Are you a Fair Fanatic?

So it's been awhile...I know I'm sorry. With the trip home and the 4th of July holiday it was instant craziness once I returned back to work. Like I mentioned in a previous post, there are some different summer traditions here in Montana and one of those happens to be State Fairs.

The summer months are filled with the old fashioned culinary and sewing contests, deep fried food, and carnivals here in Montana...and even across the Midwest. Fairs pop up all over the place as people enjoy the warm weather and the days where it's light out legitimately until 10 pm.

And I just have the pleasure to work for one of the biggest fairs in Montana...the Montana State Fair of course. Starting Friday, I will submerse myself in 9 days of Fair fun. Of course, this year the fair isn't for the faint at heart. As this year's State Fair explains, there are plenty of "Fair Fanatics" here and I am proud to say that I am going to get to be a part of one of their favorite past times.

For some people it means taking the whole week off from work just so that they can go to the Fair every day. For others, it's making sure they get to enter their prized steer or swine into the Livestock competitions. Some people come just for the Vikings that are sold from the Sons of Norway booth (I however probably won't be in line for one of those since it's basically a deep fried meatball the size of a softball...oh and of course it's served on a stick).

Since I started my new job in May, I have been introduced to world of Fairs. This includes fantastic concerts..our lineup this year consists of Darius Rucker, Luke Bryan, Styx, LeAnn Rimes and many more...5 nights of rodeo, a carnival, Dinosaurs...yes I said Dinosaurs...and unbelievable amounts of fried food. I've had the pleasure to be a part of some of the coolest activities that will happen here in Great Falls over the next week.

So as I enter my very first Fair season, wish me luck. These will probably be 9 days of intense chaos, craziness, and down right fun. It will be nice to finally have one under my belt and add "planning the Montana State Fair" to my list of achievements.

Oh, and if you are looking for me...I'm "out of the office" until August 8th around 5pm. Or if you're in this neck of the woods, don't miss out - be sure to make your way down to the Montana State Fair!

Wedding Planning Day Highlights!

Gosh I'm not even sure where to start! Griff and I just returned from our trip home yesterday and there is just so much to talk about I might be blogging for days! Well maybe not days but that trip truly was the jump start that I needed to start off wedding season...


Yes, wedding season. It's what I have so cleverly named these next 4 months so that I don't stress myself out. I have to say, going home took so much of the stress and anxiety and kicked it to the curb. For one, I hadn't been able to make a decision about anything. And then, like magic, poof! I was making decisions left and right. Of course everything is easier with your mom next to you : )


So to save you all from the long rambling blog post, I'll give you the highlights...a few teasers...and go into detail as other posts unfurl.


Tuesday was the big day for us. I'm sure that Griff was dreading it but equipped with my notebook, camera, and checkbook we headed off to Middletown for a day chock full of wedding planning.


We met with our wonderful photographer Tony Spinelli, went to scope out some places for the rehearsal dinner, met with the people at the hotel, met with the lady at the church, showed Griff the Barns, picked out the food choices and linens with the caterer, and met with the florist.

All in all I have to say that was quite a busy day...but 100% worth it. Who's ready to get to work?!

More details to come...

Daydreamer

Tuesday afternoon and I sit down at my desk, ready to jump into the next task and boom! It hits me. Daydreaming...c'mon everyone does it. You are sitting there doing something and before you know it, 15 minutes have passed and you've spent valuable time "la dee da" daydreaming.

These days, it's mostly about the wedding. I think that sometimes daydreaming can be helpful...ya know, gets those creative juices flowing. Ha, I'm daydreaming as I'm typing this.

But today the daydreaming is not about the wedding. Even though I have LOADS of things to get done at work, I can't help but think about this weekend...yep, if you haven't already heard my thousands of broadcasts via Facebook and texts, now's the time to pay attention.

I'M COMING HOME!

Well not permanently...see that would take an act of Congress...literally. This Saturday is the day...Griff and I will travel from the Big Sky country to the East Coast.

So what am I daydreaming about?! Actually scratch that. What am I not daydreaming about?!

Hot weather, night out in the city with my closest friends, Mom, Dad, Lauren, my family, graduation parties, wedding planning (sorry I had to throw that one in there!) and much, much more.

It's going to be amazing! Cool thing is, Griff is complete stoked too. He reminds me everyday that we are going to Connecticut soon. He thinks its awesome how this will be our very first time on a plane together. Heck, we even get to sit together. We were always so used to picking each other up at airports and dropping each other off after a few days. Not this time.

No, we're going to enjoy a few days of R & R, spend some time with the folks and some friends, and soak up the rays. Lord knows we can use this trip.

So to everyone home...see you so soon!! And to everyone here in Great Falls, don't worry we'll be back soon enough!

A needle in a haystack?

I always wondered exactly what the phrase "It's like looking for a needle in a haystack" meant. I mean, why would anyone ever hide a needle in a stack of hay...and on the other hand, why would anyone want to find it?

Until Griff and I started looking for a house to rent here in Great Falls; then I understood.

Needle in a haystack? Yeah right. At times I thought that looking for a shiny object in a pile of straw was easier than our newest quest. First, we had to come to the conclusion that we were going to rent a house and not buy one. That decision was quite easy. It was a no brainer to think about the time that we have left here in Montana and figure out that it wasn't worth it to buy a house.

Next, we needed to decide where we wanted to live. (Can anyone see my organizational skills even seeping through on my decision making? Yes, I know. It's scaring me too) So back to where we want to live...if you've ever been to Great Falls, you would know; there are just some areas of town that you DO NOT want to live in. Griff has to post out on alerts and leave me home alone sometimes and there was no way that I was living in some areas of this town.

So I got my search criteria, narrowed down how much we wanted to spend and jumped on the Internet. I Googled house rentals in Great Falls, MT and waited for the thousands of sites that were about to pop up. The results were good...not like they would have been in a big city but I was content with the findings. 

I clicked on the first one, searched available rentals and got nothing....

So being the optimistic person that I am, I backed up to the search results and clicked on the second link and once again got nothing... My optimism was fading.

As a member of the military, Griff has access to a site that's strictly for military looking for a place to live. So I jumped on there and got a few more results....this was 6 months ago.

Every time I found something that thought was perfect, we would take hop in the car and do a quick drive by. And what we saw was always interesting. Houses that were made out to be amazing online turned out to falling apart in person. 

Sometimes it was quite comical. For instance this one house was listed as being 2,500 sq. ft. with a huge yard and close to the base where Griff works. Perfect! Let's just say it was too good to be true. The house was wedged in between two businesses that were quite questionable and definitely looked like a few drug deals had gone down inside. No way I would be staying there all by myself. I could just picture the people that might be knocking on my door late at night.

So after 6 months of searching, and hundreds and hundreds of prayers, I think that we finally have some choices. I found two houses that are now on our list of definite prospects. We've visited one and I'll visit the next on Saturday. 

It took a lot of patience on my part. I would often get "in a funk" and say that we were going to end up living out of our cars or, and this is funnier, we would both have to move in with my sister and Peyton. Life is funny sometimes and I have gotten better at remembering that things will always work out just the way they're supposed to. And that it's not up to me, but up to God and His plans for our lives. 

So as we continue on this journey, I'm happy to report that Griff and I will have a place to live very shortly. Griff will move in and I'll join after the wedding. Where it will be, I'm still not sure at this moment but I've finally narrowed down our search for "the needle" to two piles.

It's much better than the whole haystack though isn't it?

Good with words or at a total loss?

I've always been pretty good with words...written words that is. I spent my high school career being a composer of words as an editor and staff writer for my high school newspaper. I spent a summer working for the Yale Daily News before heading off to college and (you guessed it) delving further into the field of journalism.


It was a short lived dream however. After spending a night actually working the shift that a journalist works and seeing in my imaginary crystal ball that print journalism was heading no where in this day and age, I quickly switched my career path to something that I believed would never go out of style.


But that never stopped me from writing. Hence my need to indulge my wedding life through a form of written expression.

And I got lucky too...I'm marrying a writer. Someone who loves the written word just as much as I do. So I don't think that I should have been too shocked when he said a few months after the engagement, "Hunny, I think that we should write our own vows."


I said I shouldn't have been shocked, I never said I wasn't. And like magic a giant, and I mean GIANT, wall flew up in front of me. Writer's block anyone?

"You're kidding right?" was all that I could get to come out of my mouth. I mean how could he expect me to stand up in front of all those people and read something that I wrote? And it's not just any "something"...this is a big "something". Something that is expressing my personal feelings. 

Then again, how could he not?

At that moment in time, I realized that it's not going to matter how I tell him I love him or how I tell him what he means to me. Heck we do that for each other every day. But what is going to matter is the fact that we are making this ceremony about us...we are making it our own.

So what am I worried about now? Well I'm still worried about writing them although it's not as scary as it once was. But I'm more nervous about the way my makeup will look after crying from hearing him speak or if I'll even be able to get the words out if I'm crying too much.

I've already told him that I get to go first, I've already told him that this is going to be one of my harder writing assignments, and I've already told him that our mothers are going to be wrecks.

But I've also already told him I love him, I've already told him that we're in this together, and I've already told him that he is my best friend in the entire world and I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with him. So in all actuality I just have to stand up there and let everyone else here the things that I tell him all the time.

Hmm, this just might be the time that I'm not at a loss for any words.

Editor's Note: To all of my friends out there, remind me of this when I am staring into space trying to find the right words...please?