the end

HERE is my new blog. enjoy:)

ba da bah bah bah...

i've kinda been a debbie downer lately and i'll tell you why:

1. sam is in tucson. that equals 5 hours away. (sam says he made it in 4 and a half going only 5 over, but i'm stickin to 5)

2. wedding planning is NUTS. it totally stresses me out and makes me want to elope.

3. i live in a room with practically ALL of my stuff. that's a lot of stuff for one (pretty small) room.

4. sam likes to brag about the fact that he gets to sleep in our nice king sized bed every night while i am stuck on the most uncomfortable bed of life.

5. i am trying really hard not to be BRIDEZILLA and not step on (too many) toes.

6. did i mention sam's in tucson and it sucks for me to not get to see him very much?

so here's what i've decided to do. i'm going to tell you about things i love in the hopes that it will put me in a better mood... at least until sam comes on thursday :) [oh, and in case you're wondering, the title is the mcdonald's theme song thing. (even though my family is boycotting mickey d's right now cuz they buy south american beef. we are really cool.) you're supposed to say "i'm lovin it" and finish it up for me, k :)] think of this as one of those prayers just for gratitude. i know i'm kinda cheating cuz i complained first, but cut me some slack, ok!

first up:

flip flops!

i would wear these guys all year round if my toes wouldn't freeze off in the winter! i love love love them, especially my rocket dogs. they are the most comfortable flip flops EVER. mom just bought me a new pair on saturday and they are already forming to my feet. amazing.

my ipod!

i listen to this thing constantly. and you can definitely tell... it's a little beat up from me dropping it a couple times or being tossed in my purse so i have access to it wherever. ipod equals lifesaver.

cold stone :)

DEFINITELY a weakness. they have the best ice cream. hands down. and there's one within walking distance of sam's apartment... probably not a very good thing...

the sun

i am pretty much ALWAYS cold. i tell people my body's central heating unit is broken. i think it may be true. so i love summer and the warm sun. and i love that i am moving to a warm place. i think i will like living in tucson :)

country music

i know country isn't a lot of peoples' first (or second, or third...) choice for their tunes, but i love it. admittedly, i did go through a stage where i thought it wasn't very cool, but i've found my way back to loving it. when i was growing up (and even now), it was all my parents would listen to. heck, i didn't really even know there were other kinds of music for a long time! i like a lot of music genres, but there's just something about country that makes my heart happy.

family

gosh, what can i say about my family? they're amazing. love them :)

temples

i'm so excited to go to the temple! i get to go for my endowments in snowflake this friday, saturday i'm going to the gila valley temple for natalie's endowments, and next week i get to go to the gila valley temple again and marry, for time and ALL ETERNITY...

SAMUEL TATE

i'm pretty sweet on this guy, he is the greatest:) i'm so glad i ditched nau and went to ea so i could meet him and fall in love with him. in case you can't tell from that picture, he makes me pretty ridiculously happy. i can't imagine my life with anyone else. 11 days and i will be married to this man! sometimes i can't believe that i'm getting married, but i couldn't be more excited! LOVE HIM!

ps... i don't know why the pictures are all cut off, but i'm too sleepy to fix it. sorry for my laziness.

pps... sam and i will have our own blog eventually. but that's not very high on the priority list right now. i know, i'm such a slacker.

what you've all been waiting for

So, you remember a couple of months ago when we got our pictures taken by Natalie's cousin, right? Well there were some technical difficulties (the disc she gave us didn't exactly work) and so we just got the new disc on tuesday. i know the anticipation is killin y'all, so here we go: some more samples of our lovely faces.

the fact that audra chose to sit inside the tire still makes me smile. hehe.

There ya go! I know you were all waiting eagerly for some more of these pictures! Also, i love the jumping picture... it looks like we are jumping supa high and stuff.

oh, and also... as of friday, sam and i are engaged :)

The time has come...

For me to start my own blog. Sad, but necessary. I'll still update on this blog for the next few weeks - 6 1/2 weeks to be exact; 53 days to be even more exact :) Of course anything pertaining to me and JD will be posted on our new blog, for that is the reason I started it.

Without any further delay, here is the new blog.

http://jdandtkparker.blogspot.com

Date with the Bride of Frankenstein.

Meet Frankenstein's bride. She is lovely. Great personality, with a beautiful spirit.



Lovely right? Last Wednesday I was honored to have a lunch date with her. We opted for Arby's. Roast beef cheddar sandwiches = happiness!


For dessert: Airhead Sour Strips. They were especially sour that day.


In hopes that we would burn off our lunch, we decided to walk around WalMart.


Many stopped and stared at the bride's beauty.



We were pleasantly surprised to be visited by Lollipop Girl when we got back!


Later that night, Bride and Lollipop girl walked in the much anticipated EAC Cosmetology Hair show. They looked stunning!





They were so excellent. They even helped their hair stylist win first place for the show! WOOT!

To Lollipop Girl: You're awesome, last thing I'm going to say.
To BRIDE: You're pretty chill. Thanks for the date!

twenty

my birthday was on monday.

let's just say that three tests and school all day can really put a damper on your birthday.

oh well. i still had a pretty rad day. (yeah, i just said rad. i was surprised, too.) i went to FHE after i got done with school and we played pin the tail on the donkey (because i turned 7) and had some cake that sister morris made. it was pretty sweet and stuff.

i would have to say that the weekend before my birthday was way better. i went home and this guy came with me.

he met my family, and amazingly was not scared away. haha jk, my family's not bad, in fact, i think they are pretty great! we got there on friday, had a really yummy dinner on saturday (sweet n sour chicken, my FAVORITE), with two delicious cakes made by jessica, and headed home on sunday after sacrament meeting. it was a good weekend. and when i got home, this was waiting for me... (ps, act like the pictures aren't sucky cell phone picutres, k? thanks.)

aren't my roommates so cool? i think they are :) they streamered (i just made that word up) my bed. looks harmless enough, right? wrong. here are a few views from the inside.
yeah, it criss-crossed pretty much my entire bed. getting in there wasn't bad, but getting out was pretty tricky.
so i decided that i couldn't live with all these streamers surrounding me. think they used enough? that was a stinkin HUGE pile of streamers!
sigh. i think i'm gonna like being 20. :)

I'm not superstitious, I'm just a little stitious

I'm having a bad day. Nothing seems to be going quite right.

Me and JD have been planning on doing baptisms at the temple saturday and I found out I can't since I just colored my hair.

I burned a perfectly yummy batch of sugar cookies.

The wind is blowing. Wind= fiesta for my allergies.

Good news, I took my world of music test and I feel way good about it. My day was looking up until I walked outside and saw this.




That's right folks. My car is trapped in. This is the AP parking lot and its horrible. No parking lines, just rocks and gravel so you get to park wherever your heart desires. I made the mistake earlier this semester of parking in the second row and almost got trapped in. So now I park back a ways and in a wide open space. Well today people decided to invade my space. The red car parked behind me. Okay I can accept that. But then this yellow fellow intentionally backs up to me and blocks me in! Needless to say, I walked home in the wind, grunting and fuming.


While walking home I realized why my day has been a little off. Last night me and Natalie were walking home from kick boxing and a black cat crossed our paths. I'm not really a superstitious person so I didn't think much about it. Less than a minute later a white cat crossed our paths. It just got me thinking. Does the white cat cancel out the black cats negativity? I asked JD about it last night and he said well of course it cancels it out, it's just logical. I agreed.

J, I think our logic was wrong.

happy birthday to me!

I know, i know, my birthday isn't for like 2 weeks, but i am already celebrating! i got a visit from the ups man the other day and this is what he brought me!!

it's a sentsy!!! isn't it awesome? i probably should have waited to take a picture of it till the wax was melted so it didn't look so funny, but i was just super stoked! and look! it even makes hearts on the wall! not to mention it smells AMAZING. the bad thing about it is that it makes me want cookies all the time.... shoot. but anyway, i was so excited! kourtney and jessica sent it to me for my birthday. thanks guys! and also, thank you to jordan for supplying the sentsy. gosh, i love birthdays!

a happy surprise

I have an amazing boyfriend. i know, i haven't updated a lot of you guys, but i'm the kind of girl who doesn't tell if she's not asked. it really bugs my roommates because they have to pump me for any kind of details about anything. anyway, i got home from anatomy today and i saw this.

don't worry, that went from the front door all the way to my bed (which natalie and audra made for me because i didn't have time to make it this morning. thanks guys, you rock!) here's the rest of it
roses and chocolate. isn't he awesome? there was also a card. i might have cried. ok, i did cry.

don't judge me. i have good reason. Sam is moving tomorrow. He got a job at a mine outside of tucson so he'll be living in tucson from now on. it's safe to say that i am super sad. i know what you're thinking. you're thinking, "gosh ashley, stop being so freakin selfish!" or "the guy has a life of his own!" or "everyone needs money!" or "tucson isn't that far from thatcher!" i know all of these things, and i try to make myself feel better by telling myself these things. sometimes it just doesn't work though. and when i say sometimes, i mean most of the time.

now, if you'll excuse me, i have to go find something to put the rose petals in and redo my makeup.

The Great and the Not So Great

Starting off with the great. Most people know that I am ENGAGED! WOOT!! I seriously couldn't be happier. I love him so much!

Here's a quick over-view of the engagement story (since I know all of you are dying to know)

He proposed on Sunday. He suggested that we take a Sunday drive. I was thinking maybe 30 minutes tops. Seems he had other plans because our drive was 4 and a half hours. We went from Snowflake to Heber to Payson to Pine/Strawberry to Winslow to Joe Town. Here we are just starting out. I kind of suspected something was up. Let's say about 75% sure he would propose.

Right before Heber, JD pulled over because he said "the door wasn't shut tight and was whistling." He gets out, gets back in, and hands me gerbera daisies. My fav!!


Outside of Strawberry he pulled over and said he was hungry. Hidden under my coat was a box of chocolates. I open the box, it takes a few seconds, but I eventually notice the ring under one chocolate. SO JD takes the ring, takes my hand, and leads me outside. (See picture below)


There he asked me to be his forever and I full-heartily accepted.

You might be asking yourself: "Did Tawni touch her left hand so gently to his cheek to show off her new rock?" Yep. You better believe I did.

Now on to the not so great. Well, I suppose it can be a great example of how dumb I can be.

Tonight I decided to make pork chops and rice. I put the rice in the microwave for easier and faster results. 4 minutes later, the microwave beeps at me, letting me know its time to stir the rice. I open the door, grab the bowl, and dip the spoon in to stir. THen this happened.



Which resulted in this.

OWEE! Hot plastic and rice/butter is not a good thing to drop on your foot. Luckily i had socks on so the burn isn't too bad. It immediately blistered and starting hurting. I ran cold water on it then Natalie doctored me up best she could.


Note to self: When microwave instructions say use glass, microwavable bowl, FOlLOW those instructions.

THIS is what i live with.

Collage (no I'm not trying to spell college, I really mean collage: an odd arrangement of photos)

As you can tell from the title of this post, this will mostly consist of random photos from my break. First up, some photos from DJ's birthday party. We went bowling again! Bowling has always been one of our favorite birthday traditions! That night I finally broke 75. Yes, yes I am proud. Nevermind that dad, DJ, and JD were way over 100. They're boys, of course they're going to be better.

Here's me with padre and JD


Toe, Mami, and DJ waiting patiently for our lane to open up.


Warning: If you ask Toe to take a picture of you, be prepared for a lovely closeup with some freaky lighting that makes you look sickly white.


The birthday boy!! Happy 23 DJEE I love you!




One of the biggest highlights of my trip: Suns game!!! Woot! JD has a pretty awesome friend, Chris, who hooked us up with seats to the SUNS-vs-HEAT game. I've never been before. It was great! I was a little tired from travelling, but trust me, it was awesome.


Our seats were the first row of the second level.


Big thanks to Lindsey and Kodi for letting us crash at their place twice this break!


Random picture, but way beautiful sunset!


I got lots of time with Toe this break!!!



I love her! She's beautiful



Just a few pictures from Christmas morning. Andon and Jori and the boys spent Christmas with us!


Yes, I know we kind of look like death in this picture. In our defense, we were running on very little sleep. We spent Christmas Eve in Snowflake with just a few of his family members (65 is all...). We finally got to bed around 2:00 am and woke up at 5:00am to drive back to Joe town for Christmas with my family. It was a great Christmas!




Here's a normal occurence in my house. Toe and Mami wrestling.


Bryan and all his little friends sang happy birthday to me! I was overjoyed!


My new favorite necklace!!!! Love it! Love him!


Me, madre, and Kambria


US girls...


OVerall, I had a fantastic break!! I spent the majority of my time going back and forth from snowflake and Joe town. But it was great.

Yeah, I loved every second of it.