The Last Nine Months. . .

May 2007 - Obviously we got married on the 25th, so the entire month of May consisted of moving back to Indiana, finalizing wedding details, and lots of celebrations.

June 2007 - Left on the 8th for our honeymoon in Aruba. We were fortunate to spend our time at a great resort provided by Brent's dad and step-mom. Weather was great. We were across the street from the beach so we spent a lot of time soaking up the sun and protecting ourselves from the harsh trade winds that slammed us daily with buckets of sand. :) Our favorite adventure was an afternoon of snorkeling. We saw so many colorful fish, especially the large blue fish that swarmed around me ready to attack. Scared me to death, fortunately they were harmless. :)

July 2007 - I found a job with a dentist in Nappanee which is about 40 minutes from our house. Thankfully the drive isn't terrible because I really love the dentist and my co-workers. Brent continued working at Albertsons' Sport Shop and spent his summer dreaming of fall and the hunting to come.

August 2007 - Brent's sister, Acacia, and I made our annual trek down to Missouri for the Washington Towne & Country Fair. While there we spent a lot of time with Ruthie and even went on a float trip. A couple weeks later I headed back to St. Louis for Tony's graduation and to help them all pack up for their big move to Florida.

Sept 2007 - I was fortunate to tag along with my friend Sara (my friend from high school), to visit our friend Meagan in Portland. I really enjoyed my time there, getting to see family and friends that I hadn't seen for a few years. I especially liked being able to share my love for Oregon with Sara who had never been there before.

October 2007 - OCTOBER 1ST - THE DAY FINALLY ARRIVED . . . OPENING DAY OF BOW SEASON!! Brent pretty much spent every spare minute in the woods. He even let me tag along a few times - this was my first year to go hunting with my bow. We had fun getting to spend time together anxiously awaiting the big one! October also brought about a fun trip - finally getting to visit Kaiya in Florida. It has been a lot harder for me to be so far away my sisters and Kaiya than I thought it would be. I didn't realize how nice it was living so close and being able to spend the weekends with them. My mom and I spent five days enjoying the warm weather and our time with everyone. We saw the shuttle take off from Cape Canaveral as we drove to Cocoa Beach, we also enjoyed an afternoon at Downtown Disney, and getting Kaiya excited about Cinderella.

November 2007 - Hunting still continues on the weekends and evenings after work. Brent also got a new job working for a heating and cooling company with one of his friends. I spent a lot of time hanging out with dad while mom was in Florida helping Rachel for three weeks. We had Thanksgiving with friends of the family and made sure to arrange a conference call with mom and Kaiya during the Thanksgiving meal.

December 2007 - I was very anxious for the Christmas Season to arrive. Brent and I had fun decorating our house for our first holiday together. December consisted of several Christmas parties and get-togethers with friends. Brent and I spent our usual Christmas Eve with his dad and their family. Christmas day was dull and boring because mom left us again - for her time with baby Kaleb and to help Rachel. We spent our day at home watching "A Christmas Story", Brent's favorite movie. Ruthie came home for a visit a few days after Christmas and it was nice to see her again.

January 2008 - Happy New Year! We rang it in with friends, playing games, and watching the snow blow in. We had our first big snowfall of the year. Hunting season ended with Brent having killed several dows and an older buck. We still didn't get the big one, however I suppose it was still considered a success. Now we're just dreaming of next year! :)

February 2008 - My birthday month! Another year older . . . they just aren't as fun as they used to be. I guess that's reality of being an adult. :(

I don't have the internet at my house anymore, but I will try to post pictures sometime in the future.

Chrissy's Bachelorette Party

This past Saturday I hosted my best friend Chrissy's Bachelorette Party. We had a lingerie shower at her house (in Indianapolis) with margaritas, chips and salsa, and chicken quesadillas. I worked hard (and thoroughly enjoyed) planning and getting decorations together for her party. I can't wait to have more reasons to plan parties!! I enjoy planning and decorating for small events - NOT weddings! :) Here are some pictures of the decorations I put together:

(I decorated these bright pink margarita glasses with puffy paint and black gems and wrote each girls' name on one.)

Spring Has Sprung...And Ziggy Can't Stand It!

This is where I see Ziggy most often...staring out the window whining and growling at our groundhog that lives under our deck. I thought this was a particularly funny picture because the groundhog was standing on his hind legs on the edge of our deck hanging onto the railing. Ziggy was about to die not being able to chase after him. (you can just barely see the ground hog through the window in the picture)

Here are just some more pictures of the animals in our backyard that taunt Ziggy:

(this is the groundhog)

Just yesterday all of Ziggy's favorite little critters (except birds) were having their dinner in our backyard at the same time! There were 2 bunnies, a squirrel, and our groundhog! He could hardly stand looking at them. Half the time he was standing on his hind legs just whining! :)

Weekend In St. Louis

Well this weekend I went to St. Louis for a Franklin Covey conference and watched Kaiya on Saturday. These are just some fun pictures I took this weekend.

Ziggy felt left out that he didn't get to wear a party hat for Kaiya's birthday. :)

Ziggy really just wanted to be friends, but as you can tell the cats wanted nothing to do with him.

Tony is already trying to pass his love for music on to Kaiya. She thought she was pretty cool stuff wearing the headphones. And she really liked taking them off and then trying to put them back on all by herself.

I took these pictures for mom. We drove past this house on Saturday morning when I went garage saling with Rachel, her friend Bethany, and Ruthie. The whole entire yard was filled with all sorts of bird houses. It was one of the funniest houses I've ever seen!

On Saturday afternoon Ruthie and I took Kaiya and Ryan (the boy Ruthie tutors) to the Zoo. We all had a really good time, but it was about 80 degrees so we were all pretty sweaty! :)

Kaiya was such a good girl in her stroller at the zoo. She is really liking Cheerios right now so while the rest of us ate our lunch at the zoo she sat very content just eating Cheerios.

She seemed to have fun looking at all the animals. She would say "ooo, ooo" and point and then let out a screach trying to get the animals' attention.

Kaiya Grace

Well, I had a couple of cute pictures of Kaiya (taken in the last couple weeks) that I thought I would post.

She was having the hardest time trying to figure out how she was going to get her ball, that rolled into the laundry basket. She was afraid to actually crawl inside the basket.

Rachel and Kaiya came down last weekend to help me with my wedding invitations. We went out to dinner at El Maguey's (mexican restaurant) and Kaiya had her first taste of a lemon...and as you can tell she wasn't exactly thrilled!

Wedding Dress

Well, I've waited 4 months for this day...my dress finally arrived!! The bridal shop here in Rolla called me on Thursday letting me know it could be picked up whenever I had the chance. I went yesterday and tried it on. It fits just about perfectly. The straps need to be taken in just a little...but other than that I think we're good to go. I tried on several veils yesterday, but had trouble deciding which one I liked better. I went back today with Linda (a lady from my work who is my mom away from home). She helped me decide on the veil that is in the picture and then took pictures for me. I absolutely love it and can't wait to be tan and have my hair and make-up all done. I am planning on wearing my hair half up (like it is in the picture) and curled. It feels like the wedding is really getting close, now that I have my dress. I wanted to post pictures of it so everyone would have a chance to see it. (Brent doesn't know about this blog so he won't be able to see it before the big day) The dress is an ivory taffeta material which i think will work really well for an outside wedding (no chance of snagging).

ICE, ICE BABY!!

Well, thankfully I survived the crazy ice storm we got this past weekend. On Friday I prepared myself by making a trip to Wal-Mart (with everyone else in Rolla) to stock up for the BIG STORM!! They were calling for a lot of ice, which could possibly mean power outages. I bought a book, a puzzle, snack foods, and bottled water. I also rented 5 DVD's (in case the power didn't go out) and checked 3 books out from the library. After all that I hurried home to buckle down for the storm. I spent my entire weekend watching movies, reading 2 books and completing this puzzle:

I actually finished this 1,000 piece puzzle in one day...which is probably not something I should admit because I'm sure it makes me sound like a pathetic geek! :) But oh well, I suppose sometimes I am. My power went out Friday night, came back on Saturday around 11:00a.m. and then went out again Saturday night, but came back on around 4:00a.m. on Sunday. I am hoping that this will be the end of the power outages, but there is a whole lot of ice on the branches and power lines so if we get any sort of wind tonight I would imagine the power may go out again. While I was at work today I took these pictures of all the ice. It was quite a sight for me to see - I don't think I've ever seen that much ice on tree branches before. I'm truly surprised there haven't been more power outages.

While the cat's away, the mice (or mouse in this case) play! :)

Well last night Brent arrived home to quite a surprise...he hadn't securely latched Ziggy's kennel door shut. And that can mean only one thing - Ziggy went from looking like this:

to behaving like this (but worse):

I was on the phone with Brent as he pulled into his driveway. He notice that his t.v. was on and commented that he must have left it on all day. Then, as he got out of his car, Ziggy's little head popped through the curtains very excited to see that Brent had finally arrived to play. As soon as Brent saw Ziggy in the window he said - "oh my gosh, somehow your dog got out of his kennel..." He opened the door to his house and all I could hear him say was - "OH MY GOSH!!! OH MY GOSH!!! YOU'RE DOG HAS DESTROYED MY HOUSE!!!" At some point (I'm sure very early on in the day - while Brent was at work) Ziggy managed to push his way out of his kennel, and then began his party! He destroyed all of the following...if not more:

Brent's rubber hunting boots, all his remotes (thus the reason for the t.v. being turned on), his friend's Notre Dame hat, an X-Box controller, all his pillows, and worst of all - his COUCH!!! And to top it all off he left piles of urine and poop all over the house for Brent to clean up - including a pile of poop right on Brent's bed!

I will say I truly understood Brent's anger...but what could he expect. He left Ziggy (a one year old puppy) all alone for over 12 hours! Poor Ziggy didn't even know he had done anything wrong. When Brent walked in the door he just wagged his tail excited to see he was home! To him he had just had the funnest day of his life!

So once it was all said and done and Ziggy was locked up in his kennel for the night, this is probably what he had to stare at all night long...

POOR ZIGGY!!! He definitely received no love from Brent last night. (but he should probably be thanking his lucky stars that he's still alive) :)

car ride

I had to add this picture from our trip home to Indiana. Ruthie and I packed my Escape about as full as you could - and then decided to bring along BOTH our pets! Thank heavens they love each other so much. At one point Lulu (ruthie's cat) was licking Ziggy's ear - he didn't seem to mind at all.

Christmas

Well I just got home yesterday from spending about 10 days in Indiana for Christmas. It was a MUCH NEEDED vacation. I hadn't seen Brent for about 6 weeks and missed my parents like crazy. I had a pretty good visit, but for some reason I don't feel very rejuvenated. I think I spent too much time working on wedding plans and making time to see all of my friends.

Our Christmas was nice - but I really hate growing up! Christmas just never seems as fun and exciting as it did when I was younger. First of all, we draw names for gift giving in my family and NO ONE can keep who they have a secret. In my opinion the best part of gift giving/receiving is the surprise. Second, ever since Rachel has been married we have had to share her (thus changing our Christmas traditions). It really sucks because I always loved waking up early on Christmas morning to the smell of cinnamon rolls baking in the oven. While we waited for them to bake, we would open all our Christmas presents (most of which were SURPRISES). Next we would sit down to a wonderful breakfast consisting of cinnamon rolls (or pecan rolls) and warm grapefruit with little cherries on top. (I personally hate the grapefruit, but it's just not Christmas without it on the table!) Now Rachel doesn't come until Christmas night...TOTALLY ruining my favorite traditions! :)
Well this year I decided I was going to bring back at least one Christmas tradition...Santa's Cookies! I painted this plate at Pottery Bayou in Winona Lake and decided it is going to become the new "Santa Cookie Plate."

Anyway - Ruthie, Anna, Otto, Kali, Squeaky, Lulu, and I all left Santa some milk and snacks along with a note! And the next moring we woke up to a Christmas miracle - Santa wrote us back! :) It was pretty fun...but part of me is really serious about the importance of Christmas traditions. It will be nice to someday have my own family to carry on the Christmas traditions with.

It was very hard to come back to Missouri, I really miss Brent, my family, and my friends a lot. May can't seem to come soon enough! I left Ziggy at Brent's house for the next three weeks. I am planning on packing a bunch of my stuff in my Escape to take back to Indiana with me when I go back on the 22nd. I didn't really realize how lonely I would be without him. Last night it took me a while to fall asleep because I couldn't get warm. I am used to having Ziggy sleep next to me, and he wasn't there. Then I woke up this morning and rolled over to hug him and once again, he wasn't there. I got out of bed and walked out to the kitchen, and he wasn't there to follow me! I thought I was lonely before, but now with Ziggy gone it is EXTREMELY lonely. I caught myself almost crying each time I'd think of him or look at his food bowl or toys. I don't know what I'm going to do when I have actual children and they aren't around! :) But obviously by the looks of this picture, Ziggy probably doesn't even notice I'm gone!

By Aunt Gayla's Request...

Aunt Gayla left a message stating that she was curious what kind of flowers I was going to go with. So I got onto my favorite wedding planning website - TheKnot.com - and thought I would post a few samples of some of my reception ideas. Nothing is set in stone, but I really love the hydrangeas and the way they are displayed in this first picture. It would be very simple, yet elegant, which is what I like.

This next picture is something I just found today that I thought would look really cool if I chose to go with round tables. I like how the tablecloth is gathered around the middle with the green fabric.

And finally...I love the idea of using green apples in a tall vase as another table decoration idea. I am not going to be accenting with pink like they show in this picture, but I still think it would work out really well.

This is truly the fun part of the wedding planning to me. I really enjoy decorating, so hopefully I won't become too stressed out with this aspect.

Last night we spoke with possible photographers...I really liked them and the pictures they showed us looked very nice and fit what I'm looking for in a photographer. It is a young married couple (they are probably right around my age). They both are photographers, so I think it will be great to have two people taking the pictures. Hopefully this will be one more thing checked off the to-do list. Their website is www.breathoflifephotography.com They don't have a ton of pictures shown on their website, but it kind of gives you and idea of what they do.

Fall Foliage

Here are just a few pictures I took near Washington, Missouri. It was very pretty this fall with all the leaves changing colors along the hillside.

Chicago

The first weekend in October I had to go to Chicago with my office for a seminar. We flew from St. Louis to Chicago and then took the L (Chicago's finest public trasit system) from the airport to our Hotel right in downtown Chicago. (picture from left to right - Linda (Dental Asst.), me, Trudy (Office Mgr.), and Carol (Dr. Moorkamp's wife))

The weather was absolutely perfect that weekend which made for a nice time in downtown Chicago. We walked down to Navy Pier one night as the sun was setting. They had a haunted house set up at the end of of the pier called Navy Fear. Along the pier there were people dressed up in costumes that scared people who walked by. Dr. Moorkamp suggested I should get my picture taken with one of them. This guy was very creepy, mainly because he looked like Michael Jackson! :) He would run up to people walking by and eject the fake person out of the wheelchair at them! It was so funny!

One night I got to pick where we would eat and of course I chose the place that brought back memories from my childhood - The Rainforest Cafe! It was pretty fun and we all got our picture taken by the gorillas. (from left to right - Dr. Moorkamp, me, Linda (Dental Asst.), Trudy(Office Mgr.))

Kaiya's First Sleep-over!!

At the end of September Kaiya had her first sleep-over at Aunt Bekah's house. Rachel had a conference and Tony was gone, so I had the opportunity to watch her. We had a lot of fun staying up late (actually just waking up every few hours), playing with our toys (including the mirror which kept her entertained for hours! she just can't get enough of the cute little face staring back at her!), and taking naps with Ziggy (who apparently feels that when she is at his house he should be able to sleep on her blanket). Ziggy is really good with her - and actually a week ago Kaiya was petting him and I swear she giggled and said Ziggy. (which breaks Rachel's heart cause she still hasn't said mommy yet!! :))

Bridesmaid Dress

Well here is the bridesmaid dress I chose. I am really happy with my decision. My colors are going to be primarily green and white...maybe accenting with some yellow. I love this dress - and both Rachel and Ruthie tried it on and said they liked it the most (out of all the dresses they were nice enough to try on for me). I think that it will look very nice with my wedding dress. I am still debating on hair styles for the girls, but I think this picture is probably one of my top favorites. (I like the style of the girl on the far right) So far I have really enjoyed planning my wedding. There have been some stressful points...but Brent has been really good about calming me down. It makes it easier having a groom that really doesn't care much about the wedding details (one less person I feel I need to please).