Back to Blogging and update on my life!

Ok so I stopped blogging for a long while but I am BACK! I stopped for a combination of reasons mainly because my life has been going at 100 mph and I felt like I was so behind that I couldn't start again. However, I realized how much I love reading other people's blogs and getting to know their stories sooo I should share mine too! I am hoping to have a job soon enough so that I can blog at the office when there is down time (I have an interview tomorrow... prayers needed!!!)

So much has happened since my last post.

Kaylen's Bachlorette Party in NJ/NYC! My last post was all about how I lost my phone BUT the rest of the weekend was AWESOME! We stayed in a sweet hotel in NYC, got ready, had hotel security tell us we were too loud, went to dinner, took pics with NYC firefighters, found an Asian guy named Mike to drive us around in his SUV,went to a sweet club, and overall had a crazy good time. Kaylen was an awesome bachlorette and did almost everything on her scavenger hunt list :) The other miracle is that Tori and I found our way from Manhattan to LaGuardia airport via subway and buses... AND we made our flights!!



Kaylen's Wedding
To say this was an awesome wedding is definitely an understatement ... words cannot to describe! I felt so honored to be apart of her big day and support such an amazing couple. Their ceremony was beautiful and full of love for each other and for God. The reception was an unbelievable party that I will always remember. Daniel danced with me more than he ever has before!!



Three of us getting ready!



Bridal Shower

My bridal shower was such a beautiful display of love! I am so blessed to have such awesome women in my life. A family friend threw the shower for me and worked so hard to make every detail perfect including baking cupcakes that color coordinated with my wedding colors :) My mom surprised me with a limo ride so that we could arrive in style! This was the first time my Mom and Aunt had ever been in a limo :) I was soo excited that my Aunt from Washington State flew out here to come! Unfortunately, she can't come to the wedding but wanted to be apart of the celebrations in some way. I had so much fun getting to spend time with her the day before at Yorktown beach and the day of the shower.




Daniel and Stacey come to Clemson!!

I was so excited to see both of them in Clemson... especially happy that Stacey got to experience Clemson before I moved out. They got here Friday night and we went out downtown... It was a blast! Unfortunately, Stacey got sick :( I felt soooo bad but we went to a movie and played Wii on Saturday night. It was nice to just relax and chill. Sunday morning we went to church and drove to the car dealership to pick out a new car.. and they were closed :( I really should have known this since EVERYTHING is closed around here on Sundays. Honestly, I cannot wait to be somewhere where things are open on Sundays... bring on VA! They were so gracious and helped me move a good amount of stuff (I filled up Daniel's car completely). :) I can't wait to see both of them again!

Surprise Bachlorette Party

Last Thursday, my friends from Clemson and I had planned to have a girls night in Greenville to celebrate the end of the school year. I love going out in Greenville and have felt that we haven't done it enough so I was SOOO excited. We had our last class at a restaurant, went to our supervisor's house for dinner, and then got ready for a girl's night out. We got to the hotel and it was actually a surprise bachlorette party for me complete with the sash, fake ring, sangria, and a scavenger hunt list :) I was SOOO surprised - I had absolutely no idea. We went out and had an awesome time till 5 am! I completed almost everything on my scavenger hunt list EXCEPT for finding someone named Daniel (who would have thought that would be hard????) and getting a police officer to propose to me ... o well I guess I will have to save those things for my next bachlorette party :) I will post pictures as soon as I get them!


More of an update to come in a later post!

I lost my phone ... oooo

Sooo I made it safely to the LaGuardia airport and Kaylen's fiancee Sean picked me up! I was so excited to be here and get this weekend started (well I still am super excited and this weekend is starting in an hour YAYAYAYAY!!) We met Kaylen at this bar called The Office and I got to eat. It was so good to catch up on life, work, and of course our upcoming weddings :) We get into the car and I realize I don't have my phone. I run back into the restaurant and can't find it anywhere. I ask the staff and they are like We haven't seen an iphone all night ... blah blah. I am not too panicked at this point and figure it is probably in Sean's car and I will get it in the am. Sean checks his car and it isn't there... so I am like it has to be at the restaurant and figured I'd call them in the morning. I woke up this morning and called Daniel from Kay's house phone and he did was able to use feature on the phone that can locate it. It was last located at 3 am (probably before it died) on 7th Ave. of Patterson, NJ... I didn't know this but according to Sean that is a really bad area. My phone is officially gone :( I have no idea when or how it got stolen but it definitely did... the good news of the day is 1) I have the best fiancee in the world because he took care of wiping all the information from the phone so nothing got stolen 2)He called AT&T and got all the information needed for me to get a new phone 3)I am eligible for an upgrade so I am just going to get the iPhone3GS YAYAY! All in all its not a terrible situation BUT I will not have a phone for the rest of the weekend so my goal is to not get separated from the group in NYC! Epic stories to come.

Many Travels

This school year has definitely been the year of traveling :) Starting with the trip to Charleston with the love of my life, Tampa Bay for the ACC championship, Jacksonville for AFA conference, Charleston with the Clemson crew, Virginia Beach for Engaged Encounter, New Orleans with my Clemson favs, Greenville for Valentine's day, Williamsburg for SEAHO, and this weekend I am off to NJ/NYC one of my fav's bachlorette party!! YAY! This is definitely going to be an epic weekend. I leave tomorrow around 4 to go to Charlotte, NC then get into LaGuardia at 8 pm. Though she has to go to work on Friday, I am saving a ton of money by flying in a day early and so it is gonna be awesome! More info and of course exciting stories to come.

Shhhh... Don't Ask

So if you don't know, I LOVE politics... I am genuinely obsessed with the news. I watch election results like other people watch football. I read all sorts of online news sources such as USA Today, NY Times, CNN.com etc... I flip through Foxnews, CNN, and sometimes MSNBC every night so that I can get different perspectives. I can tell you every show on cable news from 3 pm on.. It is pretty ridiculous but that is just me. I love to talk about controversial issues and debate with all sorts of people but get frustrated because most people are ill informed. At this point in my life, I am thinking of going to law school and begin working on political campaigns. I am a huge conservative that leans to the libertarian side. I am passionate about conservative issues most of all about government intervention into peoples ordinary lives.

Here is the shocker: I do not understand why conservatives are against repealing "Don't Ask, Don't tell". There is NO good reason to not let gay people serve in the military. I do understand that in a large part this is a generational issue. People my parents age did not grow up around openly gay people and thus have limited exposure to them. They only think of the stereotypes. I keep hearing people say if we let gay people serve openly we might as well get ride of gender specific baracks and bathrooms. As someone who works in gender specific housing, let me tell you that is ridiculous. Gay people live with people of the same gender in university housing ALL over the country and use the same bathrooms. These people are generally accepted members of their communities. Though their roommate might have an initial problem, In two years I have not had ONE person request to move because of sexual orientation (and I know that I have lesbians living in my building). Not only have I not had anyone request, I haven't heard any of my fellow RDs friends having anyone either. Normally, it is the parents that are more upset about their son/daughter roommate being gay then the student is. The fact is is that these communities are not hurt by the sexual orientation of these members...The contrary is normally true. This is not just in housing but LGBT students are more and more frequently joining gender specific Greek letter organizations and I have NEVER heard these organizations complaining that their "unit cohesion" is damaged because of their membership. The only thing that matters is that these people give their time and energy to benefit the organization. Even more so in the military WHO CARES about their sexual orientation if these people are doing their job and keeping us safe?? The idea that people walk around being "scared" of being hit on by fellow soldiers is ridiculous in the light of the fact that men and women have been serving together in the military for a long time. Men and women also live in very tight quarters oversees when deployed. Though I am not a fan of the argument that other countries are doing it (especially in regards to health care), in this case all the military has to do is look at other countries and see how this works for them. I seriously doubt that any of the arguments will hold up.

Wedding Craziness

So the main reason I stayed in town after the conference was too do wedding appointments, on Saturday I met with the lady who is doing the invitations and the wedding planner. My parents came down from Fredericksburg, Daniel's parents were there, and two of my bridesmaids. It was so nice to have everyone in the same place at the same table going over important details. Finally the invitation drama has ended. I am still not happy with the process and will never recommend this lady HOWEVER I am happy with the final product. People should be getting their invitations in two weeks :) SOO excited for that! My coordinator brought everyone schedules of the wedding day broken up by 15 minute intervals. It was awesome to see that she had it together and knew exactly what we were supposed to do. She also went over details such as the cake, limo, timeline, musicians for the ceremony etc. Overall, everything is coming together and I CAN'T WAIT to stop planning my wedding and start living my marriage :)

Feels Like Home

On Tuesday night, I got into Williamsburg, checked into my hotel, and ran to Newport News to meet Daniel. It still amazes me how incredibly happy I am to see him after a few weeks of separation... I still get butterflies and a rush of joy :) We took a night to chill by ourselves, get some drinks, and talk since I knew I would be so busy the next couple days with everything. It is an amazing feeling to have a safe place within a life of uncertainty. I can't wait to have a home together and have that safe environment in one location.
Wednesday night, Daniel and I went over to my Big's house and hung out with her, her new man!, her roommate and her boyfriend. We had cheesecake and played this crazy card came called BANG! ... and yes the conversation did start to deteriorate quickly especially since you had to BANG! people to win. I had heard so much about her guy and her other roommate and so it was awesome to meet them. It was a good time to hang out with two other couples. It is rare that we get to be around other couples since most of the time we are the only one or one of two.
Thursday night, it was two beautiful Zeta ladies birthdays :) I was so excited to see them and a large number of sisters at once!! The second I walked in the door and started hugging everyone, I realized it really was home. I also got to meet a bunch of DT fam that I had never met before. YAY for our family being HUGE!! The birthday girls had a marvelous cake all themed with ZTA and it was great to see them so happy! I got to buy them the traditional birthday shot and take it with them (of course!!). All in all, it was a great night and a few of us stayed till Cheeseburger in Paradise closed.
The conference ended Friday afternoon and so I went to see my Big at her store in Williamsburg. Luckily, she was on her break so we got to talk about lots of good stuff. I then went to visit my best friend since middle school (yes we went to elementary, middle, high, and college together) at her work and see her new apartment. Her new place is soo adorable and I am definitely jealous of it. Maybe one day I will figure out how to keep a place clean and decorate?? I also met one of my fabulous littles at Brickhouse. Brickhouse is one of my favorite bars in Newport News so it was nice to hang out there. We watched the end of the Men's hockey game against Finland (USA! USA!) and got some food. Later that night, I met Daniel at one of our couple friends from his church. Right before I met him though, we got into a big fight mainly because I blew everything out of proportion. I was close to not going but I am glad we were able to put it past us quickly and have a great time. Our friends have been married three years, are super fun, young and one is Catholic and the other is not. They are a great couple to hang out with and talk about life. We had a great time drinking wine and talking about everything from the Olympics to religion.
Saturday during the day was a wedding planning day (I'll save that for another post) and Saturday night was a double date that I have been waiting for since... well honestly since middle school. My best friend and I always fantasized about how we found guys to settle down with we would do stuff as couples all the time. We even joked about having a joint wedding. We went to get drinks, ate Hibachi, and played the electronic version of life which was sooo much fun. All in all, I love her new man and am so happy that we can finally do all the things that we have talked about doing for FOREVER.
Sunday, Daniel and I went to church with a crew and then made brunch after. With all the teasing about how I don't know how to cook, I made the pancakes (yes... I made it with mix but I did all the pouring and flipping) After that, we went for a walk, relaxed until I had to leave.
It was an amazing five days and I was constantly reminded that this is my home and where my heart is!

SEAHO

I have so much to blog about since its been about a week. I'm going to do several different posts about things that happened last week.
I went to my conference in Williamsburg called SEAHO (South Eastern Association of Housing Officers). It was a hard conference to be at since the whole reason I was there was to interview and I didn't have any interviews. However, I was pleasantly surprised that some schools in the area had were anticipating openings in their housing departments. Though this isn't a guaranteed job opening, it gave me a lot of hope. I spent the conference making new connections hoping that they would remember me when a position opened up ... and renewing old relationships at CNU! I spent a long time talking to a Residence Hall Director at ODU. She and I had a great conversation about the position and even her own job search. She shared with me that she was in the exact same position as me just last year (her partner is in the Navy and got stationed at Norfolk Naval). This was beyond encouraging and talking to her was worth it even if I don't get a position. The encouragement allowed me to step back and breathe... I am not in panic mode yet. If it is graduation day and I have no prospects then I might start looking at Starbucks but right now there are possibilities!!!