Zero Bridezilla

I recently (as in last night) watched an awesome movie, Bride Wars. It was just to keep the happiness of wedding planning alive. (not that it ever died or did die, but you know.) I bought 3 wedding magazines, got some sherbet in a waffle cone, and snuggled with my boy, I mean fiance. tehe. It was a great night to say the least.

I feel like the general population stresses a lot about wedding planning, completely understandable. But I, Karalee Fuller (Jennings), commit to never stress about wedding planning period. However, I do give myself permission to stress about wedding planning when it is in fact, not my wedding as in my daughter's. How, you might ask is this going to be done. Well...

1. Watch wedding movies and laugh and fictional character's misfortunes.

2. Remember that mom is really the one that is stressed, not me. (sorry mom)

3. A wedding is only one day, a marriage is a lifetime and on to eternity.

4. Droll over wedding magazines.

5. Only make one major decision every week, when needed.

6. Make lots of wedding lists because lists are my best friend. hense the list

7. Continue to walk around glowing with happiness that I get to spend eternity with my best friend.

Here's a Bride Wars quote for your entertainment:

Marion St. Claire: A wedding marks the first day of the rest of your life. You have been dead until now. Were you aware of that? You're dead right now.
Emma: I understand.

Alarm Malfunction

On Monday night I was setting my alarm as usual...5:45am. I went to bed and got up when my alarm went off. I felt more tired than usual, but I went through my routine nonetheless. I said my prayers (don't ask me what I said I have no idea) washed my face, brushed my teeth, went to the bathroom, and started getting dressed for swim practice. At about this point I checked the clock out of habit only to realize that it was 1:06 am on Grace's speedy clock!! I couldn't believe it. I had woken up in the middle of the night and started getting ready. It was the strangest thing. I put a t-shirt on a hopped back in bed just thinking that a text message or something woke me up, too tired to realize that I had actually turned off my alarm. In the morning when I was more coherent I pieced it all together and apparently I had set my alarm clock for 12:45am instead of 5:45am. Maybe I should get more sleep. Haha

October 21st, 2011

This day was pretty memorable I guess you could say...just kidding it was the happiest day of my life so far!! On October 21st, 2011 Scott Jennings ask me to marry him and I said yes! So here's the story according to me. (maybe Scott's will appear here sometime)

HER STORY:

So for about a week we had been talking about driving the Alpine Loop in the convertible Beamer (thanks future father-in-law :). Scott switched out cars about Wednesday, I think so that we could enjoy the fall beauty that much more. As an FYI the Alpine Loop is a curvy, narrow, somewhat two lane paved road that goes up past Sundance over the mountain to Alpine, hence the name. Most of the trees are Aspens and on October 21st every single one of them had bright yellow and yellowish/orange leaves covering them against the bright blue sky. We couldn't have asked for a better day. It was a bit chilly, but I was perfectly content with a blanket over me enjoying the crisp fall air. Anyways, enough of the details.
We packed a picnic lunch beforehand equipt with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (for Scott), a peanut butter and honey sandwhich (for me), goldfish, an apple, some Reese's, and some water. Pretty simple so I thought nothing of it. I mean, if he was going to propose why would we make the lunch ourselves right? (point 1) We packed it all into the car and I evaluated his clothing of which was pretty fitted, no awkward ring box type shape anywhere to be seen. (point 2) We brought Scott's fancy camera, of course just to take pictures of the trees, which came in handy later. (point 3) I did in fact take quite the plethora of pictures of trees so if you're ever short on tree pictures, I got you covered.
As we drove we stopped every so often to take pictures/"look for a place to have our picnic." (point 4) Eventually we got to the top of the mountain and started heading down the other side a bit. We still hadn't found a good spot to have our picnic, but Scott thought we should just "keep looking." I had figured we would just have to pull off on the side of the road somewhere and ignore the road behind us. But somehow we came upon this little pull off that opened up into a fire pit area. I mentioned how that looked like a good place as soon as I spotted it. I didn't realize til afterwards, but Scott was already turning when I said it. However, I thought it was my idea. (point 5)
We got out of the car and got our picnic stuff out of the trunk. I thought maybe he would have the ring box in the blanket, but no. He swung the blanket over his shoulder like a rag doll. Most definitely not in the blanket. (point 6) So then we ironically found this nice little dirt path that lead into the woods and we decided to search for a "log" to sit on to eat our lunch. Scott went first down the path and I followed. I found a cool log, but apparently it wasn't good enough so we kept walking. The path went down the little hill and opened up into a field. In the middle of the field was...just take a guess.....well if you guessed CUTE LITTLE TABLE WITH FLOWERS, LACE TABLECOTH, AND CUTE PLACE SETTINGS you were right! Now you see, I saw the table from pretty far away and pointed it out to Scott. Scott responded, "What table? I don't see a table?" in his goofy, dumb voice. Silly Scott.
We walked up to the table, which had raspberries, grapes, pink lemonade, roses, the works. Soo cute! (point for Amy and point 7 for Scott) I was taking pictures of the trees and stuff, trying to ease the tension because suddenly I got really nervous because I knew it was coming. Then Scott kissed me, put his hand in his pocket, got down on one knee, and said, "Karalee, will you marry me??" I said YES! Happy kisses and hugs proceeded as well as an unnecessary amount of happy giggling from me. (ten million points)
We took lots of pictures and luckily we left our phones in the car so we just got to enjoy the moment for a while. I'm sooooo excited to marry Mr. Scott Nathan Jennings and be the luckiest girl in the world!!
Sincerely,
The future Mrs. Jennings

HIS STORY:

Well it all started about a week before once I had bought the ring. I had suggested to her that we borrow my dad's bmw and go drive the Alpine Loop with all of the beautiful fall colors the following week. Once I had the ring (Friday) I then started brainstorming up different scenarios of how and when to ask Karalee to marry me. Deciding I didn't want to wait too long, the Alpine Loop presented itself as the perfect opportunity.

So Wednesday I drove up the loop in order to scope out the perfect spot. After stopping at least half a dozen times I finally found the perfect spot. There was a little pull off, a bit away from the road with a little path that lead through some trees and down onto a meadow.

On my way home I called Karalee's dad to get his permission. He answered and after some small talk I said, "Well I bet you've been expecting this call for a while now." He laughed and after asking his permission he said yes. phew.

Thursday was my prep day. I first went and bought flowers 1 red, 4 white, and 3 pink (1 I, 4 love, 3 you). Then I got in contact with my sister Amy asking if she happened to have a folding table that i could borrow (that was how I ended up roping her into helping me). Turns out she did and so I went and checked it out. While we were shooting the breeze she offered to do the set up for the following day so Karalee wouldn't be able to suspect a thing. I showed her on google earth where the spot was and the plan was set.

Friday morning I went and bought fruit and lemonade for the picnic (and cold cereal as a cover story for why I was running late for picking up Karalee from the pool). I then dropped off the stuff at my sisters and went back to my apartment to grab the ring. I couldn't figure out a good way to conceal the box so i called my mom and she suggested that I tie a ribbon around the rings and just put them in my pocket. I of course didn't have any ribbon so i just stashed the box in my car and figured somehow I'd make it work (this comes is later).

After picking up Karalee from practice I had some good dead time waiting downstairs just waiting. While I was eating my cereal realized that the dried flowers on her wall were all tied around the middle by a little piece of ribbon. instantly putting 2 and 2 together I went into the kitchen grabbed some scissors and snipped off a piece (I figured she wouldn't mind too much). then i snuck out to the car, grabbed the rings, tied them together with the ribbon, and stashed them safely in one of the (zippered) pockets of my jacket. Soon my sister texted me that things were running behind up on her end and that I needed to buy some time. So after Karalee was done getting ready I ate some more cereal, we made our lunch together, and read an entire magazine sitting on the couch while eating yet another bowl of cereal. As we were walking out the door I texted Amy again to double check we were good to go and there was no reply. So trying to buy just a little more time we pulled off and filled up the tank before heading up the canyon.

On our way up the canyon we stopped for a second to let the big truck ahead of us get ahead, as we stopped I noticed my sisters car pulled off the road ahead and hopped that Karalee didn't (she didn't). We then continued on up the canyon up to the fork in the road where I knew we needed to go right. I said, "Which way should we go? We went left last time so let's go right." We then continued down the road and soon enough came the pull off. I suggested we pull of and we did.

After parking we grabbed the blankets and food for our picnic and started off down some random trail (wink, wink). As we were walking down the trail Karalee suddenly said, "Hey there's a table." I rebutted, "What table" (smooth I know). Karalee, "Is that table for us?" I just smiled and kept on walking.

Moments later we got to the table and Karalee started just snapping off pictures, I figured this was my opportune moment so I opened up my pocket and slid out the ring. We gave each other a hug, I gave her a kiss and interrupted with, "Karalee.." kneeling on one knee and showing her the ring, "will you marry me?"

-Mr. Jennings

Sicky

The pros of being sick:

1. Boyfriend brings beaUtiful flowers. (my favorite kind at that)

2. Boyfriend brings yummy clam chowder.

3. Boyfriend snuggles when everyone else runs away.

4. Abs are sore from coughing. (more sore than Tim's "ab" workouts)

5. Don't feel bad wearing sweats and not doing my hair all week.

6. It's much easier to do a deep voice for my frog sock puppet performance in drama class.

7. Get to use my cute little, colorful tissue packets.

8. Coughing keeps me awake in class.

9. Got to try a new flavor of cough drops.

Hey, at least there are pros right?

Fish-like

I often wonder why I became a swimmer. Of all the sports that I am aware of (sorry if I offend) swimming takes the most time and effort to be good at it. I've done it year round for about 12 years now with only August as a break or an occasional ankle surgery. Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if I had chosen a different sport. Anyways, needless to say, my life is going to be very different when its all over in a couple of months. I'm so grateful for the talents that my Heavenly Father has given me, especially to swim. I'm pretty sure my life would much more miserable without those much needed endorphins that I get on a daily basis. Although I may complain from time to time about my sore muscles or lack of sleep, I really do enjoy swimming. The people that I have met because of swimming have been great influences in my life and I love the many happy memories that come with it all. Hopefully my athletic motivation continues throughout my life. I don't know if I'll be a stellar triathlete, but we'll find out. :)

This past weekend I went to Stockton, California for a swim meet. It was so much fun to swim outside and get a tan! I feel more confident in my racing then I did last year. Training during this past summer certainly helped with that. My times were much better then last year at this time, probably due to my recent ankle surgery then, but still good nonetheless. Hopefully the meets to come will be just as fun and successful!

Peace. Love. Swim.

Weeord

Sometimes I feel like have a lot of weird tendencies, just insignificant things. Like how I always have to push 22 on the microwave instead of 20. Or how I randomly get a cramp in my pinky or second to last baby toe. I always have to put make up on my left eye and then my right eye and I'd much rather pluck my right eyebrow than my left, it's just easier for some reason. My toenails are always painted no matter the season, I just can't stand to have bare toes. If "Party Rock" is on, I have to sing no matter where I am, it's just one of those songs. Supposedly I leave the kitchen cabinets open all the time, I think its just sometimes. Turning off lights are more automatic to me than closing cabinets I guess. My unique fact during get to know you games is that I can pogo stick. I bet lots of people can pogo stick, its just that they've never tried it before so it makes me look more awesome. And of course, there are countless other instances of weirdness. It make life interesting.

But the best compliment I've gotten from Sterling lately is when he told me, "You're weird and he's weird." Yes, Sterling I do have a boyfriend who appreciates my weirdness and I appreciate his. It's fun.

How Many Lbs to Drown?

So I recently discovered how many pounds it takes to make me drown...about 20 pounds and 15 yards in a dive tank. This was not a grand discovery, you see. I just happened to go to swim practice one day. Two bricks were handed to me, practically strapped to my chest and I had to kick, not swim to the other side of the dive tank. You don't dare drop a brick because 14 feet below is quite the distance when you're gasping for breath and have another brick to carry. Instead there was an unnatural desire to glue myself to those bricks even as I sank below the surface despite the ferocious kicking. I choked a few times and looked a lot more vertical than I was horizontal. Needless to say, I understand the concept of drowning quite a bit more, unfortunately. Oh, how I dread Tuesday and Thursday mornings. But need not fear, I'm sure I'm getting stronger...hopefully.