the thing about blogs

is that they have to be changed.

all the time.

not even just new posts. but you have to change

the colors, cause you get tired of the same ones.

the background, because cherry blossoms aren't even the right season anymore.

headers, because maybe your title is cliche, overdone, stupid.

and when is the right time to switch to "our family blog" "the demars 2" "demars and venus" or something even more clever...?

also, i want one of those gorgeous collage -y blog headers like Nie Nie or CJane... but they like, cost moneys. which is great when a billion people read your blog and you have ads and all that jazz that makes you moneys to buy gorgeous blog headers that cost $50+.... but for me... i just want one. soooo

tonight i am working nightwatch. perhaps some of those 8 hours will be spent playing on photoshop. designing my own. trying to remember how exactly to format it to fit up there.

we'll see. cause i need something more me. more me and fall and crisp air and diy and lovey and trying hard.

photo by {meishphotographyDOTcom}

i don't care if anyone sees it before the announcements, i love this picture.

(dear meish-elle... i apologize that 800 of the 847 shots you took of us were either one or both of us making a dumb face, talking, looking mean, being ridiculous, etc. trust me, the sheer delight of this wedding planning being over will make our actual day pictures much MUCH better. like... all lovey-dovey and smiley. hopefully. us photographers, we don't know how to be in front of the camera)

Arizona

So, as most people know, Damon got his first acceptance to a med school- Midwestern, in Glendale Arizona! I'm so proud of him, and so excited to have the first option on the table. Cause it is nice to have an idea of somewhere we'll possibly living for the 4 years after we leave dear old Provo.

Right away, I started looking up real important things about our possible future home.

No, not housing costs, job opportunities, church wards, or any of that stuff!

But this:

(only minutes away spa, fashion place, AND rack!)

and this:

just right over in mesa

and a cupcake place i've heard great things about:

seriously- banana? ginger lemon? mmmmm...

also:

(well, not the mayor of provo- but Catherine! maybe even in a helmet!)

not to mention NO WINTER and endless sunshine and pools (pools are to arizona as trampolines are to ____ ), AND... monsoons! sounds great to me!

we'll see what other offers come in, but Arizona is sounding pretty good to me....

OMFG

ha. i like that title. acronyms are funny. unless people use them for real. then they are annoying. lol. 

(see?)

so i was at target a couple of weeks ago and i was on the phone with my mom and in the middle of talking i stumbled upon these and couldn't even make words anymore. 

you know why i couldn't? cause i've been lusting after Frye's pair 

for at least the last 3 years, but somehow never managed to dish out the $$$ for them though since then i've bought plenty of jeans with heftier price tags... you got me there. 

anyways, when i saw the pair at target, for less than a quarter of the price of the Frye's, i immediately started dreaming about the day when i wouldn't feel too guilty to buy them. so when you see me eventually waltzing around in these little girls, enjoying fall in provo (best time of year- football, leaves, the alpine loop, the smell of cinnamon, candles...), you can rest assured that they are the target ones, and you can think of how thrifty i am.  

in other not so materialistic news, we just got back from Texas late last night, where we spent 4-ish food-filled days hanging out with my family and cursing the rain that the area never gets except for the one weekend i bring my fiance home to meet my family. then it rains. a lot.  we didn't actually take many pictures... but i'll look at the camera and see what's there and try to put them up here. 

and we're taking our engagement pictures tomorrow, so hopefully i'll have some of those pretty soon to show too!

we have a home!

this weekend damon and I randomly got lucky and found an apartment to live in! its a pretty good deal, 2 bedroom basement apartment that's nicer than anything else we've looked at. another plus? one of my missionaries, mike vanchiere, lives right on the other side of the block.... as in, his backyard backs up to mine. awesome? yeah I know. I'm moving in there at the beginning of october, and I can't wait to be able to unpack everything we have stuffed in boxes and trash bags between my house and his right now. we're so excited, 'cept now we'll really argue about who'se house we're gonna hang out at after work- and who has to drive all the way home, for that long month.

Florida

he was sooooo excited to go to the beach. he even handled the 13 hour drive pretty well

ghost crab hunting at night... long exposure style

sometimes he gets real mad.

he was in the pool about 14 hours a day

hello little megan...

he thinks he's all strong. 

lightening storm over the pier/ocean

some pics from our vacation to panama city beach, florida. we go there every other year and georgia in between. it was nice to take jake this time cause last time he was like 4 months old but this time he spent about 4 hours out of the day OUT of the pool. funny...

one time we got engaged...

and it went like this:

drive drive drive to Spokane on a friday afternoon. we got there and went straight to Damon's family cabin on one of the lakes nearby, where a couple of his siblings and their families were hanging out. we decided we wanted to go wakeboarding pretty soon after we got there so we all changed and went down to the boat. it was really cold and cloudy and starting to drizzle so we wanted to get out quick, but Damon decided he needed to go to the bathroom and he didn't want to jump in the freezing water yet since he wasn't boarding first. so he runs back up into the house. a few minutes later his sister, Sharee (i have no idea how to spell names) asked me to come help her get more towels, so we went up and she was all, 'hey, you go grab drinks from the cooler on the deck and i'll get the towels'... 

and i did. 

and the cooler was allllllll the way at the end of the deck by a bedroom door, which i thought was a weird place for a cooler. anywho, i opened the cooler and saw this:

except all i really saw was the flowers. and i was really confused. then i saw the ring kinda and then i was really confused. (Damon had told me they couldn't get my ring - the size was being special ordered anyway- till the next week. he even had our friend matt, who was friends with the owner of wilson's and was trying to get the ring faster, text him on our drive up saying 'hey, sorry i couldn't get the ring faster, i promise it'll come in later') the only other person out there was tyler, but i didn't even notice he was following me taking pictures. anywho, damon came out the door like this (he had to get the flowers out of the cooler cause apparently i slammed it shut after i saw it):   

i was completely surprised, we'd only been there about 20 minutes... 

then we had to try to get the ring on. it fits perfect except for that one knuckle that got broken the day after we first held hands. that never got much smaller. 

got it on! my finger hurts. my heart is excited though

so excited!

i know i know...

i haven't blogged in foreeever! but i PROMISE

I PROMISE I WILL POST PROPOSAL/RING PICS TOMORROW

   (i had to write that in all caps so that i dedicate it unto myself.)

cause i have those pictures. cause tyler and chewy (hmm... Sherie? Cherie? i don't know how to spell damon's sis' name) were glamorous frantic photogs as he popped the question. 

and i'll even put up other pictures from spokane...

and the pretty wedding we shot (congrats Katie and Chris!) while we were there

oh, and the pictures from florida the week before..

yikes, it's been a busy few weeks... i can't wait for us to go home to texas next (september 11!) for nick's wedding. because 1 )we have realized how much fun vacations of any sort are- we don't have to say goodnight! we sleep in rooms right next to each other and eat breakfast together! it's sooo fun! and 2) franke family weddings/get togethers are the bomb.com  and 3) i can't wait to show him my home and my family and all the good food places.  i love texas.

2 years ago

i can't wait to leave tomorrow for florida... hard to believe it's been 2 years already, look how little jake was! i can't wait to rent out the whole hotel again, spend all our time on the beach or in the pool right outside our door or on the deck where we ate all our meals... so fun. and going into 'town' to get ice cream or check out the dorky gift shops (aren't they all exactly the same?) or go to the arcade ... 

i love vacations. especially to the beach.