Valentine’s Day!!!

So Brandon and I are very good at showing our love and affection year round, not just on Valentine’s Day, but I go all out on this day! I took the night off of work, so that morning when I got home, I waited for him to wake up and surprised him with breakfast. I just bought a can of the Cinnamon Caramel Rolls, unrolled them and rolled them back up into hearts. It’s cheesy, but I know he loves caramel rolls, and I love hearts…haha so it worked out perfect!

 

After breakfast I laid down to take a nap while he went out grocery shopping for the meal he was going to make. It’s tradition that he always cooks me a big meal on Valentine’s Day, and I’ve started to contribute by making the dessert. This all started back on our first Valentine’s Day together, it was the very first time he had ever cooked for me. He made Italian Breaded Pork Chops, a green bean, spinach and mushroom mix and bought me a bottle of wine. I loved it! The next year he made a shrimp, scallops, couscous type thing, chocolate covered strawberries, some strawberries were filled with marscapone cheese, and a salad where the tomatoes were cut like roses. Last year he made Lobster tail with shrimp scampi, and I made a Molton Lava Cake that didn’t turn out and ended up being like homemade brownies haha. This year he made crab legs, shrimp, 3 cheese mashed potatoes, and a salad filled with romaine hearts, spinach, apples, strawberries and a pomegranate vinaigrette. Dinner was AMAZING!!! Seriously, I am totally spoiled! I made a Weight Watchers Butterfinger dessert for after dinner, which was great because it was super light after such a heavy dinner. The dessert consisted of angel food cake tore into bite sized pieces, covered with a vanilla pudding/Cool Whip mixture and crushed butterfinger candy bars. Brandon said I can make this for him again, even without it being a holiday haha.

 

All in all, it was a great day! We watched The Vow after we ate dinner and then went to bed. Another successful Valentine’s Day spent with the love of my life, and I couldn’t have been happier 🙂

New Blog!

Well, some of my facebook friends have been telling me that I should just start a food blog considering how much I love to cook, and I’m always posting pictures of the food I’m making. So, I did it! Its handy that this year I made myself 2 goals, not resolutions because those never last. This year, I plan on saving money (haha, lets be real, it’s going towards the wedding), by putting aside a dollar for the number of week we are in in the year (ex. $1 for week one, $5 for week 5….until you reach $52 for the last week of the year…at the end of the year you will have over $1300). My second goal is to try a new recipe every week of the year…at least one recipe. So far, I’ve been able to do it, and have done 2 recipes 2 weeks out of the 4. So my other blog will be just food and recipes, maybe some funny stories added in, and it will be updated once a week. Since I have that commitment, I’m hoping that means I’ll be popping over to this blog also to update it more too! If you guys want to check out the other blog also, the address is : http://kitchenadventuresblog.wordpress.com/

Christmas

So I’m super excited to give Brandon his gifts. I am horrible at waiting to give gifts because I love to see the appreciation on their faces and how much they love the gifts. I try to always make at least one thing for Brandon for Christmas, birthday, Valentines…really every gift giving holiday. This year I turned to pinterest for some inspiration. I’m seriously addicted to this website, but it gives me such great ideas for crafts, decorating, recipes…etc.

So this year I decided to make Brandon a gift telling him many reasons I love him. Pinterest shows a cute craft using a deck of cards and each card has a reason on it. You can use the front or back of the card, bind the cards or leave then separate. I write on the front and left them separate so we could use them if we wanted to.

When I first started, I realized that A) I didn’t think about placement of words, B) I didn’t realize how difficult it really is to come up with 52 reasons that are short enough to put on a card and not repeat. So I used the first deck of cards I bought as practice, because I’m a perfectionist when it comes to my crafts. I also thought it would be cute to make the gift from me and Ragnar. So now not only did I come up with my own 52 reasons, but also 52 reasons our cat loves Brandon. This is the finished project:

thats the outside of the box for the
cards, and on the cards I wrote my reasons in pink, and Ragnar’s reasons in orange.

Wedding things

Well, I think we have decided on June 14th, 2014 for the wedding. Even though we are waiting til after the holidays to ask people to be in the wedding, we are going to talk to Brandon’s sister and God daughter to ask if she’d like to be our flower girl. They live in Oregon, but will be home for Christmas, so I thought it’d be nice to ask her in person. Her name is Maddy, and she is absolutely beautiful and also incredibly shy. So, we aren’t positive if she’ll say yes, but I hope she does. I’ve also picked out my colors. Brandon keeps saying I tricked him because I’ve changed my mind since we first started talking of marriage. Originally I said I wanted a deep plum color with gold accent…Viking colors essentially. The more I thought about it…the less I wanted a Vikings themed wedding. So I picked a turquoise color and a purple color for my brides maids (alternating) with a golden accent color. That way he still has his Vikings colors, and it’s not doll Vikings theme. Here is a picture of the blue and purple I want. It’s on the upper right corner, ignore the rest of the picture lol.

I also don’t know style yet for the dress, but I like those colors. I also fell in love with these flowers

Not with white roses though. I think I also want to do something different for a guest book. I want to buy a bunch of quilt squares and have people sign them and then have a family member make the quilt for me. That way it’s something useful and still a reminder of everyone that shared our day with us. That’s all I’ve got right now, just thought I’d come on here and jot down our thoughts and plans so far.

Bad news, followed by good

Just a few things I wanted to add today…one good, and one not so good.
Thursday night there was a cop ambushed and killed in Cold Spring, a little town I louvre close to, it’s where I went to high school. He was called to do a welfare check on someone thought to be contemplating suicide. When Officer Decker got out of his car and walked towards the apartment he was shot twice and died instantly. They caught the suspect and he’s being held in jail. Officer Decker had just celebrated his 31st birthday and his one year anniversary to his new wife. He leaves behind 4 young children (8,7,5,4) that love with his ex wife. I’m writing about this just to ask for prayers for his family. Officer Decker was a great guy, I’ve dealt with him my one and only time I had a mishap involving the cops and I couldn’t have asked for a better cop to talk to. So please, during this season, keep his family in your prayers.
On to the better news. The picture I posted from the little pink church, the one of the flower, is probably one of my favorite pictures I’ve ever taken. After uploading them on facebook I had a friend ask if she could tag herself in it to use it as her cover photo. I said of course that’s fine. Today, same friend, told me she’s obsessed with the picture and wants to know if we can meet up some time at Target or Walmart so she can get a copy and enlarge it’s for her room. It makes me feel so good when I take pictures that others love as much as me! I really do love photography, so this just made my day!

Montana

 

So over Thanksgiving and my birthday, Brandon and I were able to go out to Montana again. I loved it! It wasn’t super busy, but was filled with things to do everyday, and a lot of visiting. Saturday and Sunday we pretty much just stayed at home, which was nice. Monday we woke up, helped cut and stack some fire wood which was actually a lot of fun. I enjoyed it, along with running and chasing Sassy to give her some love and attention also. After that we showered and went to visit grandma a little bit before I had to go back home to get ready for Aunt Mel’s jewelry party that night. Mark dropped mom and I off at Mel’s and then went back to pick up Brandon (we couldn’t fit 4 people in mom’s truck) and they sat at the Mint and watched Monday Night Football. After the party we went back home, watched a little bit of tv and then went to bed. I went into the bathroom to get ready for bed, when I opened the door to go back to the room Brandon was outside the door, down on one knee. I was completely shocked!! When he asked me to marry him, I didn’t know what else to say, and I wasn’t expecting this to happen out in Montana, so the first thing out of my mouth was “Are you serious?!” Which apparently wasn’t the right thing to say lol, but then when he was putting the ring on my finger, he stated “Your dad cried more than you did when I asked him.” I wasn’t sure how to take that either, but was really touched that he asked my dad’s permission before asking me.

 

Tuesday we went to Havre to do a little shopping on my birthday and get some great Chinese food! On the way home I asked mom if we could stop at this small pink church that I’m pretty much obsessed with. It’s boarded up and not really big, but I love it. And I made sure to pack my camera just in case mom said we could stop 🙂 So I got out, because no one else wanted to, and took some pictures.

 

 

 

Wednesday we decided to borrow Ryan, Mark’s sons’, truck and venture out to Zortman. Brandon had never been there so I was kind of excited. We showed him the jail, and the small little white church that is overlooking the whole town. It’s so pretty out there!

 

It was REALLY windy in Zortman, and mom almost got blown off the hill by the church! But it was a nice little visit. Of course it was getting dark so I didn’t get a lot of pictures outside, which I was bummed about. But oh well!

 

So Brandon and I have been discussing a lot of things to do with the wedding now more than before. We have decided on June of 2014, probably the 14th. We picked that far away because my big bills (hospital, student loans) will be paid off this spring, which makes me able to dive into wedding expenses after that. We’re not going to ask anyone to be part of the wedding until after the new year so we can just focus on the holidays, family and fun…and we’re also moving into together in February, so after all of that is when we’ll probably be asking people to be a part of our big day. I’ve already got my colors picked out, and for the most part, who I want to ask to be my bridesmaids/maid of honor. I’m really excited and SO happy!!! Hopefully I’ll be updating this more often when we make decisions on things concerning the wedding, that way I can keep all of you updated on how that’s going too. And if anyone has any tips or advice on anything…I’m open to hear it!

My best friends wedding!!!!

The weather wasn’t the greatest but it was a beautiful celebration!!! Here are some of my favorite pictures I took from the wedding!!

The above is the anticipation of seeing each other for the first time, and below is the very first time they saw each other that day!

Yes they dropped him…lol

I caught the bouquet!!!!

Little to do, and little time

So I’ve been really busy lately, however I really haven’t been doing much. I did start to sell jewelry with a company called Premier Designs. It’s a company founded on Biblical principles, and so far I LOVE it!! I do mostly home shows, but I do do direct sales also. I’ve had 3 shows so far and made WAY more than I’ve put into it so far. Which is a great feeling. I decided to do this in hopes of paying off my surgery bills a little quicker and also to be able to save up for an eventual wedding between Brandon and I lol.

This weekend my best friend Jess is getting married. I’m SUPER excited for this!!! Also, I’m going to be starting a blog for my jewelry stuff. Just a sight I can blog about different jewelry combos, and anything else fashion wise that I find interesting. Sorry no pictures, but there will be pictures after this weekend. Love ya all!!!!

Valentines Day

Since Brandon had to work til close on Valentines Day, we celebrated the day after, which was better for me since that means its after weigh in 🙂
I have him part of his gift in the morning before he went to work.

His all time favorite baseball player is Kirby Puckett. I found this at the Mall of America. His number is actually cut out of the old roof at the Metrodome. I thought this was really cool, a little expensive but I knew he’d love it and he doesn’t have anything like it. I was right, he loved it!
After that he gave me a homemade card. It bright tears to my eyes, I loved it.

He told me he actually got all the paper to make me this card for our first Valentines Day together. I laughed so hard, and he had to search my room for heart shaped things because his artistic abilities aren’t the greatest.
He told me last weekend he was going to make me dinner so I told him I’d make a dessert. We kept our dishes a secret until today when we were making them.

My gorgeous flowers from him, totally unexpected 🙂  Along with the fact that he made us Lobster Tails and shrimp scampi! He had never made lobster before, neither have I. I must say it was delicious!

We made a Southwest salad (I know, doesn’t go with seafood but its our favorite), and my dessert ended up being homemade brownies. It was supposed to be something called brownie pudding, because they look like brownies but the middle is supposed to be a little like pudding consistency, or molten brownie….but they were delicious brownies from scratch. Put with vanilla ice cream, chocolate syrup and some caramel. After dinner I gave Brandon his second part of his gift.

A hand picked pound box of Lindt chocolate truffles. Well, slightly under a pound because Angela and I swiped one on Sunday lol.
All in all it was a wonderful day! I love that this day isn’t the only time we pamper each other. Brandon makes dinner a lot, I help. We don’t use this day as the only day to show each other we love the other one, we always make sure the other knows we love them. I’m very lucky to have such a great guy!

5 years

It’s hard for me to believe that it’s been 5 years since Brad took his life, and strangely this year was harder than the last few.
3 of my friends and I got together at Brad’s grave like we do every year. We gather around, drink Mountain Dew, and just catch up. Mountain Dew was something Brad could drink non stop, and I used to also, now it’s only diet pop for me. One of the guys that gathers with us doesn’t drink pop, except on The 23rd and on Brad’s birthday.
Usually we leave one empty can each in the snow by the head stone along with traces of Mountain Dew in the snow and one full can for Brad. But this year there is no snow, so we had to get creative. We rummaged through our cars and grabbed what we found, which at first was a broken belt and a bungee cord. We attached the cans to the headstone. Then we had the idea to make a wreath of cans.

And we tried to make a bow from the empty 12 pack box

We made this with a coat hanger, some yarn, a few random tools we found in our cars and a lot of love.
I still think of Brad everyday and run into things that remind me of past conversations we had that make me want to call him. I also still have dreams about him. Some dreams are about his death where I grieve in the dream, others he is alive and of grieve again when I wake up.
I am truly blessed to have known him and had him in my life, but also I know everything happens for a reason. If he was still around who knows if I would have met Brandon, and I’m even more blessed to have such a wonderful man who loves me with everything he has.
I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!!!