What a week!

It's been a fun, but very busy,week!  It all started last Saturday with a full day of working (for Grant), apartment hunting, football games, and registering.  Grant already posted about our registering adventure, but I love this picture of us at the football game and had to include it:

Sunday was filled with meetings and wedding plans, but we did set aside some time to make dinner in a pumpkin and it was DELICIOUS!  It also provided me with leftovers to eat for lunch the next few days, so it was great!

This week at school was Red Ribbon Week, so I got the opportunity to dress up in a different way each day. The kids loved it and, I have to admit, I really did too.

Monday was crazy hair/sock day.  The pictures aren't very good because they were taken on Grant's phone. If you can't tell, my hair is up in a high side-ponytail.  Grant said I looked like Napoleon's girlfriend.  Tuesday was inside out day and Wednesday was sports jersey day so I had to support my astros!  Thursday was the day for Halloween costumes, parties, parades, and basically a whole lot of craziness!  The second grade teachers at my school dressed up as the 5 little monkeys jumping on the bed.  Here are the pictures from the fun-filled week:

It was a fun-filled week at school, but it was definitely nice to get a break on Friday.  We spent the whole day with wedding plans and apartment searching.  The best news of the week is that Grant and I found an apartment on Saturday!!!!  It is the biggest relief.  We've been so many places and weren't sure what to do, but when we found this place it was absolutely perfect!  We knew it was the one when we discovered that all of the parking spaces were to the left (I have issues parking to the right and avoid it if at all possible).  We will get the keys next week and can't wait to post pictures!

We also spent part of Saturday putting together wedding invitations!  It was exciting, but very time-consuming.  And it's still not done.  Thanks to my roommates (current and past) for helping out!

Grant and I ended up being lame and going to the library instead of the ward Halloween party this year.  Grant has test week coming up and I had to get report cards done.  So, unfortunately, we don't have any fun costume pictures to post...  Maybe next year.

On a wonderful side note, we had our first snow of the season this week.  It's my absolute FAVORITE time of year when the snow starts to fall.  I don't think there's anything more beautiful.  Grant was in his room studying when it started, but I made him take a break to share this wonderful moment with me!  There really aren't many more things that make me happier than falling snow!

So that's a lot of updates for the week, but now you know what we've been up to.  We're definitely staying busy, but we're enjoying every second of it!

3.5 hours later...

Who would have thought registering for gifts could be so fun!  Ok, just kidding.  It took forever!  But I expected it to take that long after talking with some friends about the process.  And we still aren't done, but we've knocked most of it out!  We got a little hung up after realizing that we didn't even know our color scheme (which yes, I found out from Katie is a big deal!)  But after successfully avoiding that breakdown, we were able to plow ahead and finish the rest!

Katie really wanted to document this so here is a shot of her in action!

I had to find ways to make this enjoyable so I pretended to shoot merchandise and people walking around in the store.

Using that handheld scanner sure brought me back to the days of working at Target!  I'm glad I was able to pave the way for my little bro to experience the joys of scanning merchandise at 4 in the morning.  Katie had to put up with my detailed explanations as to how stocking really works at Target.

So, our wedding website is up!  It's still in the workings but check it out at www.mywedding.com/grantandkatiezinn.  December is coming up!

We're off on an incredible adventure!

     It's official!  Grant and I will be "tying the knot" on December 18, 2010!
     As we're both starting to let go of the facebook world, we've decided that we'd rather be more of a "blogging couple," as Grant puts it.  For our first official blog entry, I have decided to tell the proposal story from my perspective.  Grant always makes me tell it, saying that I do it better.  When I think about it, though, he's never actually told it, so I don't know if that's a fair claim.  BUT, because I have gotten used to telling it, I might as well share it here...
     Over a year ago, Grant and I had our very first date.  It was a double date with his roommate/old mission companion, Paul, and his date, Katalyn.  We went up into Provo Canyon and had a fire with stuffed peppers, chips, pineapple, juice, and s'mores.  Paul brought a guitar and we all sang around the campfire.  More details of this date will come later, but here is a picture:

    So that was all in May 2009-- Pretty long time ago.  We sure have come a far way since then.  Grant and I have been planning on getting married in December for over a month.  I, being a girl, have been really excited about it and I wanted to tell everyone!  But I couldn't because I didn't have a ring.  And, as excited as I was, I didn't want to make a big deal out of it until it was "official."  Grant's been very busy lately with school, work, and church meetings so he hasn't had a lot of time to go get one.  I wasn't as patient as I could've been (Sorry, Grant!)  I'm sure he felt pressured to get one soon so he said that we could go together last Saturday.  I felt good about that because it meant we would be getting one for sure and that the proposal would come soon after.
   We set aside time on Saturday for ring shopping, so Friday night was open.  Grant usually works Friday nights, but his companion teacher had to switch shifts with him so he worked the afternoon instead (or so he told me).  Because Grant had Friday night off, Paul (the same one from our first date) and his wife, Chris, wanted to hang out with us.  I found out later that it had not been there idea, but was actually all Grant's doing.  When Grant "got off work" Friday evening, he called to ask what I wanted to do with Paul and Chris.  He gave me two options:  go to their place and watch a movie or go to the canyon and have dinner.  I said we could do both.  I honestly don't know how the night would've turned out if I had chosen to stay in.
   Grant and Paul got the food and wouldn't tell me what it was until we got there.  Turns out they had recreated our first date.  There were stuffed peppers, chips, pineapple, and even the same type of juice as the year before.  It was really sweet, but I still didn't suspect anything.  We got dinner started and then Paul and Chris went to the car to get a blanket.  While they were gone, Grant brought out the guitar and started playing one of our songs, "When You Say Nothing at All," by Allison Krauss.  There were a lot of people staring at us from across the creek, but I just thought they wanted to hear us sing.  Toward the end of the song, Grant kept looking over my shoulder so I turned around and saw Paul in the bushes with a camera.  I STILL didn't suspect anything because, in my mind, we were going on Saturday to get a ring.  I seriously thought Paul just thought we looked cute and wanted to secretly take some pictures.  I told Paul to come out of the bushes (by the way, that's where Grant was instead of work in the afternoon.  He had gone to the canyon to scout out good picture-taking spots).  Then I saw Grant fidgeting in his pocket.  That's when I knew what was coming.  He said a cheesy (but really adorable) line to transition into the proposal (he claims it wasn't planned before) and then got down on one knee and proposed!  I still was a little confused so the first words out of my mouth were "are you kidding me?"  That's one moment I'll never get back (I also had my hood on and was wearing socks with flip flops... I might regret that for the rest of my life :)).  But once I realized that the proposal was, indeed, sincere I, of course, said YES!!
     Turns out Grant had ordered the ring Tuesday, picked it up Wednesday, and called my dad Thursday, all without me knowing.  He said he knew he had to propose before Saturday or else he'd get in trouble for not going ring shopping.  He's a pretty sneaky fella :)
     Paul and Chris left for a little while after that so Grant and I were able to enjoy being together and talking about our future.  We're so excited to see what we can accomplish and how we can grow together.  It's been a great journey so far and we know that it will only get better!  Here's a picture of us a year and a half later (with a ring!)