Let's Rewind a Bit

Since it's been awhile, let's back up a little bit.  October ended with nothing other than Halloween.  We ducked out on the very few trick-or-treaters that actually make their way to our street and went grocery shopping instead.  Exciting, I know.  We did manage to carve some pumpkins though.  I think we had more fun watching Millie than the actually carving the pumpkins.

We spent Paul's 26th birthday at the Nitty Gritty with friends and doing what he loves to do most on a Thursday night - playing volleyball.  I worked on school work.  :)  November was pretty uneventful.  We celebrated my grandma's 80th birthday and enjoyed great Thanksgivings with both of our families.  

December started with a weekend spent with some great friends from college.  We had a blast making Christmas cookies.  Then it was only 15 minutes in and we still had to make the rest.  3 hours later we swore we'd never make cookies again!  We had a great time at the Christmas party for Paul's school.  We danced the night away and were able to spend time with some great friends.

On Friday we said goodbye to one of our best friends.  Our dog, Peaches, had to be put to sleep after 14 wonderful years of memories.  We're all sad to see her go, but know that she's much happier now chasing birds and airplanes like she used to.  I just hope there are some cows in Heaven that will let her lick out their ears.  Its one of her favorite things to do!  

And that brings us here.  Yesterday was 6 months away from our wedding and a week away from hosting my mom's family for Christmas then 3 more days of Christmas fun.  The tree is up, decorations are hung, and shopping is almost finished.  Tonight we head out for our annual shopping trip with Dad.  Sometimes I think we'll be 40 and still shopping with Dad.  It's one of our favorite Christmas traditions!  

We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and in case we're not back before then, a Happy New Year as well!  

Want to go for a run?

We spent most of our weekend dodging rain drops, but had a great time doing it!  Paul ran his first half marathon on Saturday.  I'll be the first to admit that when he first talked about signing up I secretly thought "Really?  You're really going to do this?  School will get busy and stressful, you'll quit training, and will eventually give up."  I know this doesn't sound the most supportive, but school usually takes priority and running gets moved to the back burner.  I should have known better though, because when he puts his mind to something he does it.  And run he did!  In the rain and the cold.  I will say that I was pretty impressed and take back any thoughts of doubt.

 

 

He was concentrating so hard he didn't even realize I was there! 

 

 

 

Looking good after an awesome finish!

I wasn't originally planning to be there, but those pesky raindrops were actually a good thing!  I know what you're thinking.  First I didn't even think he'd be able to do it, and then I had no intentions of not going.  World's worst fiance?  No.  I felt awful about not being there, but I had signed up to do the Color Me Rad run with my sister.  On the same day.  At the same time.  Unfortunately for us it was down pouring at the start of our race.  Since they were running multiple start times we decided to hold off on running our race and headed over to watch Paul finish his.  The rain cleared up a little bit, and we headed off to get colorful. 

 

 

Pre-Race.  Check out those nice, white shirts!

 

 

 

It turns out the rain turned our color run into a tough mudder as well.  We were dodging puddles, avoiding slippery hills, and sprinting through colored powder.  Ok, maybe not the intensity of a tough mudder, but it was still pretty messy.

 

Our not-so-white-anymore shirts.  Hope's arm is still a little blue!

 

We had a great time at both races and enjoyed the rest of our weekend at home working on school work, taking a nap with Millie, doing a little shopping, and supper at Mom and Dad's.  A great fall weekend in Wisconsin at the {soon to be} Jones House!

Say Cheese!

We finally took our engagement pictures a couple of weeks ago.  We got them back the other day and I can happily say I LOVE them.  There are of course a few awkward poses, but there are definitely enough to choose from to be able to frame a few.  Our photographer did an awesome job and was so easy to work with.  You can check them out at the link below.  The password is 06152013.  It took me about 3 times of logging in to realize that's our wedding date.  Oops.  Warning:  There's not a whole lot of saying cheese, but there is a whole lot of kissing.  Guard your eyes!

Engagement Pictures

 

Momma's Girl

I had every intention of writing an end of summer post last night before we both started a new school year.  But then it was 10:30 and I realized if I had any chance of surviving the first day of school with 19 six year olds, I needed to go to bed.  Now it just doesn't seem right since summer has officially ended in our house.  Paul started his new semester today as well and Millie is back to her normal routine of sleeping all day while anxiously awaiting for us to come home.

I came home fully expecting to be body slammed by our favorite 4-legged furry friend {her favorite way of saying hello}.  Nope.  What did she do instead?  Puked.  All over the carpet.  I know you're all laughing thinking that the sight of me is what caused her to puke and it very well may have been since it was super hot today and our school isn't air conditioned so I came home looking like one hot, scary mess.  However, I was home for at least 5 minutes before the puking happened so I take no blame.

Usually she rebounds to her normal self within a few minutes, but not tonight.  Tonight she decided that since I still had a couple of hours worth of work to do she could entertain herself and rest peacefully next to me.  Paul took some pictures of her laying right on top of my school bag {in protest, I'm sure!} and of her laying on my lap watching the computer screen, but I look SUPER pregnant in both.  Thank you, flowing dress and slouchy posture.  No, I'm not pregnant so no, you don't get to see those pictures.  I promise you though, she looked pretty cute!

So, thank you Millie for being on your best behavior in hopes that we won't leave you alone all day again tomorrow.  I know you're missing your afternoon nap on the couch with mommy and I appreciate the snuggles after a long day.  I just hope you keep up this behavior until this thunderstorm has passed since your dad has so conveniently decided to go to bed already and I will be the one taking you out to use the bathroom before bed.  By the way, did you hear he poured coffee on his cereal this morning?  I'll tell you the rest of that story later!

1 Year Ago

Any guess what happened exactly a year ago?  It was at about this time of night, exactly a year ago that I came home from dinner with friends to find Paul standing at the front door...about to propose.  Have we really been engaged for an entire year???  It doesn't seem possible at all.  Unfortunately we have to wait nearly another year to officially become the Joneses, but in the meantime we are having a blast being the Future Mr. and Mrs.

My kiddos arrive for Open House on Tuesday which for me officially marks the end of the summer.  Just when I was starting to getting bummed that we didn't get to sneak in one last fun summer adventure we managed to find a couple of days when neither of us had to work to spend some time together and get a little wedding planning in too.  We headed to New Glarus on Tuesday for a tour of the brewery.  Turns out - it's FREE!  That's my kind of tour!  :)  To make it even better, Paul thought to stop at the Chamber of Commerce for a coupon book for a bunch of the shops and restaurants in town.  {Apparently my couponing and refusal to pay full price for things is starting to wear off on him!}  We had an awesome time at the brewery even though the tour was self guided so we didn't really know what was going on.  We got to see them bottling the beer which was pretty neat.

From there we headed to the New Glarus Hotel for lunch.  An experience we will never forget.  Our table was directly across from the other dining room's door.  About half-way through our lunch the chef came out and started giving a cooking demonstration to the people in the dining room.  Talk about being the background to a show!  As if that wasn't awkward enough, the chef finished just in time for the yodeling demonstration to start!  You think I'm joking?  I'm not.  Luckily we had a 10% off our meal coupon from the book so it was ok.  :)

We wandered around town some more after lunch.  We taste tested some cheese at the cheese and fudge store.  Don't worry, we bought some fudge too.  We got our free gift at the flower shop thanks to another coupon and then headed home.  That night I drug Paul along to a FREE dance lesson.  {Thank you, bridal show!}  It was only 30 minutes, so he can't complain that much, and we had a ton of fun!

On Wednesday we headed to the Green Bay area to go cake tasting.  Why so far away?  Have you ever heard of Uncle Mike's Bake Shoppe?  That's why.  It helps that my bridesmaid Brittni's family owns the bakery but even so, it's worth the 3 hour drive for some of Uncle Mike's baked goods!  We taste tested some AWESOME cake, then spent the afternoon with Brittni and her fiance Scott.  Paul convinced us to go to Lambeau for the stadium tour.  You won't be surprised to find out that we used our student IDs to get a discount on our tickets!  :)  It turned out to be a pretty fun tour and definitely worth the $10 for the chance to walk out of the tunnel onto the field.  After the tour we went to Titletown Brewery for drinks and then out to eat at Margarita's.  It was an awesome afternoon with some great friends before making the drive home.

 

 

So, all in all, a great end to the summer!  We're both anxious for our new school years to start and excited to see what the fall throws our way!

Dear Chicago,

Dear Chicago,

After spending 4 days in your city I have some notes for you.
1.  Your taxi drivers are CRAZY and honk too much.
2.  Please inform your pedestrians to only cross the street when they are supposed to.  That means they should not cross when there is a red hand and I am supposed to be driving, causing the taxi behind us to honk their horn.
3.  Closing the streets we want to drive on and causing the GPS to "recalculate" 500,000 times is not appreciated.
4.  Your museums are kind of overrated and boring.
5.  The animals in the aquatic show at the aquarium need to listen better so the poor girl narrating the show doesn't have to stall for 10 minutes while the whales swim around instead of exiting the pool. Oh, and the hawk was dumb - eliminate that part from the show.
6.  We only came across ONE nice/not creepy waitrees/waiter the entire time we were there.  I think that says something about the people of your city.
7.  Is it really necessary to charge $22 for only 4 hours of parking?  I don't think so.
8.  Bernardo the segway tour guide is AWESOME.  Pay him more money.

Sincerely, Julie

PS - We were supposed to be there for 5 days but cut our trip short.  Add Chicago to the list of places my poor children will never get to visit.  Disney World is number 1 on that list.

WAY up north

We got back Friday night from a great weekend in Northern Minnesota.  We made the 8 hour trip to stay at our friend's cabin in what can quite literally be described as the middle of nowhere.  We loved every minute.  Here's a picture recap of the fun we had.

Our beautiful home for the week.

We went swimming.

We water skied. 

We went tubing.

We fished.  Successfully.  With Sour Patch Kids as bait.

We made ridiculous trips back and forth from the boat to avoid getting wet.

We killed MASSIVE spiders with flip flops.  {Thanks again, boys, for saving us!}

Gorgeous view for the week.

Fabulous hostess for the week.  LOVE this girl!

One last family picture before heading home.

One of us slept the entire way home.  Can you guess who?

It was a great week!  Can't wait to go back!

ready...set...GO!

Welcome to a crazy busy week in the Jones house.   I just finished up our school year, Paul is finishing up his PT clinical and we're leaving for vacation in less than a week.  Of course our "finishing up" is paired with a list a mile high of things to do.  Clean up and finishing organizing my classroom, do the laundry, dishes, and other cleaning.  Our carpet is staring at me begging for a cleaning and of course the dog needs a haircut, her flea medicine, and her nails trimmed before I end up with one more scratch on my legs from her very excited "HI MOMMY!  I'M SO GLAD YOU'RE HOME!" jumps.  Add that on top of the list of things to do to get ready to go on vacation and you get one crazy busy week.  It'll all be worth it though!

Fancy White Dress

Next step on the wedding checklist...complete!  After 4 stores and 2 days of shopping, I bought my wedding dress this weekend!  It's white, and sparkly, and makes me look super skinny.  BONUS!

We Made It!

As of 11:00 am yesterday, Paul was officially finished with his first year of grade school.  WOOOOHOOOOO!  I am SO glad this semester is over.  I don't think I could have handled much more and I'm not even the one in grad school!  Now he gets just 2 days off before starting his clinical.  So much for a break.   That's ok, he got the chance to celebrate last night with friends while I stayed up waiting for the "come drive me home" phone call. 

In wedding world we're signing the contract with our florist this weekend.  I'm glad to have another thing checked off the very loooooonnnnnggggg to-do list.  Now if summer would just hurry up and get here so I can check off a few more things!  That and spend some time snuggling on the couch with our favorite puppy.  Who, by the way, I found sleeping on her back snoring last night.  Weirdest. Dog. Ever.

Happy Mother's Day!

Welcome!  It's been a crazy few days in the Jones household.  Paul is in the middle of finals and I am in the last couple of weeks of school.  We've had a lot of long nights and not a lot of relaxing time, but that's life and we love it!  Those of you who know us are probably realizing that I am already referring to us as "The Joneses" even though we're not actually married...yet.  Bottom line:  I'm too lazy to think of another name until we actually get married and then change everything once we do!  Which, by the way, if anyone's counting is in 398 days. 

Happy Mother's Day to all of the moms out there!  We hope you had a great day!