12:34.56 7/8/9....10!!!

So...I got a cool idea from Jason Mraz's blog (click here). Today is July 8, 2009...also 7-8-9. So some MATH dork realized that today at 12:34 pm and 56 seconds that the time and date together would be 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9...actually very very very cool. Right? Well, on his blog he was inspired to jot down 10 things "grateful for today, for summer, for love, and for reasons that don’t need explaining." He also inspired me to do the same.

1. coffee and hazelnut flavored splenda

2. carpooling with my fiance every morning and evening even though we usually want to kill each other over the radio and each other's driving

3. the bobbybones show and their podcast (click here to check 'em out)

4. lunch date with Sam. i just found out that she is temping not even 1 mile away from my office! we had our first lunch date, and she ends that position in three weeks. must squeeze more in.

5. Jimmy John's Salt and Vinegar chips.

6. gas going down a little bit

7. Pandora (dot) com...best streaming radio station without commercials. can be tailored to meet your listening needs (click it)

8. my mom and sister texting me throughout the day

9. being healthy

and

10. being greeted by Thor & Hardin at home at the end of the day. their unconditional love usually makes them forget&forgive being locked up for 10 hours m-f.

Summertime Thor

This is what Thor looks like in the summer, or anytime it is hotter than 85 degrees or so:

Today was 103 degrees. GOD Bless Texas :o)....

I feel like a YEEEHAW would sound right after a sentence like that.

Fools Rush In

Dave and I are not fools, nor are we rushing in into anything...However, if you have ever seen that movie sometimes that is how I feel as Dave and I begin the real process of merging our lives together. Although this process started about two years ago it has made itself more apparent in the past couple of months as we have planned our wedding. We come from different cultural backgrounds and it's so much fun learning how Dave's family does stuff differently than mine, and deciding between the two of us how we want our household to do things. It's neat that his background and my background are coming together to pretty much make up us and how our family will eventually be. Hopefully we can take the best from each side and make it even better :o). This may hold true for any couple that gets married, but I think because of our cultural differences our families are very different, and in a good way. I also never realized how Mexican my family secretly is until I started planning our wedding....I mean, c'mon...Mariachis will be there....Ole!

So watch Fools Rush In, if you haven't already and if you have already, watch it again. Even before Dave it has always been one of my favorite movies of all time. Dave and I actually like to quote a particular part of the movie that really makes me laugh all of the time! It's the part of the movie where Alex Whitman and Isabel Fuentes parent's are meeting for the first time on a boat in Nevada and Alex's dad and mom can't take the heat and he says something like, "how do you people stand this heat...the white people are melting out here! "

So yes, just a little random weekday blog...I'm really looking forward to the 4th of July weekend (even though I do not get a single day off this week). We are going up my parent's house and lots of family will be there from San Antonio, as well as the Copelands and possibly even an Aunt and Uncle and family from Germany.

Last 4th of July I went up to Harker Heights to barbeque with my family while Dave was working all day. I left HH as soon as Dave got off so that we could spend the evening together, and we just ended up going to see a movie and i did not get to see any fireworks. However, since D has the weekends off this year we will be able to stay and watch fireworks! the only problem is, they may possibly be banned because everywhere in central texas is experiencing a serious drought! We will see.

*Wedding Planning update....We finally landed a wedding reception venue!!!! ahhhhhh (that was a sigh of serious relief). Last weekend Dave, Annette, Reese and I went to San Antonio with the main mission of trying out and looking at a couple of the rehearsal dinner locations that Annette was looking at. We also planned to do a couple of venue visits while in San Antonio. Luckily, a couple turned into only one, and we decided on the Republic Golf Club. I loved it and it has a great texas style to it and very nice at the same time. Also, it is in the same area as the Mission San Jose, only about 6 miles away! The only thing that we are trying to work on is the time gap between the wedding and the reception. The ceremony is going to be a 1p.m. and we can't decide what time to hold the reception. Ideally, I would like it to be at 5-10 so that people can be ready for dinner and party on a Saturday night, but it feels like from 2 until 5 would be too much time for there to be nothing going on (except taking pictures/getting pictures done). Oh well. Slowly it's all coming together.

A portion of the Republic Golf Club - I'm getting really excited about decorating!!!
Here is the link to our wedding website just incase: http://www.mywedding.com/amandandaveswedding/

Thor's Birthday Pictures

HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY THOR BOAR!!!!

Thor's very homemade birthday cake!!!

Thor patiently waiting while I took a picture of his cake.


Thor showing incredible restraint while I sang Happy Birthday to him.

Oh, the first bites of his cake!

Dave and I just watched as he devoured his first birthday cake.

Thor looking up to take a break.

Licking up the last bites.

HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY THOR BOAR!!!!

Thor's Birthday, Broken Camera, New home, and Gym Membership

Thor's first birthday was on June 17, 2009! My baby is growing up and this last year has really flown by. I took lots of pictures of him and the little homemade doggie cake that I made and then my camera broke. :o( It won't allow my pictures to be transferred onto my memory card and so I have no way of getting the pictures on the compute because I have no clue where the cord is. (Note to self: look harder tonight.)

Last week was a whirlwind of a week and weekend. D & I went to San Antonio and viewed several reception venue possibilities. Went to a cake shop to look at cakes, crashed a wedding to hear a DJ we may have and signed the church papers for our ceremony stuff. We still have not decided on a reception place yet, but we have all been diligently working towards making a decision. I think on Sunday we have to make another trip down to San Antonio to view some more possible places. SOON hopefully. I have decided that we will buy the invitations this weekend and we are DIYing it. I was soooo opposed to this at first but then I found the perfect invitations for us and I think it will actually be fun to do. I may even recruit my mom & sister and have her do up half or even make a weekend event of it once the time comes.

I feel like we are much closer to deciding on a reception venue. We are looking at two more venues this weekend, possibly 3. Hopefully, this weekend a decision will be made! We are going down to San Antonio with my in-laws to be and also going to see some of the restaurants Annette has been to for the rehearsal! ***Oh I completely forgot to mention. One of the most disappointing things that I have found out while planning this wedding is that we really chose an unfortunate date. On January 2, 2010 San Antonio turns off the Christmas lights for the season and from January 3-12 the river is drained for yearly maintenance!!! How stinky! We found a great venue at a great price right over the river and then I found out all of this stuff. Now I'm not so concerned about being on the river or downtown anymore. It is okay though, because I really like our wedding date: 01/09/10 which will always be easy to remember because 01+09=10!!! Yea, dorky I know...I must be a math teacher's daughter (I am).

Amidst all of the wedding planning, Dave & I need to find a new place to live. We had been looking around to buy for awhile and then realized we weren't quite ready so now we are looking for a house to lease in the Pflugerville Area. I'm not quite sure what it is about Pflugerville, but I really like it. Living outside of Austin and commuting everyday to work sometimes feels like a big pain in the butt, but I like coming home to our little community. It is also a nice location because we are close to my parents and Daves. Anyway, we tried to do a lot of the leg work ourselves at first, but realized that the clock was ticking so now we have been working with a really nice real estate agent. We are in the process of applying to to rent one of the homes that we liked and that will take Thor (that is the biggest obstacle, finding a home to lease that will allow Thor). Hopefully, it all works out and as early as Monday we may have an idea of where we are going to live for the next 12 months (then hopefully BUY! :o) ).

Oh, and as far as the new gym goes. I joined the gym that Dave has been a member at for sometime, it is the Tech Ridge Gold's Gym. This is the first gym that I have ever had to actually pay for and join! Growing up there was always a free gym or 2 or 3 on the military base that I lived on, and then all through college it was just a part of the students fees, and even the apartment we live in now has a SMALL gym that we could use. Well with our time at the apartment coming to an end and I want to get back in shape I figured it was a good idea to join. We've been during well going regularly even with Dave starting the new job! Proud of us.

Only one more hour till the weekend!

dum dum da dum...dum dum da duuuuuum

I little update as far as wedding planning goes….

Dave and I have decided on a place for the wedding ceremony to take place and I have done all of the leg work needed to get approval for a ceremony there. We would like to marry at the Mission San Jose in San Antonio, Texas. Mission San Jose was built in the early 1700’s and is still an active Catholic Church to this day. It is absolutely gorgeous both inside and out and it has that historical look about it that I love. I think growing up in Europe makes me really appreciate buildings that are hundreds of years old and in the States that is very hard to find. A Target that is 10 years old is considered historic in America.

Anyways, the Mission will do a non-denominational wedding so long as you bring your own minister and provide a letter confirming his agreement to marry you. Well, all of that is done and now we are just waiting to hear back from Alice, the church’s wedding lady, about whether we are approved to get married there or not. I don’t think there would be any reason for a rejection, but I am still nervous until we hear back from her. So please everyone keep their fingers crossed for an approval to get married at the Mission San Jose. If not, I feel like we will have to start from ground zero for what would feel like the third time!!!

As far as a wedding reception site, there is one that I plan on visiting in the next couple of weekends to see if it will do. I’m excited about it because it has almost everything that I want in a reception, table service, dancing area, enough room for a sit down dinner and room for creativity on our part. Hopefully that works out for us, if not we will continue looking.

Something that I have found that is really working in our favor is that our wedding will be in the winter. Prices seem to be a little more reasonable and dates have been completely open so far, with the exception of a later wedding ceremony time. I have also done a little research and discovered that the closer to the wedding date that we wait to book outside vendors (ie: DJ, cake, flowers) the better the price will be. I’m hoping that is true, but I don’t want to walk the fine line of not being able to nail down that stuff with enough time to go.

We are less than 7 months away till the wedding and besides invitations and the reception site, one thing that I really need to do is to pick out bridesmaids dress and my dress. I have made 3 appointments at 3 different bridal shops to try some dress on for the 27 of June. I’m really excited about this date! I’ve invited several ladies to include my mom, my mother-in-law to be, Sarah and Sam. Kelly will be out of town that weekend and Jenny lives far far away. Hopefully everything will fall into place. Price, dress, fit, order time, stuff like that.

The details and things and money that goes into a wedding really seems a bit ridiculous as I am right in the middle of all of this. At times I really feel a little uncomfortable and even morally conflicted about spending so much money and effort into a one-day event. I often think about how easily it would be to either just elope or for Dave & I to go to the courthouse one day and get it all over with. Then a part of me, deep down, knows how much I would regret that. I feel as though our wedding will truly be about the celebration of our decision to commit to each other indefinitely. I want pictures of that decision and I want people to eat, drink and be merry celebrating our marriage to one another. It’s a huge decision to marry and when it feels so very right, as it does in my case, it makes me want to share that with all of our friends and family.

I’m also desperately trying to make myself relax about some of the wedding planning that has to take place. I can see the possibility of becoming a bit uptight as the big day draws near and I really want to avoid that for the sake of my sanity and the sake of our relationship. (Dave usually has to take about 90% of my irrationality and my mom the other 10%). So I often take a step back and breathe and then remember why we are doing this madness in the first place, and the reason is: for love.

june bug

okay, first of all, let me HIGHLY recommend the movie UP. wonderful wonderful movie. dave and i love going to see animated movies in 3D. he loves the new 3d technology and i just love the disney animated movies so it makes for a fun event for us. i especially love going during the day like on a sunday when i know there will be tons of families and kids at the movie. the reason for this is because i love hearing kids reactions during some of the scenes. like when something is really sad or funny i can feel the emotional response in the room through them just by their laughter and/or ohhhs and ahhhs. love it. the only downfall of going to the movie during this time is that we need to go to theater way early because there is usually a bigger crowd on a sunday afternoon then say a 10P.M. showing on a thursday night.

UP was a great movie for both kids and adults. for kids it was about adventure and talking dogs and birds, a real adventure movie, but for adults there was a deeper life message that children may not even catch. oh and it wasn't morally preaching, like doing right vs. wrong, but more about life stages and transitions. warning though: you will cry in the first 15 minutes. both DAVE and I did!

prior to going to see the movie, dave and i invited both sets of our parents to a favorite local mexican restaurant in pflugerville for lunch and to meet for the first time. everyone got along really well and our first family meeting could not have gone any better. we were both thrilled about that because all morning my stomach had been in knots about our folks meeting. i don't know what i was expecting that could have been so bad?? just the general anxiety of something like that makes me nervous. i'm glad that our parents have met now it makes me very relieved that this monumental moment is done and over. now i really look forward to daves family meeting the rest of my family and i look forward to our siblings families meeting each other. all of that does not make me nervous the way this first meeting did.

oh, completely forgot also, we went to schlitterbahn on saturday. (this blog is completely in reverse...but that's okay.) we had made plans to go down to san antonio to check out the missions and do some san antonio wedding venue searching. late on friday night we get a message from jono and lexie asking if we were interested in going to schlitterbahn saturday. and we were like heck yes. so we left the house early on saturday and piddled around san antonio, getting lost, stuck in traffic, but generally overall enjoying ourselves. i'm pretty sure that we have decided on a place to get married two, but now it's just a matter of finding a a reception venue.

after we were done with san antonio we headed up to schlitterbahn to meet jono and lexie. the water park really has gotten much bigger than i remember it. there are shuttles and 3 different parks and 3 different lazy rivers and many more rides. the lines were really reasonable and i'm so glad we decided to go.