Wisconsin Trip!

Alright, Shark and I went to Wisconsin last week. Shark fished all week and hung out with the family. I hung out with the family. My mom also threw me a baby shower while I was there. It was alot of fun!

**LOTS OF PHOTOS**

My parents have a dog, Allie. She's a collie, and she gets lost easily. :)

My parents also have deer. They feed the deer, and have for the past 7 years or so. One morning, Shark and I woke up to 2 fawns eating. Photo taken from the kitchen.

My parents have a pond. My dad stocks the pond with bass, blue gill, perch, and rainbow trout. Shark was having the best vacation ever, waking up to fishing every morning!

Our family has a tradition of sorts. Most summers we go look at waterfalls. We have usually gone with another family, my mom's best-friend-in-the-whole-wide-world's family when they come to visit. This year we went just us, but my dad came! We went to Dave's Falls State Park. It was a nice hike (yes I did it!) and tha falls were beautiful. Shark and my dad started trying to get lures and bobbers out of trees at the end!

My mom threw my a baby shower, with the help of my sisters! It was alot of fun! More pictures would have been taken if we hadn't had so much fun talking to the girls!

Shark was kept busy by my dad and my brother. He and my brother started throwing the football around. They threw it from the trampoline, they played 500 off the roof, they threw it to the dog. My dad needed Shark's help with the basketball hoop installation. Now, if he only gets that court paved, he'll play some ball.

Our trip to Wisconsin was loads of fun, and very relaxing. We got to sleep in as much as we could, and fish as much as we wanted, and just hang out. It was so much fun! Thanks mom and dad!!

Love to the family! ♥

Understanding

So, Shark's new schedule is a rough one. He works a swing shift. 3 days off, 3 days on, 4 days off, 4 days on... But he also works the night shift : 6:30 pm-6:30 am. It's not that hard once you get used to it, but it really takes some time to get used to. He still needs more time, I think.

Everyone asks me if it's hard for me to deal with. Eh, yes and no.

NO - because we needed this job. I'm able to stay home, take care of the house, and the baby when he gets here. This job pays our bills and allows Shark to go to school still. I have plenty around the house to do and keep up with. Also, he's working in the field he's studying in. This is what he'd like to do when "he grows up" and he's working for a company that would allow him to move up. He's already excelled at the job he's doing and learning more about other jobs there too. He enjoys it. He likes his job, and a rough day means he's got to find and wash more cans, rather than the rough day as a driver meant picking up 3 pallets of 100 boxes each, and each box weighs 47lbs. His rough days aren't so rough. And my schedule is going to be changing here in 10 weeks or so. Once Little Man comes to town, times are going to completely change!!

YES - because I wish I had more time with him. {NOTE: It doesn't matter what his job or shift would be, I will always want more time with him. Even with his last job I wanted more time with him, even when we were in CO and we both had days jobs, I wanted more time with him. Wives always want more time with their husbands!} The hardest part, and I've already talked about this with him, is the few minutes we get to see each other awake. Those sleepy minutes when he gets home at 7:30am {he drives an hour each eay to and from work} and I'm still in bed, I read and pray and he snuggles into me to get warm {motorcycle!} right before he starts snoring. And those rushed hurried minutes where he jumps in the tub and then out quick and then I feed him something to eat before he has to rush off and beat traffic and construction. That's what's hard. But really, that's only 3 nights a week, 4 on a long week. It just feels like a very LONG time in between seeing him. 

We still make time for each other, tho. We have a date night, where we either go out to the dollar theatre and see a movie that neither of us knew was out yet, let alone in the cheap theatre. Or we stay in a watch a movie, either from The Collection or from Netflix. This week, we did both. We watched Toy Story 3, and went a saw Transformers 3 with some friends. This morning, he brought me flowers. :)

And starting tomorrow, we're going to be on a vacation. We're flying back to WI for a while, and Shark will be able to fish every single day, all day long! And I get to do baby stuff with my mom and sisters!! Yup, we're both pretty excited.

Shark and I have come to an understanding. We still talk to each other, and hold each others hand and kiss and eat dinner together. Right now, we are so grateful for each other, and the sacrifices we're both giving. I'm grateful for him, and how hard he works, and how much he's doing to provide for us. I'm grateful for his strength and love for me. He's grateful I do laundry and cook, and keep the house clean-ish. He's grateful for my strength and contentment with being home, and my love for him. {We've talked about all this.} He means the world to me and I am so happy that we found each other!

Ooh, enough of the mushy stuff!! :) I've been making Little Man's baby blanket!! I've got all 9 wonky squares done, now I just need the white fabric for the border, and the flannel backing for it. I'm pretty excited with how it turned out. The wonky log-cabin is such a forgiving pattern {not sure if it's really a pattern, maybe more of theme..} and it's very versitale. Plus it's lots of fun and looks great.

This is me finally making good use of the craft table in my craft room!!

Here are the flowers Shark got me! When I asked him to take them upstairs (so I didn't step on them when I got out of bed) I said, "Now, I'm not trying to mean or evil, but you don't have to put them in water cuz we'll just be leaving in the morning and they'll die next week." Our plane takes off at 8:30am tomorrow, Shark will be heading to the airport straight from work.

And I painted my nails yesterday! I love how they look. I've had this bright magenta nail polish forever, and I bought a silver glitter polish yesterday to go over it. I love it!

So far that's what's been going on. I think the week after next, I'll get some white fabric and some flannel backing for the blanket and finish it up!

And I'm ending on a picture of what Bandit does while I'm in my craft room.... Making sure no one sneaks up on me!

Love to all ♥

The List - A MUST for Engaged Couples

So, when Shark and I got engaged, I bought 1 bridal magazine. It was huge and full of all kinds of ideas! In this 1 magazine, they had a 3 month checklist. {Which was great, because most Mormon couples aren't engaged for longer than 3 months!!} But it also included The List.

Shark and I come from different family situations and backgrounds. My parents are divorced and I was raised by my stepdad, his parents are still together. I was raised in Wisconsin, 45 minutes from my church building, and members being the minority; he was raised in Utah, 2 blocks from his church building, and members being the majority. I have 5 brothers and sisters, we fought all the time; he has 3 brothers and sisters, and they are best friends. We both had different opinions and thoughts about marriage and raising a family.

The List helped us get on the same page about marriage, duties, chores, holidays and family. The List is a series of questions, questions I never would have thought to ask, never would have thought mattered. We found out later, these questions really did matter, and they made all the diffrence in the world.

I still have the pages from the 1 bridal magazine. I did NOT create The List. We added our own questions to fit our relationship. I am NOT taking credit for The List, but I feel I had to share it. I'm not trying to deny anyone the credit for The List. The name of the magazine I got was LatterDay Bride. Pam Fullmer wrote this article, and she did a wonderful, amazing job in writing the story for The List and The List itself.

Alright, without further ado, here is the link to The List!! I put it on my Google Docs, cuz Google Docs is awesome and easy!

I am also giving you the link to the 3 Month Checklist! It was helpful for me to have a checklist, I was flying back everyother weekend to plan a wedding!!

One thing I also found helpful, was the Wedding Workbook. It gives a checklist, a budget planner, a guest list planner, a photography planner, a music planner, flower planner (with which flowers are in season!), and a reception seating planner!!

Shark and I had our own set of questions on top of the ones in the sample. Do you steal covers? Snore? Creamy or crunchy peanut butter? White or wheat bread? Will you go grocery shopping with me? How do you want us to greet eachother when we get home? What do you do to relax? How do you organize stuff? What do you NOT eat or drink? What smells do you not like? What color would you HATE to wake up to? Sleeping in on Saturdays? How clean do you want/expect things? What do you want to do together? Seperate? What things should we not do so our kids don't do them? Will you help me pick out furniture? Will you talk to me about problems? About your good days and your bad days? How do you handle confrontation? How do you handle anger? Will you confide in me? Medical history?

And those are just a few. We had 5 pages of questions we came up with together. We made a big date night of it, a mega Determine The Relationship date. But we only did this mega DTR after he asked me to marry him, so it didn't catch either of us off guard or make us uncomfortable. We were preparing to share our lives together, so these questions were completely appropriate.

I truly believe that answering these questions strengthened our relationship and helped prepare us more for marriage. We were mostly on the same page when we came out of the Temple that beauutiful day in June. I don't think anything else could have prepared us more or gotten us more prepared.

I figured I'd share The List. I've been thinking about it for a few months now, and finally FOUND it! Trust me, I lose these papers so often, I'm kinda surprised I found them! I hope you enjoy The List!

Love to all in love ♥