Tuesday, March 31, 2009

In Case You Were Wondering----

I AM GOING TO BE IN AFRICA IN 37 DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!

CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so pumped! I can't believe I am actually going to AFRICA!! It's been a dream of mine since I was like 9 years old or something like that. The fact that it's actually happening is beyond crazy! I still don't think I fully realize that it's actually happening.

God has been so good to me lately. Every day is something new and exciting. I know that He is teaching me to enjoy every day that He gives me. I know that He is blessing my life and everyone around me everyday. Even though I really do live for the future, and always have, God is really showing me that TODAY is exciting too!

Today I learned how to draw blood and start I.V.'s in clinicals. Sometimes, I doubt myself being a good nurse... questioning whether or not this is what God has called me to do... but days like today, are days that I realize that I am going to be a great nurse!

I love that God continually teaches me lessons about His grace and how He blesses me every single minute of the day.

:-)

Please pray for my trip... pray to God will prepare my heart for the people of Africa and what I am going to see and be faced with. Thanks!

Saturday, March 21, 2009

On the Night I Got Engaged!!

So, I know, kind of overkill with the engagement posts right?! This will be my last one (probably...)

I said I would post pictures from that night though and I thought I would tell a little more of the story... so here it goes.

Last Friday Night, March 13, 2009. Well, before that, all week I knew that Matt was planning on making me dinner Friday night for "Valentine's Day" since he missed it. So, Friday I headed to Fairmont after class to see Matt and celebrate a belated Valentine's Day. Matt called me Friday afternoon and asked me if he should make something fancy or something that is my favorite? I told him that it did not have to be a big deal, just make something easy, my favorite in other words. hehe! I got there and we just relaxed and watched some TV. Matt was so calm and relaxed. He had told me he was going to see if his family would leave the house for a couple hours. I wondered what was up when he told me that, but again, just thought it was for our Valentine's day evening. So, did not think too much into it. When his mom got home from work, she and Matt's 2 sisters left the house so fast to meet his dad for dinner in Morgantown. So, we started making dinner, well Matt did. He made me sloppy joes and french fries!! HEHE! MY FAVORITE!!! Not Manwich mind you, he made it homemade! HAHA! ;-)

After we ate, we sat at the table for a little bit, Matt told me not to clean up the dishes but he would be right back. As I sat and waited for him, my mind started to wander a little bit about us getting engaged, but at this point I had convinced myself that he would not propose until later this summer, like after this semester and I got back from Africa (WRONG! LOL! ) .. so anyways... He cleaned up the dishes, and then told me to go in the living room and wait for him. He then sang me a song that he wrote for me on his guitar and sang to me. Serenaded :-) Then, told me he had one more thing for me. He went downstairs (a little more history, Matt has always given me a hard time and told me that when he proposed, he was just going to give me a cookie cake instead of a ring because rings were to "cliche", every girl gets a ring, but not a cookie cake! LOL! he just likes to give me a hard time....) okay, so he came back upstairs, and handed me a red paper box, and said "i got you cookie cake!" and i STILL DIDN'T GET IT!! For like, 15 seconds and then said "COOKIE CAKE?!?!!??!!?!" Matt smiled real big, and then got serious. He told me all the lovey stuff (I won't put all that on here.. I feel like that's between us. HEHE! ;-) ) then he stood up, pulled a black velvet box out of his pocket and my heart has HONESTLY never beat that fast in my whole entire life!!! I just put my head in my hands and was holding back the tears. When I looked up, he was down on one knee with the ring of my dreams in that black velvet box. When I heard him say those 4 words I almost fell off the couch with excitement! (it's a good thing I was sitting down or I might have passed out! he knows me well...LOL!)

After I said YES! I of course, said "are you serious?!" lol!

Then, we both made about a million phone calls! We were honestly on the phone for like an hour and a half! LOL! We were both so excited!

I still can't believe it! LOL! It's so exciting! I'm getting married to the man of my dreams in a little over a year! We've already started talking about a date, the ceremony site and reception site because apparently you have to plan like a million years in advance for those reservations! crazy!


Okay, now for the pictures.....
*mind you, I did not know I was going to be getting engaged, or I would have fixed myself up a little better!*




So, this last one is a little ridiculous... lol! But we had to capture the cookie cake! LOL! Matt's face just cracks me up! HAHA!!!!! :-)

Sunday, March 15, 2009

The Bling (or is that inappropriate!?!)


There ya go!!! :-) I know people have been dying to see it!! I am so excited about it!!!! I still can't believe it's really on my finger and that I really have a fiance!!!!! I will post pictures from that night when I get them.... but I thought I would post these now.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Exciting News People!!!!!

Well...

I'M ENGAGED!!!!!!!!!!!!


Matt asked me to marry him last night!!!! I won't go into all the details... but he did a great job! Made me dinner, played me a song he wrote, bought me a cookie cake (that's a joke we've always had since we started dating).... and asked me to marry him! :-)

Summer 2010 is all we know so far! But I have a beautiful, shiney ring on my finger and a fiance and it is CRAZY EXCITING!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-)

Will post pictures when I get them off of Matt's dad's camera!!!
but for now... here's an old one of the 2 of us! hehe!My favorite picture of us ever.... (so far!)

Thursday, March 5, 2009

My Heart, My Passion---Africa.

In March of last year, I attended a viewing of the documentary Invisible Children. It changed my entire world. I have always had a heart for the less fortunate and for Africa... every time I saw a commercial on tv about Save the Children where they show the starving African children, I would try to convince my mom to let me "adopt one" (support a child). I never have been able to do this, however, in May of this year I am going to Tanzania, Africa for 2 weeks. I am beyond excited. It is actually just now finally begin to hit home that this is ACTUALLY happening. I AM ACTUALLY GOING TO AFRICA!!! It's crazy.

My point though, in this blog is that I encourage each and every 3 people that read this blog.. (hopefully more...) to go to www.invisiblechildren.com and watch The Rescue video. Invisible Children honestly has changed my whole way of looking at life, it gave me the get up and go to go to Africa, to make a difference. To realize that on those days that I am completely down in the dumbs, and think that my life sucks, it is really not bad at all. I am BLESSED every single day to have a warm bed, running water, and a toilet to use the bathroom in... a roof over my head, food to eat, and a family that loves me, money to go to school, so many clothes that i cannot even wear them all, money to go buy Starbucks coffee, and to eat out and have others serve me...... here we have NO IDEA how lucky we are. We have our technology, and our money, and our cars to get us by. We can just completely overlook the homeless man standing on the corner and shrug him off saying "GO GET A LIFE!".... how could we do that?! We are ALL guilty of this...

I just ask that you take a half an hour of your time... go watch the video. It will change your life... and next time you see someone in need, even just a lady in the airport that has 2 sick children and is trying to carry both of them and her luggage... lend a helping hand. Make the world a better place (I know.. so cliche.. but true!) :-)

Monday, March 2, 2009

SPRING BREAK IN CHICAGO!!!

FINALLY! I am on Spring Break! I can't believe it's already half way through the semester! It's insane! It makes me really happy though!

I am currently in Chicago visiting Matt!! I haven't seen him in 7 weeks so it was GREAT to see him when he picked me up at the airport!!! Even though he has midterms this week and he's been pretty busy, we've had some time to have some fun. We went into the city yesterday and went to the art museum and the modern photography museum. It was really great! I got to see one of my FAVORITE paintings of all time by Seurat! :-) A Sunday Afternoon in the Park. LOVE IT!!! IT was AMAZING To see in person. SO HUGE!!!! :-)

Then we decided to come back and eat somewhere in Deerfield (Where matt's college is). We ended up at Denny's... HAHA! We both really wanted some cheap breakfast food... so that's where we ended up. Then we went to Starbuck's for a couple hours to study with a group of his friends.

We'll probably end up doing the same thing tonight. It sucks that our Spring Break's overlap so that while i'm on break, he has midterms and when he's on break (next week) I will be back in classes. LAME!

So right now Matt is in class and I just ate some Chipotle chips and Salsa (YUM!) and in awhile i'm going to go work out. It's been a few days since I've worked out. It's time to get back into the routine! I was doing so well!!!!

Well, I'm off to watch some online tv.. then to the gym, shower, and ready for another night of studying. What a great spring break! HAHA!!!!