A few pictures

Thanksgiving and Shower

So we've had a pretty busy month. We headed to NJ the day before Thanksgiving and it was a very long drive. I knew we would hit traffic but after 14 hours in the car you just want to be there, but we sat for another 2 hours. Thanksgiving was fun. We saw a lot of family and friends and ate a lot of food. Friday we had a memorial service for my grandfather who passed away the week before. It was a nice service, but the church's heat wasn't working so it was a very cold hour. I felt like we literally ate the whole weekend away. We had lunch after and then went out to dinner with friends later on. Saturday was my bridal shower. It was a circus theme and very cute. My family and friends did a great job putting it together. We got so much stuff it barely fit in Quinn's truck. When we got back we had 2 days to move into our new place. We spent all of Monday moving and Tuesday morning we finished up and cleaned the old place. It was crazy. We're under 3 months left for the wedding so I had to get the invitations finished up and mailed out. So with half our our place unpacked I was sitting on the floor putting invitations together. It's been a mess.
Quinn agreed to get a Christmas tree this year. First tree in 5 years together. It was a lot of fun. He even offered to go on a drive through Christmas light show in a couple weeks. It's supposed to be a really good event so I'm excited.
I'll upload a few pictures later :)

100 Days

100 days until our wedding. I know it's still kind of a long time, but when we started this whole wedding process the 100 day mark seemed so far and now it's here. With Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years coming up the next couple of months are going to fly. I'm so excited to get the invitations in the mail to see who is going to be able to make it out to celebrate with us. With all the crazy weather I'm afraid of what February is going to be like. Hopefully they'll predict unseasonably warm weather!! :) Here's to hoping anyway! I can't believe 2012 is only a handful of weeks away. How come Quinn's 1 year deployment didn't seem to go this fast? Well either way I'm so excited and can't wait for February.

Bachelorette Party

Last weekend my sisters and friend surprised me by traveling to Atlanta to take me out for a bachelorette weekend. We had a lot of fun. It's hard when so many friends live all over the place so next to flying EVERYONE in this was a great weekend. Friday started with lunch in Atlanta followed by dinner and drinks at a tapas bar. We headed to another restaurant for a drink and made it an early night. Saturday was breakfast, mani/pedi's, drinks in the hotel, dinner, and dancing. We were definitely the odd group at the bar, but everyone had a good time. Thank you Allison, Erin, and Kristin for coming out to celebrate with me!!

Pictures from our trip

Fall Travels...

Quinn and I have been pretty busy the past few months. We left Washington at the beginning of October and spent 5 days driving cross country in 2 cars to Georgia. Our main goal was to get to Georgia somewhat quickly, but still enjoy a little of our trip there. I decided that since we were moving the bulk of our stuff that I would utilize one of our coolers and pack a bunch of sandwiches and snacks to eliminate fast food stops and unnecessary spending. It worked out pretty well. We picked up a couple things here and there, but only had to eat one meal out. Thanks to La Quinta we were able to have decently priced pet friendly hotel stays as well as free breakfast every morning. That helped a lot. Montana was by far one of the two longest days of driving. I was convinced we'd never get to the state line. Even though our drive to the Mount Rushmore area was a short trip it felt long because I just wanted to get there and be done. Bubba liked the trip there and even though dogs aren't allowed in the actual monument area, we were able to get a "family" picture from the parking lot where he had to stay. He loved the hotel rooms and I think he was just happy to get out of the car like we were. We stopped at the world's only corn palace. Quinn and I saw signs for it while we were driving and kept making fun of it on our walkie talkies. Since we were a little ahead of schedule and bored we decided to stop there for a good laugh. It was actually pretty interesting, but still kind of an odd thing in Mitchell, SD. We also stopped at a casino on the border of Illinois and Kentucky. We only stayed for an hour or so, but it was nice to do something besides drag all our stuff into the hotel room and watch ESPN. One of the hardest things about the trip was that I had my wedding dress in the car with me. I was so afraid to keep it in the car overnight in case someone decided to ruin our day and break into the car and steal the dress just for the fun of it. So I had to drag it into every hotel room along with the 10 other things we didn't want left out overnight. Every morning was a project getting packed up and on the road. I don't know how people travel like this with kids because just that little bit of stuff made me nuts. We finally made it to Georgia in time to move into an apartment, unload the trailer, return it and pretty much pack up to head to New Jersey. In New Jersey I was able to dump my dress off to the seamstress, confirm our church, cake and flowers, finally see our venue, and oh yeah...visit family. It was a nice trip, but we were happy to get back to Georgia and unpack some of our stuff. It all finally started coming together. All we were waiting on was the load of large items that the Army was transporting for us. That all showed up yesterday. It would have been great except for the fact that the ceiling height and sharp corner of our kitchen and living room weren't tall enough or wide enough to get our couch into the room. SO now we're waiting a month to move into another unit in our complex that can accommodate all of our furniture. The most frustrating part is that we've already unpacked 75% of our stuff and recycled all of the boxes. I guess it doesn't always pay to be efficient. Anyway, that's the story of the past month. Quinn heads back to work on Monday and I have an interview tomorrow with a temp agency to see what kind of work is available for me for the next 18 months. Oh yeah, and we're getting married in 4 months. Whew. I'll post a few pictures in another entry.

It's Official

So I've made it official with work that I am leaving on September 22nd. We will be moving on October 1st and can't wait. It's going to be bittersweet because I've grown to appreciate the scenery and cleanliness of this state, but it's tough to tolerate the weather. It's been especially hard this year because we really have only had a week or two of summer weather and it wasn't consistant. That's tough when you have steady rain from November to May. We've also made some new friends and are leaving behind some old friends as well. The stability of having an income to the stress of not knowing when another paycheck will come in has been tough for me (especially with a wedding coming up). Overall it's an exciting time for us. We have plans to hit New Jersey for some wedding appointments and we've put a small security deposit on a rental in Georgia that a friend of ours suggested. Hopefully it's as nice and it looks and we've heard so we can move right in without any problems. Unfortunately, we have to drive two cars, but I'm hopeful that I can still take pictures along the way and document our trip a little better than I did on our way here. The 2,700 mile drive won't be too exciting while we're doing it, but it's always fun to look back on it. We have a few things planned for before we leave here so hopefully I'll be able to post some pictures soon.