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I'm taking a field botany class. The professor's name is Blaine Furniss. I took a basic botany class from him my freshman year. This is when I first learned of how awesome Blaine is. He's super old, and he has a passion for plants. When we are touring campus identifying different plants he walks with a bounce in his step and a certain speed like he is beside himself with excitement to see more leaves. He says the weirdest things too. I like to write them down and look back at them and have a good laugh. The other day we're talking about how people like to say that a tree or a cone is a female or male cone/tree. Blaine gets a little heated up about this and tries to explain why a tree or a cone can't be specified as male or female (only the zygote can). To bring his point home he says, "Chlorophyte tissue is about as sexless as a fence post." I don't know why I thought that was so funny. It must have been the way he delivered it. Then last Friday we had a girl in our class leave after our quiz at the beginning class. Prof. Furniss started talking about her because we found a tree that was native to where she grew up and then he remembered that she wasn't with us. He says, "oh yeah, she's not here; she's picking up her boyfriend from the airport. Ashley's going to be getting some lip action tonight."

There are several reasons why posting on my blog became impossible. But I'm not going to bore you with that nonsense...

So it turns out, I'm married!
I run into friends on campus and they are shocked to hear that I am married. (not because they don't think I would get married, more like no one was really aware of how serious Matt and I were before because we got engaged at the very end of the semester and hardly anyone knew about it.) Anyways, I ran into my friend Kim on campus and she asked me "how is it?" (being married that is) I couldn't help but say it is the greatest thing ever; I love being married and highly recommend it. I guess it probably does help that Matt is such an amazing guy, but I'm just saying, it's a lot of fun.
If you read Matt's blog you'll get a pretty good run-down of the whole thing pre-wedding to post-honeymoon. Now we are so cute in our two bedroom (with Matt it's one bedroom, 1 computer room/office) condo. Everything's still not organized, but it looks pretty good. The walls are completely bare because we've left the putting up photos, shelves, mirrors, etc. til last because I kind of want to see how everything looks before I start putting stuff up all over our walls. I love "decorating" our home. Everything's just the way I like it, simple and classy. I'm hoping to get everything up on the walls by Saturday.
We also have a pet. It's a blue Betta fish. He's pretty awesome, but I don't know how long he will survive. Every time we feed him, he doesn't eat any of the food...I'm pretty sure that's a bad sign. And luckily the Betta fish food is made of little brown pellets, so when he doesn't eat them it looks like there's fish poop floating around in the fish bowl. Anyway, we got Babe the Big, Blue Fish from the reception we had in California. Matt's mom and sister put fish bowls on every table with blue Betta fish in them, and we got to bring one home. So Betta fish are the ones that are really fiesty. Babe is super fiesty sometimes he'll just slam himself up against the wall of the vase, that we're using as a fish bowl, repetitively.
All right I think I've brought you up to speed then. We are married. We live in a condo. We have a blue fish named Babe. I love being married.

I'm getting really...restless.
Is that a normal anxious reaction towards something exciting that you know is coming?

I have a hard time concentrating. At work when there's not much to do I'm positive I really annoy my co-worker by asking her repeatedly if she has anything else for me to do. Today I was so desperate for work that I went out in the warehouse (yes, where there is no ac) to file credit card slips. This forcing another offensive thing on my co-workers...my sweaty smelly body. Ok, it wasn't that bad, but still. We have been really busy at work, and it has been really good for me, but I seem to be working much faster than I have before. I am always out of things to do before everyone else is halfway done with their work-load. I think the impending joy and happiness that is to come is currently making me crazy.

Matt came to Arizona this past weekend. Everytime I see him I get more excited about marrying him. He's my favorite! We didn't do anything really special. Well, I mean nothing special to write about. I definitely had a great time with him and it was very special for me. Anyway, we got our marriage license and finished up buying things for Matt's wedding day attire. We got me some pretty earrings and matching necklace to wear for the wedding day. We got to spend lots of time with the fam. Everyone really likes Matt, I think that's a good thing.

I have three wedding related appointments this weekend. I have a dress fitting, a reception hall final appointment, and a trial hair appointment. I am so excited for all of these, I feel like I'm getting things done, and everything is all coming down to the most important day of my life.
I AM SO EXCITED I CAN'T EVEN HANDLE IT!

Driving home from work yesterday I witnessed one of the best features of Arizona summers. I was driving in the awesomest Monsoon storm ever. The rain was pouring down, just dumping on my car. With the wind as strong as it was I thought for sure the water was going to penetrate the seals at the doors and windows and begin to fill my car up with the monsoon rain! It was AWESOME! I love monsoon season! While I was driving I got on a road that was under construction. All of the cars were forced onto one side of the road making four lanes of two-way traffic into two. Arizona roads are built to have the maximum amount of run-off because when we get rain it is usually a "flash-flood". So we're driving on the slightly sloped road, (the highest part being in the middle and lowest on the edges..it makes sense) the cars in my lane are closer to the middle of the road while the cars going the other direction are in a lane hugging the curb. So you can imagine that the people in my lane can hardly see for the torrential downpoor, and are actually glad for the orange beacons paving the lane. While traffic in the other direction has no choice but to drive through the immense amount of water that is being forced to their side of the road before making it into the sewer. When I got home I watched the news to see more on the conditions in the Mesa area since the rain was so intense, and it turns out the road I had been driving on was undriveable (which is a word that means could not be driven on). A car stalled in the lane that was going opposite of mine because it's engine was waterlogged!
The best part about Arizona rain is that it is warm, so you can play in it and not be upset when you get all wet. Oh man, I love storms in Arizona.

Matt and I received our first wedding gift yesterday. We got an Oral-B electric toothbrush from my dentist! I am so excited to get married and use my new electric toothbrush! Maggie can testify to how much I love clean teeth. In fact I recall a quote from Freshman year about my roommate and I, "Brushing your teeth, it's a conspiracy!"

I was about to take a nap, when I heard my blog calling to me... You know it's really bad when you're blog is calling to you.

More wedding news and some other stuff:
-I picked up the fabric for the bridesmaids' skirts, it is gorgeous. I am jealous that I don't get to be one of the bridesmaids and get a gorgeous navy blue skirt to wear after the wedding.
-I have been driving around in my dad's non-air conditioned jeep with the top down for the past couple of days because my beautifully air conditioned car is having some work done on it. When I went to pick up the fabric yesterday I was afraid it was going to start raining and ruin the fabric because monsoon season just started. It began raining the second I pulled the jeep into the garage though, Phew!
Driving the jeep has been pretty intense. It has been reaching around 115 degrees out, making it feel almost better to just be at a stand-still in the jeep than rushing down the freeway because the wind is like hot oven air blowing on you after you've been running outside for the past three hours. Very unpleasant. Luckily I grew up in Arizona, I am quite used to this weather, and I get my car back on Monday after work.
-I got to watch Nixon and Cotton overnight on Friday. It was so fun. These are some of the cutest kids around. Maybe Matt can help me post some pictures I took of them while I was babysitting them this weekend.

This was the best photo I could come up with for now. It was a family photo we had taken for Christmas. Nixon looks awesome, and Cotton you can't really see much of, but he's a beautiful baby.

Okay, so this whole planning a wedding thing is really getting in the way of my blogging...
Right now I should be revising my invitation address list, but I haven't posted in ages.

I went to Utah this past weekend to see Matt. It went by way too fast.

We got Matt his suit for the wedding. We decided to go ahead and buy him a nice new suit because after the wedding he can wear it to church and his other suit is from his mission. It's a beautiful navy blue suit.
Matt and I mostly just spent a lot of time together. We have a lot of fun together and get along perfectly. I never knew someone could love me so much. On Sunday before church I asked Matt how I looked. Of course he said I looked beautiful, so I asked him why he thought I was so pretty. He stood me in front of a mirror and said, "if you can't see perfection, you can't see what I can see." I almost started balling when he said that. When we were driving to the airport I only cried a little when I was thinking about leaving Matt again; he only cried a little too. It was so good to see him, and I am so excited that in less than three weeks I get to see him again and three weeks after that we're getting married! I can't wait to be with him always.

I have a lot to do this week-many vital things to accomplish for the wedding. The one person who I need the most to help me with everything is gone. My mom is on vacation for two weeks!Actually my whole family is gone, but every girl knows they need their mom to help with all of the wedding plans, and I really, really need my mom.

So, I have been getting really busy with everything and still spending all of my spare time on the phone with Matt (hey, I can't help that I am so in love with him that I have to be talking to him constantly). So, I will continue to try and update.

Oo Oo! I almost forgot my funny story of the weekend!
Matt and I went shopping for his suit at the mall. First we stopped in Mr. Mac, and then we headed over to Meier & Frank. On our way to Meier & Frank there was a Scion (the one that looks like a toaster) parked in the middle of the mall. We stopped for a second while Matt read about the "catch" that went along with entering to win the Scion. As we were stopped there an old lady walked up to us and asked, "do you think you have to wind it up?" and then laughed as she just walked away like she had been waiting for hours for someone to stop there so she could tell them her funny joke.
Okay, that wasn't that funny, but we laughed.