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• updizzate: weddings are…fun.

  29May
  Categories: Uncategorized Comments: 2

  the “wed” part, i’m sure, will be wonderful, but the celebrations following are not fun to plan no matter who you are.  let me let you in on my thought process:  in the beginning, i thought we’d have a reception in our backyard but as i talked to casey some more, i thought “why have a reception when we can get rid of that stress and just leave after the sealing?”.  well that only went so far after considering all the people here in the bennett valley that i love and the people that would be coming out for the wedding (holla, stacy and amber!).  it wouldn’t be too fun for them if they just came to the temple and that was it for the festivities.  plus, i just want to see everyone i love on one of the most important days of my life.  i then thought i would have an exclusive reception to cut food costs…well, that’s not going to happen anymore.

  i may have complicated the whole process by not deciding what i wanted sooner.  i also think that the fewer bridesmaids a bride has, the easier it is.  finding a color that suits them all, a shape that suits them all, and a modest dress are all hard feats.  i wanted them to not have to wear a bolero, but the dress that i had in my mind didn’t exist.  bridesmaids dresses have been expensive and annoying to shop for.  if i had more time and if i were more decisive, i could have had mom and casey’s mom make the dresses for probably a third of the cost.

  

  thank you for listening to my rantings and i hope that other brides are more thoughtful in the future.  the good thing is that we’re having the reception in our backyard which means lots of flowers which means less money for decorations!

  plus, i get to be with the man i love forever and ever and ever after all of this!

  thank you.

• shake it like a polaroid picture!

  18Apr
  Categories: Uncategorized Comments: 18

  i was thinking about this idea in place of a guestbook: have someone take a picture of the group that comes in with a polaroid camera (or they can take a picture of themselves), then they write their name on the bottom white part, and then they take a clothespin and pin it on the wire fence at the entrance of the backyard and/or we can have some strings set up for them to put them on.  the issue: polaroid 600 film is expensive.  any ideas?  i could make it a big part of the budget…but i’d rather spend less BUT i’m rather attached to the idea.  faces with names are wonderful. we can glue them into a book after (and by that i mean someone else can do that for us).

  

• Read this talk now

  12Apr
  Categories: Uncategorized Comments: 2

  

  “Beware of Pride” by Ezra Taft Benson.  He and his wife spent almost every Sunday for 10 years writing this talk and by the time it was ready, he couldn’t even deliver it, so President Hinckley read it for him.  It is an excellent talk and applies to everyone!  if you think you don’t need it…you need it the most.  it puts pride in a new light.  anyway, read it! now!

• rachel’s 3rd best surprise she’s ever had

  10Apr
  Categories: Uncategorized Comments: 1

  rachel will no doubt give her version soon enough, but you should read mine first.  she had been going around the house for a few days with her hyper-sensitive sniffer insisting that there was rotten fruit somewhere and i thought she was just smelling fridge burp.  i must have a sensitive classmate as well because she said in lecture there was a girl next to her (i was behind her so she wasn’t talking about me) that smelled like pesticide and it was driving her nuts.  then, in the hallway before lab, i left my backpack with her so i could go get some food and when i came back, she said that she still could still smell that yucky smell.  what is it with these girls?

  well, the other day i found some wrappers in the big pocket of my backpack and decided to clean it all out.  when i got to the smaller pocket that holds my pens and food occasionally, i opened it all the way and saw a big, greenish-white ball.  it scared me…i blinked stupidly a couple times because i had no idea what i was looking at…then i remembered the orange casey and i hadn’t eaten that i put back into my backpack a couple weeks previous.  if you haven’t guessed yet, the orange had since grown…(or died, rather) moldy and was leaving a big track of mold in its path.  that explained why a week previous i had gotten some green, chalkish stuff on my finger when i put my hand in that part of my backpack…and then LICKED IT!!  jk, i wouldn’t do that.  i cleaned it all up, put the orange in a bag and put it on rachel’s pillow before feeling bad and taking it to the garbage.  JK AGAIN!  i took it right to the garbage after taking a picture of it for rachel.  problem solved!  go me!

• my lovely, cheap dress!

  29Mar
  Categories: Uncategorized Comments: 4

  I got this dress from Abella Bridal and it was one of the 2 that i liked from the website:

  

• Boyfriend

  14Mar
  Categories: Uncategorized Comments: 3

  i would like to take this moment to brag about my boyfriend while also telling you about my weekend!  i signed both casey and myself up for Disney’s Give a day, Get a Disney Day thing and i saw that we could volunteer at Friday’s Kids Respite and get the Disney day.  we went on friday night from 6-9:30 and waited for an hour before our kid got there that we were assigned and HOLY SMOKES, he was a handful.  he was 11 i think and was autistic.  jackson loved to climb things and hated that casey would hold onto him so that he wouldn’t fall and couldn’t jump off anything.  he wasn’t very responsive for the most part, but threw a tantrum once when he was trying to jump off a play structure thing.  we got him to lie down on the floor and we got him to relax by dropping little ball pit balls on his stomach.  he calmed down around snack time and then we were playing in the music room where he ran around in circles until the song stopped and he stopped in his tracks…and then the song would start up again and he would, too.

  now, here comes the bragging.  another couple there had a pretty energetic kid, but they weren’t very active with him.  they were married and it seemed like they were the kind of people who would read to their kids during play time once they made some.  casey and i were playing in the motor room while we waited for our kid and the boring couple’s kid came in and said he would rather play with casey.  he played with him, but also got the other couple and me involved, too.  what a great guy!  he was also very able to keep general control of jackson; he would bolt outside or out into the hallway and casey was able to keep up and everything!

  (photo: casey and me when we went snowboarding..my first time.. in january with his brother and adella.  we look a little silly, but that’s because it was blindingly sunny.)

  so mom, that is one of the things that we did this weekend!  he also went to mcgowan’s to play with pace, jason, tyler, and nathan, so i was able to get some studying done!  we made tostadas for the family on sunday, too.  alas, the weekend is over and i have to face my 2 least favorite days of the week before SPRING BREAK!  i love my school sometimes.

• Moneymoneymoney…MUNAY!

  05Mar
  Categories: Uncategorized Comments: 2

  I have had the goal of writing down my expenditures for a long time, but haven’t had it in me until now to face the fact that i spend frivolously.  I kept all my receipts from the month of February and recorded them on March 2nd.  I found that my 2 biggest vices are clothes (duh) and fast food at my school when i’m there for many hours. 

  However much i don’t like to face the fact that i have to cut back on my spending, i do kind of like this keeping-a-record idea since it allows me to see my progress and know what i need to stop buying.  i think it might help if i leave my debit card at home and pack a lunch and maybe dinner (so that would mean i’d have to get to bed earlier and get up earlier).

  i have to have some form of punishment if i don’t spend less in march, so i will freeze my debit card in the freezer (like in Confessions of a Shopaholic) for the month of april, which i really don’t want to do, but i will if i fail.

• ORegon

  22Feb
  Categories: Uncategorized Comments: 6

  Alas, my readers have another exciting post to read!

  I have already told 1/2 of my readers (Mom, Joy, and Rachel) about this trip, but I am now blogging for the other half.  My photos exceed capacity or something, so just look at them on facebook.  (They’re only from our Saturday adventures).

  Casey and I went to Oregon during the Valentine’s Day weekend and had such a delightful time!  I was nervous a little bit to meet his parents and sister, but I had already met his 2 cousins, aunt, uncle, gpa Skankey, stepgma, brother Nathan, sister-in-law Stacy, and some friends SO I wasn’t petrified (like the forest).  I will keep things considerably short (so i won’t talk about our little trip to Five Guys on the way to their home from the airport).  We got to their house and they showed me my room and his mom had written on the wall chalkboard “welcome jessica!”, had some little Godiva chocolates on the nightstand, and a Sobe was next to those (casey’s favorite non-waterormilk drink).  I thought that was nice.  We chatted in their family room for a while while his dad strummed quietly on his guitar and his mom laughed loudly while they quoted Monty Python for a bit.  So very cozy, and so very like Casey.

  Friday we went to the Columbia employee store where I spent less than $200 on 5 jackets of great quality.  We had family dinner that night and then we went with his parents on a double date to see the cheesy movie When in Rome and then we got ice cream and went home. On the way to the theater and after the movie we had a game going where we would say a quote from a movie and everyone had to guess what movie it was from and whoever guessed it first then had to think of a quote.  Some people may not like their movie quoting (which really wasn’t too much) but I thought it was a fun time!  They loved it when i said, “we…thought…you…was…a…toad!”

  

  Saturday we went to Multnomah Falls ^ with his parents.  Casey and I went ahead and hiked to the top of the waterfall and then came back down.  His parents then took us to downtown Portland where they usually hold an outdoor market, but it wasn’t there so we called his sister (who was on the Max to meet us there) to tell her it wasn’t there, but she still met us for lunch and to walk around downtown Portland.  Thankfully it didn’t rain while we were out, although it looked like it was going to and it was wet outside.  We took the Max back to Beaverton.  A while later, Casey, his dad and I went to an indoor rockclimbing place.  It wasn’t bad at all since we just climbed sideways just feet off the ground instead of harnessing up and climbing 10 feet up.  It was challenging and my forearms were killing me, but he and his dad proved to be fearless pros going high off the ground and upside down.  That night we had pizza night (homemade pizza) and movie night.  They buy their dough and supplies at Winco to create a very very tasty masterpiece which we consumed while drinking italian sodas and watching The Invention of Lying with his parents and sister and her boyfriend.  After that, we played Loaded Questions which is his family’s favorite game!  They come up with some very creative answers.  I got to view some photos and videos of Casey when he was growing up, as well, and boy was he cute!

  Sunday was church and tri tip and Monday was Mario Party with his sister and bf and then we flew back to SLC.  I had a great time and did not want it to end.

• nathan?

  09Jan
  Categories: Uncategorized Comments: 10

  while watching America’s Next Top Model, they flashed the cover of this Seventeen magazine:

  

• My. Lame. Phone.

  14Dec
  Categories: Uncategorized Comments: 4

  

  About a year ago around this time, Matt got me this wonderful new phone from the internet and I loved it so much.  A while ago I started noticing problems.  This stinky phone would not stay charged for very long,  along with the screen freezing a few times.  When I went to LA, I left my charger at Gino’s, but thank goodness I had a car charger…although I didn’t drive long distances, so I’d sit in my freezing car outside just to get enough juice to tell Casey good night or talk to Mom.  This last weekend, I was driving down to Provo from Salt Lake (driving very slowly mind you, because of the snow) and an HOUR after I got home, it died.  When I was at Casey’s, I tried to use his roommate’s charger that works on my phone usually, but I would plug it in and it wouldn’t charge.  What was the problem?  Well, Nathan Fernsten, my future brother-in-law, so graciously bought me a wall charger after hearing Rachel’s complaints about not knowing if I was dead or alive.  Hallelujah…or so I thought.  It worked wonderfully at first, but then I noticed that it was not charging even though it was plugged in… .  I tried pushing it in, but it only charges if I hold it at a certain angle and hold it hard in the phone.  This goes for my car charger, too.  So, I’m back to square one.  1 week until I can be free of these electronic chains.