Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all have great holidays with your family and friends. Mat and I have a packed schedule for the next couple days. We are both working this morning and then we'll head to my parents house for an afternoon and evening of fun with them and my sister, Eric and Violet.

Tomorrow Mat and I will do our gift exchange in the morning and then head to his mom's for our gift exchange with them. Then we'll go to Mat's Grandma's house for lunch with his entire family. That evening we are going to see I am Legend with my parents. I am so excited for everything and know it will be over before we know it. I am just trying to enjoy every part of it.

Cheers!

Bad Blogger!

It has been way too long since my last post. I keep putting off posting so I can update on everything Mat and I have been working on. Then I think about how long it would take to write that and I just work on another project! So I am going to keep this short and sweet. We had a great Thanksgiving and got to spend time with Mat's family, my family and my brother-in-law's family also. We also celebrated my dad's birthday and that was so fun to celebrate with him now that they live here. I can't believe it has been almost a year they have lived here!

Mat and I made some delicious Molasses cookies that people were dying to get the recipe for. I found it on the Cooking Light Web site: Molasses Cookies. I could eat a million of them they were that good. Now we need to decide what we'll be making for Christmas!

We are getting all our Christmas gifts together for our families and have been trying to get to different work parties. I think it is just one of those hectic times of the year! I keep telling myself that my New Year's Resolution is going to be updating my blog at least every other day. SO I hope I can stick to that. But for now, I will leave you with a Happy Holidays! Hope everyone is enjoying their December so far!

I found it!!!!!

Well, the trip to Salt Lake was well worth it! Not only did I get to see the Armstrongs and spend a great few days with my mom, we found the dress of my dreams! It is perfect and that is all I can say - I don't want Mat trying to find out about it! He isn't going to see it until June 21!

We really had such a great time! We got there late on Wednesday, so we just checked in to our hotel and then ran to Subway for a quick dinner. Thursday we got up bright and early to face the bridal shops! We stopped in two different shops and weren't wowed by anything there. We had made an appointment at noon, so we headed to that store (with a side detour to a yarn shop above it!). There I tried on lots of dresses and then narrowed it down to two that I really loved. We had another appointment, so we got some lunch and headed to that shop. This appointment was super fancy dresses. Some of them in the store were $5000! Luckily, I didn't find anything I liked there, but it was fun to try on some really expensive gowns.


We had time to hit a couple more shops and then headed to Sarah and Matt's house. They took us to Porcupine, which was a super cute and fun restaurant. They always do the best job at taking me neat and different places. And it was so great to see Sean and Madison. I can't believe how much Madison has grown since July! It is like she is her own little person now! And Sean is too cute for words. It was fun for my mom to meet the family and get to know them a little bit. After dinner, we decided to head back to our hotel, but then realized it was not too awful late and we had time for one more stop. NORDSTROM! We were going to have a bra fitting there because my mom had heard it is the best place to get fitted for bras. It totally was! I can't believe how much more comfortable I feel with knowing how to wear my bras the right way! I highly recommend going there to get fitted if you ever are near one. It is so worth the time. After that, we headed back to the hotel and were pooped.

Sean at dinner

Friday, we decided to take on the largest store I have ever been in. Seriously. IKEA! Neither of us had ever been in one and we were in that store for two hours. I could not believe the amount of things they had in there. It was so overwhelming, but so much fun too! Then we headed back to the two dresses that I really liked, so I could try those on again. I tried them both on and easily eliminated one, which left me with only one and I couldn't think of a dress more perfect for our wedding and me! So we ordered and now I just have to wait until it comes in January. That is a long time. Then we'll start doing the fittings and before I know it, it will be time to wear it! After our big purchase, it was time to head home. It went by so fast, but we seriously had the best time ever.

This is one large store.

Now it is Saturday and I am waiting for Mat to get off work so we can do some more wedding planning. We have a few stops we want to make today and then we'll have a great night relaxing at home. Have a great weekend!

Salt Lake City, Here We Come!

My mom and I are leaving this afternoon for a quick trip to SLC! We are so excited! We have a few bridal shops picked out to go to tomorrow and maybe some on Friday if Thursday isn't successful. We'll get to see Sarah, Matt and the kids on Thursday night and basically shop til we drop the rest of the time. So wish me luck that I find the dress of my dreams!

Halloween 2007

Our first Halloween in our new house was so much fun! We set up our pumpkins outside when I got home from work and you can see a couple pictures of our porch here:





















We only had 6 groups of trick or treaters, but we were so excited since we had never had any before! We also had a very special trick or treater, Mat's niece Justis! She was super scary in her Saw mask. You can see a cute picture of Mat and Justis here:















Mat and I have a tradition of scary movies on Halloween. I think we have done this every year we have been together! This year we were going to watch two, but only had time for one - Scream! It was fun - we love those scary movies.

We are moving right along on wedding planning. We decided on our cake! We're hoping to get some things done this weekend and are going to my parents to talk wedding talk this weekend. Mat is home from work early today, so we'll have lots of time to run some errands. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Pumpkin Carving! And some other cute pictures

Last night we had Cory and Christina over for some serious pumpkin carving. This was Christina's first time ever to carve pumpkins! We ordered pizza and watched the BSU game. I personally think these might be the cutest pumpkins ever carved in the history of the world. But I'm no professional pumpkin judge.
Cory, Christina and Mat hard at work scraping out the guts of their pumpkins.

On my way to the trashcan.
This was my hilarious trick camera shot so I could get us all in the picture.

The finished pumpkins! From left to right:

Christina, Cory, Mat and my silly witch!

Pumpkin carving is quite hard work! But we had fun and it is always great to get together with Cory and Christina.

Last week the kitties had a photo shoot. It started out when Puff came to sit with me and was touching Ben and we think it is too funny when they sit next to each other.


They look so excited to sit next to each other!








Ben


Puff

And the cutest picture of the day:

Preparing for a wedding is hard work!

Wedding Planning Extravaganza!

Mat and I have really started moving on our wedding. We have several things finished already, but we want to get all our big things done in the next few weeks. We met with a cake baker on Monday for a cake tasting and we have more appointments set up over the next few weeks for cakes, florists, event management (set up and take down of chairs, tables, etc.). It's so much fun! I am so anxious to get all of our big ticket items nailed down and then we can start concentrating on all the little details.

We went on Saturday to look at invitations, some rental company and we started our registry! Well, it took forever. So we decided to leave and come back and finish this weekend. I never thought it would take so long to register. But I guess that is what you get when Mat and I go together and seriously look at each item and then decide if it is something we want or not! It was probably really funny for the staff who kept walking by and we had only moved ten feet in thirty minutes! It was a ton of fun though.

We are carving pumpkins tomorrow with Cory and Christina! I can't wait. Mat and I carved pumpkins our first year together and then haven't done it since. It was fun and I am excited to carve me a cute pumpkin! We have three little pumpkins on our doorstep, but they are not really big enough to carve. But they are super cute!

Saturday we are going to Alana's Halloween Party and that should be so much fun. I haven't seen her in way too long, so I can't wait for that too! I don't know what we'll do Saturday during the day though. Maybe go to the library for research for our honeymoon!

Tonight I am going to spend hanging out with my sister and Violet! I'm out of here and hopefully I'll write more tomorrow.

Viva la Mexico!

We're back from Mexico! Oh boy, did we have the best time too! Mat and I took 501 pictures when we there. But I did pick out the cream of the crop to put online so no one has to wade through that many pictures! You can get to the highlights here: http://picasaweb.google.com/mat.kristin/Mexico2007





The recap:





Mat and I were set to leave at 7:20 am, which meant we had to be ready by 5:45 am. Ugh! So we rushed around and my dad was waiting to take us to the airport before we knew it. Our flight to Denver was great and then we transferred to Cancun from the Denver airport. We originally booked Frontier, but the flight wasn't full enough, so we got put on a United flight. AND we got to sit in their "Economy Plus" section that has a little more leg room. We get to Cancun and get through Customs with no problems. Then we had to go on a little van/bus to get to our hotel. We were so ready to get there and Joy and her family were supposed to arrive a couple hours before us. We get to the hotel and throw our stuff in our room, throw on our bathing suits and run around trying to find Joy, Chad and the Igos. Walking around the resort was a long process. It was huge and to get from one place to another took forever! But it was so pretty and there were all kinds of beautiful plants and little animals running around.

Well, we finally found out that their plane was late and so we settled in at the lobby bar to wait for their arrival. We still hadn't gone to the beach! They all arrived - Joy and Chad, Ryan, Jeanne and Johnny, Mary and Chris (Jeanne's friend and our travel agent)! So we got them all settled in to their rooms and all left to eat some dinner at the buffet. This was overwhelming! There was so much to choose from and your plate was already loaded up by the time you even got down one row. After dinner, we all went out to the beach, even though it was already dark. It was so fun to put our feet in the ocean finally!

Tuesday, several more people arrived to the hotel throughout the day. There were 42 guests total coming to the wedding! We spent the day on the beach, playing in the ocean and soaking up rays. Mat and I loaded up on our sunscreen and tried not to get our Idaho skin burned! That night we had reservations at the Japanese Restaurant. The hotel was an all-inclusive resort, so all your food and drinks were included, but there were several specialty restaurants that you could make reservations at and those were included too. So we tried out the Japanese Restaurant. It was fun and they put on a fun show for the group. That night we had Me and Mat, Joy and Chad, Chad's parents Don and Sheila, Matt and Pat (Chad's friends), Ryan (Joy's brother), Jeanne and Johnny (Joy's parents), and Mary and Chris (Jeanne's friend and our travel agent). That night we all went to La Mascara, the discoteque at our resort. There were about 3 other people there besides our group and we did some fun dancing! Everyone danced and it was such a great night.

Wednesday we had several more arrivals and I think the entire group had almost arrived by that evening. Mat and I decided to go into town where all the little shops were and did some walking around. There was a ton of shops, but nothing that we really wanted to buy. But it was fun! That night we decided to all go into town to check out the nightlife. It wasn't too crazy. We hit a couple bars, but I think this time of year isn't really party time, so we went back to our stomping grounds, La Mascara! More fun dancing there and we had an even bigger group! Tal and Gini had arrived, Eileen and Alyssa, Alf, Josh and more!!! We closed that place down and I believe some people continued the party out on the beach, or so I hear!

Thursday was a late start for Mat and I. We're not used to staying up so late and we had to sleep some of that late night off! We decided to walk down the beach to see what we could find. Well, anything we went out in the sun was a huge ordeal. We had to lather up on sunscreen and that took forever. I had this great idea to buy this natural sunscreen and it was basically like trying to lather on something that won't spread. It didn't soak in like normal sunscreen and it was what we probably spent the most time doing! That night we had dinner at the Italian restaurant with Joy, Chad and her family. We all really enjoyed our meal and ended up going back the night before we left! We did go to La Mascara again, but we decided to make it an early night since the wedding was the next day.

WEDDING DAY! Friday at 11:30, the girls in the wedding party (Joy, me, Eileen and Tal) went to meet for mimosas and then we all had massages at noon! It was so great and relaxing! Then we had some lunch and went back to our rooms for quick showers before we had to get ready! I couldn't believe how fast the day had flown by. Tal came and picked me up at 3:28, even though she was supposed to be there by 3:25 and we walked to Joy's room together. Joy had already started getting ready and had ordered us a couple bottles of champagne to drink while we got ready. I think the next hour just flew by and I don't know what happened. But we were all ready and Joy looked so amazing. She was so beautiful and her dress was perfect! The golf carts picked us up and took us to where the wedding was on the beach. We hid behind part of the hotel so Chad couldn't see Joy. And then it started! The wedding was so beautiful, the day was so perfect and they both looked so happy. Chad didn't stop smiling the biggest smile I have ever seen someone have! After the ceremony, all the guests met for a quick champagne toast and then they started in on pictures. Pat gave an amazing toast and then I started giving mine and think I said about three words and then just said I love you guys!! I know, I am the best at toasts! I am so happy for both of them and we are just so happy that we could be a part of this most wonderful day in their lives.

Then it was reception time! We had a great sit down meal and then it was dancing time! Mat and I really had on our game faces. This was why we had practiced for months on our routines. Kidding, but we had so much fun dancing and just being silly. Everyone headed to La Mascara after the reception, but Mat and I decided to go get some food at the late night buffet. Then it was a night for us.

Saturday morning we all went snorkeling. This great little boat took us about ten minutes down the coast and then we all got out and looked at fish for about an hour. At first there weren't any fish and we thought, geez this is dumb, but then we swam further in to the reef and there were tons of fish! All kinds of great colors and it is just so amazing to be so close to them. I made Mat swim right next to me so that he could protect me from sharks. Although we didn't see any, you can never be too careful! That night we all took it easy. Mat and I had reservations at the Mexican restaurant and had fun eating some yummy tacos.

Sunday was our last official day. Mat and I decided to take the ferry over to Cozumel. It was raining most of the day, but we did eat the best meal of our whole trip in Cozumel. We found this little Mexican place and we had the best salsa, queso, enchiladas and tostadas! Then we headed back to our hotel. The last remaining guests all went to the Italian restaurant for dinner again and it was great. We all talked for a little bit and then it was time to call it a night.

Monday was our travel day and when Mat and I had to say goodbye to Joy and Chad. Yuck. I hate saying goodbye and leaving from a wonderful vacation. We got home about midnight and were so glad to see our sweet kitties and sleep in our own bed. Then it was back to work for both of us and we have been busy ever since!

Mat passed his CDL driver's test, so now he is officially a truck driver. Last weekend we had a great meal with my parents to catch them up on our trip and the wedding and it was so fun. I don't know what tonight holds for us, but I know it won't compare to our wonderful week in paradise!

That's all for now. Enjoy the pictures and I hope to see some from other fellow travelers as well. I can't wait to see the official wedding photographs. I know they are going to be awesome.

Pictures!

Hello! So I have started working on organizing all my pictures on my computer. This is a huge task. BUT I did take pictures of our house, so you can see them here: http://picasaweb.google.com/mat.kristin/OurHouse9907. I thought that would be easiest instead of trying to put all of them in my blog.


So things have been busy around these parts. We had some great weekends and Mat and I have been enjoying our new house so much. We did some yard work and that was a lot more work than I thought it would be! We went to the zoo over Labor Day weekend to see the Butterfly exhibit. We went a couple years ago and it is quite fun. They have them all flying around and you can walk around and see tons of them. We got some fun pictures, so I thought I would put them here.


We didn't really take any pictures of the animals as we were walking around. I feel bad for them sometimes, having to live in cages. But they are all so cute and it is so amazing to see them so close. I think I like looking at all the big cats the most.


This weekend we went to Art in the Park. We have always talked about going, but never actually have. It is basically a ton of artists, mostly local or regional, that come and set up booths to display their art. You can buy any of it, of course! I was surprised at how expensive it was. Most of the artists were pretty well established, so they can charge a lot more for it. We were hoping that there would be some young artists and we could get some art for our house fairly cheap! No such luck. We had a good time though and listened to some music with Mat's boss and his girlfriend for a little bit.


I should have a really busy week at work this week. We leave a week from today for our biggest conference of the year. So this week is kind of a last minute scramble to get everything finished.


If you noticed in the pictures of our house our big cat, Ben, was outside. We decided he can go out, but only on his leash with a harness! So he gets to outside sometimes, but is still getting used to the harness and leash. Sometimes, he is totally fine with it and walks normal. Other times, he acts like he can't use his back legs at all and just falls over. But he is getting used to it and likes going outside.


Today I made some muffins from one of my South Beach Diet cookbooks. They are quite delicious. Which is good because I didn't plan on having anything else for breakfast!


So here is my creepy story from the weekend. We were taking care of my parents cat and went out to feed him on Friday night. As I was walking to the door, this comes scrambling out of the garage, ready to kill me.
For those of you who don't know Mat that well, he loves, loves, loves anything alive. Bugs and lizards and snakes and frogs and cute animals too. He catches things all the time and then lets them go. Of course, he wasn't scared of the spider and got down real close to get a good picture. I was in the car with the windows up! He caught it in a cup and took it out to the field to let it go. We went home and were sitting on our couch and then I was like what is that! There was a similar looking spider behind our entertainment center. I thought maybe it chased us home, but Mat said it was a male. The one at my parents was a female. Anyway, we looked it up and that was how he knew the difference. But both of them were hobo spiders! EEK! These are poisonous spiders from around the Northwest. So then I started packing our things to move. Kidding. But eek, I don't want creepy crawlies in my house that can poison me! He tried to get pictures of the one we found in our house, but they didn't turn out. Here is the best one though.



These things were seriously creepy.

It is about time for dinner and I am going to try to get some more picture organizing done. Hope everyone had a great weekend.

Not much new for us the last few days. We had a nice weekend of watching some movies and more unpacking/arranging of the house. We finally got an organizer for our linen closet, so we could put away all our bathroom stuff! It was just this huge closet with nothing in it, so we needed something to make shelves in it and make it a little more organized. So that's done.

Mat is going to start studying to get his CDL license for work. His job search is going very slowly, so he decided to take on his own route at work. He should get a little bit of a raise and will get to drive the big trucks!! His boss has been wanting him to have his own route and he decided to this week. I know it isn't exactly what he wants to do, but I know he'll do great at it, just like he does everything he puts his mind to.

So that's it for now! Hope everyone is having a great week.

Good Morning! So I know I keep promising pictures of our new house, but we still have a few straggler boxes left. We're hoping to get the house finished this weekend and then we'll get some pictures up! We still have a ton of boxes in the garage that we'll have to go through, but at least we're almost done with the house! Whoosh.

I'm ready for the weekend! I guess we're almost there, so that is good news! We don't have huge plans for the weekend that I know of. I'm going to my mom's house on Saturday while Mat is at work. We might do some wedding dress shopping, but I know we are going to their neighborhood farmer's market. I haven't been yet and I think it will be fun to see what they have.

We've been watching a lot of movies lately since there aren't too many tv shows on this summer. So here are some reviews for the last few we've watched.
Confetti - this was silly, but fun. It is about three couples who are chosen by a wedding magazine and one of them will win a house for the most creative wedding.
Bridge to Terabithia - this was not our favorite. It made me sad and I just don't really like to be sad! And we were disappointed because we thought it was going to be totally different.
Marie Antoinette - this movie lasted 8 hours. Not really, but it seemed like it! It wasn't bad (neither of us fell asleep), but I wouldn't say it was our favorite.
The Bourne Identity - we rewatched this to prepare for the third movie out in theaters now. We both like these fun action movies.
Idiocracy - I made Mat turn it off because I was so bored. He finished it the next day and didn't like it.
The Messengers - I was hoping this would be scary and it wasn't really. It reminded me of the Grudge a little and that was good in the theaters.
Blood and Chocolate - We stopped this too. Neither of us were getting into it and we would rather spend our time doing something we both want to do.
Shooter - This was a fun one. Marky Mark gets framed for an attempted Presidential Assasination.

We have two we'll probably watch this weekend - Dead Silence and The Last Kiss. I don't think Mat is too excited about either! But I think they both look fun. We'll see!

Still Unpacking...

We are still living amongst the boxes! But we are slowly, but surely getting things unpacked. We got all of our spices into our new magnetic spice jars, which are so, so, so cute. We made little labels and I think they turned out great. There is a lot to do this weekend, but I think my main goal is to get all of our files organized. This is something I have been wanting to do for a long time and now I finally have everything I need! I can't help the fact that I love office supplies and organization.

I'm ready for the weekend! I keep hoping that if I can get a lot unpacked then I can start updating our blog more often and actually putting pictures up. I can't wait to be able to do all of this fun stuff online. Our computer is great, but in our apartment the connection was worthless, so I feel like I can really use it to its maximum potential now that our connection is great!

In case I don't get to write any more for a few days - Have a great weekend!

What a Weekend!!!

Wahoo! I'm an Aunt, I'm an Aunt! She's here, she's here! Violet Josephine was born on Saturday, August 4 at 4:34 pm! She is 6 pounds, 14 ounces and was 19 1/2 inches long. She's adorable and all pink and cute! My sister did so awesome. She had her naturally and it went pretty fast. They are home now and settling in with their new little girl. I can't believe she's finally here. She is such a cutie. So tiny!

What a weekend! It was one of our best by far! It all started on Friday. Fridays are always wonderful to begin with. But this Friday was our last Friday in our apartment! Hooray for that. I did start out Friday by being annoyed. I had set up the cable company to come out on Friday and turn on our cable, but it was 4:30 and I still hadn't heard anything from them. So I called them and talked with some lady who I had set up everything with and she had written everything down wrong. It ended up not being a huge deal and they came out on Saturday, but I always have trouble with dumb cable companies so it was just annoying. So Friday night we went to bed early since Mat had to work and I wanted to get an early start on finishing all the packing.

Saturday I spent the whole day packing and waiting for the cable people to call. Mat got home and I told him to take a nap since I needed his help later. So he napped and I went and met the cable guy. He moved some of our outlets around and replaced some wires and I just kind of tinkered around the house. As I was on my way home to get Mat, I called my mom and she said that my sister was in labor! After that, Mat and I went to clean my work. Mat came and got me when I was vacuuming and said my mom had called. So I called her back and my sister already had the baby! So we super fast wrapped up the cleaning and went to the hospital. She was already out in her post labor room, so we got to go see her! It was so exciting to see her and meet her finally. We went up to her room while my sister finished getting cleaned up and then I got to hold my little niece Violet. By this time, it was 7:30 and we still had a lot of work to do before our move on Sunday. So we left and ran some errands. My parents called and wanted to get a quick dinner, so we did that and then went to our house to unload a few things they brought to us. Mat and I finished up at the house and went home to fall into bed.

The next day we were up early for our move! We got our uhaul and started as soon as Mat's family got to the house. I started doing some cleaning as they were moving so I would be out of the way. And I finished packing some things I hadn't done yet. We had everything moved by 3:30 except the food in our fridge! Our families were so helpful and I can't imagine what we would have done without them! They were all awesome. After we got the stuff moved, Mat's family (who did all the heavy lifting!) left and we went back to our apartment with my parents to clean up. That was so great too! My parents did so much throughout the day to help us and I am so happy they could be there to help us out! They left and Mat and I did the last touches of cleaning (which included him lifting me up so I could clean the fan!) And emptied out the fridge and we were done! So then we got some food and went home to sit down. We watched a couple tv shows and that was it!

Monday we got a ton unpacked, but it is still a work in progress. We'll get it done in no time though. We got so much done yesterday. Too bad we both had to go back to work today! So that's my novel! A very busy weekend for the two of us! We'll get pictures up soon. We hooked up the computer last night and it is so much faster. So look forward to many more pictures than before!

Moving Weekend!

It's finally here! We get to move this weekend! We are going to do our main move on Sunday since we are renting a uhaul for the day. But we'll be busy making sure everything is packed up and ready to go for Sunday. I can't wait to be out of our apartment for good. Only two more nights there and Sunday we'll be sleeping in our new house! Hooray!

So we're going to be busy this weekend. Mat has to work tomorrow morning and Saturdays he usually tends to work late. I'm hoping I can get everything taken care of Saturday morning so we can just be ready to move on Sunday! And then maybe we could even take the evening off to go see a movie or something. I'm taking Monday off and Mat doesn't work on Monday, so that will be nice to have the whole day and night to work on unpacking.

No baby yet! My sister is now three days overdue. I know she is ready and we are ready to meet our new niece. So keep your fingers crossed and hopefully we'll know something soon.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

New House and Wedding Plans

We love our new house! We got the keys at 7:00 pm last night and I was so, so happy! Mat and I were jumping around and we just absolutely love it. It is going to be so perfect for us. We had our families come over and meet us there so they could go on the first official tour. They loved it, of course! After they left we walked around again and then decided that we had to go to Home Depot and walk around. We finally left there at 9:30 and we hadn't even had dinner! So we ended up eating about 10 and we were both ready to fall asleep. We have all kinds of ideas of things we want to do while we live in our house, but we know we can't do it all at once. I did tell Mat that I felt like when you buy a house you should get a big chunk of money to buy new furniture or to work on the yard or whatever you want! I don't know who would do this, but maybe the banks?? Hee hee. Well, I like the idea anyway!

AND we got a wedding photographer! We went to see her last week and I loved her. Mat really liked her, but he hadn't looked through as many local websites as I had. So he wanted to look and maybe talk with a couple other photographers. Well, he spent his whole day off on Monday looking at websites and only came up with one that he wanted to talk with. But they already were booked on our date, so Cristi it is! Here is her blog that has a lot of her work from this summer: http://photosbycristidame.blogspot.com/ and her website is: http://www.cristidamephotography.com/cdpMain.html. We are really happy! She is fun and young and exactly what we were hoping for. Hooray!

So tonight we are going to do a little cleaning (although it is pretty clean already) and maybe bring a couple boxes over. We know for sure we need to get a couple things - like a shower curtain! So we'll probably try to run a couple errands too. We are having sandwiches every night this week so we can do this kind of thing. I can't wait to get some pictures on our blog, but we'll be tearing down our computer soon so it might be a few weeks.

I wish I didn't have to work for a living! I could be moving and decorating right now. :)

The Keys, Please!?!?

Yesterday was our final walkthrough of our house and today we actually get the KEYS! I can't wait, I swear I couldn't sleep last night because I was so excited. Mat seems to think it was because we watched the Number 23 (that wasn't scary at all), but I know it was because I am so excited. It looked like the girl was almost moved out, but she was planning to clean today and that is why we weren't getting the keys until today. It is still the cutest house ever and we just love it so much!

So it sounds like the reunion was pretty small and not too exciting. Chi went on Saturday night and she said there were only about 40 people there! Seriously, that is pretty crazy that out of 600+ people that few showed up. Oh well. I am sure glad that I didn't spend the money to go back and be disappointed! Maybe for my 20 year reunion??

Even though I am very excited for this evening, I guess I have to contain my excitement and get some work done today. Bye for now!

One Step Closer...

We sign all our papers this afternoon for our house! Which means that we are very close to moving. We will probably actually move next weekend, but at least the house will be ours on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. It's so close now! So we need to finish up packing this weekend and then we'll just be waiting to move.

We don't have any crazy plans this weekend. We'll probably watch some movies. Renee, one of the girls at my work, loaned me the Number 23 with Jim Carrey that we've been wanting to see. We also have a couple of movies we rented, the Holiday and Marie Antoinette. So we'll probably do some packing and watch some movies. We might go have dinner with my parents tonight or tomorrow and I know for sure we are going to a BBQ at Mat's mom's house on Sunday.

Today is my friend Chi's birthday! She will be going to our ten year reunion this weekend and I can't wait to hear all about it. I hope she has a good time and gets to reconnect with some fun people. I am a little sad that I am not going, just because there are some great people from high school that I would love to see. BUT I'm sure there are some I can live without seeing and those would probably be the people at the reunion. Maybe for our 20 year reunion? We'll see when we get there I guess!

Yesterday Mat and I saw two baby deer and a mama deer in our neighborhood. One of the little ones made this weird noise, kind of like a cry, and it was so cute. Our current neighborhood gets a lot of wildlife, so I will definitely miss that when we move to our new house. I think that is the only thing!

Have a great weekend everyone!
Kristin

Crazy Days

Not much time for a blog, but thought I would at least say hello. I hope everyone got to read Mat's first blog! It was so fun and I was surprised! I hope he'll get to add more every now and then.

We ended up having a great weekend, but not much packing was done. We have done a lot already, but it seems like we can't pack a lot of it until the last minute. I know he was working on it today since he had the day off. We saw Transformers on Friday night and that was a really fun movie. It is amazing to see the computer stuff they do with movies! I can't imagine all the time that is put into each of these movies with so many special effects.

Saturday I went out looking for wedding dresses again, but no luck. I guess we did have better luck since I found a couple I liked quite a bit and one that I really liked. But they just didn't have that perfect feeling. That night Mat and I watched some tv shows and played Friends Scene It the game. It was a ton of fun for me, since I won! Sunday we didn't do a ton, just cleaned and went to the store. We did watch Stomp the Yard, which made me want to become a stomper. Mat doesn't want to stomp like I do though. I love dance movies.

We plan to do a lot of packing and hope that this weekend we can sign all our paperwork. Then we should be able to move next week!! I can't wait.

Mat's first entry

Well here goes nothing. Kristin and I have had this blog for months, well I should say Kristin has had this blog for the two of us for months and this is my first entry. Those of you that are dedicated readers probably thought I wasn't a real person and Kristin made me. Well I'm glad to say that I am a real person and I am the luckiest man in the worlds to be able to spend the rest of my life with Kristin.
I don't know when I will make another entry so I will talk about a lot of things in this one. So here we go. Tomorrow Kristin and I are going to go to dinner and a movie with the Zubizareta's. We don't hang out with them very often so when get together it is a nice treat. For those of you who don't know the Zubizareta's here is a brief introduction. The Zubizareta's consist of my best friend Cory and his wife and a good friend Christina. I'm sure you have heard mention of them by Kristin at some point or another. Cory and I have known each other since we were both like three years old. We have been friends ever since except for a brief stint in junior high when Cory decides he didn't like me any more. I don't blame him though I could get pretty obnoxious when I was young teenager.
We were supposed to meet with a photographer tonight but that fell through. Apparently the photographer was to busy to meet with us. She rescheduled with Kristin for next Thursday. We will be barbequing tonight. I'm cooking some steaks. We are going to make steak tacos. the meat is marinating as we speak. I am really into barbecuing and I like trying to make my own recipes. I have developed a pretty good spice rub. It is very good if you like your meat spicy. For tonight however, I wanted to try my hands at a marinade. For the liquid part of the marinade I used lime juice and Worcestershire sauce. I also through in some ground red pepper, ground cumin, fresh ground black pepper, fresh minced garlic, minced cilantro, and chopped onion. We'll see how it turns out. For the meat I chose petite sirloin. I don't know if that is a good meat to use for what I want to do but I will find out in a couple of hours I guess.
I'm sure you have already heard that this past May I graduated from Boise State University. Since that time I have been still trucking along at Hayden Beverage delivering beer. I want to find a new job for multiple reasons including the fact that I think I hate my job, I would like to use my degree, and I would like to be on the same schedule that Kristin is on. There are many other reasons but I think you get the hint. I try to look in the internet after work but I find it hard to stay awake when I get home. I have to get up at four in the morning to get to work by five. I don't actually get out of bed usually until around 4:30 though. Kristin hates my snooze button. Anyway it is hard for me to stay awake when I'm in front of the computer. When I have managed to stay awake I have found very few jobs that I am qualified for. I have applied to a few but all have been fruitless. I know I just need to keep looking and yes I also know that I will never find a job if I'm always asleep. I just need to figure out how to stay awake.
Kristin and I are going to Joy and Chad's wedding this October. I can't wait. I think about it everyday. I think just getting away from everything will help me not feel so burnt out about everything. Kristin and I are going to bring Kristin's drink book. Its a book with a million different types of mixed drinks in it. It is my goal to try as many of the drinks during our trip as I can. This trip will also be good in helping Kristin and I in determining if we want to have our honeymoon at an all inclusive resort or somewhere a little lower key.
Wee have a little more than 11 months until our wedding day. Kristin and I made a lot of decisions about our wedding in the first couple of months after I purposed. Then we went on a couple of month hiatus and now we are back to it. Part of the reason for the hiatus is because of the Zubizareta’s wedding. We wanted to wait to make some of our decisions until after their wedding so that we could see how they did things. The last couple of weeks Kristin and I have gotten back to it and it is kind of nice. We have so many things to do and think about so it will be nice if we can get as much as possible done now so that we don't have to worry about it in the months leading up to the wedding.
With that I will say goodbye. I think this was a pretty good effort for my first entry even if it is a few months late.

Time is Flying

I can't believe we're already to the 19th of July! I swear just yesterday we found our house and had a whole month to pack! Now we have a couple weeks until we move. I hope we are ready for it.

Last night I went to get a pedicure with my mom and sister! It was so nice and fun, I wish we could do it once a month. :) Then we had Mexican after and it was yummy! By the time I got home, Mat had done all of our laundry and put it away. For the last time! Well, at least the last time we have to use the machines at our apartment. We think we should be able to make it until we move to do laundry again. And then we'll have our own washer and dryer! I can't wait!

I also got my hair cut yesterday and it turned out really cute! I haven't really had a haircut I like in awhile. So I might actually go back and see the same guy. Weird, since I haven't been to the same stylist in years. I just try different people every time I go!

Tonight we are going to try to meet with a photographer here in Boise. Her website looks really good and we are looking forward to meeting with her. We really want to find the photographer that is just right for us and right in our price range!

My sister has less than two weeks until her due date! She is really excited! I am so excited to become an aunt!

Hope everyone's Thursday turns out great!

Latest Happenings

What is new with us you ask? Well, we got back from Sun Valley today. We went for one night for my work, so it only cost us Mat's dinner and lunch today! It was so nice there and not as hot as it is in Boise. But we were ready to get back and keep on packing our stuff. We did get a lot of boxes packed up this past weekend, but there is a lot left for sure.

We had a great trip last weekend to Salt Lake City and Las Vegas. Well, overall it was great. We headed down to SLC on Saturday after Mat was off work and pulled into Sarah and Matt's driveway just in time for a lovely BBQ and birthday party for their son Sean. He was two and obviously enjoying being in the spotlight. I wonder where he got that from?? It was so great to see them and catch up. We also got to meet their new little girl, Madison. The next day Mat headed out to play some frisbee golf with his cousin and I passed up the heat to hang out with Sarah, Madison and Sean.

We saw in the paper that there were some crazy fires across I-15, which was the best way to get to Las Vegas. But we called and they said the road was all clear. HA! It wasn't and we took a 4 hour detour, so our 5 hour trip to Vegas took nine hours! But we did get to go through Zion National Park and that was something we wouldn't have stopped off to do otherwise. We finally got into Vegas around 11 p.m. Luckily, Penny and Tony's plane had not arrived, so we just unpacked and then finally met up with them when their plane arrived. What fun to see Penny after a couple years! Mat was so excited to meet my old college roomie for the first time and I was so glad they got to meet him.

Monday was the wedding! Mat and I first tried to do a very quick tour of Vegas before Penny got ready for her wedding. I had a great time seeing her get all ready for her big day! We all ended up at the Viva Las Vegas wedding chapel, which was so cute! They had all kinds of weddings you could do, but they chose the outside gazebo, which was so pretty and had all kinds of pretty lights draped around it. I tried to take pictures, but a lot of them turned out not so great. I'm not the star photographer I would like to be! That night we spent hanging out with P&T and their families. Before we knew it, it was so late and we called it a night. The next day was an all day driving event for us, but we got back to Boise in about 11 hours. Next time, we'll just fly!

So that's what we have been up to lately. I think this weekend will probably we just us packing and trying to prepare for our new house! We still don't know if we close on the 31st or 1st of August. I am just so ready to get there.

Have a good night!

Is this a cute cat or what?

Our New House!

As promised, some pictures of our new house! Of course, this isn't our furniture or anything, but you get the idea. We'll put up more after we get moved in.

We love it!!!!!!!!!!!

Who Knew?

Mat and I found a house!! We already put in an offer and they accepted! So now all we have left to do is the inspection tonight and hopefully all will go well with it. We really can't believe that it has happened this fast. We are so excited and totally fell in love with our little house the minute we walked up the sidewalk. This is so exciting for us to be buying our first house together! We will probably close at the beginning of August. We have our work cut out for us for sure this month.

I'll try to get some pictures up as soon as I can. Maybe tomorrow since we have the day off for the 4th of July.

It was pretty surprising that we found something we both loved so soon! We went on Sunday with our realtor to look at houses. We had given her a list of 15 houses we wanted to see, thinking that was way too many, but she had called them all and we actually went to see all of them! The 6th house we pulled up to was our house! The street is lined with all sorts of great trees and all of the houses are in great condition. We walk up the sidewalk and I already love it! Mat was holding my hand and looked at me and squeezed it, which I think meant he loved it too! We walked in and kind of wandered around and just loved everything! It's a cute little two bedroom, one bathroom house with a great backyard! We are planning on lots of barbeques out there! So we ended up leaving and then looked at the rest of the houses, which of course were nothing compared to our little house. So we went back to look at it again and decided that we just had to have it!

We got the call yesterday that we did get the house and all they wanted to change on our offer was the closing date! Hurrah for us! So now that's where we are. Mat and I are already starting to make floorplans in our heads and decide what will look best in what place. This is just so fun and I can't believe it still!

Besides that, I did go trying on wedding dresses with my mom. It was a lot of fun, but I didn't find anything this time around. I think I have it narrowed down a lot more to what I want, so we'll hopefully have better luck next time around! No other wedding plans made yet. It's now less than a year away! ARGH! I can't wait though. It's going to be so wonderful.

Hope everyone has a wonderful and safe 4th of July!

One Year from Today...

Mat and I will be getting married! Now it seems like it isn't so far away. Tomorrow, I can say "in less than a year" we'll be getting married! Panic time! Just kidding. We have lots of time, so I am not too worried yet.

I have plans to go shopping on Wednesday with my mom for my wedding dress! I am really looking forward to that and really hope we find something or at least get some ideas. I don't really know what I want yet, so maybe that will be good when I start looking.

Tonight Mat and I are meeting with a mortgage lender to see what we can qualify for as far as a loan goes. I am really excited to be moving forward with looking for a house. We both are really ready to have our own home and get out of the apartment living. So this is our first step and then we might be able to spend some time looking online for houses this weekend. We aren't working on Monday in hopes that we could actually go see some houses. But it is kind of last minute, so we may not be able to. But we can at least do some driving around to see some of the houses that we find online.

Saturday is my sister's baby shower! I think we are pretty much ready to go. There are a couple last minute items we need, but other than that all systems are go.

That's about it for now. I'm so excited for both the wedding and looking for a house. If only Mat and I didn't have to work anymore. Wouldn't that be great?

Oh Where, oh where have we been?

I'm back in action with the blog! It's been awhile since I wrote, I got caught up in loads of conference work and then I got to go to the conferences. So I am now back, and settled in a little.

Not much has been going on with us. Mat is still in the process of looking for a job, but he still is working so there isn't a rush. Just mainly a rush for him because he is ready to get out of his current job! We are getting anxious to start the wedding planning! We have 9 days until we get into the "less than a year away".

Mat was in his best friend Cory's wedding this past weekend and it was great for us to get to see how it all played out. It was a great wedding and the place they held it was beautiful. I can't wait to see how all the pictures turn out. And man, did they take a lot of pictures! It was really fun for me, since I got to tag along with Christina and the bridal party. I tried to do my best to help out with anything they needed, since I know it can be a stressful day. But I got to see them take all the pictures and just how the whole day happened. Christina looked beautiful and her dress was so pretty! Mat, of course, looked so handsome in his tux. We both just can't wait until our wedding! So now we are going to start our search for caterers, photographers, cake, etc. There is a lot to do, but we have a lot of time to do it in.

Next weekend is my sister's baby shower! This is going to be so much fun and I am really looking forward to it.

That's about it for now. Hopefully, I can get back into more regular posts now that work has slowed down a little. We'll just wait and see though!

Ah, Skunks

This morning, I woke to the lovely smell of a skunk. Not the most fun smell I have ever smelled. The nice thing about Idaho is you rarely see or smell a skunk. Not like in Oklahoma where they seemed to be everywhere! So then I just sat there and couldn't really get back to sleep. It made me think of a funny story that I have told many times and I still enjoy.

One day I came home from work late and my roomie, Joy, was out of town or something because she wasn't home. So I walked in and our house smelled so bad of skunk that I could barely breathe. Well, the longer I sat there and breathed this smell in, I think it made me crazy or something because I thought for sure that it wasn't actually a skunk anymore, but some sort of chemicals that were slowly poisoning me. We had three cats and four stray cats that lived below us (no we weren't crazy cat ladies) and I was totally worried about all of us breathing in these fumes, which I had convinced myself were dangerous. So at about 1:00 am, I decided to call the fire department and ask them what I should do. So the guy took my phone number and address and said he would call me back. The next thing I knew, there was a fire truck in front of my house! So they got under the crawl space and of course, they smelled skunk and nothing else. A skunk probably got into with one of the stray cats and it just was all under our house. So I felt really silly and I swear my pillow smelled like a skunk for at least 2 months.

In other news, Mat and I went on a fun daytrip this past weekend to see some waterfalls around Idaho. I got this cool book on Northwest waterfalls after Joy and I went to see waterfalls around the Portland area. So we finally put the book to good use. I took some good pictures and I really will put them on here someday. I will also put other pictures up someday, but I don't know when!

Next week I have two big conferences that has been taking up all my work time the last few weeks. Once I get back, I should be a little less crazed and can get some other work related things finished that have been sitting in my "to do" pile for awhile.

Mat is still looking for a new job, but he did get a raise at his current job and was put on salary. This is nice for us to know exactly what his income is coming in every week. So if anyone has any great job ideas in Boise, please let us know!

One of my great, great friends, Sarah, is having her baby on Monday! This is her second child and first little girl! I can't wait to meet her and hopefully I can sometime in July. My little niece is growing and is doing great, I can't wait to meet her either. My sister is due on July 31st, so who knows when she'll decide to show? My mom, my sister's friend Leslie and me have been working on getting everything together for her shower in June. I am really looking forward to being an Aunt!

Hope everyone is having a great week!

Just Checking In

Not much happening in our world lately. Last night we did attend a great concert - Brandi Carlile. I posted her link if you want to listen to some samples of her latest album. Mat and I are now officially fans! We had heard a couple songs on the radio and we liked them, so we thought we'll just check it out and see what we think. She has an amazing voice and was fun to watch.

Tonight we are going to be using Mat's new grill for the first time! We are going to grill up some steaks and some bacon wrapped jalapenos with cream cheese. YUM! So it should be lots of fun to try it out.

One more day until the long weekend! We are going to try to take a day trip, but still haven't figured out where.

Monday, Monday, Monday

Monday comes too soon! I swear I just left work and then my weekend zooms by. The weekend was a good one. I missed Mat since he was camping, but had a ton of fun with my parents and my sister.

This week we don't really have a lot of plans. I do have an appointment to get my makeup done Thursday morning, which should be fun! I had originally ordered makeup from my dermatologist and then after waiting a month, they told me that they decided to switch to a different kind of makeup. Grr... So I switched to a different dermatologist and am going to have a consult with one of the people there. It seems like it will be fun! It is supposed to be really good makeup and this was my birthday present from my parents. I am looking forward to that.

Mat and I are going to try to take a little day trip this weekend. We haven't really had much time to do this over the last year, so we thought it would be fun for this weekend. We'll probably shoot for Sunday, since he has to work on Saturday. Now we just have to find something to do! We have this great book of waterfalls for the Northwest, so we were thinking about going to find one of those. We also have a great discovering Idaho book, so we'll do some research this week to see what sounds like fun.

It is cold and rainy here today. I thought we were over this cold thing for a few months, but no such luck. It looks like it should be nice this weekend and later this week. We're ready to use Mat's new grill! Well, we have to season it first and then we'll really be ready. We got some steaks and chicken to make this week.

That's about it for now. More later if I can think of it!

Friday!

It's here, it's here! Friday, hurrah! Of course it is about that time on Friday afternoon where I lose all ability to actually do any work and I wander around trying to pass the time.

Mat is off to his bachelor party/camping trip with Cory. He's really been looking forward to it, so I hope they have a great time. I am going to start my weekend off with dinner with my parents and then home for a nice, relaxing evening. I'll probably catch up on some tv shows, maybe read a little, who knows what else? Then tomorrow I am going to make baby shower invitations! I'm going to my mom's to make those with her and that should be fun. We already know what we are going to do, we just have to get all the supplies. Tomorrow night I'll be hanging out with my sister and catching up on the latest in our lives. Then Mat will be home on Sunday. It feels so weird for him to leave, since I am always the one traveling and leaving him! I miss him already and it has only been 12 hours since I saw him last!

That's about it for now. Have a great weekend!

Happy Graduation to Mat...

Today Mat officially turned in his last assignment and he is finished with school! Graduation is on Saturday morning and then he will be really, really finished! WAHOO! Go Mat!

That's all for now...it has been a busy week again! Have a great weekend.

Ole!

It is official! Joy has picked a wedding date - October 5, 2007! Which means that Mat and I are headed to Mexico for the week of October 1-8! We booked our tickets last night to Cancun and then we travel about 45-50 minutes to get to the resort in the Maya Riviera. Or is it Riviera Maya? I think that is the area and the town is actually Playa del Carmen. You can see the resort where she will be getting married and where we'll be staying here: Iberostar Tucan. It looks so wonderful and I know it is going to be such a great week.

Luckily, we got our air tickets all worked out, but I was soooo dumb and booked them under Mat instead of Mathew. I thought they weren't going to let me change it this morning and the girl at Frontier Airlines actually asked me why I would do that. Geez, I made a mistake. But so the next step is to finalize our hotel with the travel agent and get me a passport. Then we should be all set.

Whenever I am really busy at work, I can think of a hundred things to do or that I would rather be doing. But when I have a break during my work day, my mind goes completely blank! I really don't know where to start. Maybe that is my problem. I think there are so many things I want to look at or research (wedding stuff, honeymoon, etc.) and I just don't where to begin!

Tonight Mat and I are going to see one of his favorite bands, Floater, in concert. I went with him last year to see the band and they were pretty good live, but then I tried to listen to the CDs and it just wasn't really the same. So I think it will be a good time and Mat said he thought it was supposed to be an acoustic set, or he thought it might be anyway. I'll give a full review next time I update.

And I keep on blogging...

So a little time has passed since my last entry. Things get hectic sometime and the last thing I want to do is get on the computer when I have been on it all day! But I will bring you up to speed on the last week or so.

I went to a board meeting in Worley, Idaho. Now that was exciting. The Coeur d'Alene Casino Resort is there and we actually had a really nice stay. I did gamble a little, but stopped when I won $5 more than the $15 or so I spent. I figure if I came home with more money than I left, I am a true winner!

My mom is doing great and I got to spend the whole day with her on Saturday. We made all kinds of shower invitations for my sister's baby shower and we'll show them to her tomorrow so she can choose which she likes best. I think they turned out pretty cute and I am looking forward to seeing the final products. We made some other cards too, and it is just so much fun. Crafting is so addictive!

Last night Mat and I made some new recipes. First, we made Miso Chicken and a corn and edamame salad. The corn salad called for grilled corn, but it isn't in season, so we just used frozen corn that we steamed. Then later we made chocolate souffle! The chicken recipe we decided wasn't good enough to stay in our rotation, but we both really liked the salad and the souffle. Here are the official links if you want to try them out:
Individual Chocolate Souffle Cakes
Roasted Corn and Edamame Salad

No news on the wedding front. I have been diligently studying to find ideas for the wedding, but we haven't actually done any more than reserve the spot. Mat has 8 days left of school and then I think we can have a little more free time to go try out caterers and look at photographers and all that fun stuff.

Work is keeping me very busy at the moment. I have two fairly good sized conferences the first week of June and then I might have a week or so to catch my breath before starting on our Annual Conference in September. There really isn't much of a break for me work wise, but at least i keep really busy!

We're bbqing tonight and I am really looking forward to that. It is supposed to get chilly the next few days, but right now is 80! That is some crazy Idaho weather for you. Better wrap up my work before I head home. Bye for now!

Busy Like a Bee

It has been way too long since my last post! I am sure everyone wonders what I have been doing that has kept me so busy. Well, first I would have to say work. I have been working like crazy this week and I still have a lot left to do on my list. We have a Board Meeting next week where I’ll be out of the office from Tuesday to Friday night. Which, unfortunately, is happening right when my mom is having surgery. But my Dad and my sister will be here to take care of her and then I’ll get to see her on Saturday when I get back. Work can be a real pain in the rear if you ask me.

Last weekend, my mom and I spent many hours working on Mat’s announcements for graduation. I think they turned out really good and I was proud of how they turned out. We have had a couple people call and thought they turned out really good! I’m sure some of the people haven’t actually received them yet. We are both really looking forward to his graduation. Only 3 weeks from tomorrow and he will be finished! I can’t actually believe it. I’m so happy and so proud of how awesome he has done in school, not to mention that he did it while he was working a ton and still did so great!

This weekend, our friend Marcus will be here, so Mat and I are really looking forward to seeing him. We are going out tonight to hang out and paint the town red. I don’t know what we have in store for the rest of the weekend, but I am hoping it has to do with relaxing! Maybe some movie watching, who really knows?

That’s about all I know for now. This week just blew by!

Hooray for Breaks!

I decided to "take five" and update my blog. Sometimes I just need to get away from my work so I can get refocused. Sometimes my work is just boring and I want a distraction!

I think we decided on a design for Mat's announcements! They are simple, but I think they will turn out nice and for a lot less than if we bought them. We did a test run last night and decided on the layout and font and all that stuff. Mat helped me do everything. I think making announcements is more fun than writing his paper.

Tonight my mom and I are going to get everything we need to complete the announcements. I will try to refrain from buying anything else. But I can't make any promises! All of these cards are so cute and all I want to do is just sit at home making cards. And look at cards other people have made.

Back to work time!

My Ring!

I finally went to get a picture of my wedding ring since the ones we took turned out bad. So here is the engagement ring and wedding bands all together. There are two separate bands that I'll get on our wedding day! I'll try to take some pictures of it again and maybe everyone can see it on my finger!

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting

Mat is at the doctor right now, waiting to find out about his finger. Just a quick recap - he cut his finger a couple weeks ago while he was at work and had to get stitches. Then a couple days before the stitches were to come out, he moved his finger the wrong way and it got all swollen and he couldn't straighten his finger out! So he went to get out the stitches and the dr. thought that he had ripped a tendon, but he needed to see a hand specialist to see if he needed surgery! So I am waiting to hear how it went today.

******Update*******
Mat got x-rays and they told him for sure that his tendon was ripped or cut. BUT the guy he went to see wasn't a hand surgeon like they said he was going to be. So now he has to make an appointment with a hand surgeon to see if they are going to do surgery or if he is going to wear a splint on it for several weeks. So we didn't really find out much of anything except that it is for sure cut.

I got the base paper last night for Mat's announcements for graduation. Now I just need to find the rest of the paper! I really hope these turn out looking okay. I will feel better once I can start working on putting them together. Bye for now!

Easter Weekend Wrap-up

What a good weekend! The weather was great for the most part and I just always love a good weekend. Friday night was a good night for Mexican food with my sister and a marathon of America's Next Top Model. Man, that is one good show! It was fun to hang out with my sister, as it always is!

Saturday, Mat and I took our time getting up and getting ready. I decided to run to a scrapbook store and check out their goods for some invitation ideas. Then I came back home to get Mat and we went to his sister's house to see his nieces, his sister and his mom and Nick. It was so fun to see them! We played hide-and-seek and they grilled some hot dogs, brats and hamburgers. Mat and I didn't eat (maybe just a few chips and dip!) because we were headed over to my parents house for dinner. My mom cooked up some delicious bruschetta and these yummy cracker things for appetizers, lasagna, green beans and garlic bread for dinner and cheesecake for dessert! Yum and we were full! Then we played Seafarers of Catan and that lasted late into the night.

Sunday I went back out to my parents to collect our last load of laundry that wasn't finished drying when we left and just hung out there for awhile. I had dropped Mat off at the library so he had no escape from homework! Then went to the grocery store and back to get Mat and head home. We decided to watch Snakes on a Plane, which was one silly movie. It was kind of funny, but mostly a little ridiculous. But that is okay, we knew that when we rented it!

So there you have it! A lovely weekend and now it is a little chilly and I think it is supposed to be like this all week. Come back 70 degrees, come back!

So yesterday's part day off was a success! Or a ton of fun anyway. We started off getting bagel sandwiches for lunch, which are always delicious. Then we headed out to look at makeup and I found some that I liked, but we had to order it so I didn't actually get any yesterday. I am excited for it to come! I really think I am going to like it so much.

Then we went craft crazy! Well, I guess not really crazy, but we went to a ton of different craft stores just wandering through the aisles looking for great ideas to make. I think I could look at crafts all day. I think I am going to make Mat's graduation announcements since the official BSU ones from Jostens are almost $2 a piece! I need to get some ideas and I found some when we were looking yesterday. There is so much to take in at those places, it is almost overwhelming. So that was our fun day!

I came home and Mat and I went on a nice little hike through the foothills. It was a really hard one and we even had to stop for a minute to catch our breath. But we have just really been enjoying our walks. The weather is so great and it is so nice to get to talk for a good hour without any other distractions. Then we came home and heated up some leftovers for dinner. Tonight we'll have this chinese pork BBQ that has been in the slow cooker all day. I sure hope it is good because I am already hungry for dinner.

AH! I almost forgot! My parents got our reception and wedding site booked today! So we are officially getting married on June 21, 2008. I can't believe it seems like so far away, but I am sure this year will fly by. Now we can concentrate on all the details.

Tomorrow is Friday! Hooray for that. My sister and I are hanging out tomorrow and I can't wait! It has been several weeks since we have sat down and talked and since I have even seen her! I am excited to hear news about my niece and how her room is coming along. They registered last weekend, so I am hoping to hear about the things they registered for too! So much to talk about.

Tonight I am looking forward to a nice, quiet evening with Mat. We are going to catch up on some shows, eat our Pork stuff and maybe even enjoy a couple beers. We are crazy like that!

Half Day of Vacation!

Whoop, whoop! I am so excited for my half day of vacation to begin. In about 20 minutes, I am headed out of work for the rest of the day! My mom and I are going to lunch, to get our makeup done and to do some craft shopping. I can't wait!

I don't know that we'll do any wedding shopping today. But who knows, we might run into a store if we happen to see one. We are definitely going to do wedding dress shopping a little later. I was thinking when it got a little warmer outside.

Last night Mat and I watched Open Season, an animated movie by Sony Pictures. It was okay, but it didn't compare to Shrek and some of the other really good animated movies. I made a new recipe of chicken, which was kind of boring. And I made green beans in the oven and they turned out really good. I mixed a tiny bit of olive oil with some teriyaki sauce, garlic powder and cayenne pepper and threw them in a pan at 400 for 30 minutes. I thought they were really good and liked the teriyaki flavor. Mat did too, but he said they were salty, so maybe we would need to get low sodium teriyaki sauce next time. We have the low sodium soy sauce, but not teriyaki. I was going to make a slow cooker recipe this morning, but decided that leftovers would be easier and I can make the slow cooker recipe tomorrow.

My parents ordered a few magazine subscriptions for me to different bride magazines and I am so excited! I am really looking forward to getting them in the mail and seeing what ideas come from them. I already have a few good ideas from the magazines I got right when we got engaged. We're really excited to start planning everything. I hope we can do a lot of it this summer.

Well, I guess I better go since my mom should be here any minute!

Look at me!

I thought I would try a quiz and then post the results here. I like to copy Deana! I hope this works.

You Are Japanese Food

Strange yet delicious. Contrary to popular belief, you're not always eaten raw.

What Kind of Food Are You?

What a great weekend! I do love every weekend, but this one was really nice. It started off when I got off work early on Friday. I headed home and Mat and I took a nice little walk around our neighborhood. Then we decided to pick up a pizza for dinner and stopped for some movies, that we didn't even watch! We caught up on our favorite tv shows for the week and then ended with a couple episodes of Friends.

Saturday morning Mat's boss called and said he didn't have to work! So we went back to sleep, but did wake up pretty early to get our day started. We went to get a paper and looked up some different open houses that we wanted to go to that afternoon and that is just what we did! It was pretty fun, but we didn't find any keepers. It is just fun to get out there and look. Then we went to my parents house for dinner. Hamburgers, oven fried potatoes and asian coleslaw! We also had some leftover dip that Mat's mom made and was delicious, as well as some dessert that I made. We played my new board game I got for my birthday and it was a lot of fun! It took us awhile to get through all the directions, but it was fun once we got the hang of it. Then we played Taboo for a few rounds before Mat and I headed home. I love board games. :)

Mat had homework on Sunday, so I went to the grocery store and did some cooking. I made some breakfast burritos for us to eat for breakfast all week long. We had some today and they were pretty darn good. Tonight I am trying a new recipe - I can't remember the name, but it is chicken. I'll include the recipe if it is any good. We watched Man of the Year last night. It was okay, but not what we had expected. We kept thinking it was a comedy and it was really more of a drama. Not too bad, but not exactly what we had been hoping for.

I think we'll go on a walk tonight and that is all we have planned for now. Mat has some kind of homework that is due tonight, so he might have to work on that all night. Yuck for him.

Sheesh!

So here I am working studiously and my boss decides that I should leave early - 2:30! Wouldn't it be great if he offered that on a day when I wasn't so busy? I decided to keep working and basically wrap up everything I was doing so I can still leave early, but I feel like I accomplished something.

This has been a long week! Traveling for work is not my favorite thing. I was so glad to get home on Wednesday night! The kitties missed me, but not as much as Mat did!

Nothing too exciting has happened this week, but I just wanted to check in. I am ready for the weekend. Tomorrow night we are going to grill some burgers with my parents. I guess I should say that my dad is going to grill us some burgers tomorrow night! That sounds really good and it is supposed to be so nice tomorrow. Tonight we'll probably lay low at home. Mat has to work tomorrow morning, so we'll probably just watch a movie or something like that at home.

I'm out of here for now. Have a great weekend!

This Ain't No Disco

Whoosh. I am tired. Today was a fun filled day of work! I left my house at 7:20 this morning in order to get to the airport to travel to Coeur d'Alene. The plane was one of those little four seats across and you are basically sitting on the person's lap next to you. And the plane sounds like it could possibly just die any minute. But, it was only an hour ride and beat having to drive 8 hours by myself!

After I arrived in the Spokane airport, I had to pick up my rental car. It was so funny because it was very bright yellow and not very big. I feel like a spoiled 16 year old! So I went to the Coeur d'Alene Resort, which was lovely as always, and had lunch with one of the sales ladies there. We had a great meal and just chatted about future events. Then I went over to my next stop at the Coeur d'Alene Inn and met with a sales person there. I went on a tour and got to talk about some of our upcoming meetings. I was finished there way sooner than I had planned, so I went and checked into my hotel. Luckily, my room was ready! I got changed and went to their gym and then got back into work clothes for my last appointment. This was one was about 30 minutes away.

So I get there and stood in line to tell the front desk I was there. The guy who helped me didn't know what was going on, but another lady said that "they've been trying to call you all day!" I don't know who "they" is, but they didnt call my cell phone like you would think since I wasn't in the office. So I ended up saying, "so I guess I should just leave" and the staff was basically like, I don't know what else you want us to do. It was really annoying. I guess the girl I was supposed to meet with had a family emergency and she had asked someone to call me and gave her the office number. So this girl calls my office and tells me this on my voicemail. Instead of asking if I had a cell phone or a hotel in town or anything. I just couldn't believe how the front desk acted so rude. So now I may have to meet with this girl tomorrow, which is fine, but I just kind of feel like telling her I don't have any available time. But I know it probably isn't her fault. And I have extra time tomorrow. I was just going to look at a local bridal shop and then head to my hotel for the night after my morning's appointments. I guess I'll just see what happens tomorrow.

Weekend - hmm...we had a great time! First, Friday we walked downtown and met Laura and Tom and Devlyn. We had dinner and a couple drinks and then Mat and I headed home since he had to work early. Saturday, I got all the ingredients for a BBQ and did some cooking and cleaning while Mat was at work. That night his mom and Nick came over and we made hot dogs, pasta salad and some yummy dessert. His mom brought this delicious garlic dip and we ate that while waiting for the grill to be ready. After his parents left, we went over to a friends house for a game night and had such a great time! Mat and I only knew one person, but it ended up being fun and we met some great people. Sunday was a lazy day. We did shopping and cleaning, but then we drove around and looked at houses. We aren't ready to seriously look, but we thought it might be fun to go in some open houses. We went in this one house that I loved! But I figure if it is meant to be, then we will get it when we are ready. Then we watched the Departed and went to bed. I think that about covers it.

I am tired of typing on this laptop. Goodnight!

TGIF

I am so excited for the weekend! I think it should be pretty nice this weekend, but it looks as though next week is going to be rainy and cold. Yuck. I keep hoping that we are done with all that Winter weather and then it strikes again.

Tonight Mat and I are going to meet up with my co-worker and her man at a pizza place downtown. So we're looking forward to that. It seems like we haven't really gone out much in a long time! It is really nice outside, so I think we'll walk from our apartment to downtown and then home again later.

As for the rest of the weekend, we don't have any plans yet. Except for tomorrow evening, Mat's mom and Nick are coming over for dinner. I think we are going to BBQ some hot dogs and make some pasta salad for dinner. Then Mat and I found a recipe for dessert that we are going to try out and see what everyone thinks. Mat was supposed to work tomorrow, but we don't know if he is going to. He probably found out this morning at work and I forgot to ask.

I leave Monday morning for North Idaho. I am going on "business" to check out a few different hotels and meet with some of the sales people and take some tours. The best part is that I get to have dinner and drinks with my friend from college, Erin, who is attending the University of Idaho in Moscow! So that should be fun. I got to see her last year and we had a great time catching up. So I need to get all packed up on Sunday so I can leave first thing Monday morning. I'll be back late Wednesday evening. I am taking the company laptop, so hopefully I should be able to keep up with emails and my blog.

Have a great weekend!

Hello Wednesday

The week is officially half over! I like the sound of that. I was thinking this morning about what I am going to do this weekend. I am going back to the library for sure. I didn't get much further than that.

I walked again at lunch! We are really getting serious about this walking business. It was cold today, but we still made it. Mat and I walked last night again too! I'm just a walking fool.

I was going to start on knitting my kitty bed last night, but then I realized that I am not really that experienced of a knitter. I had to start looking through one of my knitting books to get the terminology down, but then we started watching Little Miss Sunshine and I got sidetracked. Plus it was cold and so I had to cuddle with Mat under a blanket. We thought Little Miss Sunshine was a cute movie and pretty fun. I really want to learn how to do more with knitting, but it is hard to get motivated sometimes. I guess I'll just keep learning little by little.

Hmm, that's it for now!

Tuesdays are Neat

It's Tuesday and that is just a fact. Last night Mat and I went on a walk around the neighborhood. That was two walks in one day for me! I think we might go walking again today after work. It is so nice that it stays light later. It is a little chilly today, but we'll just throw on a jacket before we head out. I decided to quit my gym today to save us a little money. I can always rejoin if I want, so I figured I can just make do with walking and exercising at home. It made me think of a Friends episode when Chandler (I think) wanted to quit the gym. Everytime he would try to quit, some hot girl would convince him not to quit. So Ross went to help him quit and ended up joining the gym! I think that is right. I haven't seen that episode for awhile, so maybe I am wrong. We got some movies for tonight and the rest of the week. I'll give reviews as we go through them. It seems like all of our favorite shows are taking breaks right now. Except for Lost, Survivor and Amazing Race.

No wedding news to speak of today. We need to select our date so we can reserve the barn. Maybe we'll decide tonight on our walk! I think we'll get really serious about the planning this summer when we both have some more time available to go try caterers and stuff. Better get back to my database updating. Just wanted to check in.

I'm Cleaning My Financial House!

The Financial Forum I attended this weekend was funny, but also informative. They kept saying things about my "Financial House" and how the pipes were leaky or there were cobwebs in the attic. I think they were just trying to associate it with a house and typical household problems, but it was a little silly. I did learn some interesting things about organizing financial paperwork and budgets. I was proud of myself because I did know about many of the things we learned already! They had bumper stickers that said "A Man is Not a Financial Plan". I thought that was kind of funny too, but there are so many women that don't have any idea what goes on in their finances, so it really is an important and educational conference. Many of the women there were in their 50s and 60s, many had gone through a divorce or had been widowed recently, so it was a great learning experience for them. I was glad I went and attended the entire day!

Back to Friday! I got busy on Friday and never even wrote a happy Friday blog. Work was work, but 5:30 came and it was the weekend! I went home and changed into some walking gear. Mat and I walked to my work to do our weekly cleaning of the office. Then we walked to Hyde Park and got burritos to take home and have for dinner. By the time we got home, my feet were tired! We ate our dinner, watched Lost and The Amazing Race, then started Xmen3 and both fell asleep about an hour into it. So we went to bed early and laughed at how dorky we were. We did both get up at 7:00, so it was probably good that we went to bed early. Then I spent all of Friday in my financial conference and he spent the entire day in his workshop on Archaeology of Idaho. We did have lunch together at Quizno's. Those are some good sandwiches. That night my sister and I went to eat downtown and then went back to my apartment for a marathon of America's Next Top Model. That is one good show. Mat went to see 300 with one of his friends and then they had a green beer.

Sunday I slept in a little and Mat went to his workshop, day two. Then I made my grocery list and my mom came to pick me up to do our grocery shopping. We went to a ton of places! We had some lunch, went to Petco, Fred Meyer, Costco and Walmart! Whoosh. I got the groceries for the week and some kitty litter and kitty food. That night Mat and I went to his Dad's for dinner. He barbecued steak and hot dogs, and we had some noodles and garlic bread. Then Mat and I headed home. It was a weird weekend since it seemed like Mat and I didn't get to see each other as much as we normally do.

No exciting plans for this week that I know of yet. I think it is supposed to be nice again today and then get a little colder for the rest of the week. Ick. I am so ready for Summer. I know, it isn't even Spring yet. A girl can dream, right?