colorado weekend

oh my! we haven't updated you all in a while about the latest happenings in our lives. i'm sorry to say, but i have no pictures to post in this entry!

what is new though...well, we went to colorado this weekend for our last bridal shower. what an incredible blessing that was! thank you to my aunts sherri, kristy, julie, cathy, carrie, denise and michelle for helping throw this together! it was beautiful and so much fun! we really are blessed at all the wonderful gifts we received! zach and i got home last night and it took us over an hour to get everything out and put it away! it was fun to go through everything we got, and show zach. we also had SUCH a good time hanging out with my family. it's always so wonderful to hang out with them. we went and got drinks at the clubhouse my parents are members of, and then headed to mt fuji for dinner! it was fun to be around them, and laugh with them. i have an amazing family and i miss them all the time, so it's always so good to get out there and spend time with them!

the drive home was a little crazy, though. we saw some friends driving on 1-8- next to us from salt lake city which was pretty ironic. then, a bird nearly hit the side of our car which was a little scare for me, and to finish it off....a semi's tire popped right as we were next to it. it was so loud i thought it was ours! luckily we were safe, and nobody got hurt. :)

it feels good to be back in salt lake, and see our place become a home. on thursday night last week, i helped my friend tyffani decorate a wall at her place, and now we're official decorating buddies, so i'm excited to have her come help me with a wall in our living room! it's so fun getting stuff that we can decorate it with. its so hard to leave that place at night because i want it to be my home so bad! :) but only 2 more weeks here in utah, then i'm in colorado a week before the wedding! so it will fly by, i'm sure of it.

i've decided that it's time for me to work on my tan as much as i can before the big day! where did the time go, and where is the SUN? hopefully it will be more common to see in the next couple weeks, because i could use a little sun before wearing that white dress! we also need to go shopping for jamaica, which is ALWAYS fun. i'm excited to get zach a couple pairs of shorts and shirts, because he never buys anything for himself.

one thing that excites me about being a wife is the cooking i will be experimenting with. i got so many cookbooks from the bridal shower, and i can't wait to test our new recipes! my grandma also wrote down her recipes for me, and i caaaan't wait to go ahead and cook those. she is an AMAZING cook, fyi. so i'm looking for some cooking buddies here in salt lake, so let me know if you wanna have some cooking parties! :)

i'm really realizing that zach and i will be established here for a while. this is where God has us...in salt lake. it's feeling more and more like home, and i'm making more friends which is such a blessing because people really are essential in our lives. :) i always miss my family, of course...but i know that we're just a long drive away from each other (or even better--a short flight!) and i will always have them. so life is good, and i feel blessed to be a part of all God is doing here. i just want Him to be glorified in zach and i's marriage...and i am excited to see where He'll take us! all glory to God.

floods and other frenzy

Well folks, life has gone a bit haywire since I wrote last, but we're still chuggin' along. Let's see, where to even begin? Well I guess I should start with explaining the title, which is actually sort of self explanatory huh?

Okay so, yes...a flood. We did have a little mishap with the washer and dryer installation. :) I guess you live and learn, right? I wasn't present when this catastrophe set in, however I did get a pretty humorous (NOT at the time...) phone call from Zach.

"Hey Babe, sooo....there's a little bit of a mess over here..."
"What kind of mess, Zach?"
"Our washing machine hose got disconnected, so...yeah..."
"Is there a flood?"
"Yep."

the crime scene.

Lovely, huh? Anyway, he was good at taking care of all that, he went straight to his Dad's to get a shop vac, and he lifted the carpets and I would be happy to announce that today is probably our last day of blowing a fan on it! :) We are going to Home Depot tonight to get something that removes mildewy smells or something like that. Gross, right? Not to mention, candles have been our friend today.

Speaking of wet things, we got our couches yesterday! My darling mother and aunt drove all the way to Utah JUST to deliver these couches. It's great but rain seeped through the tarp because those Wyoming winds are just so strong, and they got rained on pretty much the whole way here! Good thing they're leather! So we got them in the house and dried them like crazy and it's not so bad!! Our living room finally is starting to look like a living room! We have a cute rug, and these brown leather couches...now we get to add the pretty things like coffee table decor, lamp shades, and pretty drapes to match the rug! EXCITING!

the start of our living room! still need lamp shades :)

I also am adding a picture of our little fire place mantle decoration which is fun, but we're not done. I will probably change this a million times, so if you have ideas, share them please! I'm excited to see what little things I can put on the mantle to make it look great. The happy sign is perfect though, so thank you Maddie!!!

our desk...with a paint can as our chair.
its on our list!

AND since I've written last, Zach has built us a lovely desk to begin our little "Office" section of the house. We decided last night to buy some shelves to organize things like bills, mail, financial papers, receipts, manuals. Things we need! I'm so excited, I think this managing a home thing is riiiight up my alley.

At this moment, my fiance is making a delicious dinner for us and I am drinking a nice glass of nothing but the best...Franzia wine. :) We are going to shop for bedroom furniture after this, and I think after that there will be a little bit of relaxation! I have a bridal shower in Utah this weekend which I am excited for, and a Bridal shower in Colorado the NEXT weekend. Busy busy, but we sure are blessed! Well, dinner is ready so I better say bye! Thanks for reading. :)

progress.

well my friends, i'm happy to tell you that we have officially assembled furniture. did it take us two days? yes. did we have to take it apart and restart more than a few times? yes. is there a little mess up on it? yes.  but that's just life, and you know what? we like it like that. it was an accomplishment to say the least, and after a good night's sleep after night one...we were ready to conquer that furniture! i'm REALLY excited about it, and attached are the pictures so you can enjoy see our handy work! i wish i had thought to take a picture of all the pieces separately, but of course, i didn't think of that til more than halfway through.

i'm such a DUDE.

hard at work or hardly workin?

what else is new? we hung up a clock. i can't even TELL you how wall decor makes things so homey! we have a cute little fireplace and so we put the clock right above that. it's pretty much the only thing we can hang, and we're lucky it worked because we found out that underneath that wall is BRICK. so not very much luck putting wall decor up on that wall which is bothersome! i'm excited to decorate the mantle above my fireplace too. i will take pictures as i begin that little journey. maddie got me a cute "HAPPY" sign that is just perfect...so that will definitely be the center.

the most exciting thing about making our house a home is really the simple fact that i get to share it with zach. sometimes i sit and reflect at all God has done for me in bringing zach into my life, and i get overwhelmed. he is the most patient, kind, caring, gentle, fun, humble and perfect man for me. he loves Jesus and he loves me. i am so excited to begin a family with him in our first home, which is why i want to make our home so perfect. i know we are going to love it no matter what! :)

in more news, i have to share with you our newest purchase for the living room. a tv. :) now you know this tv is essential for zach and i's love of football and parenthood and biggest loser! i am mostly excited for fall to come, and to be able to have friends over for BRONCOS games, even though zach will want to see the cowboys games. lame! either way, i am SUPER excited!

my mom is coming on monday to bring our couches! i am so excited to see her, my aunt and grammy because they are coming with. it'll be a special day-late mother's day celebration as well. PLUS, we will officially have furniture in one room! hurray! life is getting so exciting.

this weekend allison is coming to visit! i am SO excited!!! she makes me happy. i also take bridal pictures this weekend, so hopefully i can get everything together by saturday. i am nervous, but excited. the next three weekends are all wedding festivities! i have a feeling things are going to be BUSY from now until the wedding. jamaica will be so nice afterwards! :)

the finished product! hurray!

HAVE A GOOD DAY!

and so it begins :)

ok so here it is. joint bank accounts, and now a joint blog. i know, you might be thinking, but you still have a month and a half to go before you're married...this is true. i want to do this because there is a process in getting married, a lot of stressful and exciting times. this is my outlet, so enjoy the journey.

zach and i are getting married in 45 days. that's not very much at all. :) i want to share with you all in the progress we're making towards the big day and beyond. starting with our home! zach moved into our place last week, and we've been slowly making dents in our to-do list from there. of course the guest room is a mess, as that is where zach lugged all his stuff to. so on saturday we went to walmart and got all the cleaning necessities (except an ironing board. whoops!) we bought a vacuum, a mop, a broom and dust pan, then all the cleaning products to go with...windex, comet, all purpose cleaners, a feather duster and more. it feels so exciting to have all those now! i was excited to officially make a "cleaning closet" where we put all that stuff. i know, it's totally dorky...but this stuff is right up my alley. ;)

sunday, we went to ikea. now this was fun, because i had never been there before and the only WONDERFUL impression i had of it was from my favorite movie, 500 days of summer. so we had fun walking through all the rooms and found a desk for our little hallway, as well as a tv stand which i adore. once we set it all up and put it in the living room, you WILL get pictures. just you wait. we started the process of setting up the entertainment center last night, and were almost finished until we saw that we put half of the shelves on backwards, and it wasn't flying (some are painted black and some are wood backs and we didn't bother seeing that). so we had to start taking things apart which was very hard to do...and we're going to do it more carefully tonight! it really gives us an attachment to our furniture. oh and we assembled our vacuum cleaner last night as well. isn't all of this so exciting?!

another thing we started was premarital counseling which is neat! we are learning a lot about what loving each other really should look like, and what communication looks like, and different ways we want to be loved. it's challenging and good! we have homework and everything. :)

well, i think this is enough information for you all to take in on the process of becoming mr. and mrs. we are so excited to continue in this journey!