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

On my own

Things are up in the air again. I guess I really don't know what I want... I talked to three different people last night saying how both Al and I really need to figure out what we're doing with our lives before we try to start a family, which I totally agree with! I need him to show me that he's responsible and is working towards being able to take care of us in the near future... this means having and holding a job, and getting on with his school. I'm debating again whether to stay here and go to school for one more semester... I could keep my job, get another semester out of the way, not have to travel back for my brother's wedding in October... I'm just not sure if being here is helping or really hurting Al to get his stuff in order. We just want to spend all of our time together, so neither of us are really focusing on what we need to... I really just wish I could see even 8 months into the future and the outcome of all of this... I was talking to Al's friend yesterday who got home from a 2 year mission in Taiwan... he's just so mature and focused and I know that Al going on a mission would really help him, and I would totally wait for him... but he's apparently against that idea now. He would get to go to Norway! I think that's just an opportunity that should be hard to pass up.

I truly don't know anymore...

I can't talk to my parents because they're against the idea of us getting married so young... well for him... I can't talk to his parents because they just want to keep me and it doesn't matter if he stays or goes... anybody in the church just seems like they'd be biased and pushing for him to go on a mission... I guess it's just all up to me to decide what's best for me and I really am lost... I guess basically I have to make my choice, whatever it is and go with it and see where it gets me... I may (hopefully) be that happiest girl I know, married to an amazing guy I love, living out our dreams together... I may be a young girl in love but struggling to make it through life being so naive when we got married... if I wait too long though I may end up losing him...

I think ideally we should wait another year to get married, but it's so hard being apart from him. We work so much better when we're together and working on/towards the same thing...

Too bad I don't think I have any 3rd party un-biased readers to offer advice... like I said, on my own...

Another day, Another dollar

Al is so cute! He's been trying hard to find a job, but hasn't been successful. So last night he created and printed up 50 flyers saying he only had 3 weeks left to buy me a ring and asking to people to hire him to mow their lawn and do yardwork. He stapled rubberbands on them and delivered them to people's doors at 11 last night!! I told him that he was crazy for doing it so late, but he said he wanted people to see them first thing this morning when they walked out. Sure enough, he got put to work for two different people. One this morning and one this afternoon. The guy from the morning is a landscaper and asked Al if he wanted to help him out with this new project he's working on. He said it wouldn't pay as much as him doing it on his own, but he would hire him for a few hours a day the next two days probably. He's now $40 closer to getting my ring :)

Things are going great with Lenny and Einstein (the puppies). they're back to their usual constant wrestling and Lenny's back jumping on tables and countertops. I've never seen a dog that could jump the way he does.

Just studying for my Anatomy quiz this evening and hopefully going to bed early! NO SCHOOL/WORK TOMORROW!!! bad side is I won't make $80, but at least I'll hopefully get the much deserved rest that I need.

Time to learn about the heart and major arteries. WOOHOO!!! :P

Past Events

A few things from the past that I wanted to remember....



Al and I went to a fair on the 4th of July with his friend Ben and his girlfriend Rebecka. We got these bracelets that are made of like string. Al got one that said A.N.J. EVR and mine says C.A.S. 4 it's supposed to be for when we put them together it's like CAS ANJ 4 EVR. Cute idea!! What's even cuter with mine being CAS 4... Al told me he wants to name our son after him so he would be Charles Aldrich Strange the 4th... so I told Al today that I wanna save my bracelet for our son to wear :) It would be so perfect!!





Another thing... our puppies!!! Al and I adopted this poodle/shihtzu mix named Albert Einstein. He's so cute and was going to get euthanized if he didn't have a home in a few days from when we first saw him, so we fostered him at first and ended up adopting him!!! And what a little model he is! ;)



we also fostered this Bichon Frise named Frosty... we ended up getting him adopted out to this super cute family with 3 kids. They've had him for about a month, but we're watching him again this week cause they went out of town and didn't want to kennel him. Al says he's his dog and that he doesn't wanna give him back.


They're both so cute and funny!!!! :)

We also have two Rex Rabbits. Their names are Creme and Cookies. They're like plush soft and it's funny to watch them run around when we let them out of their cages!! They're tiny bunnies in the picture. It's from when we first got them at about 5 weeks old, but now they're full grown and much larger. But still cute!! :)







I think as of now I've decided that I'm going back to Texas for fall. I'm not doing well in classes here and feel like I'm just wasting money. Plus I just need to regroup and save money before I move on with the next big part of my life!



We found the ring that I love! it even goes along with my anniversary band so well that I'll probably turn it into the wedding band. Everything seems to be going great except that he needs a job, and we both need money!! I need to buy the Mazda from my parents and pay for a wedding!!!!



Chris is thinking of getting married in October which is super crazy!!! But I'm happy for him. Tiffany seems super cute :)

I'll post another one tomorrow probably about other things Al and I have been up to this summer. So much to catch up on :)