wahhh

i am currently waiting to write the last ever scheduled final in my university career. i did the math last night (being honest, sarah, my accounting friend, did the math) and i only need 8% on this exam to pass, 31.5% to get a C in the class and 53% to get a B+. honestly, this is a good thing since this test is going to be horribly hard.

last night we went for dinner at jesse's parents' place - it was delicious as always. it was nice to see everyone, including his uncle billy, who we rarely see. when we got back i checked my email to discover we had a new picture of emi; the message said that we were able to bring her home any time now. i had to remind the breeder we wouldn't be able to take her home for another couple weeks since we will be going to mexico in about 12 days (not that i am counting or anything). it made me incredibly sad that i could have her now but i know it is the responsible decision to wait until we get back from our trip so that she isnt emotionally confused.

ugh, it is almost 8 am - wish me luck...

2 down, 2 to go

i know, i have been mia this week. i have had way too much studying to do lately to find time to blog - i wrote 2 finals this week and will write 2 next week. for some reason, although i know they are coming every single year, i am never fully prepared for exams. i hate them. personally, i feel like exams make zero sense for english majors. we are trained to write essays not memorize facts. i just do not understand how they evaluate what we have learnt over the term with a multiple choice test but, whatever. the two i wrote this week seemed to go alright but they were definitely the easier of the 4; i still have a lot to do this weekend and next week but, like i have said about 100 times recently, i am almost done... forever.

while i am studying all day tomorrow jesse will be holding a mini sticks tournament in our unfurnished living room. completely ridiculous. when i was nagged him for living room furniture two mini hockey nets were not exactly what i meant. i am terrified that the boys are some how going to dent my walls or even worse, break my front windows. i just know something will get broken. thank god jesse can fix whatever they ruin. i will let you all know what damage is done later this weekend.

jesse attempting to keep me from taking a picture of our new living room accessories

so, now that the end of school is near i feel like i can start thinking about this wedding. this afternoon my mom and i are meeting with a florist from occasional bloom for a consultation. apparently, they were recommended by a few people - there are not a ton of pictures on their website but from what i have seen i like. they seem to do more modern arrangements which is exactly what i am looking for. i think it will be interesting. i have an idea of what i want, but generally i have expensive taste; wedding flowers are totally over priced (in my opinion) and i am incredibly cheap so we will have to see how it goes. i definitely want to go with fall colours; i think that the rich burgundies and oranges combined with the green is beautiful.

i am thinking something in this colour palette 

after flowers i feel as though i will be able to make more decisions regarding the decorations. i have been having trouble committing to anything lately, decorations, invitations, favors etc and i think (and hope) that the fact that i have not chosen flower type or colour was a major contributing factor to my indecisiveness but i guess we will just have to wait and see...

sunny sunday

we have officially christened our new patio furniture. this afternoon it was a balmy 12 degrees and sunny so we decided to have a couple people over for an afternoon bbq. i probably should have done some homework but really, it was the first nice afternoon in what has seemed like forever so we had to enjoy it. it was extra special since derek brought kayden over. he is getting so big and beautiful it blows my mind. i love him.

the beautiful kayden james - he's going to be a heart breaker

so, the patio furniture worked well. we bought and 8 piece set and it is still not big enough. we only had a couple people over and we still definitely did not have enough seating. luckily, the previous owner left 4 plastic reclining chairs that are in pretty good shape; i figure i can buy some outdoor pads and they will be great extra seating. also, jesse, caleb and derek are currently designing me a crazy folding picnic table which we are planning on putting on the concrete pad in the back (apparently, it has to be folding so that we can bring it camping and to revelstoke? haha). our back yard will have more furniture than the rest of our house combined at this rate...

yes, there is still snow on the ground

 it was only about 10 degrees out this afternoon but the dark wood on the deck made it feel even warmer. i am beginning to worry about how hot it is going to get back there when we start getting some seriously warm weather. oh well, it will be perfect for tanning!

once everyone left i checked my email and our breeder, lianne, had sent another update with pictures of emi. she is even more beautiful than i imagined; apparently, her eyes are officially open and she is steady on her feet now. jesse is really excited because it looks like she has blue eyes. unfortunately, i have a feeling that puppies are like babies - 90% of them start off with baby blues and then they fade with age. only time will tell.

lil emi: 3 weeks old

she's a curious little monster

ridiculous, i know. i already set up emi's little spot

all and all we had a pretty good weekend.  yesterday night we went out with my parents and sister for mama jones' birthday (happy birthday mom, i love you!); we went to kefi, an amazing greek restaurant here, and it was really fun. the food was fabulous as always but since it was mama jones' birthday we got to dance and sing and break a plate - definitely an experience. that coupled with the bbq definitely made for a nice, relaxing weekend. unfortunately, i didnt seem to get a ton of homework done this weekend but after my busy week last week i think i needed a bit of a break.

saturday

today was a busy day. yesterday jesse had the day off from work so, with the help of kev, he rewired and switched out all our old, yellow electrical outlets and toggle light switches for new, more modern white ones. anyways, since they rewired they switches yesterday, jesse and i spent a good hour and a half putting all of the covers back on. i never thought that white light switches would be exciting but let me tell you, they really were. after living for 2 months without plate covers in nearly every room of your house you really begin to appreciate how little things, like plate covers, can make a room feel just that much closer to being finished.

half way through changing the covers jesse got tired and had to take a little nap

so, while jesse napped i finished putting the covers back on. while i was finishing putting the plates back on in the basement i realized that we had not yet posted pictures of jesse's magnificent man cave. ironically, the man cave is the only room in the house that is more or less completely finished. i guess jesse had been collecting various man cave material for years - luckily, it payed off in the decorating department.

this is our bar - pretty bad ass, i know

now that the light switches and plug in's have been changed over the man cave is almost finished - all we have to do is spruce up some of the shelving units in the back and it will be completely finished. it is nice to have almost a whole room exactly how you want it when everything else is such a mess. honestly, it is getting very overwhelming; my list of things to accomplish after we get back from mexico is getting longer and longer. i really want to be able to get registered and send my invitations out by end of may/beginning of june, but i also need to train emi and finish unpacking. there are still tons of boxes left to up pack and a few rooms left to organize...

slowly but surely things are getting done though. i am starting to really like my kitchen. my mom kindly bought me some awesome green placemats that match the new table cloth i bought perfectly. jesse hates the table cloth - frankly, that is just too bad because i love it. i think it brings colour into the room and that is always a good thing.

lastly, we also finally set up our patio furniture! i love it. i wasn't able to take pictures of it yet though since we didn't build it until later in the day and were running late for mama jones' birthday dinner. tomorrow i will take some shots and upload them to show everyone.

engagement pictures

So, recently i was informed that we had more readers than we initially thought; so hello, to all our extended family and friends that are following as well - it is nice to know that people other than our parents are interested in our shenanigans. anyways, it got me thinking, that we had not really shown/sent out our engagement pictures. we had two sessions done, one was taken by a good friend of mine, kaylee lowther, and the other one, a test shoot for our wedding photographer, christa harriman. we loved pictures from both shoots; here are our favorites. enjoy. 

kaylee lowther

kaylee lowther

kaylee lowther

kaylee lowther

kaylee lowther

kaylee lowther

kaylee lowther

kaylee lowther

christa harriman photography

christa harriman photography

christa harriman photography

christa harriman photography

christa harriman photography

christa harriman photography

christa harriman photography

christa harriman photography

christa harriman photography

christa harriman photography

christa harriman photography

count down

14 days until i am done university forever.
23 days until MEXICO for maddy and brian's wedding.
35 days until we bring emi home.
169 days until our wedding.
yikes, that is enough time to plan, right?

black thumb

so, i have come to the realization that i may have a "black thumb". i never thought that having house plants would be such an ordeal but honestly, it really is. i mean, ferns have been around since the dinosaurs but i cant seem to keep mine alive. its unbelievable. also, my wandering jew has become a withering jew. its just pathetic. it seems like they are either over watered, under watered or needed watering. black thumb, im tellin' yah.

seriously, if i cannot even keep simple house plants alive i have no idea how i am going tackle our actual gardens. the previous owner did an amazing job from what i have seen in the real estate photos and what is slowly but surely popping up around us as spring attempts to break through; i have this paranoia that my black thumb is going ruin all her previous work. maybe, if we had one garden in the back it wouldn't be as overwhelming for me but, we don't: we have three giant gardens. yikes.

front yard

back yard

i guess this black thumb paranoia of mine all started because jesse and i bought new patio furniture this weekend; i am seriously excited since we got such a fabulous deal. luckily, we knew someone who worked at home depot that was able to hook us up with a fabulous deal!  unfortunately, i guess we offended someone by buying patio furniture too early because it immediately started to snow after we purchased it. i am hoping that the weather will be good enough this weekend that jesse will be able to assemble it for me! its pretty much a given that people will be at our house almost every weekend this summer so we figured a new patio set was a must; we have been told that people will be here barbecuing, having fires and taking advantage of our awesome deck, concrete pad and developed backyard all summer rather than asked but we don't mind. since people will be over here all the time we are obviously going to have to do some serious landscaping - a thought that is beginning to terrify me. i am positive that i am going to be the worst gardener in the world... oh well, chances are that most twenty-some year olds wont notice, right?

so, while this above photo is not a photo of our patio set it is where we are possibly going to be putting our new patio set. we haven't decided yet; we also have a wooden deck on the other side of the house where the barbecue is, so we are probably going to be putting it there for easy access. here is the set we bought:

we were debating between two different sets but eventually chose this set because the chairs looked the sturdiest; lets face it, we have a lot of heavy and clumsy friends who could potentially do some serious damage to furniture. so, this is the newest addition to the house. we are super excited and will update everyone with photographs as soon as it is all set up!