On Being Thankful

And boy, am I ever thankful. I have SO much to be thankful for... And I owe one person all. So, thanks God! You've blessed me insurmountably.

Things Kali is thankful for:

Andrew Scott Pettersen

My entire family and extended family

My new sister, Lynnette Lucille Fortier Kruse

Wells Fargo

Gerwurzteminer

My cat, Christopher

The Apartment

Redmond Police (not for the ticket, but my bad)

Design Laboratory, Inc. and everyone inside it's walls

Jenny Goldberg-George & our amazing engagement pics

Socks, blankets, fleece sheets...

Candles, oil burners, and a wood burning fireplace

The Internet

My wedding in less than 3 months

My mother taking over with wedding details

My recent baptism

LIFE

Just to name a few things. :-)

WHOA! I {Kind of} have my own apartment!?

So... An awesome thing happened on October 17th, last month. Drew and I were finally deciding to take a peek on what might be out there as far as apartments go in the area where we both work. I'm so proud of him for getting the promotion he absolutely deserves. He is now a Banker at the Wells Fargo in Redmond. SO PROUD! He's just constantely moving up... Oops, I got distracted. I love that man. :-) We were getting warmed up to the idea of thinking of moving him into an apartment in Redmond. Yes, that was the process.

We took a Saturday that he didn't have to work and went to the first place on his favorites list, Avalon Redmond Place. We weren't anticipating anything, really. We were just going to go in and get a general idea of what we might be looking for to move him in in January.

We walked around the first unit, a one bedroom one bath of 750 sq. ft. We liked the price but not the location of the unit or the layout at ALL. The bedroom felt super cramped.

Second unit was a two bedroom that I totally loved. The layout was awesome and I was looking forward to possibly using the second bedroom as an office to put our desk and bookshelf. I was jazzed. But, it was a little more than Drew had really wanted to spend. We were seriously considering it, though.

Just for fun, we decided to check out the smaller one bedroom one bath with 650sq. ft. and were completely shocked. It was pretty much perfect! Yeah, it's a little small, but we could absolutely make it work. We headed back to the leasing office and put down a deposit! We locked in an insanely low price. We signed the final lease agreement and got our keys on November 1st.

Just a few pictures of our place so far. :-) I don't officially live there full time at the moment. But, all of my items are in there. I just go, hang out after work, have dinner with my amazing fiance, pack up stuff for the next day, and go back to my Mom's place to sleep.

Sad thing happened there, too. Not even a day after my big items (desk, dresser, and bookshelf) were taken to the apartment, my mom pretty much gave my room to my brother, Danny. While this is totally fine with me, I just wish I could have had a moment or two in my old room before being hussled out of it.

I get a little giggly when I think of...

My Family... Danny (25, Brother), Lynnette (26, adopted sister), Amanda (17, Step Sister), Max (15, Step Brother), Andrew (23, Fiance)

I get a little giggly when I think of the fact that I'm marrying my best friend in just 5 months time. According to my facebook "Wedding Book" I have 145 days. I still need invitations, a cake, decorations, a deejay, and flowers. None of those things come without their own drama.

The invitations being the biggest mess of them all.

Being a child of a divorced family, both parents remarried, it's tougher on the bride to be than I thought. He said, she said. I want, they want... I would rather it just say "Kali and Drew, with their parents... blah blah blah" to avoid all butthurting. But, I brought my issue to Steph and she said that the invitations are supposed to be about the parents. ACK. I talked to my Mom about it and she actually said she liked the idea that I was going for. So, while we were looking at invitations at Papyrus ($$$$) she was interjecting that into the wording. It was nice. I still have a lot to think about before I nail down an idea. I still need to talk to Daddy. Ough... Oh well. Par for the course.

At least I nailed the pretty important things early on. My dress (Alfred Angelo), the venue (Tulalip Resort), my photographer (Jenny Goldberg-George), and my bridesmaids dresses (Also Alfred Angelo).

Now, Drew and I are on to a new stage. Pre-marital counseling. I know it won't be easy. But, so far it's been pretty awesome. We are with Barb Johnson, thanks to the recommendation of our church, Eastlake, and a married couple whom we both admire very much.

I'm hoping we can avoid this <--- in the future. Drunken wife beater? Nah... My sister just had an awesome camera for the weekend and we all got a little silly Saturday night. What an amazing time we had, though.

Sorry, I got a little distracted. Pre-marital counseling has already proven to be incredibly effective. We've only had one session and it has already began having a positive influence on our relationship. It helped put in to motion a big issue we had brewing in me and in him regarding our wedding party. And with one session, Drew was given action items, and we were able to resolve something that might have ruined a longterm friendship. Hurray! I had a little switching around to do with my girls. But, I think it will work out just fine.

I don't know what else so say, so I will just post a bunch of funny pictures from this past weekend.

He's flicking his beer bottle cap at my face.

This would have worked so much better if you would just put your beer down!

More than meets the eye indeed

Just throwing this out there... Transformers was the sickest action movie I have ever seen. Not an exaggeration.

Start to finish it was intense, hilarious, emotional, and a wee bit romantic. Not too much "I love you..." to make me want to hurt someone (this IS an action movie about robots, people.) but not too little to wonder about Sam's sexuality.

There WERE moments where I teared up. I'm a sissy. Prime dies. Sam dies. Obviously they are main characters so they don't STAY dead. Don't even throw a fit to me about giving this piece of information up. They obviously are alive in the end of this chapter of their story. But, it was a little gut wrenching nonetheless.

I'm a nerd. Tried and true, this is me. I don't really like it when people scoff at people like me, "Transformers? We went to the midnight release for a robot movie? Oh my gosh, how lame." Really? Sorry that I'm not cool enough to not like the same things you do. I guess that makes me lame. Oh well, I AM lame. I like doing things like this. Really getting into the element of everything. All the people, the excitement... It's fun! I will be at the midnight release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Price with my Man as well. And I will go to the midnight release of New Moon with my sister Amanda.

That's just how I roll. Love me, or check your attitude at the door, because I don't cut you down for having interests in things that I don't. :-)

So, you're planning a wedding...

Our first picture. :-)
Here I am, 22 year old dental assistant, living at home, and I'm planning a wedding. I could not be more thrilled! Andrew proposed on May 13th, 2009 at about 8:00 PM while I was sick, curled up in bed.


It was perfect for us. No big dinner, no ring in the dessert tricks. He has a website dedicated to his graphic design art. On Wednesday morning he had texted me and asked if I wanted to do sushi that night. I thought that was a little suspicious since we were supposed to have been saving for our trip to Hawai'i the coming weekend. But, of course I said yes, I love sushi. After dinner, which left me lethargic and pretty much napping in the car, he suggested that we go get his laptop so I could have it at work the next day. I told him not to worry about it, but he insisted. Suspicious again... (Sidenote: I had told my mom and my Jessica that I thought he might be doing it this night earlier in the day.) We got back to my house, mom looked anxiously at my had, but said nothing, thankfully. We went up to my room and I settled myself under my covers, popped on the tv, and relaxed for a minute while he was opening his laptop. He turned off the tv. I turned it back on. Then I turned it off. He put the laptop in front of me and told me that he revamped his graphic design site and wanted my opinion. When I looked at it, the background was a picture of us and four red links on the left hand side. "Our Story" "Our Love" "My Promise" and "One More Thing..." He told me to click on each and read them aloud. I won't go in to detail because he wrote out a lot. But, it was all incredibly romantic and well written and just beautiful. As I was going to click on "One More Thing..." he was getting down on one knee next to my bed and he pulled out the Shane Co. box. To which, I lost my mind and started bawling my eyes out. I hugged him, kissed him, said; "Dear sweet goodness, YES." and cried some more. Called the parents (went downstairs for mine), called the best friends, then texted a picture of the ring to others. Tee Hee...


















Now I am planning for our February 20th, 2010 wedding. So far I have the colors, Purple and light blue.
Our wedding party:
Amanda Lockleer, Stephanie Pierce, Jessica Holloman, Danielle Mekhail, Alexis Kruse, Holly McGaughey, and Krizia Martin.
Tyler Pettersen, Michael Pierce, Geraud Pepin, George Mekhail, Cory Flynn, Daniel Kelliher, and Ty Van Horn.
It will be at the Tulalip Resort. No honeymoon for us, just the weekend, plus maybe the following week to get settled into our new home together. I seriously couldn't be more excited.

I think God blessed me so thoroughly because I finally gave up control and trusted in Him. I have loved Drew for a long time now. First as the best friend of my best friend's husband. Then, as my good friend. Then, as my very best guy friend. Then, as my boyfriend. Now, as my future husband. I couldn't believe it when he first kissed me, when we first prayed together, when we first said I love you, and every moment we spend together since then. I am marrying my best friend and the man chosen for me by God. Thank you God for the imperfect, yet perfect for me blessing.

We made it to and from Hawai'i as a happily engaged couple. Our friends are the greatest.

The Joys of Kali's Life

So, I'm not sure what to even put just yet. This is my first blog in about 4 years. I don't think I even know how to blog!

I'm tired. And random.

This is going to take me a while to complete. I'm here at work and it's pretty busy! I have the group from Bluepoint checking in and Simon Mullins huge group that I just preregistered. I do love my job for the most part. But, there are some days where I wonder why I bother. The people in this building that I bust my tail for don't respect or appreciate me half the time. Most of them are admins that have done the reception gig before, too. And KNOW how trying it can be. I really should be doing something with my dental assisting certification. But, I think I'm lazy. That makes me sad. I want to get paid for doing not much. That's a horrible way to look at things. I need to change my attitude.

Guess what. I'm going to Hawaii. :-) By this time in 9 days I will be on a plane, possibly on a runway trying to take off for Maui with 7 of my friends. One of those people being the man I'm in love with, Andrew Scott Pettersen.

I wish I could find the words that would properly describe how I feel about that man. But, I don't think there are any. He is a absolute God-send and I never thought I would be so thoroughly blessed to have such an amazing man in my life. He completes my every thing and is my everything. I feel like we are completely compatible in every aspect. Spiritually being the most important. Then emotionally and mentally. We haven't discovered the physical side yet. And I'm so happy with that. I stand strong and proud in our decision to wait until marriage to be intimately connected. I'm not worried about what most people are worried about. Drew and I are so deeply connected, there is no way that it couldn't be anything but perfect for us. Sorry if that's TMI. But, at the moment, no one is even reading this blog. :-) So. Boo!

I'm feeling like I'm coming down with something... That could suck for me soon. I'm going to stay away from everyone for the time being, I would never forgive myself if I got Stephanie, or someone from our trip, sick! Stephanie most of all since she's my precious with the weakened immune system. I'm keeping up with my meds, so that's good. Just killing the sinus medicine! And I'm drinking lots of fluids.

But, that's all for now! I can't think of much else to write about. It's only 9:00 AM. I want to go home. I am sleepy and sickly. Booooooooo. Oh well. I praise God that I have life and a job. I am blessed and I should be more thankful. Thank you God for being in my life constantly and for wanting to have an open communication with me.

--Kali Brianne Sialana Kruse

P.S. I think Drew might propose in Hawaii.