MIA-ness

I've got some jumping-back-on-the-band-wagon to do. I will as soon as I can catch a breath.

I'm alive though :)

Where arrrrre you?

I've been busy house-wife-ing and also job hunting. It's been nice being able to be home with the husband and sleep in the same bed and kiss him good morning.

I miss my family and my heart aches for my nieces and my nephew SO much, but Chris has been really good to me. We're having fun with being newlyweds-- cooking dinner together, running errands together, laundry, and making this place ours.

Yay!to my older sister-- I'm adding another little bundle to love! :)

Someday I'll get into a regular blogging mode. I do keep up with you guys though so keep 'em coming :) & you saw my pictures right?

Already?!?

I know.

Shame. On. Me.

But I have an excuse. Work has been overloading on MUCH-nay-TONS of stuff to do. And then get this, I caught the flu. Not the SWINE flu, but the ordinary flu. I'm working on getting it out of my system. It's on the last legs of it, but man was it painful. And draining. And completely exhausting. I actually woke up on Sunday morning, couldn't move because everything hurt & was tight/sore and my throat felt like it was ripping apart but I couldn't stop coughing, called Chris and cried... "I just hate this... I don't want to feel like this anymore... *sob*" Poor guy, didn't sleep very well after that since he worried about me all morning.

But no worries, I'm def. working on getting back. Who's missed me? Or even noticed? :P

Can you believe it's already May 20th? 4 more months until the wedding! Eeeeeeep!

And P.S. Tomorrow is Chris and I's 3 year anniversary. I love that man.

Ohhh blog-land, how I've missed you.

I know. I know.

Inexcusable. Unpardonable. Unforgivable. Unjustifiable.Indefensible. Intolerable. Deplorable. Awful. Unwarrantable. (Anymoresynonyms? My thesaurus stopped at those.)

I’ve been MIA. And I have so much catching up to do.

It’s been a long, LONG, week and a half since Chris left to go back home. Crazy how it feels like it’s been weeks upon months already. I never thought this would be harder than it was a year ago. It totally is.

Anyway, there have been lots to do and be busied with. My parents’ surprise bash is coming along well. We’ve set the menu, reserved (almost, anyway, just getting the contract in it’s final stages) the place, set our guest list, invites are in the making… the plan is in the making! It’s at a cute little nature center with an apple orchard next to the site itself with a concrete path that winds around the trees. As far as décor, we’re thinking simple and clean tea lights in mason jars on shepherd’s hooks. So excited!

Wedding plans are also in a fuller swing. The 3 bridesmaids dresses are in—though I’ll need to exchange Rachel’s -- and then send them out to the girls. Hli’s dress has been purchased as well and so has my mom’s. The only person left is Pa Houa. I’m so glad everything seems a little more set. I do have to get crackin at my invites though. Whew. Set. In. Stone.

Oh! We’ve also decided on the guys’ attire-- we’re going to go simple and clean with a gray button up shirt and charcoal tie and Chris is going with the suit vest but without the actual jacket with a white shirt and the charcoal tie. I love it and it looks so great on him.

Our menu is set as well. Yum. I. Can’t. Wait.

Speaking of yum, Easter was peachy. The potluck after church was nice and I’m realizing how much I honestly love my little church family.

On a deeper note, Anela, Kayla, & Meya reminded me this weekend of what matters most during this remembered day. You see, they had an egg hunt on Saturday with the rest of the kids’ program where my sister is the children’s programs director. There were eggs filled with candy scattered everywhere and among them also sat the completely empty ones that many times were thrown to the side because they were empty. Kayla, Anela, & Meya (& Kezzy!)were excited regardless of if the eggs they found were empty or not. Turns out, every one of the eggs that they picked up were empty. They smiled and laughed and were ecstatic, anyway.

As the kids sat down, the story of the death and resurrection of Christ was shared and I wondered if those little girls understood what was being shared at all.

Later that day, I told Anela to tell Tais-Tais & PaPa what they learned and she went through the whole finding the eggs and then I asked her if we should be sad when the egg is empty. She goes “Noooo. Jesus is not dead.”

Amen.

Better late than never?

Sorry, sorry, it's been a busy swing back into things since Chris left.

Work has been a little ho-hum, but whatevs.

Gah, I think this whole indecisiveness of mine is coming around to bite me in the butt. It's so hard finding an acceptable dress shade in the colors that I'm going for for the bridesmaids dresses. I've opted to go with grey dresses that will then be accented with a colored sash or flower in the magenta or purple color. That's proving to be quite difficult too. *sigh* Help.

Anyway, once Chris has the pictures fixed to his liking, I'll be sure to share our engagement pictures :) Yay!

It's March already?!?!

So I know, I know, I'm lagging in posting on my bloggy-blog. I've missed it. I've also been completely busy and really just... stressed. Oy.

I can't believe it's already March! I have so much to do in regards to the wedding. We've made some progress, but that doesn't mean I've stopped worrying about every little detail. Gah!

Chris is here this Thursday! I've missed him so much and this wedding planning via long distance is taking it's toll on me. I'm uber sensitive to how he's saying things or whether or not we're doing this or that the right way. Blah. It's been a tough month. What do I do?!?! Give me some advice, girls!

I had my first fitting this past weekend. I know, super early, but the seamstress wanted to have an idea of what she's working with. She actually altered my bridesmaid dress for Pang's wedding and was fabulous! So I'm sure she'll be taking good care of me. Good news-- I actually lost 3 inches around my waist since I bought my dress!! Yay me! Now it's just a matter of maintaining my weight. I looked AMAZING in my wedding dress and cannot wait to wear it! Heehee.

Anyway. There's so much to do, I hardly know where to start.

We did figure out what we're doing for the rehearsal lunch or dinner. We're actually doing a rehearsal BBQ lunch right before rehearsal since Pastor Sid will have to leave by 5 for a Friday night wedding he's officiating. It works out well since we weren't sure how much we'd be able to dish out for the rehearsal dinner. Chris really wants to BBQ so I'm leaving that up to him. My responsibility? Finding a dress for that afternoon. haha.

I really want to show you guys my Save the Date cards. I'll have to do that. *note to self* And the invites need to be made soon here too. Chris and I are getting our engagement pictures done this weekend as well. My sister just bought new gear and does a fantastic job at photography so she'll be helping us out with that :) Chris is also bringing the studio's camera just in case Hli wants to try using it too. Yay! And yes, I've already shopped for the outfit(s). haha.

Anyway, I'll be around more often. Promise. I apologize for the MIA-ness.

Mlah-mlee-mlah..

Hiiii. Miss me much?

Sorry for the MIA-ness to anyone who's been wondering where I've been. I've been busy getting screwed over by the insurance company (AllState), Enterprise, and maybe even the auto body shop. Anywho. It's just been crazy. At the end of the day, everyone is pointing fingers at each other blaming everyone and their mom except for themselves. I'll be honest, I don't really care who it comes down to, the fact of the matter is that not 1 party handled the situation the way that they should have and I wasn't taken care of. My car's been MIA for about a month & 1/2 now and it took 2 weeks alone to get a quote from the insurance company sooooo. Yeah. *sigh* Anyway. Apparently my car should be good by Monday. *crosses fingers*

How's it all hanging in your neck of the woods?

Oh! So my dad was down in San Diego this last week and Chris actually drove the 1 1/2 hours to pick up my dad from the airport and took my dad out to dinner. Awww, they're bonding! We're almost to the 7 month mark for our countdown to September 19! Crazy! Wedding inspiration boards/ideas/in process will be posted soon. I do have to say, I tried on my dress again the other night in my room and it is SO perfect. And looser than when I bought it! *eep! Yay! I'll look into alterations in a couple months.

In the midst of our wedding planning, my siblings and I (including Chris) are throwing my parents a surprise shin-dig in late June. It's a big year for our family as I'm getting married, my baby sister is out of the house, my brothers (older & baby) are leaving to go south for school this fall, and it seems that my mom is going to get the empty nest she never wanted all at once. Its kind of bittersweet. I'm excited for these new chapters in our lives, but it's scary to be "without" each other. Our family's pretty close and we've never been more than a couple miles from each other. Being in Colorado killed me so I ended up back in MN. And I've NEVER spent a holiday without my family. Anyway, we're planning a bash for my parents just to say "THANKS!" and "We love you!" and make people cry. And ourselves. haha. So we're off to the prospective venue at Northwestern College this afternoon. Updates to come!

Anyway, I hope you're all having a great week/end of January/Saturday. I miss blogging. I need to figure out how to post pictures on blogger instead of having to use photobucket so if you know, help a girl out! And I might be baking peanut butter blossom cookies this afternoon! Yay! Yes, they're probably not good for the wedding diet, but SO good for the tummy!

I'll be back, pinky-swear!

Okay, Okay... so I lied...

A little. About posting "tomorrow." But technically, today is yesterday's tomorrow and I didn't say which one's tomorrow I'd post them sooooo there. Okies? Okies.

Ohh I can't believe Chris has been gone for only a week. It feels like a good couple weeks already. And we're back to the abnormal swing of things. We didn't get a ton of pictures because we were quite on the go the whole weekend, but we got this one:


He's so handsome. And I look pretty "yay me" too :)

Our weekend went so well. We met with Pastor Sid and we love him! He's so sweet and personable and funny! I'm so thankful that he is our officiant and we get to do pre-marital counseling with him! He helped us map out our entire ceremony already which was fantabulous! I was going to wait until a month before the wedding-- oops. haha. Pastor Sid goes "Ohhh no, I don't want you to stress about that then!" So its roughly mapped out and I love it!

Chris played with the nieces as much as he could and misses them so much. I can't wait to see him as a Daddy. He's going to be so good :) We actually taught them how to play Red Rover (remember that game??) and now they want to play it all the time.

Other than that, we had dinner with my family at Olive Garden the last night he was here and Chris and I had our fabulous Caribou Coffee run every morning... their hot chocolate is SO good! Sorry Starbucks lovers, Caribou is just better. AND their banana bread-- OMG! YUM! Best ever! AND! It's low-fat! Steal!

May not be so crazy to everyone else, but Chris has never stayed the night at my house. Culturally, that's just frowned upon, so Chris always stays at the hotel which is like 2 houses from our house. Well, my dad wasn't really around this time because he had a conference to teach at and just saw Chris the last day he was here long enough to have a conversation and goes "Next time, stay here so you guys can save some money and not worry about getting a hotel room." You see, my dad is NOT one to be nice to guys who come around. But he loves Chris. And this just meant so much more. It was funny cause Chris was completely speechless. My dad is so awesome.

It's hard seeing him walk into the terminal without me. I hate it. But soon. Soon.

Anyway, with all that said, I didn't work out last week at all. And believe me, I paid for that slack tonight! I lasted 15 minutes on the track before I felt like my lungs were going to explode and my back was going to break from cramping so bad. UGH! But I did the 1 mile mark in about 8 minutes. I'm back to working up my cardio again and doing sit ups and the sculpting of my thighs/legs & arms/back. It sucks cause once I get the hang of it again, 30 minutes or so doesn't seem so bad on my body, but I haven't worked it enough to get to the point where a 1 week haitus wouldn't be so bad. Does anyone else have this problem?

Anyway #2, or is it #3? Meh, we got our Save the Dates ready for sending! The first batch is already out and were hand-delivered at church! It was so exciting to see everyone so excited for them! I'll scan them in soon :) The rest are going out next week when all our addresses are in. *gushes* This is really happening!

AAAAAND I got this from the lovely Miss Ivy!!


Thanks lovey! I want to pass it on to you girls for continuing to read these blurbs of mine :)

Now that wedding planning is in full swing, wedding planning updates will be in order and I'll be good about them, I promise. I think?

Oh! And I saw Bride Wars... Um. Not really worth the hype in my opinion... *sigh* But oh how I love Kate Hudson and how amazing she always looks!

And... it was my birthday on the 15th.

Toodles!