need an update up in here.

So sorry I've been so delinquent in updating lately (not that anyone reads this besides my mother). I've been busy busy busy. Still no job (don't get too excited), but working away on that there little wedding of ours and it's putting right along. Let's see...where did we leave off? Nov. 5th? Okay.

We got our engagements done (can be seen on facebook or our wedding website) and they turned out amazing. Our photographers are so nice/funny/laid back/reasonably priced!! I love them more every time I look at their work. They're so excited to come down for the wedding (they're based in Gilbert) and we're equally excited to have them.

our spooky porch

Christian has been taking test after test after test. He had a string of like three weeks where he had a test every single Friday. It sucked. Poor guy got pretty dang stressed out. But he's doing well on the exams and pulling through. A lot of fellow classmates and people on his student-doctor forum online say that this first year is the hardest, mostly due to getting used to the schedule and taking some of the tougher classes. If this is as bad as it will get (as far as material goes), I think we might be able to handle this med school thing! I'm super proud of him. He has an exam tomorrow (yes, on Saturday...he can test Fri-Sun) and then his schedule looks like this: Thanksgiving week he's off on Wednesday (so am I!) and goes back on Monday. Then that next week he has has an anatomy exam, the week after is one last neurology exam and he made it though his first semester!!!! His last day of the semester is December 10th. Then he has jury duty December 12th (what the heck) for which he will kindly explain that he can't be chosen for a jury because...he's getting MARRIED the next week!!!! That is how close we are...29 days. It's really nuts!

my horse friend

Christian's mom, Ethan, and Savannah came up to Phoenix last Friday for some hang out time. It was so nice having siblings and a mom to hang out with. We went out to dinner and saw Megamind (sooo funny). I love it when our family comes to visit. December 11th is when Lindsay and Reese get here and I'm SOOO excited to see them. Chris stayed in Phoenix with his family, while on Saturday I took the car down to Tucson to go to my friend Denise's baby shower. Denise and I have been friends since the 6th grade, so it was really fun celebrating this new adventure with her. She looks so beautiful and she and her husband are going to make amazing parents. Can't wait to meet you, Baby Terrance. :) The rest of the weekend was spent in wedding overdrive. Ordering, making decisions (that seems to be the hardest) and trying to tie up some loose ends. Then, on Sunday night, I was having sooo much fun hanging out with my dear mom that I insisted she came up to Phoenix with me for a few days. We had so much fun (and got a few things done, I guess)! We took care of bridesmaid's gifts, ordered sparklers for our 'getaway' and bought a few accessories for my dress. We also took some time to go to the Phoenix zoo (it was my first time!) and it was fantastic. It's really spread out but they have a lot of neat exhibits. And a petting zoo! With a pretty white horse that I befriended. She was so nice to come up and keep me company/help me with wedding stuff. And she showed me how to scrub out my bathtub the right way (I couldn't seem to get it clean for the life of me). What a nice lady. :)

me and mama at the zoo

Coming up next for us: a weekend in Phoenix for once, thank goodness. We went to Harry Potter at 12:01 AM (yes, it was amazing!!!) and spent much of today catching up on sleep. For the evening, I've been cleaning up while Chris studies for his test. Frankly, we spend a lot of Thursday/Friday nights this way...kind of embarrassing...we are incapable of acting our age. BUT: my house smells like lemon furniture polish and the Pandora Christmas station is ROCKIN'! And you can't ask for much more than that. For those of you that don't know the joys of Pandora, get with the program! Pandora.com will take you to Pandora radio where you can pick a station based on genre, a particular artist, or song and it will play song after song like that. And their Christmas station is bomb. Just sayin'.

Well, I think that begins to scratch the surface of what's been up with us. The next few weeks will be so insanely crazy. I think I'll try to do my best to blog so that I can keep it all straight (and have a record of our last few weeks as not-married people!!!!!!). Wow. Kind of reminds me when we bought our wedding bands, the lady told me to she wanted to fill it out with my married name so the protection plans are in our correct names. SOOOOOO WEEIIRRRDDDD! Good weird, but weird just the same. :)

Love you all. Thank you for your help/support/patience while I try (and my mom tries) to keep from going nuts.
MWAH. XO.
Ash

more to post later!

....but for now, you can click HERE to see a sample of our engagement photos!!!!! We LOVE them!!!!!!!!

xo,
Ash

november is taking over.

I CANNOT believe it is already November. It seems like the busier we are the more quickly time flies, and this has truly been one of the busiest years of our lives! While planning the wedding, I kept feeling like I had sooo much time to do certain things. "December is soooo far away..." Now that it's practically a month and a half away, I'm eating my words and wishing I had taken care of some things earlier in the summer!

Speaking of weddings, we had the absolute joy and pleasure of attending our the wedding of two of our closest friends, Clinton and Courtney. Christian and Clinton have been best friends since the third grade and Christian was his best man. We had a wonderful time and for the first time ever, Chris told me he's excited to have a wedding! He's always said he's happy to be marrying me, but I think the fact that we're having an actual wedding just kind of sunk in by going to theirs. They looked amazing, everything was wonderful, and we are so incredibly happy for them. Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Williams!

My job at the YMCA is going okay. I'm learning their system and (I don't know if this is the right word) enjoying (?) my first job in one on one customer service. I'm getting to know my regulars, as well as the nasty meanies that call our phone to ask questions (or yell at me). It's not bad, but I can't wait to get into a hospital. 

In other news, I hope we get trick-or-treaters! Come here! We have candy!!!

I'll try to post pictures of our decorations tomorrow. I've been meaning to.

Happy Halloween, everyone. We love you.

busy...yet, not?

So the last few weeks have been strange. It's bizarre how UN-busy you are when you are unemployed, especially following 5 years of full-time school, two of those working part-time. At the same time, adding a wedding to the mix, medical school, a new house, and the rapidly approaching holidays, Chris and I have been surprisingly busy.

We've spent a weekend up here in Phoenix and another back in Tucson. Our Phoenix weekends are relaxing, but our Tucson weekends are tons of fun. We've been enjoying seeing our families, going to U of A football games, seeing friends, and taking a break from Phoenix.

Ethan at Kenpo Karate!

Chris and Honor at the Cal game.

Chris has officially passed his first block in med school (with flying colors, might I add) and has moved onto his second block: neurology. This block is supposed to be significantly harder, plus he's doing anatomy simultaneously. He has been spending every spare moment at the medical examiner's office, with "George" who so generously volunteered to teach medical students with his donation. His next big exam is this Friday, so he's been pretty overwhelmed by studying.

I, on the other hand, have mastered laundry, dishes, and all things house related. It's lame. And boring. But it's something to do. However, as the wedding [too] rapidly approaches, I'm finding myself needing to devote 100% of time/attention to the biggest party of our lives. My mom and Megan are being super helpful, I think I just need to get WAY more organized. In an attempt to thwart poverty and fill the days a little more productively, I got a job at the Lincoln Family Downtown YMCA. It's about five minutes away from the house, good hours, and should allow me plenty of time to continue to pursue a nursing job here in Phoenix.

Halloween party with our new neighbors and their buds.

In the meantime, we've met some cool neighbors across the street that just moved in a month or so ago. We're continuing to adjust to living together for the first time, which has been both fun and challenging. We're doing our best to enjoy fall in Phoenix (it's supposed to be 85 degrees this weekend!) and continue to work hard towards our goals. It's exciting getting closer to THE wedding day. I think it's nice to have something fun to look forward to.

I truly CONTINUE to thank you all for support, support, support. We love you guys and couldn't do it without you.

xo,
Ash

the hunt continues...

I hate to vent, but I have to say: those jobs i've been hunting for seem to be more elusive than I originally thought. I've been applying for nursing jobs since January, Phoenix specifically since March. I graduated in May, passed my boards in June, and here we are (in practically October) and I am haven't moved an inch. I haven't even been asked to interview.

Here's the scoop: no one wants new grads on their units who haven't gone through a new grad program/residency. In Phoenix, there are four hospitals/organizations that do new graduate programs: Phoenix Children's, Banner Health Care (around 15 hospitals in the Phoenix area), Maricopa County Medical Center, and Abrazo Health Care (four hospitals around Phoenix).  Phoenix Children's application was in the beginning of the year. I had the application turned in the first week it was released. It took about a month to hear back. I was rejected (obviously). A few of my friends called HR at Phoenix Children's to find out the scoop, and we learned they had 500 applicants for around 20 slots. So then I geared up for the Maricopa County application. That one was supposed to be opened on May 5th. We then found out two days before, that the program had been cancelled. The hospital couldn't afford it. They said they may or may not open one for the winter graduates. SOOO disappointing. One more opportunity down the drain. The next one I applied for a few weeks later. The Banner program was cool because it fed into all the Banner facilities, including the hospital RIGHT next to my new house. After I applied I quickly got a response that they did not want us unless we had our license. Which was pretty tricky, since we hadn't even graduated yet. That left Abrazo. I had missed the application for the Abrazo program starting in the fall, so a month ago (August 24th?) I submitted my application to the new grad program for Abrazo Health. I felt so much better about it. Now, I'm graduated (with a bachelors degree), I have my license, and ready to rock. Yesterday, I got a rejection, and it sucked! Probably the worst one yet, because I'm a great applicant and I DON'T understand. And these four programs are in addition to the tons of non-new graduate jobs I've applied for (which I'm pretty much automatically turned down for). I've applied for at least 30 to 40 of those.

However, there is nothing to do but be positive. No where to go but up, I suppose. I'm currently training to teach for Teen Outreach Pregnancy Services as a volunteer nurse. I really love the organization and I'm excited to get involved in mommy/baby stuff again. Hopefully something positive will come from it (besides giving teen moms and their babies a better chance for success!).

Thanks for listening to a little bit of what's going on with me. I appreciate everyone's support while I'm working through this.

XO,
Ash

another action packed weekend in tucson.

We just spent another fantastically busy weekend in Tucson. We had Chris' birthday to celebrate with his family, wedding stuff to take care of, Josh's football game, the U of A-Iowa game, birthday lunch for Grandpa Allen/Uncle Mike, and getting our old/new car towed/fixed. We love spending a weekend in Tucson, but it's hard trying to shove a week's worth of work into a few days. If we didn't get to see you this trip down (Sarah O! Kristin!), I'm sorry. Next time!

We did some taste testing with our caterer and finalized our menu for the wedding! It was surprisingly fun and non-stressful. The caterer was able to do everything we asked and the food was amazing. I hope you guys like our choices.  I know I'll be going back for seconds.

We also got to see Josh play basketball for his Secrist Middle School team. He's good! A true jock, now. He's had a try-out with a traveling club basketball team and he made it, so he's busting out the football and now the basketball skills. We're super proud of him. After a tough loss with the Jr. Midget Wildcats that morning, he came back with a fantastic game (like 14 points, I think!) with the basketball team, so that was good.

We also have another car! A 1973 Plymouth Duster (the car I always wanted for my very first car) that we're getting fixed and taking up to Phoenix with us. Uncle Mike and Aunt Veronica are nice enough to store it at their place while we get it fixed. Thanks, guys. You are lifesavers. We are starting to need a second car up there and we're stoked to have a car show car on our hands again. I see the fall months full of cruising and enjoying the Duster.

I never thought I'd be saying these words, but I (staying an extra day to work on wedding stuff) can't wait to get back to Phoenix and Christian tomorrow. I miss him! And my little house, believe it or not.

Still waiting on news for a promising job I applied for about a month ago. Pray, cross fingers, do a dance, whatever you have to do. I want this SOOO bad, it's ridiculous. I'll keep you updated!

Peace and Love,
Ash

the birthday weekend!!!

As many of you probably know, Christian is about to (in a few hours, officially) celebrate his 24th birthday! He has been working so hard at school and putting in a lot of time, so I thought it would be fun to have a birthday weekend preceding his actual birthday, to celebrate and let him relax a little. We invited a group of friends from Tucson to come and visit us for the weekend and it was a ridiculous amount of fun.

Robert, Marissa, Nick, Danny, and Keith drove up on Friday afternoon. We went out to dinner at z pizza, a fantastic place with two locations near our house. They have some great vegan pizza as well as the regular stuff, so we all were stuffed and happy. We went back to the house, watched some movies, and had what I believe to be the biggest sleepover our house has seen thus far. Robert and Marissa snagged the guest room, while the other boys slept on a luxurious bed of blankets (thanks, Mom, for the sending up the blankets!). SO much fun. I don't think anyone was too crowded and it was tons of fun having that many friends crammed into our house. I felt like I was 12 again.

Christian REALLY wanted to go Salt River tubing and we knew that it was most likely one of the very last weekends of the season, so our friends happily agreed and we had a fantastic time on the river. I wish I had photos, but I wasn't brave enough to venture out with any camera I own. I need a waterproof guy for next time. We had a few minor casualties, including me and Nick getting separated from the group during a particularly nasty rapid and  crawling through the bush to find a horse trail allowing us to catch up further down the river. Also, Danny lost his left shoe. Poor guy, rocking one shoe the rest of the afternoon.

After the river drained us, we went to Green in Tempe and stuffed our faces. The food was delicious (as usual). And then it was time to say goodbye. We had a GREAT time with those guys and hope they come to see us again soon.

After trying desperately to watch the U of A game versus The Citadel that night (I guess it wasn't in the cards for us), we had a late night snack, tried to watch the delayed broadcast on Fox Sports (started at 11 PM, I fell asleep at halftime), then the day caught up with us. Sun, friends, and fantastic food equaled the best night's sleep I've had in a while.

Today, Clinton and Courtney came over and had dinner with us. It was so nice to catch up and spend some time hanging out. Clinton baked Chris some amazing brownie cookies with Reeses Pieces inside. Speaking of baking, shout out to Grammy for those Snicker-doodles (and other treats). Let me tell you, they've been receiving complements all weekend and the birthday boy loves them. :)

All in all, I think Christian had a great weekend and is very happy, which means I had a great weekend and am subsequently very happy! He works hard all the time, not just in school but in life, and is such a fantastic partner to me. It feels nice to be able to make him feel special for the entire weekend. He opened his present from me early and has been playing Metroid: Other M for Wii since about 9 PM. He's also been generally unresponsive to me since about 9 PM. I think he likes it. He got some other cool presents (a gift card and two SWEET coyotes caps) and I'm making him save his present from my folks, Meg/Kyle, and my Grammy until tomorrow (so he has something to open).

Thank you to everyone who made this weekend and fantastic for the both of us. You all better be blowing up his phone tomorrow with mad birthday wishes. You only turn 24 once!

xxoo,
Ash

labor day weekend.

We're coming to the close of a fantastic Labor Day weekend. Chris and I had a great time in Tucson with our families. He had an exam (his second one of the semester) on Friday, and the minute it was over we all booked it home to Tucson for some family time. My dad came back from his 8 week course in Alabama on Thursday and spent a few days with us in Phoenix before we all headed home. We were super excited to show him the house and it was nice being able to spend some time together.

I committed a most terrible sin by forgetting my camera this weekend. I botched photo ops for Josh's Saturday football game (beat the Broncos 18 - 6!!!!), hanging out with the the in-laws, and a barbecue with the family today. I'm still kicking myself for it. Hopefully, we won't be in such a rush next time and I'll remember to grab it.

Despite our lack of pictures to prove it, we had such a relaxing and wonderful weekend here in Tucson and hope to have some friends from town join us next weekend in Phoenix for a birthday sleepover weekend. Christian's birthday is Monday (September 13th) and he's turning 24! Which means he gets to be older than me for three months (which, unfortunately, also means our wedding is rapidly approaching as we're getting married three weeks before my 24th birthday.)

We decided that in order to get a few serious wedding things done, I would stay in Tucson for a few extra days and my mom will bring me back up to Phoenix when we're done. So I'm sitting here on my couch relaxing and digesting this SERIOUS food baby while my poor honey is probably in the neighborhood of Casa Grande, driving back to our house in Phoenix. I wish we had more time to do some of these wedding things together, but I'm glad Christian trusts my judgement and will be a phone call away.

I hope our plants didn't die while we were gone.

I hope everyone else enjoyed their Labor Day weekend and is ready to get back to the grind tomorrow. I wish I had a grind to return to! (my unemployed sorry-for-myself moment of the day)

Love,
Ash

visitors!

We are so excited to being having visitors starting tomorrow until we come for the long weekend! Well, I'm excited as I get pretty bored chilling out at home alone. Chris has an exam on Friday, so I hope we don't distract him too much. :)

Sarah is coming tomorrow! For her birthday in May, I bought her tickets to see Ray Lamontagne here in Phoenix. Little did she know, I was just luring my best friend up here to visit me. She comes tomorrow and spends the night. I miss her very much, so I'm so excited!

Then: Dad comes home from his 8 week class in Ft. Rucker and is flying into Phoenix on Thursday (if the Army doesn't disappoint... unfortunately, I'm prepared for this also). He has never seen our house and missed the move entirely. I am SO excited to see him. I miss him very much. He'll stay till we go down on Friday.

And to make things that much more exciting, Megan and Kyle are coming on Thursday to hang out, spending the night until Friday. I don't know where we're sleeping everyone, but we'll make it work. I love filling the house with people.


I spent all day scrubbing the house and I think it's ready. Although, now that everything is clean, I don't want us to even sneeze the wrong way. I think we'll try a new restaurant in Phoenix tonight, Tee Pee Mexican Food. We got a Groupon for it earlier this week. What is a Groupon, you ask?! Well, you go to THIS website, sign up for their email deals based on your city, and get a daily coupon offer for restaurants, entertainment, and other local goodies. The Groupon we got for Tee Pee was $15 for $35 worth of food and drink. Since we've been in Phoenix, I've seen Groupons for tons of restaurants, horseback riding, rock climbing, massages, and kids activities, to name a few. Check it out!

Happy Tuesday.
Ash

more serious business, i suppose.

I suppose if this is going to be a life blog, I should catch those of you we haven't seen lately up on the latest and greatest.

Christian: Medical school is going great! Busy, busy, busy, but good. They're packing semesters worth of knowledge into one or two lectures and he says it's rough. He had his first exam a few weeks ago, thought he did poorly, and did great! Hopefully he knows better what to expect, as his next exam is this Friday. He can sign up to take them either Fridays, Saturdays, or Sundays, but so far has chosen Fridays so he has the weekend to veg. He's met a few friends and has a little study group he likes to meet with. They seem like a bunch of smarty pants and, so far, the right kids to study with. He also started clinical anatomy last week, where he meets at the medical examiners office for some special time with his cadaver (George, I believe, is what they named him..?). He loves it (besides the fact that it's just more to memorize) and besides the occasional formaldehyde headache, he's had no problem digging into a dead guy in the name of science.  I'll let him chime in with a more specific (and probably more accurate) med school post soon.

Me: Unemployed. First and foremost. I'm constantly on the hunt, and constantly (try weekly) being rejected by hospitals throughout the valley. For what it's worth, the climate is affecting ALL new graduate RNs, regardless of degree, age, school, etc. With money being so tight for everyone, hospitals included, they can't afford the extra cash it takes to train a new nurse. Plus: when so many experienced nurses are coming out of retirement and moving from part time to full time, etc., hospitals don't even really need us anymore. If you were in charge, why would you hire a newbie over someone with years of experience?? It just isn't in the cards for us right now. I'm looking at lots of alternate options, I meet with the volunteer coordinator of a teenage pregnancy outreach program on Thursday, hoping I can find something to do during the days that helps someone out (and allows me to strap on my RN title). I will continue to diligently bother every nurse recruiter in this goshforsaken city and will delightfully inform you when I find success. It takes a toll, all of the rejections and applications, the entire process. So, if you know a new grad nurse in your life...BE NICE TO THEM. Chance is, they need a hug (and a job).

So, that's the skinny. For now. Hopefully, things will continue to get better (AHEM...economy...that was directed at you...) and the job market will turn around. Also, hopefully, Chris will continue to be successful in school. He's made of all the right stuff, and I'm sure he'll be fantastic. He usually is. :)

Sorry to all of you who know these things already, but this was to update those I haven't had the pleasure of speaking with lately (Grammy, Aunt Kerry, K.P.) So now you know.

Okay. Too much blogging for one day.
Love, love, love.
Ash

recent fun domestic moments on monroe street.

Recently, some specifically fun domestic moments have been occurring here at our house. Of these events, only a few were caught on film. Or...err...digital....okay. Few were captured. Here's some of the highlights:

First: Casserole madness. For some reason, we realized my mom had given us a stoneware casserole dish and we were obsessed with making a casserole in it. I was thinking of falling back on mom's classic chicken casserole, but we decided to be daring and choose a recipe we found online for something called 'Texas Casserole'. I don't see what was texas about it at all, but we had fun making it and it tasted pretty good. I think we might tweak the recipe a bit next time. And by we, I mean Christian. FYI: that adorable original ancient gas stove works like a charm, believe it or not. Had that casserole cooked up in about 40 minutes.

Next: Fix the empty wall. That wall, that I decided from the beginning would be our main picture wall, happens to be a block wall. :/ In lieu of ruining the freshly painted walls, we found these crazy 3M wall stickies that act like super tough plastic velcro strips. Those bad mama jamas have been holding up six decent sized Ikea frames and the precious memories within. I'm so happy they're sticking! We used the 3M wall hooks at first and had two different instances of pictures falling off the wall and shattering on the floor (once while no one was home, once while Chris was home). After sweeping up lots of glass and bumming over my broke frames, we decided to double up the hooks on the big frame, but use the velcro dudes for the smaller ones. So far, success. I have another print on its way in the mail. I'm looking forward to finding it a perfect spot.  

Next: We have a cat friend. Well, four cat friends to be exact. Christian's family kind of adopted (ie: started to feed) these two wandering neighborhood cats who now are super friendly and hang out at the Dameff's all the time. Christian saw a cat wandering around our house like the third day we were in the house and decided to do the same. My only problem is, he has an owner...right across the street and one house down. I watch him sit on the porch and let the owner pet him (which he will NOT let us do). Regardless, we've been having fun feeding (occassionally) and hanging out with these adopted, responsibility-free pets. The one in the picture is BMB (Broken Mew Box, he meows like a broken kid's toy). Then there's a tough, grey cat with one eye (One-Eyed-Willy), and a tan one and an all grey one (unnamed). 

Porch Before

Now: Best of all, and most recently... we bought a vine! I know, not horribly exciting to some, but Christian's folks have beautiful vines all over their house and we used to have vines on our old Mary Drive house (Uncle Mike and Aunt Veronica's house) and we both loved the idea of getting vines to grow along our front porch rail. So we went to the Moon Valley Nursery today to pick up a vine! We did a little research and the nursery guys were awesome. They really knew their stuff and helped us pick out a carolina jasmine vine. We planted the little guy and hopefully it will lay out and grow the right way pretty quickly. The guy said it grows fast and blossoms pretty yellow flowers in the spring. We're really stoked and had a good time getting it situated.

One-eyed-Willy

the finished product

Hopefully, it grows into a beautiful vine and makes our porch smell like jasmine. 

Whew. And that is the domestication of college graduates. We plant vines now. 

xxoo,

Ash

Hi guys!

Hello everyone!!! So...Christian and I have been up to some adventures lately. Well, since it's just the two of us now and we get a little bored and lonely sometimes, we've been up to LOTS of adventures: exploring a new place and learning how to live together for the very first time. We know we can't chat with every one of you every day and we miss our hometown family (and everywhere else family) being a part of our everyday lives. We thought we might start this little blog as a way to keep up with what we've been up to without sharing every little detail with the 500-or-so odd Facebook friends we both have. I'm sure I will be the usual blogger, with the occasional guest piece from my best friend and roomie when he can take a few minutes away from his studies. I suppose it will give me something to do/keep track of while I'm playing my recent role as (gulp) stay-at-home fiancée. :D

Love you all,
Ash