Sparkles McGee

My wedding present from Michael is awesome! A day or so after the wedding we went to sushi and then over to Barnes and Noble and they had a big display for their 'Nook' which is their version of an e-reader. I thought it was cool, but I love my *real* books. I like buying them, reading them (careful not to bend any pages or mess it up) and then putting them on my bookshelves. You can't do that with e-books. But the more I thought about it the more the idea grew on me of getting one. No more having to go to the bookstore when I want to read a certain book 'now', I can just buy it and it downloads in a minute, pretty awesome! I will still buy real books, I think I will just be more picky from now on. I like the Nook because it's not back-lit like other e-readers. It's pretty compact too so it will be really easy to travel with. It even has a web browser. Obviously, we went back a couple days later and bought me one. They have protectors that you can put your Nook in and it looks like a real book cover. I got a really soft, black leather cover, so when I'm reading it feels like I'm holding a real book. The first book I bought was "Sh*t My Dad Says" which is HILARIOUS. It does have some colorful language, but it is really funny. I named my Nook Sparkles McGee, hence the title.

Surprise!!!

It's official! Well, we still have to return the marriage license but it's as good as done. And no, the blog title isn't a mistake. Michael knew how much I love, love, love my name; when we originally went to get our marriage license it took me a good 15 minutes to get up the nerve to mark that I was changing my last name. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be. So a few weeks after we had the license he decided that he would change his last name. We went back to the office, got the license changed and we are now Mr. & Mrs. Michael Hope. How cool is that?! We had a really great time this past week; getting pictures done with Colleen, seeing lots of family and friends, setting up the reception. I will do a super long post soon just so I can get all the details in before I start forgetting the little stuff. For now we are recuperating and taking a few extra days off before going back to work. We are planning on doing a real honeymoon sometime this fall when we both have more vacation time. Michael wants to plant 10 new trees in the next two days....

10 days to go!

Wow, time flies when you're having fun. And sometimes when you're not! It has been a busy past month with getting everything ready for the wedding. The goal was to be done with everything by May 1st and I have pretty much met that goal. There are still a few small things that need to be taken care of and some other things (like the cake) that I can't do until the days prior to the wedding, but other than that I would say it's 95% DONE!
I did get a surprise a few weeks ago from my sister, Kayte, she threw me a bridal shower and I had no idea it was happening. It was lots of fun and I got some great stuff!! Michael and I had a date night planned already so after the shower we went downtown to catch the semi-finals of a comedy competition. There were a couple comics that were pretty funny, I have some pics of us there but haven't put them on the computer yet.
We also have a surprise that we will announce at the wedding, no, I am NOT pregnant. But it will still be a really good surprise.
So for now we are just waiting for the weather to realize that it's supposed to be spring (they said that the 'low' for tonight will be in the high teens) and gear up for the wedding. I'm sure there will be lots of pics to post after next week!

90 Days of P90X

We have a treadmill. We have a weight bench/machine. We even have a punching bag. Not to mention miles and miles of trails all around our house. But, sadly, Michael and I are still chubby. It would help if we actually used any of the above things, but good intentions have to count for something, right? I was using the treadmill on a consistent basis until I got pneumonia. Then I was busy with work, then had to go to Seattle, you get the idea. Right before I left for Seattle we got P90X from Michaels sister. She bought it and then found out she was pregnant so she let us borrow it until the baby is born. We figured we'd try it and if we liked it then we would just buy it ourselves. I have done a couple of the workouts and they are pretty tough, lots and lots of reps using the same muscle group over and over again. Each day works a different part of the body. So, my plan is to do it every day for 90 days. 90 days is not that long and I need to get back into a routine, summer is just around the corner (I hope). I am going to try to get the workouts done in the mornings before work and since there isn't a lot of cardio involved I am going to try to do the treadmill for 20-30 minutes in the evenings. I have started eating better so now it's time to get my butt in gear. I will keep you updated, the first workout is tonight!

Spring?

It felt like Spring for a few weeks. Beautiful, warm, sunny weather. I even had some flowers pop up and bloom and our trees are starting to bud. It almost got up to 70 for a week or so. It was so nice I took my car in and had my winter tires taken off. Yeah, it snowed like 3 inches yesterday and has been cold and windy. The flowers have died and I think the trees are upset they got tricked. At the beginning of March Michael had to go to Salem for a week for training. He works at the AT&T store here in Bend, they just opened yesterday! Anyways, he was gone for a week and got home late Friday night, the next morning I had to take off for a week of training in Seattle. I rented a car since it was cheaper than driving my own, they gave me a red Jetta and it was awesome! I want one. The training class was very busy and they were long days but I squeezed some fun in. I met Colleen and the fam for some shopping, Pike Place and dinner since they also happened to be in Seattle at the same time. I went to sushi with Doug one night and sushi with Cherron another night. I made an Ikea run and got a dinner table and some other fun stuff and another night I went to Davids Bridal for their $99 sale and bought my wedding dress!! I also rocked my training class. They did a competition throughout the week where the goal was to collect 'worlds' which were stickers of a globe. They handed out stickers for participating, answering a tough question, etc. The person at the end of the class was declared the "world wide winner" and got bragging rights. Well, I was the World Wide Winner of my class, so I got bragging rights and a $75 gift card, pretty cool! After I got back from Seattle I had two normal weeks and then this past week I went to San Diego for a couple days for our corporate sales training class. We had a very busy March and we can't believe the wedding is only 6 weeks away! Here are some pictures of back when it was sunny!

I've had better months...

So February was not the best month I've had. Besides Valentines Day and Missys birthday it was pretty crappy. First, about a week after Valentines Day I started feeling not so hot. I could feel 'junk' in my throat and lungs and had a little cough. It started on a Thursday and I didn't feel too good throughout the weekend but I managed to clean the house and make some chicken noodle soup. I planned to just suck it up and work through it. Well, Monday morning my alarm went off for work and I got up to take a shower and let the puppies out. I let the puppies out and then laid down on the couch because I still wasn't feeling good. I didn't get up from the couch until about noon. Everytime I would stand up I felt dizzy and like I was going to throw up. That and I had a pretty bad cough. I stayed in bed pretty much all day until about 3pm when I decided to drag myself to Urgent Care to hopefully get some drugs. After I waited forever (almost two hours) I finally saw a doctor. He said he was pretty sure it was pneumonia and he could either prescribe me the drugs to fix it or I could go down and get x-rays done to confirm it. I voted to just get the drugs and skip spending the money for x-rays. Then I had to go to Costco and wait an hour for my prescriptions. I was miserable. I spent the next two days in bed and finally went back to work on Thursday. Then, a couple of days later when I was paying some bills online I realized that someone had gotten a hold of my debit card number and had ordered $250 worth of stuff from Sephora (a cool makeup store). So I cancelled my card and the next morning headed to the bank to fill out the paperwork and start a claim to get the money back. As I was turning onto the street that the bank is on, the lady at the stop sign pulled out and ran right into me! I was so mad, now I have to get my car fixed, it's such a pain in the butt! Her insurance is paying for everything since it was completely her fault, but still. They say bad things come in 3's, well that was 3 and so hopefully I am good for a long while!

Valentines Day

Our Valentines Day was pretty low-key. We went out for sushi the night before Valentines Day so we could avoid the crowds. Michael got me a pretty awesome present. A few weeks before Valentines Day he said that the water pump on my car needed to be replaced so he was going to take it some weekend and him and a friend were going to fix it. So on Friday afternoon he took my car and was gone for awhile. He got home and was acting a little weird, asking me to borrow my phone, which he never does since he has his own. When we decided to go out to dinner he said he had to give me my present early. Well, turns out there was nothing wrong with my water pump, he had taken my car to Best Buy and had a new stereo installed. The cool thing about the stereo is that it has Bluetooth. Oregon just passed a law that prohibits people from talking or texting with their cell phones while driving. So now when I'm in my car and I get a call, I use my stereo to answer the call, it is pretty cool. He also got me chocolate covered strawberries and flowers.

This is the little basket that I got for Michael. It had some of his favorite candy, gum, chocolates and some silk boxer shorts. Woohoo! :)

Missy May is 2!

It has been a long time since I last posted, we have been VERY busy around here. With wedding planning, Michael getting a new job, me travelling for work, etc. we haven't had a lot of spare time. Anyways, Missy turned two years old on February 27th. We decided to get her a haircut for her birthday. We usually cut it ourselves in the warmer months and then let it grow during the winter. She was so shaggy! So we took her in and they gave her a bath, cut her hair and nails and put a cute bandana on her. When we went to go pick her up I was reminded why we usually cut it ourselves, it was $40! That's more than I spend to get my hair done. She did look super cute though. The weekend of her birthday was beautiful weather so we took lots of pictures outside. Here are the before and after shots:

Poor Mr. Petree...

This is how our Mr. Petree usually looks, huge ears and skinny face.

However, this past Saturday was a different story. Petree has gone to the vet for one reason or another plenty of times since we got him. He was born with an umbilical hernia which we had to have surgically fixed before his intestines fell out the hole. Then he would have these throwing up/nasty poop episodes that landed him at the vet's office hooked up to iv more than once. Another time his back got all swollen where he'd had a shot so we had to take him back into the vet for that. Luckily we found out that it was pancreatitus that was causing the throwing up/nasty poop espisodes and since then he has been on a low-fat diet and is doing really well (knock on wood). Well, this past Saturday we took him in for his annual comprehensive exam, Missy was due for hers too so they went on a little date for the day. :) We dropped them off and then went over to JC Penneys to get Michael some new work clothes. Holy cow ties are expensive! Anyways, I took Michael back home so that he could get ready for work and then stopped at the store so that I could get some ingredients to make the puppies some more treats. Petree has to have low-fat everything so I find it easier just to make our own treats. After I was done at the store I went back to the vet to pick up Petree and Missy, both passed their exam with flying colors (although Petree will be getting his teeth cleaned soon) and they sent us home with a dose of dewormer for each of them. I spent the rest of the day baking up a storm, they will have treats for a VERY long time. Finally about 9:45pm I remembered that I needed to give them the dewormer so I did and went about finishing up the treats. Michael got home from work about 10:20 and was saying hello to all of the puppies when I hear "what is wrong with Petree's face?" I had no idea what he was talking about but then he brought poor Petree into the kitchen and this is what he looked like:
Isn't that the saddest thing you have ever seen?! His eyes, nose and cheeks were so puffed up and you could tell it didn't feel good because he kept scratching his face. I'll admit, I panicked when I first saw him and was ready to take him the emergency clinic. Luckily we have an amazingly awesome vet, Dr. Emily, who answered my text at 10:30pm and said that we could just give him some Benadryl and that he should be fine as long as his breathing stayed normal. So that is what we did and his swelling started going down fairly quickly. Poor guy.

All in a row...

I was getting ready for work one morning and came back into the bedroom and found this:



They wanted to see what I was doing but they were too lazy to get up.

Sushi

My amazing sushi platter that I made myself.

Uncle Bud

I finally downloaded the pictures off my camera and found lots of good stuff. Here is a pic of Uncle Bud with the puppies, they sure do love him! They kept running up the stairs in the mornings after Bud had left thinking that he'd be up there in bed.
We miss you, Uncle Bud, come home soon!

One year older...

Happy Birthday to Michael, he turned the big 3-0 yesterday. Since he is so old now we just took it easy, ha! I had to work so after work I went to the store and picked up stuff so that I could cook dinner. I did steak on the grill, garlic shrimp, sauteed green beans and mashed potatoes. So good! After dinner we cut the puppies toe nails and gave them all a bath, exciting! :) After that Michael went and got us dessert, pie from Shari's. His present was a Raiders blanket, he got a fairly expensive surround sound system for Christmas so he was lucky he got anything at all. :) So happy birthday, sweet cheeks, I love you and I hope this year is the best one yet. He's marrying me this year so I don't know why it wouldn't be...

It's a Date!

So we have finally decided on a wedding date. Or rather, I picked a date, made sure it would work with the church and Michael said 'ok' when I told him what day it was. It is this coming May 15th. Chad is especially excited because that day also happens to be his birthday. We will have to do something really special at the wedding to acknowledge it. ;) The save-the-date cards came last week and I mailed the majority of them out yesterday. I am just waiting for some addresses from Michael and then those will be done. We started planning it about a week ago and we have an awesome theme and ideas. We are doing a circus theme, and before you think "oh no" (like Chad's and my mom said), just wait until you see it. I think it will look great and should be pretty fun. Kayte and I have talked about making the cake ourselves, so we'll see how that goes, we are going to start practicing with fondant so that it won't be a last minute panic. Our goal is to have everything purchased and done (besides the food) by May 1st. Sadly I have had to put aside home improvements until the wedding is over since weddings can be insanely expensive. My bathroom is just about done, though, so I will post pictures of the 'before' and 'after', I think it looks SO much better.

Also, our puppies turned 1 on January 3rd, it is crazy to think a whole year has gone by since I helped Missy deliver them.

We had a great Christmas with my family, it was good to see everyone. It would be nice to be closer so that visits weren't jam packed everytime, but what can you do. Our puppies still run up the stairs in the morning thinking that Uncle Bud is still here, they love their Uncle Bud!!

New Years was very, very low key. I went over to Kaytes for dinner since Michael worked until 8. Usually we do root beer floats at Kaytes at midnight but Michaels back was hurting so I stopped at the gas station and got stuff for our own root beer floats and we drank them while watching Bolt (yeah, the Disney movie) and then we went to bed, before midnight.

Now the wedding diet is in full swing. Me and the treadmill are becoming best friends, it is a love hate relationship, more hate than love.

Hope you all had a great holiday season!

Getting in the Holiday Spirit

A few weeks ago Michael and I went to Target after dinner. We always cruise through their dollar bins up front because sometimes they have some cool stuff (and really good stocking stuffers!). Well, I found some awesome stuff, I think the pictures will speak for themselves.

This is Missy in her reindeer outfit. It would fall down over her eyes so she would just stand there until we fixed it for her, it was hilarious.