Andrew and Brooke

A lot of things to come...

2010-05-13T08:15:00.000-07:00

I am soo excited for the next couple of weeks/months! I have so many things to look forward to!

1. Moving into our new/nicer apartment on the 25th of this month! It is basically the same layout of our current apartment, but has better amenities! It has a storage shed in the back, it has A/C! Which could not come any sooner I am 100% positive that I could not have lived another summer without A/C! It has more cabinet space and countertop space! It has a REAL dishwasher and no crappy portable one! It is in a better location too! Andrew and I are very excited!

2. Jessica's baby shower is going to be on June 5th! Which I am excited for because I made the cutest little dress out of a onesie! Remember that tutorial that I posted with it on?!? Well I finally got around to doing it and it turned out better than I hoped! I will post the finished product after her baby shower! I am not letting her see it till then! But I love it! I just need to make the hair bow that goes with it and I am going to attempt to make little baby shoes to go with it too!

3. Next to look forward to would be Stadium of FIRE!! My family and I are REALLY excited about this because our whole family will be going on July 3rd! We went a while ago when Reba McEntire performed! This year it is going to be Carrie Underwood!

4. Then hopefully not soon after the Stadium of fire Jessica will have baby Sophie which we seriously cannot wait the full 10 weeks!! She is due on the 23rd of July and hope that she will be EARLY!! But it is sad that right after she is born they will be moving to Vegas...

5. Which won't be ALL bad because it means that Andrew will most definitely have to start taking me to Vegas! I have never been which brings us to our 5th thing to look forward to! GOING TO VEGAS!! August 8th-15th, we plan on driving down with Andrew's parents in separate cars to Vegas where they have a time share that we will be staying at! We are going to love on our baby Sophie then sometime going to leave them and drive to Zions and campout and hike/bike(if we can fit our bikes in our car)! Which I am going to go ahead and say that our Zions trip will kind of double up as us celebrating our 1 year anniversary which will be the 29th of August! Mostly because school starts right before our anniversary...

6. Number 6 is GOING BACK TO SCHOOL!! I am soooo excited about this! I am soo ready to be back to school and finally get it over with! I still have a long ways to go though!

So hopefully I will be posting more because more things will be going on with my life. I am interested in seeing how stressed I get during school, because Andrew has been going since the Spring and I get so stressed out with everything he has to do! Oh well! We will see!

Redoing our office! AND late Weekend Craft!

2010-03-08T17:24:00.000-08:00

Ever since I got my sewing machine, I was in desperate need of some kind of table to do it on! I was just using my computer desk which was fine, but it was just so unorganized! So the desk that I already had was from IKEA and it was a shelf and then a desk put together. Really cheap! So I wanted to get another desk part of it and put it on the other side of the shelf! So the picture below shows what I had before. Our office needed some decoration too because we didn't have any at all! So I got to work!

I found this cute little project at IKEA probably a week or so ago next to all the fabrics! I immediately feel in love because since we live in a crappy apartment and cannot paint walls, I thought these would add some color/decoration!

So basically all you need to do it get one of these little kits from IKEA or use an old picture frame from DI or something! The kits were 4.99! Then you need to assemble them with the screws.

Then you need to cut out your fabric. I made two of these with 1 yard of fabric and had plenty of scraps! The fabric measured out to be 27" by 27" but I could have probably gone an inch shorter on each side and been fine!

It comes with all the screws and nails. So first you pull the fabric before you hammer the nail so the fabric is tight on the wood. Make sure you do two opposite sides first, then do the other sides!

Like this!

I don't have a picture for the next steps because I got ahead of myself but basically nail the rest of the nails all around it. And when you get to the edges you kind of have to pull and make a crease on the very edge of it to make it look right. This was pretty easy to figure out how to do! So then I added them above my sewing desk and my computer desk! Like this!

I am so in love with this! It looks so much better and I have so much more space for my little projects!

Oh and sorry I was late getting this weekend craft posted, I have no excuse! hah!

Tutorials!

2010-02-26T08:20:00.000-08:00

So I was reading a new post on this one blog this morning and she was talking about purse/bags and linked a couple of websites that have tutorials! So click here on her blog to check them out!

CRAFT FOR THE WEEKEND!!

2010-02-26T08:00:00.000-08:00

I am really excited about this weekends craft. It's mainly for sewers, but since I am a beginner, it would make for a great beginner's first project! I got this pattern from the book, Simple Sewing, and it is very simple! I am not sure if I would recommend the book to other people because Amazon's reviews were mixed and a lot of people had problems with it. And to be honest with you I sat for a good hour contemplating what the next move would be. That said, once I figured everything out, it was actually really easy and I am sooo proud of my tote bags. One is for me and one is for my sister Cara because well she called it. But she might actually want the next one I am making because that one will be fabulous!!

Anyway, so I am unsure of copyright laws and such so I am not sure if it is okay to post the patterns and stuff on the blog. So I am not going to, but if you really want it I might give it to you in an email!

So first I cut out the fabric and thanks to my mom who helped with that!!

Then I just pieced everything together the following day. The first one took a little bit longer then the second. I made a couple of mistakes and stuff, but it turned out great!

I got the fabrics from IKEA, which I love by the way and stopped by there yesterday to pick up some more for a different bag that I am going to change the dimensions! But anyway, here are the final tote bags!

Don't you love them! I just love the colors together!

If anyone has a really great sewing book that they love, then please let me know!

Loving sewing!

2010-02-25T20:35:00.000-08:00

I have got to say how much I am loving sewing. I have only made two tote bags but all throughout the week all I can think of is what my next project will be. Also, I have come to the conclusion that I not only love to sew, but I also am obsessed with other sorts of crafts! For the past week I have been searching through tons of blogs looking for really creative/fun craft ideas. I have found a bunch! So what I have decided to do it post a craft every Friday that I have made up myself or found on a craft blog or a book. I will do them myself and post my outcome! I Love this idea because it is giving me a reason to get back into blogging! It actually gives me some kind of topic to do. So now I will be posting at least once a week!

Stay tuned for tomorrows Craft for the weekend!!

Any craft blogs that you just LOVE?!?! Please tell me!!

Proud Owner of a NEW SEWING MACHINE!!

2010-02-17T08:39:00.001-08:00

I am so excited to be getting one of my new year's resolutions completed. Which one?!? Being More Creative!! This year has been interesting because I keep telling Andrew that I have tons of creative juices running through me and no outlet!! So first I thought I would create these cute little bows for little girls and I made those and they are ready for Jess's baby girl, so hopefully she has hair.

But that didn't stop my creativity! So I have fallen across sewing blogs, bloggers who have started sewing, etc. Well I learned out to sew in a class in High School. Not so hard, so I HAD to have a sewing machine. Finally the other day Andrew gave in so it arrived yesterday. And I am already in LOVE!! I made a bobbin out of thread I just happen to have and then threaded the needle. Nothing too hard! It sits nicely on my huge desk with my computer!! I practiced on a piece of paper because well I don't have any fabric!

So what am I going to sew?! Andrew's number one question of course! haha! So I am not going to start out with this, but it is definitely a project that I will be working on in the near future because Jess has her baby!

I found this by going to Jessica Lowe's blog. She had a "Give-Uh-Way" on her blog by Lady Danburry! So I checked out her blog which had a link on her sister's blog Running With Scissors!! And it was there that I found this ADORABLE TUTORIAL!!

So there it is! That is one of my projects that I cannot wait to do for my sister! She will be living in Las Vegas after the baby is born so she will definitely need cute little summer outfits!

What do you think?!?!

Awesome "Give-Uh-Way"

2010-02-15T08:45:00.001-08:00

Right now there is an awesome "Give-Uh-Way" at this awesome blog!! Please go to it and submit a comment to get your chance to win! I am trying to enter ALL 5 ways because I really want this! The blogger's sister is giving away number series! She is an amazing artist! Please click here for Jessica Lowe's blog and check it out and then when you are done click here for her sister Lindsey's blog!!

GIVEAWAY!

2010-01-18T12:44:00.000-08:00

Check out this awesome giveaway on this awesome blog!!

She is giving away a gift certificate of 75$ for this website!!!!

one pound lost

2010-01-08T08:38:00.001-08:00

Although I decided that I am not going to post my weight and what I want to weigh and how much I lose every week, I weighed myself early this week to make sure I am on track and I have one 1 pound! hah. That is basically me just walking daily 4-5 miles because I want to start off SLOW that way I won't get burnt out. So this week I have been walking at a 3.0 incline and at a 3.5 pace. Next week I will bump it up to a 3.7 mile pace. Then the following week a 4.0 pace. Then I will bump it up to 4.5, then 5.0, then at 5.5 (what I normally start up as I will stick to that for a month. Then weekly bump it up .2 or something like that. That should keep me busy, then I'll figure what else later on. I haven't really started on the dieting because I haven't decided what to do yet. I don't want to completely take out certain foods that I eventually will come back to!

But the number one thing I have learned with this bodybugg thing is that I get NO sleep. Last night, attempted sleep: 9:36 , actual sleep: 5:25.....Seriously?! I just want a good 8 hours of continuous sleep!! Is that really too much to ask for?!?! I don't think so, while Andrew gets more than enough sleep.

So a week or two ago I wanted to figure out why I'm not getting enough sleep and I have self diagnosed myself with restless leg syndrome. Let me tell you why...I fidget like nothing else. I cannot keep still and I try really hard. I notice other people not having to move around like I do, but I cannot help it! I have tried. When I am trying to go to sleep Andrew laughs at me because I twitch and fidget and cannot stay still. The information that I found about restless leg syndrome says that people with this feel a tingle or a tickle or an itch and the only way to feel relief is to move or scratch or something to that effect. That is definitely what I feel!! They also can get TERRIBLE sleep because of it! Can you believe that I have been going through my whole life with terrible sleep and just now figuring this out!?! Well I would have ran to the doctor, but Andrew and I still have no health insurance which I think is the biggest mistake, but Andrew feels like we don't need it! Well now I do, because I need to get this fixed because I think they can help me! Okay sorry I went off on a tangent, but I cannot help it. I just want to feel well rested because I usually only get 6 hours and one time since Christmas I got 7 hours and 30 minutes but I was laying down for over 10!!

Maybe I will write about something more exciting, but please comment and tell me if any of you feel the same way?! I know people read this thing from my site stalker thingy!! So comment!!

Pictures with the cast of twilight...or is it?!

2010-01-04T09:17:00.000-08:00

I meant to post these pictures forever ago, but kept forgetting. I finally uploaded them on my computer last night so here they are. Proof that me met Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner...

okay so maybe not, but I think it is hilarious that we got my mom to take a picture with "them."

2009 in a quick look

2010-01-03T08:00:00.000-08:00

2009 has been my best year yet which included...
January
*I started planning a wedding! I loved doing this and was very proud with my end product! I am excited for my last two sisters to get married so that I can help them plan theirs! I have so many ideas!

February
* Learning to Scuba Dive! I was a little nervous to do this, but now I think everyone needs to learn to Scuba Dive!! Thank you Chris and Steve!!

March
*Taking my first trip out of the country to BELIZE!! This was again all thanks to Chris and Steve, Andrew's parents!! It was seriously the most fun I have had on ANY trip!! Scuba diving in the carribean was the best! Petting sharks, ATVing through the jungle, cave tubing, etc! Loved it!!

*Purchasing a road bike! I love riding bikes and hope to be able to do it more this year! Also, living in Orem I have many bike trails to choose from!

April...

May
*My mom and John graduated from UVU!! Congratulations and I cannot wait till I can say that about me and Andrew!!

*I purchased my very first computer! My IMAC! Which I love soooo much! I am not quite sure what I would have done without it!

* Me and Andrew had our engagement pictures done by our awesome photographer! Green Apple Photography by LIndsey Stewart! She is the best!!

June
*I found my wedding dress!!!

July
*My bridal shower thrown by Chris!! And on the same day I moved into the apartment that Andrew and I are currently living in!

August
*hiking the Y with NieNie!!

*My best friend coming to Utah for the first time ever for my wedding!

* GETTING MARRIED!!!!! When I look at wedding pictures now I think it is so unreal and I cannot believe that after 3 years of dating that we FINALLY did it!!

* Going to Seattle!! We went here on our honeymoon, I know not your typical honeymoon. But we loved it! Going to the HUGE REI there, Space Needle, etc.!

September
*Getting used to being married!!

*Turning 22!!

*JD and Michelle getting married!!

October
* Going Blonde! Which by the way I HATE!!!!

November
* Running in the 5k race on Thanksgiving with my parents and Brianne!

December
*Our first Christmas being married and not spending much of it together because of his work. But that's okay!

*Andrew getting off work so that we can finally spend a holiday together, which was New Year's Eve!!

It's a New Year, so changes have to be made...right?!

2010-01-02T09:46:00.000-08:00

First off, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

And as promised, my New Year's Resolutions!!!!

1. Get Creative!! The first thing that I did to "Get Creative" was to change my blog up some!! I am very proud of myself for creating my header all on my own. I contemplated paying someone to do it that way it would be fabulous, but I first wanted to see if I could create something on my own. Well it was a lot cheaper and I think I did a pretty good job!!

2. Get Healthy!! That includes a number of things like eating breakfast, drinking plenty of water (SO SODAS), exercising, etc. I don't want to set a number of pounds that I want to lose because I just want to be healthy. And if doing all those things makes me lose weight, well then I won't be upset.

3. Get Sleep!! Go to bed early and wake up early!! I use to be sooo good at this. I could wake up at 6:00 and get things done before a lot of people were even waking up.

4. Blog More!! Isn't this in all bloggers New Year's Resolutions?! Well I think I did better last year about blogging, then it kind of went downhill after getting married. I'm not going to say I will do it daily because I won't but at least three times a week. That way I can get more people reading my blog.

5. Travel! Okay so this one is going to be a little hard because well me and Andrew don't have the money to go on extravagant trips so I am thinking more of going to Zion's, havasupai, etc. Things that all we need if some camping gear and thanks to Andrew's friends we have that. They got us it for our wedding! I think it is doable!

6. Photograph!! I would like to take more pictures. I am always somewhere and I think "I wish I brought my camera!" Now that I have my iphone I can take pictures with that, but I rather use an actual camera. Now if I take more pictures, then I can put more pictures on my blog!!

I think six is enough, I was only going to do five, but taking pictures is kind of getting creative too! But I am excited about the new year!

What I got for Christmas!

2009-12-28T07:48:00.000-08:00

A Go Wear Fit!!! This is my favorite that I got for Christmas.... Anyone who has seen the biggest loser knows what one of these are. They call them a bodybugg on the biggest loser. They are basically the exact same product. Just a different name. The same company makes them.
The picture on the left shows the go wEAR FIT, newer body bugg, then the old bodybugg!
I love this thing because it is going to help me lose some weight and track how many calories I burn each day!! You just slide it on your left arm and it tells you how many calories you are burning! Love it!! Also, it tells you how many hours of sleep you are getting and the efficiency. Well I get TERRIBLE sleep which is probably why I am ALWAYS tired!! For instance last night, I attempted 8hours and 49minutes of sleep, but I only got 6hours and 4minutes of sleep. That is 70% efficiency. On average I usually only get 6 hours of sleep a night. It is a cool little devise and you should look into it more!!

Okay on to the next! MY IPHONE!! Okay so this is really my favorite!! How was I living without this one?!?!? I have no idea!! I'm not going into details because let's face it, everyone already has one!!!

Now onto my hobo wallet! I have an orange one! This thing holds EVERYTHING!! I love it because my purse is now so organized and I am a very organized person! So this helps me out a lot. I love it!!

Oh ugg slippers! These save me from my VERY cold apartment that rarely has the heat turned up at all!! My feet stay nice and cozy!! Love it!!

I was very spoiled this year from christmas. I also got a hand mixer, very cute pajamas that are so comfortable, socks, flashlight, gift cards to PF Chang's, Mac Grill, Movie tickets! I got a body pillow, 3 deck of cards, a start of a christmas village! Much much more!! Thank you everyone! I am so grateful!!

Next up, NEW YEAR's RESOLUTIONS!! You have to do it every year right?!?! And they say if you write it down and show it to people, then you are more likely to actually follow through!!

latte bowls

2009-12-20T21:39:00.000-08:00

Anyone who has read the NieNie Dialogues knows about these colorful latte bowls from Anthropologie.

Well as a dedicated follower of NieNie I HAD to have these beautiful bowls myself and I know I bought my first one a little over a year ago.

The date on the picture is December 11, 2008. So there is my proof... Anyway, I have probably 8 different colors, I usually go in and buy two every time I go to the gateway mall.
To get to the reason I am writing about this is because today I broke my first one. I was doing the dishes and dropped my purple latte bowl in the sink and while trying to catch it, it sliced my finger pretty good. Andrew without thinking threw it away. After figuring out whether I should get my finger looked at and everything. I immediately dished it out of the trash can because like NieNie I want to save all the broken pieces and make something out of it one day. Andrew of course had no idea why I would want to keep it, so I immediately pulled up her blog and searched for the exact post that made me want them myself. So here it is...
The story just puts a smile on my face :) (CLICK HERE)
Thanks NieNie....now Andrew gets to take me to Anthropologie to get some new ones. And I get to start my collection of broken pieces!

School

2009-10-15T22:00:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a short post because I need to get to bed!! Well this morning I decided that it is time for me to go back to school and I am so excited to get started and FINISHED!! I took my well needed break, but I think people started thinking that I was never going back and I am tired of people asking me what I do and when I say I'm a nanny they look at me funny. Like I'm going no where. Starting January I can proudly say that I'm a nanny full time AND I go to school. Now since me and Andrew JUSt got married, and grants for school are out of the question considering it is too late to apply for those. I am only taking a class or two while Andrew will be going full-time. I just don't want to put any unneeded stress on either of us. Plus I can only take a class or two because I start work at 11 Monday-Friday. so I think I have a good excuse! But I am so excited that I just had to tell everyone. Plus I am trying to get good about blogging again!

While trying to reapply to UVU I am a little stumped about somethings. So I have changed my name on my social security card and I know I need to get it on my license. I am just not sure what to put my name on my application. It is really confusing and it sucks being the girl who has to go through all the name changing crap. Since I was never given a middle name, I decided to keep my last name. Well on my social security card it reads Brooke Durfee Holbrook because technically my middle name is Durfee now, but it is so confusing because it is also my maiden name. I dunno it is all so weird to me! I don't understand it all. So should I put Durfee as my middle name AND my maiden name because I think that it is...ugh!!

Where the Wild Things Are comes out tomorrow and I cannot wait to see it!!! Anyone else as excited as me about seeing this?!?!

Night Details/ Car/Exit

2009-10-12T08:12:00.000-07:00

So those were the night details. The sky looked amazing that night and I had no clue. I am so glad that it was all captured on camera. While putting all these together. All I could think about was how I cannot wait till 10 years have past and I can look back on all of this. I worked really hard on this wedding and I never want to forget all the little things.
Andrew's Tante (Aunt) Heide let me borrow her mother's ring that she gave her after she passed away. It was soo beautiful and somehow fit into the wedding. It really meant a lot to me that she let me wear it! It was beautiful!! Thank you Tante Heide!!

The car. I posted only the tasteful pictures of it on this collage. I guess some people got offended. I thought it was funny. Would I have done the same to someone else's? No, definitely not. But it was hilarious and I am sorry that some got offended. Blame the people who decorated it! haha Oh and a funny side story. So my sisters or whoever was in charge of getting something for everyone to do when we left in the car didn't really get anything. So the back up plan was to throw the remaining flower girl rose petals, which was very pretty. Well apparently Addi (the flowergirl) did not like that everyone threw HER flowers. I guess she screamed "Nooooooooo!" When they were thrown and immediately started picking them up. She took her job seriously! She is sooo adorable!!

PS: I hate the collage of the car/exit. I am definitely going to change it sooner or later. I just gave up because I did a TON of these all at once!

Details/Cake Cutting,etc

2009-10-12T08:09:00.000-07:00

I loved my photographer! Have I said that enough! She took amazing pictures. I loved all the details!

Well before the wedding Andrew and I discussed how we didn't want to be boring and slowly/neatly put the cake in each others mouths. We wanted to shove it. I think that we succeeded! haha it was fun!

'

I love the first picture with Cara, Brianne, and Anne all ready for the bouquet! Brianne and Anne both realllllly wanted it so they told me to aim for them. Cara thought it would be funny to push them out of the way so neither of them would get it. I threw too far and my cousin Tess caught the bouquet!

Andrew really did not want to do the garter toss. Well I made him and did a crappy job of throwing it because it just really landed on the floor and it friend Shane picked it up!

Kids/Family

2009-10-12T08:04:00.000-07:00

Marriage Certificate/ Getting Ready

2009-10-11T12:08:00.000-07:00

This is out of order! This was my getting my dress on in the "Bridal Cottage." We did our hair and make-up at Jessica's apartment beforehand.

I hope this isn't post overload, but I cannot help it. I really love all these pictures!

Ceremony

2009-10-11T11:20:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to say that the ceremony was perfect. There was some miscommunication beforehand so the guys were told to stop on the left hand side of the fountain instead of what I instructed them to do which was to go on the right hand side. Therefore, the best man ended up in the back instead of right beside Andrew. In the long run does it really matter? No. But just to clear up for those of you who think that the bride goes on the left side and the groom on the right. Well I had organized it to go that way, but everyone got mixed up. Besides all that, it was perfect! Or at least I thought so.

Luckily my maid of honor Anne was on top of everything and before the wedding decided I needed to a handkerchief and so I lent one from my mom. It her was Grandma Mary's I believe. Mom correct me! Which was good because I think I started crying the second the Bishop started talking. So Anne very casually slipped it to me. Then you will see a picture of my sisters talking. I'm so glad that Lindsey, our photographer, caught that on camera. This is classic my sisters. Apparently, they were telling each other that someone needed to grab my bouquet. haha. Then when Bishop King said that we could kiss. All I could think of was "Oh crap, we never practiced how we were gonna kiss in front of all those people." Well Andrew just went for it! haha

Formal Wedding Pictures

2009-10-11T10:17:00.001-07:00

We took these pictures right before the ceremony! I love the picture of me and my sisters with my brother! Even though we kind of look gross laughing so much, I just love laughing pictures. No matter how much they make us have double chins. haha!
I also love the picture of all the guys!

Wedding Pictures out of order!

2009-10-11T09:09:00.000-07:00

So I did these pictures a little out of order, but this is the first time I tried to arrange them like this and I wanted to see how it would look. These pictures are right after the ceremony. We took family pictures before the ceremony. To kind of get them out of the way. We didn't want to have to do tons of pictures after the ceremony. I think it worked out perfectly because we took pictures, just Andrew and I, after the ceremony while everyone else was getting some food.
All these pictures were done by Lindsey Stewart from Green Apple Photography! I loved her and I think everyone else at the wedding did too!

Friday August 28, 2009

2009-10-03T13:15:00.000-07:00

First I like to add something that we did the day before this. After me and Anne left from my parents we went to IKEA! Poor Anne loved everything and wanted to buy stuff, but unfortunately had no way of getting it back to Memphis! I felt bad because I own TONS of things from IKEA and love them so much!!!
This is my new bike picture from there that Chris actually bought for her guest bedroom the Heide stayed in and when I saw it I knew I HAD to have it! And the really cute thing about this is that it goes perfectly in our front room with our red couches and our two road bikes stored underneath it!

Friday, August 28
I started this day by waking up early and going to pick up my cousin to get our nails done! My cousin got married 5 days after me and she needed to get an appointment and I had one for me and Anne, but Anne decided not to get the gel nails so luckily my cousin Kimie was able to replace Anne. I had been getting my nails done from the same girl since I got my engagements done. After both kimie and I were done I dropped off kimie and went straight to Juicy Nails in the riverwoods where I met Anne, my mom, and Jessica who had just started getting pedicures. Chris and Heide came too and we all got our toes done! It was very fun and relaxing! I have only gotten a pedicure one time before that so it was really nice! After we all got our toes done, we went to the Buckle to see Brianne. She was sad that she had to work and couldn't make it! Then me, anne, and jess got lunch at Classy Cuisine! If you have never eaten there and you live in Utah county seriously you need to check it out! It is sooo good! I love it. Then me and Anne went to the University Mall to again find some shoes for me which I just didn't like any except this one pair of cute white sandals at Nordstrom but they were expensive so I didn't get them. Then we went back to my apartment where of course we didn't stay long because we needed to meet family at the Thanksgiving Point Gardens! Which was a lot of fun!

Then we headed to my parent's where my family had just gotten in town and my mom made a delicious lasagna and other yummy food! Then we were headed to Andrew's parents when Anne got a call from her boyfriend who was flying into Utah so he could come to the wedding. Well for whatever reason they wouldn't let him rent a car so we had to go help him out and got it all figured out! Luckily he was still able to rent a car! So since we were busy doing that we didn't make it to Andrew's parents to eat smores with his family.

When we got the our apartment we were pretty much exhausted and then I got a call from Jessica saying that the guys tuxes were ugly and that the blue tie and vests were horrible. I had never seen then nor did I pick then out. Andrew and his mom went one day when I was at work. So I was a little worried and kind of mad that she was calling me and telling me this a day before the wedding. They had picked them up a couple of days before. I tried to figure out if I needed to go buy new ones tomorrow or what. Well it turns out that they actually looked fine and there was really no problem so that was good. So I went to sleep no problem :)!

Start the updating!

2009-10-03T12:38:00.001-07:00

Okay so I have some time to finally update about wedding, and wedding events. The Thursday before the wedding I picked up my maid of honor Anne from the airport. She flew in all the way from Tennessee so I was really excited! We hadn't seen each other for two years which was the last time I went to Tennessee. There was some drama about her bag getting lost and after some time they figured out the importance of the situation (her dress was in her bag!) they found it fallen in the back. So I was nervous that when she got here that we would be so bored because I didn't think I had a lot planned for us to do. I was wrong.

I still had no shoes for the wedding so I thought that we would go shop at the Gateway mall because I don't make it up that way enough! We shopped bought other things, no shoes. After the Gateway mall we went to the Southtowne mall to make sure the shoes I got for her to wear fit the best. They did so then we went to my parent's house to see my mom. We chatted for a while then finally headed to my apartment to where Andrew was waiting for us. Well this same day Andrew's Tante Heide and Opa came into town as well. So his parents wanted to take them to the Foundry Grill up at Sundance to eat and invited us along too! It was very delicious! Then after that we went to Andrew's parents just to hang out. Keep in mind that we just had enough time to change then go eat. So really we didn't have any rest. And Anne had taken a VERY early flight from Memphis.

Me and Andrew

All of us eating at the Foundry Grill!

I would like to thank Tante Heide for taking most of the pictures for the wedding weekend. She was always taking a picture! I loved it!

Stay tuned...

2009-09-30T22:02:00.000-07:00

I guess I am just too busy with being married to write any posts but I want to start back soon! So stay tuned!

New Blog

2009-08-16T14:48:00.001-07:00

my new blog is http://www.brookescookingadventures.blogspot.com Enjoy!:)

HIking the Y with NieNie and my new adventures of cooking!

2009-08-16T09:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I am the amazing opportunity to hike the Y mountain for the second time ever with Stephanie Nielson "NieNie" and her family and a lot of her other followers. She was hiking it for the first time since her plane accident with her husband and one other who did not survive like they did. It is the one year anniversary of her accident today. Anyway me, my sister, and my fiancee drove to the Y at a bout 6:30 because she knew that the parking lot would be full. So we got there about 6:45 and waited with tons of people for NieNie to show up. She finally did right at 7:00 pm and she started greeting people. Then she and her dad made their way through the crowd and got everyones attention. Her dad had to speak because she was crying a little. I think she was a little shocked to see all the people. Her dad wanted to thank us all for supporting Stephanie and her family. He then said that Stephanie wanted to personally thank all of us and so they wanted us to get in a line and she would thank us. Also, he said that we should just start the hike after we talked to her and go our own pace. We were one of the first to greet her. She gave us each a hug and we said our own little things to her. Jessica was first she told her that she looked good. She said "No I don't" and Jessica told her again that she did. Then it was my turn and told Congratulations, then Andrew with my and said Congratulations as well. I didn't really want to talk to her long because she had a lot of people to go through. She just seemed really amazed through the whole thing that so many people that she had never met were there. So we started up to the Y and were one of the first up there. So we only probably sat for about 15 minutes until she was up there with us. Everyone cheered when they saw her and I heard her tell someone that it really wasn't that hard for her to get up there. Which I will tell you, I am not in the greatest shaped, but I am not in the worst either and it was definitely strenuous. So a lot of people started taking pictures. She didn't seem to mind, although I think a lot of people that were taking the pictures actually knew her. We sat up there with her for about 10-15 minutes, but the sun started setting so we headed down and waited at the bottom for about 30 minutes till someone told us all that she was halfway down because she had started back up when she saw her mom going up. So we left because we were FREEZING!!! It was pretty amazing to actually meet her and hug her though. Her kids are so cute!

In other news, I forgot to say yesterday in my post how I have started to cook. I now have 4 Rachael Ray cookbooks from my bridal shower and early wedding presents! So I am cooking from those. I have now cooked I think 5 meals. One had to be thrown away and I tried it again a week later and it turned out really well. Me and Andrew were really surprised at how good it was. Yesterday I cooked hamburgers because I got a George Foreman a couple of days ago so I had to try it out. It was so good. I think I might start a blog of all the recipes that I try. I will let you know. I wish I knew actually how many people were reading this blog, maybe you can all start following me so I know?!?! Please?!?!

JUNK!

2009-08-15T09:23:00.000-07:00

After writing all this I realized that I was kind of all over the place so I am going to copy one of my favorite bloggers who is sadly currently on a hiatus :( me and my sisters are dying for a blog post, but anyway Jessica Lowe does posts that are just a list of "junk" so I am going to do the same today! If she is reading this I hope she doesn't mind that I am copying her!!
Anyway here is goes

1.

So this is it! The wedding announcement!!! Everyone should have received one by now! I am a little paranoid that I forgot someone so if you have not received one and you want one then just give me your address because we still have about 30 extras!!! I am finally getting to blogging now after weeks of not!!
All the wedding drama and wedding planning is now over and I am so glad! Does every wedding have drama?!?! I hope I didn't lose any of my readers while I wasn't posting!!
I get married in 2 weeks and it could not go any faster!!

2. Let's see I had my bridal shower on July 11th and it turned out so great! Pictures were taken, but I still need to get them. I haven't even seen them yet! Chris threw it for me and my mom helped and it looked amazing which is good because they are going to have to help set up for my wedding!! I want to thank everyone who was able to come!!

3. For the 24th of July me, my mom, jess, and john went to Colorado to visit family and that was a lot of fun. I didn't really take any pictures there so sorry again no pictures! But don't worry because in 3 weeks I will have wedding/honeymoon pictures and probably just TONS of them!! I am just so excited for everything to be just done and over with. It has been 8 Loooooong months!!

4. Oh on Tuesday me and Andrew met with the bishop who is marrying us...my parent's bishop and we both felt really good about it afterwards. An LDS ceremony is a little different than all of the other ones so it was nice to hear what he was going to say and that all we have to say is "I do" or "Yes" and hold each other by the right hand...it should be interesting!!

5. I was finally able to get a gym membership yesterday and it felt sooo good to work out because it has been a while.

6. Oh I guess I should mention how I have an apartment and have been living in in since July 11th! It is almost all set up and when it is I will be sure to post some pictures!! We are waiting for all the money from the wedding to finish the details and stuff! But we had a couch (we want to get the matching loveseat), we have all bedroom stuff, we have an office, and we have a really cute kitchen table and a lot of that is thanks to IKEA which I LOVEE!!!! And I have plans to get some sort of filing/drawers for the office that I can set the printer on. I want a coffee table, some side tables and then we also need a bike stand for two bikes! And then that will be it!! everything looks really good! We got a free washer and dryer that are sooooooo old but work amazingly!! The guy who lived here before us moved into a house and the ppl who lived in that house before him left their old washer and dryer and he called us up seeing if we wanted them and of course we did!!!So it was very nice of him to think of us!

7. I almost forgot!! But I think that me and Jess are going to go hike the Y today with NieNie at 7pm!!! We are soooooo exciting to maybe possibly meeting her!!!!

New Apartment

2009-07-07T20:41:00.001-07:00

So today I went to the gyno and got my IUD inserted. It didn't hurt as bad as I thought it would, but definitely not pleasant at all. Fortunately the pain for me did not last and as soon as it was done the pain went away too. Then I started to feel some cramping for about 30 minutes and it comes and goes. All in all it was definitely worth it and I am glad that I went through with it. Guys are so lucky that they don't have to do this sort of stuff. UGH. So July 2014 is when I get it removed and hopefully have many babies after that..or sooner. But that is the longest I will wait.

Also, very exciting news! Me and Andrew found an apartment to live in!!! We sign the lease tomorrow and then I move in on Saturday! It is 600 dollars a month, 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, washer and dryer hook-ups, no A/C which is one thing I wanted, but it is a lower floor 4-plex and the windows face North and South, so sun is never coming directly into the windows. The cabinets are ugly, but I can live with that! It is very small, but big enough for the two of us who have no furniture and not a lot of stuff. It is really cute and in a really cute neighbor of 4-plexes. I love it. We had to rush on it because there were a ton of applicants. It has really nice tile that is almost brand new. I am sooo excited and glad that that is one more thing I can check off my list of things to due before getting married. I will start packing up my stuff on thursday and then on saturday me and andrew will go to IKEA and get our kitchen table and bedframe with bedside table. And our dresser. And also go looking for couches. A couch is not too important because I will be in there all by myself and can sit on the floor. Also a washer and dryer can wait too because again it will be just me and I can use my parents.
I am soooo excited!!

I found it!!!

2009-06-28T11:12:00.000-07:00

So I finally went searching for a wedding dress and FOUND ONE!!! YAY! ME and My mom went to David's Bridal. Brianne met us there and then Cara came way late, but still showed up! It was really exciting! The dress I got was the second one I tried on. I had showed the consultant my two favorite dresses in their catalogue. We grabbed them and I told her which was my favorite (the one I chose) and she said I should try the other one on first. So I liked it, it was big and poofy at the bottom though and kind of heavy. Then I tried on the one I got and LOVED it! Brianne did not like it so much, but I knew it was the dress. I stayed in it for a little while, then tried on a different one, that Brianne loved and I did not at all. So then I put on the one I wanted again and waited for cara to show to get her opinion. She liked it, but wanted to see the first one so I put that one on and liked it, but did not love it as much. So I tried some other random dress on and we all said no to that one and then of course put on my dress and wore it forever!!!!! haha I wore it for like an hour and a half while my sisters tried on bridesmaid dresses on. We were fortunately able to find the prettiest dresses for them too! They are sooo pretty and we ended up getting them in blue dresses instead of the brown color that we thought we would have them wear. So we then decided we needed to change what the groomsmen are going to wear. So Now all the boys are wearing a brown tux.

My dress is ivory though and I really love the color!! I am not really going to describe it further though because I don't want Andrew to hear about it haha! It is soooo pretty and I am sooo excited and cannot wait to wear it. My dress was not that expensive, it was all the accesories that made it a little over budget, but who would have known that the veil would cost so much and of course the headband cost a ton too!! But it is a worth it in the end! You only get married once!!

The wedding is turning out to be a lot nicer then I originally thought it was going to be!! I am so excited to finally get this over with. My bedroom is a mess with wedding stuff like alll over. It is crazy!

PS...

2009-06-20T12:31:00.001-07:00

PS...I went to weight watchers today and lost 1.8 lbs this week for a total of 14.8!! YAY only .2 for another 5lb sticker! haha! And I want to lose probably another 15 lbs. So halfway there! I love weight watchers and would recommend it to ANYONE!! I have had a slow couple of weeks but only because I have been working out 1 time a week and when I was losing 2lbs a week I was working out most days. So I am trying to work out a lot more. I really have no excuse. But me losing 1.8 this week confirms that I need to work out, because I did this week!

A tutu dress?

2009-06-11T06:22:00.000-07:00

I love this adorable tutu dress and think Addison will love it too! What do you think? Is this good for a two year old flower girl?!? There would be no pink, instead blue. I think it is adorable!!

New Moon and other stuff...

2009-06-09T17:10:00.001-07:00

okay I know some people don't get or even hate the Twilight Saga but I love it!! So of course I have to post about the next movie in the saga...New Moon..the trailer looks pretty awesome and you can tell they were given a bigger budget for this movie by just the trailer. NEW MOON TRAILER

You love it right?!? haha I do at least! The movie comes out November 20th!! Cannot wait!

So still no wedding dress! But finally I have for sure planned that I will go look for a dress on the 27th and I am pretty confident that I will find one that day too! I am also going to be getting bridesmaid's dresses that day too. I know for sure that me, my mom, and cara will be going with me. I am really excited to go look and I have picked out a couple that I want to try on. I am going to go to David's Bridal. It is still 2 and a half weeks away but I am sooo excited to finally try some on!!

Weight Watchers update! So I have lost a total of 13.2 lbs now which is so great!! I weigh in on Saturdays now instead of thursdays and I think since saturday I have already lost another pound! Yay! Unfortunately I have been slacking on working out but the weight still comes off so that is good!

Engagement photos!

2009-05-29T20:26:00.000-07:00

Andrew and I took our engagement photos on yesterday morning in salt lake! Our photographer (link on the left side) did an amazing job! I could not stop smiling at them when I first saw them online. If you want to see them, then tell me your email address and I will send you the link and password. I don't want just anyone seeing them!! I love them so much and after taking the pictures this all seems so much more real now! I'm now excited about what our wedding photos will look like!

Also, while looking at these pictures I realized that I hate the back of my hair and cannot wait till it is all one length...which i have been trying to do for some time now!

We get married in exactly 3 months now!! Yay and we also officially booked our honeymoon yesterday after we are going to Seattle! We fly out the day after we get married at 3ish then get back on thursday at like 11ish. We would have stayed longer but our hotel is a little pricey and we think this will be a good length of time. We are staying at Hotel Max, downtown Seattle. It is very artsy and and I think will be really fun. We are not sure of all the things we are going to do, but we are for sure going to eat on the Space Needle and rent bikes to get around! I want to go to the Prefontaine Building...ride a ferry...and I'm starting to save money now to shop at the first Nordstrom...I'll hopefully be at the weight I want to be then, so that will be perfect! We will for sure go to Pike's Place Market...We don't really want to plan out exactly what we are going to do. We just kind of want to wander around and just see as much as possible. We want to maybe live here one day, so I am really excited about this trip!

We have been thinking about what we want to do for a honeymoon for a while now and we thought about a couple of other place and things to do, but we always came back to Seattle, so I am confident it was a good choice! We thought about cruises, going to Mexico (before swine flu), etc. I love that we chose a place that is different then the "normal" honeymoon! I cannot believe i still have to wait 3 more months I am too excited right now!!! At least I can say 5 months down!

busy, busy, busy

2009-05-24T11:30:00.000-07:00

so I have been slacking some more on blog posts, but I have very good reasons! Well first, I have rarely been home at all the last week. When I do get home I usually just sleep because it is late. Also I bought Photoshop Elements and am trying to figure everything out so I can start my scrapbooking. I also wanted more background pages for my scrapbook pages so I found this really awesome website DIGITAL SCRAPBOOKING that gave me websites that give you freebies and I have been downloading TONS of them and once I feel I have enough (which really I do now, but I'm greedy) I will start my first page!! I'm afraid that if I don't download them now, then they are going to go away or start charging for them!

Wish me good luck!!

too busy...

2009-05-16T14:03:00.000-07:00

I have been slacking on my blog for the past week and my excuse is that I have been playing on my computer and stuff. I am trying to find all of my pictures and organize them and figure them out! What I really want to do is find a program that I can start scrapbooking on my computer. I think that it would be really and fun and probably a lot easier to do on the computer, rather than buying all the stuff and ruining it all with my bad handwriting.

I have been looking through pictures and I wanted to show you all what I want to buy from IKEA as my bedroom set...

I really love this! It is really low to the ground which for some reason I really like. The bedside tables are very cute and small and my guess is that we are not going to all tons of space. I even want the bedspread and pillows! I hope it is all still around till me and andrew are ready to buy it!

This is a blurry close up on the tables. I love them!!

This is the picture of my desk that I took at IKEA before I got it... I first bought the shelves and just recently bought the add on desk. They look so out of place in my room, but I love it too!

I want to add this to my mini home office....when I move into an apartment...so I can put my printer on it and have some drawers. Don't you love new things.?

I cannot tell you how much faster and easier it is to post these pictures compared to what I use to have to do...

I love the weather right now here in Utah, it seriously is perfect (knock on wood)! I took cameron to Thanksgiving Point, to the Children's discovery Gardens and it is soooo pretty there. I could have spent forever there...so I bought us a pass so we can go to anything at Thanksgiving Point for free from now on. It was such a good deal...i love my job...anyway here are some pictures of the gardens!

So after being there about a hour and a half we came across a vending machine...well Cameron then insists how he is soooo thirsty and of course I left my water in my car...which was pretty far away. And I have no cash to purchase anything so I am thinking of course they have a drinking fountain right? Well I searched and after 30 minutes of that Cameron still is wanting something to drink so I take him into the bathroom and wait for everyone to leave and he sat here like this for seriously 3 minutes! haha i had to take a picture!

Then of course after the bathroom incident we came across these ALL over! haha

I would post more pictures because I seriously loved this place and Cameron did too, but I have somewhere to go...so maybe I will post some more random pictures tomorrow!

love it!

2009-05-07T18:15:00.000-07:00

I am sitting here typing on my brand new IMAC computer!! I cannot tell you how excited I am about this!! I even put together my new desk to go with it and it looks so out of place in my bedroom because it is all so big! I loved how it took me 5 seconds to plug it in and get it started!! It arrived this morning, but I was gone, so I had to wait until after work to get started. I haven't used a mac in a little while, so I think it will take some getting use to, but I love how it uses tons of commands. I learned all those (there are a lot of new ones) in elementary school because one of my teachers was really into computers. I reallllllllly love it and when I get all my pictures on here I will then finally be able to upload pictures!! Also, I am starting to put all my songs on itunes.

Today was weigh in day for weight watchers and I lost another 2.6 pounds to total 9.8 pounds, I really wanted to hit 10 pounds but I think I did close enough.

GOOD NEWS!!

2009-05-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

A week from now I will be a proud owner of a new IMAC!!! I cannot tell you how excited I am! I got back my federal tax return on Friday and put in my order later that day!! So I should be getting it sometime this next week! I cannot even believe that I will finally be getting it!

Anyway Friday was my mom and john's graduation! Congratulations to them!! I cannot wait till I get back into school and finished too!!! Some family came into town which was very fun! The graduation itself, I'm not gonna lie was pretty boring, we then went out to dinner and it was very good!!

Also, today is my mom's birthday!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

I don't remember if I updated about my last weight watchers meeting. Well I lost 2.2 pounds so I am down altogether 7.2 pounds!! I cannot wait till I get to 10! WW is soo easy I only wish that I had started in January that way I would be at what I want by now!! Oh well, it is getting done now!!

Also, my brother's birthday was last sunday April 26 (I don't think he reads this but who cares) HAPPY BIRTHDAY Justin!!

We were suppose to go celebrate my mom and brother's birthday today, but my brother is in Wyoming for business and had to stay another week! So we will do that next sunday.

Hopefully the next time I write in here I will have pictures of my new IMAC and will be using it!!!

busy in May

2009-04-28T09:11:00.000-07:00

I have so many things planned for May. I was going to go to Tennessee, but thanks to flight prices doubling, that kind of all changed, so I am not anymore. But Cameron (the boy I watched) and his family are going to Disneyland May 15-May 20 and since I have been procrastinating on a couple of things I scheduled doctor appointments, eyebrow waxing, and nails all during that time because otherwise they would not have gotten done! I have mainly been procrastinating my first pap smear! UGH!!! Well I'm getting married in a little over 4 months now and it has to be done so I can get some birth control! Cara did the mirena a while ago because her periods were so screwed up and now she does not take a pill or even have a period bc of this IUD (is that what it is called). Also, you don't have to worry about getting pregnant for 5 years and that is probably how long me and Andrew want to wait. So I am really hoping that I can get that too because let's face it, it is just easier. It is a one time thing for 5 years and you can really get it removed anytime within that time and most people get pregnant right off of it, so it just seems perfect. So I have my appointment for the pap smear on May 20th and hopefully they can put it in that day. Then that same day I have an appointment to get an ultrasound at 3:30 to check out the cysts on my thyroid. It has been two years since I got this checked at the 3 that they saw were shrinking so that was good news! I just have to get it checked every 2 years to make sure they are not growing and getting cancerous! Most women have them and just don't notice bc they are so tiny! Well we found mine when I was getting an MRI on my neck bc of the (later found to be) BENIGN tumor which is called a lipoma and you can click on the word for the wiki definition! It was on the back of my neck growing towards my spine so it was removed and left an ugly scar that I luckily cannot see, but it is irritating sometimes even still and that was like removed almost 4 years ago i think! Anyway so I will update about those later.

Another busy time is My mom's and John's graduation on May 1st! I got the whole day off work. The graduation starts at 12:30 at UVU and then we will be eating an early dinner at Carrabas at 3:00! Both of our families are going together so that should be fun!

Our engagement pictures are going to done on May 28th at 9:00 in the morning. Which is why I have to get my eyebrows done and my nails done. I will also be getting my hair done sometime before. I am just going dark again bc the red highlights fade WAY too fast and get really ugly. Plus jessica says a brunette bride looks prettier! haha! They will be done downtown salt lake someone. It is where they have really colorful walls that I love. So May will be a very busy month! I'm glad I am finally going to be getting things done!!

On a very happy note I got my utah state tax return money today. A small amount $253! I'm not complaining, but I am really waiting on my Federal so hopefully that happens in a couple of days so I can FINALLY buy my computer!! ughh the anticipation is killing me! I just want to buy it now!!!! I really could because I have the money, but I told myself I would wait till that money got here, so I have to be patient I guess although this has been years in the waiting!! I am going to buy a computer desk from IKEA when I place my order too!! Okay I have to stop talking about it so I will stop thinking about it!! see ya!

catch up!

2009-04-23T21:21:00.000-07:00

I've been way too lazy to post anything new. It is probably because I posted like 6 posts (that were pretty lengthy) in 2 days. I am glad that I got all the Belize posts checked off my list. The sad part is that I was not even able to show you a dent of all 3,000 pictures, so maybe when I get bored and get my external hard drive which has all the pictures working then I can post some more occasionally when I have nothing exciting going on in my life :)

Anyway, the real reason I have not been posting is because I am so busy losing weight. Okay, not really, but my mom, jessica, and I have started weight watchers! We started exactly a week ago, so our second weigh in was today. So we all got to see exactly how much weight we lost! It makes me think of The Biggest Loser, my favorite show! Anyway, I lost 5 pounds this first week, my mom lost 3, and jessica (who really has nothing to lose) lost 2 pounds! So we were pretty excited about that. I am hoping to lose another 5 pounds this week! I have never been on a diet ever before, so it was definitely a change to being able to eat whatever and now being limited. It definitely has not been bad at all! I do not feel deprived of food at all. Also, I already feel like working out is easier! Today i ran/walked for 70 minutes and did 5 miles! I kind of felt sick, like almost throwing up while running which was odd, so i feel like I probably could have done it faster if I wasn't feeling sick. My knees felt great until the last mile, so even that is a HUGE accomplishment. AND my knees didn't really swell up. so YAY! I have been taking glucosamine every day for a month so I think it is really working!

Update on my taxes! So 2 days before the deadline, everything got worked out, I ended up having to file on paper instead of electronically, so it is going to take longer to get my money back. I'm just glad that it all worked out. But now the second my money is in my account I am ordering my new IMAC and IPOD touch!! I am soo excited! It seems unreal.

Oh I know I said that I was going to go dress shopping in may, but i think im going to move that even further back since I'm going to be losing weight...is that cutting it too close?!?! I know they can alter and stuff, but that makes me nervous. So i dunno!

My road bike is awesome and I love it. It was making weird sounds so i took into a bike shop and it is now fixed. Andrew had put it together and we (okay probably just me) were not sure it was done 100% percent! But i guess a pedal was loose and it is all fixed, but the bad news is is that it is suppose to rain the whole weekend! ugh!

Sorry no pictures...i haven't had time to take any...and my computer is CRAP!

Oh I hiked the Y this week for the first time ever! It was steep, but I think I did a good job for not being in the best shape. I did it with Chris, Steve, Andrew, and Jessica! It was Jessica's first time too! It was fun and a great exercise, so I'm glad that Chris came up with the idea!

Belize Videos

2009-04-12T14:10:00.000-07:00

Day 8- Home :(

2009-04-12T13:16:00.001-07:00

So this day is the day we left Belize! It was definitely a perfect vacation! It was so much fun! Thank you Steve and Chris for inviting me to come with you! There are not many pictures on this day because well I think we were sick of all the picture taking haha!

Here they are!

Our last sunrise!

Last group picture!
Me!
Me and Andrew in Salt Lake. :(
So that is it! Next I will try to post some cool videos from the trip! I might do it today, but who knows! I have to shower because all I have been doing for the last two days are these posts! I'm glad I finally got them done, but really the videos are the best!

Day 7- Free Day

2009-04-12T13:00:00.000-07:00

Day 7- Free Day #2! There isn't much to say about this day. We just relaxed, went shopping, ate at this great place at night! There was something very exciting that happened this day. JD and Michelle got engaged! YAY! Congratulations to them!! I do want to say that I called this before the trip even started. Mainly because they have been dating for a while and I thought what a cool place it would be to say you got engaged in Belize, right? Also, JD was acting very suspicious at dinner and just took off running to who knows where (well to pick up the ring, he had it made in Belize, it a black coral, very cool) He claimed when he got back that he had to go to the bathroom and Michelle had taken the boys bathroom. So that was the really exciting thing that happened this day!
Here are the pictures!

JD, Chris, Michelle, and Steve!

This is chris with Lewis and Roberto! They were our dive masters!
Jessica being weird. Me and Andrew watching her!

Me and Jess!
Andrew and John!
This little boy had a pet raccoon!

This guy was crazy and drunk!
The group at dinner!
This is a tarantula found on the road!

The next day we leave Belize!:(

Day 6- Second Dive Day!

2009-04-12T12:21:00.000-07:00

Day 6- Blue Hole
So our second dive day was to do 3 dives, The Blue Hole, The Lighthouse Reef, and The Aquarium! It took about an hour and a half to go to the Blue Hole on boat. We were picked up when it was still dark outside. We saw dolphins on the way out there. We have a video of that, but I have decided to do videos in a separate post bc my computer cannot play videos so I have to go on my dad's computer to look through them and see which ones I will want to show. Any way. The Blue Hole use to be a cave, but it sank and it now completely underwater. It is suppose to be really cool if you can say you have dived in the Blue Hole. It is 400ft deep and I forget how wide, but it is HUGE! We went 130ft deep in this dive which is DEEP! Normally we went like 60 ft. Since it is so deep you run through your air pretty fast so it was a very short dive. It was pretty cool bc when we were going down we went soooo fast it took us like 30 seconds if that to get at 130ft. If you dive you know that when you go very deep you have a chance of getting Nitrogen Narcosis, which means you pretty much get high on the nitrogen bc your body cannot absorb it all. So what you do it ascend 5-10 ft and you should be ok. Well John, Christian, and Michelle got this. Michelle didnt like it so she went up with JD. john and christian did not really get what to do so they were just floating around being funny until eventually they got over it. Anyway while down there we saw a bull shark which was sooooo huge. We later read on wiki that Bull sharks are the ones who have killed the most humans. Scary!!

After the blue hole we went to our second dive, The Lighthouse Reef. This one was cool bc there was a lot to see.

Then we went to this really cool little island to eat lunch (the usual). Apparently they try to preserve this island so much that you cannot take anything from the island, not even the sand. You have to wash your feet in the water to get all the sand off of you before you get back on your boat. Also, this island had a really cool bird watching place. They were booby birds.

We then went on our final dive which was called the Aquarium! This was by far my favorite. It is called the Aquarium for obvious reasons. Fish EVERYWHERE! When I jumped in the water from the boat there were TONS of fish. It was pretty amazing.

I feel like I need to explain to everyone why most of the underwater pictures are not that colorful. Well depending on how deep you are depends on what colors you can see. Colors don't show when you are deep. The colorful pictures that we do have are because of the flash of the camera.

After the dives we headed back. We went to dinner at this really awesome restaurant. It was called the Blue Water Grill or something like that. I forget. It was Italian food and was really yummy!

Here are the pictures!

Me and andrew on the boat!

A fish!
The stalagmites or tites not sure which ones! In the Blue Hole!
Me and Andrew diving in the blue hole!Andrew looks funny!

JD and Michelle in the Blue Hole!
Group shot in the Blue Hole! I'm sitting on Andrew's shoulders..more like floating!

The boys in the Lighthouse Reef!
Me and Andrew trying to find something cool!
The reef!
This is really cool because it was like a huge shell with all these little things inside. IT was like someone had collected all this stuff.

Little Fish!
Christian getting back on the boat...look how clear the water is!
Andrew! I don't know why but i love this picture!
This is the island. I forget what the name of it was! I think it was like the Lighthouse Reef Island or something.

Booby birds!

The aquarium! The flash is on!
Isn't it beautiful!
I love it!
A ton of grouper fish! I think.
Going back to San Pedro!
Tired from a long day of Scuba Diving!

Well thats it. Next up, Free Day #2!

Day 5=Mayan Ruins

2009-04-11T15:25:00.000-07:00

Day 5= Lamanai
This was the day we went to the Mayan Ruin called Lamanai. This was my least favorite day from the whole trip, it made me think of something my dad would have loved to do instead of all the other fun things we did. Now I still liked it, but it was my least favorite. I was VERY tired. I got no sleep from the night before, so I was pretty miserable and tired the WHOLE day.

We got up bright and early like usual! Then we headed on another flight to Belize City from San Pedro. We then drove an hour or so to the place that would give us a river tour to the ruins! That took about an hour and half on the boat. It was cool because when we first got on they took us where these spider monkeys were and we got to feed them food we had with us. They were sooo cute and I loved this part of the trip because monkeys are so awesome and they touched our hands when they grabbed the food. Then we continued on and saw a baby alligator. There was a lot of bird watching during this part which is another reason I think my dad would have loved it because he LOVES birds! When we got to the ruins we headed off to look at them with our guide. We walked up one which was cool and the tour guide just explained a lot of stuff. There weren't as many as I was expecting which I was glad for bc it meant we were not going to stay as long. We ate lunch, chicken, rice and beans, and cole slaw. Then we went to the last ruin to climb up, I didn't care to do this bc i was soo tired so I just sat at the bottom. Then we went back to the boat and headed back. Then we drove back to the airport to fly back to San Pedro.

They cooked again for us this night, it was like chicken something or other. It was pretty good though. Then we roasted some marshmallows and have some smores. I went to bed when everyone was still roasting and slept for a long time.

Here are the pictures!

This is Steve on top of the Villa! I love the view!

Andrew and I up bright and early!

Going on the mini plane! We were not scared of this anymore.

John, Jess, me, and Andrew in the backseat of the van to the river!
Waiting for the tour to start.
Cute little spider monkey!
Me feeding the spider monkey. Aren't they cute!?!?
Andrew trying to look cool in his new sunglasses.

This is the Mennonite's village we saw on the river tour!

These are the Mennonites. The tour guide stopped by them and said, "Okay everyone, take a picture." Very awkward!We are finally at Lamanai and can you tell how tired we all were?

Tour guide is explaining something to us.
This was the ruin that we climbed to the top of . It was pretty steep!
We are on top! YAY
Group shot!
Walking through the ruins!
On top of the second ruin.

Our Villa from the back road!
Smores!
More Smores! YUMI'm glad this was is over because the next day is our second dive day and I LOVED IT! Blue Hole is up next! :)

Day 4-First Scuba Trip

2009-04-11T13:44:00.000-07:00

Day 4= First Scuba Trip!
This was a first scuba trip for some of us- Me, Kelton, and Michelle! I'm not going to like, I was a little bit nervous. I really didn't want to see any sharks because come on they KILL people, but then I wanted to see them so I could tell people that I saw them! haha Anyway, we woke up bright and early and the dive people picked us up from our dock right outside of Villa Incommunicada! We were then taken to get get our BC, tanks, regulators, etc. stuff for the dive and switched boats. We went on 2 day dives and 1 night dive. I was too afraid to do the night dive so I only did the 2. The first dive was to get us use to diving and getting reacquainted with it for those who hadn't been for a while. It was very peaceful Saw some pretty fish and stuff. Unfortunately the water was really rough and Chris got sick and was throwing up the whole time we were diving and Jessica gets sick too, but did not throw up. So after our first dive we dropped them off and went to our second dive for the day. This was so awesome because we saw a nurse shark! Our Dive Master Lewis caught it and flipped it over and we pet its belly. It was soo cool and not at all scary like I thought it would be. It was not very big and nurse sharks are docile!

After our two dives we went back to the Villa and just hung out until everyone who went on the night dive had to leave. After they got back, we went to dinner and stayed up pretty late.
Here are the pictures.

We just got picked up from our dock, you can see it on the right!
Our dock again!
This was our dive boat and we are getting our gear all ready!
Andrew looks cool in this picture! I'm posing next to him and the wind is blowing my cover up making it look like I'm prego!
Me and Andrew next to our gear, getting ready to DIVE!
Getting ready to go down!

You can kind of tell how rough the water was in this picture. Trying to get off the boat with all that heavy gear was difficult, I kept almost falling!
ME and Andrew underwater! YAY
Just a little glimpse of what we saw!
This picture is cool in so many ways. JD and Michelle look cute holding hands, Andrew is 'flying' and I'm trying to grab a fish!
I look like a freak with all my gear!
Group picture!

This is a grouper fish!
I look like I have a muscular leg, but really its flab!

Me and Jess loving the pool! We took this picture for you Cara!
Our view from the pool!

Me and Andrew in the pool. Andrew is wearing a shirt because he was sooooooo sunburned!
Relaxing in the pool!
Next up, Mayan Ruins!!
PS: We have a movie of us petting the nurse shark, so when I find it I will post that separate!

Day 3= Free Day

2009-04-11T13:02:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I'm slacking on posting about the Belize trip, but it is very overwhelming with literally 3,000 pictures to choose from!
So Day 3 was our free day which was just a relaxing day. We laid out, got tan, shopped, snorkeled (only me, andrew, steve, and christian).
Also, this was andrew's birthday! What a lucky guy having his 22nd birthday in Belize (the date is March 16)! We ate at a place called Fido's which was pretty good, but the best part was the live band. We didn't get to see a lot of them though, bc they started when we were on dessert and some drama happened, but I'm not going to go into that!
The snorkeling was fun even though we did not see like hardly anything. We saw some starfish, a little blue and yellow fish that was so cute! But the cool thing was that we did this right behind the Villa. The scary part was that towards the end, boats were like all around us and I was afraid it would run us over! We got back safely though. I'm trying to keep this short and sweet! Here are some pictures! These are the important things right?

I love this picture so much because it just shows you how relaxed we are and how much we are loving being in Belize! Also, I love the water bottle being in the front of the picture! Thanx to John for taking this picture!I love Jessica in this picture! She is going to hate this picture but I love me and Andrew getting reading to go snorkeling!

This is me snorkeling!
Me and Andrew!
This is one of the starfish we saw while snorkeling. You cannot really tell that this was taken underwater! The water was so clear!
Can you find the blue and yellow fish! I love this picture!
This is a better picture of the little fish . I love this so much because I found this fish and it kept hiding!
So for lunch this day we went and got pizza at Mermaid Pizza! I think they are loving the mermaid too much! haha My future in-laws!
At Fido's trying to figure out what to eat. We are so intent! I love JD's face and Christian's bandana that he loved!
Andrew was sung a really cool happy birthday song by the band, the manager was so into it and hilarious!The band!

Next up, our first dive day! YAY!

Bridal Bouquet

2009-04-11T12:18:00.000-07:00

Have I shown you my bridal bouquet yet?

I love it! I found this picture at Borders when I was probably waiting for Andrew to get off work. This was when we were crazy enough to think that maybe we could possibly do the flowers for our wedding by ourselves! I laugh when I think of that. It would have saved a ton of money but I think it is well worth the money for our awesome florist.(there is a link to all wedding stuff on the side of my blog) Anyway, back to the point, at Borders I was looking at books about floral arrangements to see if it was possible for me to do it and to get some ideas. I found this picture on a wedding organizer cover (as you can see from the picture) and I LOVE it!!! Also, it will look a little different bc there will be something wrapped around the stems that will be awesome. It's hard to explain it. They are orange calla lilies and the green is wire. I had to send a copy of it to our florist, so she can duplicate it! There will also be a mini one for me to toss at the wedding to some lucky girl....

I found these really cute orange lanterns for more decoration. They are 10$ at IKEA! And I love them! It's funny how this wedding started out with the colors being blue and brown and it morphed into a TON of orange! The centerpieces are going to be 3 orange gerbera daisies and 3 white gerbera daisies in a medium height squared vase with blue pebble things in to keep them in place. Then all the bridesmaid's bouquets are going to be 6 orange gerbera daisies with some green monkey grass to make it similar to the green wire in my bouquet. Then the groomsmen are going to be one orange gerbera daisy with a green leaf behind it. Andrew's will be one calla lily with I think wire or something, I forget, but it is suppose to be really similar to mine.
Then we have a flower girl little Addison who will have a halo of white and orange gerbera daisies on her head and the ring bearer Landon, will have a mini orange gerbera daisy. The dads are going to be like the groomsmen and the mom's will have a corsage with white and orange mini gerbera daisies.
I have shown you a picture of the cake. So you know how the flowers are going to be with that. The picture I showed you though has different colors, but we are sticking with orange!

So that is all the flowers for the wedding. Not a ton or anything bc it is going to be outside and there will be flowers all over anyway, so I think that the orange lanterns are going to be inside where the food is bc there wont be much decorations in there. Although the food alone is going to be very decorative and colorful so it should be beautiful! I cannot wait!

More than 4 months away! :(

I still have not even gone looking for a wedding dress, but that is mostly because I wanted to get all the planning out of the way, which is now out of the way. So basically I have no excuse. I also had NO idea what I wanted but now I do! So, I will probably go in May sometime to look. Who knows, I don't think I will have a hard time finding something I like. I have looked at David's Bridal online and love a couple of their dresses so we will see! I will post the dress when I get it on my private blog so Andrew cannot see it!

ROAD BIKE!!

2009-03-31T08:37:00.000-07:00

I have been wanting to buy a bike for years now, and up until recently I have been way to poor to really even consider buying one.

Well I filed my taxes at the end of February and didn't check the status until I got back from Belize. What did I find? Well it has been rejected the same day I filed them and I just never checked because why would they get rejected when I did it right? Well two different numbers on my w-2 from my current employer was wrong. We fixed the first one because we thought only that one was wrong, then it got rejected again. Then I fixed it again, yesterday, rejected last night. So that is now 3 times. Anyway, the point is is that I am getting quite a lot of money back on my return! A LOT! So I thought I would have that money when I got back from Belize because it should only take 3 weeks and that would have been 3 weeks. I don't have that money and am still weeks away from getting that money. I have been planning to buy a road bike from that money and put the rest in savings for my IMac! (Yes it is enough money to buy both)

Well, I think Andrew is really excited about me getting this bike because we were looking at some online yesterday and now I have in the mail for me this bike! :) Thanks to Andrew! My bike isn't it beautiful?! And not a bad price either! So I should be getting it within the next week, it is being shipped to Andrew so he can put it all together for me before I see it!! YAY!

The unfortunate part of this story (besides the whole tax stuff) is that it has been freaking SNOWING like alllllllllllll week! What the heck, seriously I HATE THE SNOW!! It is suppose to be spring!!!!!

I love that Andrew bought it for me (it is basically my money too, right?) I mostly think he bought it for himself, so i can now ride with him! Now I am excited to get this tax stuff figured out, and buy all the things I need for my new bike! REI here I come!! (Not really because we are saving money, that means no new clothes, no going out to eat till we get married and probably after, that is 5 months away!! ugh!!!!)

More on Belize later, it just seriously takes SOOOOOOOOO long to do!!! I have to look at 4 different folders for pictures!

Day 2

2009-03-26T18:22:00.000-07:00

Day 2

We went ATVing in the Jungle and Cave tubing!
So first went on the golf carts to the mini airport and waited for a little while for it to come. Here is a picture of us waiting...
Here we are getting on our really small plane! Me and Jess were reallllly nervous! It actually ended up being not bad and fun. The small plane took us to Belize City where we drove an hour to the ATVs. There they had deer that we got to pet and they were cute and licked our fingers.
So we each got our own ATV and it was very muddy. We all kept getting stuck and VERY muddy. Thanks to John I was the muddiest.
The pictures are a little out of order. But oh well. There is a group picture of us, you cannot really tell how muddy we were. We were sooo muddy.
Then we cleaned off as much as we could. And got back in the car and drove to the cave tubing. This was pretty interesting. We got our tubes and lights and hiked about 30 minutes to where we go into the cave. It was very freaky and it made me think of the movie the Descent. So i kind of got freaked out. It was fun floating on the river though. When we were almost back there was a rope swing that we did. While I was watching, a fish bite me, it was so odd. It was teeny so it didnt really hurt, but it scared me a little bit before I realized what it was.
So afterwards, we went to lunch at Amigos. We had chicken, rice and beans, and potatoes salad. Everytime we went out with a guide we had the same exact lunch. It got really old after a while, but it tasted really good. After lunch, we headed back to the villa.
My hair is really wild in these pictures.

We saw a lot of little rays in the water.
This is me and Jess after the plane ride back to San Pedro!

The manager's wife cooked us a really delicious dinner this night. Shrimp kabobs and some chicken kabobs which was good for me. I hate shrimp!
We went to bed early bc we were scuba diving in the morning.

Day 1

2009-03-26T09:00:00.000-07:00

So, on Friday the 13th we headed up to Salt Lake City Airport to get on our flight to Atlanta. The flight was at 12:40 on Saturday the 14th. That will be Day 1.

Day 1

Little did we know, we had a LONG trip ahead of us. We got on the flight at 12:40am, and the plan was to sleep the whole 3-4 hour flight. I could not go to sleep at all, and because I couldn't go to sleep, Andrew couldn't. haha sorry. So I pretty much kept him up the whole time. The good news was that they had a tv on the flight with satellite and we got to watch it. The bad news is that it was so late at night that all that was on was paid programming. I got maybe an hour of sleep on the plane.
We got to Atlanta at 6am their time, 4am our time. Had breakfast (way tooo early) found our gate and slept under chairs on the floor for the 5 hour layaway. Poor Jessica could not go to sleep, so she was pissed haha. It was pretty pathetic the way we were sleeping on the floor.

This was me and Andrew under the chair. haha
So then we get on the plane from Atlanta to Belize which was a 3-4 hour flight as well. Well the weather was bad in Atlanta, so we had to wait an hour on the plane to get going to Belize.

This is Jessica doing a miserable face with John in the background...still not quite in Belize. This flight was miserable and it was starting to get VERY long of a day and this was just half of it.

So finally we get to Belize!
My first look at Belize.
Andrew getting off the plane.
So after we got off, we went to customs and got our bags and then took 3 different taxes to fit all 10 of us and it was SCARY. Seriously, I thought we were going to die, it was so freaky. These people were all over us asking for money and stuff. but we made it to the water taxis safely and we were hungry. We had about 45 minutes till our water taxi was ready. So this guy took us to this sketchy Chinese restaurant and the food was not that great at all.
Then we got on the water taxis which took an hour and a half.
Our view from the boat.
We got off on the wrong stop and this was the water.

More views from the water taxis (when we got back onto the taxis)
We took golf carts from the taxis to our Villa.
View from the golf cart, this is San Pedro.
My bedroom!
So we finally get to Villa Incommunicada! We LOVED it!! We hurriedly got our clothes changed. It was about 5ish by this time and there was no time difference from Utah and Belize.
Our sunset view from our deck or whatever it is called. I cannot think of the correct name.
Our villa!!
A closer view of the Villa Incommunicada!!
Me and Jess looking at the water!
Me and Andrew! I love this picture!

So, after exploring, we went to town from dinner at this place called Caramba's! It was a Mexican food place. It was okay, definitely not the best place we went to. But we were SOOO hungry!
When we got back from dinner, I started unpacking because my clothes got wet from the rain on the airplane somehow. After unpacking I was giving Jessica her ugg slipper back that she put in my suitcase and they had been just laying on my floor in my room. Well as I was bringing them to her a MOUSE jumped out of them onto my arm. I screamed so loud, it was horrible! Disgusting! I like threw it down the stairs. We also found a cockroach in almost every ones room. But I cannot complain bc the place was still awesome!!
Here are some more random pictures from Day 1.

I'm BACK!:(

2009-03-24T07:40:00.001-07:00

So, I am back from Belize and it was so amazing!! Right now I have to get ready for work, but I am going to try to post pictures and everything tonight!! We took about 3,000 between all of us who had cameras!

1 day and 3 hours til we leave for....

2009-03-12T19:08:00.000-07:00

BELIZE!!!!! I'm in the process of packing for Belize. Now I am getting really excited! I have never left the country and so that makes me more exciting.

So, no picture of my new hair because I tried to get a picture of myself and none turned out good at all because my hair is kind of a mess today.

Today was a busy day, I woke up early (8:30, so not so early) to get ready for my appointment with the florist. I got a little lost trying to find her house, but finally found it. She was really nice and seemed very professional. We went through everything that I wanted bouquets, bouts, corsages, centerpieces, flowers for the cake, etc. Addi will have a cute little halo of flowers being the flower girl, I cannot wait to see everything fall into place. She is giving me an estimate in the next couple of days, so we will see how much it will cost. My budget is $600 for the flowers, so cross your fingers for me that it isn't more. I did change my mind about somethings that I wanted to do, so I think it will look better than I have been picturing. So we'll see.

After that I had to go to WaterWorld to get my Scuba card. I was scared that they would be closed for the weekend or something and I wouldn't be able to get it for Belize, but no worries, I got it. The picture on it of me isn't that bad either.

I was able to meet up with Andrew afterwards and we got to go to lunch together. Then I headed to get little Cameron who was in a very bad mood. We we're going to go roller skating in the park, but the kid just got an i-pod touch and when we got to his house and he started playing that, he no longer wanted to go the park. So I decided to clean up his room and playroom and that took FOREVER!!! It was a disaster!

I'm not sure when I will post next, either tomorrow or after Belize. We get back on the 21st late at night, so sometime on the 22nd? Expect LOTs and LOTs of pictures!!!

2 more days...

2009-03-11T21:51:00.000-07:00

I got my hair done today for Belize!! dark brown like always and RED highlights! pictures tomorrow!

4 days and counting....

2009-03-10T21:34:00.000-07:00

till Belize!!! I went to Target today to get some necessities for Belize, you know, mini everything because let's face it, mini things are fun! So I got mini deodorant, lotion, face wash, toothpaste, etc. Also, I got sunscreen and a tank top! I really cannot believe we are going to be in Belize in 4 days!!

I have purchased prenatal vitamins, no I don't want to get preggers (Jessica would kill me) but I'm trying to get my hair to grow faster and I will try anything. It's just a good multi-vitamin, haha. But Jessica told me that her hair grows really fast because she takes them, so here I am. I will update later on that because I only started today.

After work and target I watched Biggest Loser and American Idol.

Biggest Loser- I love this show soooo much and it is VERY motivating. I think every week there is a portion of the show that makes me cry. It makes me soo sad that some of these people have never known a better way of living. I know I definitely am not the healthiest person in the world, but I try. I get really happy for these people because they are changing their lives. It is definitely a good boost every week to watch it. I want Tara to win so bad too!!!

American Idol- Well, I'm just kind of getting sick of this show. I love Megan's voice and quirky dance. I'm tired of Paula and the nonsense she always says. I wonder when this show will end, I'm not sure I will be watching it next season because seriously who can watch all 3 hours of it every week and watch other shows? Well I think they need to shorten it all.

Sorry for the boring post today and thank you all for commenting!! :)
Also, I will probably not be posting tomorrow because I will be down in Orem after work and spending the night at Jess and John's because I have an appointment with a florist on Thursday morning! So I will post for sure on Thursday!

Seriously?

2009-03-09T20:18:00.000-07:00

I'm a little disappointed that I posted 3 times in a short period of time and no one commented on any of them. Did you see them? Go look I have 3 fairly new posts. Check them out!

Why do Mondays seem so miserable? Is it because it's days and days away from the weekend? Probably. Or maybe it is because we leave for Belize on Friday at midnight and I'm too impatient to wait? Probably.

Nothing at all exciting happened today, but I'm really on a role here with the blogging. I didn't want to break it. I definitely need a vacation.

I'm thinking of going to Memphis for my friend Lindsey's wedding in May. I wouldn't stay long because of me being a workaholic and all, but just long enough. Should I do it?

I'm trying to find an apartment for me and Andrew to live in, is it too soon to start looking? I just feel like if we wait too long, then we won't have anywhere to live except my parent's house haha! That is definitely not happening.

6 months is still so far away, can I skip ahead to then after I get back from Belize please??

Blogs are kind of funny in a way that when you post, you kind of feel like you are talking to yourself. In my case I think I am talking to myself because no one is commenting. (hint, hint) I guess I need to get new friends...

random pictures

2009-03-08T21:16:00.000-07:00

So here are some random pictures I have uploaded to my computer and I decided to put on here, so enjoy!

ME and Andrew at his parent's house. I think this is a good picture of me hah sorry Andrew. Unfortunately it is dark!

This is what my parent's house looks like every Sunday. Checking the internet, blog stalking, and watching hilarious youtube videos, etc.! Oh and we pretty much all look like crap too, but today wasn't so bad!

These are the flowers Andrew got me for valentine's day! I love daisies!! Aren't they beautiful?!

This is me being bored taking pictures of my daisies from andrew and I think this one turned out really well! (I secretly would love to be a photographer, what a fun job would that be?)

why are people so crazy?

2009-03-08T20:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I drove down to Orem like I do every Saturday. I'm going down I-15 and have my phone in my hand because I'm expecting a call, when I turn to my left because something caught my eye. There is a couple driving in the carpool lane next to me and the lady in the passenger seat is freaking out at me. I have no idea what is going on. I'm not swerving, I don't think I did anything wrong, then I realize I have my phone if my left hand and think maybe she thinks that I am texting on my phone or something. That was the only thing that would make sense to me, but even then that doesn't really make sense because we pass each other a couple of times and everything she is yelling and moving her arms at me, so I'm thinking this is insane, I HAVE to take a picture because seriously she was crazy!!!!!! So here is it....

What a psycho huh?!

I'm gonna try....

2009-03-07T12:05:00.000-08:00

I've decided I'm really really going to try to be consistent(for the life of me could not figure out how to correctly spell this, thank goodness for spell check) about blogging, i know I've tried in the past, but come on, I'm busy.

Finally, after playing phone tag with the cake lady, we got a hold of each other and set up an appointment. I met with her on Thursday and and two ideas of what I wanted and completely changed it when I got there. We decided on this...wedding cake... isn't it fun?!?! So the colors are a little different and now I have to meet with the lady who did the flowers and cake stand, but I LOVE IT!!! I cannot wait to see it all done and to see if some kid knocks it over on the day of the wedding! haha, I'm preparing myself bc of the water I'm pretty much asking a kid to want to touch and knock it over.

I though we had someone to do the flowers, but I'm meeting the lady on Thursday to do the cake ones and probably get her to do the rest. I hate that I keep changing my mind about what I want to do. Oh but on Thursday I found these awesome orange lanterns at IKEA! My favorite place to just go look at stuff. Me and Andrew pretty much already know what furniture we want and it is all coming from IKEA!!! So after we send announcements for the wedding and you are not sure what to get us (you seriously do not have to get us anything at all) then an IKEA gift card would be the best!!!

The countdown begins....7 more days till we are in Belize, who is we? I'm so lucky to be marrying into this amazing family...my fiance's family is going to Belize and they were nice enough to invite me to come. It will be the parents, Chris and Steve, JD, Michelle, John, Jess, Andrew, Me, Christian, and Kelton. We will be on a plane next Friday at midnight, so i guess that is Saturday. and be there until the 21st which is a Saturday! Me, Michelle (JD's g/f), and Kelton (Andrew's youngest brother) just got scuba certified for the trip. Everyone else is certified except Jess who is trying REEALLY hard to get pregos (pray for her) haha. So she will be snorkeling!

Scuba diving is seriously so much fun!!! I love it and also get a little nervous. I secretly hope we see sharks so I can be cool and say that I scuba dived with sharks! BUT I will seriously freak out and pee my pants if one gets near me. My boss Janie knows everything there is about sharks SERIOUSLY so she has been giving me information. She told me that all i need to do is be able to swim faster than someone else, so they will bite them not me! hah! I;m confident that I can to that. So I will be fine!

Cameron, the sweet little boy I watch, just turned 4 on Wednesday! I tried to make it a special day for him. We went to the Aquarium bc they opened a new exhibit and he LOVED it the last time we were there and so did i. Well it was really crowded bc the new exhibit opened less than a week ago. I hate it when adults get in the way of the kids, bc HELLO (that was said like Kate on Jon & Kate Plus 8 if you watch it you know what Im talking about, if you don't, then WATCH it! You'll love it) it is for the KIDS not you ADULTS! So move out of the way! So after a couple of hours we get hungry, so I take him to Chick-fil-A and he plays in the play area for another couple of hours and does not eat. While I'm there just playing with my kindle.
On the way back he falls asleep and wakes up an hour later to a nightmare which was soo sad and cute! He had a party with his family that night so I think he loved his b-day and kept saying how he was now 4! I love him!

I'm really impatient about putting pics on here bc my computer sucks!! But thanks to my HUGE tax return, i think i will be getting my new MAC sooner than later! YAY! So when i have the patience I will put some pics up. Later..

weddings and birthdays

2009-02-26T09:40:00.000-08:00

So I am making my personal blog Life a private blog. Even if I do not know you, let me know how you found it, etc. tell me your email address so I can add you, you can email it to me at brookedurfee@gmail.com!
This one will remain public!
Wedding plans are coming along, I've been trying to get a hold of the cake lady and everytime I call its the answering machine and then she called back and of course I was not near my phone. I know we have time, but I like just getting it all done and out of the way so I can relax!! I'm not sure when I will go dress shopping, I guess most girls do that right away! haha oh well, im getting the important planning out the way first. I just hope that it doesnt rain on the day we get married!!! Pretty much everything is planned to be outside, but we do have a back-up plan I guess.
I just want to let everyone know how awesome of a fiance I am...Andrew's birthday is March 16. We will all be in Belize during that time so I decided to surprise him yesterday with an early birthday present and guess what it was....a KINDLE 2 !!!! Which JUST came out and for x-mas I got the kindle 1, so im a little bit jealous he gets the newer one! haha I was secretly hoping he would want the first one and i would get the 2nd!! I ordered it on tuesday and got it yesterday and surprised him... there was no way I could wait any longer to get it to him bc I was SOOO excited for him bc I know he really wanted it, but probably would not have bought it for himself!! He definitely deserves it bc of all the drama with wedding stuff that he has been putting up with!
More later...

Caterer

2009-02-05T21:59:00.000-08:00

So, Andrew and I, went to see our caterer today! She is a crazy lady and is hilarious!! I am soo excited with who we went with and am glad that we can now check another thing off our list of things to do for the wedding. Now on to the florist...which is VERY important....i am going with orange and white daisies, but of course open to any other suggestions.?
I am so excited that all my researching and planning is coming together and i think that in a month I will probably have everything planned!
I am waiting to look for my wedding dress until I can lose some weight! I have been doing a vigorous work-out schedule...ok not really, im only doing it when i want to, so i do not hate, it but at least 3 times a week! I have already lost 5 pounds! Yay! Im really happy that I am getting back to running and my knees are actually holding up!
I will keep you posted, later!

The Engagement...

2009-02-03T13:32:00.000-08:00

<-------I'm the Fi(ance,) and I was told(not asked,) to write a little bit about how I popped the question to Brooke. Just kidding, she asked very nicely(I love you!)

Back in October we went ring shopping. We went to a number of stores, and Brooke had an idea about what she wanted already. We found a great ring for a relatively cheap price and it looked like it was about to happen. We checked our credit at Zales(I think it was Zales,) and it looked like we would be able to buy it with our combined credit. It was all feeling a little fast for me, and Brooke was in disbelief that we were about to get a ring.

It didn't happen.

I think Brooke was a little distraught, and I was a little stuck on the idea that it was too soon to get married.

Tension building in our relationship, Brooke sad, and with me as stubborn as can be on many issues, she asked, "Why not now? What's the difference between now and then?"

Those words hung with me, and in that moment I played it off, but that week in early December I did a complete

180. What is the difference between now and then? I know right now that you are the one I want to spend the rest of my life with. Brooke, you are my love, my joy, and my pride. Let's get married, I thought to myself.

The next time she asked if we were ever going to go ring shopping again, I said that we should go. That day, after basically being groped by the salesman at Goldsmith Jewelers(he wouldn't stop putting his hand on my shoulder and calling me by the wrong name,) we decided on a ring and put money down to hold it.

So I now have a beautiful ring on the way to match my

beautiful girlfriend, and all that's left is to pop the question.

<----Brooke elated after we put money down on the ring

We found that the ring would be available to pick up the day after Christmas. That was a Friday. This was perfect because it was busy that week at Sundance, and I was already working a lot, so I picked up that shift before we even got the ring. Not able to wait to do it, I gave the shift away and didn't tell Brooke. She was up at her grandparent's house in Grantsville that friday night, and wasn't going to be home until around 8pm.

Perfect.

I had the whole day to pick up the ring, get a key to the house from Brianne(her twin sister,) pick up a whole bunch of roses, print pictures, get rose petals, and of course, chocolate.

While I'm waiting for them to get home in their basement, I fell asleep on the couch. Luckily, John(my brother who is married to Brooke's sister Jessica, it's not weird I promise,) came over because he is a romantic and had to be there when it happened. Actually, to this day I don't know why he showed up. But at least that woke me up in time.

So here's how I envisioned it happening. Brooke walks in from the garage before her family(because they knew.) She takes off her shoes and pauses as she notices the trail of rose petals and pictures of us. Slowly she walks down the hallway taking notice of the perfect angle I placed each picture and remembering every picture with fondness. When she finally gets to the room. I'm nowhere to be found. She just stands there confused for a second. I sneak up on her and start the music.

Earlier that day I rewrote some lyrics to one of our recent favorite songs about a guy wishing he didn't screw up the relationship and watch his girl walk out the door never to be seen by him again. It's a great song, and there is one lyric that I love to sing to Brooke when it plays. So I didn't change that.

But here is what Snow Patrol wrote:

You Could Be Happy

Snow Patrol

Eyes Open

You could be happy and I won't know

But you weren't happy the day I watched you go

And all the things that I wish I had not said

Are played in loops till it's madness in my head

Is it too late to remind you how we were?

But not our last days of silent screaming blur

Most of what I remember makes me sure

I should have stopped you from walking out the door

You could be happy I hope you are

You made me happier than I've been by far

Somehow everything I own, smells of you

And for the tiniest moments it's all not true

Do the things that you always wanted to

Without me there to hold you back don't think just do

More than anything I want to see you girl

Take a glorious bite out of the whole world

And this is was what I wrote instead.

You could be happy, and I won’t know..

But I don’t want it that way, I want more.

All the little things about you, I really love.

They always make me smile, what rhymes with love?

Is it too early to tell you, that I’m sure?

That a life without your love, would just hurt…

Most of what I remember, of our past,

Makes me want to be sure, it really lasts.

You could be happy I hope you are

You made me happier than I’ve been by far

I’m so in Love that I resort to singing.

And that’s why I have to, pull out this ring.

Do the things that you always wanted to

With me there to hold your hand in my hand.

More than anything I want to Marry you, girl.

We can face everything together from now on.

Just marry me girl…

I drop to my knee and pop the question. She cries and says yes.

This is not what happened....

Instead, Brooke walks in the door, has already seen John's car, so the pictures on the floor must be of him and Jessica. But upon closer inspection, she realizes that it's of me and her. She starts running down the stairs following the trail, and gets into the room. I'm hiding in her closet...

She doesn't stop at the doorway or by her bed, she starts searching everywhere for the ring.

I open the closet door, and push play on the music. She comes over and hugs me, and I try to start to sing, but thinking I'm just singing her a sad song, she laughs and says, "You don't have to sing!" "It's okay! Don't sing, let go of me" She's trying to get away from me. She realizes that I'm not at work, and remembers that the ring was done that day. Not basking in the most romantic thing that I could come up with, she keeps pulling away so she can check the bouquet for an engagement ring.

Realizing that she's too excited, I stop singing my beautiful song, stop holding her away from the bouquet, and pull out the ring. She doesn't notice. She's already on her way to the bouquet. I stand in front of her, and put the ring box in her line of sight.

Like a dog who sees you holding a treat, she stares at it and starts to grab at it. I hold it away from her, drop awkwardly to my knee, and propose.

We're Engaged!

2009-02-01T20:33:00.000-08:00

So me and andrew are finally engaged! We are soo excited! It happened the day after Christmas and I was soo surprised! I knew it was going to happen pretty soon, but definitely not that day! I thought he was at work! But it was very special and sweet!
We are getting married on August 29, 2009! I put some links to the right of all the things we have booked. We are getting married at Wadley Farms, and having the reception right after. We are shooting for sunset for really great pictures.
I have done a lot of of research for everything and have already done a lot and it is still 7 months away. The photographer is Lindsey, she is really awesome and I am lucky to have found her. I love all her pictures that she does and cannot wait til we can do the engagements! We are probably going to wait til May or June because we do not want snow on the ground for the pictures. I guess you never really know living in utah, didnt it snow last june? ugh!
I am meeting with the caterer on thursday to make sure that is who we want. We are doing hors d’oeuvres and a drink bar with virgin strawberry daqauris and pina colodas! Yum!
There will be dancing too! We are not sure if we will do a DJ or do the music ourselves!
Our colors our brown and light blue (tiffany box color) and then orange and white daisies! I kind of stole that idea from a wedding I saw on a website.
We are probably going to do our own centerpieces to save money too! We'll see!