FINALLY!

Hey everyone- the big day is tomorrow and Josh and I couldn't be more excited. I'm assuming this will be the last post I do for a while seeing as how we're headed off on our honeymoon tomorrow night right after our dinner party. We're flying to New York where we will then hop on a cruise ship and sail down to the Eastern Caribbean. 10 days later we will return to New York where we will see some sights, do some shopping, and then head back home. Thank you so much to everyone who has been SO supportive of us through our whole engagement process.... IT'S FINALLY HERE!!!!! :) I can't wait until I can update everyone how married life is!!

Made in the 80s!!

So let's be honest... what could possibly be better than an 80s themed bridal shower?! We all had a blast dressing up Saturday night and going out sporting our 80s clothes, hair, and makeup. I was so happy that everyone got into it and had fun dressing up. It's always interesting going out in public while making fools of yourselves but none of the girls seemed to mind too much :) I'm so glad that my high school girls and my Logan girls were able to all get together for one crazy and memorable night. You girlies are the BEST!

April Showers... Bring May Flowers

The month of April has been a fabulous one for us- everything is planned and set for the wedding day, the announcements are out, the bridals have been taken... now it's time for some fun! We've been so lucky to have so many people throw us some fun bridal showers. Everyone has been so thoughtful and generous and we are so grateful to have such an amazing support system.
So, it all started on April Fools Day with my family shower. My grandma and aunts wanted it to be a shower to remember (and that it was!). Everyone wore shower caps and some even went a little beyond just a cap. Let's just say the Peacock robe is very flattering on my Aunt Debra...

The next "shower" actually turned into more of a bachelorette party from the cute girls I work with. One of the bartenders at Cheesecake Factory actually owns the 5 Monkeys Bar here in Murray so we rented out the top level of the place and had a girls night out. It was fun to hang out with all the girls outside of work and they definitely went all-out to make it one interesting night. The highlight of the night would probably have to be when karaoke started and they made me sing "Like A Virgin" in front of everyone. Let's just say I'm glad I was probably the only sober person in the whole place and the only one who would remember how dreadful my singing was...

The next shower we had was thrown for me by all my cute neighborhood ladies. They definitely went above and beyond to have a great open house on Saturday afternoon. Paula (the hostess) was fantastic at making sure every little detail was perfect for me- from the amazing food selection to the italian sodas to the cute invitations she sent out. Many people thought my bridal shower announcement was my wedding announcement! I was so grateful to have so many wonderful ladies show up we got some fantastic presents! It was fun to show Josh what us girls do at bridal showers, and it was also fun to just spend an afternoon talking to a bunch of ladies that are almost as excited for our wedding as we are! Thanks to everyone who came and for all the fun!!!

Last but definitely not least was the shower we had last night. When Chana and I were talking about having a friend bridal shower, we decided to have one with all the girls that we managed this summer in Alaska. When you spend 5 months living and working with 20 girls in Juneau, AK you definitely become one close family! Many of the girls are going their separate ways this summer so we wanted to get together for one last horrah! We met up in Orem and had dinner at the Brick Oven. Following that we went to Fat Cats to go bowling. Leave it to Chana to spice up any bowling game. First- the girls had a cake made with a picture of me and Josh on it- it was fabulous! Then, the girls were given directions to make me a wedding dress made out of toilet paper. They had a ball with it and I definitely stood out at that bowling alley the whole night. I've never gotten so many stares in my life. I am so grateful that so many of my girls took time out of their busy schedules to come and have fun with us. It means a lot to know that even though Chana and I were their managers, we all became like a family and they support us 100%. It's great to know what awesome friendships came out of our crazy summer last year! Love you girls!!

A Wedding Preview

So, I got my bridals taken (haven't gotten them back quite yet) but I do have a couple of pictures that my mom took while Melissa was changing cameras and whatnot. I'm not going to show the full dress in case Josh decides he wants to check our blog but here's a little sneak peak into what April 30th is going to look like...

Here's a little story about my flowers that caused some drama and stress....

So when I met with my florist I didn't know yet if I wanted flowers for my bridals or not so I told her to just not plan on doing them and if I decided I wanted them, I'd take care of it myself (I am a nationally ranked flower ranger for those who didn't know :) ) So, as the day was getting closer, I decided I didn't want to be stressed with having to make my own bouquet so I went to a flower shop nearby and told them exactly what I wanted. The girl had no idea how much it was going to cost so she told me they'd call me Monday morning (the bridals were on Tues) and would tell me how much they were. Monday afternoon at 3:30 I still hadn't heard from them so I called them up and the lady told me that based off of what I had told them, they were only going to do a small bouquet with 3 gerber daisies (no filler flowers or greenery) and a small ribbon to tie it off and it'd be like $40. I was shocked and told her that was ridiculous. She informed me that she would add more flowers to the bouquet but it would cost over $50. I thought that was obsurd especially since I just wanted something small and simple but more importantly, I know how much flowers cost and I know how long it takes for them to make a small bouquet. So, I cancelled my order and decided I'd make it myself. So, it's about 3:45 at this time and I had to be to work in my clothes and everything at 4:30 sharp. My dad said he'd take me over to Sams Club or Costco, we'd look at their flower selection, and I'd probably find something. I chose Sams because it was closer and we hopped into the car, ran into the store, ran to the flower section and what did we find? Absolutely nothing but carnations and yellow gerber daisies. Terrible. We're at about 4:05 at this point in time. I was about to give up but my dad insisted we head to Costco. We zipped over there, ran into the store, found the flower section and... they had my colors! Only bad thing was they only had orange, green, and purple bouquets and then pink and white bouquets. The florist was there arranging flowers and I quickly told her my dilema and how I needed a mixture of the two. She could tell we were in a major hurry so she picked some pink gerbs out of a bundle, threw it into the orange bouquet and sent us on our way. We flew home, I changed my clothes, and made it to work at 4:27. Pretty good timing if you ask me.

So, that was the easy part. After work that night I had to put the flowers together into a bouquet. Sounds easy for someone who has done many arrangements but it's hard when a) it's your own bridal bouquet and nothing is ever perfect and b) I didn't have any of the tools to make it look just right and c) it was about 1 am when I was doing it and I was exhausted from a day at work. To sum up my long story, I finally finished my bouquet and I thought it looked fine. Not the greatest ever but it also didn't cost me $50. Moral of the story- don't trust flower shops. They rip you off. Also, Costco's flower section is SO much better than Sams Club.

an update!!

So, I've been busy (actually I've just been a slacker) and haven't updated my blog in a bit. So this is going to be a very broad, general update. As far as wedding plans go, we're still doing great! I got my bridals taken on Tues and absolutely LOVED them! It was fun to have a "dress rehearsal" to do my hair and make up and finally wear my dress outside of the dress shop... but the place my photographer took me was fabulous! We went downtown to the Beehive Tearoom- it's this cute little place with all sorts of vintage chairs, sofas, tables, bookshelves, lamps, music, etc. You seriously order tea or hot chocolate and they serve it to you in little teacups and teapots and then you sit in and drink it in all these different room with different lighting and different themes. My favorite was this large velvet green sofa we were able to snag for a couple of shots. I'm excited to get the pictures back so I can post them! My mom and Chana came with me and we had a lot of fun. After my bridals I had a family bridal shower. My family likes to do things that are memorable so since it was April Fools day and since it was a bridal shower, we all had to wear shower caps. Talk about an interesting idea! I'm glad everyone was such a sport about it because I think my grandma and aunts were really excited they weren't the only ones dressed up for the occasion. I'll post those pictures asap!

Josh is moving into our place on Tues- the men have all ordered a Uhaul and are making a big day of it! I'm kind of happy they're taking it upon themselves to do all the hard working with moving everything and I'll go up afterwards to make it all cute and decorated. Isn't that the best part of getting your own place anyway?

So, Josh and I have been huge Utah Jazz fans this year. Seriously, I don't think we've missed a single game yet. We either plan our evenings around the games or we record it and watch it later that night. We're obsessed! Our friend Kim gave us tickets to a game last week- they weren't the best tickets ever but we wanted to make it as fun as possible. So earlier that day we went out and purchased new Jazz t-shirts (his was a Boozer shirt, mine (of course) was a Korver shirt) and we sported them while riding trax downtown and then cheered loudly from the bloody nose section all night. We even got blow up clappers out of the whole thing! GO JAZZ!

Josh and Liz have a home!!

So, I put Josh in charge of finding us a place and this is what I got! We found a townhome on the west side of Logan (right behind Sams for those of you who know the area) in a cute new development. We needed something relatively inexpensive but nice and I think we did well for ourselves! Josh will be moving in on April 8th and I'll be moving all my stuff up so that come April 30, we'll officially be living there together! It's definitely a relief to have yet another thing to check off our list!

They like me... they REALLY like me!!

Exciting news! I recently found out that I've been accepted into the Audiology program at USU! In 4 years from now, I'll officially be "Dr Hankins." :) Josh and I are so excited mostly because we didn't really have a Plan B just in case I didn't get in. In addition to being accepted, I get a full scholarship to go along with it.... not too shabby! So now the next step is finding a place to live. Since Josh is up in Logan every day, I'm going to leave most of the house hunting up to him. We've found some condos and townhomes that are cute and close enough to campus that we're looking at- it's just all about finding the "right" one! Hopefully we can seal the deal and get into one within the next week or two so Josh can stop making the treacherous drive back and forth everyday!