We Turned 4!

A few fun things happened while I was MIA for a month.
One of them was that Brett and I turned 4!

We had our fourth anniversary!
YAY! and of course we spent it at Disneyland.. Is there any other way?
I love Him so much. I can't believe it's been four years. The time has flown by at an alarming speed and it's getting even faster as the wedding approaches.
From here on out we will have wedding anniversaries to celebrate.. of course knowing us we will still celebrate our date-iversary. We love a good reason to celebrate!

New Years Day

Every year B and I like to do something fun on New Years Day. This year we went to Balboa park with my family. We spent most of the day in the Natural History Museum so I didn't take many pictures. Here's one of Maddy by the fountain, I gave her a penny to throw in. She refused to tell me her wish!

This was probably on of my favorite moments of the day.
After Balboa Park my family went home and Brett and I went to La Jolla. He was holding out the camera to take a picture of us and I started nagging about something.
(I wish I remembered why I was complaining so I could justify myself here and not sound like such nag lol).
He started taking pictures while I was trying to be serious.He just kept taking them and laughing.

I finally broke.

I love him so much!

Happy New Year

I love the new year.

I got to spend time with the people I love and worship my creator for the life He's given me.

I'm excited for 2009. BIG things are to come:)
This time of year is such a blessing. It comes with such a fresh start.
It's a time to reflect, see what needs improvement, see how far you've come. It's a time for growth.

I'm setting some pretty big goals this year and I can't wait to get working!
What goals will you set?

Our 4th New Years Kiss!

This was her first New Years staying up until midnight. (She was explaining the countdown)

Thank You Debbie!

This is a special thank you post for Debbie! We've never met but I'm glad that you enjoy my blog. Thank you so much for your gift:) I thought it was so sweet!
Brett and I will definitely put it to good use!

I hope you had a very merry Christmas!

Love, Heather

Christmas

Christmas snuck up on me this year! With the engagement and being with my grandma so often I totally lost track of time. Last year I was done shopping the day after Thanksgiving.. This year, I started the core of my shopping on the 22nd and was up until 2 on Christmas eve wrapping. As hectic as it's been the past few days I'm so thankful I left shopping for the end. I get so excited about giving gifts to the ones I love but this year an extremely tight budget and a complete lack of time left me with a feeling of no "Christmas Cheer". It's so easy to become wrapped up in the "Christmas Cheer" and buried in boxes and bags of gifts. The past month has been filled with so many blessings. I have learned so much more about Jesus; His grace, His Power, His Mercy, His love, and His spirit. I have felt the powerful love and support that comes from his church body. The past few weeks with my Grandma gave me hours to spend really getting to know Him better. Although I didn't have much Christmas cheer this year by most standards, I feel like for the first time I spent Christmas completely consumed by Him... and that's what it's supposed to be all about right?! I'm so thankful for my Grandma and the wonderful gift she's given me this Christmas.

Disneyland!

Our passes expired today so we had to make one last trip:(
With the wedding coming up who knows when we will be able to afford new ones but I am determined to find a way!

I have beat Brett at this game literally every single time we've played. There was a close call this time but of course.. I ended up winning! You should've seen his face!

Tacky Sweater Party

I love tacky sweater parties!! Last night was so much fun!

I hear those sleigh bells jingling, ring-ting-tingling too

Come on, It's lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you.
i LOVED the weather today!


My windshield wipers are terrible and it was pouring.. probably wasn't the best idea to turn the camera on:)
I had to end the video abruptly because a cop pulled up next to me and I don't think He would've thought it was the best idea either...

Baking Days

It was a cold, wet, blustery day and the house smelled of gingerbread.

Hopefully our gingerbread making skills don't relate to our future child bearing skills..
Deformed, arms and legs twisting wrong ways, 2x the normal gingerbread man size...
Disclaimer: This is a joke. We will be happy with whatever kind of children we get! :)

p.s. The second batch was perfect!

Candy Cane Lane

Brett and I have been going crazy with the starts of wedding planning. We have seen so many places in the past three days. My head is still spinning from all the outrageous numbers that have been swirling in front of my eyes. I decided we needed a relaxing night just the two of us, NO wedding talk. We bundled up. I stuffed the gloves I had bought him from Target that he's been eyeing for awhile now in my purse and took us to Starbucks. We got 2 peppermint hot chocolates and headed to Candy Cane Lane. We walked the hills and soaked in all the lights and laughter. I love nights like these with him.

Christmas on the Prado

This is one of my favorite Christmas time traditions!!!

This picture sparked an interesting conversation about the interesting ways interesting strangers take pictures for other strangers.

Candy Canes...

It's been 12 days since we got engaged at Disneyland.. 12 whole days!!! Which meant it was time for another Dland trip of course. Thanks to my curiosity and love for watching food being made I grabbed Brett and ran over to the large crowd forming in front of the candy shop window. (There's always a crowd in the window but never one that big). Thanks again to my fine tuned eavesdropping skills... I found out why there was all this commotion. The candy shop was hand making candy canes. "So what?" right?... WRONG! We had conveniently stepped into a rare and magical Disney experience! People had gotten there early to line up for tickets that they would exchange for Candy Canes. I'm hesitant to admit this but Brett and I both immediately fell for magic. We got in line for the next batch and made some new Disney friends. These people were true Disney nuts.. they put Brett and I to shame. At the end of the day we walked away with 5 candy canes (Don't ask how much we payed for these suckers). 2 for us and 3 to give as Christmas presents to our fellow Disney nuts. We had so much fun today and we went back and relived the moment in front of our castle (I call it that now... It's totally our castle after the last trip). Brett cut the day short because he had a little surprise. We grabbed our traditional BBQ and feta pizza at California Pizza Kitchen then proceeded to the theater nearby. Brett had bought us tickets to see it's a wonderful life on the big screen. Believe it or not I've never seen that movie all the way through.. It was awesome!

I'm Engaged!!!!!!!!

BIG news......

We're Engaged!!!

Friday, November 21st at about 5:50 pm Brett and I stood in front of Sleeping Beauty's snowy castle when he got down on one knee and asked me to spend the rest of my life with him!!
... and of course I said yes.

Here's the story from both sides:

Heather-
Brett and I go on a date every week. I already knew that this week would involve 2 dates but I didn't really think much about it. We went to dinner and saw How the Grinch Stole Christmas Thursday night. When he dropped me off that night he told me that I had to be ready for Friday's date at 10am. (Brett NEVER tells me where we will be going on our dates, it's always a surprise). He arrived early and was very persistent in getting me to cut his hair before we left (I wasn't catching on). After the haircut we got in the car and started driving North. We stopped in Irvine and ate lunch at Panera then continued driving.

Eventually we arrived at Disneyland and parked. He asked if I could guess where we were going so I made the obvious guess and told him I was kind of surprised because we never get to Disneyland so late in the day (Still wasn't suspicious). We entered the park and started our day. Disneyland days ALWAYS start out with Brett asking me what I want to do first... today, I told him, I wasn't feeling very decisive and asked him to choose instead. He told me not to worry, that he would make the decisions for the day. My indecisevness ended up working out in his favor. He later told me that every ride we want on and place we went was pre-planned!

After going on Winnie the Pooh we headed over to Santa's Reindeer Roundup. Seeing the reindeer at Big Thunder Mountain Ranch is one of my favorite things about Christmas at Disneyland (Brett knew this and wanted to take me there before he proposed). After seeing the reindeer we headed over to main Street to watch the Christmas parade. We walked through fantasy land so that we could go through the castle to get there. Brett wanted to walk around the side and see the wishing well but it was roped off. He tried to get me to go under the rope but being the square that I am I didn't want to break the rules(thankfully). We ended up walking through the castle and stood on the bridge for a minute to look up at the lights. He hugged me and I noticed his heart was beating really fast (still didn't have a clue). We continued walking over the bridge to the big area in front of the castle where everyone was taking pictures. We stopped and he told me to face the castle and close my eyes (brett is super romantic and does things like this all the time... so I still didn't know what was going on).

I heard him run away and then run back. He told me to open my eyes and he started his speech. As he was talking everything got really quiet and almost slow motion. After he finished talking he handed me a red rose then he got down on one knee, pulled out the ring, and asked me to marry him. I thought I said yes but everything was so swirly I wasn't sure if it even came out of my mouth so I said it again. I immediately hugged him and could not let go. Finally I let go and he reminded me about the ring. I totally forgot about the ring because I was so excited. I gave him my hand and he placed it on my finger. I looked around and saw Brian(Brett's brother) and Allie and Aubri my two best friends there taking pictures.

After lots of hugs, and crying, and calling family, and friends we found our way to Main Street and watched the Christmas parade. I have to admit... I missed most of that parade. I couldn't stop looking at Brett. We headed over to City Hall and dropped off the rose. As we were leaving Brett had one more surprise for all of us. He had made reservations for the 5 of us at Club 33 for dinner! We went on Pirates of the Carribbean (our favorite ride, perfect for our first ride as an engaged couple) and Indiana Jones and then we headed over to Club 33. Dinner was amazing and we had so much fun talking about the past and the future.

We watched the fireworks and Fantasmic from the balcony of Club 33 in New Orleans Square. Again, I couldn't pay attention. I couldn't believe that this was really happening. I was really engaged to that skinny guy with the long shaggy hair that I met in high school. I couldn't believe that was the same goofy boy who had grown into this amazing, Godly, loving, hard-working, funny, selfless man. And mostly I couldn't believe that I was asked to have the honor of being this mans wife and that he will love me and lead me for the rest of my life. I spent the whole night just staring at him in disbelief. God really does know what he is doing and I'm so glad that He will be the center of our marriage. Tonight was by far the best night of my life. I can't wait for the days to come... Some days will be sweet and some will be harder than we can even imagine... but in the end there's no one else I would rather spend them with. Brett, we have been together 3 years 7 months and 19 days during those days we've laughed together, cried together, learned together, and grown together. On our 1,329th day you asked me to let you make my dreams come true for the rest of my life... the truth is you already have. I love you always and forever... to the moon AND BACK.

Brett-
Almost 3 months ago I decided that I wanted to propose to Heather at Disneyland in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle. Well I should clarify. Long, long ago, I decided that I wanted to marry Heather. 3 months ago I finished my last class at UCSD and decided that I wanted to start seriously thinking about when, where, and how I wanted to do the thing. It didn't take long to decide that I wanted to do it at Disneyland. I had thought about many different options, but nothing seemed as magical as a Disneyland proposal.

Initially I wanted to propose in early October because, let's face it, we've been together for over 3 and a half years and I'm good and ready to be engaged. But as I thought more and more about the details I really felt like God was pushing me to wait longer. I really didn't have enough money for a ring, so I felt like it would be a very smart move to get a second job and save as much money as I could. Also, and probably more importantly, I realized that Disneyland is even more romantic at Christmastime. Disneyland is amazing and magical and romantic all year long, but something about that big giant Christmas tree, countless wreaths, and thousands upon thousands of Christmas lights strung all over the park just makes the park better. Not to mention the snowy, icicly, light-smothered Christmas version of Sleeping Beauty's castle.

So I did my research and found that this year the official launch of "Holiday Time" at Disneyland was on November 21st, 2008. So I decided that was the day. As I thought about it, the fact that it would be this day excited me more and more. What more romantic time of year to enjoy a new engagement than December? (If you can't tell, Heather and I are Christmas fools!). Not only that, but Heather's family always goes camping the weekend of Thanksgiving. We LOVE this tradition because it is the most relaxing, fun, delicious vacation and we both always get the entire weekend off work for it. And this year we'll have nothing to do all weekend but think and plan and dream about our future wedding! Yay!

Ok, so fast forward to early November. Many smelly, late-night Olive Garden shifts and terrible early morning Starbucks shifts later and I now have saved up a good deal of money. I had looked at several places already at different rings, but I never went with serious intentions of buying. But now I was ready. I have nothing morally against mall jewelers, but I have been to many of them and everything always seemed kinda blah. I was looking for a very specific style and no mall jeweler has ever had anything like what I wanted (you can ask Heather about the ring details if you care to know). But anyway, one early November day I moseyed into Jared's Galleria of Jewelry in Mission Valley near Mission Valley Center. Yes, I've heard the commercials. "He got it at Jared!?!?!?!!!?!!!!!" No, that is not why I went there, I simply wanted to check out all my options. The way I was looking at it was like this: Heather's ring is somewhere in San Diego. The ring that she will wear every day for the rest of her life that tells the world how much we love and are committed to each other is SOMEWHERE is San Diego. I just had to find it. With this mentality I felt like I should check out any jewelry store that looked halfway legit.

Now, let me explain one other little thing. I'm a hopeless romantic. I have been for as long as I can remember. So largely because of this, my hopeless, fairy-tale mind kinda always had this idea that when I found THE ring, I would immediately know it was THE ring. Mind you, the intelligent, realistic part of my mind knew this might not be actually how it will happen, but every time I went into a new store I was fully open to the idea that I might look at a ring in their pretty little display case and decide right then and there that that was the ring for Heather. And this pretty much happened. When I went into Jared, I found a couple of rings that I really liked, but something about this ring just struck me like no other. I left to think about it more and make sure, and two days later I went back and bought the ring.

So now we have the date and we have the ring, but I'm sure you're all most concerned with the proposal itself. Duh. That's kinda the culmination of everything. Well basically, we left at about 10:30 AM on Friday November 21st for an undisclosed location which ended up of course being Disneyland. This was unique because normally when we go to Disneyland we try to be there at opening, but this day we didn't even arrive until about 1:00 PM (after stopping for lunch at Panera Bread in Tustin on the way). We also usually end up leaving pretty early. My reasoning for leaving later was because Disneyland is open until midnight on Fridays, and I knew we would be there all night. By getting there later I figured we wouldn't be completely tired by the end of the day (we still were, by the way. We're getting old and rickety).

After arriving it was basically a normal day at Disneyland. Or at least Heather thought it was. We rode rides, ate Isador Boudin's delicious sourdough bread, and even oogled at the reindoor in Santa's Reindeer Roundup. While Heather suspected nothing out of the ordinary, I was constantly thinking in terms of "Ok, if we go here then here then here, we should be coming through Fantasyland to the castle right about 6:00 PM!" It was very important that we came out of the castle at about 6:00PM because that was the time that I had arranged for Brian (my brother), Allie, and Aubri to be waiting with cameras in hand, ready to videotape and take pictures. Oh, and my brother had the ring and a rose. Kinda important.

Before I go any further, let me interject with a few important details. Yes, I arranged for my brother and two of our best friends to be there, and there were several reasons for this. One reason was that I wanted people there taking pictures and catching the moment on video. Also, Allie and Aubri have a tendency to get excited about stuff. I definitely felt like their excitement for us would rub off and make the whole situation very, very exciting. However, I also don't trust anyone to keep a secret, so Aubri and Allie were completely unaware of any details until 2:30 PM on Friday November 21st, when my brother met them at Starbucks and they all left for Disneyland. Furthermore, I did not want to have the ring anywhere on me during our day at Disneyland. How terrible would it be if she found it, or worse, if somehow I lost it on a ride or something. Giving it to my brother to be in charge of definitely alleviated any pressure related to that. Plus I just really wanted my brother to be there with me on the biggest day of my life.

The plan was to be leaving Santa's Reindeer Roundup at Big Thunder Ranch in Frontierland at about 6:00pm, then head through Fantasyland and exit by the castle by going past Snow White's wishing well on the east side of the castle. Then I would have Heather make a wish and lead her over to the giant compass directly in front of the castle. However, when we walked over in the direction of Sleeping Beauty's castle, I realized that the pathway to Snow White's wishing well was roped off. Panic. Well not really. Only for a second. This was just a little detail I had planned, but was completely unimportant in the grand scheme of the proposal. So we go out through the castle the normal way and we stop on the big compass in front of the castle. I had to make very sure to keep an eye out for Brian, Allie, and Aubri, because they were expecting us to come from Snow White's wishing well, and I definitely did not want Heather to see them prematurely. Once we stopped on the compass I see my posse anxiously looking for us by the wishing well. So I tell Heather to close her eyes and don't move, and I run over to get their attention and motion for them to come this way. I take the ring and rose, and when I see that everyone is in position I ask Heather to open her eyes. I say a few romantic things to my beauty, I drop to one knee, and I ask the question that I've wanted to ask her for a very long time.

She said yes!

At this point we all laugh, cry, take pictures, and talk about everything that has happened throughout the day, and then Heather made some phone calls. We watched the Christmas parade, then we walked down to City Hall on Main Street to drop off the rose so we wouldn't have to carry it around for the rest of the night. After dropping off the rose I dropped a heck of a surprise on the girls: I informed them that in an effort to make the night as special as possible I arranged dinner reservations for the five of us at the elegant and exclusive Club 33 above New Orleans Square. (If you don't know what Club 33 is ask me about it. It's AMAZING and it's a VERY special thing to be able to go inside) When I told them, Allie and Aubri literally SCREAMED with excitement/joy/surprise. (My brother already knew - he had a hand in making the reservation possible.)

Our reservation was at 8:30, and it was about 7:15 at this point, so we rode Pirates of the Caribbean (in our own private boat, I might add), then Indiana Jones, then it was up to Club 33. We watched the fireworks from the balcony at 9:25pm, then after dinner we watched the amazing Fantasmic show at 10:30. Then we ate our dessert and unfortunately had to leave Club 33. It's always a sad moment leaving Club 33. After this we rode Big Thunder Mountain, rode Space Mountain, oogled at beautiful Sleeping Beauty's castle one last time, picked up the rose, and left Disneyland.

It is amazing to me how unbelievably perfect the entire day turned out. I honestly could not have asked for anything to have happened any differently. Even the complication with Snow White's wishing well turned out for the best, and there is no way anything could have gone any better. My brother and our friends made the details all come together and without them I don't know what I would have done. I'm so thankful for Heather's love and God's abounding grace and kindness for bringing someone so perfectly created for me into my life. I would not be the man I am today if it wasn't for her, and every day she shows me what it means to love unconditionally.

I love you Heather! And I cannot WAIT to be your husband!

The Proposal from Heather Ozuna on Vimeo.

Thursdate: How the Grinch Did Not Steal Christmas

I have been waiting to feel the Christmas spirit but I have decided it's just too hot around here to really feel it. I've been trying to force it on myself but it just doesn't work like that. I'm happy to announce that tonight's Thursdate did it for me. I am officially "in the Christmas spirit". Tonight we dressed up and headed down to Balboa Park. We had reservations for dinner under "Gus Chiggins" at 5:30 at The Prado (we can only afford The Prado once a year IF we're lucky so we soaked it in). 2 rounds of hummus, 2 bowls of the best pasta ever, and 1 free dessert later and we were on our way to opening night of How the Grinch Stole Christmas!! It was incredible. It's been years since either of us have been and it rocked our socks off. Brett bought the tickets a long time ago so they were really cheap and we were so close I could touch the stage with my foot and look into the orchestra pit from my seat! Way to go babe! When directing us to our seats they made a joke about our seats being in the "Grinch's armpit" section:) I'll take a green, hairy, armpit anyday. It was phenomenal.

I was really excited that we could eat the flowers on our dessert plate... they were pretty good

Our waitress gave us a free dessert and told us to just pretend it's our anniversary tonight.
It was a vanilla bean Tahitian flan...
Favorite quote of the night from Brett: "It's Flantastic!"

They were very strict about no cameras so I had to take this on my phone...
My foot is touching the stage!

Halloween

I can't believe Halloween has already come and gone! We had a last minute costume change this week so I was up until ungodly hours sewing last night. I won't say who had the last minute change of mind that required hours of sewing and scrambling from me the night before Halloween.... :) It was totally worth it though. We have so much fun during Halloween.

Say hello to Jack Skellington and Sally....

Pumpkin

This is my favorite time of the year and I'm soaking up every minute of it! Tonight Brett surprised me with a homemade "Thursdate" dinner for his mom, grandma, and I to enjoy. I was so proud. He cooked a cheese cider fondue, a pumpkin "Ghoulash" (beef stew slow cooked IN A PUMPKIN), and made candied pumpkin seeds and pumpkin shakes for dessert. Everything was delicious. He better be careful with all this good cooking or he might be doing all of the cooking one day.

After dinner we went to a family friends house to carve pumpkins. Brett (in a normal Brett fashion) decided to be different and carve his pumpkin upside down. I (in a normal heather mushy gushy fashion) decided to carve B & H love pumpkins sitting in a pumpkin patch.

Oktoberfest

Tonight was a blast!
My family's out of town and the house is empty:( so I had L&L over!
Brett and I made them a delicious dinner. We had sun dried tomato and goat cheese stuffed chicken breast with orzo and a shallot and basil sauce. We also made them the cheesy delicious Red Lobster cheddar biscuits! After dinner we went to Oktoberfest and walked around and got candied apples. I love street fairs!

Halfaversary!

Yesterday was mine and Brett's Halfaversary, 3 years and 6 months of awesomeness.
We celebrate this every year and we always do it the same!
We had dinner at Mrs. Knott's Famous Chicken Dinner (If you haven't been to this place, GO!) Then we went to Knott's "Scary" Farm and screamed our heads off. I swear Brett's going to have bruises on his sides from my death grip. As much as I don't like the idea of being jumped at, or blown on by strangers, or walking through places decorated in blood and dead bodies... It's awesome!! Probably my favorite thing about this time of year.

Notice the tense distance and faces... you never know what these monsters will do next.

Brett won me a cookie monster from the arcade on his first try! He said it was a miniature him.
His ability to win these things EVERY TIME was one of the first things that caught my eye when we were first dating. Even the arcade worker was impressed!

3 Years

Three years and I love him more than ever.