5 Days

...until I change my name

...until months of planning and hours of tears come to an end

...until I no longer check the "single" box on legal documents

...until I have 3 nephews

...until I no longer get to sleep in the middle of my bed

...until I have to share things I've never shared before: toothpaste, a bathroom, a bed, a closet?!

...until my parents proudly cut my off

...until I can't pull the "I'm not a grown up yet" card

...until I have to drive more then 5 minutes to meet my girls for lunch

One week until eternity with my best friend begins

and I couldn't be more excited

The Little Gingerbread House

On Sunday Jim and I went to church at my cousin's ward because she was blessing her sweet little baby Preston. He is the cutest thing ever, and he is such a good baby. He makes me want a baby (but just a little bit). I'm currently on a kick where I don't want a baby for a long long time. But it changes weekly a little Preston helps with that. ANYWAY, as we were sitting enjoying the company of my family my cousin (well really my cousin's cousin) Billy asked us if we found anywhere to live yet. I probably rolled my eyes and said in a stern voice "no" because I'm so sick of looking at townhouse after townhouse. Without even hesitating he said "you know you guys can live in our rental house. I don't know what kind of condition it's in. The renter moved out on Friday and I'm getting the key's from her tomorrow and I'm going to take a look at it". I was a little excited, I didn't want to be super over joyed because as things have gone so far, something bad always seems to happen when we find a great deal. So I asked where it was because I thought it was in Maricopa. He said "Nooooo it's on like 16th street and Roeser, between Southern and Broadway". For any of you who know Phoenix you are now shaking in your skin. This part of Phoenix isn't the nicest of nice area's, I mean it's not Gilbert or Ahwatukee by any means. In fact it's down right terrifying. Just last week we were driving around down there looking at some really cute town houses. There are some really nice cute little neighborhoods down there, but the surrounding areas are pretty scary. I knew He wasn't talking about the house being in one of the scary area's because it Kati had lived there for about a year and a half before they got married. She wouldn't buy a house in the sketchiest part of town. So of course we said we would LOVE to take a look at it as soon as we could and get it all cleaned up so we could start taking some things over there.

So on Monday I had to work until 5 and after work I went to Jim's house. He kept reminding me to call Billy so we could go see it. I didn't want to be pushy but I finally gave them a call. Billy said we were more then welcome to come get the keys and take a look around at the house. It was in a lot better shape then he thought it would be. There wasn't any electricity or water and the upstairs carpets need a little lovin', but nothing that we couldn't handle. I was so excited!! We went out the their house and chit chatted for a little while, and I peaked in on the babies as they were sleeping. They have such cute little twin boys Mark and James. I love them They also help make me want babies sooner, but still we are A LONG way from that. We left and were on our way to our new house on Chipman street. This is what we found (ok so I may have taken these pictures the next day, but it's still the same)

Our little Gingerbread

This is from the front door looking at the stairs and the great room, there's more sq. feet in the right of the picture. I don't know what to do with it all!

The Kitchen. After I saw the house I went a little crazy and bought tones of cleaning supplies, minus the mop. They left that behind for us :) grooooooooooooosssss. I consider myself to be a little bit of a clean freak. I'm sure you've gathered that by now seeing how much I hate camping

The surprise in the over :) it smelled pretty dang sour

I think it was chicken, Jim thinks it's beef. Either way it was left in there for who knows how long, and look at the inside of the oven! What am I suppose to use on that!?! Anyone!?

This one is the best. Like I said, the power has been off since Friday. On the bright side, I'm happy it's Safeway brand?

My camera died after this picture was taken and I'm a little sad because me had a lot more surprise leave behinds!

• In the garage there is a ton of black and white pictures on the wall of small children maybe the age of 6? I said I want to leave it up. It's great (to laugh at)!! Jim said no. In fact he probably said hell no.
• In the master bedroom a toilet bowel brush on the floor and some cleaning supplies in the bathroom (I don't think they knew what cleaning supplies really were).
• In the hall closet some sort of camo bed skirt? I didn't pick it up, but there's something in there.
• The first bedroom upstairs had shoes and a belt on the floor
• The third bedroom was missing the door, the closet doors, and the shelf in the closet. Don't worry, I found them in the garage a little later along with the pantry door.
• The upstairs bathroom is in the worst possible condition ever. It looks like a little boy, maybe even two or three, decided to stand there and just go to the bathroom on the floor, on the walls, on the counter, sink, mirror, you name it and they peed on it. Ok I'm not sure if it is actually pee, but it's a bathroom, what do you expect?!
• The faucet in the kitchen is broken... off. (see the picture of the curdy milk)

I love our little Gingerbread house believe it or not! In a few weeks we can have things looking really good! I enjoy cleaning and when it's my own place I really don't mind at all! I'm so excited to get things going! Jim just let me know that we have carpet cleaners coming tomorrow from 2-4 and the electricity will be on sometime today. Now I just need to figure out how to get water and we will be good.

I can't thank Billy and Kati enough for letting us live there! and for such a GREAT price, free!! It really couldn't have worked out any better then it did. We owe you guys so much! and here is us PROMISING that we will leave it in MUCH MUCH MUCH better condition then we found it!!! You have my word!

A Little Wedding Prep

It feels like forever since I last updated our blog. We have been really busy! We are only 28 days away from the wedding and I feel like if we decided to put it on tomorrow we would be in good shape! Buuuuuuuuuut to let you in on a little of what has been going on in our lives...

For starters, I got a JOB! That's right everyone, your screen in not foggy, you don't need to get your eye's checked, I got a JOB! I work at Nordstrom in the T.B.D. department at the Scottsdale and so far I LOVE it! Well, I've only been to two and a half days of training in a classroom and I haven't been on the floor yet, but I still like it. Today was suppose to be my firs day on the floor shadowing but I all ready had to call in sick. When my mom came down to visit a few weeks ago she got sick, then Paisley, then Winter, then Jim, then Casey and even Rowland who was out of town. They all had the same problem and I was feeling pretty special that I had avoided it. I was wrong. Yesterday morning around 3:30 I woke up and ran to the bathroom. Trying to be a good sport about just getting my job and not wanting to miss training I made Jim drive me up there yesterday. I told Mary (the lady in charge of training) about how I had been sick all night but felt like I needed to be there. She told me right away it was ok to be sick and that if I needed to leave at any point it would be fine. So after being there for an hour and two trips to the bathroom her and I both agreed that my manager would have to teach me what I would miss. I felt really bad about being drama all ready but one girl in the training class was sick for the first two days of training and that made me feel better.

On a much lighter and FUN note... Last week I went to Utah for wedding stuff. Ok maybe I went just to get my hair done, and my teeth cleaned, a little shopping and if we got a chance to have wedding fun then that was a bonus. And we did! It was so much fun! I got to meet with the lady who is doing our cake and let me tell you, it is going to be DELICIOUS!!! I saw all the things my mom had bought for our wedding and they are all so cute! I am so so so so excited! Seeing everything together made me so anxious!

Also while I was in Utah some of my mom's friends/my friends mother and young women's leader put on a shower for me!! It was so sweet of them! I know Tauni is really busy but she was so gracious an offered to put it on last minute. This is the only thing that I actually got a picture's of while I was there.

Here is the amazing food! Ahh It was delicious!

Brooke and I. She was the first to get married, now me! WEIRD!

These girls are seriously the definition of my childhood!

Kenzie was so sweet to come down from Logan! Thank you girl! and Krista, I love you!

Brooke, Mari and I. The wind really adds to this picture

Oh Annie. How would we have survived YW without you?

These three FABULOUS ladies are like second mothers to me! THANK YOU!!!

As you can see the shower was so fun! I was so happy to just sit and talk to everyone. We had a great turn out! I need to thank Tauni, Annie, and Kay. You guys are amazing!! Everything was wonderful and I couldn't have asked for anything better!

Happy Little Campers

By now I think everyone has figured out that I hate camping, and being dirty. I'm pretty sure it consumes all of my blog posts. But despite all of that we went camping! It was cold and dirty, but it was fun! We went with Jim's really good friend CJ and his wife Savanna. CJ and Jim and very much alike in that they like to camp, and Savanna and I like to shop and be clean and complain about being dirty. You can see where this camping trip is headed...

We left Sunday afternoon and headed up to Payson. We got there and picked up some last minute things for dinner and continued on our way to... well I have no idea where it was. We past a town called Pine, and I think another small town called Strawberry. I thought we were almost there, but nope. We drove and drove and drove to "the rim" or whatever and then we were off the pavement driving on rocks. After about 20-30 minutes of a miserable drive off road we finally found somewhere to camp. When I jumped out of the car every memory of girls camp came back to me. The pine tree smell was enough to remind me that I REALLY REALLY don't like camping! But Jim loves it so I was all about being a good sport.

the boys set up the camp while Savanna and I watched. I really had no idea how to help! It was really fun watching the boys gather the wood for the fire, and then they even let us "help" them chop some of it!

Look how strong my man is, just throwing some logs around... no big deal

Here's Savanna showing the guys how to really chop some wood

The boys taking a break from all their hard work

As the night went on we grew hungry. We planned on eating some hobo dinners and we were all very excited about them. The one time I've had a hobo dinner before it was amazing! I expected nothing less especially since I had to sleep in the dirt later. As CJ was preparing dinner he realized that they forgot the tin foil!! When we had stopped earlier Savanna and I were assigned to stay with the truck and make sure nothing was taken. We were both NOT ok with this but somehow we "trusted" out men to take care of us. We should have made them stay with the truck. Needless to say I was upset and so was Savanna. We were about an hour from the nearest town! AN HOUR!! CJ and Savanna jumped in th truck and headed back and Jim and I set up the sleeping arrangements. About 10 minutes later they returned. They stopped to ask some of our fellow outdoors-men for some tin foil. We didn't have very much but we managed to get everything in there... kind of.

Here's CJ taking care of our dinners, before he stapped a huge whole in the side of ours :)

In the mean time while dinners were cooking I had a flash back. I sat next to the fire trying to stay warm and I look at Jim and what did I find him doing? Cutting down a very small tree, and then carving it! When Jim and I met he had spent the whole night carving what I like to call a savage stick. Because of that stick I started talking to him. It was cute to sit next to him as he made me a roasting stick, opposed to another savage stick.

Jim with his small tree...

That turned into a roasting stick

Putting the roasting stick to work!

As we waited for dinner to cook Jim decided that roasting the potatoes with a slice of onion was the way to go! Turns out that Potatoes aren't that good alone... or roasted on a stick with an onion. When we were finally able to eat our dinners they weren't that good. We all ate it and were very very disappointed. I like to think that it's because the girls didn't get to do the shopping :)

Later we went spot lighting. I've never done this before but it was WAY fun! We drove around for about 45 minutes and didn't see anything and I just wanted to go to bed, but then we saw two elk. I was ok with that and didn't really feel like we had wasted our time. As we kept driving we saw in a little meadow about 10 more elk. It was way cooler then the first time. As Jim moved the spot light across the meadow we saw another set of eyes, but they were lower to the ground and moving really smooth and slow. It was a mountain lion!! It had been stalking the group of Elk and started to run back into the forest. We were all super thrilled, I've never seen grown men more excited about anything in my life! We drove for about 10 more minutes and turned around. As we approached the meadow again all the elk were still there but the mountain lion had taken off, or so we thought. He had moved to the other side of the meadow and was STILL stalking them. I felt bad for the poor elk. They had no idea they were about to get eaten. We got back to our camp and we were all tuckered out.

When we woke up in the morning Savanna and I were ready to be city girls again. We tried to hurry up the boys and get everything packed up so that we could use flushing toilets again. That wasn't exactly the case... As we cleaned up...

The boys played guns (I love CJ's outfit)

All in all, the weekend was fun! We needed some time away from real life and just kind of "relax". If nothing else we had a great time with our friends! Thanks CJ and Savanna!

Oh The Place's You'll Go

As a little girl I always thought about how great a wedding day would be, and how badly I couldn't wait for my own. There's just something about the expensive dress, the pretty hair, the cute groom, the bling but most of all, the pictures. I can't get enough of it. I'll admit, I'm a little bit of a facebook wedding stalker. I LOVE when the little heart show's up and say's so and so is "in a relationship" or "engaged to so and so". I ALWAYS click to see if there's a picture of the ring, pictures of the engagement and later I look for the engagement pictures, bridals and wedding pictures. It's my favorite thing to do! Even Jim knows. Every time on of those little red heart shows up on his news feed he always let's me click through the album (one of the many reasons why he is the greatest man in the world).

But this weekend it was my turn, and I couldn't get enough. We had my super wonderful sister-in-law Winter do our engagements (http://piperpix.blogspot.com/). I wont lie, I was a little camera shy at first (WEIRD) but when she said "Ok I think we are done!" I looked at her and was like "are you sure?" I was having sooooo much fun. Jim couldn't have been more thrilled because he missed half the Suns game (GO SUNS!)

As I've sat and thought about how much fun I've had with this whole bride thing, I found myself thinking about how much fun my life has been since I've had Jim in it!

Jim and I met at the end of October at a bonfire in the desert. Who would have thought that I, the girl who likes shopping and fashion and go on vacation to hotel's on the beach, would find the man I'm going to marry wearing plaid flannel, at a bonfire, in the middle of the freezing cold desert. I hate plaid flannel, I hate the dirt/being dirty, and I hate being cold. But what can I say, he was a stud from the beginning. I mean look how close he is sitting to me! I should have known something was up with this one.

7 months later look at us. Engaged, am I old enough for this? This question runs through my mind daily, but there's something about that boy that reassures me yes, I AM old enough for this.

Look how far we have come! You know when you hear people say "I never thought I could love you more", and then you want to vomit? Ya, I have been having one of those moments lately. After we took our engagement pictures I was amazed by Jim. Not that Jim doesn't amaze me on a regular occasion, because he does, I've just been really amazed by him lately. Maybe It's because I'm out of school and so I have way more time to focus on what he does for me, or say's to me. When we were taking our engagement's I think everything became real to me. I am really getting married. Not only am I happy about it but HE is happy about that. That alone makes him my hero, it should make him your hero to! I'm not the most easily pleased, but he does it for me no matter what! He knows how to handle me when I'm upset about something, or when I'm mad at him. This doesn't happen that often, but when it does he is a rock star! Then I become not so mad and realize how great he is, and again, I fall in love all over again. Ok I'm sorry this post was just so mushy gushy , huggy kissy face, but it's my blog, and no one is making you read it! I hope you enjoy! At least this one has some pictures on it, and a link to more pictures.

I swear it takes a master's degree to upload pictures onto this stupid blog situation. I'm still learning, forgive me people!!

Here We Go....

I thought that I would honestly be able to hold out longer then this. I was wrong. I don't know that I ever really wanted a blog, It's just something that you do once you get married. But the main reason I got a blog is so my sweet sister-in-law Nicole could have another thing to keep her busy during her day, and so that she can stay in touch with me and the wedding plans!

I live in Arizona (obviously) and I love it! But I did grow up in Utah and that's where my parents are, and that's where a lot of people I love are. Once you say the word "wedding" everyone wants to know, "When are you getting married? Where are you getting married? What are your colors? Do you have a dress?". I figured a blog would be the easiest way to stay in touch with everyone about all the festivities! Annnnnnnnnnd I'd be starting one in like August anyway. So this is me (and Jim) keeping YOU updated on our wedding plans.

FIRST of all I want to start off by saying, I'm not a writer. When I have to write a paper for school I usually shoot for the minimum length. Most of the time I don't make it that far, and I never read it again and edit my mistakes. Then I get them back, and they always say the same thing "Make sure to proof read before you submit". SECOND, a few weeks ago Jim and I were driving and he went on for about 5 minutes about how good of a writer he is and how public speaking doesn't bother him (show off). Then he said that I would never want him to read anything I wrote because he would pretty much rip it to shreds. I don't know if I had told him at this point about how bad of a writer I was. He's never read anything I wrote for school, but I get good grades so what does it matter? THIRD, my mom is a reading and writing teacher, yet I still am not good at it. Here I sit, writing a blog. :)

Now that I have we have that taken care of, I will fill you in a little bit with what we have done for our wedding. I'll answer the general questions first,

When? July 29, 2010 at 9:45 AM (Just for you dad)

Where? Mesa, Arizona temple

Colors? Sage green and yellow. Apparently people struggle with knowing what color sage green is. It's not kelly green, and it's not army green, and it's not mint green, and it's not lime green. So after eliminating all of those, you pick the color green that's left in your mind, and we will just say yes, that's the color.

Do I have a dress? Yes. and I love it.

Since both Jim, my mother and I have all been in school the whole time we've been engaged we don't really have things set in stone. My mom has been A LOT, and I mean A LOT more proactive at planning then we have. She's been to bride expo's, met with the cake lady, done flowers, refreshments, tables and chairs, there's pretty much nothing that she hasn't done. She has nearly everything arranged and booked for the open house in Utah, and all I have done is buy a dress. Is it because she has done this once before with her own wedding? Probably. I like to blame my lack of planning to the 22 credits I took last semester, but now IT'S ON! I'm FULL TIME at this wedding thing! Ok, maybe I've done a few more things then just my dress. When my mom was down here in April we bought bridesmaid dresses. We met with a photographer down here last Saturday and booked her for the wedding! This weekend we are taking engagement pictures, so you bet I've spent many house this week at the mall. Mostly, I'm just looking for somewhere to live. Jim and I do not want to live in an apartment. He's done it, and I've done it, and I'm over it! We want to rent a town house in the Gilbert area, or somewhere close to Awhatukee. I'm just not ready to leave the Tuke!! I love it over here. Anyway, we want a town home to rent for awhile to save money and hopefully buy a house soon. We've been looking pretty intensely for about a week, but I'm over it all ready. I thought it would be so fun! News flash, it sucks. I've found a few that I just LOVE but they have all been taken. The last one that I LOVE LOVE LOVE is a little more then what we want to spend, but it's perfect. In the end it comes down to this, I pick out the finest things in life, but my accountant get's the final call. If anyone knows of some really cute town houses with a garage, granite counter tops, wood floors, at least two bedrooms and two full baths, let me know. Did I mention I like the finer things in life? Ya... Poor Jim :) at least I'm letting him know before we get married.

I do have to tip my hat to my wonderful fiancée and my daddy. Both of them have been troopers so far with this whole wedding planning thing. I know Jim would rather shoot guns then be at Nordstrom, and my dad would rather be fishing then go to bridal expo's, but they are making sacrifices for my mom and I! They are the BEST!!! Less then 70 days guys, can you handle it??

Ok, for a first blog post I feel this was way to long. I'm sorry for anyone even lasted to the bottom. But hey, It's my blog, and I can write what I want. I have a sister-in-law across the world that needs something to read during her long days away from her workaholic husband (not by his choice). This one is for YOU, Nicole!!