That time of year

Time for baking, family, cold weather, and just over all good company. The term has come to an end and thankfully so. The past two weeks have been amazing to have off. I quite literally have gone to work, worked out, and sat my tired rear on the couch forever. The first day after finals I think I slept for a good 11 hours. So great. Now Christmas is creeping up quick and we have plenty of quality time planned with the family. Considering the fact that we have four Christmas' to attend we will be seeing lots and lots of family. My friend Courtney surprised me the other day. She lives in Hawaii and showed up one night on my door step. Needless to say it was a good couple days of non-stop talking and reminiscing.

Shortly after she left we had our Laughing Planet Christmas party. So much fun. It was a really good time for everyone to get together and be able to talk because we never all get to work together. There was tons of laughing and tons of talking. 

Finally I finished up this week before Christmas with some Holiday Baking. Lance had a guys night with his best friend, Lucas and I spent it baking so many delicious goodies with my mom and sisters. Two of my good high school friends and I got to see each other later that night. Shanda is pregnant and just bought a house. Talk about crazy. It doesn't feel like we have been out of high school for that long, I mean 3 years isn't forever, but still. It feels like just yesterday we were all sitting in my room talking about boys and what we were going to wear to the dance. Now we are sitting on Shanda's new couch in her new home, feeling her little baby girl kick, and talking about when Melina will be in her program and where I think Lance and I will end up in the country for his. It's amazing how fast time flies and everything that's changed from that time. We are all very happy where we are now and it's the best thing to feel this time of year.

Needless to say it was a great night. Full of sugar rushes, memories, and frosting all over my sisters face :)

"I Just Wanna Plan!"

And we have a countdown! Finals week is never enjoyable. I mean it literally is never enjoyable. Thankfully this term my hardest final was the one that I got out of the way first and I have the whole week to study for my next hardest one. Except now I really just want to relax and watch some TV while looking through Pintrest for ideas for our wedding. I'm having extreme withdraws. Three months without much of any planning at all. My fingers are cringing! All I want to do is taste cake, sample caterers, pick out centerpieces, take engagement pictures, and sit in my wedding dress :) Thankfully I have the most amazing bridal party and mother, and mother in law to help me pick through all of the final details allowing for a very productive upcoming Winter Break. We're meeting up in a couple weeks to go to Bridgeport and look at my dress and hopefully find dresses for them as well! Also we have hopes of finding some DIY centerpieces. Because Sweet Pete flowers are expensive. However! I can say that I have our bouquets checked off the list, those are all squared away! We have figured out our photographer and now it's time to figure out when to do the engagement shoot. Everything is falling into place, just as I had hoped. If all goes right I should be able to graduate in a year and two terms. Right on time :) So fingers crossed there! Other wise not a whole lot is new here. Just counting down the days before I can sit with my wedding binder in front of me :) Here are some DIY ideas..Decisions, Decisions

Holy, Hard Classes, Batman!

We clearly took for granted those classes we claimed hard our Freshman and Sophomore year of college. I think as soon as you hit your junior year in a bachelor in science the professors begin speaking in different languages, not foreign languages, worse....science language. "Please find the isomer of this molecular structure, how are these two compounds related? Diasteromers, Enantiomers, Stereoisomers, Structural Isomers..." WHAT?! Sadly I know what those words mean, barely. I'm taking everyones advice and taking a breather from those...words.

This blog, though sometimes neglected, is sometimes very helpful to get blow off some steam. I'm all registered for next term and its a bit of a lighter load, just more focused on Science and Nutrition. But thankfully that is what I'm majoring in so it makes sense.

 I've been day dreaming all day today about what life will be like after college. Maybe I'm just not laid back enough, or haven't been putting myself out there enough but I would really like to know what those people are talking about when they say that these are the best years of your life.

I'm poor. I eat chicken and rice every night for dinner. I sleep an average of 5 hours a night, and spend the other 19 hours cramming information into my brain.
I usually pride myself on being an optimist so I'll give it a try...

I'm learning how to budget my money and time I could be eating cup of noodles every night?
At least I'm sleeping, I could have insomnia
I'm becoming smarter and a better contributor to society
 Yeah whatever, I still like my day dreams about having a beautiful house with a yard and being able to afford our heating bill... One of these days I'll look like this:

Instead of this:

Wedding Nightmares?

As school ticks on I have not had much time to think much about the wedding, let alone plan for it! However, my subconscious desperately wants me back in front of my binder of ideas for dresses, centerpieces, and what not. The other night I had a dream that our venue had to be changed last minute from an indoor modern-ish venue to in the middle of an abandoned field, without explanation. Try selling that to a bride on her imaginary wedding day. In my dream, since I had no choice I proceeded as usual with what I believe to be my "day of" festivities, which might I add are NOT what I have in my conscious mind. I dreamt that I put on my long beautiful wedding dress and proceeded to put my hair in a simple pony tail. NOT how I envision me looking the day of, but none the less the dream continues. If things were not weird enough already I then am told that only twenty people will be arriving and we have food for 150. Slight panic attack. Also, that the bartender refuses to serve anyone any form of alcohol. Slightly larger panic attack. I wasn't able to finish the dream because my alarm woke me up, thank goodness. I thought it was maybe a fluke thing, I hadn't thought much about the wedding in quite some time. BUT THEN! A week later I had another nightmare! This time our wedding was in our normal venue, but the venue had no roof, and was in the middle of a dang field again. The day of festivities seem to be proceeding as I imagine while awake, until I realize that we had not bought Lance's ring! I was about to walk down the aisle to the man of my dreams without a ring to give to him. So we called all of our guests ( all 150 of them) and informed them that the wedding was to be pushed back 3 hours to 8:00PM (What!?). Alright so the wedding was pushed back and our venue was...not what we had planned, no big deal. But then I begin to curl my hair and it wont hold a curl. My make up will not stay on my face, and i'm NOT WEARING SHOES. Thankfully my alarm came to the rescue yet again. I don't know how much more of that I wanted to see. I guess the take home message from these dreams is that it doesn't matter, outside or inside, ponytail, or straight, food or no food, I am still marrying my very best friend, with or without shoes in 10 months and I couldn't be more excited about it :) I did have a chance to meet with the florist the other night and we have a boat load of ideas in store, I cannot wait for Winter Break when the planning can be picked back up. Hopefully the crazy dreams stay in the cage until then. Here are some ideas

As far as everything else goes Lance and I have been spending an average of 6 hours at the library 7 days a week. I wish I had more exciting news but that has been our life. 5 more weeks. 5. more. weeks.

The Weekend Off!

Well for me anyways. I had Friday and Saturday off work so Friday I deep cleaned the apartment to get ready for school and then picked up my sisters to come stay over with us since it was our parents 17th anniversary. Wow..I know...17th!! They are such an inspiration. It shows that when the going gets tough the tough over come the going. My little sister Kim is a wonderful photographer. It's a skill she picked up a little over a year ago and has been doing amazing ever since. She's done a few mock engagement sessions with Lance and I to build her portfolio and has done a couple senior picture sessions! She's fantastic! They went home yesterday morning right before people started to come over and get ready for the game. My friend Sam, Jayme, and some of Jayme's family came over to my apartment and we walked to the tailgaters and such after Lance got home from work. It was extremely warm in the student section. Aluminum benches and 87 degree weather tend to create that result, however. And then we didn't win, so that was...upsetting. BUT it was so much fun being able to hang out with our friends, cheer for OSU, and yell at UCLA. We left the game early due to heat exhaustion and lack of winning and drove up to Hillsboro to meet the newest member of the family, Reese Makena Holcomb. Oh and she is absolutely perfect. I could have held her all night. Bria is such a good big sister, she held her and loved on her, and Lindsey and Brian seem just so overjoyed and happy with their beautiful family. Watching Lindsey makes me so excited to be a mom some day...in the future, quite some time from now. Anyways, here's some pictures from this weekend.

Who's serious these days? :)

The photographer herself

Just Because

I feel like everyone has to learn at some point or another just exactly what truly matters in your life. When you're young, EVERYTHING is a big deal from who said Happy Birthday to who is going to what game. As the years pass though the important people remember the important things and those are the only ones who truly matter. I've been blessed with truly great people in my life who help me celebrate the important things, or the "just because's". Where would I be without them? Probably still making a big deal out of EVERYTHING. This week has been a mundane routine. Lance works everyday, as do I. However, he works days and I work nights, therefore we don't see each other except for a couple minutes before bed. But he still finds small ways, just because, to let me know how much he cares. For instance the other night he greeted me at the door after my late shift with a bouquet of roses and a clean kitchen ( the boy knows me really well! ) And so I learn that the simple things that are important. Without my truly important, soul mate, I would most likely be making a big deal out of EVERYTHING. So now we prepare for school, which we are actually both looking forward to. We have a class together! Which is something we never expected to happen. And we are also preparing for the wedding. 359 days as of today! It seems so far away when you put it into days but with school it will most definitely creep up on us faster than expected. This journey is just going to be full of laughs and I cannot wait.

Obviously, since I'm marrying a goofball, I'm the luckiest girl in the world

Thank you Kim Davis for the beautiful pictures!

5th time's a charm?

After changing, debating, mulling over, experimenting, and completely hating the four majors I had chosen originally before this one, I am happy to say I think we found a winner!! I have decided to major in Dietetics. What the heck is that? Well it's a fantastic little major that gives me a better, more knowledgable excuse to give to Lance as to why we should in fact not eat that delicious looking cheesey, bacon topped, hamburger. But on a more serious note it will give me a lot of knowledge for later on down the road when food allergies hit our children, as they have so generously done to us, and it will also allow me to do two things that I am very passionate about at the same time! I am able to work on a scientific basis, such as how does what you are eating digest in your body, how is it stored, what do the ingredients in the food do to your organs, and so on an so forth. The other part of it is interacting with people on a very personal basis. I will have a cliental that I hopefully work with through either stressful points in their life, tragic points, happy points, such a pregnancy, or achieving a goal such as running a marathon, and so many other points. Needless to say this fits me well. Because of this major change I have spent that last 3 weeks with this little gem:
Isn't she a beaut?
I've managed to become excited with this topic though, chemistry has for once in my life intrigued me, which is another reason that I feel this major is going to fit well. Except for today is my birthday and I do not want to even look at that book. (But I am)

So Lance and I have been slowly chipping away at wedding plans, in and out of Chemistry conversations.
We declared our colors, reserved our venue, drooled over caterers, and have narrowed our photographers down to 3.
I'm so excited for the next year, Lance will be home for every holiday, every OSU football game, and we're planning our wedding! Which is sure to be fantastic. There is just so many wonderful things in the future and I couldn't be more appreciative of everything life has given me thus far.

20? weird.

I'm always the last of my friends to turn a certain age. Hence why I have not been able to go out with any of them on their 21st. The benefit to that, however, is that ALL of them get to come out with me on mine, strategic, I know :)

So last summer I welcomed in my last year as a teenager with my very best girlfriends with a Freaks and Geeks party. Everyone dressed up AWESOME. We had characters such as:


Followed by these hooligans:


In a nut shell it was so much fun being our inner goof balls and dancing the night away. I'm truly blessed with the best friends, ever. But this year will be slightly different. Courtney will be in Hawaii....so we are going to have to replace her with a cardboard cutout. And Lance will be home!! So I think that I'm bringing in my first year that doesn't end in "teen" we should be sophisticated. Maybe a black tie affair? Maybe everyone dresses like they are from the 20's? Or maybe we'll be low key and go out to dinner. Either way, I will be spending it with my very best friends and for that I am forever grateful :)

And it begins!

We put our deposit down on our venue Monday night. Let's just say I was like a kid in a candy shop, all wide eyed staring at all the beauty that was now going to be ours...well for a day. We are getting married at The Vue, it's close to home, relatively inexpensive compared to other places, and fits us perfectly. Finally booking it made everything seem so real and we may have finally chosen our colors! Hopefully. It is simple, but elegant, classy, but homey, modern, but we'll add some classic touches. I've been planning forever, but now it's so real :)

A Love Like That...

Out of all the mushy gushy posts I've ever written I believe this will be the very most mushy and it begins like this...The summer of 2008 my parents, sisters, and I caravan ed up to Squim Washington, never heard of it? Neither had I, it's a very small town about 6 hours from Albany...give or take. Anyways it was for our first family reunion/ 60th wedding anniversary for my great grandparents. Yes my fantastic Grannie Annie and Granddad had been together for 60 wonderful, beautiful, inspiring years. If you had ever seen these two together you knew instantly that when you found the one who you were going to spend the rest of your life with you wanted to be lucky enough to be just half as happily married as they were. They had a spark that had somehow had grown brighter and bigger through every year they are together. When they look at each other you can just tell that they are head over heels for each other. They raised a beautiful family and have gone on to live side by side with great devotion to themselves and God.

A little over a year and a half ago my Grannie Annie was diagnosed with cancer and my Granddad was glued to her side. We all believed that she fought it off by the help of his love and the big guy upstairs. My Grannie Annie is such a strong woman, for goodness sakes she raised a family of 7 kids, 6 of which being girls! Sadly though she relapsed about six months ago and has been fighting strong ever since. My Granddad was just taken to the hospital last Monday after a heart attack. He isn't doing as well as we all had hoped but we know he is such a strong fighter. They are in our prayers every night and each day he's holding on just a little bit more.

Now the point of this whole post is to explain how lucky we all have been to have such wonderful life examples. My great grandparents are two selfless, independent, devoted, loving people in the whole entire world. By witnessing their wonderful life thus far I'm inspired to carry on the fantastic traits that they have passed on to our family. They granted me to ability to love, deeply, with all of my heart and I intend to devote that to Lance. He is the one that I look at every day and feel the spark get bigger and brighter. Without saying a single word, he understands me, with great patience, he teaches me, and with great devotion he loves me. I want to thank my Granddad and Grannie Annie for teaching me some of the most important life lessons, to love, to inspire, and to simply be you, in the best way possible.

Shasta, Number 2!

We began our journey to Shasta on Saturday morning. Let's just say the weather in Corvallis and Albany was easy to leave behind....60 and drizzling...not my idea of summer. We left early from Lance's dad's house with Brian, Lindsey, and Bria. We stopped a couple times along the way for potty breaks, lunch, and the...juice expo..But when we finally got into Shasta the weather was warm, the rain was gone and we were finally enjoying some Vitamin D.
We went out on the boat the first night because we were all so anxious. Lance tried slalom skiing which is skiing with only one ski. He is a natural water sport athlete. He got up on the first try and kicked some butt.

The next day to the day we left were roughly the same. Which none of us were complaining about. We all woke up, usually pretty early because when the sun's up, we're up, can't miss a minute of that precious sun that we so desperately need here in Oregon. I'm tired of getting jipped on sun, but we'll save that for another blog.
It was so much fun getting to spend time with the Holcomb's. Since they live in Hilsboro we rarely get to see them anymore. But lots of funny inside jokes were created this time around, and Lance was here to share them :) I was lucky enough to get to hold Bria while we ventured to where we would dock every day with the other boats. I played it real cool, like, "Oh here Linds, I can take her off your hands for you! It's no problem at all, you go sit by Brian and relax." When really in my head I was thinking, "please let me hold, sleepy, cuddley, Bria." Success.
Another success that I had was wake surfing. I had tried it out last summer behind Alicia and Randy's boat and the summer before but was still somewhat skeptical on my skills. One of the families had a boat specifically for wake surfing and it was sooo much fun! I was able to get up a lot easier and actually got to the point where I was "surfing" not just holding on to a rope and riding a wake. Lance, however, is goofy footed and this boat was set up for the opposite. But he rode goofy footed and even let go of the rope. I know, I know, I'm a lucky girl to have such a stud for a fiance :)I only got burnt 1 1/2 times, thank goodness for burn to brown :)
I can't wait for next year...if we end up having a summer?

Welcome Home!

Yesterday was, well let's just say, hectic. We managed to move everything in our possession, including Court's, while deep cleaning the entire apartment, in a matter of 9 hours. We owe Mrs. Debbie Lewis a lot of credit for the cleaning, and my mom a lot of credit for my sanity and truck assistance, without her we would have not gotten that last load out of the parking lot. We had to be out of the apartment by four, and we were out of the apartment alright, we now just had our belongings scattered throughout the parking lot, on various curbs and around the surrounding vehicles.

It was amazing seeing how fast we worked, I'm 99% sure I put in my cardio for an entire week, due to the fact that Lance and I have never managed to live in an apartment on the ground level. But all of this aside we now have all of our possessions scattered in our new apartment! A small, but adorable, perfect for just the two of us, apartment. It is two blocks away from campus allowing the driving to be a minimum and thank goodness considering the price of gas these days.

I don't have picture yet but they will be coming soon.

Study, Work, Pack, Repeat.

In 10 short days we will be vacationing...here :)The always beautiful Shasta Lake.

Lance's family goes every summer and he hasn't been able to go the past four years because of: leg injuries, boot camp, deployment, etc. SO! this is his first year back and we are both so excited. I went for my very first time last year with his family while he was away, and I am so excited that he will be here this year.


So far my finals have not killed me. So that's a big bonus. I can't say the same for Lance...haha. The poor guy met up with Court and I after a long 8 hour shift to study.
I've done surprisingly well on two of my finals. That was a pleasant surprise. I received my highest score, ever, on a college paper for my final portfolio. I was ecstatic. Judging by the fact that Lance, Courtney, and I have been in the library for the past week straight, averaging about 6+ hours per trip, I would expect that we will have done nothing but well on all of ours. Lance and I are both done today and then it's time to relax....before we never have long summer breaks again...weird.

Last night we took a break from studying and started packing up this little hut of an apartment. Though cozy, and farther out than we would have liked, it was a place we called home and it's sad to leave it behind. Especially since Courtney's moving back home and then off with Austin. I'm so happy for her, she's waited so long for Austin and it's a tough job, but she's done it so well and without ever second guessing it. It takes a strong couple to do what they've done (I know because we did it...haha just kidding). Anyways, the point to this story is that Lance and I just got approved for our very first apartment together, just the two of us :)And I really really hope that we stay here until we graduate..ha. Moving day is Friday, I couldn't be more excited. I think I could use some sleep before then though, I keep looking for the jelly in the cupboard and putting the cereal in the fridge after I remember we don't have any milk.

Stuck between a book and a hard place.

Oh, dead week. My first term at college I thought that it was such an odd name for a week, then I experience the infamous dead week and suddenly I had a great understanding as to why they call it DEAD WEEK. And now that I am going into my 6th DEAD WEEK I find that dead week should be better described as, "I'm going to take everything away from you, including, but not limited to, sleep, food (substantial amounts anyways), your sanity, oh and sleep, Week." I feel that's reasonable enough. It never fails, during this week I have reoccurring stress dreams that I'm late for my last lecture, or for a final, or that I haven't turned something in on time. Then I wake up and realize I have about twenty minutes before my alarm would in fact be yelling at me to get up and do all of these things. But what are you going to do? Just laugh at how crazy my brain reacts to stress. It's quite humorous after all.
Last night Lance and I sat down for some quality time, however, it was not with one another, it was in fact with a stack of books, potential final drafts of papers, and statistic lessons a mile long. I am so lucky to have him to help me through this. He makes me laugh when I can't see straight because I have been staring at a computer screen for 9 hours. For example, last night I fell asleep on my book, face first, nose in binding, and he whistles, which wakes me up slightly but I ignore it because...well I'm tired!, then he whistles again, and finally he whistles really loud, I sit up and he looks at me and says.."got ya!...now lets go to bed"
At the end of the day this is what I get to come home to

pure happiness and my best friend. Mushy, mushy, blah, blah, blah, I know. But he's what motivates me to keep going through all of this school, knowing that our hard work will eventually pay off just as it should :)
There is an end in sight to our long nights of monotonous studying tactics. Our future summer plans look bright, I'm just hoping that after finals I don't sleep through these wonderful plans.
Our two biggest trips this summer are Shasta in June!! and then Arizona in August :) Oh it will be fantastic to get to soak up allll of that sun. I should probably stop procrastinating now, considering how I just ranted about DEAD WEEK.

Back again, with even better news!

I got so wrapped up in Lance's homecoming that I put off my small structure of life that I call a blog. BUT SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED!
1.) The most exciting that I had originally blogged about in the first place was Lance's homecoming! He came home on February 28th around 1PM. The whole family and I piled our cars and caravan-ed to Eugene with our patriotic colors and balloons in hand. There was no better feeling than seeing him walk down the stairs and have him back with all of us again. We cried, we laughed, and we all took deep sighs of relief that he was finally home safe.
2.) Following the much awaited homecoming Lance and I went on a trip to Seattle for a little get away. We had a wonderful weekend and went to the Space Needle for our last night there. After we spent a fortune on dinner we went out onto the observation deck, right over the Puget Sound, just as the sun was starting to set and to my right I see Lance get down on one knee and there he was, asking me to be his wife. Upon saying "oh my goodness, yes of course!" I removed my hands from my dress, which was preventing it from blowing in the wild wind gusts, and proceeded to pull a Marilyn Monroe...revealing my backside to the innocent bystanders. It was absolutely perfect, however.
3.) I am currently drawing a blank on what my last very big exciting thing is...because after Seattle Lance and I both went back to school and have been drowning in school work ever since. However, we have big things to look forward to in the near future and I intend to track them all along the way :)
A new apartment in the next couple of weeks, dress shopping for the upcoming wedding!, and many more fun summer adventures.