Eh... not exactly but I'm having a ton of fun trying!!
Daniel and I looked at a venue (more like THE venue) for our nuptials next fall. It is seriously everything we want and more - close to home, beautiful view for our outside wedding and reception, and sleeping room for out of town guests and our rowdy friends!!
Laura was kind enough to get me a beautiful notebook for organizing all of my ideas. I have a good start but I know there is a long road of planning ahead of me. I am truly a DIY'er when it comes to throwing parties and I cannot wait to put my personal touch on this wedding. I am very fortunate to have a fiance who describes his perfect wedding as "marrying me, with our families and friends, and cold beer." I think I can work with that!!
On another note. One of my dearest/bestest best friends got married on Saturday. I was SO honored to be a part of this day and I can say she couldn't have looked more beautiful.
In February I bought a Groupon for professional photos. Daniel and I had been dating for over three years and we didn't have any photos that I wanted to put in the frames that my sister got me for Christmas. So, I decided that we had been dating for long enough and it was okay to finally get some nice pictures (something other than snapshots). I talked to the photographer Megan shortly after I bought the Groupon and we started talking about fall dates, we chose Sunday September 18th.
As picture time got closer I started getting really nervous. It had been been on and off raining all week and at one point in time the prediction was 80% chance. I was also nervous because I had never had someone I didn't know take pictures of me. My senior pictures were taken by a friend of my mom. I just wanted them to turn out good.
So, little did I know that Daniel thought this was the perfect opportunity to propose to me. He talked to Megan ,without me knowing, to fill her in on his plan. He also talked to his parents, my dad (went to his house to ask to marry me), my sister, my brother, his brother, a few of my friends, a few of his friends, his softball team, and everyone at his work. So basically everyone but me! She got to our house on time and we decided to go down to the dam for our first shots. We took a photo that I considered a "prom pose" so Megan suggested that we do a not so promy-pose. Right then is when Daniel looked at me and said (getting down on one knee) "Ashley Denise Farley, I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you and I hope you want to spend yours with me. Will you marry me?" (Well, it was something similar to that!) Megan got paparazzi pics of the whole thing (even me seriously bawling my head off) We went inside to touch up my makeup and the next hour she took pics of us with our freshly engaged glow :). I love that we had that hour to smile and kiss and say "I can't believe this" one million times. We waited until Megan left to start calling our families and friends.
This was such a special day for the two of us. I had absolutley no idea that he was planning on proposing to me during pictures. I love the fact that I met Daniel at his house (that was his grandpa's house where he used to play as a kid), we got engaged at that house, and we will live the rest of our lives at that house!! There is so much family history that I know he is proud of and I am thrilled to be a part of!
I couldn't be happier. My heart has been completely melted for the last few days. We are so blessed to have so much love and support from everyone!
Here are some "sneak peak" pictures of our picture session.
Fall - [fawl] - pure happiness exploding with leggings, boots, scarfs (all of which I'm wearing today), sweaters, sweatshirts, pumpkin EVERYTHING (food and carving), cinnamon, carmel apples, beautiful trees, KU football, World Series baseball, tailgates, and bonfires.
This time of year and weather makes me one happy lady!
Fall has arrived - more for the crazy amount of events we have planned, less for the actual weather, although, the past two days have been beautiful. Fall is my absolute favorite season. I spent yesterday evening watching Dan play softball in my jeans and jacket. The slight chill in the air was amazing!!
Sorry for my recent absence, as I indicated above, fall comes with a whole boat load of (fun) festivities. I'm going to make my recap easier on you by a picture montage.
First we'll start with my trip to Indiana-polis. It was wonderful to finally see where Hilary lives - I hate that she lives so far away.
We had an epic fail trying to do a B&E into the apartment complex pool (woke up to find that we all used our phones to find various ways of entering the pool. Mine had a video on the screen with a british man explaining out to use household products to open a padlock!). We were out there for what seemed like hours getting everyone (four of us) over that fence. Three of us finally made it with the last one tossing their first leg over the fence to be scared off by another latenight resident. We decided to call it quits and make some queso instead!
We got to witness every mid-twenties to mid-thirties lady's secret dream of seeing NKOTBSB in concert. mmmmmmm... still drool a little when thinking about it :) Here is my fav BSB member and fav KNOTB member
The trip was a complete blast, thanks to our hosts and thanks to Teryl who rode in a car with me for almost twenty hours!
Next we have the exciting arrival of my first "nice" car. I felt like an adult driving it off the lot!! This purchase was long overdue.
Wedding season is in full effect already - my beautiful cousin Rachel got married
And so did my good friend Traci who used to work with me.
Future events coundown:
Laura's Bachelorette Party --- 1 day
KU Football home opener --- 8 days
Laura's Wedding ------------ 45 days
Death Cab for Cutie --------- 47 days
I will leave you all with a video that my dear boyfriend found on YouTube and that is currently taking over my home life and most conversations with said "dear boyfriend". It's "pretty neat."
Daniel received an e-mail at 4:55 pm yesterday afternoon that Schmidt Builders Supply, Inc. would lock their doors at 5:00 pm "for good". Obviously we knew the housing/building market was down, that the overall economy is awful, and that Schmidt as a company was struggling but we never imagined that the entire operation would come to a halt and that ALL of the company assets would be ceased in a matter of minutes.
Daniel was allowed to take his personal belongings and get out. He was left to face SO MANY customers and vendors asking what in the hell just happened, when Daniel himself didn’t have a whole lot of information or the desire to explain to everyone what a shitty deal it turned out to be all around.
Fortunately our situation is much lighter than others. We have no children to provide for, Daniel’s mortgage payment isn’t outrageous for us to try and cover (with possible help from Jake moving in soon), and we aren’t in any outstanding debt. My car buying process is being put to a complete stand-still but if that is the worst of our situation, I consider us VERY lucky.
We have so much to be thankful for in times like this – our families are so supportive and our friends go out of their way to make phone calls and offer help.
My objective in the next few days/weeks/months is to not only keep a smile on my face for Daniel’s sake, but to make sure I put at least one smile on his every day too! He absolutely is my whole world and I will do everything in my power to make sure he stays happy, healthy, and focused.
