10 days and counting.

Ok- being married is awesome.

Not only do I no longer have a curfew when I have to leave and drive back home, but I just get to be with Mitch ALL the time. Minus school and work of course. But still, it's a much better arrangement than being engaged/dating. No limits!!

Also, it's just a really good feeling to be on your own. Kinda scary at first, but let's be honest, I thrive on independence. I've been waiting for this my whole life. I love cleaning and organizing and decorating our new apartment. It's not the nicest apartment ever, but it is OURS. And I love it.

We also just have so much to be grateful for:

• for being sealed for time and all eternity to each other! The blessings of the temple are so wonderful. I couldn't pick a more perfect husband to be with forever- he is my everything :)
  
• for my grandparents letting me stay in their house for a couple months before the wedding. Not paying rent was so, so nice.
• for all the help in wedding planning/bridals showers/and other support I received from family and friends.
• for the greatest in-laws I could ask for- I love them like I love my own family and I feel so welcome around them :)
• for the wonderful flexible jobs we've been blessed with that allowed us to take time off for the wedding
  
• for safety in traveling to our various wedding destinations (we were almost run off the road by a semi in california. luckily Mitch made a good split-second judgment that saved us from certain death. I was asleep during the whole ordeal...hahah)
• for our front porch thief not being interested in the one wedding present delivered and left on our porch while we were out of town...it is my favorite cookbook I have ever received, and I'm so glad he didn't want it!!
  
• and last but not least, for the generosity of all our friends and family- some of whom traveled quite a distance to come support us - thanks so much for coming to our wedding and reception and showering us with wonderful gifts! We love you!

Houston, we have a dress.

It is the second 'backup' dress, but it is nonetheless beautiful and most importantly, it actually fits me! The seamstress did a great job, for which I was very grateful. So grateful, in fact, that I brought her day-old cinnamon rolls from work as a thank you. That may not sound like much of a thank you, but trust me, they were still yummy! (I would know...it's a miracle that I haven't gained any weight working at this bakery for the past month.)

In the end, they didn't make me pay the difference, or for the alterations. It was just the seamstress at the store when we met yesterday, and I don't know if she just didn't care, or if she was specifically told to just give me this more expensive dress and alterations free of charge...either way, money was not discussed and she bagged the dress up and told me I was good to go! Smart move on her part, I'm sure she was just glad to get me out of there, and didn't want to sit through another hour of price negotiation.

So now that THAT fiasco is over with, I've still got a lot on my plate. Bridals tonight, Mitch's family AND my family get here tonight, 3rd of July work and festivities, stake president interviews, food, flowers, cake, ties, temple...the list goes on. And of course amidst all of that, find time to play with the fam and inlaws :)

We did get our marriage license today at the county clerk's office!! How exciting. We are officially and legally able to get married now! Yay :)

To sum up the past few weeks, they have been tortuously long and stressful, but I am now just grateful to finally have the dress in my possession! Click here for a sneak preview of it...just know that I will not be wearing that long of a veil with it, haha :D

wedding dress saga update:

oh heyyy guess what the retards can't even meet the 4th and 5th deadlines they've given me. still no dress, and the guy at the store doesn't even know where my SECOND dress is. could be with the seamstress, could be at the other store...who knows really...

also it's EXTREMELY helpful that I call daily and they return my calls maybe every 5 days. so great when I've RESCHEDULED my bridals for Thursday, and the dress people finally picked up their phone yesterday to inform me that they could POSSIBLY have it done by wednesday, when they promised it to me LAST wednesday.

last night mitch chastised me a little bit for wanting to make them go out of business. he said it wasn't very Christlike. then he promised me that we'd sue them if they dont come through with anything :D

see this logo??? don't ever go here. ever. don't even think about it.

life.

HATE:

-that I forgot to do my work evaluations (for the second time). this could affect my pay raise, or lack thereof :(
-the constant to-do list of wedding plans running through my head
-waking up at 6 every morning for the bakery.
-the drive up to cedar hills every night.

LOVE:

-having Zach up here at school with me!!
-also I love how great he and mitch get along. sometimes I feel like they get to hang out more than mitch and I do haha
-the weather here. finally. love love love.
-also, going along with weather, having season passes to seven peaks. best. decision. ever.
-my new 'wedding shoes'. I have been wanting some cute vans for a while, and when I couldn't find any other heels or flats that I particularly wanted to wear for my wedding, I settled on these!
-my new toaster, crock pot, and the bags of groceries I got at my wedding shower!
-gift cards. what's not to love about free money??

and finally...
-ONLY 2 WEEKS and 4 DAYS UNTIL WE'RE MARRIED!!!!

The Wedding Dress Saga- Part 1

Today begins part 1 of The Wedding Dress Saga. Why a saga, you ask? Oh...you will see.

Just a note before I begin- If you get nothing else out of this post, I hope to at least persuade you of 1 thing- do not buy your wedding dress from Walker's Eternity Bridal and Prom.

I will try to keep this as brief as possible, but I make no promises.

Basically, I ordered my wedding dress back in March. They told me that since it was being made in China, the earliest time they could ship it in would be 9 weeks. It was due to arrive last Tuesday. That was cutting it close as it is, because my bridal pictures were scheduled for 8 days after the dress was due to arrive, and I still probably needed alterations to be done. I called Tuesday to verify that it had arrived. No answer. I left a message. Called again Wednesday, no answer, left a message. I did this for 4 days. I went by the store, where the lights were out, door locked, with a sign posted on the door that the store would no longer be staffed during it's regular hours. This is a direct quote from the sign- "To better serve you more personally, we will be here by appointment only. Call today to make an appointment!"

...ok, explain again HOW exactly this BETTER serves me?!?!?

Well, I did call...AGAIN, and guess what? Their inbox was full. Bad sign. Very bad sign.

Well, I did what any bride suddenly without a wedding dress would do- I panicked. I called the Better Business Bureau, who didn't have any information on the company other than its address and store phone number. My grandma made my grandpa call all the James Walkers (name of the owner) in the phone book. Still, nothing.

Several days later, sitting at dinner, it finally occurred to Mitch and I to mention this dilemma in our prayers over the food. Not five seconds after we said "amen", we get a call from the dress company. No, my dress has not yet arrived. Yes, my dress is still in China. Yes we have been having communication problems with China...for two months now. No, we don't know exactly when your dress will be done....in fact, we're not even sure if it's even been started...

Wow. So explain to me again why you couldn't have notified me of this TWO MONTHS AGO when it actually became a PROBLEM!??! And just think of the 30 other girls that you've screwed over in the process!! Really, what were you THINKING??

Well luckily the guy had enough sense to offer me "an appointment" the next day, when I could come in and pick out a "Plan B" dress. I will admit that after this phone call, I lost some sleep over the whole thing. I was convinced I wouldn't find a dress in time that I actually liked...I didn't want to just have to settle on any old dress because I didn't have a choice.

Well miracles do happen. At my "appointment", I found a dress in stock that I had almost picked over the first one. It's a beautiful ivory lacy dress, and I like some things about it better than the one I ordered. It does need some very drastic alterations, and parts of it almost need to be rebuilt, and as luck would have it, the seamstress that they called in to deal with the catastrophe is very experienced...to say the least. She is French, and earlier in her career sewed for Chanel in Paris...yeah. Why she is in Provo, UT of all places...I have no idea, but am I ever grateful!! At least someone around this establishment is competent!! If anyone can have this dress rebuilt in two weeks for my bridals, it's her!!

Stay tuned to hear if my original dress even makes it here before the wedding. And if these idiots are going to make me pay for this second dress. And if they go out of business...(if they do...I won't feel bad).

Life

Turns out wedding planning isn't very fun. At least, it's not MY personal cup of tea. It doesn't help that my job only gave me 10 hours of work a week this semester, so some days, I get feelin pretty low. These are some things that have considerably brightened my day recently:

Mitch graduated from the Weber State Police Academy!! He is now SFO, BCO, and LEO certified! Also he got an Outstanding Fitness award for being the best of the best at their physical training requirements! What a stud :D I am so proud of him for enduring to the end, even though it was really hard with him living in Ogden 5 days a week for 4 months. I have nothing against Ogden, I'm sure it's a great place, but it has been so, so nice having him in Provo, where we get to see each other every day!!


Unfortunately, the police academy hasn't been the best job solution we thought it would be. Mitch has applied to a LOT of police departments across the valley (I lost count it's been so many), and unfortunately with all the funding cuts, no one is hiring. Luckily he is able to keep his certification for 4 years as long as he keeps up with minimal training requirements, so hopefully when the economy turns around, he will be able to start working for a police department while finishing school. In the meantime, he has been job hunting like crazy for months. Our prayers were finally answered this week when Nuskin hired him on as a security guard. It's not his ideal job, but we are grateful for anything at this point, being poor and almost newlyweds. We are so grateful to our families and friends for their prayers and encouragement :)


Yesterday I was able to go to the 'flower lady' as I call her (I'm so bad I can't remember her name), and get a quote for the bridal bouquet that I want. This is THE ONE that I found online that I want. This is the first thing that I have found for the wedding that I absolutely LOVE. Luckily, she is a very talented woman and said she could replicate it no problem. Being very much a flower person, I cannot wait to have this bouquet and take picture after picture with it!! Now I just need to figure out what I am doing for flowers for my bridals...


Lastly, my day also was brightened yesterday when my grandma found this little guy hiding in the bushes of her front yard. It is clear that he is, or was, somebody's pet, because he eats lettuce out of my hand and loves to be held. Mitch and I went and put up signs with his picture on the mailboxes around the neighborhood, hoping that someone will call to claim him before my his welcome wears out. My grandpa was ready to kick him out of the house last night, but luckily my grandma and I prevailed, and 'Bunny' was able to stay the night in the garage. Aw he looks so sad in that picture hahaa. I call him a boy, but really we are still unsure of his/her gender, hahaa.

When Pigs Flew

I hate hiking the Y. Hate hate hate. I might add that in general I really enjoy hiking, just not when I feel like I am actually scaling a mountain. I feel like switchbacks were invented for a reason, and it doesn't seem that difficult of a concept to use them judiciously in designing a hiking trail. The people who designed the Y did not have me in mind when they constructed its path. The path is so, so steep, which not only tires me out in less than 3 minutes, but also renders me completely unable to breathe in about the same amount of time (I was never officially diagnosed with cold-induced asthma, but I know I have it haha. I swear. It runs in the family.)

For all of the above reasons, I have hiked this trail exactly one and a half times, and I never thought I'd see the day when I would willingly hike the Y again, much less suggest it as an activity. This in and of itself should testify of how Mitch helps me achieve things I never thought possible! Cheesy, but whatever :D

After working at 8 am on a Saturday, I was feeling very lethargic and wanted an outdoorsy, active, pick-me-up activity, and I suddenly found myself suggesting to Mitch that we hike the Y. So we packed up some water and headed off to the mountain.

Spoiler alert: I survived.

I had my fair share of struggles, and I'm sure I slowed Mitch down a lot, BUT with him holding my hand every step of the way, I made it, and without falling down the slippery gravel trail too!!! I even surprised myself :D

the foreboding trailhead...dun dun dun


just starting out. so stylish, sportin the jacket tied around the waist...


probably only about 1/4 of the way up the mountain. notice how red my face is in every picture hahaha.


success!!


oh provo.


a little tuckered out :D


what a stud.


yesssss