Road Trip

Ben and I were invited to go rafting on Monday but Ben decided that we needed a day together. Just Us. I have been staying the weekends at Mom and Dales house trying to finish the wedding plans. For the last three weekends Mom and I have been making cookies for the refreshments on the lawn. Gwen (my cousin and bridesmaid) came over two weekends ago and helped us cut, bake and decorate cookies. She did such a great job but I think we talked more than accomplished cookies because Mom and I alone made and decorated over a hundred cookies last Saturday and we started way later than the Saturday Gwen came over. :) either that or we had become professional cookie bakers and decorators by then.

So I mentioned that I have been staying over at Mom and Dales house, well Ben is staying in a travel trailer on their property until we get married so we decided to leave from there and just road trip to Ouray!So we did! And it was fun! We originally planed not to think or do any wedding planning Monday but you know how that goes! We ended up doing wedding stuff anyway that morning and then left on our trip. The scenery was beautiful and just being together was good for us, we laughed and talked and took pictures on the way.

Once we got to Ouray we went to the Hot Springs which actually ended up being the "Warm" Springs so we stayed in the water long enough to see stuff floating by and realize this experience wasn't all that exciting so we left. ( I have been there before when the water was Hot but for some reason it wasn't this time and the pool was crowed so it wasn't that great). After we left the Hot Springs we went up to a Hot Springs Resort place that has a steam room and natural hot springs located under the resort. You walk in and it is like being in a hot steamy cave. It actually was a really neat place. You can stay there and have access to their Hot Springs pools rather than going to the public Hot Springs. It would be a lot of fun to stay there after we are married. Before we left town we got burgers and sweet potato fries to go and eat on our trip home. We had a great day! It was great just to drive and get out of town for a little while together without really having an agenda.

Miss Kim Sample

I needed to post this so miss Kim could take a look.

What to look for:

Light bulbs, leaves, ribbon, pearls, flowers, green somthing so that it will bring in the green chairs-all we have to do is add Ivory or white toole with pink or brown ribbon to the back of the chairs to bring chairs and table together.

Thank you Kim-Love you (this was taken at my moms house-you can see how much fun we have decorating-I painted the tanish gray arches on the wall-you can see them at one point in this video)

Presents Presents!

When you get married its like Christmas early!

Ben and I received our first engagement present from my moms dear friends and my cousins Aunt and Uncle. I call them Uncle Clive and Aunty Maschelle! They live in New Zealand so the present they sent was coasters made out of New Zealand materials. I truly enjoyed them! Not only were they our first engagement present with a card that had both of our names on it, but it was from Uncle Clive and Aunty Maschelle and from New Zealand (the land I spent 5 years of my life living on). The coasters are now displayed with my African inheritance from my mom (I was born in Africa and I longed for my moms African stuff that was always displayed while I was growing up, so when I moved into my own place mom gave them to me to display)

The second engagement gift we received came from Ben's Grandma. She sent me beautiful pearl bracelets that I am going to try to wear with my wedding dress if I can (they are fresh water pearls). Ben received a nice solid stamp holder with a whole roll of stamps. The holder is nice and neat for his desk. It was fun opening this package(our second engagement present)

Today I got a call from Ben that our first Wedding present had actually arrived! Chelsea and Mike, Ben's sister and brother-in-law were the first to purchase gifts from our honeyfund account. Ben had heard that you can go to this website http://www.honeyfund.com/ and set up an account where people can go and purchase a day at the beach or multiple people can purchase your airfare for your honeymoon. So he checked it out and created us an account! Through it you can also link your registries so that everything can be accessed from one location or in this case one website. We had fun setting it up and I had fun registering through other stores online while Ben watched a movie and later he linked it all together though honeyfund. So as I was saying we told Chelsea about the fund online even before we sent her the invitation with the information included (which actually we still haven't sent her the invite yet although it is coming soon) and she already purchased items from our Pampered Chef registry and I received them today! Yeah! I had been praying for the packages to arrive while Ben was sick and staying at my apartment on the couch while I was at work ,because I knew for sure we would get them and well we did! The picture on the right is the exciting items I get to play with now! The following pictures are of my two helpers! Moses and Baby.(after looking at these pictures scroll down. I blogged about our engagement pictures)

Engagement Pictures

Why is it that when you are anticipating something it seems like time stands still? This is how I felt waiting to see our engagement pictures. I couldn't wait, so I checked my mail box every day until they came and once they did Ben sat down with me in his kitchen and we watched a slide show of them. He even helped me pick out the ones we liked the most and put them in a file.

Abi our Wedding photographer and our pastors daughter came to Durango to see her parents but while she was here in Durango she took our engagement pictures! I chose 3 outfits for me and then went to Ben's house with my clothes and chose 3 outfits for him that would coordinate with mine.

Ben and I had picked out the first location for the first bunch of pictures. We wanted to take pictures on one of the trail bridges that crosses the river. For one we liked the bridge and second we had our first official date at midnight rafting down the Animas River with a full moon out.

The second location we took pictures was in the bushes by the river (The first above picture was one of these). I wasn't so sure about this location but I have to confess that these pictures are among my favorites. And so the journey of pictures continued as we went down town Durango and took pictures in the places Ben and I like to go like The Rockey Mountain Chocolate Factory (ok so I really like this spot-Chocolate! who can resist I tell you! My Nan said at her Birthday lunch a few weeks ago while we were on the topic of Chocolate and such, "well at least when we get to heaven we will be sweet!"I totally agree Nan!!). Then we went and took some pictures walking down main street and into one of our favorite store's which we call the magnet store(It has a real name but this works for us)we like it because we enjoy going in there and reading the magnets and occasionally bring one home. We also went to a Fuzzywigs the candy store that looks so good but we always just walk in, look around and leave or we just walk by on the outside. The last place we took pictures was the Lions Den over looking Durango! What an adventure we had taking pictures!

Oh one more thing I love this picture (one of the bushes pictures) but I have to tell how funny it is to be in the middle of a photo shoot when the whole Durango track team comes running by and you are suppose to act natural. Its not that easy! Just thought I would relive the moment again by giving you a picture that the camera did not capture at that moment.

Here's to a better day.

Sitting atop of Durango at the lions den with Kelly in my arms I was overwhelmed with gratitude. God is faithful though we are challenged he never leaves us. Today was a day of refreshing from a long cold winter and a day of hope for a spring of new begginings. In just this last week Kelly and I have come through a valley of emotional lows to this mountain of comfort and beauty.
This picture is of us on Sunday out at Ryan's property. Sunday was actually a very emotionaly draining day. Kelly was not feeling her usual chipper self. To spend time with church family that evening was very encouraging. The enemy came against us this last week. We encountered the fiery arrow of doubt and felt the shadow of fear surround us, but as our father has told us joy will come in the morning. Holding fast and just standing strong is sometimes all we can do. So today I was given a word from Isaiah and it brought us much new joy.

You hold your hand up high, God, But they don't see it.

Open their eyes to what you do, to see your zealous love for your people.

Shame them. Light a fire under them.

Get the attention of these enemies of yours.

God, Order a peaceful and whole life for us because everything we've done, you've done for us

O God, our God, We've had other masters rule us, but your the only Master we've ever known.

The dead don't talk.

ghosts don't walk,

Because you've said' "enough-that's all for you," and wiped them off the books.

But the living you make larger then life.

The more life you give, the more glory you display, and stretch the borders to accommodate more living.

Kelly and I read this together in the car today at lunch. God has a zealous love for us. God will order a peaceful life for us. The same voice that calmed a ragging sea, the voice that spoke life into our being that calls the sun up every day has ordered a peaceful and full life for us. God we have had other masters rule us drugs, alcohol others it may be finances or feelings. The actions of my past those dead days and thoughts they don't talk. The ghosts that seek to haunt my dreams or my waking moments they no longer walk with me. Lord you said "ENOUGH!" and that old self is dead. We have been raised and so shall we hold our head as we walk on. we walk on into a life larger then life its self, God will increase even the borders that we think are large and bless us beyond them. So I take that next step for one more day I will live in the direction of that blessing. For one more day I will belive what I know is true. For one more day.....

Last night Kelly and I went out to the hill that over looks Durango and we took pictures. I guess when you get engaged this is just something you are supposed to do. There is allot of somethings that "you just have to......" I'm still learning so much and trying my best to be patient with it all. Its been great so many people are so happy for us. Just yesterday we had lunch in the park because it has been unseasonably warm. We were enjoying our soup and rotisserie chicken when a lady walking her dog went past and I guess couldn't help but comment that she thought we were "so cute". Then last night after taking the pictures we decided to make sushi (which we are getting better at) and we went into Albertsons all dressed up we certainly got some looks but again it was fun. We are making progress steadily on the wedding plans. Kelly finalized her brides maid dresses it was a very hard process for her but she found what she wanted and now it is in the works. We have decided that we are going to have Abby Dwight and Lynn's eldest daughter to come in to photograph our wedding. Finally we should have invitations coming out soon. With all the wedding plans and stuff it has been difficult to think of anything else. I am sure there is more to come and Kelly will be twisting my arm to tell you more on my side of things. I am going to get better at this blogging thing.