Anyway, I thought this would be a good time to post some of our favorite engagement pictures, because pretty soon we're going to have hundreds of wedding pictures and we probably won't look at the engagement pictures anymore. But I still think they are so great!! My man is gorgeous :)
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Engagement Pictures
We're only 14.5 days away from our wedding now!! And only 6 days away from flying to Wisconsin, and only 8 days away from going through the Chicago Temple!! Everything is coming up so soon! I'm a very happy girl :) Last night the women in Matt's family threw a Pampered Chef bridal shower for me and it was amazing! It just blows my mind how gracious people are being to us. I'm so excited to have a kitchen filled with wonderful tools and gadgets! I'm definitely going to have to expand my repertoire of recipes...
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Life Comes At You Fast!
It is an incredible understatement to say that A LOT HAS CHANGED IN THE PAST YEAR...but I'll say it anyway, 'a lot has changed in the past year.' The biggest/most important/most amazing/craziest thing going on in my life right now is that I am 29 days away from getting married to the LOVE of my life :) We are 5/6 of the way through our engagement and we only have 1/6 more until the happiest and most amazing day of our lives! Life has been crazy busy, with planning, working, moving, more planning, and more planning, but that has not made me lose focus of the most important thing...I'm going to be married to the most incredible man inthe whole entire universe for time and all eternity!! What an amazing thing. This has definitely been the most exciting time of my life, and it's not even close to being over! We have so much ahead of us - a lot of really great things ahead of us, and I am so excited! As far as the reception and wedding day festivities go, almost everything is planned. I will be a very happy girl indeed when the word "almost" can be taken out of that last sentence. We are very close. VERY close. That is a wonderful feeling.
The other countdown that I have been doing lately is for the number of days until I get to go through the temple to receive my endowments. Only 22 days to go!! I have been doing a lot of studying and preparing so that I can have the best experience possible when I go through the temple for the first time. I'm going through the Chicago temple exactly one week before we go to the Bountiful temple to get married. Matt and I have both been attending both the Temple Prep and the Marriage Prep classes at church for the past few months, and I am feeling very good about the whole thing. I'm actually getting quite anxious to go! It is such an exciting thing, with so much meaning. I am really looking forward to having the opportunity to participate in all of the temple ordinances. What an amazing blessing.
Life is good. Life is wonderful. I've been thinking about becoming a better cook lately. I want to do healthier meals and become more adventurous too. I'm looking into meat-less meals and low fat, salt, sugar, carb, cholesterol meals. What an endeavor! I want to do a lot more meal planning too. I think allrecipes.com may become a good friend of mine. I've also been thinking about buying a Bountiful Basket for Matt and I...but I'm not sure. I would love to use different fruits and vegetables, but I'm not sure that we could eat it all! We'll see. This should be fun.
Well, if you can't tell, I am very excited to be an Erickson! It's not too far away! What a great life I have :)
The other countdown that I have been doing lately is for the number of days until I get to go through the temple to receive my endowments. Only 22 days to go!! I have been doing a lot of studying and preparing so that I can have the best experience possible when I go through the temple for the first time. I'm going through the Chicago temple exactly one week before we go to the Bountiful temple to get married. Matt and I have both been attending both the Temple Prep and the Marriage Prep classes at church for the past few months, and I am feeling very good about the whole thing. I'm actually getting quite anxious to go! It is such an exciting thing, with so much meaning. I am really looking forward to having the opportunity to participate in all of the temple ordinances. What an amazing blessing.
Life is good. Life is wonderful. I've been thinking about becoming a better cook lately. I want to do healthier meals and become more adventurous too. I'm looking into meat-less meals and low fat, salt, sugar, carb, cholesterol meals. What an endeavor! I want to do a lot more meal planning too. I think allrecipes.com may become a good friend of mine. I've also been thinking about buying a Bountiful Basket for Matt and I...but I'm not sure. I would love to use different fruits and vegetables, but I'm not sure that we could eat it all! We'll see. This should be fun.
Well, if you can't tell, I am very excited to be an Erickson! It's not too far away! What a great life I have :)
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Nice and Monaco :)
What an amazing trip!! I can't believe it is finally coming to a close. I will definitely be sad to leave because everything that I have seen and done has been incredible. Though I must say, that I am also ready to get back. I need a vacation from my vacation! Our days are pretty exhausting. I'm going to skip over some of our days from the bus trip. Basically we saw eight castles in four days, ate amazing food every night, probably spent more time in the bus than out of it, and learned more about castles than I thought I ever would! After a while they all started to blend together to the point where now I can't really distinguish who stayed in which castle or what they looked like. All in all, my camera and computer have tons of pictures of really pretty castles, really pretty gardens, and amazing views of old cities from the top of the towers. The names of the castles we saw are: Mont St-Michel, Angers, Langeais, Azay, Chenonceau, Amboise, Blois, and Chambord. All amazing!
We got into Paris on Friday night after more traveling on the bus and the next morning we took a flight on EasyJet from Paris to Nice, where we have been staying this whole week, We are staying in studio apartments, which really just means a pull-out couch, bunkbeds, a kitchenette, a table, and a bathroom. It has been a lot of fun because we are all in the same complex and everyone from our group hangs out with each other every day! We got in on Friday around 1pm and after we got settled in, we immediately went to the beach. We spent a good three hours at the beach. It is so beautiful! I've never seen such blue water. It's a little different here because there is no sand on the beach, it is all rocks, or little pebbles. They go all the way out to the waterfront and then there is a really large drop right into the water and it gets really deep really fast. The water is so nice-not too cold,not too hot. And the weather has been pretty nice. Sunday was D-Day, which is obviously a really big deal in France. We went to church in the Nice ward and it was fast and testimony meeting and a lot of the older people's testimonies were about their experiences during the war and how grateful they were for the debarquement, which was very cool to hear. It was also interesting to compare the Nice ward with the Paris ward. The Paris ward was mainly young single adults or young american families, whereas the Nice ward was mainly older retired couples and a few families. After church we went to the Matisse Museum and the Chagall Museum. Matisse isn't really one of my favorites because I think his abstraction goes to the point of absurdity at times. His museum had some really strange things in it, like cut out pieces of painted paper in the shapes of flowers and squiggles hanging on the walls in frames or on stands in glass cases. Chagall was a little more intriguing because his use of color was very unique. He would highlight the principal objects in an array of bright colors and then make the background more themed in a sinlge color. He was a Jewish fauvist who painted a lot of religious scenes, which were at times a bit far-fetched. We then came back to our apartments and went back the beach for a couple of hours. I've been reading "The Man Behind the Iron Mask" which is very cool to read because Dumas set it in France and Paris in the exact places that we studied and went to, so I know exactly what he is talking about! Then on Monday we went to Old Nice, which has the feel of Italy, and the Rock and the Castle, which is the royal castle built into the side of a rock cliff overlooking the city and the ocean. The streets of Old Nice were very narrow and colorful, all in cobblestone. We also did some shopping here. Tuesday the weather was incredible and the sun was perfect so we spent the whole day at the beach. Sunscreen probably would have been a good idea, because I looked like a lobster!
Then yesterday was another very cool day because we went to Monaco!! I saw Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini, Bentley, Audi, BMW, Ferrari, Porsche, and Lotus cars on the roads and in the side stores. So cool! We went up to the Monte Carlo casino and walked inside. We couldn't go all the way inside without checking our bags so we just went in the entryway and took pictures outside. We also went to the Cathedral and saw Grace Kelly's grave. I looked it up, the population of Monaco is only 30,300 and is only 0.78 square miles big! We learned in our class that it is near impossible to become a citizen there--you have to prove that your family has lived in Monaco for at least seven generations. The cliff was covered in really expensive houses and the sea was covered with really expensive yachts. There was a film festival going on and we saw the red carpet all stretched out, but we were there early in the day so we didn't see any of the action on it. We did see Julie Benz from Desperate Housewives getting ready to do a talk show and Simon Baker from The Devil Wears Prada and from The Mentalist doing a talk show. There were a lot of people waiting to get their autographs. All of the souvenir shops were full of paraphernalia for the car race that happens there and with stuff with Grace Kelly on them. It was definitely a cool place to visit, and it was very picturesque. The sea was pretty choppy and the waves kept coming up strong on the dock. From the tops of the cliffs we could see the whole bay and the city below, which was an awesome sight.
We didn't do a whole lot today because the wind was too strong so all of the beaches were closed because the waves were so strong against the rocks. I spent most of the day catching up on the journals we have to show to our teacher tomorrow as part of our final. Yeah, we have been going to class too for the past week, which is a huge bummer because we have an oral final exam tomorrow that no one is ready for because we have been too busy having fun! Hopefully it won't be too hard. I'll post some picures from the main places that we've gone to. Only one more full day! I fly home on Saturday!
Also, Congratulations Whitney on graduation from high school!!!! And to Rachel, Sabrina, Banks, Kallan, and Chase for making it through another year of school! I love you and I will see you soon :)
We got into Paris on Friday night after more traveling on the bus and the next morning we took a flight on EasyJet from Paris to Nice, where we have been staying this whole week, We are staying in studio apartments, which really just means a pull-out couch, bunkbeds, a kitchenette, a table, and a bathroom. It has been a lot of fun because we are all in the same complex and everyone from our group hangs out with each other every day! We got in on Friday around 1pm and after we got settled in, we immediately went to the beach. We spent a good three hours at the beach. It is so beautiful! I've never seen such blue water. It's a little different here because there is no sand on the beach, it is all rocks, or little pebbles. They go all the way out to the waterfront and then there is a really large drop right into the water and it gets really deep really fast. The water is so nice-not too cold,not too hot. And the weather has been pretty nice. Sunday was D-Day, which is obviously a really big deal in France. We went to church in the Nice ward and it was fast and testimony meeting and a lot of the older people's testimonies were about their experiences during the war and how grateful they were for the debarquement, which was very cool to hear. It was also interesting to compare the Nice ward with the Paris ward. The Paris ward was mainly young single adults or young american families, whereas the Nice ward was mainly older retired couples and a few families. After church we went to the Matisse Museum and the Chagall Museum. Matisse isn't really one of my favorites because I think his abstraction goes to the point of absurdity at times. His museum had some really strange things in it, like cut out pieces of painted paper in the shapes of flowers and squiggles hanging on the walls in frames or on stands in glass cases. Chagall was a little more intriguing because his use of color was very unique. He would highlight the principal objects in an array of bright colors and then make the background more themed in a sinlge color. He was a Jewish fauvist who painted a lot of religious scenes, which were at times a bit far-fetched. We then came back to our apartments and went back the beach for a couple of hours. I've been reading "The Man Behind the Iron Mask" which is very cool to read because Dumas set it in France and Paris in the exact places that we studied and went to, so I know exactly what he is talking about! Then on Monday we went to Old Nice, which has the feel of Italy, and the Rock and the Castle, which is the royal castle built into the side of a rock cliff overlooking the city and the ocean. The streets of Old Nice were very narrow and colorful, all in cobblestone. We also did some shopping here. Tuesday the weather was incredible and the sun was perfect so we spent the whole day at the beach. Sunscreen probably would have been a good idea, because I looked like a lobster!
Then yesterday was another very cool day because we went to Monaco!! I saw Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini, Bentley, Audi, BMW, Ferrari, Porsche, and Lotus cars on the roads and in the side stores. So cool! We went up to the Monte Carlo casino and walked inside. We couldn't go all the way inside without checking our bags so we just went in the entryway and took pictures outside. We also went to the Cathedral and saw Grace Kelly's grave. I looked it up, the population of Monaco is only 30,300 and is only 0.78 square miles big! We learned in our class that it is near impossible to become a citizen there--you have to prove that your family has lived in Monaco for at least seven generations. The cliff was covered in really expensive houses and the sea was covered with really expensive yachts. There was a film festival going on and we saw the red carpet all stretched out, but we were there early in the day so we didn't see any of the action on it. We did see Julie Benz from Desperate Housewives getting ready to do a talk show and Simon Baker from The Devil Wears Prada and from The Mentalist doing a talk show. There were a lot of people waiting to get their autographs. All of the souvenir shops were full of paraphernalia for the car race that happens there and with stuff with Grace Kelly on them. It was definitely a cool place to visit, and it was very picturesque. The sea was pretty choppy and the waves kept coming up strong on the dock. From the tops of the cliffs we could see the whole bay and the city below, which was an awesome sight.
We didn't do a whole lot today because the wind was too strong so all of the beaches were closed because the waves were so strong against the rocks. I spent most of the day catching up on the journals we have to show to our teacher tomorrow as part of our final. Yeah, we have been going to class too for the past week, which is a huge bummer because we have an oral final exam tomorrow that no one is ready for because we have been too busy having fun! Hopefully it won't be too hard. I'll post some picures from the main places that we've gone to. Only one more full day! I fly home on Saturday!
Also, Congratulations Whitney on graduation from high school!!!! And to Rachel, Sabrina, Banks, Kallan, and Chase for making it through another year of school! I love you and I will see you soon :)
Friday, June 4, 2010
So Many Castles!!
I figured it was time to add another post because so much has happened in the past few days! We started our bus trip around Northern and Western France on Monday morning and we just got back in Paris again a couple of hours ago. All of the places that we went to, besides Normandy, were in the Val de la Loire (Loire Valley). The Valley has 57 castles, of which we saw eight. We started our trip by going to see the Tapisserie of Bayeux, which is actually an embroidery from the middle ages that is super super long! It tells the story of William the Conqueror and Harold of England and their battle over Normandy. We followed an audioguide that explained the story on the tapestrie to us as we walked along it. We then went to Omaha Beach in Normandy where we went to the visitors center on D-Day, walked around the cemetery with the rows of thousands of white crosses for the soldiers who died there in WW2, and walked along the waterfront at Omaha Beach. We also went west a little ways to Pointe du Hoc where there were original bunkers and watch towers that had not been moved since the war. The center and the cemetery were very moving, especially because we went there on Memorial's Day. They didn't have anything special going on on Monday because they put on a big ceremony on June 6th because that actually is D-Day, but it was still cool to be there on Memorial Day. We got to crawl through some of the bunkers that had been destroyed. It was so hard to imagine that that area had ever been anything besides an incredibly calm and peaceful beach. It really was beautiful and the water was so still and blue. Even talking to our host family we found that the people here really do have a lot of respect for the American intervention in WW2 because they essentially won their freedom. That was a very good visit.
On Tuesday we went to a basilica/castle called Mont-St-Michel, which is really really beautiful. It is built entirely on a rock island and really has the feel of a middle-age kingdom. It was really foggy and rainy when we went so we didn't get to see the view out from the top, but the castle itself was really pretty. We had a French tour guide who explained the architecture of the basilica and the chapels and the great halls and things like that. The basilica itself is supported on its north and south sides by the actual rock of the island and our tour guide took us beneath the church where we got to touch the rock. Supposedly if you touch the original rock it will bring you good luck :) They had just started a prayer service when we went into the basilica so we got to see the guy start to ring the bells announcing the start of the session. After Mont-St-Michel we went to a fortress on the coast called St. Malo and just did some exploring. It too was situated on some very large rocks that we climbed around and took pictures in.
Wednesday was when we really started seeing the castles. We started with Le Chateau d'Angers which had some very pretty gardens and had a really nice view of the old city. It was used much more as a defensive point than as a home to royalty, which was evident in the architecture of the towers. It had angled openings or windows through which archers would point their arrows and not get hit themselves and high lookout towers, an area for a moat, and a draw bridge. This castle also housed the largest tapestry series in the world! It told the story of the apocalypse told in Revelations. Very cool. We got sandwiches from a boulangerie and then headed to the chateau de Langeais. We followed a French tour guide here who showed us what all of the rooms were used for and some of the famous pieces of art in them. This castle, like all of them, also had really pretty gardens and a wonderful view of the city. We have been staying in very low-end hotels this whole week, which has been an interesting experience. There have always been sketchy guys calling out to us and watching us all come into the hotel. All of the rooms we have been staying in have bunk-beds and the smallest spaces imaginable. Wednesday night the one we stayed in had communal showers and bathrooms instead of having them in the room. Yikes! We have had to carry our suitcases up really narrow flights of stairs to get to our rooms, which have keypads and codes instead of keys. The hotels have provided for some very interesting experiences haha. Fortunately this week we have also had some really good meals!! We went out to eat as a group every night this week to very fancy, authentic restaurants. They really focus on the presentation on the food which is cool. There are usually colorful sauces drizzled along the plates and little leaves on the sides. It has all been really good though. We've had salmon, veal, chicken, sorbet, chocolate lava cakes, creme brulee, YUM! All of our meals have taken about two hours because that's just how they serve dinners here. Slowly.
Thursday we went to chateau Azay le Rideau, Chenonceau, and Amboise. Needless to say they are all starting to get jumbled up in my head about which is which. Azay-le-Rideau was built on a really beautiful river under Francois I. Chenonceau was a really cool one because it was originally gifted to Diane de Poitiers (Henri II mistress of whom Catherine de Medicis was very jealous) but when Henri II died in a freak jousting accident, Catherine took it for herself and made a lot of renovations to it and kicked Diane out! This one really felt like a castle because we got to go through the kitchens, the bedrooms, the dancing halls, the gardens, the chapel, and basically everywhere. Then we went to Amboise which had both Gothic and Renaissance architecture and styles. It also had the grave of Leonardo da Vinci! We followed another French tourguide on this one. So many tourguides and audioguides. This one really marked the marriage between Charles VIII and Anne de Bretagne because they brought Brittany into the kingdom.
Today, Friday, we went to the chateau royal Blois which had Classical, Gothic, and Renaissance styles. It was a site of much religious conflict and had a really cool helixed staircase on the outside. Then we went to Chambord. I am sad that we saved this one for last because it really was the coolest one, but we were just so castled-out that we didn't want to see anymore. It had a double-helix stair case in the middle of it that was inspired by da Vinci that is really its hallmark. This one had 282 fireplaces and 487 rooms! We really only took the stairs up to the top and took pictures from the top without looking around inside too much. For some reason it was filled with modern art, which was kind of out of place.
Anyway, there's the basic gist of what we have been doing this week. There really is so much more to say about it, but I'm tired of talking about castles now. We've listened to hours of audioguides and tourguides this week about castles, architecture, furniture, paintings, gardens, churches and the like and it has been very cool to see! But I'm glad it's done haha. I'll post some pictures. We're taking a plane down to Nice tomorrow morning where we will get to enjoy the Mediterranean for a week :)
A Bientot!
On Tuesday we went to a basilica/castle called Mont-St-Michel, which is really really beautiful. It is built entirely on a rock island and really has the feel of a middle-age kingdom. It was really foggy and rainy when we went so we didn't get to see the view out from the top, but the castle itself was really pretty. We had a French tour guide who explained the architecture of the basilica and the chapels and the great halls and things like that. The basilica itself is supported on its north and south sides by the actual rock of the island and our tour guide took us beneath the church where we got to touch the rock. Supposedly if you touch the original rock it will bring you good luck :) They had just started a prayer service when we went into the basilica so we got to see the guy start to ring the bells announcing the start of the session. After Mont-St-Michel we went to a fortress on the coast called St. Malo and just did some exploring. It too was situated on some very large rocks that we climbed around and took pictures in.
Wednesday was when we really started seeing the castles. We started with Le Chateau d'Angers which had some very pretty gardens and had a really nice view of the old city. It was used much more as a defensive point than as a home to royalty, which was evident in the architecture of the towers. It had angled openings or windows through which archers would point their arrows and not get hit themselves and high lookout towers, an area for a moat, and a draw bridge. This castle also housed the largest tapestry series in the world! It told the story of the apocalypse told in Revelations. Very cool. We got sandwiches from a boulangerie and then headed to the chateau de Langeais. We followed a French tour guide here who showed us what all of the rooms were used for and some of the famous pieces of art in them. This castle, like all of them, also had really pretty gardens and a wonderful view of the city. We have been staying in very low-end hotels this whole week, which has been an interesting experience. There have always been sketchy guys calling out to us and watching us all come into the hotel. All of the rooms we have been staying in have bunk-beds and the smallest spaces imaginable. Wednesday night the one we stayed in had communal showers and bathrooms instead of having them in the room. Yikes! We have had to carry our suitcases up really narrow flights of stairs to get to our rooms, which have keypads and codes instead of keys. The hotels have provided for some very interesting experiences haha. Fortunately this week we have also had some really good meals!! We went out to eat as a group every night this week to very fancy, authentic restaurants. They really focus on the presentation on the food which is cool. There are usually colorful sauces drizzled along the plates and little leaves on the sides. It has all been really good though. We've had salmon, veal, chicken, sorbet, chocolate lava cakes, creme brulee, YUM! All of our meals have taken about two hours because that's just how they serve dinners here. Slowly.
Thursday we went to chateau Azay le Rideau, Chenonceau, and Amboise. Needless to say they are all starting to get jumbled up in my head about which is which. Azay-le-Rideau was built on a really beautiful river under Francois I. Chenonceau was a really cool one because it was originally gifted to Diane de Poitiers (Henri II mistress of whom Catherine de Medicis was very jealous) but when Henri II died in a freak jousting accident, Catherine took it for herself and made a lot of renovations to it and kicked Diane out! This one really felt like a castle because we got to go through the kitchens, the bedrooms, the dancing halls, the gardens, the chapel, and basically everywhere. Then we went to Amboise which had both Gothic and Renaissance architecture and styles. It also had the grave of Leonardo da Vinci! We followed another French tourguide on this one. So many tourguides and audioguides. This one really marked the marriage between Charles VIII and Anne de Bretagne because they brought Brittany into the kingdom.
Today, Friday, we went to the chateau royal Blois which had Classical, Gothic, and Renaissance styles. It was a site of much religious conflict and had a really cool helixed staircase on the outside. Then we went to Chambord. I am sad that we saved this one for last because it really was the coolest one, but we were just so castled-out that we didn't want to see anymore. It had a double-helix stair case in the middle of it that was inspired by da Vinci that is really its hallmark. This one had 282 fireplaces and 487 rooms! We really only took the stairs up to the top and took pictures from the top without looking around inside too much. For some reason it was filled with modern art, which was kind of out of place.
Anyway, there's the basic gist of what we have been doing this week. There really is so much more to say about it, but I'm tired of talking about castles now. We've listened to hours of audioguides and tourguides this week about castles, architecture, furniture, paintings, gardens, churches and the like and it has been very cool to see! But I'm glad it's done haha. I'll post some pictures. We're taking a plane down to Nice tomorrow morning where we will get to enjoy the Mediterranean for a week :)
A Bientot!
Sunday, May 30, 2010
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