It's closing in!

3 days left til the big day. We've had loads of family coming in this week. My cousin Tobi just graduated from UNLV yesterday, so a lot of them came up for that and will be staying through the weekend! Having the family here makes it seem more real to us! It's so much fun! Jason was able to get a Christmas tree for free on base, so he donated it to our family!

Sadly, after trying so incredibly hard to keep away from getting sick... the sick bug has caught me. I've spent the last several days taking meds and TRYING to sleep, but it's hard to rest at this point! Oh well... hopefully it'll go away, if not, I suppose I'll just be a sick bride. Jason is enjoying his days off and short days at work, and he's just trying to keep up with me and how busy I am. He's also been taking care of me while I've been sick! What a fantastic guy! ^_^

We just finished up teaching our quarter of the Sunday school. We threw a small party for the kidos this past Sunday, they did a White Elephant game with presents and we brought donuts. Now we're off for the next quarter. Most likely we'll volunteer again. They're a good group of kids!

THEN, Jason planned a surprise "last date before we're married." He had me guessing all the way to the location. It was indoor go kart racing. It was pretty intense. Jason use to race motorcycles so he was absolutely ecstatic to start that race. The karts could get up to 45 mph and there were lots of twists and turns. It really was a wee bit scary, but it was fun for a last little date before the wedding.

Wedding plans are slowly coming to an end, now we're just taking care of helpers and who's going to do what. Jason and I are only full of excitement for the big day to arrive. We both had our bachlorette/bachlor parties this past weekend with our close friends and some family. We just cannot wait to be married! And the stress level is so low right now, it's all just fantastic! Really all we have left is packing up our belongings to get ready for the big move to our new house. YAY!!!

Let It Snow?

We had a surprise snow fall a couple days ago! It's been a nice 60 degrees for the past month and then BANG! Today, the snow has pretty much melted and I've been watching the weather everyday since. The weather man SAYS it should be 59 degrees and 45 at night on Dec. 19th. Fingers crossed! I'm trying to not worry so much about it, no matter what the weather is, the wedding should be fine either way! ^_^ The whole idea is to celebrate the new marriage, cold or not! So bring your jackets and scarves because it's going to press on weather the weather cooperates or not!

In other wedding news, the loose ends are slowly being tied up! Wedding favors are done! Mitchi spent a day in the hospital finishing them up as well as our marshmallow bags to throw when we leave. She's awesome! Music...check, photos...check! 10 more days to go! Crazy how much planning goes into this day! We checked out flowers the other day as well. They should be pretty too!

Life with Jason and I have been hectic as usual. Jason just finished up their Inspection that lasted a week long. He survived working crazy hours, sometimes which were 4:15 am to 7:00 pm!! Fortunately, they passed! Jason's also being nominated for Air Man of the quarter, for the second time I might add! I have been busy busy with finishing the wedding details as well as doing some extra tutoring with some 3rd graders from our school. There are 8 girls and 3 boys... lets just say I'm so happy to be teaching boys! :) We're excited for family coming into town in the next week!!!! This should be a very fun, and interesting couple weeks coming up! YAY!

Favors and Dressings

This was a weekend full of wedding tasks. Everything from decorations, to extra invites, to clothing issues, ribbons, food, music and gifts! We've been incredibly busy, but tonight we have found ourselves cuddled on the sofa watching Star Trek just to relax!
We started part of the wedding favors today. Complete with our favorite candies. :) This is just a preview, but there are more delicious favors to come!
THEN! I succeeded with creating homemade Caesar salad dressing! I never thought of what's actually IN the dressing, it's kinda disgusting to think of! Luckily, it ended up being quite tasty. :) I'm very proud of myself for creating such a thing!
Please continue to keep us in your prayers. Jason's working 12 hour shifts this week. Mitchi and Kevin are preparing for the baby. Baby Eveline Rose is doing well, Mitchi's at 29 weeks, but the babies heart beat is a little faster than the doctor's want it to be. Thanks for all the prayers thus far! We love and appreciate you all!

And so it continues...

The other night Jason and I were in the mood for Chicken Ceasar Salad. They gave it to us with a heart shaped chicken! awwww And we had a dinner and movie night. That was the most relaxing night we've had together in a while. Most of the other nights have been busy with either school, work, wedding preparation, or family stuff. Don't get me wrong, it's been great, it's just nice to relax too!

Jason has been busy busy busy at work lately. They're preparing for an inspection this upcoming week. He'll be working 12 hour days next week! He's been taking on many extra responsibilities... most of which he shouldn't actually be doing, but I just keep telling him to take it as a compliment since they obviously know he'll do a really good job at whatever it is! :) Lately, he's been reading quite a bit. Mostly space and rocket books. Along with that, he's been working at memorizing bible verses with our college plus group leader. I'm fascinated by how fast he remembers things! Jason and I have also been teaching Sunday School for the 4th-6th graders! We're going through Genesis which Jason really enjoys teaching about!

This Wednesday was my last day before track break! The boys were surprisingly tame. I played Toy Story for them as a treat. My first evalutation was that day as well. I recieved good grades! :) The vice principal really likes me. So now I'm on break til January 4th! HORRAY!!! I'm so happy! Although, I will be at school 6 times during break to do some extra tutoring for some extra money! When I haven't been at work I'm trying to finish up my masters. Only 3 classes to go! Our thesis is due in 2 weeks, but once that's done, it should be smooth sailing! Other than that, it's just been taking care of family and helping Kevin out with teaching Youth Group for the time being!

This Thanksgiving weekend was very enjoyable! Yummy food and more family for Jason to meet. He was taken by surprise by my crazy Auntie Jo, but he loves it! hehe We took the opportunity of Black Friday to get our furniture set! We are very proud of our finding! It's made out of Cherry wood, we got a bed, nightstand, 2 dressers and a mirror! It was a door buster sale! Then we hung out at the Bellagio with Auntie Jo and Uncle TC and the Rents. The gardens there change about every month and the fountains never get old. It's really the only place on the strip I actually enjoy taking people to!

Since I have time off, LOTS of wedding planning will be getting done in the upcoming weeks! Tomorrow it's ring shopping and flower decisions! :)

Let the final countdown being! One month?

Wedding update... well, there's a lot that has happened! 2 weeks ago was the bridal shower. By far, it was the best ever! hehe But really, I was so appreciative of all the church ladies who came and my close friends and family that were there. We had a lot of fun. There was a nacho fountain, yes you read right, a nacho fountain! We played a few games that were actually quite amusing. Among the support and love of family and friends, we have begun to receive the presents! yay! Things to start our house with! It's all so very exciting! Have I mentioned how awesome my bride'smaids have been? They're fantastic people to have around! What would I do without them?

This past weekend was surprisingly VERY eventful. Jason returned from Indiana, we hadn't seen each other for 10 days, but his trip was very productive. He even got a very nice compliment from one of his higher up bosses! I am very proud of him! He does his job quite well! He came home Saturday, the night where Mitchi, my brother Kevin's wife, went into the hospital. Quick recap, she has a miraculous pregnancy, and her water broke at 27 weeks. So we were in the hospital this weekend watching out for her. (She and baby Eveline are doing quite well, she's just on bed rest til the baby comes) Sunday we went to the air show. Jason educated me on all the jet and planes! It was incredible watching some of them fly up there! My favorites are still the bige airplanes, and the older one from the world wars!

Last night, we drove downtown to the Marriage Licensing place to apply for our marriage license of course! After driving around downtown and being somewhat lost... we finally found the place, stood in line, and showed someone our id. Simple, and well, DONE!

The reason for the month early license was because... wait for it, wait for it, we applied for Base Housing today! horray!!!! We had two choices. The house that we went to is an older house on base, that will be demolished in Aug or Sept. of 2010. So we'll move into it for the first months of our marriage and then they'll move us into the NEW base housing which is REALLY nice! We're both so excited! Although, now that I think about it, it's a little sad that our first house together will be destroyed!!!

That's pretty much it for now! More to come in the upcoming MONTH! Can you believe it's one month? Bizzare. The big details are out of the way! Now to start on the smaller details and initiating backup plans! Pray for us, and Kevin and Mitchi!

Invites

40 days to go! Weird. Time is flying by like crazy! The big things to do are out of the way. Mainly... the invites. This was one of the to do items that I really was looking forward to doing. Being able to design something special like this just makes me relaxed. Even
though I'm a total perfectionist when I get on my photoshop program, it still lets me relax and enjoy what I'm doing. I know you may have been thinking... there are so many pictures in this invite! WELL, it was hard to choose an engagement picture to use, so we used our favorite three! I also wanted there to be some consistency to it all, so that's what you get! So anyway, that's one big thing that's out of the way!

A project I've been working on during the wedding planning is a lovely wedding planning book! I've been putting pictures, ideas, lists, and other items that pertain to the wedding in this book. Tobi helped me to the cover. One part that I JUST started is for the RSVPs! I think it's pretty cool! When I look at my book, it makes me happy! So make sure you send in your RSVP so I can add it to my collage.

Wednesday is flower and centerpiece decision day! We're going to have orange flowers! The dark orange! It'll go great with the dark purple and fern colored dresses! I'm getting more and more excited about the wedding as time goes on! Surprisingly, I'm starting to really enjoy the planning a little more now too.

When Jason comes home we're headed downtown to get our marriage license. Then we get to apply for a house on the Nellis Air Force base! It's really convenient for us both since, well, he works there and my school is about 3 miles away! So yay! That's all the update I have for now. Kinda boring this time, but whatever! :)

6 Months!

Yes! It is true! Today marks the 6 month of our first date! I bet you didn't know our first date was on Cinco de Mayo.. or what I like to call Cinco de Gato (It's Dobby's birthday too!) Jason left for Indiana for an Air Force drill and is going to be gone till the 15th! Lots more wedding planning will be done nonetheless! Here's some fun pictures we took last night while we were in a weird mood. hehe

Pumpkin Patch

Halloween, Jason and I picked out a huge pumpkin from the lovely pumpkin patch by my house. It only cost $10!!! This is why Jason and I are awesome, becuase we have so much fun together. As dorky as that sounds... but really, it's true. We headed over to Kevin and Mitchi's to share in our pumpkin carving extravaganza. Amazed at how huge the pumpkin was, Kevin offered to help with no questions ask. So here's what we ended up with!

Wedding plans are progressing nicely! It should turn out to be a very fun and fine day! :)

Wedding. The word starts to sound monotonous.

After picking the place, setting up the wedding party, and deciding on a for sure date... the wedding planning has drastically slowed down. It's exciting to know we're getting married in 59 days, but planning a wedding is A LOT more complicated than we expected. People asking me about flowers, and napkins, decorations, drinks, food, rentals... I just want the wedding to be planned on it's own!! We really just want our wedding to be simple, and FUN! We want the day to be beautiful for God, and to be a testimony to our friends and family of how it looks when Christ loves His church. So when I think of that, it makes me feel less anxious about planning the wedding.

We registered at Target and Bed, Bath and Beyond, and THAT'S overwhelming because we have nothing! Well... we have a little, but not enough to make a household on. It was also really fun to pick out items for our new house together! :) In November we're applying for Base housing! We'll get to live for FREE and it'll be close to both our work places!

Right now, I'm designing the invitations! It's the part that makes me most happy! I love being able to use my graphic designing skills for something now in life! Those should be sent out by next week! Or at least that's what everyone seems to expect of me.

Another thing we have check off the list is our honeymoon plans! We will be taking a cruise to Cabo San Lucas right after Christmas until New Years Eve. YAY! Then, Jason gets free tickets to Disneyland, so we're shooting for doing that right when we come back from the cruise! We're both very excited for a vacation!

In personal news, Jason is getting over a sickness, and Melissa is trying to stay away from getting sick! We're going through Pre-Marital counseling together with Pastor Tim from our church, and that has been incredibly eye opening! We're both very happy that he's telling us how it is, and not floofing it up and giving us an unreal idea of what to expect.

Pray for us: We're still making some big decisions for our upcoming life together with work and other situations.

Life outside the wedding planning.

Along with planning for the wedding, we have encountered many changes in our lives recently. This year is actually turning out to be much more life changing than either of us could imagine. Here's the scoop.


Jason has been in the Air Force for a little over a year now. Never did he imagine he'd be in Vegas of all places, but he's ok with the idea... for obvious reasons. Recently, he decided that being an officer in the Air Force might be a path he'd like to go down. Jason has been interested in having more of a leadership role during his service. He's studying like crazy for the Officer Training Test that he's taking this upcoming Friday morning to see if this is a door that will open up for him. If it does, that means there will be even MORE changes in the future, but if it does not, he’s quite content with where he is right now anyway. Keep him in your prayers as he continues to prepare for his test on Friday morning.


Melissa started off the year teaching 4th grade at Mt. View Elementary with 23 students. Things were starting off great, and then because of the "low number" of students in the school, three teachers had to surplus and move schools, she was one of those three. Luckily, there was another 4th grade opening about a half a mile up from this school at Cortez Elementary, only it's an all boys class with 32 students! We have spend the last week packing and unpacking and getting ready... once again and sadly said goodbye to Mt. View and hello to Cortez. Tomorrow she's starting with the new pack of boys, a new set of teachers, and a whole new classroom. Say a prayer for Melissa too... that stress won't get in the way of doing what she loves.

Things are stressful at times with planning this wedding, and quite frankly is a little more distracting than expected for us. Thankfully, we've settled on a place, which is a HUGE weight off our shoulders. Next... we'll be tackling the next big things: The guest list and invitations! But really, if you're reading this, stop and say a little prayer for us. We don't want this wedding to absorb us and cause us to loose sight on what this whole thing is about in the first place! To end... here's a few engagement pictures brought to you by Tobi Anderson and David Vander Meer. :) Enjoy!

Me oh my!

There once lived a boy named Jason who moved to Las Vegas to be stationed at Nellis Air Force base in January of 2009. He soon after started attending Spring Meadows where he saw a simple young...beeeeautiful girl named Melissa. Thinking he had nothing to loose he chased after this young maiden only to be majorly denied. It took the girl some time and some messing up to do before she could see this boy God put right in front of her eyes. She soon realized how stupid she was being and chased him back. Surprised...and confused that the girl stopped ignoring him... Jason liked this girl very much and asked her out on Cinco de Mayo. 4 short months later, the two became engaged and everyone was happy. Right away they set the date to be December 19... and the naive couple is still in pursuit of the actual place this wondrous wedding will take place.

But wait.. the story is not over yet. Stay tune for more information still to come!