The Rich get Richer...

*Pictures coming soon*

So Al and I went to a performance last night that his seven-year-old niece, Sydnee, was in.  It was some random lady that found a bunch of parents and charged $40 a child to put on a play with their kids.  They only rehearsed 3 days and she had 22 students. That's over $800!!! Pretty good money.  The play was absolute chaos when we went to watch it though... backdrops were falling down, kids didn't know their lines, and they were tripping over each other.  The thing that really got me though was the people's house where they performed.  It wasn't a major fancy house but their land was huge. They build a 3-story tree house thing with a twin bed, working ceiling fan and a slide coming off of the top floor.  They had built a soccer/football field with goals and goalposts and a track winding all the way around it. They're also building on another house in their land for one of their children to move into when they get married.  They also have a small putting green and still plenty of space to spare. It was IMPRESSIVE!!

The play was a good attempt though and Sydnee did great :)

Homeward Bound!

Al and I have decided we want to end up in Portland when we get married. So we convinced his parents to take us on a road trip next week so that I can show him all the places I used to live and we can look for apartments to live in. I'm so excited!

His parents didn't have the money to take us though so we cleaned out his garage and some of the basement and put on a yard sale... to our dismay we only sold about $50 worth of stuff... not enough to get us to Oregon. :( We have been putting random money in this five-gallon water jug over the past three months though and had dubbed it our "Marriage Fund". We decided that visiting Oregon was so crucial, though, that we're turning our marriage fund into our "Travel Fund" temporarily. we have about $185 now. Still not enough to get us to and from Oregon, but it's a start...!

I'm way excited to get to see my old friend Lavell on the way through Idaho and my friend Rachel while I'm in Oregon. Her wedding is the same day as my brother's so I'm going to miss it :( Hopefully I'll get to spend a little time with her though and catch up on all the things we've missed over the past year. I really miss both her and Michelle and the friendship we used to have. I love them both!!

So Al and I are taking thursday in my home city to show him my childhood and look at apartments (going to be a busy day!) and then friday we're going to spend the day at Lincoln beach and Newport beach. Saturday we'll make our way up to Cannon beach and then head back to Idaho. We'll get into Utah Sunday afternoon and my classes start Monday morning! Then Monday evening I have to move into my new apartment!! Going to be a crazy week!!!

This week just holds about 45 hours of work in hopes to save up a little more money since we're draining our marriage fund for the trip. Oh what a sad day it is when you have three sources of savings and they're all getting drained before they're supposed to.


I'm still working on getting skinnier before the wedding. I've started doing the Wii fit and DDR. It's been pretty fun :) Al and I were looking into getting P90x but it's super expensive. He found it for free online and is trying to figure out how to download it. A month and a half to go!!

Prove them wrong!

Ok so new plans are in the process of being finalized:

My wedding has now been moved to April (9 MONTHS AWAY!!!!) because my parents want to help pay for it, but with my brother getting married in October, they won't have enough money until then. That seems like forever to wait, but hopefully he'll be able to find a job and we can actually save up some money before the wedding since we're both basically run dry on funds.

I'm way excited for my brother's wedding though. They're super cute together!! They both went to the jewelery store yesterday and purchased their rings together. She just bought all our brides maid's dresses. I'M GOING TO BE A BRIDES MAID! I've never been one before and I'm super excited. The outift was super inexpensive, but I have to get skinnier before I'll feel like I look good in it :) I HAVE TO start eating better and exercising! No question about it. Plus it will be good for me to get that way before I have to get into a wedding dress. I'd be much happier at -20lbs and have 2 months to get there :P

Al and I are staying in Utah for the fall - I'm going to school AND working 20 hrs/week and he's still trying to find a job and plans to work full time during the fall AND winter to save up... I'm scared though cause as much as we need money, we both need to get done with school and on our way. He feels like he can't go through school right now while he's living with his parents though cause they nag him too much. I know he can do it, we've just both slacked this semester and HAVE TO do better from now on! After fall semester I'll move back to Texas to work full time for 3 months and plan the wedding while Al's in Utah... hopefully working and going to school... though he only wants to work and wait until summer to go to school. We'll get married in April in Texas and have a reception and go on a cruise right after. When we get back we'll pack ALL my stuff up and drive to Utah where we'll have another reception, pack up all his things and move out to Oregon where we hope to live for quite a while. On our own. Living our life how we want to while going to Portland State University. The only problem with that is that PSU doesn't have nursing. So I'm not sure what I will do with that becaue I really want to be a nurse. Hopefully Labor and Delivery... I may have to look into more of a medical-based school in Portland.

My parents are still resistant to the idea of us getting married becaue they are so convinced that we will be financially unable to make it. We just have to really step up and prove them wrong...

My mom did agree to go wedding dress shopping with me when she comes to visit in October though which I'm super excited about because there are not many modest dress shops in Texas.

Another Wonderful Sunday Afternoon

So before I get started with yesterday, I've been left in awe at my boyfriend once again. I'm sitting at work doing a project and texting him about how I forgot to bring a lunch today, and what does he do? 15 minutes later shows up with this huge meal from Panda Express, remembering how the other day I said I'd been craving it!!! So now my tummy's super satisfied!! :)

Anyways, yesterday Al and I were deciding what to do for our sunday stroll together. We decided to go hiking up this trail. It was such a beautiful walk and we sat and talked the whole way up. He even brought a fishing pole and we went fishing for 3-4 hours, just sitting and talking some more. He only caught one fish, and I caught 3 but one got away 5 feet from the shoreline. We let the other 2 go and kept one. It was way too hot to walk all the way back to the scooter so his dad picked us up and drove us back :) I got a pretty awesome sunburn too...

When we got to his house he cooked up the fish for us. It was DELICIOUS with just some slabs of butter, seasoning salt and lemon pepper!!

After enjoying our fish and taking a nice cool shower to soothe my burns I called up my dad and had a pretty nice chat about my future. Granted he is still not fully supportive of my decision to get married "so soon" but he is trying to understand. Hopefully all goes well with getting the parents on board!!

As far as current life plans: I'm staying at BYU for the fall, Al is working on getting a couple jobs and working through fall, beginning of December I will move back home to Texas to spend 2 months with my parents before getting married FEBRUARY 4TH!!!! I'm glad we finally set a date, just waiting for him to propose now!!! Who knows when it will happen now that I'm staying for fall... the only thing pushing him was knowing I was leaving so soon... I guess we'll just have to wait and see!!!! :D