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.