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!