On Sunday, I went on my first-ever Atlantic City bus trip with my best friend from high school. We had a blast! I can’t wait to go back in October. The only part that sucked, was getting up at 4am. The bus pick-up location is almost an hour away from where I live, so I was driving while the sun was rising. I stopped on the way for some breakfast grub, and then met up with my friend, Samantha and her family and loaded on the bus.

We gambled quite a bit (the casino gives you $25 in free money to gamble with… some kind of partnership with the bus) but I lost it all. After we spent our free money, we walked out onto the beach (the casinos are along the boardwalk) where I asked Samantha to be my maid of honor (more on that in a few days or weeks). On the boardwalk, there was this homeless man that takes care of all of the stray cats. He had litter boxes under the boardwalk for them, and a smorgasbord of wet food laid out for these kitties. I don’t think he moves from this spot all day.

Now, I’m just going to leave you with a bunch of pictures from my trip. :)

See ya later, Atlantic City.

Posted on May 20, 2013 - 8 comments
 Filed Under: My Life

Travis and I had to drop my ring off last night at the jewelers to get re-sized by a hair, so I’ll be without it until around Easter. That’s such a long time. But now that I’m back to reality, I thought it was time to share the story of the night of the propsal. I’ve actually been on “cloud 9″ until last night after work. I was in this world where I couldn’t remember what happened and my mind was just blank. I was just kind of walking around with a huge smile on my face.

That is until Travis sent me lyrics and a video to a song that played right after the proposal happened. I knew a song played, but to me all I heard was silence, or so I thought. But I opened up that video link, and that night all came flooding back and I remembered instantly what happened, what played, and what was said. The song threw me back to myself, I guess. And I’m glad, because playing Candy Crush Saga all day, because my brain couldn’t handle anything else, was going to become a problem soon.

Before I get to the actual night of the proposal, let me back up a bit to the night before. Which was Friday night, March 8th. I just got home from work around 4:15 p.m. and I asked Travis if he was going to the bar with his co-workers, because if so, I was going to head over to my parents to print out my business cards for my Etsy shop. If he was not going, I was just going to stay home. He said that he was not going to the bar. So, I stayed home and dyed a peek-a-boo into my hair. Travis then texted me and said that he was in fact going to the bar, but he wouldn’t be there long. Two hours later he was still there, and I was starting to get aggravated since it was my birthday weekend. He finally came home around 8.

He came home and sat down on the couch for what seemed like five minutes. Looked at his phone, jumped up and said, “Welp, I have to go back to the office” and left. No kiss goodbye, no “cya later”, nothing. By 10PM, I still haven’t heard from him, so I started to worry. There is an interstate in our backyard, so naturally all I would hear is ambulances going by, and then I’d think the worst. So, I called him twice. The second time I called him, the phone rang twice and then went to voicemail. Did he just reject my call?

I called again and again, over the course of an hour in a half. I texted him twice as well and if you have an iPhone, you know that if you text someone else with an iPhone, you get those “delivered” and those “read” messages within your text conversation. They were never read. So, I started to worry again. By this time it was 11:30 at night. I thought maybe he went to the bar again with his co-workers, and by this time, he’d need a ride home. So, I grabbed my keys and started to head towards his work. (The bar is right across the street from the office)

I got about a half mile, when Travis texted me and said “client got a virus, on my way home, love you”. I turned around and drove home. When he finally got home, I was half asleep and mad. He was in the dog house. Little did I know, that he actually picked up my ring at the jewelers, and went to my parent’s to ask my dad for permission to marry me. There was no virus on a computer.

On Saturday morning, I was still mad when I woke up, but I got over it after he apologized and genuinely seemed sorry. We were planning on going out that night to celebrate my birthday at the casino with his sister, her boyfriend, and his mom and step-dad. The Amish Outlaws were playing that night, and we were all excited to see this amish band play songs by 50 cent and other not-so-amish music. We knew it was going to be a great night.

Around lunch time, Travis started to feel sick, so he went up to bed to take a nap. In reality, he was writing down what he was going to say during the proposal, and his sickness was nervousness. Eventually, I went upstairs to join him. I watched some tv, while he napped away. I kept telling him that we didn’t have to go, but he insisted that we had to. Once Travis was feeling better, we went to the park to walk around for awhile, plus it was really nice out.

When we got back, Travis was on his phone every second and his dad called, but Travis went outside to take it. That’s when I texted Ashley and said something was up, which I figured had something to do with my birthday. Eventually, Travis’ sister and boyfriend came to pick us up and we headed off to the casino. We hit up the bar right away. Travis usually drinks beer, but he was ordering strong Jack & Coke’s, and downing them quickly. I thought this was weird as well, since earlier in the day he said he was going to just drink two beers, and that was all. After we got some drinks, we headed down to watch the band play, and the place was packed! We’ve never seen crowds like that at the casino.

Some pictures of the crowd from the Amish Outlaws Facebook page

Eventually his Mom & Step-Dad arrived and joined us. Not long after that, my brother and parent’s showed up. This is where I got confused. My mom never goes out that late (It was about 9:30) and she just told me she was going to bed an hour or two prior. I didn’t think much of it though, and just hung out with everyone. A little bit later, I turned around and saw Travis say, “My dad is here, into his Mom’s ear. I turned back around and then all of a sudden Travis grabbed my arm and said, “Come with me!” and he barreled his way threw the crowd towards the stage. We went through a roped off section of the crowd, when security stopped us and said we had to go out and around. Travis grabbed him and said, “I’m with the band” or something like that, but the security guard didn’t care. We made a shortcut around anyways, to the opposite side of the stage.

We made our way to about the second or third row of the crowd around the stage, and I’m thinking they are going to sing Happy Birthday to me or something, and I turned to Travis and said, “I’m not drunk enough for this!” because I didn’t want everyone starring at me. They were playing a Grease Medley during this time, and before I knew it the song was over and one of the band members said, “Is there a Travis here tonight!?” Travis grabbed my hand, and pushed his way right to the front of the stage with his hand up so they’d see him and then he jumped on stage. Now, I’m really short, so I could have probably rested my chin on that stage. So I said, “How the heck am I suppose to get up there?” When all of a sudden, a guy from the crowd, picked me up like I was nothing, and put me on stage. The guy on stage starting talking, which I can’t remember what he said. I was too busy trying to find my family in the crowd, but all I saw were the tops of heads, so I turned to Travis instead. That’s when the guy handed the mic to him and told him to “get down” and Travis said this, on one knee…

I remember saying yes and shaking my head. Travis just remembers me sticking my hand out. But he put the ring on my finger, and we hugged, and kissed, and even slow danced a little when the lumineers song came on. Once the song started getting a little fast, and less of a slow dance song, I said in his ear, “Can we get down now”. I was actually not nervous the entire time. I was more in shock. It felt like it was just us up there, until the song started to speed up a bit and then I was ready to get down so I could breathe again, because the entire time up there, I didn’t think I was breathing at all.

So we jumped down and made our way through the crowd to our family, while the people in the audience said congratulations, gave us hugs and shook our hands. We made it to our family and hugged, and laughed and told Travis how big his balls are now. That’s when I found out what he actually did on Friday night. We headed up to the SkyBar then and had drinks with everyone, called my grandma, talked with my aunts, uncle’s via text since they were in Florida and updated the blog, of course. It was a great and memorable night.

My brother, Mom, Dad, Myself, Travis, Travis’ Dad’s girlfriend, Travis’ Dad, his Step-Dad, his Mom and his sister. Thank god for iPhone’s with panorama shots.

His step-dad, his mom, his sister, myself, Travis, his dad’s girlfriend and his dad

Pretty sure I was yelling about how bright the flash was in this picture, ha.

Everyone wanted to know how Travis pulled it off, and he’d just show them this. So a big thank you goes out to the Amish Outlaws for making it possible! (& yes, they do weddings…)

We don’t have a date set, or any details made as of yet. We are just trying to soak it in right now, and enjoy being engaged. I’m also anxiously awaiting for this beauty to make its way back to me.

Also, you should thank me for typing out this post instead of Travis. I know it’s a really long one, but it’s a great story… when told by me, because his story was, “greece medley, will you marry me, ho hey by the lumineers, done”. Fiancés, psh. ;)

Posted on May 20, 2013 - 52 comments
 Filed Under: My Life, Wedding

best birthday present ever.

story coming soon…

Posted on May 20, 2013 - 55 comments
 Filed Under: My Life, Wedding