6 months to go?!

Hello everyone!! I know its been quite some time since I last blogged but life has been super busy. As many of you know Aric proposed to me on October 7th! And of course I said yes! Since then my life has been a flurry of wedding questions! (in no particular order) What kind of flowers? How many? Is this the dress? What about brides maid dresses? Where are we going to have the ceremony? How are we doing food? Who's going to be in the wedding party? Who's going to do the pictures? And DJ? What about the groom and his groomsmen? What are they wearing? Are we keeping the wedding small? Etc etc!! Luckily more of these questions are being answered every day! It's definitely an exciting time but with my finals going on right now too I have had little time to really sit and plan. My last tests are Friday and as I have told my maid of honor that's when the real fun begins! If anyone is curious about wedding planning or about our story (how we met, who we are etc.) click here for our wedding website. It's kind of crazy that we have gone through two months already and only have six to go. The kind of crazy thing about our wedding date, June 2nd, is that we will share the anniversary with my grandparents on my dad's side and my professor Dr. Eskew. It is a wonderful day for a wedding!
We got to spend Thanksgiving with both sets of family this year. We had dinner with Benny's in-laws on Thursday and Aric's family Friday. It was great getting to spend time with everyone! I love that we have such great families!
We have more exciting things coming up in our lives too! My dad is moving back to Colorado, since he graduated medical school (nursing school, my bad lol its finals week leave me alone haha thanks for pointing it out ma!)! Hopefully that will be happening sooner rather than later. He says he wants to move to Denver which I think will be great for him! Also I graduate May 5th which unfortunately is William and Lindsay's wedding date. My hope is to graduate early in the morning, take a few quick pictures, and then leave to Denver to catch at least the reception.
Sorry this is a short update filled with a bunch of updates and not much else but with it being finals I'm sure you understand! Another update with pictures (proposal, engagement, holiday etc.) and detail is soon to come! Love you all!

Soulmates...two halves of the same soul joining together in life's journey
~ Author Unknown ~

An Update!

Wow!! Its been a while since I blogged last and a lot of exciting things have happened, I don't even know where to start! I guess with my best news...

As many of you know, my mom started to

get sick about a year ago and took a major turn for the worst around November.I know, you're probably thinking "Thats good news?" Well no, its not. What is good news though is that she went to California in February/March and started to see an acupuncture doctor as a last hope. The doctor was really optimistic and she told mom that she would get better. Luckily she was right! Granted she isn't able to return to work just yet but from near wheel chair to just using a cane and not even that all of the time, its a miracle! I hope she continues on this path and is able to return to work and become independent again. Not that I mind helping her out, but just to see my mom glow again! She gets better every day! She started warm pool physical therapy last week and each time she goes she gets a little bit stronger! I am so proud of her for not losing hope even though I know there were many times that she wanted to. Keep your head up momma! And please everyone keep your thoughts and prayers coming! We sure do appreciate them!

The second exciting thing in my life now is my relationship. Thanks to my good friend William, I met an amazing guy named Aric. He has been a light in my life and I am so grateful for him. He has brought me so much joy and confidence in my life and I couldn't ask for anything more. We have a ton in common and can spend hours not doing much of anything but just enjoying our time together. The difficult part is that we live two hours apart from each other but we have been lucky enough to see each other every weekend. Generally we switch off weekends, I'll go up one weekend and he will come down the next, but occasionally something causes us to go off schedule lol. One of the best parts is, I absolutely adore his family. His mom (Cathy) is terrific, his sister (Cortney) is so great, his brother-in-law (Dean) is fun to talk to, his dad (Stan) is great and his nieces (Riley, Alexandra, and Scarlett) are absolutely precious! All three of them have melted my heart and I love spending time with them. Unfortunately I only have blurry pictures with the two oldest, Riley who is 10 and Alexandra who is 7. The littlest one is Scarlett and she will be 2 in June but when we took pictures we were in the van on the way to the mall and I sat in the back with Riley and Alexandra and Scarlett was in her car seat in the seat in front of us so I didn't get a picture but I will do that soon! Sorry they are blurry and don't get all three of us in one frame, van rides don't make for good pictures! After this we had fun sending Aric twenty or so texts! The girls just love their Uncle Aric and picking on him is fun too :D. His family is wonderful, I couldn't imagine better! They have made me feel welcome and loved! I can't wait to spend more time with them!

Alexandra and I (and Riley's eye :))

Riley and I

I do have a video of Scarlett playing with my phone so I think I will upload that too because its just too darn cute not to and this way Cortney can see it. I know its 6 minutes long but trust me its worth watching... there are parts I could edit out but for some reason movie maker and my videos from my camera don't play nicely! (In the background you can hear Cort and Cathy talking about a book that they got Dean for his birthday lol) The way that she interacts with the camera is soo cute! It's like she is trying to look through it backwards to figure out what it is :) after this video she noticed that she could see the pictures on the other side so she had fun looking at the screen and pressing the record button over and over so I got a few 2 second videos of the couch, her foot, anything interesting (which you will get a glimpse of at the end of the video lol) also in the video you will see her game of making her limbs disappear and asking where they went, she also points out that my phone is to say hello. Lol she is so smart and so cute I absolutely adore all of his nieces!

On a final note, I had another strong semester! I was hoping for a 4.0 but it was a really tough semester and I ended up with 2 A's, 1 A-, and 3 B's. I guess I should be stoked but I am merely content. Hopefully next semester I will get my 4.0! I also got inducted into Sigma Tau Delta (STD for short .. terrible I know lol) the English Honor Society at CSU-P! I am so happy and proud that I finally made it. I just had to find my passion :P!

Anyway, I will definitely be blogging more this summer now that I am out of school and have a little more time! Probably a lot more about the girls and Aric and of course updates on mom! I wanted everyone to know that I am happy, healthy and loving life! I definitely have lots to be thankful for and am very blessed. Until next time I love you all! And don't worry, I didn't forget the quote:

When you look at your life, the greatest happinesses are family happinesses. ~Joyce Brothers