up again at 4:30-i'm hoping i can knock out the night shift early so the poor guy can get some sleep! we've been bombed with more jobs then we can handle this week-we're slotted to hire about 10 new guys and buy 3 trucks just to get through the next six weeks.....eeesh. and in all of this we are talking about moving to a central location and combining all offices......sometimes i think we are a liiiiittle crazy. but things are good, so i'm gonna be thankful!

13 days left in the countdown!

only thirteen more days til its time to leave for our lovely trip to disney! i am so excited! but i still get so tired so i'm hoping the next 13 days will give me enough rest to help keep me energized enough to fully enjoy each day! i'm doing pretty good considering i only had like 8 hours of sleep in the last 2 days-but i did get to nap today! i love taking over josh's big comfy bed while he does laundry and builds a floor in a storage room. its amazing with it's foam topper and soft sheets-seriously the boy has like 700 thread count sheets. we will never be able to buy cheap sheets again. but i will say it is a nice luxury. i slept for 4 hours before i ever realized i was out cold. i cannot wait to marry that boy and steal that bed :) well and cause i love him too!
we went bowling tonight after i woke up! i'm tired now but it was fun! i didn't do too bad either considering! hopefully this week will be restful and very busy-i hadn't planned on missing a week and a half of work before vacay-its killing our vacation money. but hopefully i can make up some this week!
p.s. josh bought a 65 inch tv. yes. 65. its huge. but cool. and he promised no more toy buying for a few years! AND its allowed us to go shopping for an entertainment center! we got to go to ikea today! that was fun. this week we're gonna go out to goodwill to find a table and a dresser or too! hopefully next weekend we can paint! joshy told me i'm not allowed to paint until HE can help me :) silly boy.
last night we made some alfredo like we saw on kitchen boss. we are gonna be the next kitchen bosses lemme tell ya. we made a bomb italian dinner. i knew i was keeping that boy for something :)

welcome back mono, you were not missed

so here i am day 5 of being sick and doing absolutely nothing. thrilling. i determined after day 2 that it was mono revisiting.  now in day 5 i'm 115% positive.  thank goodness i only had one day of fever that never went over 101.5. but i have the awesome rash, and now today i am yellow and i have sausage fingers and toes. yuck. i'm supposed to be going to the doctor in a bit here to determine what my liver function is-i'm guessing that it's not in the normal range considering i look like squash.
on the upside-miss emma arrived yesterday on 2/17 at 7 am, all 7 pounds and 7 ounces of her. i am so bummed that i have been sick and won't get to see her.  nor did i get to give the kids their valentine boxes. ugh mono ruins everything.
i have to be better in a few weeks-i am NOT missing the disney trip.
wish me luck-hopefully i won't be a bloated yellow mess next time i'm posting.

happy mailboxes

so i kinda have this problem with cutesy things. i love them too much i think.  especially when they are in the dollar bins. something i will soon have to curb-well not entirely cause i can still have some crafting and be on a budget even if it's all from the dollar bin. i am gonna be the queen of crafting here pretty soon my friends. i have BIG plans. which will be detailed laterrrrr cause that's a whole nother post. 
so anyways-valentines day is coming up, and while its not like the most important holiday ever BUT there are lots of fun cutesy things, and it's a good excuse to have overly cutesy things that the boy-o doesn't really love. but he humors me. so i love him even more for his large amount of patience and tolerance. :) so target has a super fun dollar bin. and i found super cute mailboxes in it. they are pretty decent size too! i made a bunch of cutesy mailboxes for the kiddos cause they are just now at the age where they are starting to understand the holidays, especially miss lily cause she is now in preschool!  so i spoiled all of them. including miss emma, who is not here yet, but will be soon, so i didn't want her to miss out! and i found super fun mom and dad gifts too-marital bliss candy bars!  i will post pictures shortly when i have a camera with a battery!  i even made mailboxes for Rob and Dustin at the other office! i wish i had thought to get pictures of theirs too, cause i went ALL out for theirs-mostly just to embarass them :) i love love love crafting and wish i had more time, hopefully one of these days i will!
tomorrow should have an exciting story so i'm outta here for now!

time for some changes

so the last week has been full of much reflection, and more talking than was probably necessary, but joshua tells me it's good to let it all out, so i did.  though most of it i feel was rather ugly, i do feel better, a little lighter. i am normally a big fan of change, but for some reason this is much harder for me than anything else to change.  i can let go of nearly anything, i have no problem with people most of the time.  but for some reason i just can't let this go, and i am letting everything said eat me up inside.  which is rather unhealthy.  i'm a rather ugly person inside lately and i don't particularly like it, and nor is it what the man deserves to be with.  so its time to fix it.  he certainly is a big help to me, even though i am usually a stubborn butt about being helped, i'm very glad he is so patient though, it will definitely help. 
on the upside, joshua bought me an awesomely awesome pair of new shoes (which i will be buying a second pair of as soon as our disney tickets have been paid for).  they are the reebok zigtechs.  and they are heaven on your feet.  seriously, after 8 hours on my feet they are only achey and tired, they are no longer painful all day long, and the arches nearly reach the top of my overly high arch and i'm forced to stand up straight, and i'm pretty sure my poor little butt and legs have had quite the little workout lately.  but i love love love them.  he is so good to me.  he even got a pair too and now we match very cutely like, except his are black and white and manly, and mine are black and HOT pink, like neon. and they are sexy. 
i ordered a new battery today for my poor little computer, so hopefully that will be here soon and i will be a little faster about posting more than once every ten years.  hopefully this time my computer will not fry it like it did the last one, that would be much appreciated since it's nearly $200 for a freaking battery to replace the dang one i have.  in case you were not aware, it now lasts a total of 3 minutes while unplugged from the wall, and after 5 minutes of inactivity  while plugged into the wall, it shuts down completely and you must reboot. MOST annoying.  and not conducive to online schooling, so i'm getting it fixed so i can start soonly. ish. blah.
the man and i went to dinner today too-took him to nando's for our "monthiversary".  yes we count them still.  mostly just cause while he was in birmingham it was kinda like a countdown and something to look forward to each month!  i usually sent him a funny goofy card i found at walmart cause it's fun to get mail and it usually helped to boost his spirits a little.......at least i think so.  anyways we had a date night to celebrate and it was lovely.
but now i am sleepy and i have to get up again for work tomorrow so it is BED TIME. glorious.  my favorite time of day.

just when I thought.......

im so exhausted right now that I can't sleep... Weird yes, but I think that you probably understand. Today was less than stellar, way more stress than I cared to have on a Monday, or any day for that matter. Its made me grouchy, I have wanted to cry the last 6 or more hours but have refrained since it doesn't fix anything. I'm beyond frustrated and angry, I am irritated to a point that words do not describe. I know it will get me no where, it solves nothing, it only increases my blood pressure and makes me exhausted, and yet, a large part of me just doesn't give a damn. Wrong? Yes. Ask me if I care right now. I'm sure I'll regret it shortly, but then again maybe not. Cause just when I think that maybe for once I could get my hopes up for a change and move on and move up, it all gets beaten back down again and crushed by forces beyond my control. And I'm not talking about the big guy upstairs-if it was all him I wouldn't be nearly as ticked off and I would understand. But this I can't and probably will never understand, but apparently I'm just supposed to accept it. Right now though, that just isn't going to happen. So much for a great start to the week. I don't even have the energy or positivity at this point to say at least it can only get better, cause last time I said that it got me to here.

champagne at 730 in the am

so this morning i attended this crazy affair in scottsdale at the intercontinental montelucia-i was helping jared and the arthritis foundation with one of their events again-very cool!  it was a red carpet fashion show deal and we were selling raffle tickets-and let me tell you, no one there even hesitates to spend the 50 bucks-i want to be like that one day, minus the botox. the funniest thing about the morning was all of these fancy people who were drinking glasses of champagne at 730 in the am....no lie, and they had many! it was rather comical to see all the ladies in their high heels trying to balance their purses, champagne glasses and food from the buffet....very entertaining. the fashions were from some guy here locally who purchases hollywood clothes used in movies-not gonna lie, most of them were incredibly ugly, but the models were very beautiful! it was freezing but we all had lots of fun! i'm glad i got to go! My boyfriend is the most amazingest bestest person in the whole wide world!  thank you joshua for that last sentence!
now we are off to another million hours of work....hopefully we'll be home before 2!

i don't have a title today

random title i know...but i don't have one, my thoughts are just kinda randomly everywhere!  i think i'm probably just exhausted cause it's been a crazy day! but that's okay! i had a fun time working with my man again and he helped me clear up such a giant pile of filing today! he is so good to me!  he always knows just how to make me laugh too!  we had fun playing at walmart too, but he wouldn't let me play in the valentine's section-big meany!  we spent lots of time talking about cars today too, lots and lots of ideas, just not enough money to execute them...YETTTT-hopefully soon though! i happily bought some cookie dough to eat-not all at once of course, i rarely treat myself to it, but i did today-it is the little things ya know....ha. i am currently watching tlc's my strange addiction-it is VERY strange, but it doesn't freak me out nearly as their hoarders show does..that one freaks me out more than i can even explain to you. every episode i see i have to go clean something and throw it out. no joke. it is not funny.  kills me.  let's not talk about it anymore please.

anyways.....i hope everyone had a good day! i'll be back.....

manic monday

HOLY COW! the last few days have been CRAZY!  we worked our buns off this weekend....in fact my feet and shoulder are still hurting, but that could just be from today's work! but i did get to work with my man so that was coolio!  saturday i got to go to miss lindsay's baby shower! she is pretty much the cutest pregnant lady on the planet ever in the history of ever-it is kinda largely ridiculous, but i love that lady!  miss emma got SO many cute cute things!  i can't wait to see them all on her!  sunday we got to sleep in, then the man and i went to his house to hang out and we watched a movie, did laundry, cleaned and played a game-very fun and quiet-well mostly quiet except for mad gab which turned into a whole lot of loud laughter, but that was okay.  we also went to the toyota dealership in the afternoon so josh could look at the fj cruiser that he hopes to have-we'll see if we can get there! i hope we can get us both a new car fairly soon- but first we must focus on disneyland!  it will be here in just a little over 6 weeks so we must save save save!  i can't wait!  there isn't much else exciting to report, and i'm rather tired from the urine, vomit, fire/water damage, and other glorious things i did today, including a mountain of paperwork (thank you man of mine for helping with all of these things, you are awesomely awesome.).  so for now i am outta here and i will check back soon!

little victories

have you ever watched people bowling? like reeeally watched them?  it's incredible. and i don't mean that in a really mean way actually-though some things you see are actually very funny-like the guy in the lane next to us who made a face, did this jump thing and a leap each and EVERY time he did ANYTHING. no matter how good or bad he did. he was loving his goofiness and having the time of his life with his girlfriend. and NO this was not joshua this time, though this might come as a shock to some of you that know him. he was rather calm today-i think from being exhausted from our ridiculous work day!  anyway, so i enjoyed our date cause i always enjoy our dates, but also because i was loving all the people around us.  there was a little family with a 3 or 4 year old and a 10 year old, i don't know if you have ever watched a tiny child bowl, but it was probably one of the most adorable things i have ever seen. she was precious. and then there was the chinese family next to us with a mom, dad, new baby and grandma, a young grandma, not like 80 lol. i loved watching them because they each had their own unique way to bowl, but after each frame they had this giant look of triumph on their face.  it was a common theme among everyone at the bowling alley actually.  it's incredible really.  EVERONE, has the same look after completeing all or most of a frame.  it is their own victory in this tiny world.  and unlike the real world where no one celebrates even the tiniest victories, not in the adult world anyway, big or small, EVERYONE celebrates a tiny victory, even when they only knock over 3 pins.  i think it's awesome. and i think that we should all celebrate more little victories everyday, our own, and those surrounding us.  the world would be a better place.
on another note, the zahn family pictures are in now, i'm waiting on my disc, but i do have the two pictures of the man and i :) they are great. and so is my awesomely huge print of us.  it's 10x13 and awesome, though i will need to go to get a frame since the one i have only fits 4x6......oh darn, hobby lobby it is :)

we are good looking. and i love these.

have a lovely friday everyone. i will be working from 8:30am to 3:30pm and taking a short break to visit the homeshow, and then working once again from 7pm to 1am.......SO you probably aren't getting any posts tomorrow. and saturday is looking about the same so i'll be back when i can!

sickies, sickies and more sickies

okay so EVERYONE and their dog has had the stomach flu since joshua and dad had it last week......even i got sick, though i narrowly avoided the puking nastiness-thank goodness. i'm still fearful that it will attack me at any moment.....and i really can't afford that this week cause there is TOO much to do! hopefully everyone will be healthy by the weekend again and we can all be free of flu fear! hooray!  oh and if anyone has a couple thousand dollars that they would like to donate, feel free to contact me at anytime......my bank account could use a little help after this last month or so. hopefully i can get it all under control soon!

football championship

well the BCS was definitely interesting this evening.....not as exciting as i would have like it to be. i was rather disappointed to be honest-normally college football is a-mazing but it was a rather weak game tonight. oh well, whatever.  joshua was feeling much better today, not sick at all so we decided to take kyle up on the invite to steph's place for a get together to watch the game.  it was fun, glad we got to see them since we haven't in forever.  i made some dessert for the dealio.  rasberry sherbet dessert and the ooey gooey bars that josh loves so much!  they were okay, didn't come out as nice as i would like for taking dessert to someone else's house.  but it's okay, no one really cared anyway, they just ate them.
my love got a cute hair cut today, he is so very handsome.  and he may have convinced me that the facial hair would be okay for a wedding even though i'm not at all a fan cause he trimmed it so nice today, so i'll possibly consider it...maybe :)
well we'll see what tomorrow brings, it will be a busy day i'm sure cause there will be so much work to do!  hopefully in the evening there will be time to just relax and snuggle with my man!

my sick puppy

my poor man has the stomach flu bug :( this makes me very sad cause i super HATE it when he is hurting and i can do nothing to help him feel better.  he at least made it through a good chunk of church...but that didn't last long lol. poor guy.  he is a rather cute little puppy when he is sick, though it still makes me sad, but he is oh so sweet.  he is very grateful for anything and everything you do for him.  and he is THE biggest cuddlebug there is.  maybe it was just the fever, but humor me, cause i loved it.  he fell asleep on me during the movie and woke up and  was cuddly all over again.  oh i love him!  but he nearly made me cry when he gave me that sad puppy fever face and put his arms around my neck and asked me if i would please stay through the night to take care of him.....oh he knows just how to kill me.  then he said i was the best ever and asked me if i would marry him and stay with him forever. :) i hope he is feeling better tomorrow!  he and dad both managed to get the stomach flu, and we think that it may only be a 24 hour dealio, but we'll see tomorrow!
on another note-we went to rachel's wedding reception last night-i am glad the boy went with even though he reeeaaaly didn't want to, but he is sweet and loving so he does :) it was a cute little reception and i am happy for them!
i hope everyone had a lovely weekend...filled with much less sickness!

backyard tacos and almost free ice cream

if you have never experienced the awesomeness of backyard tacos, i highly recommend it sometime. it probably sounds a little strange that people just randomly go to someone else's backyard for food on a friday night, but we like it so we do. why they haven't been shut down in 7 years, we don't know, but it's good food and it's cheap and no one has gotten sick or died yet, so its all good right? i cannot disclose any information about their whereabouts here...or else, but feel free to contact me if you need a good place to eat sometime.  after we had some backyard deliciousness (which we ate at gramma's house so we didn't have to be out in the chilly air) we went off to the coldstone for some icecream cause i have some buy one get one free coupons, heck to the yes.  so i think it came out to like 2.66 per person when i calculated quickly in my little head instead of the normal almost 5 or something like that. awesome! i told you i was gonna be the queen of coupons! and now i am sitting on the couch with my hunk of love.......well i am sitting here and he is half laying on my lap...and softly snoring.  he will hate me when he reads this, but i think it is incredibly cute.  he is a fairly peaceful sleeper. and he looks so sweet right now.  poor hardworking man!  he needs a good long sleep! maybe i will go make him a bed since he's staying here tonight.....or maybe i'll just leave him here on the couch since he's already out.  oh how i love him and his cuteness :)  happy friday everyone

thursday date night

my new favorite thing is date night.  especially on thursdays when things are cheap and not many people are out to make things busy. yes please.  tonight we decided to go bowling. at first i pooed this idea mostly due to my slim finances-so joshua says, i will call and see how much it is, maybe we can get an afternoon deal. so i say okay go ahead, still thinking that we're not going for less than fifty bucks if we wanna play more than one game. and low and behold it was "dollar mania night". yes please.  we bowled i believe 5 games, and had shoe rental for a total of $21.8something. yes i sad $21 as in a 20+1. we will now be going bowling more than once every 6 months since it does not cost me 3 days of work. which makes me happy because it makes the man WAY happy since he loves bowling-and i humor him.  don't get me wrong, i do like bowling, but i ROYALLY SUCK at it in everyway.  so i do not go just for me cause i never score above 100 most days. yes i am that bad.  don't say a word and if you laugh i will come find you.  joshua is very good however, coming from a family of bowlers (his grandfather is in the bowling hall of fame okay? yeah i have NO chance. plus the kid just wins at everything he even tries dammit. we can't even play board games without him winning everytime. and anything athletic i should just throw in the towel before we start-but i love all of his talent, so i am not bitter. well maybe just a little, because i do have a somewhat competitive side sometimes.). So bowling date night was a success and it didn't kill my wallet which is lovely.  then i took the man to his favorite mexican restaurant, or rather he took us and i paid since he was the driver, but whatever.  and we at for less than 25. loveliness.  tomorrow we have decided that we will rent a redbox for a dollar and go out for icecream WITH a coupon which means i only have to pay for ONE ice cream.  i am becoming the QUEEN of coupons and we aren't even married. i am determined to be good at this and i WILL be finding ways for us to go to disneyland in march, and have one of us a new car by the end of the year, AND even though i'm not supposed to be talking about it, i will be saving for our wedding and have over half of the needed moola before the years end. i am determined.
on a side note, i got my new purse today. mother and sister were gonna get me one for christmas, very sweet, but the one i wanted was no longer there and they worried about which one, so instead they let me go pick.  normally i would NEVER ever ever spend more than 20 dollars on a purse, cause i just don't because i'm a cheapwad, BUT since they had planned on buying me a nicer one at $45, i definitely was not going to disappoint, especially since they were very nice.  unfortunately this may prove to be a bad decision, because now i super love this new purse and it's high quality and they have MANY more beautiful ones and i do believe i will be getting another. and probably before i even wear this one out. uh oh.  BUT on a positive note, i think i CAN get another one in a month or two, maybe i'll even wait for some new styles to come out, because i have been upped on the pay scale.  YES. it's not a whole lot, but it's a heck of a lot more when the paycheck comes in so i am a happy girl that is for sure! i hope everyone has a lovely friday!  i am sure i will have some adventures to share this weekend so....i'll be back...

proud girlfriend moment

okay, so this is probably gonna sound mushy and lovey...and well it sort of is in a way, but i just wanna take a moment to talk about my man. um yeah, you should probably get used to it or quit reading this blog since he is a rather LARGE part of my wonderful little life, and you will be hearing about him-OFTEN. i would also  just like to say that this post may sound mean in some ways, but i don't in any way mean to sound that way, so just a heads up.
so anyway....
we knew that there were going to be some big adjustments when the man decided to come home, which didn't really worry me much, i worried more about him.  one of my biggest worries was the lifestyle adjustment for the man, not to sound snotty, but he has been rather well cared for and to so DRASTICALLY change everything can be hard on anyone, especially those who are going through so much inner stress and turmoil. my biggest fear was the adjustment in lifestyle would make him regret his decision, i thought that adjusting from fulltime practice and school to fulltime work, and hard labor no less, would be overwhelming for him, especially since he has just been a fulltime athlete forever and has never had to wake up and go to work everyday.  but boy was i wrong.  he was so ready for this change, even more ready than i thought he would be.  he is even more ready than i was.  he wanted this so much more than any of us could have ever expected. and in these new changes, i have a newfound respect for my love.  he is so much stronger and more courages than i ever could be.  i am SO very proud of him.  he gets up and goes to work everyday at 5:30.  he works in a job with guys who are his complete opposites, and yet, he still has a good attitude, makes new friends.  he's even already moved up on the payscale in just 2 weeks.  to think i ever doubted that he could changeover so quickly makes me almost a little sad.  i should never have doubted that he knew all along what he wanted and what it would cost him.  it hit me today that this was so much bigger than what i originally saw with my little eyes.  i take so many things for granted and tend to be so naive.  but he obviously needed this so much that he was willing to sacrifice EVERYTHING. i don't know that even i could do that, but my joshua bear gave up his car, his freedom, his nicer lifestyle, all the things he's accustomed to, to come home and do what he needs to.  i am so amazed by him, even more now than before. and each day he continues to amaze me.  that boy is so very determined to DO on his own, and he has surpassed every expectation my narrow mind had set.
i am so very blessed to have such a strong man in my life, and i don't mean strength as in physical, though i won't lie, he is rather attractive with his big muscles. but seriously, he is so incredible. and i am so very lucky.  he teaches me new things everyday and opens my eyes to how much bigger the world is.  i can't believe that i'm the lucky one who gets to be with him.  and he is so humble about how awesome he truly is, so i make up for his humbleness by boasting and bragging about him here.  hopefully he won't mind....but who really knows since he hasn't yet discovered that this thing exists. but i don't really care, because my man deserves to know how much i truly love and appreciate him, since i can rarely find the words to get it out right.  i love you joshua!

zoolights!

we had so much fun going to zoolights this beautiful tuesday evening!  my whole family came along and we met jz and his parents there-we even had pretty good weather! i wasn't freezing with just a light jacket, so i consider that good since it's been so chilly the last few weeks!  we took SO many goofy photos so i'm not gonna post them all but i will share a few!  (for more, visit the "family fun times" album on my facebook page) please enjoy our goofiness-joshua cracks me up no matter what we are doing or where we might be. i love his goofy self and the fact that he isn't embarassed to do weird and crazy things with me! life is NEVER dull with that boy :)

here we are posing by some colorful cacti-we are rather good looking if i do say so...



we decided that we should pose like the monkeys that were hanging out here-these are our best monkey faces. what do you think?

here is my sasquatch josh.....copying the sasquatch in the trees haha :)

parentals-they are kinda cute

here are some handsome men just hanging out-my favoritest is the one on the left!

here us girlies are posing by the lake

yes-we went there.

we decided this is what our future kid will probably look like-and here we are showing it off. love it

here's my tiger posing with a tiger

here's joshua posing by the dragon in the flames-he was capturing some blaze like essence, but quite frankly this dragon is no UAB blaze

okay so this bull thing made me laugh and i asked the man to please make a face just like one so i could take a picture.....this is what i got. oh how i love it

and here is the last photo of the evening, love my love.

xoxo a

family photos

this lovely monday evening we went for some family photos with the zahn clan.  i guess they haven't taken photos for nearly ten years, and the kids decided to pay for a photo shoot for rich and kathy as a christmas gift, pretty cool!  they invited me along, even though i'm not technically family, cause they say that i am anyway, which is sweet!  they turned out pretty great! we even got two of joshua and i together, and i liked the way they turned out!  they even decided to print one for us so that will be fun to have when it gets here!  at a later date when i have been given my copy of the disc i will try to remember to post a few pictures!  but that will be a while down the road i'm sure!  i had a lot of fun, but i'll be honest, i'm kinda glad the stress of that is over cause i rather dread photos most of the time, but it wasn't nearly as bad as i thought it would be!  hopefully it will be just as much fun the next time!
tomorrow, well i guess that's technically the evening now since it's midnight,  we are going to go to zoolights with the fam bam-should be a jolly good time. and i promise that i will take at least one picture, because i am going to be better about that!  hopefully i'll get some good ones of the man and i! happy tuesday!

january 3rd, i love you today, even tho 3 weeks ago you were not really my friend

technically monday january 3rd hasn't happened yet, since i am like an hour and a half into what is considered to be january 3rd in this new year, but just humor me.  just 4ish weeks ago, my love was coming home for a 12 day christmas vacation, and would have left today for what will be the start of the off season in collegiate football.  i won't lie, i always cried on those days, even though that is majorly pathetic on many levels, but it was never enough time and it always meant that things would become harder again since there would be 6 hours of football, time zone changes, homework, school classes, work and a million and 2 other things. yes, i am whining about it, but i can cause i don't ever voice it to anyone really, well except for poor joshua lol. BUT i am happy to report, that instead of crying tonight as i left joshua's house, i had completely forgotten about it til he reminded me as we were about halfway home.  we will no more have to deal with the 1800 mile separation, no more time zone changes, no more football practices, no more 4-6 months between hugs or kisses, no more crying (well.......not over people leaving far away anyway, i mean, there are times a girl needs to cry, especially under the overwhelming circumstances we now face.). while there are some downsides, like no more girl time with miss leia, no more hanging out with jesse, and no more live football games or seeing my man in his football uniform, there are certainly more ups that i am looking forward to.  we are finally starting to settle into a routine, its sort of working, it's still a challenge between the distance across town between houses and the strangeness in work schedules, BUT, he's always here, i can always go to him when i need him, he always makes me feel better at the end of the day.  i say all of this, and you are probably thinking, "uh dude he's been home for like 3 weeks" well yeah, i'm probably a little bit overly excited, a little bit silly probably, but it makes me oh so happy, moreso than i can EVER ever explain.

just a quick note before i actually go to sleep cause i'm failing miserably on the "go to bed early and get up early" portion of my new years resolution, oops.  on saturday evening, mom and dad and the man and i went out to have a quick dinner (original destination was back yard tacos, but they were closed for the holiday, so we instead had delicious mexican food at the original tia rosa's in downtown mesa). we had a lovely time.  the man and i enjoy spending time with my parents, well i should probably ask before making such assumptions, BUT i'm guessing from the way he reacts and engages in convo during dinner, and shares his thoughts and feelings, and the fact that we never have conversations afterward that hint at the negative/annoyance end of things.  i love it when we have thougtful and deep conversations, especially those involving the future and its possibilities, i always get tidbits out of the man that i don't always get in our own conversation since thoughts from others provoke new thoughts of our own.  like last night my joshuabear was telling my dad about how much he can't wait to have kiddos. it made me feel warm and fuzzy inside, and my heart smiled a little and i took a drink of my soda so i didn't look like a dweebus cause i secretly just wanted to kiss his sweet little face and almost have a little tear. (yeah, i am overly emotional, a)because of super stress, b)because of superly overly hyped up hormones. they are driving me C.R.A.Z.Y. but we'll discuss THAT another day)
anyway......i am such a rambler geez, i'm sorry.  after our little dinner we went to see the lights at the temple. it is always a favorite of mine to go and see all of the beauty.  it was a little different this year since we normally go before the holiday actually comes and goes. but i won't lie to you, there was NO ONE there. it was glorious and very peaceful.  and i loved all the beautiful new lights they added this year. very fun. we met josh's dad and stepmom there and i even managed to make everyone take some pictures. maybe i should add that to my list of new years resolutions since i royally suck at picture taking and i always regret it later.  please enjoy! one of my fav's is the one of dad holding the wise men in his palm. oh i love the goofy peeps in my life :)

 here are the rents, not paying a single bit of attention to me trying to take their picture...

 ah yes, much better and much parental cuteness

 i just really loved these trees so you get a pictures of them

 hahah oh dad you crack me up



here is mom trying to walk a camel, our perception was a little off since we couldn't get any closer to the lawn!

here is my love-his dad literally got like 17 inches from our face for this picture with my camera....

here is josh with the parents....love it

okay short story, there was this couple making kissy faces under an identical arch, but the arch was half lit and they were, um not cute? so josh leans over and says to me, "we are so awesome" and i hear dad at the same time saying something to the affect of, "oh a little wedding arch" so we decided a picture was necessary, mostly because of the fact that we needed some cuteness, it was less about a spur of the moment wedding under a lighted plastic pvc pipe....

and here is the last one of the evening by my cool trees. i think we are rather cute and i rather much love it.

goodnight!