revision

So, we lost the apartment.

our perfect dream apartment (well, as perfect and dreamy as any soon-to-be-married poor college couple can hope for).

so now we're homeless.

and stressing to the max (even though jantz has insisted that he take care of this and that i am not to worry about it. i can't help it!)

but of course there will be another apartment. there has to be. one that we love. and then that one will become our perfect apartment. and I'll be able to (again) tell you all about it.

that will happen right? in the next two weeks?

I sure hope so.

we have an appointment to look at one tomorrow. it won't be the same, but we're gonna try to keep an open mind.



....on a completely different and happy note (because I'm trying to focus on the happy things), we're getting our invitations tomorrow! Jantz's dad made them and trust me, they are gorgeous.

and last night, (previously mentioned bestie) Debbie helped me put together favors. while watching Gilmore Girls. it was much needed.

AND, lastly, I just looked at the calendar (we're not big on counting days so I had to check. haha) and in exactly four weeks we'll be married. and frankly, as long as that happens, I could care less where we live.

friendlies and flowers

a few thoughts on a couple weeks ago,

I got to hang out with a bestie from high school, Debbie, and her adorable baby on Wednesday. I wish I had had my camera, because that child is way too cute. It was so nice catching up and spending some quality time with a girl. it's sad that I've almost forgotten what that is like (but i guess that's what happens when you're trying to plan a wedding, work, and do an internship....and it doesn't help that spending all my time with Jantz is my most favorite thing to do haha). Anyway, girls are awesome. And I need to be way better about setting aside time to see my friends.

After a rough night and day, Jantz arrived at my apartment after work with flowers and a candy bar. It was the most perfect thing he could have done (most perfect works right? ha). It was the sweetest. Just another reason why I can't wait to spend my life with him. No he's not perfect (and neither am I), but when it really matters, he knows just how to help me feel like everything will work out.

a place to call home

We signed a lease on an apartment! Remember the apartment we went to look at last week? Well we totally loved it. It fit perfectly into our budget and it was bigger than what we were expecting to find.

Maybe we shouldn't show the world where we live, but oh well (I just won't tell you which side is ours. haha). It doesn't look like much, but the inside is the best part - it actually has two levels!

Now comes the task of pretending I know how to decorate. Despite my (not so much) vast knowledge of art history, actually making things look pleasing is not one of my strong points. Thankfully it is Jantz's, so you better believe I'm going to rope him into helping decorate our new place (just like I roped him into marrying me ;) .....ok so maybe that one was his idea...)

We're getting ready for a busy day tomorrow. First we get to pick up Jantz's bonus check from work (woot woot) and then we'll be off to see Harry Potter (so excited) and THEN we're going to spend the day at Lagoon for Jantz's work (which will be super fun). then perhaps a stop in Layton at our fave pizza place (you know, the one that was so rudely closed on the 4th?) so we can finally get our fix.

cuz baby, you're a firework

Here are some of those special pictures I tried taking of fireworks from the Stadium of Fire over 4th of July weekend...

 

Every year for the 4th of July, both Jantz and I have always had plans (apart and together) with either family or friends, but this year, we had no such plans.

So we made our own special day. It started off, naturally, with Jantz playing some FIFA (while I did some wedding registering haha. ok I played one game)

After he won every game, we took off for Layton. One of our favorite pizza places is up there, it's called Ligori's. It is seriously the best pizza. So delicious. I was so excited for it.

So of course it was closed (who didn't think to check if it was open on the 4th? yeah...both of us). We were really bummed, but instead of letting our drive go to waste, we found a really good chinese place. In case you haven't noticed, we're pretty serious about our food.

Then we went to a Bee's game in Salt Lake. It was really fun. Good game. Good snacks. And a really awesome fireworks show at the end. And we were so close to them (sometimes being the farthest away from home plate can have its advantages). It really turned out to be a great day :)

reminiscing

I've been looking through a bunch of old pictures and I've realized two things:

1. I seriously miss Europe. I miss the places. I miss the art. I especially miss all the friends I made. I really want to print out all of my absolute favorite pictures from Europe and put them in a frame. Good idea? I think yes. (perhaps this would fit better as a goal post-wedding?)

 2. I seriously miss family trips. We took a big family trip to Mesa Verde a couple years ago. It was the first big trip with all of us as adults (except darling niece Izzy,

she gets to stay a child forever). And it was so much fun. I'm praying real hard for another trip sometime soon.

the big CO

Our week in Colorado was so much fun. Here is a "documentary" in pictures :

The beginning of our drive

 

 

 our treats and drinks

our stop for gas (Jantz makes funny faces)

(he also does a grand job of cleaning the windshield)

 

(bear with little rock poops. too random not to take a picture)

 at Parker Days parade

(Jantz with his buddy Kevin. We had just gone to the doctor that morning, so the bandaid is protecting his poor biopsied noggin)

(the old ladies in the parade and Jantz's adorable nephew on the right)

We went to one of our favorite places, Guadalajara

(I caught this gem while Jantz was taking pictures on his iPhone 

- you know, the app that morphs your face. so priceless) 

the main event, Larke's graduation!

(these were some of the boards she had to make, it was very impressive :) she worked so hard to graduate and it was so great being able to see all her hard work) 

graduation day Rockies game

 (us with his brother Rhett)

so...on our way home Monday morning we ran into a snow storm in the mountains (SNOW, in the middle of JUNE! and not just a little sprinkling...it was like February up there!). we were pretty much speechless (of all days!). the roads were so icy and wet - there was major slipping and hydroplaning. so we pulled off into Silverthorne, informed our bosses that there was no way we were going to make it into work (who needs money anyway?), and hung out there for the day until things cleared up a bit. It was quite the detour, but it turned out to be really fun.

(here we are eating at the Pizza Hut. I knew I would forget what happened here, but I said something and this was the face I got. haha. my future husband everyone)

We did so much that I didn't take pictures of, but those were some pretty good highlights. We love being in Colorado, especially with Jantz's family. They were so great and so much fun! Hopefully we'll be able to make the trek out there again soon (you know, after the whole getting married there week in August :)

4 day week woot!

How was your 4th of July weekend?

Ours was pretty great :)

I tried taking pictures of fireworks. It was NOT easy. or successful. haha.

This week is already going slow - I want a weekend again! We're going to look at an apartment tomorrow that we're really excited about! so good thoughts that we'll like it as much as we want to :)

Things for the wedding just keep falling into place and getting done....which means minimal stress right now (at a time when I thought I would be going crazy with plans)...is this normal? It feels not normal.

cold

so, i wore shorts to work today for the first time this year (see, we're not usually allowed to wear shorts at work, only during spring and summer term). usually it's pretty chilly inside so i'm just fine wearing pants since i'm cold about 70% of the time anyway. but today is sunny and it seemed like a good idea for shorts.

so here i am at work. in my shorts. and i am cold.

thankfully i brought a jacket in (hoping i wouldn't have to use it - who likes to be the one wearing a jacket in the middle of summer?), so that's been keeping me warm.

that's all i wanted to say. I'm cold. (well, that and i got up on time again this morning, yay :) so excited for a warm three day weekend!

Morning :)

Just wanted to drop in a little update that

YES

I did wake up when my alarm went off this morning (ok I may have let one snooze go off...but that's better than the usual who knows how many).

Even though I am little more tired today, it sure felt good to get to work when I planned to (our building has been oddly shaky all day).

Here's to another good morning tomorrow :)

And here's a little "song of the week": Dierks Bentley, Come a Little Closer. I still love his voice. and his name.

maybe next time I'll talk about CO....

I keep postponing writing another post until I can upload all of my pictures from Colorado and write all about that....but that keeps not happening. obviously haha.

So, until that happens....I will tell you all what has been going on. It's short, trust me.


-I taught an Art History 111 class last night as a sub for one of my friends in the program. Let me tell you, I was so nervous, but afterwards I was so excited to teach my own class this year (whenever that will be...). Talking about art always makes me excited (just ask Jantz who had to listen as I did a quick run through of the lesson).

-I've been terrible at getting up in the morning. Like, really bad. I LOVE sleeping. Love it. And when my alarm goes off, I literally think of every excuse to NOT get up (and I'm reallllllllllllly good at excuses). And sleeping in means I get into work late, and that means less hours, which equals less money, which is no good. So, I'm making a goal for the rest of the week to wake up when my alarm goes off. Think good waking up thoughts for me ok? haha

-Wedding planning is coming along. we found a great photographer for Colorado and I'm so excited to have her photograph our wedding! Jantz is finding us a cute little place to call home. Overall, I'm not feeling super stressed.

-I'm going looking for fabric after work today.....to tie around chairs and around trees. I'm thinking Joanns, but anyone else know of a good, cheap place to shop for fabric/ribbon?

That's pretty much what's been going on. Jantz and I are excited to see the new Transformers this weekend. And we bought tickets for Harry Potter (wow how nerdy do we sound?). My next post will have pictures. it has to.

school

today was the first day this summer that i thought,

i miss being in school. i'm excited for fall to start.

thankfully that only lasted for about 2 seconds.

Let me be clear that I definitely do not want school to start again because I am so ready to be done. for it to be next summer. So I can have a masters, and find a great job. and so that Jantz and I can move to a different state and start another fun adventure.

Here's to no more silly thoughts about school starting....at least not until the end of August :)

a week of no blog reading equals so many new posts i can't even count

....so basically this week will be spent catching up on all i've missed :) 

Vacation

Friday morning Jantz and I made the 8 hour long drive to Colorado for his sister's graduation (from fashion school - if it wasn't for her I'd probably still be wearing baggy pants and t-shirts). And we're staying for 10 days! We are so excited for some nice time off to relax and hang out with his family. I've even been taking pictures! we'll see how long that lasts....haha.

Here's some fun things we've already done...

We went to Parker Days (which includes a parade and a fair that goes all day with booths and rides and everything) and hung out with Jantz's friends most of the day.

Jantz (finally) bought an iPhone (he's been talking about it for like a year!) and he's so excited about it. and as he should be. he works hard and he totally deserved it. (and we already worked it into our budget - yeah, we've become those people - so we didn't even have to stress about money).

We went to a really good (and spunky) skin doctor because Jantz has had a red spot on his forehead for way too long and we need to figure out how to get rid of it! They ended up having to do a biopsy and he was such a trooper. His mom and I tried to watch but it was rough. He got two stitches in his forehead. Everyone keeps making fun of him, but I think he looks cute and I still love him :)


Jantz keeps talking to me in a Russian accent telling me to go shower......so I better go

licorice

If you're thinking of buying me some licorice (or jelly beans), you will instantly be my favorite if you make sure it's black. Honestly, it is the only way to go. I only know a few people who will even touch black licorice, one being my father, who I actually blame for much of my food taste, at least when it comes to candy (anyone had horehound? yeah, we love it). A few years ago the parents didn't purchase Easter candy until way too late, which meant a lot of weird candy that no one else wanted. You would think I would be very disappointed, as I love robin eggs (which we had none of). But a lot of the candy no one wanted was black jelly beans. So.....pretty much one of my favorite Easters ever.

moral of the story is: black licorice is the best

wedding updates

So, we've been engaged for three weeks. It's seems so much longer. and yet so much shorter. haha

We finally set a wedding date: August 18th (yes, of this year & yes a Thursday).

Now, I've always wanted to be engaged for at least 6 months. but when it came down to it, it was either next April or this August (no winter weddings for me, and definitely no wedding planning during grad school!). So, three months it was. haha. I have no idea if I can get everything done by then, but knowing that we'll finally be married is all I can really think about. We're beyond excited!

Jantz has been the biggest help (which isn't surprising, but I still like to brag about him :). I was starting to stress out about getting everything done (enter: me trying to do everything on my own with no help because i can do it best). I never realized how much of a control freak I am until now. So I've been trying to correct this and trust other people to help out (and who better to trust than my trusty fiance?). Jantz swooped in and now has full control over some pretty important parts (ie, finding us a place to live). I must admit, it feels pretty great letting things go :)

On to other details...

We're getting married in Colorado in Jantz's parents' backyard (which is going to be beautiful, by the way) with the reception there as well. Then we're jetting off to a cabin in the mountains for our honeymoon. The next Saturday we're having an open house in Utah (the day after my big Comprehensive Art History Exam. fun).

So, things are slowly getting done...

Like, I bought my dress (which I am so in love with) and it is in the process of alterations. I have tons of pictures I want to share, but on the off chance that Jantz actually looks at this blog, I'll hold off :)

We picked up my ring on Friday. It is so much more amazing than I pictured it. I seriously can't stop looking at it (it's getting a bit pathetic...). Here are some pictures:

Yep, I love it

Movie Saturday

As soon as Jantz moved here he initiated Movie Saturday, where we go to a movie every Saturday morning. We've tried a few times to go at night, but we're cheapies (cheapos?) and always back out.
I must admit, at first I was skeptical, but now I look forward to it every weekend. Even though it means that I can't sleep in as long as I want to...

Which leads me to last weekend. We couldn't decide on what movie to see (I wanted to see Something Borrowed, he wanted to see Fast Five), so we ended up with Pirates (somehow it made sense at the time). But we made it to the theater just a few minutes too late to see the first showing (as in, a few minutes after the previews, so really we were like 15 minutes late haha), so we had to settle for the next showing. You see, we go to the first showing on Saturdays, no exceptions (1-it's 25 cents cheaper and 2-that's just how we role). So we were both a bit iffy about the whole thing. And we had to reason to be.

The movie was packed. I know it was opening weekend, but we're used to early morning movies, when there's like, 10 of us in the theater. Needless to say, all the noise was just weird. But the movie was good.

Then we walked around the mall a bit, then went home and....I have no idea what we did. probably sat around and watched tv or something.

But then, we went to the driving range. That's right people, golfing. And it was really fun. Jantz is really good (well, he's got distance down, not so much the whole shooting straight thing haha...but don't tell him i told you). I was surprised how much I fun we had. Definitely something that will happen again.

And I was seriously planning on taking pictures the whole weekend because I've been so bad about taking pictures of us, but also I forgot....maybe this weekend...maybe :)

Diet Coke catastrophe

Oh Friday night.

After Jantz got off work he picked me up and we went to get some Panda Express for dinner (brilliant idea on his part). Then we decided it would probably be a good idea to get some drinks, so we stopped at our favorite gas station (is it weird that we have one? apparently their Mountain Dew is amazing - and who am i to dispute that? i can barely tell a difference between Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi - although I DO know there is a difference, but i love both...anyway....). We got our drinks and looked across the way to the Walgreens Redbox and decided that we definitely needed to check for Harry Potter because I haven't seen it and I have been desperate to.

Now the story gets good. We were on our way home when Jantz had to break for a stoplight. It wasn't even a hard break, but I guess it was sudden enough that my Diet Coke sprang from it's cup holder and exploded all over the front of the car. On the dashboard. On the seat. On the floor. On the bag of food. On my precious leather bag from Florence. Even inside my shoes. It was everywhere. We were both so shocked we didn't even know what to do. I think we looked at each other, laughed for a second, and then freaked out.

As you can guess, the next hour was spent scrubbing Diet Coke out of the car. We got it all out (thankfully!) and even cleaned up my purse (which I was most grateful for). Jantz insisted that we get me another drink (because he just loves me like that). After we finally got home, we set our food out, put in the movie, and had a very pleasant night. Harry Potter is amazing (in case you didn't already know that) and I can't wait for the final movie.

The moral of the story is: don't trust your cup holders

Now that it's been a week....Guess What?!

 we're engaged! ! !

The story: Jantz was leaving to Colorado for the weekend (as in last weekend) so we wanted to do something fun on Friday before he left Saturday morning. He "casually" came up with the idea to go to Thanksgiving Point and walk around the gardens up there and then go to PF Changs afterward. Nothing too out of the ordinary. I didn't see anything fishy about the plans. So, we both got off work early. (enter sneaky Jantz, which is rare - that boy tells me everything. Turns out he made up that he had to go in early because they were changing the carpets, when in fact he just told his boss he was going to propose. AND he talked to my dad last week, which must have been pretty terrifying (I am his little girl, after all)).


When we both got to my apartment, we were starving! We sat at the table and tried to figure out what to do - eat here and then go to the gardens and then PF Changs, or go there first. While we were talking, Jantz kept staring off into space and not paying attention.

Finally, he said, "I can't take it anymore" and got down on one knee. I was so confused on what was going on. When I realized he was actually on one knee I was sure he was joking. I started tearing up anyway (and simultaneously thinking, he's gonna see that i'm crying and admit it was a joke). but it was no joke, my friends. He said some sweet words and asked if I would marry him. I immediately said yes and he put a ring on my finger. The cutest part was that, in the midst of it all, he ended up down on both knees. In the moment, in was precious. The runner up cutest part was after, when he told me he could do it over again if it wasn't good enough (he knew that I wanted a really great proposal). And I did want something meaningful and great, and you know what? it was simple, beautiful, and just the two of us in a place we spend most of our time together. It wasn't at all how he planned it, and it was so surreal when it happened, but I loved every second of it.

After all the hugs and kisses and tears of joy and pictures and calling of parents, we then went to eat (and boy did we eat) at PF Changs. Then we met up with my extremely excited roommates and played some baseball at the park. It was a day that was totally us and totally fun.

He got me a fake ring so that we could go ring shopping after we were engaged (which is exactly what I wanted :). We're hopefully going to get a real one soon!

We're so incredibly happy and excited for our future together!

So there's my big news :) Thanks for reading our quick story, I hope you all enjoyed it.

Whoa

I have SO much to post on.


things just keep getting in the way.


but I promise soon a lot of wonderfully good news!

My Wonderful Grandmas

Two of my grandmas passed away last weekend, both pretty suddenly. They were amazing women and they will really be missed.

My dad's mom passed away Saturday afternoon after a few of the kids and grandkids were able to say goodbye. It was a really sad but touching day. (she was an opera singer most of her life - she was in Cats for while. i loved listening to her sing.)

My step mom's mom then passed away Sunday morning. That was a big shock. We were all still recovering from Saturday. (christmas at her house was the best. A Christmas Story all day, so much candy and good food)

Needless to say, it was a very emotional weekend. I have dear memories of both of them and I'm very sad that they're gone, but at the same time I'm glad they're no longer in pain.

ps, aren't both of them gorgeous?