My Drug of Choice.

It's been a long day. Things are just not going your way. The world looks grim and bleak and all you want to do is escape from reality. Some people reach for the bottle, some people pop a few pills.

My drug of choice?

The duck pond.

I mean honestly. How can you not think this is cute?

Guys. I really want a pet duck. I don't want anyone saying they smell bad or they bite or they aren't friendly or any of that. All you negative nancies can go rain all over someone else's parade. I seriously want one. I have spent lots of time contemplating stealing one from the duck pond, but that is just not practical. Darn it. Someday I will buy my very own baby duck, and raise it on my own and it will be mine and it will follow me around and I will put a pond in my backyard and we will have a delightful life together.

I mean look at this picture. Does it get any more adorable? The answer is no. Two of my favorite things: Ducks and Wilson :) Oh I just want to live in this picture!

Here I am, enjoying my duck-induced euphoria. Wilson was out here in Utah this past weekend, and it was absolutely amazing! One morning I woke up on the wrong side of the bed in a bad way. Poor Wilson was trying to figure out why in the world I was the most unpleasant person on the planet. The reason remains unknown. Sometimes a girl just has to pout it out! Anywho. In an attempt to get me to stop snarling and baring my teeth at the world, he dragged me on over to the duck pond, to wax nostalgic about our delightful engagement, and to feed those little buddies some stale bagels. I was in heaven. I frequent the duck pond on days where I am feeling blue, and those little guys never fail in cheering me up. Seeing them waddle and frolick about just makes me the happiest camper. My favorite moment is when all of the ducks were in the field, and one of them got a hold of a whole piece of bread. Pandemonium ensued. It was like watching football, only about 900000x more adorable. The poor guy was sprinting down the field with a million angry and quacking ducks on his tail. He would try to stop and choke it down, and they pounced on him! I nearly passed out from the preciousness of it all.

So please, next time life has got you down and you're looking for an escape, pass on the alcohol, put away the spoon for your Ben&Jerry's, and head on over to a duck pond to make your fine feathered friends happy. And you too!

My life has been taken over my tests. 6 tests in a week and a half. Sick. So naturally I decided that this week would be the perfect time to start my new blog, for when Cary and I have entered into holy matrimony. It is funny how when I was super stressed, with tons of things to do, I decide to do the things that are at the bottom of my to-do list. Example, on Tuesday I was all geared up to spend the afternoon studying away for my biomechanics exam. What did I do instead? I cleaned my apartment, made a blog, did wedding planning things, started on a project that is due in like a month, and ordered wedding invitations. All of these things need to be done at some point in my life, but not nearly as urgently as studying for this test. Why do I do this? It is difficult to say. Without further ado, the fruits of my labor:

caryandamyreeves.blogspot.com

Go look and appropriately "Awwww" at how adorable we are! :)

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

Hello dear blog-o-sphere! It has indeed been ages since I documented my fabulously interesting life via pictures and witty and captivating rhetoric. Ha. I have just been absolutely swamped lately. Being the least productive person on the entire planet is tough work, but somebody's gotta do it. I last blogged in November, when I was newly engaged, twitterpated with my adorable future husband, and going to school only because I'm not sure what else to do with myself. It is February now, and into a new year, and oh how things have changed. I have now been engaged for approximately 56 years, only about a million more to go, still twitterpated with my adorable future husband, and going to school because if I don't, my family won't love me anymore and I will get kicked out and then I will get depressed and eat a lot and become obese, and then Wilson won't love me either so it is probably in my best interests to tough it out. I have also taken up wedding planning as a hobby, which is coming along swimmingly, except for about once a week when I want to ditch the whole darn thing and elope. My other 2010 activities involve flying home frequently to visit family and husband elect, shamelessly watching the Bachelor and discussing it in detail, trying to learn how to cook, with moderate successes and spectacular failures, and doing as little school work as possible.

Let us briefly recap some of the highlights between November and now.

Christmas Break! Boy was that a spectacular affair. It began with me taking all 5 of my finals in one day. Superwoman. ... Slash I was really over school at this point and just wanted to go home so I didn't care what I got. But miraculously, I got straight As this semester! Suck it, History 201. I flew home to my beloved Colorado, where I started Christmas break right by teaching Wilson to ski! (Translation: Attempting to teach Wilson to ski, and then making him take a ski lesson so that we would stay in love and not kill each other). After the ski lesson, Wils was a champ and was flying down black diamonds. What a trooper. I joined my family out in Utah after a bit and I was, as always, a spoiled little girl at Christmas, and I have been loving my Brita Filter so much, along with plane tickets, a new coat, and b-e-a-utiful diamond earrings from my number one boy toy :). Wilson came out to Utah after Christmas and we spent a week skiing, hot tubbing, eating way too much food, and having a blast. I was impressed with my ability to gain weight while skiing all day every day. I am a champion eater.

Here is a pic of me and Wils skiing as proof that he enjoyed it! He might look like a little bit like an old man in this picture, but he looks like a happy old man. :)

After Christmas break I grudgingly returned back to school. Lame. This semester I have classes which require actual work which I am not too pleased about. But I have managed to have some fantastic times! One weekend when I was stuck in Provo instead of Colorado, I went to a lovely Bridal Show in Salt Lake with some great friends. My friend Melissa is the world's most adorable pregnant woman, and it is a shame that I actually look more pregnant than her in this picture. There were a lot of delicious samples there, so sue me.

Truthfully I am not really a bridal show type of girl, and I was pretty bored of the whole thing until we came across the catering display. Oh sweet bliss. I ate about 90 mini cupcakes. Bliss. After we were stuffed to the brim, we were hit by an out of control car on the highway, and it was about the scariest thing that has ever happened to me. 4 girls in the car- 1 is pregnant, 1 preparing to go on a mission, and 2 engaged- and no one was hurt. It feels good to know that the Big Guy up there has a plan for us, and he's watching out for us. Phew.

This last weekend I went home to Colorado for some much needed quality time with my man. With all of this wedding planning and family reunions and such, we don't spend too much time just hanging out and being best friends. This weekend we did all kinds of things, and it just reminded me over and over again how lucky I am to be marrying that guy. We made tin-foil dinners on Friday, but these were not your average tin-foil dinners. We are talking steak, potatoes, mushrooms, and green onions, with a delicious cream of mushroom sauce. My tastebuds were in heaven. After that, we went out on a limb to go to this improv theater in Broomfield. I'd heard of them, and they are known for clean, "above the belt comedy." This in my brain meant that it was probably going to be lame. Before you go thinking I am a big pervert, I don't enjoy crude humor, but suffice it to say, I had an eyebrow raised in suspicion. (Side note: I can not raise one eyebrow, which continues to be an intense disappointment in my life.) Anywho, much to my delight, it was hilarious! My abs hurt by the end of the night from laughing. It was great, and I would recommend it to any of my homies in Colorado.

In conclusion, I never take pictures. This is a sad thought. I only blog about things I have pictures of, which leads to strange results at times. I am making a blog-resolution to take more pictures, so that I have more variety when choosing what I ramble about on my blog.

Phew this baby is long. I am bored, and I wrote it.

I hereby promise (to be interpreted as: will maybe consider) to make my blog posts more frequent, more picture-full, and more interesting.

This weekend will definitely make the list of Top 5 Best Weekends Of My Whole Life. And it was all made possible by my dearest, darlingest biffels. (Biffel= BFFL= Best Friends Fo LIFE). And I have to decided to compose an e-tribute mah gurlfrens, the ladies who made this all possible.

I've never been what you might call a socialite. It might be more fitting to just call me a nerd. In high school on any given weekend night I could be found in one of a two places: 

1. Playing cards and watching America's Funniest Home Videos with my fambly.

2. Great Scott's and/or Chipotle, followed by an evening of mischief with ma' girls. 

 

It all started with Danica. Back in 7th grade, when we were both fat and weird, our mothers decided to set us up. Yes, this is the true. We were both so socially retarded that at the age of 13, our mothers were still setting us up on playdates. As described by my mother, we were both "so spunky." ...aka awkward and chubby. But we were awkward and chubby together. We spent many a summer afternoon walking to Taco Bell, and taking a break on the way back because that hill was KILLER and our tubby little legs just could not handle it. As years went by, our escapades changed from days swimming at the Bay and sliding down hills in cardboard boxes, to sneaking out of the house to go streaking and prank phone calling all of the boys we loved. Danica is exactly the best friend I always needed. Always full of energy and laughs, she is just the kind of crazy that life would be so boring without. Never a dull moment with Danica Janez around.

As was established, when we moved to Colorado, I was not one with the popularity. Cue Rachel. My mom invited her over to help me babysit one time, and from the beginning, I knew she was way cooler than me. I've always been intimidated by Rachel, but in a way that makes me want to step up my game and be more like her. I knew after sliding down the mattresses on my stairs, we were going to be friends. Even after she got her arm stuck in the spindle, she stuck around. Through girls camp, mutual, and a little bit of fate, Danica, Rachel and I all started to become friends. Rachel is the girl that you want to hate. She is gorgeous, talented, smart, funny- everyone loves her! But she is the most down-to-earth and genuine person. Impossible to hate. I hate that about her! :)

Deelinda. It is weird to call her Deelinda, because for years now, we have known her exclusively as D-face (one of Rachel's best contributions to the posse is nicknames). For years, I was friends with Danica, and friends with Deelinda, but never friends with Danica and Deelinda. I sometimes have a hard time believing that these two are twins; they hardly seem from the same planet at times. Eventually the twins tolerated each other, and I would invite D-face to accompany our various adventures. And D-face slowly attained her position as an invaluable member of our quatro. As I browsed all of these pictures, I noticed that while D-face was present for all of the events, she isn't in any of the pictures. D-face is behind the scenes. She prefers to listen than to talk, but when she talks, she's hilarious and bright. She's content to take the pictures, but looks gorgeous in them. She has a quiet confidence; not feeling the need to show off and be the center of attention. Our group desperately needs this, seeing as the rest of us are outrageously obnoxious. 

The 4 of us could not be more different. Danica and Rachel are fiercely competitive and athletic, while my sport of choice is jogging very slowly with no one around to laugh at me. Deelinda loves to dance, and dances very well, and the rest of us flail around in a seizure-like fashion, roughly to the beat of the music. I am near OCD in my anal retentive organizational habits, and the rest are easing going, and content to go with the flow. Deelinda and Rachel are sultry brunettes, Danica and I are bubbly blondes. Deelinda's in to musicals, Danica's in to the top 10. Rachel's in to fashion, I am in to sweatpants. By all accounts, our friendship does not make sense. But we have one thing in common: We love to eat. Ok we have two things in common: We love to eat, and we love to laugh. 

And we think we're hilarious. Even when no one else does. 

Without further ado, here's to 8 fabulous years of laughing and fighting, eating and dieting (not), singing and dancing, sneaking out and streaking, more laughing, more eating, and the best friends I will ever have.

Mature beyond our years, our high school nights often involved taking fake drunk pics while our parents were out of town, and TP'ing every boy we've ever had a crush on. Always an adventure in the shaggin wagon.

Singing and dancing are integral parts of our friendship. Many a music video have been made in that basement, and there's nothing I love more than dirty dance moves and rap music at 2:30 in the morning on a Friday night. She want that lovey dovey... kiss kiss...We dance in the street to Chris Brown, in the kitchen to N'Sync, and in the car to some Britney. We sing "All I Want for Christmas is You" until we are hoarse. We also sing that one weird song that Rachel and Angela made up about 10 years ago and I still know every word to. 

Eating and taking pictures. A must for any biffel reunion. I have to say that for average sized and skinny girls, we sure can eat. Each and every one of us can comfortably finish a Chipotle, and head on over to Great Scott's to chase it down with an Oreo Hot Fudge milkshake. Maybe it's the sexy waiters there that really get our appetites up. So many acne scarred and pot bellied waiters, so little time... Countless hours have been spent around the Reichman table, eating Mama Reichman's snacks she always so lovingly served us. I think we owe a lot of our friendship to my dear sweet Mama. Not only is she responsible for getting this whole ball rolling, she has always been there to supply food, hugs, and an empty house for countless 'povers.

In 6 long/short months, I will be journeying off into that terrifying land of marriage. I am so excited to be marrying the man of my dreams, and starting our adventure together, but a part of me is heartbroken at the thought of leaving my best friends behind. I don't know who I'd be without them to shape me. From Danica I learned how to be outgoing, how to laugh, and how to really enjoy life. From Deelinda I learned how to listen and how to be a true friend, through thick and thin. From Rachel I learned how to be assertive and confident, and still be friendly and warm. We each bring such different cards to the table, but thanks to having them in my life, I think I've emerged with a little piece of each of them. After 8 years of trying to figure out who we were, I think we all found the best in each other. 

Here's to my Biffels. 

Best Friends for Life. 

That's a promise.

The Happiest Place on Earth!

Who could not be happy at the happiest place on earth? The majority of the children there, that's who. Now don't get me wrong, I saw several children light up at the magic that is Disneyland, but I also saw an equal if not greater proportion of children screaming bloody murder and throwing massive tantrums. There is another tally for my list of "Things that are meant for children but are actually way more fun without them." This includes: the zoo, Mario Kart, several board games, Easter Egg Hunts, decorating sugar cookies, and Disneyland. Someday I am sure I will experience the delight of watching my own children partake in all of these events, but as for now I am thoroughly enjoying all of these activities with little to no crying involved. It depends on if we invite Matt or not. Zing! 

Anyway.

Disneyland was a pure delight. It was Katie's birthday slash 1-year wedding anniversary, and what better way to celebrate and have a romantic vacation than to invite ME! And Matt, and also one of Todd's friends. And by pure coincidence, that cute fiancé of mine(yes I just like to say fiancé) was in L.A. for the weekend, and he got to drop by for a couple days of Disneyland-ing! I really want to add all kinds of pictures to this thing, but every time I try I get some stinkin error message. So the only logical solution is for my loyal readers to imagine all of us there at Disneyland, loving life. It is probably better this way, since I can't take a photo without closing my eyes and/or gaining 250 lbs. 

Moving on. The whole reason I am writing this post because I haven't left my apartment in the last 72 hours. As a lovely parting souvenir, Disneyland gifted me the worst cold/flu/nightmare of my life. I would like to thank whatever germy person went to Disneyland and touched everything on purpose to make sure I would come home sick. After 4 whole days of sleeping, coughing my bloody lungs out, sweating profusely while sitting in front of my fan, and basically every other symptom that none of you people want to hear about, I think I am finally on the mends. I am a really healthy person, and very rarely get sick.. So when I get sick, rather than feel blessed for how lucky I am to enjoy such great health the vast majority of the time, I choose to lay around the house and whine melodramatically about how I can't even remember what it's like to feel healthy. But for this entire illness, my family has been off galavanting about Europe, picking up my brother from his mission. Um I know he's been gone for 2 years and you're excited and all, but where is my sympathetic coo-ing and get well card? Sheesh. This has left poor Cary to deal with me on the phone every night, boo-hooing about how I am STILL not better. He deserves a medal. Or at least a blog-thank you. Thanks future hubby! I bet now you're soooo excited for when I'm pregnant. I'm just gonna be so peppy and fun. :)

Oh, I'm mostly kidding. I am  SO excited to see Brent in a week. I am a little jealous that my family is over there with him now, but mostly I am just so beyond excited for Brent, and for my family that they are having such a great reunion.

The bottom line is. I live a pretty charmed life. And even though this dumb illness kicked my butt, the weekend at Disney was so worth it. And I can't wait to see Brent in a week!

And because I want another picture and for some reason this is the only other one that will download,  please enjoy this strange photo of Wilson and me, where you should take note of Matt's scary face between us.

WARNING: Cliche and mushy blog post to follow, read at your own risk.

You know what makes me REALLY happy???

BEING ENGAGED TO CARY WILSON REEVES!

I thought while the memory was fresh in my mind, I would do a little blogging and fill in all of my loyal readers (Hi Mom!) of the spectacular events that unfolded this weekend. And lest you think I just bought myself a ring and put it on in the above picture, here is unfortunately about the only picture we took the whole weekend, where let's face it, we both look slightly handicapped. But I have a ring, and we are both smiling, so there is proof. Well, I think Cary is smiling. I will tell myself he is smiling.

Ok children let's gather round for story time! So basically to set the stage:

Amy= master detective

Future Husband= awful liar.

The above combination= Amy figuring out that a) Cary was in possession of the ring. b) He had been to my house earlier in the week. A casual visit to my folks? I think not.

So basically as we spoke on the phone that week, I made sure to drop extremely subtle hints that I knew he was being sneaky about something shiny. Ok maybe saying, "Are you proposing this weekend, because I need to get my nails done." is not that subtle, but I like to get to the point. Moving on. Miraculously, the boy turned into an excellent liar around this time, and fully convinced me that he was not proposing this weekend. He convinced me that he hadn't seen my dad, that he had other plans, and other means of trickery. So after pouting for a good long while about getting my hopes up, I moved on and dismissed it all as me getting over anxious about getting some bling bling up in here.

So Thursday rolls around, and I pick up the then boyfriend at the Airport. It is important to note that I wanted to search his bags for the ring the whole time he was here, just to ensure that he had not indeed been pulling my leg on the phone, but I was fairly certain that he had been telling the truth. So I just put on my big girl panties and embraced the fact that this weekend was not the one! We had a fabulous thursday night, that involved amazing rice crispy treats and falling asleep during a movie, which is like my favorite way to fall asleep.

Ok let's just get to the proposal alright? So. Friday night. We are supposed to go on a double date, but it falls through. So we decide to go to the duck pond! I have a strange love of ducks, and feeding them, and the BYU duck pond has so many ducks and I just want to take one home with me and be its Mama. So we fed the ducks and it was precious and so BYU. Yes I am about to tell you that I got proposed to at the Duck Pond. So we go on a walk, nearly step on a couple getting it on in the grass, weird, and settle on a bench that's all nestled in the trees. We're talking, the usual stuff, and Wilson goes into this speech about how great I am. Of course I'm sitting there just soaking up all the warm fuzzies, and in my head I'm just thinking, "Gosh dang it, I want him to propose. Right now. This is perfect. And I am wearing a new sweater, so basically right about now would be so great." And then, Cary looks at me and says, "Amy, I told you a dirty rotten lie." And I was like, "YES!" In my head, not out loud. And the next thing I know, he's down on one knee, with this gorgeous ring box open, with the most amazing ring on the inside. I think he possibly asked me to marry him at this point, but I was too busy screaming and clapping and crying and being a huge girl about the whole thing. He put the ring on my finger and we spent the next few hours staring at the ring, calling relatives, calling each other "fiancé", testing out my future name- Amy Reeves- and loving life. And this was accompanied by random outbursts of shrieking with joy and jumping up and down. That Cary can just be so emotional. Ha. Of course I was the one going nuts.

So I am marrying Cary Wilson Reeves and could not be happier about it! He is an excellent candidate for marriage for several reasons, but the top 5 would have to be:

1. Last name choice. Do to extreme laziness, my signature has slowly degenerated and now consists of an A with some squiggles and an Re with some squiggles. I don't even have to change my signature when I get married. Mark that in the pros section.

2. Our families live a mile away from each other, and love each other. Our mothers are possibly more excited than we are. This is amazing.

3. We both share a really ridiculous amount of love for Chick-Fil-A, the zoo, puppies, going on walks, speed scrabble, museums, and an assortment of other really dorky activities. We are great and not nerdy at all.

4. He likes me equally when I'm dressed up and when I'm in jeans and a sweatshirt. Which is good because I spend way too much time in such attire.

5. Cary Wilson Reeves is the most incredible man on the planet and I can't figure out how in the world I got so lucky. He is wicked smart, charming, funny, outgoing, friendly, loving, loyal, adorable, driven, successful, sexy, strong, playful, motivated, and he has excellent taste in women.

5 and 1/2. Our children will be adorable.

Basically, in the words of Buddy the Elf, I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love, and I don't care who knows it!

If you read this whole thing, I will give you a high five and probably advise you to find a hobby.

Weekends, I prefer the weekends!

Has anyone else seen that SNL skit where Garth Brooks sells his soul to the Devil for a hit song? Oh it is brilliant. Mondays, boy I hate Mondays, they make me so steamed.. Weekends, talkin bout the weekends! If you haven't seen that skit you are probably thinking I am on drugs at this point. Meh. The point is, I am a big time fan of the weekends lately. They've been treating me very nicely. I am the worst picture taker ever, so I have very little photo evidence of the charming life I lead, but here are the few pictures and tidbits of why my life is excellent.

1. Going to the zoo with the boyfriend. It was so awesome! I am kind of, ok a lot, OCD and when I go to the zoo I want to make sure I plan my route so that I can maximize the exhibits I see, while minimizing the time wandering around trying to figure out where all the cool stuff is. Usually when I go to the zoo, the company I'm with consists of children who for some reason don't want to power walk to see all the good stuff and insist on being fed (weird) or other people who just are not patient with my efficient zoo tactics and want to wander aimlessly around the park. Some people. But Cary and I were zoo machines and it was the best day at the zoo ever. Plus I loved seeing all of the crying kids and being like HA! We are having way more fun than you. I am kind of a bad person. But regardless, two thumbs way up. We finished the day off at Chipotle and I loved life a whole lot.
2. CIRQUE DU SOLEIL. Oh my goodness. That is really all that needs to be said. We went to an Air Show earlier in the day, which was also amazing. No wonder that boy wants to be a pilot, it is pretty sweet. It was also about 460 degrees outside. I got a really sexy t-shirt tan and also a huge strawberry lemonade. Success. We went to Cirque du Soleil that night, and it was excellent for several reasons: Uno, I successfully batted my eyelashes and scored us some free parking from the kind of nervous and awkward parking attendant. 2 points for Amy. Dos, one of the performers is one of my dad's patients, so I was like oh hey, I know that guy. No big deal. Tres, the show was amazing, I spent the whole time just in complete awe of what people can do with their bodies. The contortionists were like a combination of disgusting and beautiful. Loved every second of it.

3. Parent's Weekend at Air Force Academy! While I recognize that I am not actually a parent of a cadet, I still got to go see what life is like at the Academy for a day. Cary's math classes made me feel like a 1st grader, and I loved seeing him all dressed up in uniform. So cool. He is basically a big time stud. We went to the football game the next day, and Cary showed off the falcon to many admiring fans. It was really fun, and my fam came along to the football game, and the whole weekend was just beyond great. We went hiking to a gorgeous waterfall on Monday and the whole weekend was just perfection.
4. This last weekend, Cary came out to run a marathon. Confession: I was fairly confident that he was going to die. We got into Logan on Friday night at 2 a.m., and they had to be awake to run at 4 a.m. the next day. Due to an ankle injury, Cary hadn't really been running in the last month. I was fairly confident that I would find him collapsed somewhere near mile 2. I went to the finish line around his goal time and got winded just watching all of the people finish the marathon. I started feeling pretty bad about myself right about when the 68 year old woman crossed the finish line, looking like she'd just completed a little morning jog. As Cary's goal time approached, I started to get nervous that he really was crawling around somewhere abotu 20 miles back. But I think on pure stubborn-ness, at a time of 4:25, I saw my incredibly studly boyfriend cross the finish line! He looked amazing, and I was so proud of him! I spent the rest of the weekend just basking in how lucky I am to be with such an amazing guy and taking care of that cute boy. He was walking like a 99 year old man, and it was so sad slash hilarious. 

And that concludes this monstrous blog post. In conclusion I would like to say that my life is pretty near perfection. : )