Kelly's Pictures and Other Stuff

Christina and Mark's Wedding

2010-07-08T11:01:00.002-04:00

On July 2, 2010, my friends Christina and Mark got married!!! I don't have any pics from the ceremony, but here are some from the reception.

Me with the happy couple
Mmmm...cake. They almost got into a big war with the frosting!

Their first dance was super cute!!! They did a waltz...
Part of the dessert table...there were lots of dessert options
The Howell crew (Amy, me, Stina, Katie, Justin, Jared, Sean)
Congratulations Stina and Mark!!!!!!!!

New York Road Trip

2010-05-22T15:48:00.004-04:00

On May 16th, 2010 my friend got married! Remember Mike? Him and Andrea got married...in New York! So we went out to New York to be there with them on their special day :)

Last few minutes as an unmarried man
Saying the vows
You may now kiss the bride
Yay!!!!
We got to blow bubbles at the bride and groom...then we blew them at each other
My friend, jessica, was the photographer at their wedding so I got to see her too! We did gymnastics together in high school
Their first dance as husband and wife
Mike loves Superman and superheroes in general so he got his groomsmen superhero shirts that they had on underneath their dress clothes. They revealed these shortly into the reception :)
Our little group of 6...Me and Matt, Mike and Andrea, and Chris and Danielle. Too bad we don't all live closer to each other
Mmmm....cake! They actually had an ice cream bar for dessert though. It was cool!
Me and the bride
On our way home, we stopped on the shore of Lake Erie to take a few pics

It was a fun weekend and a nice road trip! Congratulations Mike and Andrea!!!!!!

Tattoo Time!

2010-04-07T21:40:00.002-04:00

Yep, Matt got a tattoo today!!! Here's how it went down...

This is the before picture
Here is the print that the guy uses so he knows where to put the ink...a rather helpful step

Matt didn't flinch at all when he was getting the tattoo...it was a boring reaction really...haha

Halfway through...lookin good!
Here's the final product!!!! Ignore the redness...this was taken right after he finished.

Waffles

2010-04-07T14:08:00.005-04:00

Yesterday we decided to make a big breakfast...we made waffles, bacon, and peach mango smoothies!

Matt cooked the waffles on the George Foreman

Lookin good :)
I helped make the smoothies. Here is the set up on our table...
It was delicious!!!! We even had some leftovers for this morning!!

The Wannabes-On FOX 2!!!

2010-03-13T22:46:00.002-05:00

This morning, Shaylen and Andrew were on Fox 2 news talking about The Wannabes! How exciting for them :)

Here's the link to watch it: (about 3 minutes long)

Interview on Fox 2

The Wannabes Premiere Party

2010-03-10T17:15:00.003-05:00

This past Saturday, The Wannabes had their premiere party!! The show aired this past Sunday in Australia and will be traveling across Europe and into the U.S. within the next year. We got to watch 3 episodes (the pilot episode and 2 others) and some of the group's music videos.

The show was pretty funny and I can't wait for it to air here!

Me and Taylor waiting for them to start the shows!

At the end of everything, the 6 main cast members did a meet and greet with the fans.

Here's the 3 boys of the group-Alan, Andrew, and Drew
And here's the whole group! Alan, Andrew, Shaylen, Sarah, Mariah, and Drew (and Drew's mom too)

For more info about The Wannabes, you can go to their website:
The Wannabes Starring Savvy

Snow Fun

2010-02-28T23:12:00.004-05:00

Today Matt and I decided to build a snowman since the snow was melting and it was super packy!
Here's Matt rolling the bottom part of the snowman. Look at his face...must be heavy!

Now time for the middle part of the snowman

Next comes the head and smoothing out the whole thing. I learned today that my husband is a "professional" snowman smoother outer :)

Here we are putting on the final details...and building a pet for our snowman...a snow dog!

Aren't they cute?!
What a fun time in the snow :) Time for some hot chocolate!!!

Eventful day at church!

2010-02-22T12:07:00.006-05:00

On Sunday, our church talked about physical fitness and how you need to be physically fit so that you are healthy and able to do what God has planned for you. It also goes along with being spiritually fit as well.

Matt was in a skit at the beginning of the experience to start of the message about being fit ("experience" is what we call our church service) He is the one dressed up as a twinkie :) It's really funny!! Just click on the link below to watch the 5 minute skit:

"Food for Thought" Skit

At the end of the experience, the River Rock kids (kindergarten-5th grade) got to come up on stage and sing "Every Move I Make." Since I volunteer with River Rock, I also got to go on stage with the kids. Remember, we were talking about physical fitness so all the kids got to wear sweatbands! (They were super cute!) In the video, I am on the far left of the screen in a red shirt and blue sweatband. Click on the link below to watch us sing and dance to the song on stage:

"Every Move I Make"

**** I just realized that these links don't work unless you sign into facebook. I can't find a way to make the videos on facebook public like you can do with the pictures. Anyone know how? Sorry to those of you who don't have facebook...it's the only place the videos would upload****

Daily adventures in the first year of marriage :)

2010-02-18T15:57:00.004-05:00

We accidentally had a candle overflow and the wax dripped through a crack in the table and onto our carpet...YES, the CARPET! How do you get wax out of carpet you ask? Use an iron and a paper bag and/or towel!

I didn't get a before picture because I didn't think about it...but trust me, there was A LOT of wax on our carpet!

Here is Matt using a washcloth after already soaking up some wax with a paper bag.

Back to the paper bags...they worked the best!

This is after cleaning it up...you can hardly see where the wax was!

Meanwhile, I was acting all wife like and I actually cooked dinner! Here is proof :) I made tuna casserole

New Haircut/ Random Pics

2010-02-02T19:45:00.002-05:00

I got a haircut on Friday...and it was cut a LOT shorter than I wanted it...but Matt likes it, so that's all that matters I guess :) We decided to take some random pics tonight, so here are 2 of them.

We are both very busy with work and volunteering at church, but we are doing well. Life is good and we are just kinda waiting to see what happens in the next few months as to whether I will get a teaching job or not.

Amazing 5 year old...

2010-01-05T10:51:00.004-05:00

So this past year, there was a little girl named Kaitlyn Maher who was on Americas Got Talent. At the time, she was 4, but now she is 5 and she is adorable!!! She even has her own CD already! Here is a link to a video that was taken on New Years Eve of a song that SHE wrote for her dad. It is super cute and I just wanted to share with everyone :)

P.S. The link on blog wasn't working, so just copy and paste the address

Video: "Daddy I love you"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5e27RpJimM

You can also go to her website:
www.kaitlynmaher.com

A look back at 2009

2009-12-31T15:47:00.002-05:00

Here is a slideshow of the main things that happened in 2009!!

Bring on 2010!

Our First Christmas Together

2009-12-27T14:54:00.006-05:00

This Christmas was our first Christmas as a married couple...and we were busy!! We were both part of our church Christmas show called "Joyride" at The River.

This is a painting that was done during a church service right before Christmas
At the shows, there were gingerbread men and a snowman walking around in the lobby. They were pretty cool!
Matt was a janitor in the performance and he was the opener to the whole thing.

(video taken during a rehearsal, so it wasn't quite perfected yet)

He was also Joseph.

(video taken during rehearsal)

There was a REAL baby that played Jesus at every performance! In this picture, it is a doll because this was taken during a rehearsal

I wasn't IN the show, but I was in charge of the little kids who were the sheep. They were sooooo cute!!! It was fun, and a lot of people appreciated me being there to keep the kids under control.
I made each child a sheep ornament and a goodie bag that I gave to them after the last performance.
Christmas Day!!!! Our first Christmas together :)
One of my presents from Matt was Disney Sing It...I opened it and played it right away!
Then we made Christmas cookies
and decorated them too!
Here is the final product...take note of Matt''s "ninja" snowman and the bear with his head bitten off, haha. Matt wasn't exactly into making "cute" cookies
I was in charge of the cute cookies :)
Then we went to the Oglesby's for more family fun
And of course had to take lots of cousin pics!!!
Merry Christmas everyone!!!!!!!!!!!

The Journey to Disney Stardom has Begun!!!

2009-12-09T19:31:00.001-05:00

The music video for The Wannabes that Matt was a brief extra for has been posted on their website!

Matt is in the very beginning of the video in the background. He is wearing black with a black hat and is carrying a tan colored crate. All you will see is his back...but still, he's there! The song/video is called "Anticipation"

Here is the link to check it out:
"Anticipation"

November in a Nutshell

2009-12-08T19:02:00.007-05:00

Ok...so...I have been lazy and haven't updated my blog in awhile. It's just so much easier to upload pics to facebook. Oh well. Here I go. Here is what has been going on in the Wegescheide household during November....

On November 11-18th, we went to Missouri to visit family and celebrate an early Thanksgiving and Matt's birthday.

We got to hang out with some of his school friends

Here is Matt's birthday cheesecake...with one really big candle!

Me and Aimee (matt's sister) baked a banana pie pudding thing...it was tasty!

Chris made us all his special British tea

We had an early Thanksgiving dinner which was amazingly delicious!

We also went to the arch, since Chris had never been there before

We went up in it to show Chris the view of St. Louis

Then it was ACTUALLY Thanksgiving and we went to the Phelan's house

Me and my tall baby bro

Cousins!!!
Mmmmm...time to eat!!!
Dad with his big turkey leg

After dinner wrestling and meat grinders

Then another birthday celebration for Matt

On November 29th it was Matt's real birthday, so of course we had to celebrate for a third time!

We got together with my family and the Oglesbys

I got Matt a body pillow as part of his present so he could cuddle with it :)

Happy 24th Birthday Matt!!!

Halloween

2009-11-10T21:54:00.002-05:00

I figured I should probably post Halloween pictures before I head to Missouri for a Pre-Thanksgiving vacation...so here they are!

We set out a bowl of candy for trick or treaters because we went to a Halloween party with people from Matt's work
Matt was "eye candy" because of a joke that friends from work made about him being the coffee shop's eye candy. I was a farmer!
I had a pet pig too :)
Matt being all studly and stuff
It turns out I got to pass out candy after all to cute little trick or treaters! It was a fun night!

Happy "late" Halloween everyone!!

Pumpkins and Doors

2009-10-31T15:37:00.005-04:00

Our apartment complex had a door decorating contest for Halloween, so of course the teacher in me had to participate in that!!! I just found out that we didn't win, but that's okay, I still think our door looks cool.

The mess outside the door while I was decorating
This is the door halfway done...
And this is it all done!
I added some stuff around the door too :)
Then it was pumpkin carving time! We had a book with stencils in it to use for carving the pumpkins.
First we had to dig out the pumpkin slime
Then it was time to carve
Concentrating hard on my pumpkin
This is Matt's pumpkin. It is a ghost with the word "Boo!" inside
This is my pumpkin. It is a little monster
Yay for carved pumpkins!!!

Spicer's Orchard...AGAIN!!!

2009-10-25T14:25:00.005-04:00

Today I went to Spicer's Orchard for the second time this year! This time it was with my parents, grandparents, and husband!

This is how they make the cider...pretty cool
Dad and Grandpa with the John Deere tractor

Enjoying the pumpkins...
...and then seeing the sign that told me not to climb on the pumpkins...oops!
Wine tasting at the cider mill

Deciding which pumpkin to choose...
and then realizing that we didn't have cash to pay for the pumpkin! I guess we will be going to Wal-Mart soon instead :)

Spicer's Orchard

2009-10-20T15:34:00.003-04:00

On Saturday, I went to Spicer's Orchard with my friend Colleen and a bunch of people from her lifegroup at church. I took a ton of pictures, but only posted a few on here so you don't get bored :)

On the hay ride to go pick apples and pumpkins
Reaching for the perfect apple
Taste testing the apples
In the pumpkin patch
Look at all those pumpkins!!!
Pretty...
Our whole group amongst the apple trees
Finishing off the trip with some warm cinnamon doughnuts!! Yum!

To see more pictures, click HERE

Fall Adventures

2009-10-16T10:57:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, Matt and I decided to get out of the apartment and go for a walk in the park. We didn't realize it was going to be so cold and windy, but we had fun anyway :)

Me with a tree that is starting to become colorful
Matt...being goofy as usual!
There was a playground there too...can you find me in this pic?
Love!
Cute pic of us...can you see in our faces the coldness of the day?
Matt didn't quite fit through this opening in the playground
Pretty trees
After just a few minutes, we were freezing!!!
So we dug into the stuff that Matt had in the back of his car and bundled up :)
We were able to enjoy our walk in the park a lot more after dressing for the crazy cold wind outside! Fall is here now...

"Move those chains!"

2009-10-13T12:00:00.004-04:00

On Saturday, we went to CMU for the homecoming football game...and of course, to visit Matt!

The stands were full at the beginning of the game! Here is the team rushing the student section
The team using their great defense to stop EMU from scoring
Me and dad!
At half time I went to visit some friends...this is Colleen. I miss her!
Lauren (Matt's girlfriend), Alex (Matt's roommate), dad, me, mom, Matt
CMU scoring ANOTHER touchdown!! And each time we got a first down, the crowd would yell "Move those chains!". It was a spin off from Extreme Home Makeover "Move that bus!"
We won 56-8. Notice how the stands are a lot more empty? It was windy and cold...and we were crushing EMU, so a lot of people left.
On our walk back to the car, it was so windy that Matt decided to hide behind a tree to get out of the wind. It was a rather cold and windy day, but there was no rain and CMU won!!!

A Weekend to Remember

2009-09-27T19:33:00.003-04:00

This weekend, Matt and I went to a marriage conference put on by Family Life. It was called A Weekend to Remember. We actually got to go to the conference because it was a wedding present from some friends in Europe. It was great!! I would recommend it to any married couple, regardless of how long you've been married. There were couples there ranging from being married 3 months to 53 years.

There were a few different speakers, and each session was based on a new topic of marriage. It was funny and helped us grow closer as a couple. There were also resource books available for purchase that dealt with all the topics discussed at the conference. What a great wedding present!!

Our hotel! We stayed at the Hyatt, which is also where the conference took place.
This is Matt with the workbooks that we got
This is one of the speakers...Mark Schatzman. His wife was unable to be there this weekend.
Us waiting for a session to start
Being silly...despite feeling sick all weekend
The other 2 speakers...Larry and Anne Kayser
Saturday night was "Date Night" where we were free to do whatever we wanted. We chose to dress up and go out to eat at Olive Garden
I found a wine that I liked :)
It is called Moscato
We also got a really tasty dessert. It was a chocolate cake-ish thing with vanilla sauce and strawberries. It was super good!!

Thank you KC and Srikant Mantravadi for a wonderful wedding present!!!!

The Wannabes

2009-09-21T22:40:00.003-04:00

Today I got to be a part of the filming for the Disney television show "The Wannabes"! They are filming it at a high school that is only about 10 minutes away from my apartment :)

What is "The Wannabes" you ask? Go to this link to check it out...
The Wannabes info

I got to be an "extra" for the show, meaning I am in the background of the shots...walking in the mall, sitting at a table talking with friends, sitting at a booth in the sweet shop, etc. Although I am in the background, I am pretty sure I am caught in the shots at least a few times...meaning I will be on the show once it premieres :)

They will be filming for the next few months, and I am sure to go back as an extra at least a couple more times! I wasn't able to take any pictures on set, but here is a picture from google that shows the main cast members of the show.

Stay tuned for more info about the show and my adventures in being an "extra"

David Archuleta...Solo Concert!!

2009-08-18T22:54:00.007-04:00

Yesterday Kristina and I went to see David Archuleta in concert!! He is on tour with Demi Lovato right now, but she canceled their show at Van Andel Arena so he did a small solo show at The Intersection in Grand Rapids. There were only a couple hundred people there, so it was very small and we were in the 9th row! It was FANTASTIC!!!!!!

While we were waiting in line to get in, it down poured rain!! Lucky for us, we brought an umbrella...and we shared with the girl in front of us :)
It stopped raining after about 15 minutes, and then it was about time to go in. Look at our tickets!! The show was sold out, so we got them just in time.
Me and Kristina waiting for the concert to start...we were super excited!
He finally came out on the stage and all you could hear was screaming from the crowd...it was funny!
He sang almost all the songs on his CD, plus a few others.
He was cute and very relaxed the whole time. It was so fun to watch and hear him sing!
He also played 2 songs on the keyboard, including his song "Desperate". He had only played that song a couple times but he figured he would play it for us anyway. There were a couple pauses but he kept on going...it shows that he isn't afraid to just sing and have fun with his fans.
This concert was his last small solo concert for the summer, so it was kinda bittersweet for him when it was time to end. We would have been okay if the concert never ended :) His voice is incredible!
After the concert, we waited to see if he would come out to sign autographs and take pictures. We waited for 2 hours with about 30 other people...but he never came out. When his tour bus pulled away around 11:50 pm, we knew our chances for a pic were hopeless. As we were walking away, I heard the security guards say that if there were 10 less people there, he would have come out. I blame it on his "people", haha.

It's okay David, we will still support you and come see you again in concert!!!

This is a fun video, because it shows David talking to his fans a little bit. At the very beginning he says "It's hot in here!" because it was super hot...I don't think they had the air conditioning on. Then he goes on to say how his next song is one that he "has issues with because it involves whistling" but he does it anyway. It's one of my favorite songs :) At one point, he messed up on part of the lyrics (1:36) and he kinda laughed and then got back on track. It was pretty much the best concert ever!

Fun with Friends

2009-07-26T21:41:00.003-04:00

Last Thursday, me, Matt, Mike, Chris, Andrea, and Danielle were ALL off of work!!! We drove out to Fowler to meet up with Chris and Danielle for lunch, and then all four of us drove to Big Rapids to meet up with Mike and Andrea who were coming from work at Spring Hill. Matt and I surprised Mike by being there!! It was fun. We saw the new Harry Potter movie :) Then we went to Applebees for dinner and Dairy Queen for dessert. It was a great day having us all together!

The boys

The girls

Mike spilled his drink so our waitress brought him a kids cup...it was hilarious!
The boys decided to pile on top of a bulldog statue next to Dairy Queen

All six of us!! The boys actually cooperated in taking a nice picture!!
Matt, Kelly, Danielle, Chris, Mike, Andrea

Hawaii Honeymoon

2009-07-15T22:15:00.005-04:00

I finally made it to Hawaii!!!! We were there for 10 days. It was so much fun! We did a cruise that went to 4 different islands: Maui, Hilo, Kona, and Kauai. I took over 400 pictures, but only posted about 20. To see 200 of the best pictures, you can go to my facebook link at the bottom of this post :)
The first day on our cruise! Everyone loved our shirts :)

We were 2 hours early for our first excursion...we were excited! Relaxin at the pier

Wailea beach in Maui...voted one of the top beaches by the Travel channel

We went boogie boarding

This is a Banyon tree. This particular tree is the 2nd largest of its kind in the world. It spans over 1 block. The first largest is in India.

We went surfing in Maui too! It was awesome and both of us got up everytime. I surfed all the way to the beach a few times!

Here is a picture of both of us with our surfing instructor...we got private lessons for a group price!

Shave ice!! Super tasty and very popular in Hawaii

Remember the Newlywed gameshow on our other cruise? Well, this cruise had one too...and Matt and I were contestants. They asked really embarassing questions, but guess what? We won!! We won a bottle of champagne, a 25 minutes couples massage, and a bag of goodies.

Rainbow Falls in Hilo

This is a live volcano...but the day we went, the sulfur was really high so it wasn't very clear. It was really cool to see in person, but harder to take pictures of.

Inside the lava tube...a cave-like tunnel created from lava!

See our ship in the background? This is in Kona

We got henna tattoos! Here is a picture of mine. Matt got a turtle.

In Kauai, we rented mopeds!!

This is our Luau attire! The luau was really fun and definitely worth going to once.

Hawaii was beautiful and I would love to go back one day! It was an awesome honeymoon!!

Here is a link to 200 of my pictures on facebook for a more detailed look at the honeymoon:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2329896&id=21702771&l=e3ebb8fa61

We're Married!

2009-06-18T21:30:00.003-04:00

On June 14, 2009 Matt and I got married!!!! I am now Mrs. Wegescheide :) Thanks to Aunt Karen, here are some pictures from the wedding. The weather was great and everything went smoothly. It was an awesome day!!!

Notice how everyone is praying, but me and Matt are looking at each other...cute

Wedding vows
I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride!
Mr. and Mrs. Matthew Wegescheide

Me and my bridesmaids- Amanda, Taylor, Aliscia
Matt and the groomsmen- Chris, Ray, Jason
The bridal party...minus the flower girl and ring bearer
The Saber and Wegescheide families

No more pictures please!! It was a long day and we were exhausted!

Thank you to everyone who made our wedding day so special!!!!!

It's almost here!

2009-06-03T09:32:00.003-04:00

Remember over 400 days ago when Matt proposed on the Caribbean cruise?!

Well...the wedding is almost here!!!!!! There are only 11 days left until we get married! Can you believe it?! I just wanted to do a little update blog since I haven't posted much lately. I am busy with last minute wedding plans and work (Hence, not much time to post on the blog). Matt is currently living in what will be our apartment once we get married. We are having fun moving all the stuff into it and making it our own. Both of us work 5 or 6 days a week as servers (Bob Evans for me, and Matt is at Buffalo Wild Wings). We are busy people! We can't wait for the wedding and the honeymoon to Hawaii 2 weeks later :)

See you all in 11 days!!!!!!!!!!

DONE!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-05-13T12:39:00.004-04:00

I am officially a CMU graduate!!!!!!!!!!

On Saturday, May 9, 2009 I graduated from Central Michigan University with a Bachelors degree in Elementary Education. It took me 5 years and a whole lot of hard work, but I made it! I even graduated with honors...Magna Cum Laude...the second highest honor (3.79-3.89 GPA- mine was a 3.82)

The family! The CMU Seal

I finally graduated!!

I loved CMU and I made a lot of new friends along the way! Although it was a great experience, I am happy to be done and ready to move on to the next step in my life. :)

My Wedding Shower!!!!

2009-03-31T19:25:00.006-04:00

This weekend was my wedding shower and it was a lot of fun!! There was a ton of work that went into planning the shower by my mom and the Oglesby women and it turned out wonderful! Many people showed up, we ate lots of food, played games, and opened presents. It was a great time!

Thanks to everyone who helped out with the shower and to everyone who attended!!! Matt and I appreciate all the love and support!!!!!!

...but they are so cute!!!

2009-03-22T17:07:00.002-04:00

It was a sad day for me...

I went through all 160 of my stuffed animals and parted with 3/4 of them. I sat in the living room and made 3 piles: 1 for the stuffed animals who were old and dirty, 1 for the stuffed animals to give to foster children in the their easter baskets (mom heard about it on the radio), and 1 for the stuffed animals I am keeping.

I am a sentimental kinda person, so as I was going through them, I could remember most of my stuffed animals names and where I got them from. This is what made it so hard for me to get rid of them...but I did it!

Here is the throw away box of stuffed animals...

Here are the stuffed animals that were like new that I am donating to foster children. They will be placed in children's easter baskets :)

And this is my keep pile!!! I kept about 40 out of 160. If you know me, you know that that's pretty good, since I didn't want to get rid of any of them in the first place!

Here I am, dragging the box of old stuffed animals to the end of the driveway... *sigh* I guess it had to happen soon or later!

Back in Kindergarten!

2009-03-10T18:25:00.003-04:00

So once again, I am very delayed in posting this, but I am a busy person these days and kinda forget that I even have a blog!

Anyway, two Fridays ago was my last day student teaching in first grade. The kids all made me cards and a big poster with their names and pictures on it. They were all super cute! Then we had a little goodbye party and ate pieces of those huge cookies and some ice cream. It was cool and really sweet of my teacher to do all that. Every time I see the kids in the hall, I get lots of hugs...it's good to know that I made an impact on them and that they enjoyed my teaching :)

Last week was the first of my eight weeks in kindergarten. The kids do an every other day program so I actually have TWO kindergarten classes. It's fun, but it was a lot to get used to and a lot of names to learn! I think I have almost all their names down now though. I have less planning to do in kindergarten because I repeat lessons twice a week, so that is nice. I am able to get home a lot earlier than I was when I was in first grade. I do miss first grade, but I am enjoying kindergarten a lot too!

I really wish I could show you some of the pictures I have of the kids in my classes, but I can't post them on the internet. I am working on two cool bulletin boards right now though, so once I have pictures of those, I can show you at least something :)

Anyway, that's pretty much my life right now.

Oh, and by the way, here is a wedding update:
Did I happen to mention that Uncle Ken is going to be the pastor for our wedding now...cause he is! And we finally registered for our wedding shower at Kohls and Target. We ALSO booked our honeymoon...to Hawaii!!!! We are doing a 7 night cruise that hops the islands. Matt and I are super stoked! We are in the double digits for the countdown to our wedding now too...only 96 days left!

Double Layer Mocha Cheesecake!

2009-02-23T20:56:00.002-05:00

On Valentine's Day, I wanted to make fiance Matt something special. Since he loves cheesecake, I whipped out my new cookbook (thanks to the Wegescheide family) and picked out a homemade cheesecake recipe. Matt loves coffee, and he loves cheesecake, so what better than a double layer mocha cheesecake!!!

Using my baking skills to piece together the cheesecake...the cookbook told me it should take 30 minutes to prepare and 45 minutes to cook...

It took me THREE hours to complete the cheesecake!!!!!!!!
When it was finally ready, we sliced it up to see how it tasted
Since I didn't realize that it needed to be refrigerated over night, it was kinda mushy at first. We still tasted it, then left it to chill till the next day :) Needless to say, it was pretty tasty and well worth the 3 hours!
On Valentine's Day, Matt surprised me up at work with some flowers! Isn't he sweet?!
I love you Matt!!! Happy Valentine's Day!

As of February 23, there is only 111 days until our wedding :)

Superbowl and Surprises

2009-02-08T12:56:00.005-05:00

I am a little delayed in my blog posting, but better late than never! As you all know, last week was the Superbowl :) Sadly enough, the team I was rooting for lost, but I still had a great time with friends while watching the game.

This is the ice cream cake I made to take to the party. It was a big hit!

Watching the game (and the commercials)

We had our 3D glasses ready for the commercials that were in 3D! Since we only had 8 pairs and about 15 people, we cut the glasses in half and shared. See how Matt and I actually only have half the glasses on? It worked great!

Enjoying some of the yummy ice cream cake at half time

The whole group after the game...most very happy that Pittsburgh won...

But some of us were sad about the outcome of the game :( At least it was close in the end!

On a whole other note, I got a surprise visit this week!!! On Wednesday, there was a knock on the door and I saw my friends Chris and Danielle standing outside. I opened the door and was wondering what they were doing here, cause they live in Mt. Pleasant. Then they moved to the side and Mike was there!!!! He was home on leave this week from Afghanistan and surprised me with a visit! All four of us then went to Buffalo Wild Wings where Matt now works and we got some food and hung out. Matt served us :) It was a great night and I was super stoked to see Mike after him being gone since July. He is always full of surprises!

Life Update

2009-01-30T19:14:00.002-05:00

It has been awhile since I posted...but I have been SUPER busy with student teaching and what not. Here is a little update on the life of Kelly...

Matt (fiance) is in Michigan now!!! As you probably already saw on the Oglesby blog, he moved here 2 weeks ago :) I finally get to be in the same state and time zone as my fiance! He will be living with the Oglesby's until it gets to be closer to our wedding. Then we will find an apartment for after the wedding :)

Student teaching is going very well!!!!! My coordinator has observed me twice out of six times so far and both times he said I was doing an excellent job! He told me that I was a great teacher and that he is not worried about me at all. He only had nice things to say...so that's a good sign :) This week I have really started teaching "on my own." My teacher has been out of the room all day so that she doesn't distract the kids from listening to me. I haven't had any huge problems yet, and the kids seem to enjoy it when I teach and they listen well to me. Of course there are some kids who are a little harder to work with, but even they have their super cute moments. The kids say the funniest things sometimes and I just wish I had time to write them all down while I am teaching! Student teaching is keeping me busy though, especially with having to grade papers, plan lessons, and gather and prepare materials for everyday. Not to mention the extra assignments that have to get done for CMU so I can graduate. It is a busy semester...but a lot of fun at the same time.

Sorry there aren't any pictures, but my life is student teaching right now and I can't share any of those pictures on the internet. Maybe some pictures will come after super bowl Sunday this weekend...but I can't promise anything.

First day of student teaching!

2009-01-05T21:58:00.002-05:00

Today was my first day of student teaching! I have 8 weeks in first grade, then I have 8 more weeks in kindergarten. Today went very well and my host teacher is awesome! I am going to learn a lot from being in her classroom. Here are my "first day of school" pictures :)

I have to look all professional now...

And this is me as soon as I got home from school...comfy pants and zip up fleece. This is the apple from my parents...since I am a teacher now ;)

Last few days in Europe

2008-12-26T10:37:00.005-05:00

Day 8

My Christmas present from Matt was a trip to Brugge, Belgium.

On our train ride there, not only did we see all of of these bikes in this picture, but we also met 2 girls who spoke english that we hung out with for most of the day in Brugge. It was fun to have some travel buddies with us!

This is the cute little town of Brugge

And here we are on a bridge going over a river through the town

And this was also the site of Matt's re-proposal to me! Since he never had the chance to officially propose again after we had decided to get back together, he did it while we were in Europe. He proposed with a white teddy bear, since I already had the ring and you all know how much I love stuffed animals! It was super cute! A Chinese couple was so happy for us...they even stopped to take pictures of Matt and I!

A random statue in the town

Doesn't this look like it should be inside a snow globe?!

Random cool looking building

In Brugge there was a chocolate museum, so of course, we had to go in it! Here is how they make chocolate...

These are some of the machines that get used during the process

This was a famous lady in history that was involved with chocolate, but I don't remember who it was.

Some of the original chocolate molds

This dog is made completely out of chocolate!!!!!!!!

This is a fountain located in a part of Brugge that has many different statues on it. It looked pretty cool when it was all lit up

Day 9

At Matt's church on Sunday, the kids performed their Christmas play. It was really cute...and 2 of the kids that we were staying with for the week were in it also. The play is called "A King is Coming to Town"

The kids singing and dancing...they all did a great job!

The little girl playing Mary is the 3 year old that I was staying with, and in the background is the 11 year old I was staying with. He played the cop of the town in the play.

After church, we went over to another family's house for lunch. I played HSM2 uno with their 6 year old while lunch was being made. She LOVES HSM and was very excited for me to come :)

Lunch was a traditional Indian meal...it was delicious!!!!

After lunch, Matt and I went back to babysit the 4 kids of the house we were staying at so the parents could get some time to themselves with no kids. It was a good time. The next day we headed back to Brussels where we started our trip and hung out with Chris and a few others for the day. Then on Tuesday it was time to come home. It was a LONG plane ride, but both Matt and I made it back safely. He is in Missouri and I am back in Michigan, but on January 18th, Matt will be moving to Michigan for good until the wedding :)

Overall, I had a great time in Europe and I think it will be a good experience living over there for a few years. But ya never know what God has in store for us....

Europe-Days 6 and 7-PARIS

2008-12-20T19:31:00.001-05:00

I took sooooo many pictures in Paris, so I put most of the good ones into a slide show for you!! Enjoy!!!

Europe-Days 3,4,and 5

2008-12-18T17:53:00.011-05:00

Day 3

We relaxed!!! Chris and Londie helped with a friend's proposal all day so Matt and I just hung out in the apartment and watched movies and such. It was a good day to help me continue adjusting to the time change too.

This is pretty much where we were all day...on the couch watching movies
For dinner, Matt and I went to the grocery store and bought some food to make dinner. We made a chicken teriyaki stir fry kinda thing with garlic toast. It was soooo good!!!!

Here is me and Chris...we took about 6 or 7 pics looking very similar to this one

Day 4

We traveled to our next stop and the place Matt stayed all summer...Jurbise, Belgium

This is the train schedule that I have now learned to read...

And here is the train that we took!

Once we got there, we stopped at the house Matt lived at all summer and hung out with that family for awhile. We also watched a movie. Then I got to see what Club Beyond was all about...so we hung out with middle school and high school kids for a few hours. After Club, we went to the house we are staying at for most of the rest of our stay here...the Kolver family!

They have 4 kids, Casey (11), Bryason (7), Jenna (3), Elysia (8 mos)...here is Jenna and Elysia...aren't they adorable?!!?!?

Day 5

We visited Mons, Belgium!!

waiting for the ever popular train to arrive

This was our lunch...they are called durums. Since we can't speak french and the people in the restaurant we wanted food from didn't speak english, we had a difficult time telling them what we wanted. We ended up with these things...shredded meat and stuff in a tortilla type wrap...which were super tasty :)

This is what the town looks like
Here is the Gran Plaz of Mons

And this is the famous little monkey statue in Mons...apparently when you rub his head, you have good luck/fertility, hahaha

This is the cathedral
And me singing with the statues :)

This is the front of a church/building for university classes

On the way to Mons, we didn't have a chance to buy our ticket when hopping from one train to the next so we were just going to buy it on the train (which you can do) but the conductor was apparently upset at us or something because we didn't tell him we needed tickets on the train, so he charged us a fine!!! But on the way home, we got our tickets on the train and this conductor was nice and let us buy our tickets like we should have been able to do before. It was a happy end to a fun day!!

I made it!!! Europe...Day 1 and 2

2008-12-14T16:31:00.008-05:00

I made it to Europe!!!! It was a long trip, but I survived. The long plane ride from the US to Amsterdam was cool cause I could watch movies and play games on this cool little tv screen in the seat! I watched Kung Fu Panda...it was alright. My stomach got a little sick after landing that first time, but I had a 6 hour lay over after that, so it helped. In Amsterdam, I put together a 300 piece HSM puzzle...there's a pic below...

After waiting in the airport for a delayed second flight, I had a 30 minute flight to Belgium!! That one went super smooth...and much faster than the 7.5 hour one! Once getting there, I saw Matt and his friends Chris and Londie in the airport. Then we met up with two more friends, Mistrel and Sam and we went out to eat.

Here is a pic of Matt and I in the restaurant. I look kinda tired...for obvious reason. I got about 2-3 hours of sleep in about a 24 hour period. :)
This is Sam and Mistrel...they got mussels in Brussels!
After that, they insisted that I had to go to Delirium...its a pub that is in the guiness book of world records!! They have over 2000 types of beers!!
They got me a raspberry beer...it was ok, but I only had a few sips and I was done with it.
After Delirium, it was bedtime!!! They kept me up till 12:30, so I was exhausted.
Oh...and this is what we walked by on our way...these are everywhere!!
The next day after church, we went out to another restaurant for lunch. Here is a pic of the town
And this is in front of the restaurant...it was so tasty!!!
Here's a pic of some of our food. Mine is on the right hand side...it was noodles and chicken in this amazing sauce
Then we took the metro to the Grand Plaz.....
It was very festive! There were musical light things and a big tree right in the middle of everything. (There is a video posted below...I couldn't seem to get it to drag to this spot...so when you reach the bottom of this post, you can watch the video!!)
Here is one of the buildings surrounding the Grand Plaz
Matt and I in front of a building
Oh, and this is Chris, Matt's friend from the UK. He dressed up in his Scottish attire for a youth group picture scavenger hunt. He was one of the things the kids had to find. Matt and I hung out with him...we got waffles!!

Here is a pic of one of the many waffle places. They put all sorts of different stuff on their waffles, even chocolate sauce. It was great.

At the end of the day, we went back to Chris' place and all (me, matt, chris, londie (chris' gf), sam, and mistrel) watched a movie. Here I am at 1:30 am Belgium time...its time for me to go to bed now. Good night...and I will post again soon!

End of Semester

2008-12-11T13:58:00.002-05:00

I made it!! Today was my last day of final exams ever!!!! No more classes for me...at least as an undergrad. (But remember, I don't graduate till May because I still have to student teach)

Tonight my parents are coming to pack up my bedroom, then tomorrow I fly out to Europe for my 11 day trip!!! I can't believe I finally made it to the end...all the stress of classes is finally done!!! YAY!

Stay posted for my adventures in Europe... :)

November in a Nutshell

2008-12-06T10:25:00.004-05:00

Yeah, I know...I haven't posted in a LONG time...but it's the end of semester and I have a lot to do for school, so I haven't had a chance. Anyway, here are some photos from November:

First of all, there was the last home game of the season against Ball State...and we lost. It was close, but CMU just couldn't quite pull it out in the end. As for Chip Crew, well, since it was snowing and freezing freezing cold out, we decided it would be better to be a little warmer this game, so instead of paint, we used duct tape!

I think it looked pretty cool :)

Me and Aliscia...this is who I passed the leadership of Chip Crew over to, since I am graduating in May!!!

The Sunday before Thanksgiving, His House has its HUGE Thanksgiving dinner. This year we did it family style instead of buffet style, so they took out all the pews in the sanctuary and set up tables. It was fun...and Missouri Matt was here too!!

We sat with Chris and Danielle

Here's Matt!!! The first time we've seen each other in 8 months. I'm glad he got to be there for the His House Thanksgiving dinner

Then it was onto the Oglesby household for the actual Thanksgiving dinner!!!

Here's Matt...eating his SECOND full plate of food

Missouri Matt chillin at the counter by himself...he didn't want to squeeze in at the "kid's" table

After dinner, it was time for some good 'ol Matt and Madison cuddle time....

She loves her big cousin....but remember when she first came home from China and she cried everytime Matt held her? Good thing things have changed!

Madison hit her head on the table earlier in the night. She had quite the bump!

Sleeping with big cousin Matt

This picture is just way too cute to not share!!

After Thanksgiving, it was back up to school for me. Earlier this week, my roommate Laura and I made a trip to the store...and look what I got!!

High School Musical Eggos!!!!!!! Each Eggo has a different picture or saying from HSM

More HSM3 breakfast food to go along with my HSM 3 cereal :)

And just a few more updates on my life...

-I just finished my last week of CMU classes ever!!! All that's left is finals week and I am done (other than student teaching)

-Matt and I are getting married in exactly 190 days

-I fly to Europe for an 11 day visit in 6 days

Fun with Friends

2008-11-07T21:16:00.003-05:00

On Thursday night after His House, Kevin and Josh came over to hang out with me and Alisica. We spent 45 minutes in the video rental place, only to decide that we wanted to watch The Davinci Code, which we already had at the apartment. We then stopped at Meijer to get some sherbet to eat during the movie. We bought a whole gallon!! Once back at the apartment, we hung out for a bit before watching the movie and took 50 pictures...here's just a few of them :)

Josh, Aliscia, Kelly, Kevin

Josh serenading us with his guitar playing

Only one of the many pictures that look somewhat like this with various facial expressions in each

Kevin and Josh lifting me up in a laundry basket!

Me and Aliscia trying to lift Josh up in the laundry basket...it didn't work out so well. We all just kinda fell over

By the time the movie ended, it was 2 am, but it was a fun night!

Republican VS Democrat

2008-11-01T20:57:00.000-04:00

This one's for you mom...

Faith in Action

2008-10-29T13:16:00.005-04:00

This past weekend was Faith in Action Weekend at His House. We went out in groups and did community service projects around Mt. Pleasant. I went and raked leaves at a camp about 30 minutes outside Mt. Pleasant with about 30 other people. It was a blast!!!!

Building some muscles while raking all the leaves

We made some huge piles!!

Here is a video of Chris diving into the leaves

Hot chocolate break

Using our teamwork skills to put the leaves into a trailer to dump into the woods

Smashing down the leaves so more can fit in the trailer

We got a hotdog and chips lunch after all of our hard work
This picture is for you dad...its a german shepherd!

After raking, Ashley, Aliscia, and I went and saw High School Musical 3 again!! (It was Ashley's first time though) Then a huge group of His Housers met up for dinner at Fazolis. There was about 25 of us there!

This is only one part of our huge group...we had some good times.

It was a busy and fun Saturday!!!!

High School Musical 3

2008-10-24T12:35:00.003-04:00

October 24, 2008...High School Musical 3 premiere!!!!! Aliscia and I decided to make shirts and go all out for the HSM3 midnight show. I even bought HSM3 cereal!

Showing off our Wildcat spirit!

This is the front of our shirts...

...and this is the back of our shirts...

The cereal is pretty tasty too. It tastes like Captain Crunch

At the theater posing with the cardboard cutouts of the characters

12:01 AM...High School Musical 3!!!!!!!!!!!!

I really liked the movie! It was cute. Of course, it definitely had some cheesy moments, but that was kind of to be expected. The songs are amazing in the third movie and most of the dancing is pretty cool too. The only problem that I had with the movie was how short some of the girl's dresses were and when they were dancing, it showed a little more than what a G movie should be showing. I think they did a great job of summing everything up and ending the whole HSM craze. If you liked the first 2 movies, I would recommend the 3rd one! :) I am even going to see it again on Saturday!!!!!

CMU vs. WMU

2008-10-19T22:46:00.006-04:00

And the winner is...CMU!!!! The big rival football game was on Saturday against Western and we beat them 38-28. What's even cooler about that, is that we beat them with our back up quarterback! This game was a bit cooler outside than the rest, but still a gorgeous day!

This time we spelled "Fire up (up arrow) Chips"

The stands were packed!!!!!!!

Matt, Lauren, Lauren's mom, Lauren's aunt, and Matt's roomies were all just a few rows behind me

At half time, the band played the song "Thriller"...and they totally did the dance to it! It was awesome!!!

We started a new tradition for our rivalry... whoever is the winner of the game gets a trophy until the next year. Then the trophy is up for grabs again.

Part of the Chip Crew after the game...once again, I was the only girl this time.

Like I said, the stands were packed! We broke a record attendance for Kelly/Shorts Stadium of 30,302 people!! Way to go CMU!!!

P.S. I know there have been a lot of football pics lately, but don't worry, the next blog won't be football...I promise!!

Chip Crew photo story!!!!

2008-10-17T12:00:00.002-04:00

Today the Chip Crew photo story was in The Morning Sun newspaper!!! It was 2 full pages in color!! It turned out really awesome...Lisa did a great job with it. There is also a multimedia slideshow thing on the website that has even more pictures, and it has a voiceover of an interview that I did with her! Here is the link if you want to check it out:
http://www.themorningsun.com/articles/2008/10/17/news/doc48f7be04c0b80813751777.txt

CMU Homecoming

2008-10-13T13:19:00.003-04:00

Saturday was CMU's homecoming football game. The weather was gorgeous, sunny, and warm, which made for a great day to be at a football game! We played Temple and beat them 24-14!! We got 3 or 4 interceptions during the game too, so it was really exciting. :)

Ashley was up at CMU for the day so she stopped by to say hi
This is my friend Grant's little cousin...I painted the flying C on his chest. He was sooooo cute!!

Chip Crew for that game, minus the G...he left right after the game ended. I was the only girl this time.
I was in the Mt. Pleasant newspaper on Sunday...front page, in color!!!
Here's a closer view of the picture.

On Friday there is going to be a whole article about Chip Crew, so check back on Friday to see pics of that article in the paper :)

Student Teaching Placement

2008-10-10T22:34:00.002-04:00

This morning I woke up at 5:30 AM so I could drive all the way down to Stockbridge (1 hour 45 min away) to meet the principal, kindergarten teacher, and first grade teacher of Smith Elementary School to see if they actually wanted me student teaching at their school or not.

The teachers and principal were all very nice and friendly!! The school is fairly new so it is really nice and clean inside. The kids were adorable and pretty well behaved also. I LOVED everything about the school!

Later this afternoon, my coordinator called me and told me that the principal and teachers loved me and they definitely want me student teaching at their school! I am super stoked! So...here is where I am student teaching:

-Smith Elementary School in Stockbridge, MI
-It is a K-2 grade building only, which is really cool...the 3-5 grade building is next door
-I will be doing 8 weeks in a 1st grade classroom and 8 weeks in a kindergarten classroom, which is exactly what I wanted!!!
-Here is the school's website if you want to check it out:
http://scs.k12.mi.us/education/school/school.php?sectionid=7

Emily's 21st Birthday

2008-10-05T23:27:00.004-04:00

Wednesday was my roommate Emily's 21st birthday. Since it was the middle of the week, we were all busy so we couldn't really do anything too exciting to celebrate. However, we did sing to her and have ice cream late that night!

Emily with her ice cream cake and candles
Now this is what you call a REAL ice cream cake!!! :)
Mmmm...licking the ice cream off the bottom of the candles
These are 3 of my 4 other roomies thoroughly enjoying our ice cream. (Aliscia, Emily, me, Laura)
Our band pose...this is going to be the cover of our album when we become famous...
Contemplating....not sure what we are contemplating though. Perhaps some more ice cream?

CMU football- game 2

2008-09-28T15:38:00.002-04:00

Yesterday afternoon was our second home football game of the season. For this game, my parents came up, along with the Oglesby gang (minus Uncle Mark), and Jason and Kristina!! Taylor, Jason, and Kristina all did Chip Crew with me, and we had a blast!!

Here's a shot of the whole Chip Crew...Can you spot Jason, me, Kristina, and Taylor?

The girls

Kristina and Jason...and despite the look on Jason's face, they both had a great time
My mommy and daddy, along with Aunt Karen and Madison watching from the stands
The game started off rather slow, but came down to the last 3 seconds...

We managed to hold off Buffalo in the end, and won 27-25. It's a good thing their attempted field goal bounced off the post!

The 4 of us after the game

And of course Madison had to join in on the picture taking fun

The sunset after a fun day of family, football, and fun!

College students like playgrounds too!

2008-09-21T12:19:00.005-04:00

Yesterday Aliscia, Emily, and I went to Island Park. We decided it would be fun to play on the playground :) Afterwards we got pizza and had a movie night where we watched 50 First Dates and The Lion King. It was a fun evening with roomies! Here's a few of the 156 pics we took at the park:

I just decided to stop and hug the pole, but it ended up being a really cute picture!
Climbing the rope web thing
Practicing my gymnastics skills
Emily and Aliscia on the slide
Above me was this tire tunnel thing that I had to climb through to get to the swing...it was cool
More gymnastics skills....or hanging upside down like a monkey, whichever way you want to look at it

Wheee!

Balance beam was always my best event....but it never wobbled like this one did!

Jumping off our swings together!

Flying like superman

The three of us at the end of a fun playground adventure (left to right: Emily, Aliscia, me)

Things we do to procrastinate homework...and other random pics

2008-09-14T13:29:00.004-04:00

One night, none of us wanted to do homework, so what did we do? Everything BUT homework!

We put together a 300 piece Johnny Depp puzzle

We went to Wal-Mart and bought ice cream, then ate it. It was delicious!!!

We made window clings
And we played DDR...funny story about this...when Laura and I went outside to cool off from playing DDR, this slightly intoxicated guy and his friends were walking by. One of them stopped and said hi and started talking to us. We learned that his name was Ben and that they had just left a party that had gotten broken up by the cops. I asked them if they went to get free hotdogs from His House that night, and they said no, but asked us if we went to His House. I said yes and then invited him to come to the service the next morning. Ben was excited to go and he set his alarm on his phone that night so he would wake up in the morning. He came Sunday morning to His House and it was really cool. It was very much like Beach Reach...funny how God works in such random ways sometimes.
Here is a random pic of Matt and his girlfriend, Lauren. They got dressed up the other night and went out to eat, then stopped by my apartment to get my fondue maker so they could do fondue. Aren't they cute?!

Rope swinging into the Chip River

2008-09-06T10:22:00.002-04:00

Over Labor Day weekend, I went rope swinging into the Chippewa River with a group of friends. It was a blast!!!!! I was waiting to make this post until I got pictures from my friend, but she hasn't posted them onto facebook yet, so for now, you get a video. Perhaps pics will be added later.

CMU Football 2008

2008-08-31T18:41:00.003-04:00

Thursday night was our first home football game of the season. It was nice and warm outside, which was great for doing Chip Crew :) We won too!!! The score was 31-12. It was a great game!

Painting up...I am the designated painter for the season, but Alescia helped a little this time too
The 3 girls doing Chip Crew at the first game
We had 15 people show up for Chip Crew...it was awesome!!! We spelled "Fire (up arrow) Chippewas"
The stadium was pretty full too

Here's the team...Go CMU Chippewas!!!

One of the guys on the other team got hurt and had to get taken off the field on a stretcher in an ambulance. I hope he is ok!

In case you haven't heard yet...

2008-08-27T15:08:00.004-04:00

I'm engaged...again :) To who you ask? Matt, of course!!

Since the engagement was broken off, we've continued to pray about what God wants us to do. During the summer, God changed my heart. I realized that God DOES want me with Matt over in Europe, so I am now ready to follow. We will be getting married next summer and then we will be moving to Belgium. We are both very excited to see what God has planned for us over there.

The wedding is still the date that was originally planned: June 14, 2009. So keep that date open!

And don't worry, the wedding is still in Michigan, not Europe, so most of you don't have to travel too far.

That about sums everything up. If you have any questions, feel free to call or e-mail.

Cullen's Birthday

2008-08-17T18:01:00.004-04:00

Who's birthday is August 17....

CULLEN'S!!!!

That's right, Cullen turns 1 today! But yesterday we had a big birthday party for him...

Here we are prepping Cullen for the many pictures taken by the paparazi later in the day, and who better to train him than the little model herself, Madison.

More prep before the party...lunch time!!!

Cullen and Kelly
"Hey mom, what's this funny pointy thing on your head?"

Time for cake!!!!

A video of everyone singing "happy birthday" to Cullen

Cousins observing the cake eating process

Then the parents wanted in on the fun...

Starting to dig in...

"Yum! This cake is great! I can't believe mom and dad never let me have this before!"

Here is a video of Cullen thoroughly enjoying his cake

Cullen enjoyed the cake so much that he ate almost half of it! It had to be taken away before he got a tummy ache...

But Cullen didn't like that very much

He was very upset when his cake was taken away

But then it was time for presents! Taylor and I bought Cullen a High School Musical towel because he was born on the day that High School Musical 2 premiered :)

Overall, it was a great birthday party...even though Cullen got very tired towards the end. At least he stayed awake to eat some cake :)

Happy 1st Birthday Cullen!!!!

"Crush"

2008-08-01T16:01:00.003-04:00

David Archuleta's first single aired on the radio today!!!! It is called "Crush". It is not quite what I was expecting from him, but it's really cute! Here is the link so you can listen to it yourself and form your own opinions. I'm excited for the full CD to come out :)

Way to go little Archie!

http://z100.elvisduran.com/pages/news/davidarchuleta/?gclid=CI6268Xv7JQCFR8ViQodD2duqQ

I MET AND HUGGED DAVID ARCHULETA!!!!

2008-07-25T22:17:00.011-04:00

The day finally came...American Idols Tour Live 2008!!!! My friend Ashley and I arrived at Joe Louis Arena at 11:30 AM so we could get autographs and pics with the idols before the concert. There was about 150 people lined up along the gates just waiting for their tour bus to arrive...

Here's how the day went down:

**WARNING** LOTS OF PICTURES

After asking a few people where the tour buses pulled in, we were able to find the location for the pre-concert autographs and pics. We knew we were in the right spot when we saw a group of girls with signs and shirts that said "I heart David Archuleta"

After waiting about 2 hours, the tour buses finally came!!

After waiting a little longer, the first person finally came out. It was Brooke!! She was on vocal rest though so she couldn't speak, but was still as sweet as ever. (notice the pink tape on her shirt)

The next was Kristy Lee Cook. She was really pretty!

And then he came...that's right...David Archuleta!!!!!!!! I was sooooo excited!! I got him to sign the picture I had, along with signing my shirt. Then I asked if I could get a picture with him. He was SO cute! I told him that my phone company kicked me out of their service because I called to vote for him so many times outside of the Tmobile phone zone. He laughed and said "Really? wow...I used to have tmobile, but then we got AT&T phones" Before he started moving to the next person, I asked him if I could have a hug. He said "sure" and he leaned over the gate and gave me a hug!! It was pretty much the most exciting thing EVER!!! He was such a sweetheart, and a cutie too!

Then David Cook came out. He was in a big hurry and wouldn't pause for pics at all. He was kinda rude and kinda acted like a jerk. It made me not like him very much...

Chikezie was really nice though. Very friendly and such. I don't know why we didn't get a picture with him...

Guess who this is....

If you guessed David Archuleta's dad, you are right! He was walking around talking to fans and he stopped and talked with us for about 10 minutes. He was very nice and told us that David is trying to get his album out before Christmas, YAY!!

Then there was Syesha. She was friendly and sweet too.

And last but not least for the afternoon...Michael Johns. He was kinda in a hurry like David Cook, but still took the time to take pics with fans and such, which was cool. His accent was awesome too!

Sadly, we didn't get to see Jason, Ramiele, or Carly before the concert. We decided to get some food and wait till the doors opened so we could sit in the air conditioning. By now, we were hot, thirsty, and rather hungry.

At 6:00 the doors opened, and at 7:00 the concert started! Each person came out one at a time, starting with the 10th person to get kicked out and counting down from there.

This is Jason playing his guitar and singing

Here is David Archuleta...he came up from the floor sitting at the piano! It was pretty cool!

More Archuleta

And some more Archuleta (can you tell he's my favorite?)

Then came the winner of American Idol 2008, David Cook

Notice the different angle from which this pic is taken...Ashley and I decided we would get up and move towards the doors to where autographs would be after the concert. She ran down to get a good spot, while I stood at the entrance near the doors watching the rest of the concert, but ready to sprint out as soon as it ended.

It was worth it. Ashley finally got her autograph and pic with Jason!!

Then Ramiele came, and we got her autograph, but totally missed a picture with her.

And our last idol to meet...Carly!!!

Our day was complete. We met ALL the top 10 American Idols of 2008 and got all their autographs. We had the greatest time and all the money and time spent waiting was TOTALLY worth it!!!

If you want to see even MORE pics, go to this link. It will take you to my albums on facebook that I created from the concert. I also have about 15 videos from the concert on facebook, and if you want to see those, let me know and I can either give you the links, or I can put them up on the blog as well.

Album 1: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2231146&l=2c930&id=21702771

Album 2: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2231149&l=a0288&id=21702771

July 14...I am OLD now!!

2008-07-15T11:03:00.002-04:00

Yep, that's right, I just turned 22 years old yesterday! In my mind, I am now officially old :)

On Sunday night we celebrated my birthday a day early so Matt could celebrate with us, since he is gone all week. Then on my actual birthday, we celebrated again with the Oglesby family.

Sunday night celebration...look at all those candles!!

I managed to blow all but 3 out on the first try. Notice all the smoke in the air

If you recall from previous posts, my main birthday present was the ticket to the American Idol concert on July 24th, but here are a few more things I got to open ON my birthday. I got the movie 27 Dresses, a deck of High School Musical 2 UNO cards, and yes, the children's book Are You My Mother. I loved that book as a child, and for all of you who know me, I love getting childrens books to add to my collection for my future classroom :)

Now pics from my actual birthday night. As you can tell, our cake is half eaten from the night before. And if you look closely, you can also see my beautiful Bob Evans attire. That would be because I had to work on my birthday.

Since we used all the candles from the night before, we put 2 and 2 to equal 22. Don't worry, I managed to blow all those out on the first try ;)

It was a good birthday. That morning before I went to work my mommy and I went to Bennigans for lunch and I took advantage of free dessert on my birthday :) Then I went to work at 3, and came home for more cake and ice cream with the Oglesby family. Nothing too exciting, but I'm old now, so thats what happens once you get old... :)

Thanks to everyone who sent me birthday wishes!!!

Mike's Going Away Party

2008-07-03T21:13:00.002-04:00

As I think I've mentioned in other posts, my friend Mike is getting deployed to Afghanistan. It's already reached that time when he has to leave, so we threw him a going away party. The party was fun, but saying good-bye was sad.

Me and Mike

Look!! Army gummies!!

I love this group pic...its very cute :)

We decided to play on the playground at the park where we had the party at

And afterwards we went swimming in Mike's neighbor's pool at night...it was cold, but we had fun anyway

I stayed in Grand Rapids for 3 days to hang out with Mike before he left. We saw Wall-E and Narnia:Prince Caspian, went to the zoo, and lost power at his house! It was a great few days, but went by really fast. It was sad saying good-bye. :(

Mike is over in Afghanistan for a year, so please keep him and all the troops in your prayers. I'm sure they would greatly appreciate it!!

Preschooler Paint Attack

2008-06-16T16:30:00.003-04:00

Today in preschool it was water day, so there was a sprinkler going outside along with various stations that involved things like shaving cream, washing baby dolls, bike wash, bubbles, and goop. Another station was face painting...and as you can see, the preschoolers had fun painting my face! They had a blast, and I had fun too :)

Chris and Danielle's Wedding!!!

2008-06-15T14:15:00.004-04:00

The day finally came!! June 14, 2008...Chris and Danielle's Wedding!!!! I took 100 pics/videos, so bear with the 15 that I chose to put up on the blog :) I couldn't choose just a few. It was a blast! The wedding ceremony went very well, and the reception was a ton of fun because there was a huge group of people from His House there. We had a big dance party all night. I can't beleive they are married now...I'm super happy for both of them!!!!

The last pic with Chris as a single man! He was so nervous and kept pacing around the church before the ceremony. It was cute...

Danielle and I...she looked gorgeous!!!

Waiting for the bride...I love Chris's face in this pic

The whole wedding party

Wedding vows

"You may kiss the bride"

Getting ice cream before the reception :)

Mr. and Mrs. Arganbright!!!!

so cute :)

Andrew was part of the wedding...so he was there too

First dance as husband and wife to the song "God Bless the Broken Road"

Lifegroup girls

cooling off by the fan

Me with the new married couple!!! I love them both!

Congratulations Chris and Danielle :)

Danielle's Bachelorette Party

2008-06-08T15:04:00.005-04:00

Last night we had my friend Danielle's bachelorette party at my apartment. It was a great time!!! We played some bridal/bachelorette party games, ate lots of food, opened presents, went on a little field trip to see Chris and Danielle's apartment, played Apples to Apples, and watched Father of the Bride. Next Saturday, June 14 is the wedding so be prepared to see wedding pics soon :)

Group photo #2...the first one was super cute, but blurry, and this one was clear but the 2 in the front were making goofy faces. Oh well!!

This is 1 of the 5 tiara's Danielle wore throughout the night. (I wanted to put them all in a collage type thing, but couldn't figure out how to do it on my computer) We played a game where we each made Danielle a tiara out of pipe cleaners and whoevers she liked the best won a prize.

I won!!! I got a little rubber ducky and some bath and body works lotion

This pic is during another game we played. There was a list of 20 questions, and Danielle had to answer them with the answer she thinks Chris would have given for the question. Each time she was wrong, she had to put another piece of gum in her mouth.

She ended up with 10 pieces of bubblicious gum in her mouth at once!!! Quite a feat if you ask me! Not to mention, 10 out of 20 questions correct isn't TOO bad :) (some were really hard)

Eating pizza....and lots of other munchies

Playing Apples to Apples...and Dani decided to give herself some antennas...not really sure why, haha

We ended the night with watching (of course) the movie Father of the Bride. It was a late night, but tons of fun and I can't wait for the wedding next weekend!!!

Memorial Day

2008-05-27T23:58:00.003-04:00

At church on Sunday, my friend Colleen asked me if I wanted to join her and a few others to go to Ashley's cabin that was 1/2 hour away and have a bonfire that night and go jet skiing the next day. Since I was sick of doing homework and wanted to do something fun on Memorial Day, I decided to go...and I'm glad I did! We had a blast!!!!!

Sunday....

We played lawn darts...I wasn't very good at it

All 4 of us were standing something like this and Colleen said we looked like a picture of a band on the cover of their CD...so this is our band pose :) I am the lead singer, haha

This would be the boys almost sinking the paddle boat

And what's a party on the lake without a bonfire!!

And you can't have a bonfire without making s'mores :)

Monday...

We woke up and made eggs, toast, and watermelon for breakfast

Then proceeded to feed the swans...which hissed at Dan and it was hilarious

Then it was time to jet ski!!!!

Off we go....it was a ton of fun!

We chilled on a little island that was on the lake for part of the day while taking turns on the jet ski

Overall, it was a fantastic weekend with friends and a great little break from homework!!

American Idols Live Tour 2008

2008-05-23T21:42:00.005-04:00

I know you are probably sick of seeing all my American Idol posts, but this will be the last one for awhile, I promise :)

Just thought I would share that I am going to see the American Idols Live Tour 2008 on July 24th at Joe Louis Arena!!!! I am going with my friend Ashley (roomie from this year). We are super stoked and we are excited to wear our shirts that we made too! There will definitely be pictures up of that once it happens. So Aunt Joni, I will be seeing them 2 months before you...I will let you know how it is

P.S. I got David Cook's single "Time of My Life" off ITunes...it is really good! :) Way to go Cook...even though I still love little Archuleta

And the winner is...David...Cook

2008-05-22T11:55:00.004-04:00

Welp, it was a tough competition and both David’s did great! In the end, David Cook prevailed with a lead of 12 million votes out of 97.5 million over little David Archuleta. I was hoping for Archuleta to win, but runner-up is still fantastic. I can’t wait for both of them to make cd’s and go on tour cause I am totally going to go see David Archuleta in concert!!! Anyone want to join me? :)

A tearful and excited David Cook putting his arm around David Archuleta...good competition boys

David Cook singing the winning song "Time of My Life"

In the Finals!

2008-05-14T23:05:00.003-04:00

Yep, that's right...the 17 year old David Archuleta has made it into the finals for American Idol!! I am super stoked about it cause I have been rooting for him since auditions. So...next week everyone should vote for him because the competition is going to be tough against David Cook. I have faith in little Archuleta though :) He is way better than David Cook...and much cuter too!

GO DAVID ARCHULETA!!

The David Dual: Cook vs. Archuleta

Mother's Day

2008-05-12T21:06:00.002-04:00

Last week I went home to relax before starting my summer classes, came back to school Friday for work, then ended up going BACK home to surprise Mom for Mothers Day!

My Mother's Day artwork on our driveway

Jumping roping...

double jumping

Dairy Queen trip in the Chevy!!

Happy Mother's Day Mom! We love you!!!

END of spring semester 2008

2008-05-01T22:43:00.003-04:00

It's the end of the semester!!! I had my last exam today, and now I have 1 week before I start summer classes. Here's some fun pics of today...

Stina, Ashley, and I had kitchen cleaning day today. It was pretty gross...

This is the cool foamy stuff we used to clean our oven :)

more cleaning!!

All the cleaning made us hungry, so we went to LaSenioritas for $2.99 burger and fries night. It was tasty!

Mmmm, they have GREAT burgers!!

Then it was off to the last His House of the semester...

saying good-bye to friends for the summer

Then off to get ice cream at Doozies with my lifegroup :)

I love these girls!!!!!

GREAT weekend!

2008-04-20T22:33:00.003-04:00

This weekend was a blast!!! My friend Mike came up for the weekend so I got to hang out with him, and the weather was beautiful! On Friday night, His House (my church) had a talent show, so we went to that. Then we stayed up late and ate cereal outside over looking the Chippewa River. It was pretty sweet. On Saturday night was the His House spring banquet. We got all dressed up, had an amazing meal, and parents and friends could come to it to learn about His House and the ministry we have on CMU's campus. Then on Sunday a group of my friends from His House decided to have a picnic after church. We hung out in the sunshine and cooked burgers and such. It was great. I had such a good time hanging out with friends all weekend and it was a nice break from thinking about homework and the other stresses going on. Here's some pics of the weekend....

Mike and I at the banquet...look at him all spiffy in his army attire :)

Mitch, me, and Mike. I'm so short standing in between both of them!

And what would a visit from Mike be without him licking my face...

Beach reach buddies!!

Moving on to Sunday afternoon....

Our food!

Mmmm...the burgers were great!

Cheerleading stunts with Steve

I'm standing on his hands in this pic! It was kinda scary, but fun

I just like this picture, it's pretty fun.

Great weather + Great friends = GREAT weekend!!!

Another Update...

2008-04-15T12:10:00.003-04:00

On Thursday, Matt pretty much told me that things were over for good. He feels called to the mission field and doesn't think he is supposed to marry me. That's about it...I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

On May 6 Matt is leaving for Europe for 3 months to work with youth camps and VBS. He comes back August 7. We will continue keeping in touch though.

It's all up to God what happens now!!!

Update

2008-04-08T01:08:00.002-04:00

On Sunday, my parents and I met Matt and his parents half way in Indiana to talk some more in person about what happened and what's going on. Matt and I decided that we would take the next few months and do some hardcore praying to determine where exactly God wants us. We hope to have a better idea by the end of summer about whether or not we are going to get married or remain broken up. Until then, we will be praying and trying to figure stuff out. I will keep you updated as much as possible.

Your prayers are greatly appreciated!!!

Following God....

2008-04-01T01:51:00.003-04:00

Hi friends and family that read my blog. Just thought I would let you know the news that just happened...

Matt and I broke off our engagement. Within the past few days he felt a strong calling to do long term missions in other countries for his entire life, and that is not what I was being called to do. We talked and prayed about it, and decided that breaking off the engagement was what we had to do to be following God. It's sad and heartbreaking, but I guess it just wasn't what God had planned for us.

Thanks for the prayers

Jason Upton concert at CMU!!!

2008-03-29T23:11:00.002-04:00

On Thursday, Jason Upton came to CMU!! He is a big Christian singer and he came to my secular college for a concert. We stood in the very front row right up against the stage. It was really cool!!

Jason Upton!

Singing with one of the band members

Most of his songs he played on the keyboard

My friend Jessica came up from EMU for the concert...Stina and I did gymnastics with her in high school, so it was fun hanging out and catching up on life with her also!

American Idol, Pizza, Movies, and Friends

2008-03-19T10:27:00.002-04:00

2 weeks ago, Stina, Ashley, and I decided to make American Idol t-shirts...

...we used puffy paint...

...and printed pictures from the internet onto special iron-on paper of our favorite singers...(Stina-David Hernandez, Ashley-Luke Menard, Kelly-David Archuleta)

I accidently stuck my elbow in ashley's wet paint, but luckily, it came completely out of my white shirt!!

Here's the finished project!!!

Before we took this picture, Ashley and Stina's guys both got voted off, so they decided to change up the back of their shirts by writing the top 12 names on the back and crossing them off when they get voted out. My guy is still in...GO DAVID ARCHULETA!!!

Last night we had pizza while watching American Idol

And we called A LOT of times to vote for our favorites!

Then we went to Coldstone to get some ice cream (I didn't get to Kodak moment that cause I forgot my camera) and we ate it while we watched the movie Enchanted!!! It was a great night!

Beach Reach 2008

2008-03-10T23:01:00.007-04:00

In case you don't know what Beach Reach is, it is where a group of college students go down to Panama City Beach, Florida for spring break and serve free pancakes and do free van rides for spring breakers while sharing the love of God with them. If you want more info about it or want to check out the prayer room stuff, you can go to this website.

http://www.beachreachlivepcb.com/

Otherwise, here are some of the 254 pictures that I took over my spring break this year!!! It was quite the interesting week. It was warm the first 2 days, then freezing cold the rest of the week...cold enough to wear pants and hoodies. On Tuesday, pancakes were cancelled in the morning due to a tornado warning, so as you will see in pictures, we had a hang out day till night time. During this day my group played games like musical chairs, and had dance parties! We also had 4 baptisms during the crazy weather where there were 2 red flags up (meaning don't swim) and there were jellyfish washing up all over the shore. On the last night it downpoured rain and we all got soaking wet out on the streets. There was also a shooting at a bar, a car accident, and 2 flat tires from our beach reach vans!! It was nuts!! On the way home, there was snow in Tennessee so we had to stop at a church for the night to prevent any car accidents. It took us 36 hours to get home! Depsite the craziness of the week, it was a lot of fun and we all had some amazing God conversations with spring breakers. There were many salvations throughout the week also! For more info or pictures, give me a call or come visit me and you can see all 254 of my pics plus all my videos! Otherwise, enjoy the 15 that I have posted here :)

My whole group- there was 55 of us!!

The beach!!!!!

One of the many pretty sunsets of the week!

Me and Kristen enjoying the warm weather

Me and Matt playing on the beach (yep...missouri matt was there too)

Pancakes!!!! The line was long...which means even more people for us to talk to!

YAY!!! It was great getting to see Matt again too

Group worship time

friends!!!

Playing musical chairs...it was hilarious, and we broke quite a few of these plastic chairs, oops! It was super fun though, and I have a lot of videos from it :)

chillin in the van...

1 of 4 baptisms

This is what we all looked like on the last night...cold, wet, and tired

more friends!

Last but not least, we had to get a pyramid picture! Pretty cool huh?

Casting Crowns concert

2008-02-17T00:30:00.002-05:00

On Thursday (Valentine's Day) I went to a Casting Crowns concert with Mike. The concert was amazing and we had a great time!!

Getting ready for the concert to start

Since it was Valentine's Day, the band talked a little bit about being with the people you love and what not, and at one point he said to put your hand on the shoulder of the person you love or were with, etc...so yeah...we made it fun!

CASTING CROWNS!!!!

During 1 of the songs, a painter came out and painted this picture...it was soooo cool!!! On the right hand side is a pic of part of it. It is Jesus in the middle with 2 people with their arms up in the air next to Him....

...and here is a pic of the Bible that Jesus was holding in the painting

This is one of the best pictures that I got of the band

At the end of the concert, each person in the band prayed for something specific like torn marriages, addictions, etc. It was really cool. The concert was GREAT and the band is INCREDIBLE!!! If you have never heard their music, I suggest you listen...the songs are so true to life!

SNOW!!!!!

2008-02-07T00:28:00.000-05:00

Whew!! It has been blizzarding ALL day today! Tonight we decided to measure how much snow we got throughout the day. In some places it was over 1 foot deep!!! We are hoping for a snow day tomorrow... :)

It's pretty deep!!

Uh oh, we lost the ruler...there's too much snow!

I had to clean off my car 6 different times today because the snow just kept on falling and I had to keep getting in and out of my car...it was crazy

Wedding Website

2008-02-06T11:54:00.000-05:00

For those of you who want to keep updated on all the info about my wedding...I kinda created a wedding website. I don't really know how it all works, but I will figure it out. So yeah, here is the link and you can periodically check it if you want to see if anything has been updated and what not.

http://registry.weddingchannel.com/wedding_websites/PersonalWebsite.action?view=home&occ=573680527

Superbowl

2008-02-04T23:28:00.000-05:00

I went to the Superbowl party at His House and it was a ton of fun! However, I was rooting for the Giants and there weren't that many Giants fans there...but they WON!!!! :)

Showing our Giant spirit

Giant vs Patriot

Bring it on!

Waving cell phones in the air at half time with Tom Petty...."Free fallin...."

Way to go Giants!!!!! 17-14!!!

Game Night

2008-02-01T14:47:00.000-05:00

On Thursday night, Sean came up for a weekend visit. After His House, Stina, Sean, and I decided to have a game night and we played Scrabble and the entire game of Scattergories. We were up till 2 AM. Sean won Scrabble (cause stina and i helped him getting the winning word..."qi" with the q on a triple letter score! and yes, qi is apparently a word). And then I won Scattergories. It was a fun night

Oh yeah...we were munching on 3 cans of Pringles also...

Stina showing the game board with the pringles

Teaching Sean how to play

Our 3 different flavors of pringles

I didn't think about taking pictures until after we had already played Scrabble, so here is a little something that Stina and I made with the Scrabble board :)

Leader Retreat

2008-01-28T00:58:00.000-05:00

Ok...so, the leader retreat actually happened LAST weekend, but I forgot to take my camera so I had to wait for people to post pictures onto facebook so I could get some :) It went from Sunday night to Monday afternoon (MLK day so no classes). We stayed at a church that was about 20 minutes from school and basically had good fellowship together and had a chance to learn more about leadership stuff and what not. Here are a few pics that I snatched off of facebook:

We started off playing a game called "evolution". This game is like rock paper scissors, but each time you play you evolve either up into something if you won or down back into something if you lose. The stages go from egg, to chicken, to monster, to superhero, to champion. If you win 5 times in a row you make it to champion and then you are out of the game and watch other people try to finish. Its actually pretty fun...I never made it to champion though. I got close, but always managed to evolve back down to an egg!

Doing some Bible readin...

Worship!!!

Getting a piggy back ride from Colleen

"Bible thumping" people

Long time no post

2008-01-13T16:09:00.001-05:00

Hey everyone!!

So...I realize that I haven't put up any pictures of the cruise or anything, but I figured that anyone who actually looks at my blog has already seen them via Aunt Karen's blog. If you haven't, go to this link and you can take a look at all the collage's she made of the cruise. (you may have to scroll down a little bit)

http://oglesbyfamily.blogspot.com/

Nothing picture worthy has really happened to me over the past few weeks since the cruise and the proposal, so sorry, but this blog is gonna be boring with just writing. I am back at school now and am about to head into the second week of the spring semester. During the first week we had a huge power outage over the whole campus Monday night and school was cancelled that following day. That was pretty cool! Classes seem like they aren't going to be too bad this semester. I guess we'll have to see as we get further along. Other than that, I'm just doing the same old....classes, work at Bob Evans, His House, etc.

Just thought I would let everyone know what's going on, and as soon as I take pictures of something, I will get them up here. :)

Have a GREAT day!!!!!

I'M ENGAGED!!!!

2007-12-23T16:23:00.001-05:00

We're ENGAGED!!!!!!!! Yep...total surprise proposal to me! Here's how it went down....

Matt's perspective:
Last Christmas I talked to Kelly's dad and brought up the idea of a proposal on a cruise and got permission to start planning. Many of her relatives decided that they wanted to come too so it was easy to convince Kelly that this was just a family vacation. She had no clue that me and my family were also coming along. As the date approached (Sunday, December 16th) the secret became harder and harder to keep. Finally it was here!! Me and my family flew to Florida (the departure for the cruise) all the while telling Kelly that I was at my school's graduation ceremony because I was an RA and "had" to go. When we got on the boat around 2:00, we immediately went to our room and hid until the formal dinner at 5:00. Her family was all having dinner on the 5th floor while my family was hiding on the 6th floor with me. Once she saw the video I made her (a surprise video for the cruise to let her know i was thinking of her) I
snuck up behind her at the table while the video was still playing. Leaning on her chair, I casually remarked that I liked the video I made. She freaked, turned around, and jumped into my arms.......

Kelly's perspective
....Going back a little bit, I had no clue about ANY of this!! I was totally fooled with the idea that Matt was still at school. I even called him right before we left for dinner because I knew it might be my last chance to talk to him before our cell phones lost service. (at this point, he was just a floor above me and I had no idea!!!) We went down to dinner and my mom said that there was a video for me to watch from a "special person". I of course figured it was a video from matt, but had no idea what was really about to happen. I watched the video (with the thought of a proposal crossing my mind, then leaving because I knew there was no way he would do it over video and not in person). When the video ended, Matt (who I didnt know was right behind me at the time) made a comment and I immediately knew that it was his voice. I turned around and he was standing right there in front of me!!! I was in complete shock! He grabbed my hand and had me stand up. I of course gave him a huge hug, at which point he said "I promised I would surprise you...". He then pulled a ring box out of his pocket, got down on one knee, and asked "will you marry me?". Right away I responded with a YES and then I saw that his whole family was there too!! I then ran around hugging people...and of course came back to matt to put the ring on. It took me a few minutes before I even realized that he was actually on the cruise with me for the week too!!!

Needless to say, it was a complete surprise and everything I ever wanted!! My family got to be there too so that was really exciting. Can't wait to start planning the wedding!!!!!

P.S. Two days later, Matt got sick with tonsilitus, bronchitus, laringitis, dehydration, and a fever of 104!!! He spent much time recouping in his bed, but at least we got those first few days :) It was still fun anyway!

Here's kinda the play by play in picture form...

WE'RE ENGAGED!!!

Both families

Happy Birthday Coldstone!!!

2007-12-10T18:53:00.001-05:00

Today was Coldstone's 3rd birthday (or something like that) in Mt. Pleasant so they were giving away little 3.5 ounces of ice cream. Well...they decided to do a special for the people that got there right when they started the free ice cream and they gave us each a bag to fill with ice cream cups!!! Needless to say, Ashley and I have enough ice cream to last us quite awhile!!!

These are the bags...filled with ice cream!!!!!

Here is our freezer after trying to fit the ice cream into it....not a whole lot of room left on our bottom shelf ;)

Christmas Cookies

2007-12-08T20:50:00.000-05:00

Today Ashley and I decided to make Christmas cookies!!! We even used homemade dough AND homemade icing!

rolling out the dough

cutting out the cookies...we only had christmas tree and star cookie cutters

getting them ready to bake

you can't make christmas cookies without eating some of the dough!!

making the icing

licking the icing beaters...that was a sugar rush :)

decorating our cookies

we made 5 big christmas tree cookies...1 for each roommate

and lots of little ones! aren't they pretty?! they were all decorated using dyed icing, decorating icing tubes, and valentines day sprinkles! (we are poor college students, we use what we have!)

they were tasty too!!!

*NOTE* All of the pictures with both of us in them were taken using a timer. We got very inventive on how to prop up the camera in our kitchen, for example, this last picture was taken by placing the camera on the open refrigerator door!

Goodwill shopping

2007-12-05T15:03:00.000-05:00

On Monday, Stina and I had a lot of fun together!! First we went to go work out (as you can tell from what we are wearing in the pics) and then we went to the bank. Next to the bank is a Goodwill, so we decided to go in there and look around. We saw this funny sign and decided to buy it and hang it in our kitchen! We also saw the game Racko and bought that...all for a total of $3.18! Then we had to go buy some nails so we could hang up our sign, so we went to Menards. Did you know that Menards sells food too? It was weird, but the food was kinda cheap and it was name brand, so I might have to do some shopping there :) Anywho, here are some pics of us hanging up our sign...we were very excited about it!!!

The game, nails, and sign that we bought

Putting in the first nail...

...and the second nail...

Yay!! It's up!!

His House Winter Formal

2007-12-03T19:07:00.000-05:00

Along with the MAC Championship game, Saturday night was ALSO the His House Winter Formal!! It was sooooo much fun! Everyone got dressed up in old prom dresses and suits (in my case I wore my bridesmaid dress). It was like high school homecoming all over again, but with a Christian aspect to it. We danced and hung out and ate snacks. We even did one of the High School Musical dances!!! I took 11 videos, and if you are lucky and this website works, maybe you will get to see one or two of them :)

Oh, they also had a backdrop set up for pictures, just like in high school!!

Doing the Billie Jean dance

Here is a video of the Billie Jean dance!!

Colleen was my date for the night ;)

Me and Lauren eating a cookie...

Slow dancing with Chris while he serenaded us with the song that was playing

Me and Chad...we decided to use some props that we found in the room

Here is a video of the first High School Musical song that was played...we all were singing and dancing to it

Danielle, Me, and Jessy

Chris and Danielle...aren't they cute?!?

Grease flashback!!!

Derek singing the song "Bye bye bye" by NSync to the giraffe that we have in our church basement. I have a video of this too...it's hilarious!!!

Here is one of the videos of us doing a dance from High School Musical. I am kinda in the middle...I have on the long pink dress. After this loaded onto here, I watched it and it is a little harder to see for some reason. Sorry it is so dark, but hopefully you can tell what is going on anyway.