It’s already March??!!??

Wow…this year seems like it’s just flying by!! It feels like just yesterday it was New Year’s day and now here we are, the third month of the year. So far it has been a pretty good year. Here’s a quick recap of my 2013 so far:

January:

On January 2nd I officially became a substitute teacher! Also on that day, one of my bridesmaids and I picked the dress for her and the other bridesmaids.

January 8th I had my first subbing job! It was only a half day, but still. Since then I’ve been getting a lot of subbing in, about 3 or 4 a week.

January 28th I turned 23…nothing really too special about that. B took me out to eat and only had to pay for himself because you get a free meal on your birthday there!! It stinks that neither of our birthdays will fall on a Saturday or Sunday anytime soon because we really want to go there for breakfast sometime!!

Oh, and I forget the exact date of this, but we went on our first date of the year from the “12 Dates of Christmas” that I gave B for Christmas. We went ice skating!!

February:

We finally secured a place for our reception!!! With it being about 3 months till the wedding in February, we were getting kind of nervous about where we were going to have the reception! We even considered our backyard!!! But luckily it didn’t have to come to that.

We finally figured out the timeline for our wedding. Our wonderful photographer met with us and pretty much planned the whole day out for us. He has gone above and beyond for us and we couldn’t be more grateful for that!!

We had our cake consultation and decided on what kind of cake we are having and what it is going to look like! I still need to decide what flowers we are using so I can tell them what kind of flowers I want on the cake and I need to get them swatches of color so they can match it to the cake.

And the last wedding thing that happened in February…I did my trial run for my hair. I really like how it turned out, but I might change one thing about it. I’m not telling though, because I’m not sure if B will read this and I want to keep it a secret from him.

And that’s about all the exciting things that have happened this year so far. We’re only 63 days into the year and I know that the best days of the year are yet to come! One of those days is 75 days away!!! I still can’t believe that it is almost here!! It will be here before I know it!!

Well, that’s all I’ve got for now. I’m going to go pin away on Pinterest until 8:00 when an all-new Switched at Birth comes on!! According to the previews, it will “change the way you see the world”. So stay tuned for a post about that! Have a great Monday night everyone!!

Aren’t they the cutest? I found them in my closet today laying like this..they’re best buds!!

The Bachelorette

So I’ve never watched an episode of the Bachelor or Bachelorette before and I don’t know why. It may be that there were other shows on at the same time so I didn’t have the time to watch either show. But I taped the season premiere of the Bachelorette last night and I wanted to write about what I thought as I watched it. I was hooked from the very beginning. Emily’s story is so touching! A single mother whose daughter never even got the chance to meet her father because he died in a plane crash before she was born. And then Emily was on the Bachelor and ended up being the girl that he picked. But then something happened and they broke off their engagement. She even said herself that being on the Bachelorette is a big risk but she is willing to take that risk to find a husband and a father figure for her daughter. So this season on the Bachelorette, she will meet 25 men and hopefully find her husband.

Watching her meeting the guys for the first time was awesome! I can’t imagine what was going through her mind at that moment. Instead of mentioning all of the guys, I’m going to mention some of the ones that stuck out to me.

Doug is a single dad with an 11-year-old so I think Emily loves that about him.

Jackson immediately took her hand, got down on one knee, and said “Life’s not about how many breaths we take, but about how many moments take our breaths away. And this is one of those moments.” Kind of cheesy but sweet at the same time. 

Aaron came out and said, “I’m a high school biology teacher but I’m here to have chemistry with you,” yet another cheesy line. 

Jef decided to skip the limo and instead came out on a skateboard behind the limo.

Next up was Tony who had a pillow with a glass slipper on it and said his name was “Charming, Prince Charming.” He’s looking for his princess, how cute!!! Then he put the shoe on her foot and it was a perfect fit!

Travis was carrying an egg that he said was a symbol of Emily and her daughter and that he will take care of the egg throughout the journey. That was kind of strange, but okay.

Ryan pulled out some notes that he had taken so he would remember what to say and on one side of the paper it said “You are beautiful” and the other side said “I’m so nervous”. That was cute!

Next, a helicopter appeared. One of the guys was like, “What if it’s Brad?” It wasn’t, it was just Kalon. I don’t think the other guys were impressed by that, but I think Emily was.

I think any one of those guys would be perfect for her! This is going to be a great season!! Once she met all the guys individually, she got to see them all again, but this time they were all together. Doug gave Emily a note that his son, Austin, wrote for her. That was adorable!! I definitely think Doug could be the one. But then again, it’s still too early to tell because they are all great guys!

After she got the chance to mingle with the guys for a little bit, the host brought out the first impression rose which Emily has to give to a guy and that guy is safe at the first rose ceremony. Seeing that rose pushed some of the guys to get their one-on-one time with Emily. I think it’s funny how the guys are already fighting over her. When she found out that Arie is a race car driver, she kind of seemed nervous at first, but she said she is fine with that. Her first fiancé was a race car driver and was actually on his way to a race when he died so Arie was nervous to tell her that.

Next Emily took that first impression rose and asked to see Doug so she could give him the first impression rose. She loved the note that she got from his son and the fact that he is a single dad. I think she picked a great guy to give the rose to! He deserved it!

Up next was the rose ceremony. At this stage in the game it’s hard to tell who she will send home. I think she likes a lot of those guys and is going to have a hard time deciding which ones to send home. The ones that left were Brent, David, Jackson, Jean-Paul, Lerone, and Randy. I’m not really surprised about her eliminating any of those guys. She definitely kept the right guys there.

I’m glad I decided to check out the show because it looks like it is going to be a great season! So be sure to check back each week to read my recap of each show!

Weekend Recap

Well, the weekend (and Spring Break) are over. It’s time to start a new week of classes. I can’t believe that there are only 4 more weeks left of classes!! After that is a week of finals and then we head out into a classroom to observe and teach a few lessons. Then after that, the semester will be over and I can work, work, work! I sat down last night and looked at 3 things: how much me and my fiancé have saved for the wedding, what we estimate the whole wedding to cost, and how much we need to save. It turns out that we need approximately $6,000 more for our wedding! Now, it may be a little lower than that because we might have overestimated some things, but there were also things that I didn’t even know what to put down for an estimation. So, maybe we will need about $6,000 more. And we need to come up with that in a year! When you divide that out per month it’s about $500. I have no idea how we’re going to save that much but I guess somehow we’ll manage.

So, on to what we did over the weekend, on Saturday I worked a quick shift from 8:30-12:30, so when I came home we went out to the garden! It was another gorgeous day to be outside! And we got a lot accomplished with the garden! We got all of the major roots out and most of the rocks. Actually, we probably didn’t even get out half of the amount of rocks that are in the garden, but that would take forever to get out every single rock. So we did the best we could and got a lot of big ones out.

Here I am attempting to pull out a root. I eventually gave up and my fiancé had to take it out.

Here is the worst part of the garden. There used to be a tree there, I think I wrote about how my dad and fiancé cut it down a few weeks ago. Well, that tree produced a ton of roots that were difficult to get out. But, after a lot of work we got em out!

 

Moving the manure around…

  And here is what the garden looks like now…

As we were gathering the tools and cleaning up, I grabbed his hat and put it on. I am definitely not a hat person!

 

So, that was pretty much it for my weekend. I thought that I worked from 5:30-10 last night, but it turns out my schedule was 10-6. So I got called into work and got there about an hour late. I didn’t get written up though, so that’s good. This is about the 3rd time that I thought I worked at night but really worked earlier in the day. I gotta make sure I double triple check my schedule! So here’s to another week…another week closer to the wedding! I got an email from The Knot saying that it is 14 months away!!! I can’t wait!!! Have a great week everyone!

Weekend Recap

I know it’s Tuesday, but better late than never, right? Alright so what did I do this past weekend? Saturday my fiancé drove me to work and then picked me up so we could go up to his cousin’s house right away. It was his cousin’s wife’s birthday party. After that we went over to his sister’s place and spent the night. The one thing that sucked was that the next day, Sunday, we had to wake up at 6, leave by 7, and then I had to work at 8. We went to bed around 12:30 so we got about 6 hours of sleep. I drank some coffee and didn’t feel too tired after that. After work my dad and step-mom came up for dinner and we had this…

That wasn’t the actual chili we had, but it looks pretty close. We had that same kind of cheese. My fiance made it and it was really good!!! It had a little bit of a kick to it, but maybe that was just me because I’m not into spicy things.

Last night, I met a girl that my fiance works with. Me, her, and a friend met at the bowling ally because they were having ladies night and it was free bowling from 6-9. What we didn’t know was that we had to go to a bunch of different venders and have them stamp or initial our paper so we could enter to win door prizes. That was fun though. I’m actually thinking about selling Scentsy, but I’m not sure yet. After we were done looking at all of the venders, and my new friend booked 2 different jewelry parties,  we went and bowled our 2 free games.

And now it is Tuesday. I was supposed to work at 12, but yesterday my manager asked if I could come in at 10. He said I might not work till 5 though, so that’s a plus!!

And don’t forget that I’m trying to get 300 followers and then I’ll do another giveaway!!! I’m at 273 right now so I only need 27 followers!  I’m going to see how many of my current followers can refer new followers to my blog. Here’s how it’s going to work:

When you refer someone, have them email me telling me that they were referred by you. And make sure they tell me your name or it won't count. Once I get to 300 followers, I will see who has the most referrals and then the top 3 will get to fill out the entry option on the Rafflecopter form called "Refer a friend", which will be worth 3 entries. I will be sure to email those 3 people so they can do that entry. And if anyone fills out that entry that isn't one of the top 3, I will delete those entries. I hope you all have fun with this and good luck!!!!

Have a great Tuesday everyone!!!!

Weekend Recap

Another week and weekend has come to an end. Nothing too interesting happened this weekend.

Friday night I finally finished painting the lamp shade from my lamp I got at Goodwill a few weeks ago (and that I blogged about here). I will post the before and after pictures sometime this week.

Saturday after work, my fiancé and I went down to my dad and step-mom’s for dinner. We’ve been alternating every other weekend for having each other over for dinner and this was our weekend to go down there. We had coconut chicken with macaroni and cheese and peas. And we also had cake for dessert which was delicious!! Then we went home and watched “No Strings Attached”. I thought it was really good!!! Now I wanna see “Friends With Benefits” which looks kind of similar to “No Strings Attached”. After the movie, my fiancé and I looked online for a new laptop for me!! The one I have now is 3 years old and hasn’t been working right for me recently, so it’s time for an upgrade. Plus, mine only has Windows XP on it, so I’d say I definitely need an upgrade. He ordered me an HP laptop that I should have by the end of the week!!!

Then earlier tonight we went down to my aunt’s house for my cousin’s birthday party. I decided to be mean to my cousin with his present. We got him a Kmart gift card so I wrapped the card then put it in a box stuffed with newspaper. Then I wrapped that box and put it in a bigger box. I put newspaper in the bigger box and my fiance filled a gatorade bottle with water to add weight to the box. Then I wrapped the big box. This definitely threw him off because he didn’t expect a gift card to be in the box.

Now it’s time to clip my coupons from the Sunday newspaper and scope out the deals. But like I said before, I’m not going shopping this week unless I can get stuff for under $1 per item of for free. Oh, and Big Brother is on so me and my fiance are watching that! Have a great Sunday night everyone!!!

Our vacation- {Part 4}

So after we went swimming, we headed back to the boardwalk to go to the Rainforest Cafe for dinner. If you have never been there, you have got to try and find one near you. It is a great place!!! As soon as you walk in, you feel like you are in the rainforest!! Every half hour there is a thunderstorm complete with thunder and lightening effects and every 15 minutes the animals come to life! It is an experience that you have to experience for yourself!! I didn’t get a chance to get any pictures because it was kind of dark in there, and I didn’t want my flash to bother anyone. Oh, and what did I get to eat you might be wondering? I got the coconut shrimp and it was amazing!!!! It was about 6 or 7 of them and they were each on a stick. The breading was delicious!! I definitely recommend it!!

After we were done eating, we went to the Pier Shops. What my fiancé and I loved the most was a shop called Brookstone. It has all of these gadgets for everyday life that make things simple! It was just awesome!!! My favorite item that we saw there was this:

It’s an ice pop maker! How it works is that you freeze the pop maker (the thing on the left), take it out of the freezer, put the sticks into it, pour juice into the molds (you could even put fruit or other food into it), then 7-9 minutes later, the pops are done!! I definitely need one of these!!!

The also have a huge water fountain with lights and they do a show every hour on the hour. It’s pretty cool!








This was taken from the end of the pier looking onto the boardwalk, but I had to take the picture from inside because they had just locked up the doors, probably because it was raining.





My fiancé pointed out the bird sitting out there, so I took a pic of it.






I could have stared at the ocean forever, it’s just so calming!
 
We saw this and we’re like, “I’ve heard of Turkey Hill before!!”

I freaked when I saw these!!! They are the same kind of chairs that they have on American Idol!!!! Of course, I’m sure the ones that American Idol has are made of better material, because these were so light. But I loved them! When my fiance and I have a house someday, I would love to have a little bar at the kitchen with these chairs to sit in!!! I bet I could find some!

And that was the end of day 2. Only one more day of our vacation is left to recap. Look for that post tomorrow! And if you’ve missed parts 1-3, check them out here:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Also, if you haven’t already, check out my latest giveaway for one of 5 Rafflecopter invite codes here. I’m going grocery shopping today with my step-mom, so I’ll be posting about that later tonight!! Have a great Thursday everyone!!!!

4th of July Weekend Recap

So since it was the 4th of July weekend, I decided to wait until now to do my recap so I could tell you about what I did today, the 4th of July!

Friday night was just a night that I got to catch up on some blogs and my fiancé played a game on his computer. There wasn’t too much excitement in the place that night.

Saturday I worked all day until 4. Then, my step-mom and her sister’s grandma was down from CT so we went down to my aunt’s house for dinner. Hot dogs and hamburgers…yummy!!! After that, me, my fiancé, my uncle, and 2 cousins went to Game Stop and stopped for fireworks on the way home. Then it was back to their house for game night!!

Then on Sunday I had to work yet again. I don’t know why, but the customer’s were extra annoying yesterday. They just bugged me so much!! But, at 4:00 my shift was finally over! I thought the day would never end!!! My fiancé and I then went down to my dad and step-mom’s house for dinner. I love how I didn’t have to cook at all this weekend!!! After dinner we went down to my aunt’s house and did fireworks. One of my favorite parts of the night was this: so it was way past my cousins’ bedtime and the one was getting really tired cause she was in a grumpy mood. Well, she went around the side of the house so to get her back behind the house, my step-mom goes, “We found a sparkler!” We had told her that we were out of them (when really we weren’t). As soon as my step-mom said that, she goes, “Sparkler?!?!” and we heard her running back into the backyard! It was just hilarious!! She really loves sparklers!

Here is the picture we get every year of me and my fiancé holding sparklers!

Here is our first 4th of July together back in 2009 (I had to cut out my ex-best friend and her bf from the picture)

  And then here was last years picture

Then today, I had to work 11-8. And let me tell you, it was a really long day!!! But, I made it through and made it home in time to go see fireworks at 9:30. So now I’m at home, just relaxing. My feet are really killing me!! I’m gonna catch up on some blog posts (which I feel like I’m always doing) before going to bed so I’m all rested up for work tomorrow.

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July!!!! Have a great week!!! And don’t forget to enter my giveaway for My Lip Stuff.