{9 nights}

I slept my last night in my own bed last night for the next nine nights! Nine nights without the comfort of my own bed and six of those nine nights will be without Jay. Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy an empty bed here and there (I like to stretch out), but six nights in a wrong is a LONG time! I don’t think Jay and I have been apart that long in years! By the time I get back to my house I will be craving a good nights sleep, I’m sure!

We’re headed out to our first Brewer’s game tonight and despite the fact that I’m not actually all that excited about sitting down and watching some baseball, I am excited to just go with my family. It will be Ayden’s first game and my first game and the Brewer’s are currently doing really well and that makes it more exciting. But of course, I’ve said all of this before.

I think I have all of the packing done… it was more than I thought it would be, but with Ayden and myself being gone for almost the next week and half, we both needed a lot!

Hoerth camping is next weekend and Jay told me that if his boss asks him to work on Saturday that he would say yes, well at least to just working Saturday morning. I couldn’t believe him. Honestly, I don’t care if his boss really needs him to work. He took this job after we had all of our summer plans already laid out and he took it on the premise that he wouldn’t have to work weekends. His boss cannot make him work weekends, but he can get upset if Jay can’t… and we literally have something going on EVERY Saturday until after Labor and have had this stuff planned for quite some time now, like before Jay took the job. But, I didn’t argue with Jay about it and pretty much told him that if he had to work, he had to work. Whatever, you’re the one missing pretty much ALL of camping then because he wouldn’t get there until probably late Saturday afternoon and we leave Sunday morning. Maybe I am a little bitter, haha! But he’s being the good employee I suppose.

I’ll most likely be back in nine days once my trip and camping is over! Hope I have lots of good stories to tell!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

{off track}

My boys are off at the golf driving range and I am sitting at the kitchen table with my computer. I don’t often sit at the kitchen table with my computer, but I had some dreaded homework that I was working on yesterday and it was easier to spread everything out on the table and I just haven’t moved the computer yet and so alas here I sit. I have yet to finish all of my homework but according to the professor the due date for the assignment is sometime around the week of July 25th and by my accounts, it is only July 26th, so that leaves me at least two more days to get it in before I start to feel guilty. I am waiting on a classmate to email me back about some questions that I had on it. I participated in our online discussion already this week so I am ahead of the game for that and that should count for something, right?! Lol!

I am off track with my fitness goals, well weight goals is more like it. I have been off track with my fitness goals for the last month and a half! I am currently four pounds over what I would prefer to be which is three pounds more than my dream weight. Ugh! Although, I weighed myself tonight and that means I’m probably only two pounds over what I would like to be because on average I lose anywhere between one and two pounds each night while sleeping. Three days alone in the house with chocolate and an afternoon out with my girlfriends to Hu Hot and I was done for! Not good! My aim is to be back to my preferred weight by Friday and it’s probably doable, I’ve done it before. I would also like to restart my fitness goals, but that won’t happen until after I get back from Colorado… maybe if I stick to my fitness goals for all of August I can reach my dream weight by the time the semester starts back up in September… who knows?! I just need the motivation again!

I thought I should properly introduce you all to the wonderfulness that is my our new couch! Isn’t it beautiful, hehe! I admit, I am just a little bit overly obsessed with it. Both ends recline and it doesn’t even bother me that it hinders my ability to get into one of our closets. I am in love, lol! Because it was with a family that had two small children it does have a few where it looks a little more dingy that I probably would like, but heck, for the price we got it at, it works! And it is super comfy and oh, did I mention that I am in love?!I was perusing the celebrity magazines tonight (yes I read that horrid gossip that is usually never true) and came across a picture of Kendra Wilkinson and her son Hank and I had to post it because I am in love with baby Hank’s hair! I mean look at those curls!!! I am SO extremely jealous because that is what Ayden’s hair is supposed to look like! Jay has super curly hair when he lets it grow long and can really get an afro going, although he hardly lets it go beyond a half an inch these days and even had me shave it down to a quarter of an inch last night. My babies with Jay are SUPPOSED to get his recessive curly hair gene, lol! They are SUPPOSED to have super cute curly hair like this little dude! I mean, hello! That’s the whole reason I fell in love with Jay… because I wanted babies with curly hair, lol! Okay, not really, but isn’t it just super cute?! I think so!

I’m in the process of writing out Ayden’s birthday invitations. Is it bad that I don’t really want to have a party for him this year?! I mean his parties are never super big or anything… we just invite family, but for some reason I’m just not feeling it this year. I’d rather have something where it’s just us and our immediate family members (ie: my immediate family and Jay’s immediate family) instead of inviting what are Ayden’s great grandparents. Actually, its more like I wouldn’t mind Jay’s grandparent’s there, but could honestly give or take mine coming. And then there is Ayden’s supposed god father. Ayden has three god parents… my sister, Jay’s aunt and Jay’s uncle. We had asked Jay’s brother’s (Adam) god parents to be Ayden’s god parents after Adam had passed away. Well… ever since the rift between Jay’s parents and one of his dad’s brother’s (who happens to be Ayden’s god father), his god father has neglected to come to any of Ayden’s birthday parties… which means like all of them except his first one. We send an invitation  each year and I get the same email back each time explaining why they will not be coming. I maybe understand why they wouldn’t come if we had the party at Jay’s parent’s house, but the first time we did that was last year, every other year it has been at our place. At one point a year or so ago I got an email asking if wanted to change Ayden’s god father to someone else because him and his wife didn’t feel like he (the god father) was really stepping up to his duties and they didn’t want us to be disappointed. I responded back and said that Jay and I still sticking with our decision of who we chose to be god parents. We (Jay and I) are not part of the rift and are still friendly with that family. But as more and more years go by I want to just scream at this particular family and Jay’s parents and say just get over it. You are FAMILY for crying out loud! How many years are you going to let this get between you. Whatever I guess, their problem.

In any case, I’ll end up inviting everyone we normally invite… just because.

CIAO! LOVE ME!

{travelling}

Next week at this time I’ll be in the wonderful state (I’m hoping anyways) of Colorado on my way to what I’ve heard is a pretty nice resort. I’m excited to say the least! Although, I think I’m more excited to be around the scenery than I am to go to the actual educational portion of it. I’m excited to fly again. I love flying. It’s fun. I’m excited to see the mountains. I’m excited to meet a bunch of new people. But, I’m not excited to travel alone. Yes, I am travelling alone. I was supposed to be heading to Colorado with a fellow student from Madison, however something came up and she can no longer make the trip. I’m bummed to say the least because one of the main reasons I decided to do was because I would be going with someone. But, I wasn’t going to cancel just because she did. And now… I’m travelling alone.

I shouldn’t be afraid to travel alone, I’ve done it before. I flew to Vermont just before I turned 16 all by myself. I fly out of a smaller airport, but we had a layover in a larger airport and I managed to get off and onto my new flight with no problems… all at 16! My flight next week is nonstop so I should not be nervous… but I am. I think I’m most nervous about getting from the Denver airport to where I need to be. My mom and her husband have graciously accepted the task of taking me to the airport next Saturday (my honey will be at a golf outing) and she even said that they would come in with me and see me off at the security spot. I didn’t even ask… my mommy just loves me that much, hehe! Honestly, I don’t think I will have any problems, but it is nice to know that I won’t be alone until after I go through security.

I probably wouldn’t be so nervous, but unfortunately my flight is coming in later than I guess it should be according to the coordinator of the camp, but whatever I suppose. I’ll make it there and everything will be okay. I know it will. This coming week I just need to set up my transportation from the airport to the resort to make sure everything is set and my nerves will not be as high.

Next Friday starts 10 days of going going going for me! We have the Brewer’s game on Friday, then on Saturday I leave for Colorado and am there until Thursday, and then from Friday thru Sunday we are camping with the Hoerth family. I am excited for it, but I don’t want to wish the summer away because there is only a month left. Boo! Why does it always go so fast?!

Have I mentioned how much I love Pinterest?! I have found so many cool wedding ideas that I’d love to try for our wedding. Too bad it is still two years (791 days) away! Anyways, as I was pinning wedding stuff I came across this quote from Bob Marley that I fell in love with…

‘He’s not perfect. You aren’t either, and the two of you will never be perfect. But if he can make you laugh at least once, causes you to think twice, and if he admits to being human and making mistakes, hold onto him and give him the most you can. He isn’t going to quote poetry, he’s not thinking about you every moment, but he will give you a part of him that he knows you could break. Don’t hurt him, don’t change him, and don’t expect more than he can give. Don’t analyze. Smile when he makes you happy, yell when he makes you mad, and miss him when he’s not there. Love hard when there is love to be had. Because perfect guys don’t exist, but there’s always one guy that is perfect for you.’

Could it be anymore real?! As I said… love it!

I rocked out 12 miles on the bike today! I was pretty proud of myself. I wanted to do 15, but am glad that I only did 12 because the last two miles was biking against a strong wind and that was hard, especially since it was the last two miles and by that time I was SO ready to be done!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

{boat-trastrophy}

We are borrowing my dad's boat for these last couple weeks of summer. A boat that I grew up on... a boat that I learned is just as old as me! I remember years past going out on the boat with my dad, brother, and sister and cruising around and doing some fishing. There were many a fun times out on my dad's boat! One of the times that I remember best (probably since it was one of the last times I was out on the boat) was when we went out and I brought my best friend Victoria along with us. We went fishing and I remember just having a great time! That was probably almost 8 or 9 years ago because it was before Ayden was born! That is a LONG time ago! I cannot believe that I have not been out on the boat since!

Given the fact that I really enjoy being out on the boat and that we were most likely not going to get out on Jay's parent's boat much this summer, I brought up the idea that maybe my dad would let us borrow his boat. He doesn't use it very often anymore. Actually he told me that he didn't have it out at all last summer and probably wouldn't have had it out at all this summer except for the fact that we wanted to borrow it and he took it out to make sure everything was working okay.

My dad, brother, and younger sister, Alexis, all went out fishing on the boat sometime last week to make sure everything was working properly... and at that point in time it was. I was excited to get the boat back to our place in Point and take it out on a new lake that Jay had heard about from his new co-workers. It was supposed to have some good fishing and it was small/calm enough for me to trust being out on the boat. (I have this habitual fear of tipping over in things and the last thing I want to worry about is capsizing a boat- that doesn't belong to me!)

We get the boat back to Point (and it doesn't quite fit in our garage as nicely as I thought it would). It would fit better if Jay didn't have a tool bench in the back of the garage... we literally like needed two more feet of room for the rest of the trailer hitch to fit in so the garage door could go all of the way down, but don't have it. In any case, we got it to fit most of the way and just put the garage down 3/4 of the way down instead and park a vehicle in front of the garage.

We couldn't take the boat out on Monday because of the threat of severe weather, but we packed everything up and headed out Tuesday night after Ayden's swimming lessons. Jay and I managed to get the boat into the water and were cruising along to find a good fishing spot... and... all of a sudden an alarm on the boat started to go off! OMG! I about had a heart attack and literally started to freak out! I made Jay get over to the shoreline as fast as possible because I was paranoid something horrible was going on! Like super paranoid. Thankfully, like I said, the lake is not that big and we were not super far from the boat landing and the lake was uber calm. We got close enough to shore, threw the anchor in, and shut the motor off. The boat wasn't leaking, praise the lord, but instead the motor was overheating. Thankfully if worse came to worse, we had an oar that we could have used to get back to the boat landing, could have flagged down another boat to tow us in, or in the extreme event would have used our cellphones to call 911 and have the police come get us out with one of their boats (they have the capability to do that, right?!).

While we were stopped, we let Ayden do a little bit of fishing. Thankfully I wasn't fully freaking out and he was pretty calm, as was Jay. We let the motor cool down for about an hour. During that time, Jay would test the motor by turning the key. He didn't have to start the motor to hear that the alarm was still sounding. He said that the alarm would go off once the motor cooled down enough. After a while the alarm did shut off and the motor started just fine. By this point I had calmed down enough to somewhat enjoy the fact that we were out on the boat and most likely not stranded and we decided to stay out for just a little while longer and even I fished for a little while. Ayden ended up being the only one to catch a fish, but that's okay. In the end, we got the motor started and hightailed it back to the boat landing as fast as we could (and safely as well) and got the boat out and back onto the trailer fine. I talked to my dad and Jay dropped it off at a boat repair place in town.  Needless to say, even after it gets fixed I will be nervous about taking it out.

We got off of the lake just in time because by the time we were back in the truck and on our way home there were severe weather warnings out and headed our way! Recently, anytime that Ayden hears a severe weather alert he starts to freak out. Jay and I think it might be due to the severe weather warnings we had a few months ago where we had to go into the basement for a while (they were tornado warnings), but each time we ‘escaped’ the weather with just a bit of a thunderstorm.

The weather didn’t really end up hitting us until around 10pm… both Ayden and I were still awake and it started to get pretty windy outside and honestly a little bit scary. At that point we decided to go camp out in the basement until the worst of it had passed. We may not have been in a tornado warning, but it sure sounded pretty bad outside! The power also went out around 10pm and we were without it until about noon the following day (I heard some people were without power for over 24 hours!). Turns out the Stevens Point area got hit with some pretty strong straight line winds. Thankfully by our place we did not have any tree damage, but out side of town looks bad! I haven’t seen too much house damage from just the winds, but there are A TON of trees down and in many instances the trees caused damage to the houses. Honestly, it was pretty scary there for a while, but we made it through unscathed!

I’ve joined the world of Pinterest today. I am addicted! It took all of about 10 minutes for me to become addicted. Like I need another time sucking thing on the computer. Actually, I don’t go on my computer all that much anymore, of course now I will, haha! It’s like a bookmarking site, only a lot better I think. It’s also sort of like googling images or going on Flickr. I have already found so many different wedding ideas and think I have come up with a color scheme. I know, gasp! I didn’t think I would have a color scheme, but I think I might have changed my mind. I mean I have less than 800 days until this wedding actually goes off so I better get planning asap, right?! Hehe!

I’ve also ‘pinned’ a lot of photography ideas and cool quotes that I like. If you haven’t already checked it out, I highly suggest it! You might just become addicted like I have, hehe! So maybe you shouldn’t check it out…

Time to get ready to take Ayden to his last day of swimming lessons for the summer. One more week of summer school, then it’s a Brewer’s game and I’m off to Colorado! Yippie!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

{t-t-tubing}

What a fabulous weekend we had! And I mean it! I was feeling kind of down towards the middle of last week... sour thoughts and feelings creeping in and it was no fun, so this weekend was EXACTLY what I needed. It was refreshing and great and now I am feeling 100% renewed and refreshed!

It started on Friday night when I was perusing craigslist because I was bored. Every now and then I'll go on there to look at the furniture and jewelry. I've been keeping my eye out for a sectional couch because I've always wanted one, but not actively trying to find out and I just like to see what people are selling their jewelry for (not that I need any). It just so happened that someone had posted a sectional couch Friday night about 20 minutes before I went online. I took one look at it and the price and told Jay that we needed to buy the couch. It was a steal! I ended up texting the lady to see if it was still available and it was! We were able to borrow a trailer from Jay's old employer to take with us the next morning to go look at it (it was in Wausau) in case we decided to for sure get it. And once we saw it... I couldn't really pass it up! The price was a steal! It needs a little bit of cleaning, but who would get a couch from someone and not clean it. And... ITS comfy... AND... A SECTIONAL!!! Our current living room isn't set up for a sectional couch, but we've made it work for the time being. Thing is, we probably will only be at our current place for the next year anyways (keeping my fingers crossed I just might find a clinic placement in the area and it will be longer). And I was able to sell our old couch to my sister! Even better, although we will probably be stuck with it at our house for another couple of weeks and I don't know yet if we will be able to keep the money because the couch was not originally ours. It belonged to Jay's aunt who was so kind to let us borrow it for our place because she wasn't using it. We've already talked with her awhile ago about it and she said we could try and sell it, I just can't remember if we talked about who would get the money. I only sold it for $60... it's in okay shape and I didn't want to jew my sister out of a lot of money. I don't know that I could have gotten much more for it than that if I had tried to sell it on craigslist. We basically got back home with the couch, unloaded it and got ready to leave for the weekend.

We were headed 'home' for Jay's great grandma's 93 birthday party down at Jay's grandparent's house and for some family pictures. The family pictures went okay. I'm sure they turned out really nice (the photographer seemed super nice and really great), but it was hot out and everyone was getting a little cranky. I was fine with how things were going and what not, but oh well I guess. I can't wait to see how they turned out though!

It was very nice to get to spend the day with family that I don't get to see super often, but really, any time with Jay's mom's side of the family is nice! The day was spent by the lake and with the breeze coming off of the lake it really wasn't too bad (at least I didn't think so). Ayden had a great time playing with his cousin Baden that he doesn't get to see very often. I got my baby fix in with Jay's two youngest cousins and got to just relax and have a good afternoon! We were there from about 1:30pm until 11pm that night and we were outside for almost ALL of it! That made for one good night of sleep! We didn't get until after 10am the next morning!

Ayden and I went to visit with my mom for a few hours on Sunday after we got up. It was nice to see her for a little bit because we weren’t going to see her then until the end of August for Ayden’s birthday party (of which I supposedly have a date for, but haven’t sent out invitations yet and should probably really get on that). My mom had to go to work in the afternoon so Ayden and I went back to Jay’s parent’s house, but we were only there for a few minutes before heading back down to Jay’s grandparent’s house where everyone else was.

Jay’s uncle brought his boat down and we took out both his boat and Jay’s parent’s pontoon boat for some tubing. Well, we only got to tube behind the other boat because the pontoon boat doesn’t have a large enough motor. It was Ayden and mine’s first time tubing (well my first time actually remembering because I may have gone when I was younger) and we had a blast. Ayden and I went together first where he sat down in the tube and I laid over him and held on. It was A LOT of fun! Ayden then went by himself and he LOVED it! The tube had a bottom on it so he was down in there and pretty secure. The second time that we rode together I sat on the tube a different way and it wasn’t working out very so I had them stop the boat so I could switch how I was sitting and during that I ended up tipping over myself and Ayden. I was actually kind of happy that we had both fallen out because it gave Ayden a taste of what it would be like if he had fallen out. I knew that if we was riding by himself and had fallen out he would have freaked and not gotten back onto the tube. When we both fell out he freaked a little bit, but I was able to get him calmed down and sure enough, he headed back out on the tube which I was happy about!

Here is my little man riding behind the pontoon. We weren’t actually going very fast on the pontoon and probably wouldn’t have been able to pull anyone else, but Ayden was the perfect size! He fit down really far into that tube!And here he is when he was done and we were pulling him back to the boat.And because it is summer and I am just a little bit infatuated with taking pictures of flowers when I come across one that I like… here are a few more flower pictures…And some sunset ones down by the lake! The sun wasn’t down as far as I would have liked it to be, but I am glad that I got these pictures because later when I was going to get some the clouds had come in and covered the sun so I didn’t get the lovely colors I wanted. In any case, I am also in love with how these turned out as well!This has turned into one of my favorite pictures now! It turned out just as I wanted it to!Since I started this post and neglected to post it right away, we received some ‘proofs’ of the family pictures and I think they turned out great! I have to say that this photographer has perked my interest when it comes to choosing a wedding photographer! Obviously we have at least a year to decide yet since the wedding isn’t for two years, but her prices are not over the moon high and even if they go up in the next years time, I can’t imagine them going up an extreme amount! I have at least one other photographer in mind at this point in time as well, but like I said, we still have time. In any case, I know I’m not the only one who needs to be happy with how these pictures turned out, but I don’t know why anyone else wouldn’t be.

Without further ado… here is the Cook family clan!And Jay’s family… his parent’s and brother Steven and our little family!And then me and my lovely boys! Not my favorite picture of all of us, but it works and we just had some family pictures taken not too long ago that I am STILL in love with!CIAO! LOVE ME!

{old pictures}

I’m in the midst of scrapbooking our latest family pictures and while I was moving everything from my computer desk to a different area in the basement Ayden asked if I had any scrapbooks of him and of course I told him LOTS and LOTS! That prompted me to get out the scrapbooks I’ve made for him over the years and for us to look through them. And boy was that a flood of emotions. I can’t believe how much my almost seven year old has grown since he was born. He was so tiny and he’s grown into such a little boy who is fast becoming a big boy and it scares me! He’s going to be SEVEN! That’s only THREE years away from 10 and double digits is just TOO old!

So of course looking through his scrapbooks only prompted me to start looking through old pictures of Ayden from when he was a baby. Oh how I wish I could rewind just for a day to hold that tiny cuddly baby again!

Here is my cuddle bunny while we were still in the hospital. Because digital cameras were nothing like they are today seven years ago, these pictures amount to about the quality of cellphone pictures these days. My first digital camera (the one I had until Ayden was about one) was only 1.3 megapixels! I have a 3 megapixel camera on my phone now! And I know some phones have 8 megapixel cameras, which is what I normally shoot with on my normal camera, even though I think it goes up to 15. Anyways… wasn’t he just an absolute doll?!Here he is just a couple of weeks later. If it’s possible he is even cuter here! You don’t realize it at the time, but time is but a mere vapor, especially in those young days and sometimes I feel like I was doing more then than I am now. I was working 24 hours a week, leaving at 6:30am and getting home around 5-5:30pm, taking two (I think) online classes which tend to take more work, and taking care of a newborn on my own for the most part since Jay and I didn’t live together then. Granted, I had my mom and sister who were available to help, but I often didn’t ask for any because I wanted to be able to do it on my own. (Not that I didn’t appreciate any help that they did offer because I did more than they will ever know!)Here is my goober at a little over one year’s of age at our first place. I can’t remember the last bath that he took as he’s a shower kind of kind now. But boy did he love those bath bubbles!I LOVE this picture! I still get this scrunched up face now and then, only it’s without the little boy pudginess, hehe! And can you spy ALL of the toys in the background! Goodness he was never deprived of things to play with!We still frequent this beach a lot and we still have that same pail. Ayden looks like such a little boy in this picture. I think it was probably shortly after we had buzzed his hair for the first time. What a ham!This picture just cracks me up! He looks so little with a back pack on and now he uses one every day for school! I never thought the day would come and now he is going to be in the second grade! OMG, I think I just might have a mommy break down, hehe!CIAO! LOVE ME!

{camping}

We were gone camping this past weekend with Jay's family and his aunt and uncle. It was a lot of fun, but I have to say that after a few weekends on the go, I really wish that we were staying home this weekend. Instead, it is just another weekend that we will be gone and I have to pack and honestly, I'm getting kind of sick of it. The reason for our departure this weekend is some family pictures with Jay's mom's side of the family and honestly we wouldn't have to spend the weekend because the pictures are only on Saturday and not until the afternoon. But we are... because we plan to pick up my dad's boat on Sunday and bring it back home with us for a couple of weeks. I'm excited about that because it means I will be able to get out on a boat more than just twice this year, but on the other hand, it is not a pontoon boat that I will get to stretch out on, hehe! My dad's boat is just a small fishing boat, but we will take it! I'm just excited that he is letting us borrow it for a little while!

Back to my weekend of camping... We got there around 7pm on Friday night because Jay ended up having to work later than expected, but that was okay. We got the test set up and everything before it got dark out. Yes, we slept in a tent. Usually we slept in Jay's parent's camper with everyone, but because Jay's aunt and uncle were coming along for the camping experience, they took the camper and Jay and I took the tent. The original plan was to have Ayden sleep in the tent with us, but he wanted to sleep in the camper and there was enough room for him. It all worked out okay.

We did some fishing on Saturday. It's the best kind of fishing in my opinion... the kind where you cast your line into the water and almost immediately you have something. We were catching a lot of little perch, pumpkin seed, blue gill, and even a small large mouth bass here and there. Ayden and I didn't care that the fish were so little, like literally only 4 or 5 inches, but Jay and his brother Steven were after bigger fish! Jay even taught Ayden how to take his own fish off of the hook and how to put a new worm on. It was super cute! And even I got into the whole taking the fish off the hook (when the stupid fish hadn't swallowed it), but I didn't get brave enough to put more worm on it. Plus I got to use my new pink fishing pole that LIGHTS up! Totally cool, I know, haha!

I got mauled by the mosquitoes again, but that was okay. We played some fun games and may or may not have taught my six year old how to gamble, lol! We ate LOTS and LOTS of yummy camping food which included chocolaty s’more goodness! And then on Sunday morning we saw a storm coming in so we all pitched in and got everything picked up pretty fast and were out of there just before the rain really started coming down. It was kind of a bummer that we had to leave so early on Sunday (we left the campground by like 10:30am when we didn't need to be out of there until about 2pm), but I enjoyed having the afternoon to ourselves at home to relax and unpack and so forth.

There were a ton of these little blue dragonfly things flying around and I thought they were so cool looking, now I just need a macro lens to get better detail on them!Here I am with a little large mouth bass that I caught. I was the only one to catch one this little. Jay caught a bigger one that we kept the next day, but everything else we caught was either perch, pumpkin seed, or blue gill. And yes, I am proud of this tiny little fish that I caught! Hehe!Ayden and one of the many many pumpkin seed fish he caught! I was surprised that he even held it off the hook!Showing off a little perch that was caught!Here Ayden is getting ready to take the fish off of the hook for me. And yes, we made him wear his life jacket while we were out on the pier. It wasn’t that deep, but its good habit because while he is out on the pier at Jay’s grandparent’s house he needs to wear one while on the pier and he didn’t mind…And here are two pictures of the yellow lilies we have blooming in our yard. A few more days and the star gazers will bloom! I can’t wait!Props need to go to my future hubby for losing 30 lbs! He's doing great actually... better than me! I've stagnated at about 119-120lbs... That is 13lbs lost which is great and I know I'm at a healthy weight, but being home for the majority of the day now has me in the cupboards looking for snacks A LOT more than I want to be, but without the motivation to stay out or even start working out again. Jay hasn't really been working out per se either... rather he works hard all day long at work doing more landscaping than lawn cutting and burning a lot of calories that way. I think the biggest impact though has been the fact that he's pretty much stopped snacking at night and drinking like three or more sodas during the day. I'm SO proud of him and he has almost reached his goal so he can use his new golf clubs! I think he could lose another 10lbs, but I don't know if he thinks he can or really wants to so I am not going to push him. I know that he can really tell that he's lost a lot because pants that he used to wear with no belt now REQUIRE a belt with them otherwise they DO NOT stay up! Awesomeness! Like I said, I'm really proud of him because I didn't think he would stick with anything for this long or have these kind of results. Sorry to be negative, but I've seen his attempts at working out and getting back into shape before and things have only stuck for like the first week or so.

I was looking through some old pictures yesterday from high school and it brought back a lot of good memories! I couldn't believe how many pictures that I had of one of my besties and myself. She hates being in front of the camera so I was surprised that I had so many, but I was happy to see that. We had a lot of fun in high school and we still keep in touch to this day (albeit not quite as often as I'd like). I also got some of my old journals out and reread some of my entries in those and I couldn't believe what I was worried about then. It all seems so trivial now and so adolescent, but then I had to tell myself that I was only 16 at the time... that was almost 9 years ago now and people can grow a lot in nine years. And on the other hand a lot of it was pretty hilarious! Looking at it now I can't help but think how naïve I was about life. I was in a 'relationship' with someone who was absolutely NO good for me and reading my entries I could so see the signs of it, but of course I looked at everything with different eyes then. In any case, it was a good trip down memory lane. I packed everything back up into the boxes I store them in to look at another year or so from now. I tend to go in a cycle of getting those things out and paging through them every now and then. It's fun and funny! I'm sentimental like that... so sue me!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

{the wedding}

I have been hesitant to get excited over anything wedding related since Jay and I have gotten engaged. We've been engaged for over two years now and our wedding is still 808 days away (thank you countdown widget on my phone) so I've just felt like it isn't any appropriate time to get excited yet. Like it's WAY too early to go dress shopping or ask family and friends to be in our wedding or think about flowers/music/photography/reception/food ideas. I see a lot of my high school classmates updating on Facebook about all of the wedding planning they are doing and I can't help but get a little jealous and envious that their weddings are coming sooner than my own. But I still don't get overly excited about anything. And because Jay and I are not getting married for another two years, I feel that if I were to go out and buy a bunch of bridal magazines to get ideas for stuff it would all be outdated by the time our wedding rolled around, so why bother right?!

So far the only thing that is for certain about our wedding is where the actual ceremony is going to take place and that is Jay's parent's backyard. The configuration of everything is still a little unknown as I don't know if what I originally had wanted is going to be able to work, but per the usual... we have two years to figure it out, right?!

I have other ideas about other things, don't get me wrong, my brain has been working. I (we) each pretty much know who we want to ask to be in our wedding. I have already asked my sister if she would be my maid of honor and she has agreed (I needed to give her plenty of time to get her speech ready, haha, just kidding). I have two other people that I KNOW I am going to ask and then I have to determine if I want friends in my wedding. I have one or two friends that I would like to ask, but I know if I ask them and not another friend feelings will be hurt, so maybe it's better to just stick with who I am thinking about. Jay hasn't flat out said it, but I think he is probably going to ask his friend JT to be his best man. He's close to his brother Steven, but not that close... but maybe he will. Anyways, his groomsmen for sure (if they accept) will be JT, Steven, and my brother Casey and possibly one other person. And then Ayden and Alexis.

At this point I kind of know who I want to DJ the wedding as well and will keep my fingers crossed that he is still DJing in the next two years and will do weddings. I have no worries about him wanting to do it because I have been close with his family for YEARS! Of course, pending he will do weddings at that point.

I sort of have ideas about flowers and know that I want a photographer who really jives with my sense of photography. I know there are a lot of other things to consider as well... many many other things!

What brought this all on?!

Well we were home last weekend and out of the blue Jay's dad suggested a possible reception place for the wedding and honestly... I sort of fell in love with the idea. You see... there is a bar/reception hall literally like within walking distance of Jay's parent's house so it was sort of given that we would have the reception there. Not that there is anything wrong with this place, but to me its just so cliché. Nothing against anyone who has had their wedding there or who will because it is a nice enough place, but it is just not me. I didn't want to be one of those people. So, I had told Jay that I really didn't think I wanted our reception there. Anyways, the idea Jay's parents had was just sort of GREAT! I can't/won't go into any details just yet because we don't know if we can have the wedding there yet (it was just an idea so far) and they didn't know if Jay and I would go for it, but I had actually told Jay that I wanted something like that a while back and he didn't think it would be possible. It goes with the more nontraditional feeling that I want and will give it sort of more of a party/get together feel than a stuffy wedding. And best of all, it just seems to fit Jay and myself.

Now here I go getting excited about something that isn't even set in stone yet, but trust me, I've been googling wedding ideas galore now trying to get a feel for what I might like. I've gotten excited! Wait for it... I have (somewhat) of a vision and maybe even a theme!!! OMG! I just might have turned into a bride-to-be! Haha!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

{catch up}

My blogging has been pretty minimal lately and I hate it (even though I seem to be saying that at the beginning of each blog post and it hasn’t changed in the last month), but I really enjoy writing about what has been going on and posting pictures and so I am going to continue to blog, even if it is not as often as I would like to. Life gets into the way sometimes and it is better to live life than to sit in front of the computer all day long and lately I have been living life more than just sitting around on the computer and I am SO happy! Life is going really well for me (us) right now and I don’t want to miss a moment with my family and so the computer has taken a back seat. Lately if I have been going on the computer it is only for a little while for some homework (yes my summer class has started and I have a little bit of homework here and there).

My mom had come to visit for a few days this past week. It was really nice to have her visit for a couple of days and to just hang out. She was here from Monday thru Wednesday and although Ayden had summer school in the mornings and I worked for a couple of hours, we still had all afternoon to do stuff.

My lilies finally bloomed this past week as well, at least one of the three different kinds we have! I cannot wait for the rest of the colors to bloom and believe me, you will be graced with a TON more pictures!Here is Jordan Park when all of the dams were open and we couldn’t get onto any of the rocks! This just so happened to be during the day that I was going to take pictures there for a friend’s family. Normally where all of the water is rushing down from is dry and you can walk on it. Not this time! Thankfully I was still able to get some really neat pictures for my friend’s family, at least I think they turned out pretty well! Not my favorite photo shoot, but I was happy with at least most of the results.Here is a different picture of the rocks on a different day. The rock in the background was completely submerged under water on the previous picture.My mom and Ayden at Jordan Park!Our four day weekend started off with a SUPER hot and humid Friday. Jay only worked a half day on Friday, but they started earlier in the morning so it was actually closer to a full day than half day other than they got done earlier. Ayden and I both slept in... it felt nice! I got the laundry all done and folded and put away on Friday which was actually a bigger deal than it sounds because there was A LOT from previous weeks that I hadn't finished folding and putting away (and unfortunately it's started all over because there are a lot that need to be washed now too, it's never ending, hehe).

After Jay got home from work and cleaned up, we headed out to see Transformers 3. We decided not to see it in 3D to save a few dollars and a little bit of money on gas because the theater that it was playing in for 3D was about a half hour away. Instead we were going to go out to eat for supper afterwards. The movie was about 2 1/2 hours long and Ayden sat pretty good throughout the whole thing which I was surprised about. The movie itself was pretty good. I wouldn't say it was super awesome, but for being the third movie of the series, it turned out good. I wasn't bored throughout the whole thing, but it could have been a little bit shorter.

We went to IHop for supper. That was pretty yummy! We didn't get home until almost 8pm... but it was a good afternoon/early evening out with my family and I really enjoyed that. Actually, it was a family filled weekend and it was great!

On Saturday morning we had to go to the phone store to get my phone looked at because it was telling me that I didn't have any storage left on it and I was even deleting applications off of it and had barely any on it. The guy at the phone store tried telling me it was my email that was taking up all of the space and I about blew my lid on him. Finally he just reformatted the phone to factory settings and I just redownloaded everything. I just put my email back on the phone and it didn't change the storage amount AT ALL so that guy didn't know what the heck he was talking about. I CANNOT wait until our contract is up because we are leaving this company for something better. Their phone selection SUCKS! Our phones are cool and all, but they do not have CRAP for storage... not even 1G... when most phones have like 4 or 5G internal storage these days. Oh well. That was probably the only down point of my Saturday.

After getting my phone back to 'normal' we headed to the river for the fish tournament that Ayden was in. It was a carp tournament and of the four hours that we fished, we only caught one. Oh well... it was better than nothing I suppose. I just couldn't believe that Ayden actually fished for that long. I mean he didn't even have any games along or anything to keep him busy. He was up and around quite a bit which was fine because we were just sitting on the side of the river, but still Jay and him fished from 11am until 3pm! I pretty much just sat and watched, read my Kindle, took pictures, and got sunburnt.

My honey and Ayden waiting patiently for the fish! It was a carp tournament and our first fish was a catfish, haha! The couple in the boat in the background of this picture were hot on the fish! They had quite a few carp before we had even gotten there and continued to catch them while we were still there! They were super nice and even lent us their net when we got our one and only carp! Super sweet of them!That’s a hefty 5.5 pounds of fish right there! I couldn’t believe that Ayden actually picked it up! Gross, haha! I would never had grabbed it!Fishing took a lot out of all of us so we went home for a few hours before heading back out to the Riverfront Rendezvous festival for a night of music. I think we went back around 6pm and were there until 11pm. We saw three different bands and let me tell you... Ayden was WAY over tired by the time that we left and was in tears! He wanted to leave pretty much by the time the last band started and I did feel bad for him because he was so tired, but we were smack dab in the middle of a HUGE crowd with a cooler, three chairs, and a blanket and there was NO way we were getting out of that crowd until the concert was over, especially with all of our stuff. The concert was pretty good, but I felt bad for my little man because he was so tired. I sat and held him for a while.

The original plan for Sunday was for Jay's parents to come up to Point with the boat so we could watch the fireworks on the river with them, but Jay's dad didn't want to bring the boat all the way to Point so instead we went home to them so we could still go on the boat. The lake was wonderful! It was SO calm which was great because that is the type of water we need for a good pontoon ride.

See… beautiful water!Unfortunately, when we slowed the boat down to do some fishing the motor stopped on us. The guys did some investigating and it turned out that a small part of the carburetor had busted. We (the guys) eventually got the boat started again and as long as we were cruising around it was okay, but we couldn’t slow down too much or stop to do any fishing because then it would shut off. Needless to say my day long boat ride ended up being maybe an hour or two… next time I guess!We went to some nearby fireworks Sunday night and headed on home Monday early afternoon.

It was a GREAT weekend and I cannot wait until this weekend because we are going camping with Jay’s family!

CIAO! LOVE ME!