*Happy Independence Day*

Only posting this a few days late must be a personal record of mine.  I am finally getting caught up on all my blogging *wiping my brow* it was a lot heftier of a task than I had anticipated! I'm just relieved i'm done (I may or may not have skipped out on 7 blog posts I had originally planned on posting.. shhh)

The 4th was more than I could have asked for.  I didn't really know what to expect since Derick works all day, every day--no exceptions, so I honestly was planning on just sitting around at the pool all day with my friends Blair and Camille.  And then maybe if I was lucky Derick would be home in time for us to catch a fireworks show.  Luck was on my side though, because Josh, Derick's boss, decided to give the whole sales team the day off! Wait, what? Suddenly the days potential grew mountains high!

We slept in, and then enjoyed some nice cross fit as a group.  I thought I was out of shape.. but now I know I'm out of shape.  I had a lot of fun running around the lake with all of my friends, stopping every now and then to do muscle training. In shape or not, it was a good time.

I made Derick the most festive pancakes I have ever seen.  They must have been good because he gobbled them all up, every last blueberry and strawberry.

As a whole team we went and spent majority of the day at Lake Calhoon.  It was a nice lake with a big beach area right in Uptown MN, which happens to be our favorite town to hang out in.  The water was perfect temperature and it was sunny enough for me to get a tan.

After changing we all went to dinner at Chino Latino-- not a very patriotic place to eat I realize. haha. But it was so good! and such a cool trendy place. I would love to go back sometime.

After dinner we all went back to Lake Calhoon to watch some fireworks.. the firework show was mediocre but I loved the atmosphere of all the people around watching the fireworks about the sailboats.  Despite the mosquito bites that came with, it was a good night.

We went home and then watched Safe Haven.  I ended the day being very very Proud to be an American.

I'm Feeling 22..

My real birthday happened to fall, luckily, on Derick's only day off of the week.  And it also, luckily, happened to be the first sunny day here in Minnesota since I've been here--unless you count the extremely random 100 degree weather day a few days after we got here, other than that the weather has been very dreary and cold.   Everything created a recipe for a perfect birthday.

-The day before my birthday Derick took me out to Panera Bread for an early lunch.  This was my absolute favorite place to eat when I lived in Florida and I have been having major withdrawals over the past couple of years.  The second I saw that we had one near by I knew I had to take Derick there.  Of course it was the best decision to go there for my birthday ;)  I am so glad he was able to take a little extra time off of his work morning to take me out to lunch.

- We had a pizza party on my birthday eve with the best pizza I have ever eaten.  Later,  I went into my room to change and right at midnight barges in Derick, Branson, Susie, and Blake with birthday cake ice cream, with a candle on top, singing Happy Birthday.  We stayed up late listening to music and enjoying each others company.

- I woke up to blueberry muffins and Derick handing me a vase of beautiful flowers.

- I got to go on my very own mini-shopping spree at the Mall of America.  It just so happens that a few years ago my friend told me about how she went there.  I then looked up pictures of it and put shopping there on my bucket list, while thinking why in the world would I ever be in Minnesota? I legit thought I would have to go out of my way to cross this item off of my  list.  Little did I know.. ha!  This mall is way over the top ginormous-- I guess they don't call it the biggest mall in America for no reason! After getting lost dozens of times, walking till our feet hurt, and spending more money than I have in years, we had only seen a small portion of the mall, and we were all shopped out!

-I enjoyed a pool party with all of my friend who are out here.  Miss Blair and Camille had the wonderful idea of renting out the clubhouse pool for the occasion, as well as for Father's day--Brandon is the only guy in the group who is a dad.  It was so nice to have the whole pool and grill area to ourselves.  We ate more food than we could stomach, made delicious smoothies, and played in the pool until our skin looked like prunes.

-I got to Skype my family and enjoy the day by celebrating my dad! I am so happy I was born on Father's day and I love being able to celebrate my birthday on the same day we celebrate my dad every so many years. Having the dad I do makes my birthday that much better every year.  He is amazing.

-Blair made me a delicious home made cake!

-I got so many great gifts in the mail from back home.   My sister surprised me with the 3 movies I watched way way too much as a kid-- I didn't waste any time watching them, and I couldn't believe the amount of memories they brought back! Jillian and I took our obsessions a little too far ;)

- I got to spend the day with the best of friends!

-  And last but certainly not least, I got to spend the day with Derick who spoiled me to no end.  I sure lucked out when I won him over--which I don't know how that happened.  I had voiced to him months ago about how I was worried about my birthday not being very good since we would be so far from home, not knowing what our schedules would look like.  He made absolutely sure that I wouldn't be disappointed and he didn't fail. :)

It was the perfect way to bring in my 22nd year of life and I would not have had it any other way.  Thanks to all who made it so special.

Home of 10,000 Lakes

We lived in a hotel for a few days until our apartments were ready for us.  We all started getting a little stir crazy, with all of our belongings being crammed into 3 hotel rooms.  We couldn't have been more relieved to finally be able to move into our apartments--which turned out to be great.

I don't know how they convinced me, but everyone told me it would be a good idea for me to sell, since I was worried about what I was supposed to do all day long.  There were two other girls doing it and I figured if they were brave enough than I could be brave enough.   The first day we didn't get out there until 4.  I shadowed Derick for a few hours, and was thoroughly impressed.  He is a natural at sells! I then went to my own area and shadowed my boss for another hour or so.  And then, suddenly I was on my own.  My every anxiety was placed into one.  Being as shy and timid as I am, I could not understand how I was supposed to knock on a strangers door and ask them to buy something from me.  I cherry picked the houses I would knock on, only choosing the cute, friendly looking, houses.  I knocked for an hour by myself only a few people had answered and after listening to me stumble over my words for 10 seconds they told me they weren't interested (luckily, in a polite way.  They probably felt bad for me) and I said "ok, thank you so much for your time!" and bolted off their porch.  I am not near pushy enough to handle this sales thing. I decided 60 minutes of that was long enough and I walked back over to Derick's area and shadowed him for the rest of the night.  I was way in over my head.  The next morning I had made my decision--I was not going to be selling that summer. Derick had tried convincing me months before we even went out, and I always told him no.  Somehow they had convinced me when we got there, I tried it, and decided it wasn't for me, and Derick was so understanding, and just glad that I had given it a shot.

The next day I got the best news.  They had work for me to do in the Garbage Man offices.  Within the first hour of my first day I discovered it was the perfect job for me.  I was to sit at a desk all day, not having to deal with a single customer,  listening to music, entering in contracts.  It was right in my element.  Everyone kept asking if I knew how much I was getting paid.  I never had even bothered to ask because I was just so happy to have stuff to do.  Within a few days I felt like I had waited too long and it would be too awkward to ask so I decided to just wait until my first paycheck to find out.  A couple of weeks later I was pleasantly surprised to have received the biggest paycheck of my life.  All for sitting on my butt all day?? I then became sad that my job wasn't permanent and I would have to quit eventually when we went back to Colorado or Utah.  On another note Derick immediately was killing it out there on the streets.  Coming home with top sales not only for his team, but the entire company.  I slowly but surely realized even more that everything happens for a reason, and moving to Minnesota was actually the best thing to happen to us all summer.  Everything was falling right into place.

I was the only person not selling at the time (two wives still hadn't come out, and wouldn't be until the beginning of june.) So for the first month when i got home from work I was all by myself for around 4 hours every day with nothing to do.  I began to explore and discovered there was so much to do in Minnesota! We lived 4 minutes walking distance away from a beautiful lake with a great running trail all the way around it.  Our apartment complex had a huge pond right in our backyard with tons of brand new baby geese, and 2 pools.  We lived 5 minutes from the library, and 15 from the Mall of America. There are multiple parks within walking distance with everything you can think of, tennis courts, baseball fields, basketball courts, acres of green grass.. there were endless things to entertain.

When everyone got home at night it was an immediate party.  We lucked out, deciding to do summer sales with all of our friends.  Things are better than I could have hoped for, even in Colorado.  Life is good.

Engaged to my best Friend. 5.11.12

I cannot believe it has already been a year since I got engaged to the love of my life.  I am still in awe over how perfect the night was.  I had a different blog when I got engaged and I wrote out every detail of the story.  I decided I wanted that story on this blog instead. So to celebrate the one year anniversary I am going to transfer it over :). enjoy:

"Yesterday was the day I have been dreaming of for 6 whole years.  It was a little over 6 years ago when I first developed a major crush on Derick, and secretly dreamed of what it would be like to,  not be engaged to him, but just to be in a relationship with him! If I had told my little sophomore self that 6 years ahead on May 11th I would get engaged to Derick Kenneth Cox I don't know if I would had allowed myself to believe it, all because the little saying "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is" How wrong that statement is.

 Yesterday started off like any other ordinary day.  I woke up dreading having to work during the day, but looking forward to the date I had with Derick that night.  I was scheduled to get off work at 5 and told Derick he could come pick me up at 5:45.  Derick and I didn't text too much through out the day.  This was a little unordinary but I didn't think much of it because my work was really busy and I figured If i didn't have time to text him he didn't have to text me either.  The few texts we did send each other were short and brief, mostly me asking him what he was doing with his day off.  His responses were "laundry" "went to Janell's" (his sister) "hanging out with my friends". So on and so forth.  The first "fishy" thing that happened was when my boss asked me if I knew why Derick had texted him asking if he was going to be at pita pit that night.  I said that I didn't and continued on with my work not thinking a whole lot about it.  A couple of seconds later my boss called Derick to see what was going on.  They started talking about soccer and derick being my boss's assistant soccer coach.  Old news.  I had already known this was possibly going down for some time.  A little random though.  A few minutes later Zac (my boss) went outside and was talking on the phone.  He came back inside and asked me if I could stay half an hour late and the conversation goes as follows:

Zac: Can you stay half an hour late?
Me: I can't
Zac: Ok, I need you to stay a half an hour late
Me: I really can't I have stuff going on.
Zac: No, I really need you to stay an extra half an hour
(beginning to think.... hmmm something is definitely going on)
Me: Why?
Zac: I can't tell you
Me: why can't you tell me?
(conversation goes on like this for a couple more minutes) It pretty much ended with Zac saying "you are mad at me now but you will thank me later." Now something to know: My boss is not the type to tell any of his employees they have to do something.  Especially when it comes to staying late.  If we had said we couldn't stay, he would have said "alright" and moved on with his life.  And he never tells us, he asks.  So, when he told me I had to stay late, I knew something was up.  I thought I knew what was going on.  Getting married to Derick this summer has always been an idea in my head.  Even before he left on his mission I always imagined this summer would be the one. It is May, meaning a short 3 month long engagement would land us in August--last month of summer vacation.  Derick had even told me a few days earlier that he wanted it to happen this summer.  So I, of course, was looking for any sign of a possible proposal.  Red flags were flying high. Well red technically means warning signs.. I'd say Yellow flags were flying high. for "excitement is a-brewin'"
Zac left a little before 5, and Claressa came in to take his spot.  I told her I had to stay late and she questioned me as to why. I couldn't explain it to her. There was absolutely no need for me to be there.  I ended up leaving 5:11 -- 19 minutes early.  I drove home and absolutely nothing was out of the ordinary. I was a little bummed.  If Derick was the reason for me staying late I would think it would be because he was doing something at my house. But nope, nothing.  He came and picked me up for our date.  Acted just as weirded out as me by Zac's strange behavior.  Neither of us could figure out why I needed to stay late!    We headed out to Belle Monte, a fancy restaurant up at Sherwood Hills Resort.

 I knew he wouldn't propose during dinner but I still had my fingers crossed for it happening that night.  We then went on a little hike right by the restaurant.   Could this be it?

 

We got to the point where we decided we would start heading back.  Derick abruptly got down on one knee, while my stomach did a funny flip as soon as he got on his knee he said "hold on have to tie my shoe" Calm down, just tying his shoe "Hold on there is something in my shoe"(as he reaches his finger in his shoe) oh my gosh, is the ring in there? But, no ring. We finished our hike and started heading back into the valley.
As we were driving back he told me that was all the plans he had for our date and asked me what I would like to do next.  I was bummed.  Clearly, if I was now in control of the night there is no way the proposal would be happening.  Hopefully someday soon. I thought to myself.  I didn't show I was bummed and decided we would go to his parents house to watch a movie.  He just recently moved out and I hadn't been over to his parents house since then, and I missed going over there.  We watched the 2nd Iron man.  Well, Derick watched it while I slept.  Derick told me since he had to work early in the morning we probably shouldn't have too late of a night.  Maybe 11:30 at the latest.  I was fine with this because I knew we were both really tired.   11:10 rolls around and Derick suddenly goes "Well! Ready to go?" we both got up and left.. a lot faster than usual.  We usually drag out the end of the night as looong as possible. Strangely I didn't think anything of it.

The drive home is what really threw me off.  We were about 4 minutes into our 12 minute drive when Derick turned down the music and said "Let's talk" I asked him what he wanted to talk about and he started going off about how he wants to marry me, but the thought still freaks him out a little.  He didn't think he would be able to afford the ring, he didn't think he could live up to my brother in-laws proposals because they were all so cool.  He asked me what my dream proposal would be and I refused to tell him. all I said was "if it comes from the heart then it will be just as special for me"  I thought the whole conversation was weird and confusing.  There I was going into the night thinking we were so close to moving onto the next step of our lives and within 2 minutes we were all of a sudden back to square one.  Derick acting like if we were to get married it still wouldn't be for a while because he just "was not ready" All I knew from the conversation was 1. He still did not have a ring.. or even an idea of how much a ring costs. and 2. he had no idea how he was going to propose to me when the time finally came.

We pulled up into my driveway and he said he had a really good night and he didn't want it to end.  He suggested we go on a walk and asked me where a good place to walk would be.  I didn't have any idea so he said "remember that walk we went on a few sunday's ago around your farm? That was fun... Do you want to walk there?" I agreed so we started walking.  He kept stopping to hug me which I thought was cute.  We turned a corner and saw lights on in a shed through the window.  He asked me if my dad was working.  "Why would my dad be working at 11:30 at night?" was my response.  We keep walking and turn another corner to another view of the shed and suddenly I knew exactly what was going on.  There were a bunch of lights hung from the rafters and as we neared closer Evan Hyde (Derick's friend) popped up and started playing the guitar and singing a song.  The rest is on this video:) As I was watching this I thought I didn't seem very excited.  So, just so you all know the freak outs started happening more towards the end and after the video.  For the first few minutes I was just in complete shock!!!! 

Our Proposal

 After we had our moment I turned around and saw Derick's family and my sister along with some of his friends, all capturing the moment.  I am so glad this was done! One of the top things I always wanted for my proposal was documentation of it happening.  It was so great to have our loved ones there with us!! After the shock wore down a little we ran back to my house to share the good news with my parents! (they already knew, Derick had asked for their blessing thatday.  He had actually let slip during dinner that he had told my parents something that day.  I drilled him with questions on why he was talking to my parents. He came up with a quick not-so-good cover up story and  told me I ask too many questions. Let's just say the atmosphere was pretty tense/awkward for a few minutes)

 My sister Jillian, and Josh then came over and I had some more freak outs with my family for awhile.

I could not have asked for a better night.  It was absolutely perfect.  I have learned time and time again tonever underestimate Derick but yet, I am always left in complete shock with how well he does things!  He did so good!

I am getting Married!!!!! I have been on cloud 9 all day and I have a feeling this is going to stay with me for a long, long time.  I can't believe I am finally marrying my sophomore and junior year crush/ my high school sweetheart/ my missionary/ my best friend/ my other half. I cannot wait to spend my life and eternity with him!

I've gotta admit.. It was weird waking up with this beautiful thing on my finger!

Now it is time for the wedding planning to begin!!

Location Background: Derick definitely knew what he was doing when he planned out this proposal.  I had taken him on a walk around the farm I grew up on a few weeks earlier.  The very barn he proposed to me in, was one I had specifically taken him to, to tell him about all of the many childhood memories I had in there.  The barn was my grandpa's tractor shed, and his work space.  I can't say how many countless hours I had spent in there as a child.  Now, not only does it hold childhood memories, but it holds my proposal.

The ring:  Derick has always said the guy is the one who is supposed to pick out the ring for the girl.  This idea made me a little nervous, because I definitely wanted the thing I'd be wearing for the rest of my life to be something I liked, but he did amazing.  Not only did he pick out the ring, he designed it himself.  He just so happened to know someone from his mission who makes rings, so he went through him to design it. I love that he picked out the design all by himself.  I honestly can say, it has so much more meaning to me now.  And if I had picked it out, I can guarantee it would not have been as beautiful.

Random Fact: Derick was originally going to propose to me on April 1st (April fools day) Luckily, that plan fell through. The sad thing? On April Fools day I sat on the edge of my chair waiting for him to propose.  I guess I know his style a little too well. I'm glad he actually took me by surprise:)"