Memorial Day Weekend

This Memorial Day Weekend was beautiful in Kansas, the temperature was in the 80's and for once it was sunny for Sunday and Monday, normally is just rains all weekend.  I had to make up a clinical day from being sick a couple of weeks ago, so I had to work yesterday, but it was worth it I got almost all of my comps in!  I was suppose to make bows with Andrea yesterday, but unfortunately school had to come first.  Britt and I did get to go down and take some pictures of my friend Amber's family on Sunday, and they turned out pretty good.  The sun was super bright and so we worked with what we could.  We were suppose to be taking pictures for Taylor's 2nd Birthday, but a lot of them she wasn't exactly thrilled about taking, so we only a handful of good shots of her and most of them have Britt's keys in them :).  Here are some of the pictures that we took:

Summer Time

Summer time to most is the time when the "kids" (K-12) get out of school and don't have school until the following August.  This time has once again come, Britt's sister, Brooke, graduated from high school, last Sunday and Blake is on his last summer break! I however, as a student at an accelerated college program, will not get break until June, but it's only for 2 weeks. I really look forward to the 2 weeks that I have off every 11 weeks!  December can't seem to come fast enough, it will be nice to do what I LOVE and FINALLY get paid, not that I am complaining, however, it will just be nice to see the hard work and 3 years of my life pay off with a nice paycheck!  Operation Dave Ramsey will be in full swing at that point, well technically we are starting in September, following the wedding. I can't wait to be debt free and save for a down payment on a house!  It will be nice to enjoy the "Joys of Home Ownership" and not be in crazy amounts of debt up to our neck!   Here is our plan as of now:
1) Pay off our credit cards- currently we are estimating that this will take us about 1 year or so to pay off!
2) Pay off the vehicles, Britt and I both have very BIG car loans, we have just traded and traded and then didn't realize what we were doing by putting our upside "downness" into another vehicle until we met Dave!  We are planning on keeping our vehicles that we have now and paying them off.  I unfortunately had to buy a new car May 1st, I felt like a failure, I only have 3.5 years left on my old Kia note, but the transmission kept messing up and so every time we turned around we had to take it to the shop for them to find "nothing wrong", so we decided with the amount of driving that I was doing weekly to clinicals and back it was important for me to have a vehicle that was reliable and not always having to go to the shop for random transmission problems.  So now we have a '11 Kia Sorento--  LOVE IT, so much better than the last model, and then we have Britt's '08 GMC Sierra, we are hoping to have these both paid off within 2/3 years.
3) Save for a down payment on a house, Dave says you should save up at least 10% for a down payment, but maybe 20%, so we are hoping to have $15,000-$20,000 in 1 year to put down on a home loan.

This should set us up pretty good for our future, we don't want to bring children into our marriage unless we are financially stable, and if we need something for the child we wouldn't be able to provide it because we have a credit card to pay or a car loan to pay.  Though we may not completely be free of both car loans, or we may have to rent for the first year of a child's life, it is better than worrying about where we are going to get the money for a bill or an expense, at this point we are thinking we should be in at a good point in about 2/3 years to begin parenthood process.  I guess we will see!!

I will update with some pictures as soon as Britt is finished editing them!  
Here are some pictures from Brooke's Graduation:

It's official she is a high school graduate

I love this picture

Brooke was a LITTLE excited!

Britt's Family, minus me, I was the photographer :)

My new favorite website!

I Britt found an awesome website for ribbon and I am lovin' Hairbow Center.  I have to be honest my dear friend Andrea was this first one to order from them!  She is all about "now",  I always have to debate on whether or not I really need it that bad, then I make my decision a little later (thanks to Dave Ramsey)!  Anyways, Britt found this online when we were searching for alligator clips and it is seriously like 2.5 hours South of Olathe in Pittsburg, Ks, which means fast fast shipping as in overnight :)!  Anyways, they have amazing products not just ribbon, they have everything you pretty much need to make bows and they are VERY reasonable!  I don't know that I will never be able to purchase a solid grosgain ribbon from anywhere else, they have limited prints, but all of the prints are so cute!  Here are some of the bows that Andrea and I have made lately!!!

This was my very first complete bow!!

Baby Sized!

Well apparently Blogger, the world's most outdated version possible of Internet that I have at work, doesn't want me to show you Andrea's or my other picture I was going to put up of another one I made, so I'll have to save it for next time I guess.

A whole lot of nothing!

I can't believe that it is already the 15th of May, it really doesn't seem possible.  Britt's sister, Brooke graduates next Sunday which seems crazy because I met her when she was just a sophmore in high school.  I have a very busy week ahead of me, I have to work for the next 7 days, and instead of going home after clinicals I will have to come in to work following so it will be a pretty lengthy week for me, on a better and happier note, Memorial Day is coming up and my bestie Andrea and I are going to make some bows!  She has just gotten into the land of bow making lately and really enjoy's it like myself, so I am looking forward to a relaxing day with her!  I have decided that I am also going to start putting up stuff that I have planned/bought/thinking about for the wedding, it seems like just yesterday I had a wedding to plan in one year and here is it 4 months away!  I found the tuxes that I want, apparently tan is not a very common color when it comes to renting tuxes and so they are a little pricey, we may end up going with suits for the same price but the guys will at least get to keep them. My iphone is not the best at showing colors but here is the bridesmaid dress material, it is a very pretty color in person! It is a burgandy/wine color.  Andrea calls it plum :)

I have also decided to go with a fake cake with a real bottom layer and then getting sheet cakes, it honestly is saving me about 400 dollars!  I get it, wedding cake is good, but so is wedding cake in the form of a sheet cake.  Here is what the fake cake will look like!

That's about all that's going on in my life right now, here's to a good week!!

Onward with the dresses!!

My lovely Mother came up on Mother's Day and spent some time with me.  I am from a small town in Kansas so, she comes up here as much as she can because there is so much more to do in "the city".  Anyways, I wanted to go/take my Mom to the fabric store for Mother's Day, we both really enjoy going and looking for fabric for whatever little project that we are working on at the time or ribbon too, in my case.  My Mom brought with her the muslin of my bridesmaids dresses, they turned out awesome!!!  I am really excited about them and I can't wait to see it in the actual material and color!  My sister isn't modeling like planned, she was out of town, however Britt's younger sister is :). So,  here is the beautiful Brooke in the bridesmaids dress.

Back view of the awesome ruffle collar!!

What's that smell?

So I am 6 days from my last post, but hey at least it's not 1 week from the last post, like last week!!  I feel like I have stupid brain lately, I think my brain is fried from all the learning and working that takes place on a weekly basis.  Anyways,  I absolutely LOVE my Puma's, in fact they are the most comfortable shoes that I have ever owned, they save my feet from a lot of pain, since I am constantly on them at the hospital. I have came to the conclusion that all Puma's, after a couple months smell REALLY bad.  I have asked around especially the girls at the hospital and they all agree, all of theirs also stink!  I have only had my Puma's since December (Christmas), I get it I am a hard working woman, but even so, non-Puma's don't stink.  For some reason, they don't have any breathable parts to them, and so you take your feet out and in your face is the most raunchy smell ever.  I put powder in them every day, but it doesn't help, I think it's just about time to say good bye to the Puma's and on to something that is not so smelly. Alright, enough about the shoes.  This week clinicals have been good, this morning we were busy, and ironically enough it seemed like I was constantly taking pictures of feet :).  I like feet, probably one of my favorite x-rays to take, it is really neat to see how different people's bones are shaped and look, and they are really easy to take, 3 views of the affected foot and your done!  I like my new site that I started in April, its low key and you see some cool x-rays come thru, however,it seems like my clinical site has it's own odor, people who don't bathe, or don't wash their clothes, or reek of cigarette smoke, it's pretty gross. I realize that the hospital is really small and is in a rural community, but I am pretty sure that there is a bathtub in most people's homes.  Not only that, but even the in-patients stink, I mean they bathe them, but MAN OH MAN, sometimes it makes me dry heave a little bit--alright off my rant! Tonight, I had to work at the pharmacy following clinicals, normally, I don't have to work on clinical days, mostly because I am exhausted from working all day, however I had to make up some time from last Sunday when we bought my new Sorento.  I haven't ever worked on a clinical day, and honestly it's not bad, I am thinking I might try another week of this, then I won't have to work on Sunday's at all and can finally have a FULL day to relax and get caught up on housework and my womanly duties.  Alright enough rambling!  Have a good weekend :)