That's Whats Up

I'm still here. I still exist. So does the blog.

It's just that, you know, working and wedding prep and spending spare moments with the about-to-be husband take up most of my time these days.

But folks, there's only 12 days until about-to-be-husband becomes husband. And with the wedding stress behind us and our eternal marriage ahead of us, there shall be a resurrection of regular blogging from me! With everything that comes with being a newlywed: our new home, a fresh start in a new ward, marathon training (for both of us!), and weekly date nights, i'm sure there will be plenty to keep you all posted on. 

However, the name of my blog has been Just Jannette for almost the last 4 years. Because of my about-to-be-husband, its NOT Just Jannette anymore! We need a new blog name! I'm working on that...

And now for your picture viewing pleasure, here's some random pictures on my phone since the last time I posted.

New house key!

And reindeer sweater.

 When best friends come to town right before Christmas and make you feel that holiday spirit like crazy! :) 

Christmas Eve with kazoos at the Barnes home. 

How I slept for a couple nights in our new place. Until Matt's parents gifted us with our wedding present early... yay for a new king-size bed! Its awfully large for one person, I must say.

Keepin' it real.

I love it when his cute face surprises me at work with Cafe Rio!!

Got to go home for a late family Christmas/New Years. I love my little babies! 

This is a real life sweater tag. Christie knows how to choose clothes.

I practiced getting dolled up and wearing a white dress and being a bride for an afternoon to take bridal pictures. It was fun times! I can't wait to do it for real!!!

  

And then we ate a lot of chick-fil-a in our future wedding clothes. The obvious choice, really.

Cameron got married (weird but exciting) and we had a little Kirkland kids reunion.

Having Rachel back from her mission and in Utah has seriously got to be one of the blessings in my life lately. To have a friend like her is just too good. She is my own little personal magic bean that I wish I could carry around in my pocket all the time to make me happy!

Licensed to wed!!

 Even after last night's heartbreak, I still love my hawks. It's okay that they lost, because no matter what, I still get married in 12 days (wait, did I already mention that i'm getting married in 12 days a few times?)!

Anyway, thats whats been up. I've missed blogging, and i'm definitely not giving it up anytime soon, so just hang in there with me!

Weekend Wrap-Up

I have been working a ton lately. Double shifts and overtime can have their plus sides before the holidays with the extra cash they bring in, but it gets pretty hard when personal time for myself and time with friends and family and fiancee becomes so limited. This weekend I was blessed to have friday AND saturday off from work. What a party! Better believe I crammed a lot into those two days. Two Christmas movies, two temple trips, two potential apartment tours, two hours of engagement pictures, mattress shopping, doctors appointment, wedding cake meeting, lots of driving, and one giant tree covered in Christmas lights. Tis definitely the season for wedding planning and Christmas joy!

The Tree of Life in Draper was super close to one of the basement apartments we were checking out on Friday night. We made a quick detour to check it out, and we are glad we did! So pretty! 

♥

Saturday morning we woke up at Matt's parents' house in Ogden and immediately launched into engagement picture prep. Thank goodness for patient men who put up with women who obsess over an abundance of outfit changes and lip gloss and ironed shirts and earring decisions and lip gloss checks. We won't have any of the pictures from our AWESOME photographer Jenifer Allen for about another week, but Matt's mom snagged some (okay, more like 200+) candids on her iphone as she followed us around for the morning. Some are just too great not to share.

Who would you guess got sick of this whole posing for pictures business first? It wasn't me... even though my face tells a different story haha.

Attention: in case you're in need of some motivation to come to our wedding:

Story time:

Our plan for yesterday was to leave Ogden and return to Provo for the Christmas Market on center street. The day ended up being a bit more busy and tiring than we were expecting, so we just decided we might as well stay another night at his family's house. After some naps and recuperation, we spent the remainder of our evening inside the Ogden temple with Matt's parents doing proxy sealings. What a special blessing it was to be in the same place that we ourselves will be married in just 10 short weeks! We even took a peek into our reserved sealing room. Guys, it is SO. BEAUTIFUL.

But thats not the story, THIS is the story:

This morning, when it was still dark outside and too early for anyone without an alarm to be conscious, I jolted awake as the words "OH MY GOSH I HAVE TO WORK TODAY" sputtered out of my mouth. Over the fun chaos of the past two days I had completely forgotten that I was in charge of running the admissions office at work on this particular Sunday. Still groggy and confused and completely panic stricken, I sent a text to Matt who was sleeping a few doors down in his own bedroom, and I was just so hoping my message would wake him up. Within minutes he knocked on my door, fully dressed, and said "lets go!" I didn't have my scrubs or my papers or anything I needed for work, which meant driving home to Provo and then back out to Murray in a matter of just a couple of hours. 

Through all of this mumbo jumbo, not one harsh word came out of Matt's mouth. Not one question or sound of exasperation or even a silly tease. I felt so stupid for having such a huge brain lapse, but Matt thought of nothing except helping me get to where I needed to go. He quickly gathered our belongings from all over the house and loaded the car while I got dressed and brushed my teeth. His reaction to my mistake almost left me in tears - the happy kind. I could do nothing but throw my arms around him and thank him for being so nice to me.

Our day ended up being full of blessings despite the rocky start! I recognized the miracle that it was that I had woken up early realizing I had to work, when I easily could have slept late and never remembered about work... until I got a text from my boss or something. Also Matty had happened to wake up just moments before I sent him my panicky text. On our car ride home, we were able to enjoy a spectacular sunrise. We also shared an awesome spiritual learning experience as we read from the scriptures to recenter ourselves and kick off the Sabbath day right. Because I was assigned to work in the office and not on the floor today, I had a few extra hours to get to work than usual - and then it ended up being the easiest day ever as there were no discharges or admits in the facility. Matt was able to go to church and bear his testimony in our ward, and I sat among my patients and their families at work as the sacrament was administered (perks of working in Utah). Tonight we reunited and were blessed once again with more time together as we listened to the Christmas Devotional given by leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. 

My heart is full of love and gratitude as I climb into bed tonight. After weekends like this, I am reminded that God has his hand in my life. He is aware of me always. He never ceases to bless me! During this time of year, it is so easy to get caught up in the happy havoc of Christmas. Through it all, may we remember that the Savior is the real reason for the season. He is the Gift!

Want To See Some White Dresses?

I was never one of those little girls who dreamed of her perfect wedding day. Instead I was a girl who thought a lot more about who my future husband even was and when (actually, I worried more about the if) i'd get to meet him and all about the eternal marriage that we'd share. I mean obviously I knew planning a wedding would be involved somewhere along the line, but I was always much more excited about being in love and starting a family and getting to be a wife! Needless to say, I didn't think about or know what I wanted for colors. Or cakes. Or centerpieces. Or flowers. OR A DRESS.

I've been blessed to wear a few special pretty white dresses in my life. Starting with my baby blessing dress, then my baptism dress, and most recently my temple dress. Now newly engaged, one of the biggest wedding planning checklist items for me was to find a wedding dress. 

Wanna know what sucks about wedding dress shopping? You only get to keep one! I tried on so many gorgeous dresses (ummm yeah and some not so gorgeous haha) and I only get to show one of them off to the world! Well, I say no way to that... I want to show you more! :) So here you have it. A bunch of pictures of me in fun fluffy white wedding dresses.

Now before I make anyone too nervous, i'm not too crazy... I have indeed finally said yes to the dress, but THE dress is not pictured here. That one i'm going to make you wait for :)

Now I invite you to enjoy the myriad of crazy facial expressions this girl makes while being photographed in these once-in-a-lifetime kind of dresses.

(turns out I got me some curves. who knew?!)

(for a while I thought this was the dream dress after seeing my friend Kara try it on last winter. Then I put it on and all I thought was nope nope nope.)

(this one was almost a winner. it was a close 2nd place)

(the mamma pulls good faces too)

I'm so thankful for my ladies who helped me with this step of wedding planning! My mom of course, my bestie since birth Rachel, my Bachelorette crew, and my future MIL Karen who ended up being the one with me when the final decision was made! I love you all!

 

Wait i'm not done. One last thing.

Imagine you walk into a wedding dress shop, and the girl who walks toward you to help you out for your appointment that day is your ex-boyfriend's wife. And there's this brief flash of recognition in both of your guys' eyes. And you can tell she knows who you are, and you know who she is. But you both quickly recover and neither of you say anything or acknowledge the gigantic elephant dancing in circles while juggling flaming coconuts in the middle of the room.

My friends, this happened to me. Totally not making it up.

#bestawkwardmomentever

Thank goodness for laughter, because thats seriously all I could think to do. 

Life is grand!

An Engaging Story

Okay folks, its time for an ... MY engagement story! Well, both of us were involved of course, so really its OUR engagement story :) And may I just say, it is such a happy one! 

About eight months ago, I started dating my home teacher (that is a funny story, and i'll tell it to you sometime... but for now i'm too excited about focusing more on the present day). Not too far into our dating relationship, Matt and I were sitting in his kitchen doing homework, and he just looked up across the table from me with a smile on his face and asked me to marry him. Being the jokester that he is, I knew it was all just good teasing fun. Nevertheless, my jaw dropped and I scolded him, telling him he wasn't even allowed to jokingly say things like that. I don't think he cared. He kept asking me anyway. On a pretty regular basis over the next weeks and months I heard the words "wanna get married?" spout from his mouth. Every time it happened I just pushed his face away and told him to cut it out. One time he joked that someday we'd tell our kids that he asked me to marry him every day until finally I said yes. Yeah yeah yeah, was all I thought at the time. What I didn't know then was that relatively soon, I really would be answering with a big YES to his repeated question!

A few weeks ago, I had a trip planned to go home to Seattle for a weekend. Matt had school and work, so I would be making the trip home by myself. However, I felt sure that by the time I boarded the plane I would have a ring on my finger to show off to friends and family at home. I couldn't believe it hadn't happened by the time I left. Little did I know that by the time I boarded my return flight to Utah, I would no longer have a naked little ring finger.

Guys, he did so good. SO GOOD!!

My mom and I had been out shopping on Friday afternoon (the day after I arrived) and when we walked in the door at home, my mind immediately registered that Matt's and my song was playing in the living room. Me being my bossy little self demanded for dad to tell me why he was randomly playing "our song." 

And then I noticed a big bouquet of beautiful flowers on the table.

And then I saw a video camera in the corner and was confused.

AND THEN MATT'S FACE AND BODY AND CLOTHES AND EVERY SINGLE PART OF HIM THAT I JUST LOVE SO MUCH WALKED AROUND THE CORNER IN MY LIVING ROOM AND KNELT DOWN IN FRONT OF ME.

And then I heard that question that i'd heard so many times before:

"Jannette, will you marry me?"

But this time it was different. It wasn't a joke! It wasn't immediately brushed off. It wasn't causal. AND it wasn't empty handed ;-) The man was on one knee, in my house in Washington, asking me to be his wife forever and ever.

Dude, I SAID YES... after some gasping and kissing and hugging of course.

Mom in the background totally just makes this great.

I love this man. I get to spend my eternity with him! 

We are being sealed on Saturday February 14, 2015 in the Ogden, Utah temple. 

More details to come! :)