fire #2

So technically this is already Nate's 2nd fire of the season.
Even thought they just went available YESTERDAY!
They went to a local (I think that just means in the state of Utah?) fire on Tuesday.
And now they're somewhere near Mesquite.
Not that anyone but he and I care about this information, just documenting to remember!
1. Utah (2 days)
2. Nevada (we'll see)

Luckily with this fire I got to text him most of the day and he called me just before bed.
This is still such a learning process for me.
I have no idea how this works or really how we'll get any wedding stuff done with him only being home about 4 days a month!
Should be interesting!
Be safe Nater!

Ring shopping.

2 other moments I wanted to write down/share before I forget:

Once Nate and I decided we were getting married we moved into action. We knew he would be gone basically all summer for work and didn't know when we would be able to see each other (in my head he was basically shipping out the end of April to resurface at the beginning of October and we would have NO contact until then. I now realize that's not exactly how it's going to work...but may be pretty close). I thought we were going to have no time to ring shop when we wanted to get engaged (May-June was the plan) so we should just look now so it would be easier on him later.
We actually started looking at rings pretty early. We looked 3 times at 5 different places and were done. I think the first time we "looked" was like the end of February? Maybe the beginning of March.
We happened to be at the mall one day and I told Nate we should look to start getting of some ideas and figure out what we were looking at budget wise. We found a couple very expensive ones that I liked but seeing as we were just getting started we weren't sold on anything we saw.
A week or so later we went again to another jeweler and we were both so NOT impressed. The ring we were looking at was small, and plain, and still twice our budget!
I had to go back to Idaho the next morning so we decided we would just look when I was back in town a few weeks later.

(first event)
Thursday March 15, 2012
About 2 hours before I needed to leave, Kelli called and said she had remembered her friend talking about an awesome jeweler in Salt Lake that she loved and had a great experience with. We decided we might as well go check it out real fast. We had a wonderful experience and totally recommend AAA Jewelers to anyone! They were so great and best of all SO reasonable priced! We looked for maybe 3 minutes when Nate pointed out this gorgeous split shank, square setting. It was absolutely gorgeous. And totally in our price range. We picked that ring as "the one" right there. The jeweler then asked our price range and found us the best diamond he could for our budget. I loved that about him! We totally got a steal on the ring!
I assumed Nate would come back later and purchase the ring like he said he would so that I wouldn't know he had it, blah blah blah. Well shocking to me right then and there he bought the thing! It was such a rush and so many excited emotions that we were really going to get married, that we didn't even take a picture of the thing so no one believed us!
Of course, the diamond still had to be set and it had to be re sized so we left with just a receipt and me thinking that I would had to wait at least 2 more months to be engaged to him!

                                      (because who wants to look at a blog with no pictures?!)

Well word spread to our families and friends pretty quickly that we were getting married although he hadn't actually proposed.
People were asking if we were getting married and congratulating me but I would just respond "we aren't officially engaged yet, I don't even have a ring!"
After a few chats with my mom she finally told me, "the ring is not the important thing Lindsey. You can be engaged without a ring."

(second event I want to remember)
Easter weekend we headed up to Boise to be with my family. We also recognized this would (most likely) be Nate's last chance to see my family and ask my dad a very important question. He had told me exactly how he hoped it would go down and I of course had repeated it to my mom in hopes that she'd tip off my dad and make it easier on Nate. When we got there on Friday night we were in talking to my mom and dad for quite a while and I broke the news that we would most likely be getting October 20.

Saturday April 7, 2012
We had woken up a little early to help with the ditch clean up that somehow I had lucked out of for the past however many years. Nate got to burn the ditch with a torch and I followed behind him carrying his can of propane. It was a fun thing to do and Nate was in heaven practicing his fire skills. By the end we were sweaty and smelled like campfire.
We went inside to clean up, I hopped in the shower and Nate parked it on the couch to wait for his turn. When I came out of the bathroom i overheard my dad saying , "October 20, huh?" And my heart started racing as I knew Nate must had just asked my dad for permission to marry me!
(and this is where Nate should be writing this but I'll just have to give my best version from what he's told me).
Nate was sitting on the couch waiting for his turn to shower when my dad came in and sat down in the chair across from him and said, "so you want to marry my daughter, huh?"
Nate said it caught him a little off guard but he replied, "Uh, yea! I would love to marry your daughter!"
And basically my dad said something to the effect of, "Well good, we like you...blah blah blah"
And that is all the information I was given from either party...either way, the approval was given and the hard part was over, except he still hadn't actually asked ME to marry him.

Sunday April 8, 2012

                    (Dad guarding the eggs from the stinking squirrels who kept eating through them!)

At my parents ward of Sunday many people kept coming and asking us if we were engaged. My response was still that of, I don't have a ring but we are planning a wedding. My mom made another comment of how the ring isn't important and doesn't make a relationship last. I then told her I technically hadn't even been asked yet!
Later, my grandparents came over to congratulate us and see us.
Finally, when everyone was ready to eat my dad announced that Nate had asked for permission to marry me and that he had given his approval and was happy to have him and happy for us.

(the final moment of the weekend that I want to remember)
In the car on Sunday afternoon as we drove back to Pocatello, I told Nate that we were planning this wedding and so many people already knew we were getting married...but he still hadn't asked me to marry him. He grabbed my hand turned to look at me and as seriously as he could asked if I would marry him.
It may not have been the traditional proposal (which he did later) but it was super cute and still special because I knew without a doubt that he meant it.

So we "officially" became engaged on Sunday April 8, 2012!

playlist.

Now that wedding plans are in the works, its starting to feel real.
Although we still have 185 days to go.
I feel like that is such a long time!
But I also have a feeling that because it seems so far away,
I will procrastinate and everything will happen at the last minute!
(big ol thanks to my awesome sister who is pretty much the wedding planner and taking her job seriously and I know she will do a great job!)
My goal so this DOESNT happen is to start doing little things now.
Such as finding cute engagement photo outfits, looking around for dresses, and making a playlist.
We have 7 hours and 46 minutes worth of love songs to go through...yikes.
And since Nate hasnt been shipped out yet you better believe I'm making him listen and narrow it down :)
Can't say he didnt help plan the wedding!
So far he's said no to 3 out of 20 songs.
Only 100 more to go...gonna be a long night for him!
...talk to my baby tell me what youre feeling, i know what love is whats it to you.
thank you for being stuck in my head Clay Walker.

THE PROPOSAL.

(disclaimer: this may not sound very cute or romantic or original or anything, BUT it was absolutely PERFECT! I would not have wanted it ANY other way! It was totally cute and romantic and original and exactly what I wanted!)

Saturday April 14, 2012.

I had gone down to Salt Lake for the weekend to see Nate. We had no big plans, went to dinner Friday night at our usual sushi place. During the course of the evening Nate's boss sent him a text about a bbq he was throwing for all the overhead guys and their significant others Sunday afternoon. This text started the ball rolling.
(background: due to my stubbornness we are getting married at the tail end of fire season. Taking time off during fire season is a BIG no-no. And because of this Nate got quite a lashing for requesting 5 days off for the wedding and long story short his boss was not happy with him.)
I start getting nervous, not only does his boss not like me for the fact that its my fault he's taking a few days off, but in my head I'm scrambling because technically I don't even have my ring yet! I thought that might just add fuel to the fire and give his boss even more reason to not like me if he thought we weren't even engaged yet!
I tell Nate we've got to go find a fake engagement ring RIGHT NOW! It's about 8:30pm and the only places we can think to look are Target, Wal Mart, and K Mart. Well Target was a big fat no. They didnt even have any fake rings. Wal Mart only had CTR rings. Finally at K Mart we found one that could pass if it had to. I got a call from Kelli about then and she told me to check out Kohls. She met us there and found the most real looking rings she could. Even better they were on sale! So Nate bought me a fake little band for $5.33. I wore that thing for the next 17 hours.
Fast forward to Saturday morning. Nate had a hiking trip with his crew he had to go on. He said they'd be gone about 11-12 and after that he'd meet up with Kelli and I. We took our time getting ready and by the time we were it was already 12:30pm. Nate was annoyed we hadn't left yet as he said he really just wanted to see me! Kelli had tickets to a What Women Want show at the expo center. She had an extra ticket and through a bunch of texts and phone calls I guilted Nate into meeting us there (and I just have to add that in the auditorium next door there was a gun show happening...poor Nate!:) It was lamer than we all imagined and we werent there long.
After we left we decided to get some Costa Vida for lunch. During lunch it started POURING. I mean there were buckets of rain coming down! Little did I know how this would play into our afternoon. During lunch Kelli got a text from her uncle, a photographer, that he needed her help with a project, so off she headed.
Nate decided we should take a drive up the canyon and after discovering that I'd never even seen Snowbird or Alta, we were off.
We drove all the way up the canyon to the very end of the road, it was snowing pretty bad and all I had on was my black glitter flats. Nate had mentioned wanting to get out and walk around but no way was that gonna happen, plus I was starting to feel carsick. So we headed back down the mountain.
On the way down Nate mentioned again wanting to stop at one of the pull outs (ha ha) and walking a trail of something. We drove down out of the snow and passed a couple spots but Nate kept on going. Finally, as he was about to drive right passed another I said "didn't you want to stop?" Nate slammed on his breaks and pulled into the end of the dirt parking lot. Then it started to smell like burning sooooo so so so bad! I thought his truck was on fire. It was so bad and just stunk! Nate said it was just the brakes. So he popped the hood and got out to check it out. He dinked around under the hood for a minute and then came over to my side of the truck and opened the door. He kissed me and said the truck was fine and before I knew it he was down on one knee!
I believe I said something along the lines of "you don't even have my ring yet."
And then he pulled this beautiful, HUGE, ring...MY ring out of his pocket and held it up to me.
He had tears in his eyes and was crying before he even said a word. But it was something to the affect of "Lindsey, you're the most perfect girl for me, will you marry me?"
Of course by this time my eyes were watering too and I just leaned over and gave him the biggest hug and said of course I would marry him! We sat there hugging and crying for a good minute or two before I realized he was still kneeling in the mud and of course it was still raining on us!
It was by far the sweetest thing I have ever experienced. Nate knows me so well and knew that is exactly how I would have wanted it to happen.
I told him long before that my only two requests for proposal were: nothing fancy, just he and I alone somewhere. And to try to surprise me since I basically thought I knew when I would be getting my ring since I was there for all of it.
Well, he did a GREAT job and I am the happiest girl in the world!
186 days!!

Turns out there was never a hiking trip he had to go on! He just had to go pick up my ring :)

it's official!

dear blog,

I am never going to coldstone ever again!

(ok probably not ever but at least for a very long time).

Nate and I totally tried to go there tonight and although the door SAID they closed at 10pm and there were still plenty of people, all their doors were locked and they wouldnt let us in!

And it was only 9:12pm!

I needed coldstone and they did NOT follow through...so lame.

They seriously owe us...

dear blog,

well its not like its new news, but nate and i are almost engaged.

but seriously, if you didnt know that youre way behind the times!

heres my dilemma:

i found the wedding dress i LOVE.

its the one i want.

i dont even want to look anymore.

i keep looking at myself in the pictures and i love everything about them!

but whats a mormon girl to do?

technically, i could get married in the temple in this dress.

but id almost rather not.

so is it worth it to dish out the 500 buckeroos for something i am absolutely head over heels in love with?!

or should i just borrow one and save the bucks?

what is a mormon girl to do?!

plus i always thought it would be kinda cool to cut up my wedding dress and make a blessing outfit out of it...but maybe thats just my justification?
HELP!