Old Soul, Young Heart

After walking in, we went right into speeches. My aunt Peggy was up first. Poor thing didn't have her reading glasses, so she couldn't see what she wrote! But she said some super sweet things. :) Michele was up next. Bringing up watching hockey again haha. Love her. Then Trey went. I think this pic was taken when he said something about the only time Philip went rollerblading by himself was when he met me at the skatepark haha. I love this picture because of how wide open and awkward my eyes are and how hilarious Brooke looks. Awe... hugging after the semi-emotional best man speech. :) Let's get this party started! Looking back, I wish that Philip or I would've said something to the group about thanks for coming and spending the time with us. I think it's always nice when the couple says something before people dive into food. I had thought about it ahead of time, but knew that I'd be nervous for it and I had already had enough...

Four crazy men. Other Marriage Monday Stuff: We went to Cefcu on Friday to get pre-approval for a mortgage loan. Scary stuff. It was overwhelming; the good thing is we don't have to do anything if we don't want to. We should know by this Friday if we were approved or not. I just can't stop looking at houses. It's bad.

Philip got this fortune today. It was one of many fortunes since he ate like 6 cookies at once. But I still kept this one!

Philip moved in this weekend! My place is too small for the two of us, but we'll make it work for now. It'll be interesting to live together after seeing each other only every weekend or less for the past 8+ years. Have I talked about us looking for a house? I'm going to talk to CEFCU on Friday to see how much we can get pre-approved for. It probably won't be much, but maybe enough for us to get a small-ish starter home. We just really don't want to sink rent into something crappy when we could spend as much or a little more to create some equity on a place that we can make our own that would likely be bigger with a yard. I am excited and nervous to go! Philip doesn't think we'll be able to afford anything, but I just need to find out to be sure. As a part of our meeting with CEFCU, I have to gather all sorts of financial documents, including all of our checking, credit card, and savings account statements. I was asking my dad for a copy of my savings a...

This past weekend was just lovely. Philip came over after he got off of work on Saturday. He came up the stairs with flowers in his hands, for no reason other than he is a very sweet fiance! I was putting the flowers in a vase in the kitchen while Philip was looking at my wall calendar. I came over to look with him and he pointed to Sunday, May 13 and said, "I'm gonna come over and stay on this day because I start work here on that Monday. Is that okay?" I said, "Of course that's okay," while not quite understanding why he would come over on a Sunday if he had to work in Peoria on Monday. Not a very long visit! And then he goes, "You didn't hear me. Because I start work here on that Monday." It didn't take long for it to register that he meant HERE, as in Bloomington. I was so excited! I hugged and squeezed him and just couldn't believe it, because it feels like we've been battling the distance FOREVER. Well, we have, really! A...

Philip and his parents lost their long-time family dog, Kita, tonight. :( She was old and had a good, long life sitting and laying on the porches and roaming the yard/land around the house. I don't think I've met a more sweet, calm, and quiet dog. Kita and Abby were bffs. After they lost Abby almost 2 years ago, Kita started to decline. They both will be missed, but the laughs and love they gave won't be forgotten.

Wedding-related news to report! Save the Dates are out and on people's fridges! People seem to like them. I'm such a perfectionist and they aren't quite perfect, but they're pretty close! I bought a new printer yesterday for the sole purpose of printing wedding stuff (invitations, envelopes, programs, menus, etc...) and I am quite pleased with it thus far. There she is. She's an HP Photosmart 7510. Someone on Weddingbee said that it's good for envelopes and that recommendation was really the only reason I got it. I'm always scared to buy new gadgets because I don't know if they'll live up to my expectations. This one has so far, minus a little initial frustration over it printing crooked. (It seems to be fixed now, though!) I made a little mock-up of our invitation and it looks really professional, so I'm pretty excited about it. Hmm... what else? I decided to create an ebay account because there have been quite a few thin...

Things I learned at the bridal show: 1) I'm pretty much over the dress that I thought I was in love with from the David's Bridal website. I now realize that there are so many other options that are amazing. I will still try it on, though! 2) I'm in love with the music of a string quartet. I didn't even consider strings as the music for the ceremony, but now I don't think that I'll be able to go back to just piano or guitar. Heart Strings was there playing and it made all of us choke up. Saying, "we're having a string quartet" sounds really cheesy, but I think having just two violins playing will be enough for Evelyn Chapel (and it's cheaper too). We have to talk about it a little more, but I pretty much have my heart set on this now! 3) I get overwhelmed very easily. There are endless possibilities for everything and as someone who always wants to exhaust my options, I wish that there weren't so many to choose from! Philip and I wil...

Christmas was good! We had our usual schedule--I went to the Bourque's on Christmas Eve, stayed and opened gifts with his parents on Christmas morning, and then we went to my aunt's Christmas afternoon, and me and Philip had our Christmas together Christmas evening. It's kind of a lot; I can't imagine what the holidays are like when you have double the parents to visit or if you have kids. We had a good meal Christmas Eve in Hanna City and we opened gifts with the girls (Philip's nieces, Briana and Faith). I was pretty nervous because I had put a little something together to ask them to be our flower girls. Opening gifts with Briana and Faith is kind of chaotic because they have so many presents to open. I was afraid that my gifts would get lost and/or it wouldn't be that big of a deal to them, but I wanted it to be memorable. I was so happy because it went just as I wanted it to go... Briana started opening her gift before Faith did, so I had to slow her do...

I have a lot to look forward to in the coming weeks! This weekend I get to see my good friend Michele, who I will ask to be my maid of honor. I hope she says yes. There's no reason why she wouldn't, other than she'll be across the country--which is a real possibility. Right now she's back in central Illinois from Washington D.C., where she's doing an internship. I wish I got to see her more often because she really is one of my best friends, but alas, life takes her lots of places. On Monday I'm taking the day off and going to Chicago with my aunt Peggy to do our annual Christmas shopping trip at Water Tower Place. Really we only go to eat lunch at Cheesecake Factory (red velvet cheesecake--to die for!) and get exuberant amounts of Garrett's Popcorn to give as gifts. I'm hoping that it won't be as busy since it'll be a Monday, but who knows. The weekend after that Philip and I are going to St. Louis to see a Blues game. It's been a few ...

Finally. We finally have a date. I'm so relieved and happy that we can move on from this. When I opened the letter from the chaplain at Wesleyan and saw September 22, 2012 at 3:30 pm (even in bold like that), I looked at it for a moment and imagined how nervous I'm going to be and thought about how it's actually happening now. Yay! This week during my lunch break I've spent a lot of time calling and emailing different reception places in town. Holiday Inn and Suites near the airport, Doubletree, and The Chateau are all booked for that date. I do have a viewing of Parke Hotel and Conference Center scheduled on the 28th and I'm emailing back and forth with Eastland Suites to see if they have our date open. It's actually kind of nice that these places are booked, just because it makes for less options and, therefore, less decisions to make. I think we'd be happy to have it at Parke, but I still want to see it in person again and talk to the catering manager. ...

*sigh* A person from the apartment company in Deer Creek called to say that they have an opening in the same area of townhomes that we were looking at a few months ago. I am sad and disappointed because we won't be moving there. Now that we're engaged, I need to be thinking about paying for a wedding and I can't justify spending $800+ on rent when I'm paying half that to live with my dad. I'm also worried about my car and making that drive every day. Philip's job at Proctor isn't super permanent in that if something came up in Bloomington, he'd want to take that instead. I'd be really annoyed living in Deer Creek and both of us driving to BN for work. I'm bummed and I know he is too, just because we would like to live together and see each other every day. The townhome is super cute and I would love to live there, but my responsible and financially-worried sides are just saying it wouldn't be the best choice right now. It was really har...

I keep telling Philip that I'm so happy that I'll always have the memories from the day we got engaged. The whole night was just so cute, so here are the things that, when I look back on that day, I think I'll always remember: Philip sitting on the porch, waiting for me when I pulled up. When his parents went outside for a minute, me and him dancing to the music that his mom had on. (Little did I know how nervous he was!) Me rambling on and on during the drive to the spot where he proposed. Me getting super nervous when I realized we were on the road to that spot. (I continued to ramble on, even worse probably, because I was so nervous!) Me getting even more super nervous when he said we were getting out of the car. Him holding my hand as he helped me through the barbed wire and up the hill. (Yes--we were trespassing and had to climb through a barbed wire fence!) Him looking me in the eyes and saying the sweetest things about me (and a cow mooing in the middle...

It actually happened and is actually happening! We're engaged and we're gonna get married! I'm so happy, excited, and lucky!!! It was probably the cutest possible proposal for us that he could've thought of. To make a long story short (and trust me, I want to retell the whole thing moment-by-moment a hundred times and am excited to do so!), he took me to a spot in the country outside of Peoria that we had randomly visited when we first started dating eight years ago. It's an old quarry and has a big cliff with a lake down below and is just really pretty countryside. We climbed up the hill, he said some very sweet things to me, offered me marriage and this gorgeous ring and I, of course, said yes. It was so surreal and special! We probably could've hugged all night up there, but we had a reservation at 309 in Peoria and so we had to go. We were also trespassing, so we didn't want to get caught! :P All night at dinner we just kept laughing and smiling and...

Today's List (Day 19): Inventions I Wish Were Real 1. Hermione's Time Turner. 2. Food that burns calories (ha!). 3. A teleporter? Really just some sort of contraption where I'm here one moment and then miles away the next. This would eliminate travel time and I'd be able to see my boyfriend every day and go to the beach whenever I wanted. (Is that what a teleporter is?) -------------------- I'm feeling kind of weird today... like really anti-social. So... update on the office situation: It's going to be six weeks until I can move into my new office. I was hoping it was going to be sooner, but it won't happen until the renovations on the other side of the office suite are done because the cashier is currently occupying the space that will be my office. I was so confused because she moved in--and I mean, really moved in. Even though it's temporary, she was unpacking decorations and pictures and arranging things as if she was going to be ther...

Philip and I went to look at the place in Deer Creek last night. It's really nice and super cute; we really hope we get it! There is another couple interested, so Bob (the property manager--he's young and should not be called Bob, but that's his name, nonetheless) is supposed to call me today and let me know if we're chosen. Both of us feel as though we're not going to be picked. The other couple really wanted to move in on September 15 when it's first available and, although we're open to that too, our ideal time for some reason was October 1. We made it clear to Bob, though, that we would be happy to move in on September 15 if we could get the place! Since it's already noon and I haven't heard anything, I'm assuming we're not being picked. I won't be totally heartbroken, but I'm pretty excited about it! Bob said if we weren't chosen we'd be placed on a waiting list and would be the first people he calls if something else op...

Phil and I have been discussing and sort of stressing over the whole prospect of moving in together. With him working in Peoria and me working in Normal, the possibilities are limited and we'd both be making sacrifices (mostly financial, of course) to do it. We've been toying with the idea of him just working at Proctor until he could find something in Bloomington--then we would move in together here. Living somewhere in between Peoria and Bloomington is pretty much a commitment to him staying at Proctor. There are other factors, as well, and it's just a confusing situation! Anywaaay... I've been perusing craigslist to see if there are any postings for good places. Last week I saw a place in Mackinaw that was pretty cheap in terms of rent and sounded fairly nice; I'm still awaiting pictures and word from the landlord on if they will allow Chloe. I'm not impressed that it's taken them this long to get back to me, being that she told me she'd do so this ...

We explored Morton yesterday evening and weren't very successful in finding apartments. We found two complexes that we were familiar with based on their bad reviews on an internet site. We also randomly found some small complexes--none of which looked very nice or had signs up about availability or how to even inquire. Unless we're given some great information about a different building before mid-September, I think we'll end up going with Cape Cod Village . It's quite expensive, but probably worth it. It's the nicest we've seen, there's a lake, they allow animals (cats AND dogs, so we could get a pooch if we wanted), there's a clubhouse (pool, billiards, work out room, tanning facility--all free), and another cool hang out spot with tables and fireplaces outdoors... there's just a lot going for the price and it's a good location too (close to the interstate). I think we would be happiest there and if it didn't work out, of course we'd on...

So, yes... I have a jerb. And Philip has a jerb. And we can move on with our lives. I can't reiterate enough how happy, excited, and relieved we both are. I just  knew we'd get jobs this week! On Friday our plan is to drive around Morton and see what types of apartments are there. We probably won't move until the beginning of October, but it'll be fun to look. I hope we're able to find something that's nice and new-ish and not too expensive. The tricky thing will be finding somewhere that allows cats. Now that it's actually going to happen, it's weird to think about packing up all of my stuff and moving, really for the first time ever. I wonder how much stuff I actually have. It doesn't seem like much (mostly clothes, really), but I'm sure it's more than I think. It'll be interesting to put all of our stuff together and it be our stuff. It's fun. And cute. There will be a lot of logistical things like furniture to figure out....

Monday's List (Day 14): What I Love About Philip So many things, but I will limit myself to 10. This is an easy list to come up with! These things are going to get a little sappy, so brace yourself. I love that he's a hard worker. I love that his eyes get crinkley and his dimples come out when he smiles. I love that he is proud of me and of our relationship. I love his strong shoulders and back. I love that he always wants to spend time with me and never gets tired of me. (Not yet, at least. Or he's good at hiding it.) I love that we have a lot of the same morals, values, and viewpoints. I love that he has style. I love that he loves me! I love that he is just a straight-up, good guy. I love that he's my best friend and my partner in crime. :) Yesterday's List (Day 15): Shopping List Welp, I'm housesitting, so lately I've been eating their food and getting take-out quite a bit. Today I thought to myself that I do need to ...