What to do first!

Well now that it is sinking in that I am engaged, I am starting to think about all of the planning ahead! There is certainly a lot to do when thinking about planning a wedding! I am beginning to think or rather starting to accept the fact that I am not your typical bride. When people ask simple questions like "What are your colors" or "What type of dress do you like" I have no answers. It is not something I ever really thought about...so I am finding that these are difficult questions to answer if you are the oddball girl who never really had the perfect wedding dreams. The funny thing is that I have long hoped and dreamed of being married to this man, but have not really ever thought about the ceremony that gets us married. I was not the little girl that had huge barbie weddings or dreamed of the Princess Diana event...I was the tomboy more interested in dirt and trouble than all those "girly" things. So now I have to work extra hard...I don't even know what some of the words mean! It is like learning a whole new language, sweetheart line, A-line, Empire waist....this is just crazy.
I am lucky though, I have an amazing mother, friends, and a soon to be sister-in-law that I am sure are going to make planning a breeze. In fact, after a four hour round trip drive with my soon to be S-I-L I think I have some ideas about color, theme, and bridesmaid dresses! So next step is to see if the crazy ideas I have come up with look okay in reality!
I will keep you up to date on how things...on more than just wedding stuff I promise!

On Cloud Nine, Maybe Ten!

Well so here is how my day went yesterday. I went to work, generally not a highlight of my day lately, but I had a really great meeting and I may get to start working on a really cool new project! So that was good. Spent the afternoon away from the office doing some field work, always a bonus to be outside. Especially since lately it has only rained!!!! And yesterday was sunny, a little hot, but most importantly sunny! So then at the end of the day my boyfriend texted to see if I wanted to come over for spaghetti. I of course said yes, as it is my favorite meal! So I headed to his place after work and walked in to find a beautifully set table. He had put out a tablecloth, bought me a dozen roses, a great bottle of wine and the food was on the table waiting! I was somewhat surprised by all of this, because although he is an amazing boyfriend none for surprising me, I could not think of an occasion. So I posed the questions "What is all this about?", to which he replied that he knew I had been stressed lately and just wanted to cheer me up! Well did it ever work.

So then we sat down for a great dinner and wonderful conversation. After we finished he said he was going to get dessert. Dessert...could it get any better! Well just keep reading!

So here I am sitting happily full from pasta, dreaming of cake...when he comes around the corner with a small silver platter with a small box that appears to have a shiny object in it. Before I could even wrap my mind around what I was seeing, he asked "Will you marry me, baby?" And through the tears I said YES! At which point I jumped up and hugged him. He then asked if I would like to see my ring, which he had to hastily put down when I jumped up into his arms. I said yes and he put it on my finger. This has got to be on of the best moments of my life. So, that is why I am still floating in the clouds. And if you will look over there, you will see my beautiful ring!

Trying a Alaska Picture post...

So here are just a couple pictures from the trip. I promise some better ones once I finish going through all of them.

The water at night in the Inner Passage

Pictures at sea
Totem Pole in Ketchican
Whales in the distanceMountain in Skagway
Mendenhall Glacier- Juneau

Ahh Alaska...

Well I have returned from an amazing two week vacation to Alaska. There are just not words to described it...beautiful, breathtaking, cold, hot (depends on where you are). Overall I am just awestruck. We were able to sail through the inner passage and then head to the interior by train and motor coach (fancy name for BUS). We saw just about every animal possible (no polar bears...sadly they only live North of the Arctic circle). So here is a quick list of what I saw:

• Seals
• Humpback whales
• Orca whales
• Stellar sea lions
• Harbor Seals
• Sea Otters
• Birds galore (including puffins)
• Brown bears
• Moose
• Caribou
• Musk ox (in an animal rescue center)
• Grey Wolf
• Red Fox
• Bald Eagles
• Golden Eagle
• Vole (not sure what kind)
• Ground squirrel
• Black bear (in an animal rescue center)
• Porcupine

I am sure I am missing some, but we saw lots...it was great. We have a mere 3000 pictures from the trip. I can only take the blame for about 900, the rest my father took and I subsequently copied and are keeping as my own.

The only problem with taking a two week vacation, is coming home! I will blog on that next time!

I'm Free!

It is finally here...the vacation I have been waiting for! I am taking a full two weeks off and I am ecstatic! I have already scheduled myself a 2 hour massage for tomorrow. And boy do I need it. So I planned this week to try and tie up loose ends before leaving, but as usually things do not go as planned. I even went so far as to mark myself as busy on the calendar all day...which you would think would mean I would not get meetings scheduled, but alas I had 5 meetings today. So I did my debrief with my boss and tidied up the office and left a huge stack of things that should have been finished today, but now have to wait for July! Oh, well...what is a girl to do! Certainly they don't expect me to go in on my day off or over the weekend, and even if they did I made it very clear that as of 5:30 today I was off the clock. So I think I am going to order some dinner, pour a glass of wine, and watch my favorite summer show. Cheers!

Something New

Welcome to my new blog! I have thought about blogging for awhile now, but have not taken the time to just do it. So as is my usual modus operandi...I am procrastinating from one thing to do another. I am hoping to post to the blog regularly...but I make no promises. I can't wait to hear from people and hopefully this will be a good experience for us all!