Daddy in town

So my dad came in to town to visit a couple weekends ago. We went to Hoover Dam because he has never seen it and he wanted to. So we stopped in Boulder City at Bobby's school so he could see it, since he hasn't yet, then off we went to see the Dam! lol, it's nothing spectacular, but I myself haven't ever gotten out of the car and walked around. They have a lot of cool monuments and stuff.

Daddy and his little girls <3

Me and my beautiful little sister

Daddy and his little princess =]

Nikki, I played photo editor again. It's a great picture of her! She's in front of the plaque for her astrological sign.

Nikki actually took a few nice pictures too! I was impressed how well this turned out. Kudo's to my baby sister!


Daddy and his little angel =]

We went to dinner at Yardhouse, that place is really good but SO noisey! We wanted to take him to Dicks in the Excalibur, but they had a lot of REALLY drunk people and girls walking around pretty much naked... so we went for a little bit of a tamer place... It was good to see my Dad. I haven't seen him since the end of last summer! I missed him =[ I miss my brother and niece and nephew too! I wish they would come visit. Life has been such a hectic mess since the begining of the year, I haven't had time to hop on a plane and go visit my family. After Nikki's wedding I think everything will calm down a little and I'll have to plan a trip down to Texas.

Sidewalk PAINT!

So I decided it would be fun to use sidewalk paint this weekend... Ryan always likes to do sidewalk chalk and color and stuff so I was thinking 'man he would LOVE sidewalk PAINT!' and he did... but he also remembered that when we 'paint' it's fun to paint HIMSELF and everyone else! lol. So we had fun painting the sidewalk, then himself, and then, my hair. haha. Bobby saw what was going on and wanted no part of it... not wanting any paint on him he he just watched and played photographer as Ryan and I played. Smart move on his part, because he didn't end up with pink hair like I did! It was fun times though =]

I've been playing with my paintshop pro a lot more lately, reading into what everything does and actually doing more than just touching up pictures and making them black and white. It's been a lot of fun! So I made this and it turned out really nice.

And just some fun pictures, Bobby's phone actually takes really good pictures!

Made my day!

So, it's been a REALLY long 3 days without seeing Ryan. I've missed him so much! I know I know it sounds really strange to be missing a child after only not seeing him for 3 days, but seriously, I have missed him. 3 days is a long time! So we went to bed last night talking about Ryan (like always... lol) and I woke up this morning really melancholy, started off my morning at work in not the best of moods and just been BLA up to this point. Then I get an e-mail on my phone and it's a video of the most amazing little boy in the world with a message for me! Put a huge smile on my face, and I can't wait for the day to be over to go give him a big monster hug and kisses all over. I love my Ryan =]

Following in his parent's footsteps...

So the past couple of weeks Ryan has actually been taking full Tiny Tiger classes at the karate studio! Ryan has been playing with nunchucks and punching and kicking forever now. I'm sure he came out of Brandy and could do a front kick already. He has participated in Tiger classes for over a year now, but he hasn't actually taken a class. He would go in for a few minutes at a time, play a game, then wonder off and do his own thing. He always plays with the equipment, and comes in and bows in with the adult class and does the exercies we do, but up until just a couple weeks ago, he's never really sat through a full 30 minute class and shown interest in actually staying in the whole time.












Last spring







He put the gear on all by himself... lol








Last Fall


Sooooo, now he is taking full classes, wearing his uniform, he even has 2 stripes! So excited! Bobby is going to get him testing for his orange belt next testing. He has his moments of wanting to come off the floor and play with a toy some other kid has, but for the most part his attention span has improved a lot so he can actually take a full 30 minutes, and he's having fun! Which is the most important thing. =]

In uniform for his first REAL Tiger class...

Daddy taught him 'triangle choke' haha

Ryan's first REAL stripe!!

We are so proud of him!

The Cohen's

One more wedding thing! I know I said that was enough for today, but I just remembered I didn't blog about one of the most important parts about the wedding! The photographers!

One thing in life that I love is photography. I'm very pationate about pictures and having photographs to remind us of some of the good times, and experiencees we have had in life. So when it comes to our wedding day, you know I have to have the best. We are having a husband and wife team Josh and Kenny do our wedding photography. Justin and Stephanie used them for thier wedding, and their photo's are the most beautiful I've ever seen. I've literally gone through hundreds of photographers portfolios and I've found NONE that match what these guys do. They are not cheap, but they are top notch quality. They could (and probably should) charge a lot more than they do, but they want people to actually book them for their wedding and have weddings to shoot every weekend. I hate when every picture is 'smile look at the camera say cheese'. Of course, you have to have those photo's, but I don't want EVERY ONE of my pictures from my wedding to be that. This couple are amazing and I just had to share how awesome they are. Maybe you will book them for your next event....

The Cohen's Photography

Bobby gets a new toy

Ok, so now that I'm done talking about the girlie wedding stuff, lets move on to something that Bobby is really excited about. Not that he's not excited about the wedding, he's actually way more excited about it than most men who are about to get married, he just doesn't get caught up in all the planning stuff.


Saturday (the great slurpee day) Bobby got an iPhone. We have been really saving money and not spending on stupid things and we've done a really good job. We saved enough for the house down payment, got almost all the furniture we need, and have put deposits down on all the major wedding stuff. Bobby has been working so hard lately. He got a third job at Fed Ex in the early mornings to get more money coming in. Poor thing wakes up at 3AM every day then comes home and sometimes gets a nap, sometimes not, just depends on things. He does his studio, and if the Monte Carlo calls him to do valet, he does that from usually 6 to midnight or 1 or 2AM. A few times he has done all 3 in one day. Needless to say, he has been working really hard, he's done a wonderful job of saving money so that we can have nice things and the princess wedding of my dreams, he deserves to indulge a little... So he has been wanting an iPhone forever now. I keep saying 'no lets wait, lets wait' but he works hard for his money, if he wants an iPhone, there shouldn't be a reason he doesn't get one. So I went down with him and got it. Now he's totally addicted to it and never puts the thing down! hehe... It is pretty cool I must admit, but I think I'll stick with my Tmobile for just a bit longer.

Inspiration in nail polish...

I've been struggling with picking a color for the wedding. I've been flip floping with a dark red or a darker blue combined with a lighter blue... I changed my mind every day. I was in Target the other day getting mascara and some other miscellaneous things. (we all know that the important one was the mascara! hehe) I happened uppon the most BEAUTIFUL color EVER. Ok, ok, I may be exaggerating a bit, but I literally saw it and I think my heart stopped for a minute there, because the second I saw this nail polish I KNEW this was the color for my wedding. It was my senior prom dress moment all over again! I wasn't even looking for a prom dress my senior year, and had just broken up with a boy, had no date, and prom was still 4 months away, but I passed a dress in the store and everything stoped around me, and I KNEW that THAT was the dress. I am going to do this color with black. It's absolutely perfect!

Mountain View Lutheran Church

Bobby and I went and met with the pastor of Mountain View Lutheran Church last night. We decided this is where we want to get married =] We are both Christians, and getting married in the eyes of God is very important to me. I've always wanted a princess wedding with a beautiful church, but beautiful churches are hard to find in Vegas. I've found a couple, but we are unable to be married in them because we weren't that specific denomination. This Lutheran church is absolutely beautiful, I have completely fallen in love with it, and it's the perfect place for us. We have to a have a few counseling sessions with the pastor so he can get to know us and everything. He gave us personality tests to take about ourselves and then take it for each other of how we think the other is. I'm so looking forward to the day we get to say 'I do' here!

A Secret Garden

We booked our reception place! I'm so excited! We went down this weekend and put our deposit down and it's such a wonderful place! Ok enough with all the !!!

It's absolutely perfect, a great price, and includes EVERYTHING. We had such a hard time looking for reception sites because everyone charges for every little thing. It all adds up so fast and then they don't include a DJ or a cake or any thing but food. Then they had crapy linnens and charged to upgrade them. just ridiculous. So here's a list of what we had to battle with at the almost 10 different places we went to look at... This place was seriously the best price out of everyone in Vegas, and I honestly liked it the best! It's going to be an outdoor reception, and it's just lovely there. The people who own it are so nice and are up for anything! I'm glad such a huge hurdle is done in the planning process... whew!

Here's a picture I just took off of the website.

7/11

So on 7/11 I thought it would be fun to celebrate by getting slurpee's! They had this new one that was Strawbery, lime, and.... pineapple??? I don't remember, but it was blue. Yea I didn't think something strawbery would come out blue, but it was really good! So we go throughout the day and all day I'm thinking I'm sooo creative and awesome because we went to 7-11 on 7-11 and got slurpee's. Bobby and I were booking our weding reception place and were talkking to the lady there and she mentioned that it was 7/11 and I reply with 'oh yea we went and got slurpee's to celebrate!'. Then the next thing she said to me hit me like a ton of bricks. She said 'oh sweet you went and got your FREE slurpee's!'. um.... WHAT?? FREE SLURPEE'S?!!?? Here I thought I was the coolest person on earth, and they are giving them away FREE?!?! We paid almost $4 for our slurpee's! Well, needless to say I didn't feel quite as cool after that. *sigh* Oh well, they were probably only giving away the small ones, and we got nice size ones =]

4th of July 2009

I JUST realized that I never actually posted this... I saved it because I didn't have time to finish adding all the pics I wanted, and then forgot all about it... ughh... so here it is...

This year for 4th of July, it was a bittersweet day. We spent the morning/day/evening with the Matthews to celebrate Chrissa's life, and give her a grand birthday party. Moncrief came down from Idaho and spent time here for the first week while we were all trying to cope with Chrissa's death. It was really nice to see him. He has lost all kinds of weight and is looking very healthy! But I think it was good for Junior to have his good friends around, it didn't make anything any better, but I think it helped him to know that his friends supported him so much. There were probably close to 200 people who came in and out of the Matthew's house on Chrissa's birthday. Pictures of her were all over the pool table for anyone to take if they wanted, people brought presents that were later donated, there was good food, great company and conversations.

The Boys reunited!

My lovely karate ladies! Love these girls <3>

Yes these boys are CRAZY when they are all together...

The next day we did fireworks or 'pretties' as Ryan likes to call them... Ryan had such a full day on the 4th that he passed out around 6:30 and was OUT for the night.

Now Ryan has been asking almost every day to do 'pretties'. We have been going bowling almost every day lately and the carpet at the bowling alley he pointed to it and said *gasp* 'hunnie! it's pretties!' It was so cute.