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!