egyptian rat screw.

regardless of what could have come my way this weekend, i would still be completely happy with my life because of the hours i spent last night sitting on a bed in my grandparents' cabin, talking and playing egyptian rat screw with two boys who i know would do anything for me- dawson and my brother kody.

it just doesn't get much better than that.

-kandi

p.s. today is our -3 month anniversary! 3 more months to go!!

sun valley.

this is really late, but i can't not post about the sun valley trip we went on at the beginning of this month cuz it was amazing!

this trip included skiing/snowboarding, enjoying the beautiful sun valley, eating way too much (31 pieces of bacon, dawson?), having some real life talk [sue: what are your biggest fears? steve: my balls going up into my stomach. daws: not being able to provide for my family. me: daws dying. sue: worms...] watching the superbowl, going to these amazing 124 degree hot springs in 5 degree weather under a full moon, and just being with three of my favorite people all weekend! needless to say, this trip will never be forgotten!

-kandi

valentine's day and baby shower.

this year my valentine for valentine's day was (and will be for every valentine's day for the rest of my existence) none other than my super hot fiance, dawson!

to start off the night, we made a fox face pepperoni pizza together. our original plan was to have it be a heart-shaped pizza, but i kinda ruined that...but it tasted great!

we were at his house and once our pizza was pulled out of the oven and cut, he took our plates and started heading downstairs, yelling at me to grab the ranch. i followed him, asking why we were eating downstairs. this was why:

he decorated the whole basement with lights and set up a candle lit dinner for us!

he's quite romantic, to say the least.

ever since dawson and i have been together we've always talked about things we want to do together in the near and far future. we've had an unwritten bucket list for a long time now, and i had told dawson that i wanted to write our bucket list down on valentines day.

so he made us both t-shirts (in our wedding colors) with our names on them for us to write our bucket list on. we went through everything we wanted to do together, him writing each item on my shirt, and me writing each one on his.

and then you all know what we did after that.....

watch 24!!!!!!!

we're addicted...

this last weekend my sister and her husband (who live in elko) came out to salt lake with their sweet baby girl, kendal, for a post-baby shower i was throwing for them in utah! we went to tucano's friday night with them and my dad and also bought kourtney's bridesmaids dress for the wedding! being with them that night was a lot of fun.

saturday was the day of the shower. i decorated the house, baked and decorated cupcakes and cookies, and set out party favors and got all ready for some baby shower fun! a couple of hours before the shower was supposed to start, i got a call from kourtney saying kendal was running a high fever and they were taking her to the hospital. an hour later they were admitted to stay overnight. poor baby kendal had her second UTI. she  was put on an IV overnight and they were able to head home the next day. kendal is doing well now, she will be on antibiotics until they're next appointment at primary children's on march 8th.

we still had a lot of family come over to drop off gifts and have food and visit. so it ended up still being a fun time and i was able to see a lot of my family which was really good. we went to the hospital later that night with my mom and brother to drop off their gifts and bring them food and see our sweet baby.

yesterday (sunday) was a really great day! we went to one of dawson's mission companion's homecoming. i was able to meet a bunch of his very close mission buddies and listen to them tell stories about the mission. i can tell all these guys are very close and it was awesome to see all of them together, laughing and having a lot of fun. we had dinner with his family that night and watched some of their old home videos after. my man sure was a cute little kid! he was constantly trying to jump in front of the camera or dance in front of it, it was hilarious to watch.

even though this weekend didn't exactly go according to plan, i'm just really grateful for the time we had with our family and i feel so blessed to be apart of both my family and dawson's. life sure is good.

-kandi

investments.

in preparing to get married you can't just buy whatever you want whenever you want. we've come to learn that we need to budget, and when we find something we're interested in buying, we have to decide if it is really something worth investing in. ya know, things you really need like food, a place to live, and a puppy.

for example, we just bought a couple of stoic lightweight down coats. at first i was skeptical about buying them because i thought i for sure didn't need a new coat and that it would be a total waste of money. but dawson was convinced we needed them, and i've worn my stoic coat every day since i've had it. it was definitely a good investment.

our next investment:

-kandi

the proposal.

i've been putting off posting the proposal story cuz, to be honest, i got sick of telling it over and over again. but that'd be pretty lame for me to make a blog right after we got engaged and never put the proposal story, so here goes.

i woke up the morning he proposed and jumped out of bed, with a feeling it was going to be a great day. it was a perfect day, sunny and bright, and i felt absolutely wonderful....

NOT.

i was actually completely exhausted and my stomach was uneasy. i had gotten about four hours of sleep because i had spent most of the night throwing up. but in no WAY was i going to back out of skiing. it was my birthday and i knew dawson had put a lot of effort into making sure i was going to have a good day. he knew the night before that i was feeling sick, but by then he had already bought my ski pass and gathered together equipment for me, and i was not going to let it go to waste.

so daws came and picked me up to go to park city. it was pouring rain and the whole way he kept complaining about the weather cuz he had wanted us to have a picnic in the mountain. the one day all winter we actually got rain/snow happened to be on my birthday, when dawson wanted a picnic.

rain or shine, i was just happy to be with him.

skiing was awesome! it was my first time and i had a lot of fun. it was frustrating for me though, because i didn't have very much energy and got fatigued really easy. poor dawson forgot his helmet and goggles so he wore his mom's sunglasses he found in the car and a headband, and it was snowing pretty hard so he was probably freezing his face off. we skied a few runs and sat in the lodge for a few minutes sipping powerade. i could have sat there resting all day but dawson was anxious to get in a few more runs then eat lunch and head home. when i asked him why he was so antsy he said he "wanted to get off the mountain before the storm came". whatever.

so we skied some more and once i was completely worn down and was about to fall over (remember, i had been sick and didn't get much sleep), we called it a day and went back to the car to have lunch and play a game dawson had brought. he also told me he had one of my "small gifts" here for me to open.

we put the back seats of the yukon down and laid a blanket to eat our lunchables and drink our martinelli sparkling apple juice (okay, daws forgot a bottle opener so we didn't really drink the apple juice), and play our game. i was really excited when dawson pulled out the envelope of questions that made up our dating game.

he had created this game for one of our first dates. he had printed off a bunch of questions and put them in an envelope and then we went up by the "B" (in the mountains above bountiful) and sat outside and took turns pulling out questions to ask each other. it was one of my favorite dates.

so we once again took turns pulling questions to ask each other. this time, however, the point of the questions were less to get to know each other, and more to give us an opportunity to share what we loved most about one another and to reminisce about our relationship and the times we've had together.

after we had gone through all the questions, dawson gave me a letter he had written me.
(while i read the passion-packed love letter, daws slipped another folded paper in the question envelope.)
as soon as i had finished reading it, he handed me a small box...
(okay while you're screaming in your head how obvious this is, let me fill you in on a couple things...the thought came to my mind a few times that maybe he was going to propose BUT then i'd realize there was no way. he didn't have a ring. he didn't even know my ring size. we hadn't looked at rings at all and he had told me earlier that week we'd go ring shopping in the next week or two. also, he hadn't asked my parents yet for my hand...or so i thought, my mom had totally thrown me off the day before, asking me if dawson was going to talk to her and my dad before proposing, even though he already had. also, the box wasn't a ring box. it was a round, colorful straw box from the caribbean.)
as i went to open the box, he stopped me.
"kandis wait, there's another question in here."
and that's when it hit me.
i stared at him, wide eyed.
"kandis, get the question."
i pulled out the question and opened it.

i said yes.
after i asked if this was real then kissed him then opened the ring then handed him the ring to put on my finger and he reminded me i hadn't said yes yet...


it just happens that i'm in love with the ring. i couldn't have found one myself that i would be more in love with. and it also fits me perfectly.

we got engaged in the back of his parents' yukon, while eating lunchables. i was wearing spandex pants, had no makeup on, and my hair was wet from skiing. and it was absolutely perfect.

-kandi

p.s. we're heading up to sun valley tomorrow for an exclusive weekend hittin' the slopes and relaxing to the max and enjoying us some superbowl! we're pretty excited!
and by exclusive i mean steve and sue will be there too.