The Endowments

On November 14, 2009, Jared and I went to the temple to take out our endowments! Without going into a lot of detail it was actually not as weird as I thought it would be and it was definitely a great experience. We had originally scheduled the endowments for 9 in the morning but I found out my uncle Kevin and aunt Jessica were flying in at 9 so we pushed them back to 3 in the afternoon. I am soo glad that we were able to move the times and that they were able to come and be a part of the process :D My aunts Bonnie, Tia, Katie and Jessica were there and my uncles Scott, SheKenny, Mike and Kevin. I had my cousin Amber there as well, she was my escort and Jared's dad (his escort) and his friend Jake were there. It meant so much to me that they were willing to come share this experience with me and Jared. It was something that I never forget and i cannot wait to watch my children do.

After the endowments we had a family dinner with my family and Jared's family at my aunt Bonnie's house. One thing I've always known but it definitely hit me with all this wedding stuff going on is that I have one huge family but every single person is more than willing to help out another when needed. The day was great and I did realize soon after that it is definitely going to take some getting used to wearing these garments! :D

Only 30 days left! :D

Wow! 30 days left!! It does not feel like it's already October. This year has gone by so fast and I just know that these next 30 days will go even faster. It's getting to be soo exciting and at the same time I just want it here and done with so I can start my family (we are however going to wait for about a year before we start trying for kids... that means I get a year of practice first ;-) lol). It's been really fun and for the most part not stressful at all, but I must say that I am grateful for everything that has made me who I am otherwise I would be flipping out by now. Good news about the planning is that I have all the centerpieces ready to go, I have mailed out 100 invitations, have another 15 waiting to be put together and another 60 that I don't have addresses for (reason #1 that I should be freaking out). I found the flowers (we are using fake flowers b/c the are cheaper and I can make everything which makes everything cheaper) that we are using for the corsages and boutonnieres and made all the boutonnieres over the weekend and all the corsages last night :). I still do not know what I am using for the bridal party flowers or my bouquet but I think I will use the same flowers (they are orange roses) and add in a couple other types of flowers for mine, but that's a job for this weekend. For decorations I am just waiting (this is reason #2 that I should be freaking out). We think we are going to be able to borrow some tool from my aunt Tia's friend but we found out that they lent it out to somebody getting married at the end of October so we won't know what shape it is in. Reason #3 and #4 that I should be freaking out is that I do not have a photographer or a DJ... this will be interesting lol.

Other than that though we are just plugging away. I've decided that I want to run a marathon but can't find one that has a date I can work with but while looking I found a relay race that I am trying to get on a team for. It is a 170 mile race ran by teams of 12 people, each person has 3 legs and it goes from Logan, UT to Park City, UT. I'm just waiting to see if I am able to get on an old high school friend's team but if I'm not able to I am going to be trying to get my own team started. It is in 8 months so I'm really excited! :D

This Saturday will be the last Saturday I can work on wedding details so we are hoping we can get a lot done! Wish us luck!

Only 7 more weeks!

So, 7 weeks and 1 day left until I am married!! crazy to think that's it's coming up so fast. Everything is falling together nicely and I can definitely say that my family is great with helping out so much. There is still a lot to do but a lot has already been done as well. Amber and Leah are planning the bridal shower/bachelorette party :D which I am sure will be fun. The aunts and grandma are always on the look-out for the stuff we still need and are already helping with the catering and decorations. I still do not have invitations done or a guest list finalized - which by the way is not my fault. I have made a list and have requested guest lists from all parents and Jared about a month ago and no one gave me it so I asked for them again a week ago and of course, still do not have them! Jared still hasn't gotten his tux or suit or his groomsmen suits (go figure, he was so into it at the beginning with the "it's gotta be this way cause this is the way I always thought it'd be" but now... does he even know our colors??? lol) I think I'm beginning to realize that planning takes so long because you are always waiting on other people... that and money lol there's a big difference when you finance a wedding and pay for it in cash. Even with everything not happening as fast as I'd like I am still excited for it and am finally getting to the points where I can start counting down days instead of weeks (5o days from today!)

Other good news is my brother flies in from Germany in 3 days! and will be staying with me for about a week. It'll be nice to see him again and then he will only be in Cali and I will be seeing him a lot more :D Can you say Road Trip!?! and I love them, so it'll be nice for me. Beach during the summer and snowboarding during the winter! yay!!!

Well my life seems like it's full of good news cause in other good news my house is coming along really well. I'm hoping that it'll be done, or most of the way done, before my brother gets here and as long as that happens I should be able to finally take pictures of it before it gets ruined or dirty again.

More later when it's closer! :D

It's been awhile... but here you go!

So the last 2 1/2 months have been really crazy. Of course, what else would you expect from me :D The wedding planning is going really good, still haven't done a whole bunch but I did finally get my dress! It's ivory with I guess you could say renaissance or ornate beading (I'm not too good with beading types or material types so don't ask me what it's even made of!!) All I know is that I absolutely love it. It was definitely hard to choose between the two dresses I had picked out though because one was the fairy tale ever since I was a little kid type of dress and the other was this gorgeous dress and I am pretty positive now that I made the right decision to be pretty rather than a princess. Other than that I've finally asked my cousin Amber and cousin Leah to be my Matron and Maid of Honor and my sister Jessica to be my Bridesmaid and my sister Hunter to be my Flower Girl. I know that Amber and Leah will have fun planning my bachelorette party and can't wait to see what they will have in store for me! I've also booked my reception site. So I guess I'm finally heading in the right direction :D

The house shopping has gone great. We finally got accepted on a home and go figure that the house that we loved became available again the day before so we decided to go ahead and accept the first house and put an offer in on the house we loved (we had already tried twice for this home and been beaten out by higher bidders) well, we got accepted on it also about 3 days later and canceled the first acceptance and have been trying to close for about the last month. We were supposed to close on May 29th but the appraiser took until June 5 to come out. I was happy though because he valued the house at 10k less then what we offered. Then we had to wait for the seller (foreclosure) to approve the new price, they finally did on June 11 and now I'm just waiting for bank paperwork and the final ok from the FHA appraiser!!! We're trying really hard to close by this Friday but with the way things have been I think it'd be safer to say we will be closing next week. I'm going to definitely keep hoping though.

Last Monday was my 4-year anniversary with the company I work for. It doesn't seem like that long ago but wow does time fly. I started at this company 2 days before receiving my High School Diploma (which means it's been 4 years today that I received it!). It's crazy to think that the amount of time I spent out of high school is the same amount of time that I stayed in it as well.

Well, hopefully it's not that long before my next update but we'll see... so far I haven't been to good at it but then again I am just a newbie :D

It's been 3 months...

Well, it's been 3 months since Jared finally proposed to me and 8 1/2 months til the wedding!!! Not a lot of planning going on yet (on paper) but it's all in my head :D Our colors are going to be a chartreuse green, autumn orange and ivory and we are going to be accenting in brown. I'm not sure what kind of flowers yet but I've gone to try on dresses once and I found one that I'm pretty sure I'm going to be getting, just want my aunts and cousins to see it and give me their opinions too. This is definitely uncharted waters here and I'm still debating on how big the actual wedding will be. Just family between us is over 300 people being invited so I'm thinking that we're probably going to have to have a barbeque at a park or something!!! haha

Other than wedding plans and ideas going around I've decided to make myself busier and I'm going to be going to back to school full-time, I'm the receptionist and office manager at work (the only girl for the entire company so I do everything now), and I'm buying our first home!!! Home buying is so fun but so time consuming also. I found a house that we like and we are going to be putting in an offer tomorrow as long as our dads give it the go :D Hopefully this one will go through... Wish me luck!!!

Poppin' the Question

So now that everyone knows how Jared and I started together here comes the fun part - the engagement! of course I knew that it was coming but it was just a matter of when and how. First I thought well Thanksgiving is coming up, maybe around then, but no, and then Christmas and still no, so I decided to stop guessing and just let it happen. On New Year's Eve Jared asked me if I would want to hang out with his friends that night because they were all going to go up to the Las Vegas Temple to watch the fireworks on the strip. I agreed and so at 11 p.m. we headed up to the temple... with no blankets. After about 3 minutes of sitting outside I have the bright idea that Jared should ask Jake to bring some blankets, so Jared sends a text and about a minute later tells me that Jake is bringing them. Now, since he actually texted him I really didn't think he'd be doing it that night, especially since friends were coming and we wouldn't be alone. 5 minutes til midnight and I am watching every car that turns down the street and am losing my patience with Jake because I'm cold. Jared then asks me what my New Year's Resolution is and what I want from the New Year. I tell him that I want to drink less Dr. Pepper (yea, like that's going to happen) and work out more, the same one that everyone else has. The fireworks start to go off and then the big moment. He looks at me and tells me that he wants to start the new year off right, kneels down on one knee, takes a box out of his pocket and asks me to marry him. And of course I said yes. So now comes the wedding planning. November 20 here I come :D. --- by the way, afterwards, on our way home Jared finally tells me that he never actually texted Jake, instead it was Google... he did it to trick me so I would keep believing him! Well, it worked.

How we Met

Well, most people know that Jared and I have known each other and have been together for a LONG time but most people don't know the story of how we met. We actually met for the first time at a church dance. At the time he was dating one of my friends and so we didn't pay too much attention to each other. About a year later we met again because he started to date the same friend from the previous year. All my friends tried to get me to date his friends but none of them seemed to work and eventually he and my friend broke up. Well, a couple of months later the same friend asked me to try to get them to get together again so I arranged a small volleyball game at O'Callahan park and instead of trying to get back together with him, my friend brought a date so it left me and Jared together to play in the sand. When I took him home that night he asked me to go on a date with him and I accepted. We went to a movie (Starsky & Hutch) and the whole time I remember wondering if he was going to hold my hand at all and he didn't! We went on a couple of dates after that and eventually started to date exclusively. He ended up going to BYU following high school which only lasted a semester (I like to say that he missed me too much) and we've been together ever since he got back.