26 & 29--The lucky numbers this year!

Happy Birthday to US! Hooray! We had a great weekend back home in Bismarck! We had great food and company. On Friday night, we met up with Bryan and Corey and ate at Texas Road House! Ohhh…that is one of my Bismarck favorites. We also got to spend time with our parents…all of them! They came over for official birthday night supper. It was fun to get everyone together to celebrate us and the engagement. We talked wedding and upcoming plans. This wasn’t the only planning that Dan and I did over the weekend for the wedding. We went and looked at the place we chose for the hall, the Mandan Eagles. We took a peak at how it looked set up for a different wedding! It was exciting to think of ideas that we could do with the location! We also took a look at our church on Sunday morning and began to think of details with the ceremony!

Little Getaway to the Hills!

We just had a great weekend in Rapid City-the purpose was to go down for Alexis’s wedding. She had a beautiful ceremony and it was an honor to be part of her day. She looked beautiful and the day was wonderful! We are excited to see how the photos turned out! We figured that we have 7 weddings to go to (at least) before ours so we are watching and getting ideas from others that we think are cute. I do have to admit, Dan cleans up pretty well so I’m very excited to see him in a tux!

We decided to stay a long a little longer to enjoy each other and the hills. We even had a little time to windowshop and play a bit!

Elvis even had an eventful weekend. We took him with us to Rapid and dropped him off at Safe Haven Pet Resort. He spent a couple days hanging out in doggie daycare-they told us he was really well behaved when we picked him up. Dan and I had a pretty good laugh on the last day though. We picked him up and decided to go down to Bear Country with him. On the corner of Mount Rushmore Drive and Main, there is a statue of President Taft bent over. Elvis took one look at him and growled! Good thing that bronze statue didn’t give us a second look-otherwise Elvis would have taken him out!

One of the best things that we did this weekend, besides eating at IHOP for the first time, was go to Bear Country. It was definitely worth the time and money to go and visit. Elvis really enjoyed it; he was staring the bears down and keeping his eye on all 180 of them! He was tough until he got nose to nose with the bronze statue—not so tough then! We loved the bear cubs…they were SO cute!

After leaving Bear Country, we took a drive to the Faces and through the hills on the way back home. It was nice to drive talk and see scenery that we are not used to at home! One thing that would have made the day is if the weather would have been decent!

Amanda said Yes when Daniel Asked!

I've been working on this post for about two weeks...life got the better of me, but I wanted to post our story!

This past weekend is one we will remember for the rest of our lives. Daniel and I are engaged! It was a complete surprise…I did not expect it at all.

We started the day off by stopping at Sears to try on fall coats, and I thought I left my phone sitting on a pile of gloves and had kissed it goodbye in my mind! We had gone to Olive Garden to have soup, salad, and breadsticks with Ashley and Jesse—well in the middle of the wonderful food; I left my phone SOMEWHERE….but I didn’t even think it would be at the restaurant. Daniel was so mad at me and told me that I was cutting his time with his mother short and he didn’t like to keep postponing. Well I became mad because he was abandoning me in my “hour of NEED” but come to find out he was scared to death that he wasn’t going to make it to the bank before it closed!

We talked later that day, after I had to buy a new phone and he apologized. I forgave him and told him that I’d meet him for supper with Nancy and Larry. When I showed up we had a steaks and wine. He polished off the end of a bottle and decided to have another bottle. We decided to sit on the patio and he was going to open the second bottle and bring glasses out. Little did I know, he was putting the ring on my drink charm of my glass. He brought out the wine for Nancy and Larry. Nancy took a drink and informed me that it “was kinda bitter and not as good as the last one”. When Dan came out he set my glass down, well I didn’t want the bitter wine so I took his glass, completely oblivious to the ring. He looked at me like I kicked his dog and I didn’t understand why! He picked up my phone to look at it…and played with it for awhile…and set it down in front of me. I picked it up to see what he changed the banner to and saw….”Will you marry me?” As I looked at this and asked him if he was serious, he put my old glass back in front of me, with the ring on the charm! I couldn’t believe it!! Just goes to prove, I can’t make anything easy for him! :)

We were able to tell my parents right away. We met Mom and Dad for drinks afterward and Dan helped me break the news-I’ve never had to start that conversation and needed the help! I was also glad it worked out to tell them right away.

Since the engagement, we’ve picked a date…OCTOBER 2, 2010. We’ve picked the church, Calvary United Methodist (on 34th and Rosser in Bismarck) and we’ve picked our hall-Mandan Eagles Club. The tricky decisions are mostly done…now the detail work!

Taking a deep breath! Relax from what's happened or gearing up for what's coming??

Actually this week was pretty slow…almost didn’t know what to do with ourselves!! This is the pause before the weekends that don’t stop! Next week-Bismarck, then Rapid City, Bismarck, Elgin, Bismarck, then maybe stay home for a little bit before taking off to Fargo and Pillager (which I have no clue where that is!) We are excited about seeing all of the family and friends in the next couple weeks!

Because we are seeing so much family, I began to brief Daniel on my family tree. This has taken a few discussions and some diagramming. My next plan is to watch “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” which explains multiple things, especially when the main character has a monologue like this…
“At Christmas, my mom makes roast lamb…So what happens is my dad and my uncles fight to see who gets to eat the lamb brain- then my aunt forks out the eyeball and chases me around with it, trying to get me to eat it because it’s going to make me smart-I have 27 first cousins, just first cousins alone, and my whole family is big and loud and everyone is in each other’s business…” My goal is to not frighten him!

One other exciting thing is that I booked my flight for the first week of December—Mom and I are making a trip to Vegas! She has a conference and I’m tagging along to lounge and hang out at Mandalay Bay in Sin City! I’m pumped!

Cuts, Caging, & Combining!

Well-the week started off a bit dicey- Dan cut his finger slicing up watermelon. We had to call Nancy to make sure we didn’t have to take him into the emergency room or take him behind the garage and shoot him! He’s healing up but it hurt for a couple days.

We have caged the beast! Elvis officially has a fence! It is making the mailman feel a lot better. Dan built this all by himself-well him and Elvis. Last week at the rummage sale, we used the basic structure of the fence to hold clothes. Some people thought I was pretty ingenious! I thought it was resourceful!

I went home for the weekend to help harvest. Dad’s crop is pretty amazing—I even slugged the combine-something that I’ve never done! Not only is it thick…but it was the heaviest he’s seen. We started piling the oats on the ground! He’s almost done combining and we hope that he’s completed by my birthday!