Eric's calling

Some time back, Eric gave me a "tattoo". (Look back to the beginning of this blog to see it.) He drew a lovely tattoo on me and it was then I thought he may have a calling as a tattoo artist. Today, I was lucky enough to get another one of his works. I wasn't sure what kind of tattoo I was getting until he was done but it was a lovely surprise when I finally saw it.

Just to say I did something...

I haven't posted in a while again...Tonight Eric and I celebrated Christmas together. Since the next week will be busy with family events, we decided to stick with tradition and do a Christmas with just the two of us. (Last year as you may remember, my present was my engagement ring!!) This year, Eric got me a new digital camera that is waterproof! I'm so excited to take it with us on our honeymoon!!!
Here's a picture of Eric and I in front of the tree being silly.

Thanksgiving....I celebrate for a few weeks

Lets just pretend that I've been celebrating Thanksgiving for the past few weeks and that's why I'm just now posting pictures from it...Actually, with the same excuse as every other post lately, I have been swamped. School is getting very busy with only a couple of weeks left so with that and my attempts at wedding planning...there hasn't been much time left over. I am happy to report that I spent last weekend devoted to wedding planning! Mom and I shopped all weekend for decorations and reception supplies and while it didn't seem like we actually came home with a lot of goodies, I feel much better about my plans so far. I talked to the flower and cake ladies and got some things picked out. I also have a pretty solid idea about what I want to do for my reception decorations...although completing them is now going to be the big task. (Wish me luck!) Anyway, I am going to post a few pictures from Thanksgiving week as well as from the other night when we decorated our Christmas tree.
Happy birthday Brady! We got to celebrate Brady's 1st birthday the day before Thanksgiving.

Eric and Tessa. It had been a while since Eric had seen Tessa and she'd grown quite a bit!

The family at Little Apple Brewery after the girls' long day of shopping on black Friday.

You can tell we really dressed for the evening of Christmas decorating. :) At least the tree looks good!!

I got old recently

In the almost month since I've updated this blog, Eric and I have had lots of fun. A few weeks ago, we celebrated our "dating" anniversary by going on a date to Olive Garden. YUM! Every time I go and actually order pasta, I wish I wouldn't have because I'm full on salad and bread sticks!!


A week and a half later, we got to celebrate my birthday! I apparently go to the casino enough for them to mail me free money and promotions so they sent me a free hotel room in the month of my birthday! Eric and I headed out to the casino on Friday and we enjoyed a great dinner at the buffet there at the casino. After our dinner we went to the casino to gamble a little. Eric didn't have much luck at blackjack but I won a little on the slots!! (Eric keeps claiming it's his money because he pushed the "spin" button.) We had a lot of fun even though we didn't come home millionaires and I made it through the hotel stay without getting sick!!! (Some of you may know...I got sick the entire night last winter when we had a chance to stay at the hotel. It was awful!!)

I really am busy with school stuff!

The other day, I had my induction ceremony for Sigma Theta Tau. It is a nursing honor society that some of my classmates and I were inducted into. It was a fun ceremony and we got some good desserts afterwords. :) Here's a picture of the girls in my class who were there to get inducted.

I must have more time for this during the summer...

I think that either I do a lot more fun things that are worth taking pictures of during the summer or I just have more time. Either way, I haven't been so good at keeping this blog updated!! It seems like school this semester is keeping me busy with lots of busy work so by the time I'm done with that, and of course, checking facebook, this blog slips my mind! :) Anyway, here's some pictures of the past couple of weekends at the KSU games (one of the things that schoolwork will not be keeping me from enjoying).
On the 17th, KSU played A&M so Erin and John came to Manhattan to go to the game. Marcia and Mike took Tessa home with them after tailgating and Erin and John kept Isaac so that he could have fun at the game. It was Harley day so he got to see lots of cool motorcycles too. It was so much fun to get to see them (and Erin again!!). Although John's team didn't do as well as I'm sure he would have liked, he took the loss well so we tried to not give him too much grief! :)
This last weekend, KSU played Colorado. Logan and Eric came along and we switched off in and out of the game. KSU played great again so it was a fun game to be at!! (And much warmer!) Here we are all packed into the back of the car on the way to the parking lot.

Kelly and her mom stopped by the tailgate and brought some yummy doughnuts!! Here's Kelly teaching Mike about her cool touch screen phone.

Here's Logan and Eric and me. Such a good day for a tailgate!

We have celebrated my birthday every year at the game closest to it since I started school at KSU. We had a yummy cake but no candles so you'll have to imagine.

Champion fisherman!

Today Eric went fishing instead of tailgating with me at the KSU game. At least he had a successful night. Here he is with two white bass that he caught.

Found a dress, check that one off the list!

This weekend Erin and Tessa flew in for a girls weekend and to help me find a dress! Marcia brought Mike up to the airport and brought Grant and Amber's two kids with her so we had a house full. It was so much fun to have all of the kids and get to see Erin and Marcia (and Mike). The best news of all is that I found a dress!! Thanks to Erin, she picked it off of the rack!!
Here is Tessa and I hanging out on the couch. She's grown so much since we saw her last.
Here's mom and Marcia with the girls. Finley had fun dress shopping, especially when I started trying on shoes. They were pretty so she had to try them on too!

We had craft night on Saturday. We made necklaces and discovered that none of us are going to be aspiring jewelry designers.

Sunday, Mike's daughter Allison came over to visit with her son Ryan. He's just a little younger than Tessa so they had fun meeting each other. Here they are hugging! They're both such loving, cuddly babies!!

While I'm at it...

Saturday night Eric and I met up with Kelly and her family and a high school friend of hers. We went down to Power and Light to Howl at the Moon, which is a piano bar. We had a lot of fun and even ran into Eric's roommate from when he lived in Texas!

Here's Michelle, me and Kelly.

This is a picture of Kelly, her mom, Michelle's mom, Michelle and Kelly's dad. They were all in town to go to the Chiefs game on Sunday. At least they had good weather for the game because as I hear, KC didn't play great...

....Or NASCAR drivers....

Sunday Eric and I went out to the NASCAR race. We were just planning on tailgating but there was a guy we tailgated with who had extra tickets so we were able to go to the race too. The race was fun and the weather was wonderful. We had a lot of fun!
Before the race, we walked around and got all sorts of free stuff. I had to be sure to take a picture of the M&M car. This is my favorite car but apparently there are quite a few people who hate the driver. I could care less who drives the car though, I just think it looks cool!
The headsets are so nice but they give me a headache!

Winner!! (And mom had him picked in the tailgate pool so she won the big bucks!)

Maybe we could be models instead...

A few weeks ago Eric and I had our engagement pictures taken by my aunt Cris. We met up with her in Clay Center to take our pics. Cris posted some of them on facebook for us to see. They're all so great already it makes us excited to see the rest! We had so much fun taking the pictures and to my great surprise, Eric didn't complain once! I have a feeling that it may have been because he got to take his new gun out when we took the pictures in the country...We're pretty tough ;)

I've done it again!

I've been a huge slacker and have failed to update the blog in such a long time! Sorry!! Time to catch up....
A couple of weekends ago we went to Newton for a family friend's wedding. We had such a great time getting to see friends.
As you can tell, it was a long ride...and I had to ride in the middle!! At least Eric was nice enough to let me sleep.
And Logan followed suit...

The bride's mom (Marla) and dad (Dan aka Old Dad aka Captain Dan, who has never lost a passenger). My family has been friends with this family for longer than I've been alive!

Eric and I at the reception. I think he's smiling so big because he got to go back to the hotel and change into jeans (after an unfortunate candle wax accident).

This is why every parent needs to have a girl. They just don't make comparable outfits for boys!

You can't have a wedding reception without the Cotton Eyed Joe! Of course, we were the most talented Cotton Eyed Joe'ers there were!

I will be trying to still play catch up. I have pictures from all sorts of stuff lately to post so I'll try to do a few at a time, without waiting three weeks in between!

Has it really been that long?!

I just looked at the date on my last post and realized it's been a really long time since I updated this thing! I've got some catching up to do!! Labor Day weekend we were able to go back to Clay Center to spend some time with Eric's family, take our engagement pictures and go to the K-state game. It was a busy, but fun weekend! The next weekend was Austin and Sadie's wedding. We were so glad to see that Helen made it to the wedding! She was excited that I had graduated from K-State and mom caught a picture of her excitement.
Here's Eric and I at the wedding.

Jordan and I were enjoying a piece of cake!

This weekend, Eric and I got to go to the first ever Flint Hills Music Festival. It was in a field in Alma and there were a bunch of our favorite Texas Country bands who played so we had a great time!

We got to meet Brandon Jenkins. He writes a lot of the songs for the bands and we were glad he was there to play!

After the concerts, we made it back to Manhattan and met up with Eric's cousin Lance and friend Josh.

Surprise!!

Last night I orchestrated a small surprise party for Eric. Eric's roommates and Kelly and my mom and Logan all attended. We grilled and enjoyed a wonderful evening by the fire-pit. Kelly came early to help me decorate with streamers and get the house ready. Mom helped make pasta salad and rice crispy treats (which were devoured). Here's a picture of the crowd (minus mom the photographer).

Gone Fishin'

Today with our free time in Kansas we got to go fishing! This afternoon we shopped but this evening, we set out to Eric's roommate's sister's house (that's a mouthful!) As you can see here, I broke my streak and caught a fish!! Working hard to get the hook out!

I think this is some quality photography skills! That fish is huge!

Eric won with the most fish caught. :( I was just happy catching one fish!

Welcome home!

After being learning that Eric wasn't going to get to come home until into September, Eric had his company book me a flight to come up and see him this weekend. After I'd been there for about 30 minutes, Eric's boss called to see if he could come home earlier! We ended up hanging out in Valpo Friday night Saturday morning and then we got on the road. Here is a picture of Eric and I after our date on Friday. We went to eat (yum) and had planned on going to a movie afterwords but we were too tired!
Here we are getting on the road to head back home! Woooo Hooooo!! Never thought we'd be so excited to be heading to Kansas!

Here is a last picture of the job Eric worked on!