Hello everyone!! It's been a long time since I last posted, and I'm not even sure who is on here anymore but I am off work today and bored so I thought I would update! I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a great start to the new year :) 2011 was pretty darn awesome and I am looking forward to 2012!

First I have to ask because I have not followed in several years, but what's new on the Bleach front? Is it still going? Anything monumental happen? Did Ichigo finally figure out who Isshin really is? lol I doubt I will ever catch back up, but it'd be fun to know how it's progressing!!

Things have been going pretty well on my end. Aaron and I have been married for about 7 months now and I love him more and more each day. Sappy yes I know, but true :p I feel very lucky! It's definitely been a period of adjustment though for both of us. We didn't live together before we were married, so just getting used to each other's quirks and habits has been interesting to say the least! As much as we are similar and have in common, we are very different too. But I like that, we compliment each other in a lot of ways and if we were too much alike then what fun is that! I think our biggest difference though has been with finances. He's a spender, I'm a saver and it's been hard trying to mesh both of our opinions. Budgets suck! But we are making it work. It can be very difficult sometimes though. We have had other difficulties and stresses though too, people say the first year of marriage is one of the hardest and I definitely agree with that! But it's more than worth it.

I think our biggest struggles are that we both have things that are...not quite right with us I guess. His has more to do with anxiety and things like that. Mine are physical.

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So yeah, overall though I can't complain too much. I am just thankful that we both have decent jobs and a nice little apartment to live!

For fun I am going to post some pictures from the wedding :) The photography studio that I work at did the pictures and I really like them! These are just the ones I've put on facebook :)

lol before I do, I don't think I posted here when I was having bridesmaid drama! I ended up kicking out one of my bridesmaids. Well, it was the one who was my best friend. She was constantly giving me a hard time about everything. She offered to design my invitations but when I wanted to see what she was working on she got snippy with me. When I explained to her that time was running out and that I needed to get them printed, she told me she was only spending her time on her paying clients (even though SHE offered to do them for me, I didn't ask). The last straw came when I asked her if she was coming to my bridal shower. She doesn't have a car and I was always her chauffeur but this day I was not able to take her. I wanted to spend time with Aaron afterwards, not take her home. She wasn't going to come and I told her how disappointed that made me, and essentially she ended up going off on me telling me that the world did not revolve around me and my premature wedding. She called me an asshole and told me to fuck off. That was it for me. She had blown up at me like that several times in the past and enough was enough. I ended up taking back the dress from her (i had paid for it expecting her to pay me back and she never did, so it technically was still mine) and kicked her out of the wedding. And my life basically. I don't deserve to be treated like that and was done with it. So my 15 year old cousin took her place and it all worked out beautifully! I haven't talked to her since then. Sometimes I miss our friendship, but not all the drama and not the way she treated me when she was angry, it's not worth it to me anymore.

So yeah, on to pictures!


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If anyone wants to see more of our photos, here's a little slideshow :) It just makes me smile and I wanted to share :)

I think I found my wedding favors! Or well, an idea that I thought was fun and different :) I was looking on etsy in their wedding section and I found these really really cute customizable origami fortune cookies. You get to pick what you want them all to say and everything! They look so cute:












I really liked the idea, and hopefully it wouldn't be weird to have fortune cookies without chinese food going along with it? I would really love it if I could make each one unique and say different things, I'd like to put cute quotes about love or marriage or something inspirational. SO! I need some help! What are you favorite quotes? What would make you smile and feel happy to read if you got one of these? Anything is appreciated! :)

Wedding planning is in full motion!! As of today we have our church -almost- booked, and then have the reception hall, DJ, and of course photography booked too! AND! I found my wedding dress yesterday!!! It's soooo pretty and it was the first dress I tried on. I tried on about 5 or 6 more after that, but I loved the first dress the second I put it on, and as soon as we added the veil to it everything changed. It made me cry! I love it so much and can't wait for it to come in :)

There are a whole lot of stresses involved though so I am doing everything I can to keep myself sane and not so stressed. Luckily we have everything booked that's huge that I would have to compete for other people with. Just need flowers and cake and the main stuff will be good. And then it's allllllllllll the details which will probably drive me up the wall haha. But it's going well so far.

We set our date for June 4, 2011 so almost 7 months away! :)

I'm going to post some fun pictures from the engagement and our engagement photos :) I realize most people probably won't care, but oh well! The engagement was so sweet, I pretty much knew it was coming but it was wonderful. He picked me up at work and had a dozen red roses with him. No one has ever given me a dozen roses before so that alone was special! He wouldn't tell me where we were going to go, but I had that figured out too ;) He took me to a place called Blue Hen falls which is in the national park here and one of my favorite places to be pretty much ever. It has a small waterfall and is really just very quiet and peaceful. I've been down there so many times taking pictures and have gone to sit and just think and write. Now I have another reason to love it. So we went down to the waterfall and he got down on one knee and proposed :) Of course I said yes! We had gone here back in the summer and he carved our names into a big fallen tree, so we went back to the tree and he carved "engaged 10-1-10" by our names. He wants to go back when we are married and carve our wedding date into it. It was probably the best day of my life so far, and I realize that sounds cheesey but it really was.

We've had our ups and downs since then with various stresses and other things, but he is the one I want to spend my life with. I can't imagine one day without him and it makes me so excited to know that I won't have to.

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At the moment I am thinking of save the date ideas. I think I am just going to design like a 4x6 card or so with our pictures on it. I think that'll be fun and inexpensive since I can do almost all of that myself! I'd like to put a really pretty/beautiful quote about love or marriage or something on it, does anyone have any ideas of short quotes to use?

WE'RE ENGAGED!!!!!!!!!!

I will post more details and pictures later, right now I have to go to work but I am just too excited to not say something!!!!

Been a while since I've posted again!! Life is going very well :) Work is going well, we were absolutely slammed with senior sessions at the end of August and I pretty much wanted to rip my hair out. It was so busy and stressful but thankfully that's over with now! It's calmed down a whole lot since the kids have gone back to school. lol parents always say they look forward to summer break ending but I think I'll say the same thing! It means the studio slows down and I like that. My cousin got married at the beginning of the month and that was really wonderful :) I was the maid of honor and it was such a nice ceremony.

Aaron and I are still together and it's going well. Really really well :) We've actually done a lot of serious talking about the future, and I think it's safe to say now that he is "the one". I know that sounds ridiculously cliche, but I have never been more serious. I know that we haven't dated for years and years, but I think at this point I am old enough and have dated enough to know what I do and do not want, and I have been in enough failed relationships to recognize when I have found someone good, someone worth it. Aaron and I connect in a way that I never really thought I would ever find. We see eye to eye on so many important issues and yet we are different enough that it's not boring - we compliment each other. We've had our differences, and just the other night we had our first major issue and it's a great feeling to know that we can work it out, talk about it, and work through whatever problem arises. I've never had that before.

A few weeks ago we were at Olive Garden and our waitress must have just recently broken up with her boyfriend, because she saw us together and started talking about it and how she felt she had to settle to find a guy that's right for her. I don't have to settle with Aaron. He doesn't ask me to be someone that I'm not. He takes me for all that I am. I have never been more grateful. It's funny because I never understood when people would tell me that when you find the one, you just know. That sometimes you just know. But now I do. Something with Aaron from the very beginning has always felt good, always felt right. We've been talking for the last month maybe, 3-4 weeks about this being serious, he's told me that he wants to show me just how serious he is about me. I was never able to really reciprocate that because I was afraid. Afraid he would do to me what Don did and just up and leave with little warning. But that night at Olive Garden I was able to tell him how I really felt.

So I guess we are pre engaged right now, heh :) We've talked a lot about it. He's talked to my mom about it and plans on talking to my dad. Or maybe he already has, I'm not sure lol I told him not to tell me when he does, because I want it to be a surprise :) Then, he asked me if I wanted to pick out my ring :D! I told him that I want him to do it because it would come from his heart and be from him. But I told him no squares haha :p The amazing thing...I think he bought it last week! He's not very good at keeping thing from me especially if he's excited, and he's said a few little things that lead me to believe that :)  I got some good advice from my mom a few weeks ago - for a little bit I kept telling Aaron not to do anything until we've been dating for 6 months to a year, I think mostly because I wanted to make sure he was sure about me and wouldn't change his mind. But my mom told me to try not to focus on the numbers and to focus on what was in my heart. I know what's in my heart and I know that it's not going to change in 2 months. We've seen each other at our worst and our best, I've cried with him, he's cried with me, I feel like he knows me. Really knows me, all of me. We've only been dating for 4 months, but we started off as friends and I've known him for almost a year which I think counts for somethign too :)

So everyone thinks a proposal is in the near future! My birthday is the 8th of October and the girls I work with think he's going to do it then. I have no idea, we shall see I guess! :) I am just really excited and really happy and I feel good about this. Only time will tell, and I think possibly sooner rather than later ;)

I hope you all have been doing well! Anything good happening on the Bleach front? Been a looooooooooong time since i"ve read or watched anything!

Been a while since I last posted! Quite a few things have happened since then :) One, my brother got married this past weekend! I don't usually like to say that things are perfect, but honestly this was, I don't think I would change a thing. I will never forget the look on my brother's face as he was watching her walk down the aisle. He was trying so hard not to cry, and then that made me cry, and I guess my dad was trying hard not to cry. It was so beautiful. I've been to several weddings where it's more just going through the motions, just doing it for the sake of doing it. But you could see the love they both have for each other so clearly, it was so magical and so wonderful. That whole day was just for them. I got to be in the wedding too which was so amazing. I'm so happy I was able to take part in such a special day :) I cried a lot though haha. I cried at the rehearsal, I cried during the ceremony, I cried during the reception. haha, i'm such a sap! it was a good crying though :) But now I have a sister-in-law and it's so cool! I couldn't be happier for both of them :)

Secondly, Aaron and I made things official between us a little over a month ago :) Everything has been going really really well so far. I'm really happy. There's something so different this time, I'm not really sure how to explain it. When he looks at me, he makes me feel so different. He makes me feel important, like I'm special, like I mean something to him. When he tells me that I'm beautiful I actually believe it, he's sincere and he's genuine. There are no mind games this time. There's just something about all of this that feels so right, and he's said the same thing too. Now I'm not saying I think I'm going to marry him, it's far too soon to be thinking about something like that, but something about him feels very right, at least for the moment. I really care about him and I'm excited to see where all of this goes :) He even came to the wedding with me. I was really hesitant to ask him b/c we haven't been together that long, and since I was in the wedding I wouldn't be with him the entire time and I didn't know if it would be too soon to ask something like that and I didn't want him to be uncomfortable. Everyone advised me to just ask and give him the option, and he said yes without any hesitation. It meant so so much to me that he came. I know he was nervous, he met my entire family in one day, I would have been soooo nervous if it had been reversed. But he came. My family means everything to me, so for him to be a part of that and to meet everyone was very importatn to me. He's actually the first boyfriend I've had that's met my whole family. It meant a lot :)

And we had a lot of fun, we got to dance together at the reception and I love dancing with him. We actually do it a lot on our own, it's cute. But he requested a few songs for the DJ to play, and one of them was Amazed by Lonestar which is the first song we danced to. Well they weren't playing it, so Aaron looks at me and says that he has the song in his car and asked if I'd like to go dance to it out there. So we went out into the parking lot by ourselves and danced to that song. We were the only ones there, and it was really sweet :) He has this romantic side to him that I really love.

I could go on and be all sappy, but I'm sure no one wants to hear it :p so here are a few pictures from the wedding!

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I had pretty much one of the most amazing nights ever last night :) Aaron and I decided a little while ago to go on actual dates now. We went out kind of spur of the moment last weekend which was really cool, and we made plans to go out last night too. He lives about 45 minutes away, so I was planning on driving out to him since he had to work this morning and I didn't want him to drive back too late. He really wanted to come pick me up instead, because he knows that I have to drive a lot to and from work and to see all of our friends, and he didn't want me to have to do any work. I thought that was cute :) So he picked me up and we went back to his town. I met his parents for the first time, I was soooo nervous!! It's been a while since I've done the "meet the parents" thing. Don's parents never really cared all that much and didn't really make any effort to get to know me, and my boyfriend before that was a looooong time ago. So it had been a while and his parents and sister really wanted to meet me. It went well I think, hopefully they liked me! His mom was very talkative which helped a whole lot. When I get nervous I get really really shy and quiet, but I think it went well. He's met my parents a few times now, and they both really like him a lot. Apparently my dad never liked Don (I didn't know that until a few weeks ago LOL) but he said he got really good vibes from Aaron.

I had told Aaron a few weeks ago that for the fun of it I created a little bucket list for myself, and one of the things that I have always wanted to do was just lay outside under the stars. His grandma has 75 acres of land, so we took his truck and went to her house a little ways back in a clearing, parked the car, and just laid out there under the stars in the truck bed with a bunch of blankets. I think that was probably the most romantic thing that I have ever done. It was amazing. AND we saw a shooting star!! It was the first shooting start that I have ever seen, and we both got to see it. It made it cool too because there was no meteor shower or anything, it was just a little random shooting star. It was such a fun night and I really enjoyed just being with him, cuddling a little, talking with him, everything. And he kissed me a little, which was really nice :) Unfortunately around like 11 clouds rolled in and it started raining. But the whole thing really felt perfect, despite getting rained on :p So he took me back home, and as we were coming into my neighborhood he looks at me and is like "I don't really want to take you home yet" and I told him I didn't really want to go home yet lol. This is like 1 in the morning, so we drove over to Denny's and got some dessert and talked for a little bit more, and then called it a night :) It was so much fun!!

I am really liking him more and more as we spend time together. It scares me so much, but there's just something about him that makes me feel like it's right, at least for the moment. He's so easy to talk to, I really feel like I can be myself around him. I can be a complete goofball and a big dork, and I don't feel stupid. He just makes me feel like I'm something special, something important. We're on the same page with religion too which is really important to me, and we just have so much in common. I don't think he will ever understand how much it means to me that he's being so patient. He told me last night that I'm worth it. I know that he would prefer more, that he would like to officially be a couple. But he's waiting for me, and he will never know how much that truly means to me. I know that I would like to officially be dating him, I just need to find the courage to take that leap. Just like when he kissed me, I was scared but I knew it was something I wanted to do, so I did it lol.

I was telling my mom today about last night, and she said that she sees a sparkle in my eyes again and she loves that. I feel happy :)

It rained today and I got bored, so I decided to play

"Just like the rain I have fallen for you
I’m falling for you now, just like the rain"



~~~

Then took this one a few days ago :)

 


That is all! :p

It's been a while since I last wrote in here! Things have been going pretty well, happy to say! I've mostly been busy with work and then hanging out with friends when I can, it's been really nice :) Had a couple of scares with my grandma being in the hospital for over a week, and then what I thought was a reoccurance of that cyst I had a few years ago. Both things turned out ok though :)

We're about to head into wedding season at work, and I am not looking forward to that at alllllllllllll. I hate shooting weddings. They're long and stressful and mean that I will pretty much have no social life this summer since all my friends have saturdays off and I'll be stuck shooting the receptions at night.

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And now tomorrow I need to go get my hair fixed >.< My cousin did it today, I told her I wanted to be mostly blonde but add some of my natural color back into it...I am not almost platinum blonde and i HATE it so much. So I am hoping to get in somewhere for them to redo it, because there is no way I can go to work on tuesday looking like this!!