It's begining to look a lot like Christmas---- in the ARCTIC!!!

Yeah so we got like 11 inches of snow between 5 am and 2 pm yesterday! Sooooo much snow! My car was stuck in the parking lot. I was like 20 min late for work trying to dig it out with my ice scraper. So NOT fun! Oh and then I got out of work at like 5 pm. The boss let everyone out early, most people left at like 3 or 4 so they didn't have to drive on the craptastic roads in the dark. Scott got home shortly after I did, then we grabbed some snowshovels to dig out some parking spots. Yeah, apparently according to the office people, their new plow people kind of suck. They had not plowed out any parking spots during the day, and a lot of cars were gone. There was now way we'd be able to get our cars back into 11 inches of snow without getting stuck, so we dug out some spots for our cars! It was a pain in the a**, there was a LOT of snow, but hey I guess it's just preparing us to shovel a driveway should we ever get a house.

Scott and I are venturing out today, we have a bit of Christmas shopping to finish up. While we're out, I'll take some pics of all the snow. It's suppose to get real bad after midnight tonight. I guess we are suppose to get another 3-6 inches and it's gonna get real windy and cold with temps in the single digits and wind chills way negative. They said expect blizzard conditions, and they said some areas can expect snow drifts up to 4 feet tall!!! Then it's suppose to snow again Tuesday night into Wednesday. I think they said so far in the month of December we've had over 30 inches of snow, the average is 10 inches.

Let's see, what else--- Oh yeah we found our white lights!!! We went to a different WalMart on Thursday. The boxes of 100 white lights were originally 2.38 and they had a ton of them, and they were on sale for 1.19. We bought like 12 boxes! Now we know we'll have enough!

I also bought the game Scattergories. Wednesday Scott and I went to his friend, Shanes house and hung out. We played that game with Shane and his wife and had a blast! I had to go out and buy it- I'm totally stoked to play with Dad, Bry and Holly! Yay for board games!!! :)

Now on to a few wedding pictures---
We found what we want for our cake topper!
Soooo cute!


And this picture is looking like what I want the wedding party to look- pink for the girls, white and khaki for the boys!


Ok so I thought I had more new pictures, but I was wrong.... I guess thats all for now. I'll post snow pics either tonight or tomorrow.

A place to stay on Maui!!!

I forgot to post this before, Scott and I found where we will probably stay if we do end up going to Maui!!! :)

It's called the Noelani Condominium Resort. (Look at Virtual condo tours, then scroll down and choose 218 in the studio deluxe- that's the one we want! Oh and I want their counter tops too!) We actually found it in the Hawaii from $80 a day book. It is not $80, but unless we wanna stay in a hostel, that is out of the question. However, we will be going during their "value season" which is from April 1, 2009- December 19, 2009. So, the studio condo is $125/night and the studio deluxe is $145/night. We like the deluxe more. It's nicer. But, they are oceanfront and come with complete kitchens (BIG plus for saving money on eating out.) They don't have a beach on site, but the beach is like a 2 minute walk next door, their property has grass and big rocks. The property also has 2 heated pools, a jacuzzi, a grill for guest use, they also have a laundry area. If we had a 1, 2 or 3 bedroom condo, we'd have a washer and dryer in there, but the studios use a laundry center. They are also only a 5 minute drive from Lahaina, which is a pretty large town. Bad news I don't know if I posted before, but Maui does not have public transportation, so we will end up having to rent a car there.

Tell me what you think!!! :)

More snow

Ok so we just got like 3-4 inches Tuesday night, and they are now saying we have another storm coming tonight where we will get anywhere from 6-10 inches tonight! And they showed our 8 day forecast and every day we are going to get snow!

We actually had our Christmas lights on at our apartment for the judging... don't know when we'd find out if we won or not....

I know I have to go out and hunt tonight. Hunt for white Christmas lights- I was dumb, I waited too long and now Scott said he couldn't find any at WalMart or Target. We were supposed to buy them for our reception :( I HAVE to find some! We figure we need 6 boxes of 100, for these 6 big poles in the room and then like 3 boxes of 50 for the head table, cake table and gift table. So that is the task for tonight, find these lights before the storm hits. I might come back needing help finding some if they don't have any up here.

I so need a new camera! Mine is totally taking a crap on me, I tried to get pics off of it but it was screwing up. I'm looking at eventually getting a Nikon Coolpix or a Cannon Powershot.

Well, time to go to work! Bye!

Woo hoo!

Scott got a free ham!!! A big one too. He got it from the restaurant he works at like 1 day a week at Grand Valley!

Today we are going to drop some donated stuff off at this place called In The Image. It gives the stuff to homeless people, but they set it up so it looks like it's in a store. Then the less fortunate go in there and they don't have to pick through piles of junk. Instead it's like going through a store. So I think thats good. We were thinking of taking it to the good will, but one of the things I have in there is a really nice coat- and I want it to go to someone who really needs it, and this way they won't have to pay for it if they can't afford to.

We also have Scott's sister- Michelle's graduation to go to. She graduating from Central Michigan today at 5 pm. I'm hoping we make it back before the crappy weather.... but we'll see-could be an interesting night.

I got a book from the library called Hawaii from $80 a day. I've been going through some of it with Scott. We've decided that we do NOT want to skimp on the hotel. We want a good hotel room. We'll skimp on everything else. In the book I'm finding a lot of cheap or free stuff we can do, and cheap restaurants. I even found one that is dairy free! Some of the things we want to do are:
-Snorkel
-hike up Diamond Head (an extinct volcano on Oahu)
-go to a luau on Maui (that will not be cheap)
-the Honolulu Zoo
-an aquarium and a sea life park... probably about the same
-Pear Harbor (that is free!)
-the road to Hana in Maui. It's like 50 miles, and very twisty, so I'm hoping we can find a tour of it so we don't have to actually drive it.

Oh by the way we've decided that we want to go 5 days on Oahu and 5 days on Maui, but we'll see how the $$ works out.

Scott's freaking out cause he made breakfast and I'm taking too long, so I'll have to post more later. Adios!

No longer motivated

Ok, so when I first sat down I was ready to write all sorts- but my motivation is now gone. So, I'll just write some snippets.

-They are redecorating at work. Starting after 12/20, that's when the owner and his wife are making like birds and flying south for the winter. Yes- I finally found them a flight! It's from Detroit instead of GR, but it is straight down to Sarasota- no connecting flights! Woo hoo! Gold star for me. I also made sure their phone was turned on, now I just have to track down the info to make sure their cable is on. But- yeah on to the redecorating.... so when they hired a CFO, he got my office. Now I'm at a desk in a hallway-ish area. Not really a hallway though. See when you come down the hallway to the glass doors that are by the GMs office the other side of the glass doors is like a big room, then there are offices off to the sides. Offices belong to the accountant, CFO, The owner, and his wife, the co-owner. The random desk off to the side, but not in an office belongs to me. I was irriated at first, hell I still get irritated. Because I don't have an office, I'm open to all sorts of conversations, arguments, you name it- it gets quite loud by my desk at times. Very hard to concentrate, hear someone on the other end of the phone, etc.
Ack distracted again! The redecorating!!! They are redoing paint, carpet and furniture. Mr and Mrs are getting new desks and I get Mrs K's desk! It's a nice desk, I'm happy. Especially since a couple weeks ago they bought me a new chair, cause I had a bum wheel on my other one. My new chair is like a big leather executive chair- it makes me feel semi-important :) It cost way more than I would ever spend on a chair for myself. But the week before and for the weeks following Christmas it's going to get quite chaotic, as they have made it crystal clear- we are to miss 0 days because of the redecorating/construction. They are just going to move everything to one end of the building, have that worked on, then move everything to the other end, and do that side. I can't even imagine, I don't know that I want to...

Wow... that was sooo not a snippet. Maybe my motivation is coming back!

-Mr K said he'd pay me for my sick day Monday! I was not expecting that! He had told me before, that I'd be paid for holidays, so I knew that. But when I came in on Tuesday, he said he'd cover me for not being there Monday. Said it's the least he could do after giving me his cold. I said, Oh I so did not have a cold. He said, I said I was going to pay you for it, just say you had a cold. LOL! Funny funny guy.

-I learned a very important lesson yesterday. Do NOT trust Scott with grocery shopping. Granted, he has gotten better as he did not bring home any bags of chips or other junk food, but he still hasn't mastered shopping to assist in creating meals. Here is what he came home with- and what I thought when I saw it:

-burrito shells :) :( could've gone either way, we usually get soft shells, there are more in a pack and u can do more with them-tacos for dinner, breakfast burritos, quesadillas, etc. But whatever.
-2 things of burger buns, 1 thing of hot dog buns :( Buy 1 get 2 free, but we'd never eat that many buns! Ever! And, they taste like garbage when you freeze and thaw....
-loaf of bread :) And it was a Sara Lee that is without milk :) :) Can u tell he likes his carbs....
-grape tomatoes :)
-clementines :)
- bredded VEAL patties-- made w/milk :( :( gag! Said he meant to grab chicken patties, and forgot to check ingredients
- lunch meat that was marked down in the deli :)
-1 box of rainbow rotini - we sooo didn't need more pasta, but he knows I like that pasta and we don't have that particular kind so- :)

That was it. That was his grocery shopping. Mind you I told him get enough stuff for meals for at least a week, week and a half. There were a handful of things we were out of- and none of those things made it home. Neither did any vegetables. But, it could've been worse. Lesson learned, I am now heading out to Meijer to return some stuff, and get some other stuff that we do need.

-One last thing... the weather :( Our highs for the next week or 2 are suppose to be in the 20s, windchill in singal digits and lake effect snow starting tomorrow and going through the weekend. Good thing we have few outdoor plans this weekend. I know we have a bunch of clothes we are dropping off at a homeless shelter. Then we are putting up our Christmas tree and I promised Scott I'd make chocolate chip cookies :) We also might go to a GR Griffins hockey game- we can get $5 tickets. And Scott wants to go to the hot tub place. Oasishottubs.com We LOVE it!!

Bye

Yuck!

Ok so the long Thanksgiving weekend in Jville went ok. Played a lot of games with Holly and Bryan. Hung out, it was ok. Except I felt kinda funky like the whole time. It started sometime on Wednesday. Prior to then I was stoked for the weekend. Then came Wednesday and I just was not interested in it anymore. I just felt blah. It was like that all weekend.

Then came Sunday when Scott and I had decided to come back up. First I'm going to say how very stupid of us to not watch the weather. Had we done that we would've seen the big snow storm and left on Saturday. So we got to drive back up here in the snow. The worst part- as we knew it would be was driving on 94. Most of the time we were on there we were going 20 mph or less. We saw one car on the other side of the highway tipped on it's side, 2 people that had spun into the center grass area, and one person we actually saw spin out while trying to speed up on the on-ramp to get on to the highway. They landed nose first into a very steep ditch.
I started to feel sick on the highway. I figured it was just car sickness and my nerves. Wasn't sure what- put I felt like crap. We were stuck not moving at all with all these semi-trucks blowing their exhaust at us. I for real thought I was going to throw up there. Luckily we started moving, got away fromt he semis, then I opened my window. The cold air started making me feel better. Then I started getting dizzy again. This happened on and off the whole ride home. It usually takes a bit over 2 hours to get up here-- yesterday it took us 4 hours.

When we got back up here we decided to get Subway, make soup and just chill. So, I ate 1/2 of my sub and my soup. I still felt crappy, so I fell asleep for like 4 hours. I woke up and just sat there for awhile. I ate my other half of sub and we watched some tv. About 9:30 I started feeling really ill. And threw up for the first time at about 10:30, for the second time at about 11. Then I called in to work, left a message for my boss. Then threw up for the third time at about 1:30 am. Not sure what kind of bug I have, but it was not fun. That is why I'm posting on here in the middle of the day. I slept on the couch last night. Scott left at about 7:30 this morning. I went back to sleep til about 9:30 then ate a bagel and applesauce. My stomach still does not feel quite right.

But, thats about all that is going on here. Right now someone is drilling something downstairs and the noise is awful. Oh yeah, a headache and dizziness has accompanied this nausea. I guess we got a bit of snow yesterday- I think they are saying we have about 5-6 inches. I haven't been outside, so I'm not sure. But our winter storm warning is over. Well I guess thats all, back to the couch I go. I'll probably sleep again.

I'm out---- almost

Today was a TOUGH day. I'm super glad there is a four day weekend. Scott and I are headed to Jville tomorrow morning. I'm really hoping I don't have to deal with bullshit drama there....but wouldn't be surprised if I do.

Not too interested in saying anything else so....

Happy Thanksgiving. I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe holiday.

nothing

I haven't wrote since the end of October.....

Nothing interesting to talk about that is new. See- I'll prove it- it's all boring.
-I had a cold for about a week and a half. Felt like garbage!

-Temps this week are suppose to be high in the 30s, low in the 20s- but we didn't really get any snow.

-Work is busy as always

-We cleaned the apartment this weekend, and next weekend will be getting stuff around to take to Goodwill. I was going to try to sell a bunch on Ebay or Craigs list, but I'm just not interested in spending the time on it.

-Next weekend is Grand Valley's first football playoff game. The playoffs started last week, but since we are the top seed in our region we had a first round bye. We are going to be playing Ashland. Should be a good game- they almost beat us when we played them earlier this year. And plus- with a record as good as Grand Valley's they will forever have a target on their back. EVERY team wants to be the team to beat Grand Valley, to end our season. But, no matter the results, this is still like the 3rd year, maybe 4th in a row they were undefeated in the regular season. We do certainly plan on going to the game this weekend. Even though it will be FREEZING. Atleast all playoff games have to be at 1 pm. Our games are usually at 7:30 pm. So, now we can at least hope for the sun. In the most recent 7 day forcast Saturday is the one day they are not predicting snow for us.

-Wedding planning is at a stand still cause I don't know what to do next. I gotta find a caterer, florist and dj... but haven't really found anything yet. Well, except the caterer. We have one we'll probably use. They had a test tasting open house type thing on Saturday that we went to. We liked the BBQ salmon, Chicken marsala and the smoked chicken. Oh and they had a pesto, pine nut dip that was delish! Scott really liked their ice bowls, and we entered in a drawing to win one. I told him that would be the only way we'd get one. I'm not about to spend extra money on that. I should probably eventually look for dresses, but I'm not at all in a hurry for that for several reasons. 1- I feel I'm too fat, and don't want to be fat for the wedding- so I need to get my a$$ in gear to change that. 2- I don't have anyone to go with me.... I'll be looking by myself.

-Oh and my ankle, which has been bugging me since the summer is still acting up. It's my right ankle and it kills, every time I rotate my foot inward. It makes walking on unsteady ground VERY painful. I figured I just sprained it awhile back, but it still hasn't gone away. I forget about it sometimes cause it doesn't hurt all the time. Scott was freaking out cause my whole right leg was hurting this weekend. Told me to go to the docs cause he thinks I have a blood clot and it's slowly moving up my leg. I told him he's being silly and it's not a blood clot, but told him I will make an appt to get it checked out. I'm just worried they'll do an xray and some expensive crap and I'll get a huge bill for what my insurance didn't cover. Thats why I haven't gone yet.... but maybe I should to avoid having it f'd up forever.

Well, I think that is all. Oh- Steph, do I have you for Christmas?? I know I asked you at dad's house- but I forgot again, I swear I'll write it down this time....

So whats new....

I think I'll do this in a list format...

• The comedian Scott and I went to was HILLARIOUS! There were actually 3 of them. A local guy who I guess introduces all of them, but he had a little bit at the beginning that was funny. Then the next guy, Pat, was from Chicago. And finally, our main comedian was Juston, he's from Maine. It's funny too cause the company I work for actually booked him a show last month, at a college. I guess the college, Southeast Maine CC, I think- said find us a local comedian, and thats who it was. I ended up talking to him about it for a bit after the show. But yeah, all in all- it was freaking funny! Very glad we decided to do that, will probably do it again in the future. We decided not to go out to dinner, we came home and ordered Chinese instead, which was tasty.

• I don't know if I wrote this before, but we found a different ceremony location. We originally were going to have it at the City beach, cause we didn't know where else to have it. Well, I was looking at a map and saw a park on a beach on the other side of the channel, the other side of the lighthouse also. It's called North Beach Park and I think it'll be perfect! For one, it's a county park so it has parking close to the beach, I checked- they do not charge for parking after Labor Day. The city beach has one small lot quite a ways away from where we were going to have the ceremony. Two, it has a big pavilion, in case it rains. City beach has nothing. Three, it has restrooms! The city beach just has a porta potty nearby, you have to walk quite a bit to get to restrooms. I do have to check to see if it will actually be open, or if they can make sure it's open that day. Four, it has a playground for the kiddos. And five, it's quite a ways away from where any Salmon Festival festivities would be going on. Yay! And here are some pictures from when we first saw the park/beach.

The next two were taken from up by the pavilion












This is a picture of the lighthouse/pier


The pavilion


Here is a random cloud picture. Not taken on the same day- and it was taken from my deck. I jus thought it looked pretty and it was in this batch of pictures.

• Ok, more new stuff---I just got an email today from the photog saying our engagement pictures are in. She's mailing them to us tomorrow, just cause I don't want to drive all the way out there to pick them up....

• We tried spaghetti squash last week! That stuff is soooo easy to make. Crazy how easy it was. The recipe I was using says to put a tomato mixture on it. It was garlic and a can of diced tomatoes sauteed in olive oil, then add basil and oregano. Then put it on top of the squash. It was delish! I'm eating leftovers right now. Scott hates tomatoes, so he was on it own figuring something out. He said his was alright....I think he put jarred spaghetti sauce on it. I still have an acorn squash to make. I decided to give squash a try when we went to the farmers market. Not much left :( But, they did have squash.
  

• Friday they tore the carpet up from outside our apartment, out in the hallways. It looks like an ugly crackhouse now. I don't know what the inside of a crackhouse looks like, but that is how Scott described it. We hope they are putting new carpet down, but for now it's just dirty ugly boards.

• Friday morning when Scott was taking a shower he noticed that our ceiling in the bathroom in the corner by the tub was bubbling up. He called the maitenance people, they said there is water leaking from the apartment above ours. Scott said the guy poked it with something and water came pouring out. Apparently they fixed the leak upstairs, and they started to fix the spot in our apartment, they smoothed it out but said it's too wet to completely fix it. So now we have an ugly spot on our ceiling too.

• And last, we never got snow. They said we had some flurries at night, but I never saw anything and any trace was gone by morning. It was super chilly today, during the day it was the low 40s and windy! Scott and I went to the Grand Valley game Saturday, it was suppose to rain but it didn't, but we drug out all our winter gear then. I wore a long sleeve shirt, sweat shirt, and quilted vest, then I had my gloves on too.
  

Well I think thats all for now.

Yay for a date night!!

Our 8 year anniversary is Sunday. So... tonight we are going to a comedy club called Dr. Grins. It's at a building called The BOB in downtown GR. We got free passes at the wedding expo we went to awhile ago, and thought we should give it a try. We might go to dinner at a place called J Gardellas, it's right across the street.

Yay!! I'm excited!!

In other news, we might get snow Monday-Wednesday. Boooo :(

Some wedding things I like.

Ok, just as a little update- and to get some opinions, I'm going to post some wedding idea pics I have.

First up- Centerpieces.

I really like this one, there is another I like more- but I'm dumb and I didn't save the pic, and now I can't find it....






Scott's vote is for this one- lol yeah, probably NOT going to happen :)


Next- Guestbooks
We've decided we don't want a traditional guest book.

I like this idea. And I can get it done at Meijer. We'll just take some of our favorite pictures of us and get them done in a book, then people can sign the white pages.


We really like this idea too. Something that we can have out so we'll see it everyday. I actually have one of these from my graduation. Scott went around and got a bunch of people we know to sign it.


Next- Ideas of pictures for our photog
Cindy, our photog told us if we come across any pictures we like and would like something similar on our wedding day, save them and let her know. Then she'll try to re-create. Here are some that I've collected.




Sorry this one you can't enlarge... But I like the pic on the top left. It's bride and groom's left hand under water. Then I like the one in the middle, with the footprints in the sand and bride and groom in the background.


Next- Wedding day hairstyles

I like wearing my hair half up/half down and I know Scott likes it down, so thats a good compromise. For these pictures I like the hair in the middle.


But, then I also like the first picture here.


The other thought is- outside at the beach could be pretty windy. I'm wondering if there is an updo, that can easily be unpinned somewhere for a half up/half down for the reception.

Next- Random others

I really like these, they are called chuppahs.







I like this style of invitation, obviously not in the halloweeny orange and black ;)


This card box is cute- the girl made it herself, and made it in a way where she could easily take it apart and display the pictures. However, I have another idea I've seen that goes with the beach theme better. I just don't have a picture. Scott has this trunk type thing, then we'd get some rope netting stuff and other stuff to decorate it. I'll find a pic sooner or later, then it will make sense.


These are SUPER cute as ring holders.


And last- our Save the Date magnets
The ones below are my favorites designs.

Thats all for now. Thanks for looking!

Need some opinions...

Ok, so Scott and I have decided not to have alcohol at our wedding. The main reason for this is the cost factor. Not only would we have the cost of the alcohol itself, our reception site is $600 without alcohol, $750, if you serve alcohol. Other reasons are obviously because we don't want to have to worry about people leaving drunk. So we decided not to.

I have found an alternative that I really like. Check out this link. Scroll to the very bottom where it talks about the non alcoholic bar. This is the same company we are looking at for our catering- I really like the idea of having a bar like this. Not only would they have the drinks listed, but also soda and bottled water.

Opinions?? Think it's a good idea?

So far behind on pictures.....

Here are some pictures of when we went to the Grand Rapids Public Museum last month.
They have this SUPER cool temporary exhibit about crime solving. Thats what most of these pictures are from.

Well, except this one. They have part of the museum called the streets of old Grand Rapids, and it has a whole section set up, to look exactly like you are walking down the streets of GR in the 1890s. They have like store fronts, old cars, all sorts of stuff. Here is Scott posing on an old bike.


And here is the crime solving exhibit. It's called Whodunit.



Scott looking tough while I take his mugshot.


They had a copy of the GR Press that told about the crime we were supposed to try and solve. They also had a TV playing our local news talking about the crime. It's pretty cool that the museum got our local paper and tv news to agree to play along.


This is the Memory Diner. The tv was near here. You were supposed to sit here and listen to the news coverage to pick up clues. They also had a print out of a conversation a police man had with a man and customer at the diner.


This is the actual crime scene.


Don't ask me how- but they somehow got an actual GRPD car on the second or third floor....


Scott in the back of the police car.


Scott thinking he's funny walking away, while I'm in the back seat. Being a real police car, the back doors did not open.


They had information on DNA, fingerprinting, identifying which bullet was used, forensic anthropology, evidence collection and the examination of trace evidence. At the beginning they gave us 3 suspects, you had to follow along with the clues and evidence. I followed along and at the end I did know who the killer was.

Scott behind bars.


and me behind bars.


This is in the Egypt exhibit.




Random pic of Scott with a moose


Then, they have this really cool habitat exhibit that has displays of different habitats.




Here are some pictures from Alexis' soccer game! I was so excited I got to go watch her play! She did great and she looked like she was having a blast!




cute little Noah hoarding some fruits he picked from a tree.






Alexis and I after the game.


Scott and I at a wedding.


Here are some pics from the beach last weekend. Scott's dad was up here, and so was dad, Holly and Bry.


I told Bry this was like his senior picture that was never taken.


Dad and Holly




And the last picture..... my pumpkin!!! Keep the kids away- they might get scared :)
















I'm very proud of my cannibal pumpkin. He turned out very well! :)


Thats all for now! I'll let post my photogs website when she gets a preview of our pics up. Bye!