Hannah and Kyle are engaged!!

Yes, yet another LATE blog!!!  I realize that Hannah and Kyle have been engaged for about... 5 and 1/2 months now... but I figured this blog was better late then never!!!  And since today is the 6th year anniversary I figured it would be appropriate to post this today!  :)  I figured that I would do a little tribute to Hannah and Kyle.  I searched through some pictures (some mine, some Hannah's) to find all of these pictures.  I was pretty disappointed that I couldn't find too many of us during the high school era.  I guess we weren't too big on taking pictures then!!  Or if so I just don't have them on my computer or on Facebook/Myspace.  So enjoy the pictures and memories below!

After almost 5 and half years of dating Kyle proposed to Hannah!!  I remember when Hannah texted me and told me that they were engaged!!  I don't want to say that I completely didn't see it coming, but I was pretty surprised none-the-less!

Now I'm pretty sure that this is a picture from our Junior Winter Formal dance.  I'm pretty sure that this is the second dance that Kyle came to Ridgeville for.  I think the first was home coming!  I remember very distinctly the first time that I met Kyle.  He and Hannah and a few other people were going to a haunted house, and I was staying home to watch Sam for the night.  I also remember the next weekend I went to a haunted house with them and I quickly realized that Kyle was a very nice guy, and I was really happy for Hannah to have found him.  He probably doesn't remember it, but he randomly bought me a hot chocolate at the haunted house and won my allegiance forever haha.  I remember always wondering why Hannah didn't have a boyfriend all throughout middle school and high school, because I always thought she was so sweet and pretty.  I guess it turns out she was waiting to meet her future husband!  I'm glad that she didn't settle for some other random guy, and that she ran into Kyle. I think it's amazing that Hannah and Kyle met on Myspace (but then again that was pretty common back then).  I think it's even more awesome that it flourished into a 6 year relationship, and eventually a marriage.  Pretty cool.

Here are Hannah and Kyle the following year.  I'm not positive, but I think this might be our Junior Prom?  I swear Kyle has always been a trooper... throughout all of the dances we went to he always came with us to pick out and try on dresses.  I don't know who we are going to have to carry all of our bags and watch our purses while we shop for wedding dresses!!!  Yikes!  That's ONE dress you don't get to come with us to pick out buddy!!  Haha!

Here is Hananh and Kyle at a bonfire!  Fun fact about Kyle... he is a regular pyro!  And I say this in a sibling teasing way.  Kyle loves playing around with fire!!   Hannah and Kyle have always been my "couple"  for the longest time I always just hung out with the two of them, and whenever I've had a boyfriend they've usually welcomed him with open arms.  I know in high school we double dated a lot, and had a lot of fun nights like the bonfire above.  We spent many a nights at Denny's!!  MURRRR!!  (They'll get it)  We've been to numerous haunted houses together, Cedar Point quite a few times, bowling, and all kinds of other stuff!  I can't wait until we are all older and have a little bit money so that we can all go to more exciting and fun places together.  :) 

Ahhh yes... and here we are back to pictures of dances.  I searched and searched, but I swear the only times we must have taken pictures back then were during dances.  If not, Hannah must have taken the pictures because I don't have any.  :(  And worst of all Hannah deleted her Myspace which was where I was hoping to pull some pictures off of, but I think you can still see time progressing with the dance pictures.  This was our Senior Prom!  This is Kyle and Hannah in the limo we rented.  Hrmm I wonder if the next picture of Hannah and Kyle in a limo will be in the wedding clothes??  :)

Here are my two roommates during our freshmen year home coming game!  I say my two roommates, because while Hannah was my actual roommate during Freshman and Sophomore year I feel like I got to hang out and see Kyle a lot during those years too.  No one could ask for better roommates!  Everyone always told us "You can't room with your friend, it'll wreck your friendship."  I completely disagree!!  I loooved living with Hannah, and I miss living with her so much now.  I loved getting to see her everyday and getting to hang out all of the time.  I think I really took it for granted back then how much we got to see each other and hang out.  Now that we've grown up a little bit, and see each other once a month if we are lucky... I have a deeper appreciation for all the time we got to spend together.  Oh what I would give for all of those high school nights, and early college days back.

 

 But... maybe getting older doesn't necessarily mean the end of the "good old days."  It means it's time to start new memories and eras of life.  I'm so proud of the both of you!  Hannah I know that you worked really really hard to get your nursing degree!!  Good job girl.  I can't wait to see where you end up getting a job!  I hope that you are able to stay around here!!  And Kyle, I'm getting a business degree myself so I know the difficulties of getting a business degree and job!  Good luck buddy!  Isn't it amazing that the two of them graduated at the same time?  A lot of people start college together, but not a lot of people finish it together.  And I mean that literally and figuratively.  I know that college is a hard time to stay in a committed relationship, and I have to commend the two of them for getting through everything together and staying together all throughout college.  You don't find a lot of couples with that kind of dedication to each other.  But then again a lot of people don't find the right person for them in high school either.

But then again... I don't think that you are going to find too many college guys that can buy you a ring like this!!!  But that's Kyle for you.  Kyle has always been very good to Hannah.  This is the mega ring, but I'm pretty sure that Hannah has quite a few other nice pieces of jewelry from Kyle too!!  I love how Hannah and Kyle have always celebrated their different anniversaries and holidays with each other.  I know when they first started dating they celebrated all of their monthly anniversaries, and of course now they are celebrating their yearly anniversaries.  I think it's really cute how they have always celebrated everything. 

First comes marriage... then comes... two sugar gliders in a ball basket!!  I know that Hannah and Kyle have been looking into getting sugar gliders for a long time, and I am really impressed with how much they care about their sugar gliders and how well they take care of them.  I've always known that Hannah was a very maternal person, I mean I've been playing house with her since 3rd grade, but I was extremely impressed with Kyle and his paternal instincts.  I know that they aren't going to have any problems parenting together, and I can't wait to experience that with them!!  I'll be the baby sitter while they go out to celebrate their various milestones!!  :)

 I know that I've told Hannah and Kyle this before, but I'm truly happy for them and I'm excited to help them plan out their wedding!!  Not that they'll need the help!  They seem to be on top of things!!  But I'm excited to experience this next stage of life with them!!  Here's to marriage and continuing life!

So I guess I want to conclude by saying congratulations!!!  And I can't wait to see what the future holds!

A few months later...

As you can tell I have a lot of spare time today, because I'm cranking out two blogs in one day!!  That typically seems like how I go.  I don't post a blog for a while, because I'm super busy, and then I decide to have a massive update.  I figured that I hadn't really talked too much about Cody and I since I made my last blog about us starting to date... so I figured that I'd make a quick update.  :)

 This summer Cody and I went to a bunch of country concerts =)  This is the Brad Paisley concert.  It was the first concert that we went to at the Indian's stadium. Unfortunately Cody and I went to a lot of concerts at Blossom and they don't allow you to bring in cameras... so I don't have any pictures from there =( 

 But this is pretty much how Cody dealt with being dragged to all of the country concerts we went to haha!!  I told him that he should make this profile picture, but he decided to put up one of us instead =)

 I wish I could figure out how to turn this picture on here... but alas, I'm not sure how... so you, faithful blog reader, will just have to turn your head sideways to look at it.  This is still at the concert... I stole his hat haha.

Here we are back at the Indian's stadium.  This time we were at an Indian's game.  We actually came with Hannah and Kyle, but we didn't take too many pictures while we were there.  This game we were right almost at the top of the stadium in right field!  I have to say they were probably some of the worst seats I've ever had, but we still all had fun.  The game was absolutely packed, and I think any game like that is usually fun.  After the game we went to hang out at Razzles for a little while with Hannah and Kyle.  I was happy to get to hang out with Hannah and Kyle... it feels weird to me that Cody and I haven't really been able to spend that much time with them.  We are going to have to figure out a way to spend some more time together soon.  It's just so hard with us all growing up, and doing different things.  I guess I might have to bite the bullet and go to some haunted houses this year!  Yikes!!  I know that Cody really wants to go to one... and I know Hannah and Kyle want us to go with them.

 This day at Cedar Point we finally got to hang out with Hannah, and my little buddy Sam!!  =)  We were at Cedar Point all day long which is always fun.  It was a great day to be in the park.  The lines were really short!!  We got Sam to go on the green Power Tower, and Maverick for the first time!!  I think that Maverick is Cody and Sam's new favorite ride.  I know every time we go to Cedar Point Cody loves it.

 I think that Windseeker was the longest line that we stood in all day.  It took forever to get on it, and honestly it's not really worth it.  I'm kind of disappointed in Cedar Point.  It seems like they haven't had a really good attraction in quite sometime now.

Here we all are in front of the Raptor again.  I'm hoping that we are all going to get to go again during Halloweekends.  I like Cedar Point during Halloweekends it's pretty fun.  =)  I wanted to go again this weekend with Cody, but it looks like it's going to rain.  So we are probably going to look at apartments for him to move into.  I think that my apartment has inspired him to move into his own place.  We were thinking about moving in together once I get out of school, but he doesn't really want to wait that long to get a new place.  We've been out looking at different places that he might want to move into.  We've found some pretty nice places, but I don't think we've found THE place yet.  Hopefully we'll be more successful this weekend.  =)

This was during our first trip to New York in his home town.  Cody got to show me around his hometown and introduce me to his family and friends.  This is a picture of Cody and I with his cute little niece Kelsie.  Cody actually drove to New York a couple of days before I was able to get there, and after a ton of hassle from the airlines I was able to make it into New York!!  We were worried I wouldn't be able to make it at all.  But anyways, while he was there early, his niece told him that she wasn't going to like me at all.  Of course that all changed... as you notice in the picture she is hugging ME... not Cody hehe.  Cody was a little bit jealous, but it was really cute... she's such a little sweet heart.  We're really excited for his family to come up at the end of October, and get to hang out with us. 

 This is Cody, his mom, and his doggie Lucy.  It was funny when Cody first told me his mom's name, because she has the same name as my mom.  That certainly makes it easy to remember!!  =)  The couple of times that we've gone to New York we've stayed at Cody's mom's house.  She actually came and stayed with Cody not too long ago, and my parents had a cookout and they got to meet each other.  Sadly, that was the same weekend that I was moving out to BG so I was a bit scatter brained, and trying to pack everything up that week!

Here we are at my favorite concert of the summer!  Wow can Taylor Swift put on a show!!  I really enjoyed it.  I could tell that it wasn't really Cody's cup of tea, but what was really nice this summer was that even though Cody wasn't into the concerts we were at we were still able to enjoy them and have fun together.  Which is really important.  I'm glad that we are able to get along together so well and have fun together.  =)

 I just had to throw this picture in here!!  This was the way that Taylor Swift ended her concert!  She went up in a balcony, and sang to the upper decks!  It was really really cool.  I've never seen anyone do that before!!  It was definitely an unique concert, and I'm glad that I got to go to it!

Ahhh!  Here we are at the Corn Fest!  This was step one of Cody's official initiation.  Step two was playing cornhole with my dad and his buddies, and then step three was coming to all of the Ranger football games with us.  I think my uncle and my dad might like Cody more than me!!  Haha nahhh I still like him more, but they are fond of him.  I'm glad that he fits in so well with them, and that he can have fun at our family gatherings.  I wish that he could come to a real family function like Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter... but this Thanksgiving we are going to be in Las Vegas!!  (Yippee), and I have a feeling he'll want to go home during Christmas and Easter, but I guess we shall see!!

Here we are at in the beer tent at the Corn Festival.  I think this was Cody's favorite part of the festival.  I think that Cody is the first person that I've dated that has drank before... and it's definitely interesting...

Here we are on our second trip to New York for Cody's buddy's wedding.  Getting to and from New York was intense on this trip, because there had been a lot of flooding in New York, and  a lot of roads were shut down!  Luckily the first night we travelled we stayed at the Casino in PA.  =)  We had a fun of ton there!!  Cody gets free rooms there Mondays - Thursdays so we were able to stay there for free, and we got to gamble and have a fun time there.  I really enjoyed it.  Then the next day we were fresh and ready to make the journey into New York.  It took us forever to get to his mom's house!!  But we made it there on time!!  =)  Our trip to New York was pretty good.  We had a pretty good time at the wedding, but Cody kinda drank a little bit too much!  We had a scare that his doggie had died that weekend, and he was pretty upset about it... so that kinda put a damper on our weekend.  But luckily they found her a couple of days later!  =)

 Here we are at the wedding with our "New York Couple"  Brianne and Brandon.  It seems like every time we've gone to New York we've mostly hung out with them, and some other people.  Cody showed off his "dancing" skills at the wedding... ha ha ha...  I was kind of afraid to take him to the dancing clubs when he came up to BG with Hannah, Steph, Kyle, and I after that!  Haha!  I'm just picking on it him.  We had a lot of fun when we all went out in BG, and we showed Cody around to the different areas in BG.  I know we had a lot of fun this past weekend when he came up for the long weekend.  We were able to just hang out and relax all weekend long.  And of course he was able to fix the various things that I had wrong with my apartment that I haven't gotten to yet ( I did set up my computer chair all by myself last week which I was really proud of myself for)!!  I cooked a ton while he was here this weekend.  I'm pretty proud of my improving cooking skills.  I made a full roasted chicken with stuffing stuffed inside of it, mashed potatoes, carrots, asparagus (which Cody didn't like).  The next day I made home made chicken noodle soup.  Then Cody and I made meatloaf the next day which went over really well.  We certainly didn't go hungry!!  I have a ton of left overs.  It's nice not to have to cook for a while now.  =)

So there is your couple months of updates as to what we've been up to.  I'm sure we've done a lot of other things that I didn't think to mention.  We've been spending quite a bit of time together since we started dating, and now that I've come back to school we've seen each other every weekend.  It's been going really well so far, and I'm very happy.  =)

New Car!!

Here is my brand new beautiful car!!  I know that most everyone has seen my car already, but I just wanted to highlight some of the features on my car.  I'm really proud of having my brand new car!!  I just love it!!  It's fantastic.  I also feel really happy about getting a Ford for a lot of various reasons.  One imparticular is supporting American made cars.  Originally I was not looking at getting a Ford Fiesta at all.  I was planning on getting Hyundai Elantra, but due to the fact that these cars were EXTREMELY back logged (it would have taken up to 6 weeks JUST to test drive one!!), and there was no negotiation available to buy the car... I decided it wasn't the most economic or timely situation.  I was extremely sick of my car, and I did not want to bring it to Bowling Green with me.  My gas tank was off, and there were a lot of other various issues with the car... it seemed like something new was going wrong every week.  And I had just completed my coop with Bendix so I had a little bit of extra money laying around, so I decided that my first BIG purchase was going to be a new car.  :)  I am sooooo thrilled that I decided to do that. I love having a new car that's very operational, and it's especially great because I've been driving home a lot to see Cody.  So without further ado... here is the picture of my car...

Pretty isn't she??  It was worth the extra two-three week wait for this blue color.  I loooove the color.  The pictures really don't due it justice.  It was by far my favorite color choice.  This car is automatic, has a super fuel economy package added to it, a winter package, ambient lighting, cruise control, sync system, and satellite radio.  I will explain what each feature means down below in the appropriate area.

Here is a view of the back of the car with my temp plates still on.  So you can imagine how long ago I took these pictures!!  My car now has it's "big kid plates" on!!  I actually kinda got ripped off.  I got my new plates in the beginning of October, and because my birthday is in November I had to pay for tags for this year and next year.  I could have paid $35 until November 9th, and then had to come back to get tags for 2012, or I could have paid the $72 and got both years... so in the end that's what I did.  Rip!  But that's taxes for ya I guess...

Here is one GREAT feature about my car... which was a pretty big selling factor for me.  It averages about 38 MPG between highway and city driving which is excellent.  It used to take me a full tank of gas in my old car driving home and then back to BG.  This car takes about 1/2 a tank.  I don't have to hardly fill up much at all, and I can really tell that I'm saving on gas in this car which is nice... especially since I'm not working at Bendix anymore!!  This car actually gets better gas mileage than the average Fiesta because it has a super fuel economy package on it... which gets me some extra MPG.

Here is my sync system!!  I LOVE my sync system... everyone else hates it.  Haha!  Basically it makes my car a blue tooth device, so whenever I'm in my car my phone is automatically connected to my car so when someone calls me or when I call someone I can just talk to them in my car and I don't have to worry about holding onto my phone.  I find it incredibly convenient.  Everyone else complains that they can't really hear me well, because it's like I have them on speaker phone.  I'm a big fan of it though.  All I have to do is press that little button, and then I tell my system who I want it to call.  USUALLY it understands what I mean, but if I ever get an attitude with my car it will just completely ignore me, and ask me to re-state what I had said.  It kind of annoys me sometimes. I'm sure you can picture it.  Me being annoyed and fighting with my car... and it just saying "Please say a command" and then I'm like I DID say a command!!  I TOLD YOU TO CALL CODY CHARLES!!!!!  GR!   "Please say a command"  CALL CODY CHARLES!!!!!!!!  "Please say a command"  Grrrr.... Grrrr....  I take a big breath.  Call Cody Charles, please.  "Calling Cody Charles"  It's funny how my sync system always wins.

This is hard to see in the picture but this is my display screen.  I can do a lot on this screen.  It shows me what is on the radio, or who is calling me.  I think it's nice.  :)  I was lucky, and I got Sirius radio for 6 months free in my car.  I've become a pretty big fan of it, and I almost always listen to it now.  It's nice driving back and forth from BG, because I don't have to channel surf to find a station that works on the drive.

Here is my steering wheel.  I have cruise control, and I am able to switch my radio channels from my steering wheel.  Also I'm not sure if you can see the little phone button or not, but that is how I can answer calls coming in.

 Here's a zoomed in verison  You can see the little phone icon there.

This is my cruise control area.

I have ambient lighting on my car... which basically means that my floor lights and my cup holders can change 7 different colors.  It's kinda cool.  I didn't really need it in my car, but the dealership that I bought this car from offered me the ambient lighting and satellite radio for $400 cheaper then another dealership that was going to give me a car with the same features minus the ambient lighting and satellite radio for $400 more.  So it was a no brainer.  It was a nicer car for a cheaper amount. 

Here is another color that it changes to.  It's kinda growing me it's definitely cool.

I really like that my car shows me the temperate outside, how many miles I currently have, how many MPG I'm averaging, and how many miles I have left until I'm out of gas!  That is soooo nice!  My old car's gas tank was off and I was always worried and wondering how much gas I had.  It is incredibly nice to have a car tell me exactly how many miles of gas I have left.... you can't even imagine the relief that I feel while I'm in my car.  It's veeeery very nice.  In my old car I didn't think that it was that big of a deal, but now that I've been in this car I could never go back to it.

Here is my radio area.  You can see my screen above.  It's not currently on in this picture so it's a little bit difficult to see.



Of all the area's I've talked about in my car... this area here is probably my FAVORITE!!!  This is my air conditioning and heat!!!  Both of which work VERY well!  My old car was having issues with my heat working in the winter and my air conditioning working in the summer.  It has been sooo nice to have air conditioning the past couple of months!!  Also, there have been a couple of cold days, and I have wonderful heated seats in my car. And they are just terrific.  They warm up REALLY quickly, and they really warm me up quick.  My heat also fires up fast which is very nice compared to my old car.  I was driving to Bendix this winter and I'd be able to see my breath almost the whole way there, because it just took my old car forever to heat up.  Not this car!  :)  It's on the ball!

Here are my wonderful seats.

Here is a side view of my car.

 Here is my trunk.  There is some decent room inside of it.  My car is kinda on the smaller side, but it works great for me.

Here is the back view.  I'm very very happy about my car choice.  It looks nice, feels nice, and it gets great gas mileage.  I think it was the perfect first big purchase for me.  I feel like this will be a great car for me for quite sometime.  I bought an extended warranty on the car for up to 6 years, so hopefully it will last me a bit longer than that!  :)  I just love having a new nice car that I don't have to worry about having problems.  I really like all of the little extras that my car has.  I LOVE the heated seats and I'm so glad that I didn't settle for a car without it.  I like that the gas tank is capless, or that it doesn't need a cap, that's very convenient.  In the end it took a while for me to get my car, and I was very stressed out about that.  I almost considering cancelling my deal at my dealership and going somewhere else, but for the price that I paid for my car and that value that I got from it... I'm really glad that I didn't.  I really like the blue color, the heated seats, and the fuel economy package I got on my car.  I did a lot of research on cars... months and months of research before I bought mine, and I'm pretty pleased with my end result!  Let's hope that it runs faithfully for me!