Oops

Sorry y'all. I've sort of unintentionally been on a blogging hiatus. Ya know who hasn't though? Mrs. Yocum, my cheer coach/photographer. Take a look!

Justin and Celeste Engagement

I know, we've been married for 4 months, but it's on her blog now!

Lovey

So. Close.

Well, folks, the end (beginning) is drawing near, and I am EXCITED to say the least. Here are some countdowns:

• Class days: 6
• Graduation: 17
• Personal shower (aka Bachelorette Party. I learned that grown ups call these personal showers): 9
• Getting married: 30 (that is one month, y'all!)

Because I've been terrible at staying updated, here's what I've been doing:

• School-I know this is shocking to some of you, but really, this semester has been stinking busy with classes I don't need to graduate and one that I do.
• Job searching-DHS, VistaHealth, Youthbridge, Ozark Guidance
• Wedding shower-Seriously, this was so fun. I love wedding showers! 
• Wedding-ing-Ya know, just doing wedding stuff in general. 
• More school
• Being on duty-Which I am hopefully done with forever. 
• Being stressed/sick-Seriously, I think my body realizes I'm stressed more than I actually do. I'm kind of a mess. ha. 
• Counting my lasts-duty night, StuMo, finals (Praise the Lord), etc. 
• Loving living with so many wonderful girls/people (My bro lives in the same building too. I love that.)
• Watching my friends get engaged.There's been like a million. Ok, maybe 6 or 7. 
• Finishing pre-marriage class. I guess we're ready to get married now. 
• Seeing my sweet friend Sarah who just came back from a semester of traveling.

Sometimes

Sometimes I get to see my fiance. Like, we get to be in the same meetings sitting by each other but not really talking. Still though, we are by each other.

Sometimes I get to actually spend time with and talk to my fiance.....not just sit by him. Those times are rare and sweet.

Most times we text each other more than we actually talk because or schedules do not match well right now.

That's a bummer.

52 days.

That's not a lot of times left.

Praise. The. Lord. 

Are you gonna have a frat bachelor party?!

So, I know it's past Valentine's day, but we didn't go on a Valentine's day date until yesterday. Hence the late post.

First off, even though we didn't go on our date til yesterday, Justin surprised me at the desk Monday night with 25 helium inflated balloons tied to a box of slippers. :)

On Saturday he gave me some lilies that he bought on Monday but kept leaving at work, so I didn't actually get them til Yesterday.

On our date we ate breakfast at Rick's and then went to Harp's to get picnic stuff. Then we drove to Eureka Springs for the day! It was so fun and ended up being such a good day for it! Let me tell y'all though, Eureka Springs has very different people/places.

Examples
1. Everyone asked where we were from, and I'm pretty sure they all thought we were staying in Eureka Springs together for the weekend. We weren't. That was annoying.
2. There are a few wedding chapels in Eureka Springs. That's just funny to me. Justin kept telling me we could elope all day. We didn't of course.
3. Stores have really weird names. Pardon my language, but there was a store called Big Boner. Really? That's unnecessary.
We also went to an Amish furniture store where we're pretty sure a guy planted a phone call, so we'd feel guilty. We walked in, said hello, and then his phone rang. All we could hear was his side of the phone convo which went something like, "Yea, there haven't been too many people in here today. Sales aren't doing so good. There's been 2 or 3 people in here." Ouch.
There was also a store called W.T. Focker's Discount Outlet. We ended up going there, and it was a lot like A-Z in Alma but way smaller. We bought a can that had a pull tab top and no label for a quarter. It had WTF? written on the side of it in permanent marker. As far as I know we still don't know what it is.

4. The people there are slightly outrageous sometimes. Or maybe they're just passionate about different stuff than I am. I overheard a conversation between a cashier at a bookstore and a customer about America having the opposite of an Oedipus complex (Electra complex I believe) with our president. We went into an outdoorsy store, and we were looking at a pair of men's jeans trying to guess how much they cost. Justin guessed $150, and before I could guess the sales lady came over and told us that they had replaced their Jack of Spades jeans (Justin and I both said, "Oh. Ok." even though neither of us knew what she was talking about.) with the ones we were looking at. She said they were supposed to be $165, but they were offering an introductory price of $135. She then proceeded to show us how they were double and triple stitched, and how they were stretchy kind of like girls jeans, so you could run from the cops. Yep. Then she started laughing, and so did we...sort of. We kept looking around the store, and she asked us if we were honeymooning. We said something along the lines of "not yet", and Justin made a joke about trying to get me to elope. She asked when I was gonna just do it, and I explained that we actually were getting married at the end of May. She said, "Oh! Really? Where ya gonna do the deed?" I told her where and that we were students at the UofA to which she responded, "Paarrrrrty!" Ha. THEN, she looked at Justin and said, "I bet you're gonna have a big frat bachelor party aren't ya?! Hahahahaha." Justin said he was going to have a bachelor party, but probably not a frat one. I was trying not to laugh my face off. Then she turned to me and said, "What about you? (whisper) Are you gonna have a stripper?" I said absolutely not and that I would kill my friends if I did. She then started her story with, "The first time I got married..." Sad. She proceeded to tell us that her friends hired a stripper, and it was someone she knew, and she was appalled. She said he stripped down to his tighty whities and there was a poop stain on them. She then used some explicitives to finish her story. Who tells strangers that!?!??!!? 

It was a fun day, but y'all Eureka Springs is a funny town. We watched Sherlock Holmes and then went to Geraldi's for dinner. It was a 12 hour date, and it was super fun. 

Happy Sunday y'all. 

Lovelovelove. 

Internets and Indian Doctors

So, Justin and I have been looking at apartments because, obviously, we need somewhere to live after we get married. We have looked all over Fayetteville I feel like. I would guess that we looked at10-12 and tons more on the internet. I know that 10-12 doesn't seem like a lot, but you look at that many apartments and tell me you're not exhausted.

We looked at them 3 separate times. The first time we were really excited because it was new and fun, and we were getting to plan more of our life together. We looked at one place where the lady's name was Spankie. I'm not kidding. She was SO nice, but I have no clue where that name came from. Justin told me not to ask her. I didn't really plan on it. Ha. That's even the name that was on her business card. She also said "What a blessing" to me as I was talking about being an RA, and Justin and I could hardly contain our laughter (to say I contained mine would be an exaggeration). This is funny because we have a friend who says, "What a blessing" about everything. As a joke. All the time. So, when you hear someone saying it, but they're serious, it is funny. Anyways, we finished that day SUPER exhausted, but had to test cakes after we were done. That was fun. I was cranky, but we both got some sugary goodness and were pretty good to go after that. And, we picked out a cake. Check.

The second time we looked at apartments was ok, but slightly unplanned therefore I don't think our attitudes were as good as they could have been. There was also still snow everywhere. One lady that showed us apartments had the flu. However, I think we found where we're living that day! I think we're 99% sure, so I won't tell you until we're 100%. I am way excited though.

Today was (hopefully) the last day for a while. We only looked at 1, but the man that showed it to us was PRECIOUS. He said the word internets and told us about Washington Regional and his Indian/Injun doctors that he went to in Oklahoma. He also told us that he couldn't run a credit card or look at a computer screen for more than 10 minutes. Way presh, however I don't think we'll be living there.

If you need info about apartments in Fayetteville, I'm your girl. :)

Lovelovelove y'all!

OH! Today is my mom's birthday! She is wonderful, and I am so so so so SO thankful she's my mom. She's been ultra great at helping me plan my wedding, being a mom, and teaching me so much. Love ya, mama!

Wedding planning part 1

Man, y'all. There is way more that goes into planning a wedding than I realized. So far we (Justin, Mom, besties and I) have venue shopped, gotten my ring sized, dress shopped, registered (only at Bed, Bath, and Beyond so far) Here's our registry if you wanna take a look. Let's start with that......

Yesterday we spent 3-3 and 1/2 hours at BBandB deciding what we wanted our currently non-existent residence to look like. Ha. Let's talk about being unprepared. I feel like it could've been shortened if we would've thought at all about what we wanted our home to look like before walking in those automatic doors, but we didn't. Really though, it was so fun. The whole thing started with Justin telling everyone we walked by that we were getting married. He asked another couple with a gun if they were getting married and the man very shortly said, "Yes." He did not seem excited to be registering at all. I giggled a lot. When Deanna, the very friendly Bridal Consultant, was helping us set up, she asked if we wanted China. We said no we didn't really need or want it. She said that was fine, but thought we might want something pretty to look at every day. Justin said he would look at me everyday if he wanted to look at something pretty. I giggled some more. She said that that was the perfect response. She was right. I sometimes forget how sweet of a man I have. He does stuff like that a lot. Thanks, beau.

Anyways, the first section we came to (because I like to go in order) was towels. I immediately wished I would've thought a little more about registering before that second. I never paid attention to how many towels there are. It was kind of a funny start because although I think I'm not picky, I didn't like either of the 2 colors Justin picked. I think this is mostly because I didn't know what anything else in the bathroom (the shower curtain for example) would look like. We got some neutrals that will hopefully match anything. Shower curtains are overwhelming my Google Chrome tabs currently. I'm probably gonna end up just buying one with a gift card instead of registering for one though. How do you pick stuff if you don't know where your living or what your going to own? If there are any wifeys reading this, please please please give me any advice you have. I'm compiling a book of knowledge...promise.
After bath stuff we came to comforters. Let's be real. I'm a girl. A girlly girl. I love flowers and pink and stuff like that. I'm marrying a man who is a manly man and doesn't love flowers and and pink and stuff. I really like the one we ended up picking, but it was a funny process getting there. We actually picked out a duvet, and it was really funny trying to explain why you'd rather use a duvet than a normal blanket. Justin thinks they're dumb.
The whole experience was so fun. It kind of felt like I was doing something I shouldn't. I was so tired by the end though. There is a lot of stuff in that store, and we have no idea what stuff we actually need. I of course, don't want just anything, I want to pick out stuff I love which takes even more time. There was just way more to it than I realized. Apparently we're supposed to register at more stores, but I don't know where. I love Target, but multiple people have told me it's terrible for wedding registers. Again, suggestions please?

After that we went to see the new Narnia movie. It was good. The first was my fave though. It was so fun to spend a whole entire day with just him. I don't think in our whole dating relationship we've done that. I think that's good. We never wanted to be hanging out with only each other, but being engaged is fun because now we can and it's ok!

We have also venue shopped a little bit. I'm learning so much about fees and rules that I think are dumb. Examples: you must have a licensed caterer at some places, there is fee for electrical feed at some places, it's usually $1,000 more to reserve somewhere on a Saturday than any other day, cake cutting fees? Man, I'm learning so much.

And, I bought a dress. I'm excited. I'd show you a picture, but that would just be silly. On the topic of pictures, I'll show you some I swear. They're not in my possession right now though, so it's pretty impossible.

Lovelovelove

I have a very pretty ring on a very important finger

That's right y'all, I'm engaged. Engaged. En. Gaged! Meaning I'm getting married. Meaning I'm gonna live with a man that's not my daddy or brother. Meaning I'll have a kitchen. Meaning I get to plan a wedding and (more importantly) a marriage to the man I LOVE. Love. I can say the word "love". That's neat, huh?

Because I'm a terrible friend and can't return all of the phone calls I said I would, here's the story until I actually call you. Forgive me please?

Saturday Justin and I helped some friends move (who knew it was happening so I'm now told) then went on a date. We planned to go to my parents house for chili that night. I'd been inviting people all week as had my parents. Anyways, to start our date Justin picked me up, and when we walked back out to his car there was a ticket on it, what looked like a ticket at least. Really it was a note for me.
     *To ask me out for our first date Justin put a ticket envelope on my car which also led to a scavenger hunt. This eventually ended with him asking me out. 

I read the note which basically told me that I was going on a scavenger hunt, he would be my driver, I got clues wherever we went IF I asked to go to the right places. I read clue #1, and we headed off to Gulley Park, where we went on our first date. I found another clue and throughout the whole thing we ended up going to about 9 or 10 more places. Everywhere we went was somewhere we've been together. At one point I had to go to McDonald's, order what we did on our first date, and ask for Richard. Then, some man named Richard gave me the next clue. Eventually we ended up at the square to look at the Christmas lights.

We walked around the square and ended up in front of the U.S. Center for World Missions. There were rose petals on the ground, but I hardly noticed since I was wondering how they got the Christmas lights on the really tall middle parts of the trees to look so great. Justin then grabbed my shoulders and told me he wasn't thinking about cherry pickers (which was my suggestion for how the Christmas lights were placed).
Then I noticed the rose petals.
Then he said he wanted to talk about our future.
Then I don't totally remember, but I know he told me he loved me (which he'd never said before) and that he wanted me to be his wife.
He got down on one knee (with the ring box upside down) and asked me to marry him.
I asked if he was serious. Yep.
He said yes, and then I said yes.
Then I hugged him a lot.
Then we went to my parents house for our engagement party which I'd apparently been inviting people to all week.

I'll post pictures when I get them back and keep you updated on how this whole wedding planning thing is going because I can already tell you that there is so much more to it than I knew.

Lovelovelove