Engagement Ring!

I decided for the wedding I wanted to have my hair professionally dyed, but dyed semi-permanently.  The boxes at the store just don't have my right dark brown color.  Over $100 later, though, I probably should have just used the store box stuff, because she just went black!  Lesson learned.

Jon came home after work, as he has done every day for 7 months now, but he was acting funny.  Kind of jittery.  I asked him what was going on, and he had me sit on the couch, where he whipped out my engagement ring!!!  I am beyond thrilled that the jeweler was able to get it done in time for the wedding.  And not only my engagement ring, but Jon's ring, my wedding band, and the three rings he had commissioned for the girls.

This has been a long time coming.  Because we weren't sure WHEN we would get married, but knew we were going to way back in the early spring, Jon and I looked at some stuff, and put together what we would each like in my ring.  He took it to a jeweler that had high reviews, and was promised the world back in April or so.  He was not delivered the world.  Here we were, last week, and they still couldn't even get the renderings right, let alone be trusted to make the ring and in time.  I had honestly resigned myself to marrying without rings, but was concerned because Jon had had the greatest idea for the girls.  

He wanted them to be included in some fashion, and had the idea to have tiny rings made for them that match my wedding band.  We had planned to have some little ceremony where he presented the girls their 'family' rings as part of our marriage.  I really wanted this to still happen, but last week it was not looking good.  I had suggested to him a couple times a jeweler I had used a couple years ago, but he had already taken his designs to the other, and felt invested because he had already paid them in full.  Well, last week, we were both fearing no rings, so we went to my jeweler, who was AWESOME.  He not only said he thought the rings would be do-able in our time frame, but told us the truth about some of our design ideas...they weren't recommended for rose gold.  Jewelers will make them for people, and he was willing to also, but he made sure we understood that it wasn't going to work very well, and likely result in lost diamonds and problems with our settings.  We appreciated his honesty, especially when one, the other jeweler hadn't mentioned ANYTHING about problems with our designs, and second, because he could have just done it and been able to charge us a lot more money.

So.  That was Friday.  There was still no guarantee we would have them by the wedding, but we hoped.  And he delivered!!  And for over $1000 less than the other jeweler!  Jon had the difficult task of breaking things off with the first jeweler, including initiating a charge back on his credit card because they were claiming they needed weeks to get us our money back.  No bueno, my friends.

Jon and I both are VERY happy with all the rings and I am so excited to wear it.  Guys, it's an amazing ring!

Of course I had to take some closeups and send them to my mom and Tara, who have both been anxiously awaiting this day, too!  It's absolutely gorgeous.  Also huge!

It's a knife edge rose gold band with a Tiffany setting for the square cushion cut stone.  Bigger than is appropriate to talk about!  The wedding band is also knife edge and will sit right next to the engagement.  The girls rings are tiny, thin little bands, also knife edge, and Jon's is big and thick with a very subtle knife edge.  They all match, and I am so excited for this surprise for the girls!  They have no idea!

Amidst the excitement, Jon had a job of work to do in setting up our new outdoor dining table.

And then I convinced him to take a cute picture to plaster on social media!  T minus 4 days!!

Last Preparations

I have a giant long list of preparations I still need to complete, but today's was the girls' shoes.  I had found gold glittery shoes for them, and had the idea to spray paint them copper.  Easier said than done!  If you're going to spray paint, you've got to protect the parts you don't want oversprayed, so I had to tape the buckles, zippers, and soles up and stuff the inside with newspaper.

Set up a box outside, and voila!

Copper glitter shoes for the little flower girls!

They turned out SO great, and I couldn't be happier.  Next item!!  I still need to sew up Jon's bowtie, but we are very nearly all ready!

In a side note, our corn is growing...we have the silken tops!  Because Jon ran the drip system out front to them, they have actually gotten water this year.  I'm just worried they'll be ready while we are in Michigan, because they are already close but not quite there.

Timpanogos Cave

The girls go with Brad this weekend, so we headed out to do something active and fun as a family today because Jon took the day off.  We got tickets to Timpanogos Cave, and when we got to the visitor center at the bottom of the trail, we were informed that the cave itself is less than 50 degrees, and we would be in it for at least 45 minutes.  Well, that changed everything.  We had no idea.  So we arranged for a later time to do the hike and tour and raced down to the Cedar Hills Walmart to try and find long sleeve shirts or jackets.  In July.  We were lucky to find some shirts and sweaters the girls can wear again, but for Jon and I it was slim pickins!  We ended up each getting two guys long sleeve tees that I'm sure won't ever be worn again unless to bed or underneath something else!

But the experience was awesome!

There was a little whining, which was expected, but we did pretty well getting up the trail.

The inside was really fun.  I had been there before, but long enough ago that I don't even remember when.  So it was like a completely new experience.  The pictures don't do it justice, but here they are.

I think my favorite part is when they turn off all the lights in a cavern and it is darker than you've ever imagined.  Zero light under the earth like that.

Heading back down we all felt rather accomplished.

Jon took turns posing like a world conquerer with the girls.

I'm so excited to marry this man next week!!!

Carpet Cleaning

We figure Jon moving in soon is as good a time as any to have the carpets cleaned, and that happened today!

There are many spots and stains that are not able to be cleaned up, which scares me for the rent deposit, but at least we know it's deep cleaned.

The rooms look so different with furniture all up and pushed away.

We are on the final days to the big day!

Mac wanted a new hairstyle this morning, and this is what we came up with!  Super cute.  But we will see if it itches her neck.

Headed up to Grandmere's house for Sunday dinner, and the backseat looks like a fun place to be!

As we have kind of started doing, we stopped at Memory Grove Park to wander around with the girls.

I can't believe I didn't even know this was here for the longest time.

Moving Truck Day!

We kind of last minute decided to move Jon's big stuff today, and it took some looking and a couple bookings that were cancelled to get this dang truck for 4 hours this morning.  We seriously misjudged how long it would take to move his stuff, and only got a few things moved.  We would have needed the truck for 4 MORE hours to move it all, and it was a bit frustrating.  But we think we will be able to either borrow someone's truck to haul the rest, or be able to fit it in the car for several trips.

Projects

Leiden and Mac have been sharing a room, and we recently decided to move her downstairs so everyone can have their own room.  We decided it was best to move her into the existing craft room, so it had to be completely cleaned out and the big glass tables moved into the existing play room.  Where all the toys were literally just put into bins, willy nilly, in order to clean IT.  Well.  Jon had helped me move the big glass tabletops off the wood frames, and I figured I could move the frames easily.  Ummmm, not really.  I had forgotten that the reason I had put the tables in the room they were in was because assembled (the only way they ARE) they could only fit through THAT doorway with the required twisting and turning.  My disappointment at this not being a simple move began to grow.  I had no idea how the frames had been assembled, I just knew they had never been DISassembled.  I pouted for a while, then decided I wasn't going to let it change what we had planned, and looked on YouTube for tutorials on how to loosen the enormous screws the table is secured with.   It took a ton of elbow grease, but I finally got two legs off the first table, and moved it into the new craft room.  The second went a bit more quickly, and while it was tedious, soon enough the second table was moved in.  Then I put the legs back on, which was another tedious project, and set them up!  Whew!!!

These were my tools, and a couple of the screws I had to take out.

And finally the tables are moved in, and we can move Leiden!

The girls and I headed up to This is the Place Heritage Park, where they spent much of their time panning for gold!  They really like that, and it's relaxing to sit there in the shade and let them play.

No trip there is complete without ice cream!

I just spend most of my time trying to stay out of the sun.

Watering the garden has been tricky.  I forget often, and if Jon doesn't remember before he goes home in the evenings, then it often just doesn't get done.  So today he put in a drip system that will serve them well!  This also alleviates the worry of what will happen to the plants while we are in Michigan next month.

He did all of it himself, running lines and hooking them up.

He even ran lines up to the strawberries!

And they work!  They are the soaker lines that kind of ooze water out everywhere as opposed to having holes that have to be punched.  It seems to work really well.  He also set up a timer, so we don't even have to think about the watering at all.  This is going to be the first year I don't have things die because they bake to death!

In keeping with out copper theme, I found a large lot of copper containers on ebay to use for candle holders and flower containers for the dinner tables, and they came today!

I spent some time trying to group them as I will want them on the tables, and I'm so excited at how this is going to look!

12 of the pieces are some moscow mule mugs, but there are also some really cool other pieces, and there's a good variation of heights and sizes.

Preening

Jon's sister, Tara, has graciously offered to do my makeup for the wedding, and that means we get to play to see what I like!  I'm definitely not used to having so much makeup on my face, but I will look smashing in pictures.  Many foundations oxidize darker on your skin after time, so we are trying to find the right shade for that day.

She is a talented makeup artist and I'm so grateful she's willing to help!

Tonight we headed to B&D burgers and got shakes.  I was still all done up, so feeling a little self conscious.  But then I reminded myself that there are lots of girls who wear this much makeup every day, and just went with it!

We have been noticing a little flock of quail in our yard.  They are so funny, pecking around, and running instead of flying.  I saw them out the front window, and managed to snap some pics of them running down the sidewalk.

The little babies are SO adorable!!

Greenery!!!

Trying out some possibilities for a garland on the gazebo at Uncle Mike's where our ceremony will be.  I need 25 feet, so today I headed up to my moms to try out some of the ivy they've got there in their back yard.

I took it home and began wiring it together with some greens I got at Ensign floral.  We definitely want magnolia greens because the backsides of their leaves are a beautiful fuzzy copper color.  I think this will work!  I was heartened by how it looked and how relatively easy it is to put together!

In other green things, the garden is going gangbusters.  All our beautiful plants are growing!

Our little kind of afterthought lettuce garden is also just bringing forth fruit!

Our hanging tomato plants are growing and have lots of flowers.  Although I think the bags they are planted in and hanging from are going to give way as the sun bakes them.  We read that they begin to disintegrate in the sun, so knew it was a likelihood, and it appears they were right!

Jon's bucket strawberries are much more safe in their aluminum foil protected buckets!

The zucchini plant in the front is of course going to take over the world!  I took a picture with me by it to emphasize how large it is!  The only problem with it is it's crowding out the artichokes.  I think we just planted everything a bit too close together.