Bad News bears

us after finding out the bad news So some of you may be wondering what this bad news was that we received from the government regarding Andrew's visa status. It isn't as bad as it may seem to everyone else, but to me it was just utter devastation. We found out that we won't be able to be married in May like we originally had wanted because of added paperwork they added this year. We have to wait till at least August. I can't wait that long to see my fiance that long. It was hard enough to wait till May, but to wait till August or September or maybe even October!? It's heart breaking. All you girls that have your fiance's and boyfriends here, count your blessings and love your man and cherish him! It sucks being without my man. I can't hold his hand, snuggle with him on the couch, go to dinner with him. It's awful. I'm just grateful that I have my friends and family that I can lean on. They are my crutch right now. well, on the flip, we went to Disneyland for MLK Jr. day. It was really fun! Here's Melissa and I on the little mermaid ride

Things are better now, I just wish I could enjoy the spring and summer with my best friend and other half, Andrew :( meow ps, Jen is voting for Ron Paul

My perfect match

Today I witnessed two pretty amazing things about my fiancé: He's an amazing musician. Like good. Like really good! He plays bass and drums. It's so sexy! His band, Black Tara, are playing a gig tomorrow and I can't wait to hear and see them! The other thing, his mom has been really ill. :(. It's heartbreaking cause one feels helpless that they can't help. But my honey did the one thing that he is able to do: he gave his mother a blessing of health and comfort. it was such a touching thing to witness and am so grateful and blessed to be marrying a man who is worthy to do such things. It's been a really good holiday so far and can't wait to ring in the new year with my future husband. It's our first Christmas together and it's been perfect. His parents are excellent hosts, his mom super sweet. Shes an amazing gift wrapper, cook, singer, and relief society president. She has a huge heart. His sister is becoming my favorite. So funny! She introduced me to my new favorite, a chef named Nigella and also introduced me to strictly come dancing ;) It's been pretty low key but my favorite because of the time being spent with my new family.

Minjae Lee- Art

I'm obsessed with Minjae Lee's styyyyyle! So good! These are the ones posted today on The Cool Hunter website.

Minjae Lee is a young South Korean artist whose work expresses a semi-disturbing inner tension that is tough to ignore, even if you feel that you'd like to. It draws you in with its powerful colors, halting imagery and clever juxtaposition of beauty, innocence and fragility with brash, loud and aggressive.

The 19-year old artist is mainly self-taught and uses old-fashioned tools — such as markers, pens, crayons, acrylics — to create his illustrations. He has yet to break into commercial success, but as his style is developing and improving each time new images appear, we will likely see a lot of him in the future.

What characterizes his work overall is drama. The ethereal females that populate most of his work exude a dark, organic tension, and it seems that even the brightest marker colors do not quite manage to save them from some sort of looming peril. Or are we, the viewers, in fact, the ones who are in danger? Whatever the case, we are drawn in, interacting on an emotional level, surprised, looking for something.

Minjae Lee’s penchant for dramatic expression is clear also in the work of those he admires. His favorite photographer is the 55-year-old Japanese Hiroshi Nonami, whose women are equally capable of telling a dramatic, dark story. Not surprisingly, Lee’s favorite fashion designer is the king of runway drama, the Gibraltar-born, 49-year-old John Galliano.

-Tuija Seipell Enjoy kittens! -m

Cate Parr watercolors

Cate Parr is a UK born fashion illustrator. Love the ethereal feel and they remind me of the cheeky 80s art deco I used to love! Check out her website for more amazing watercolors. Love this!

European Minx

I went to Europe! It seems like a dream now, it was so long ago!

I have always wanted to go! Because my boyfriend was living there now, I thought it was a no-brainer and had no excuse not to go!

I bought my ticket to Scotland a few days after Andrew left L.A.! It was sort of an accident. I went on priceline, typed in a price, it gave me back a really reasonable price, and I just bought them! It was crazy! I couldn't believe it! I freaked out, thinking I couldn't afford it, but it all worked out. Best. Purchase. EVER!

I packed my bags, had a really fun going away party the night before surrounded by all my closest friends at Gringos Locos, said my goodbyes and jetted across the country and across the Atlantic to my baby!

The flight from L.A. to New Jersey was cake! It went by quick, I had plenty of things to keep me entertained and it was comfortable. Now, my flight from Jersey to Glasgow, flight. from. HELL! I got on the plane after scarfing down some Mc Donalds, (I only had 10 minutes to grab some food before boarding) then took some benadryl to help me sleep a few minutes after I got on the plane, then fell asleep. I woke up three hours later and we were on the ground and I thought, wow, I slept the whole flight!? No, the plane hadn't even left the ground! The airport was backed up, they were de-icing planes, and had to do each plane on the tarmac! I immediately started feeling sick after we finally took off. I threw up twice on the 7 hour flight :( The flight attendants were super nice and accommodated me.



I finally arrived at Glasgow Airport, picked up my bags and walked out, with a big smile on my face, anticipating the greeting of my sweetheart... and ... he wasn't there :/ Hmm. I waited for a couple minutes, then panicked, because like an idiot, I didn't do a currency exchange and didn't have any change to call Andrew. BUT! I walked outside, then turned around, and there he was. I'm not gonna lie, I couldn't stop smiling and started to tear up, cause it felt soooooooo good to feel his arms around me and to feel his kissies. :)

Then those feelings were overcome with feelings of nervousness!!!! I had met his sister and love her! BUT, I was so nervous to meet his siblings and ....his parents!!!! I wanted so bad for them to love me !

So we drove to his house and the moment arrived and I felt bad because, cause of my bad flight I still was jet-lagged, pukey feeling and gross feeling. But I immediately felt comfortable with his parents. They were so friendly and hospitable and are super funny! I felt so comfortable and part of the group.



I went upstairs to lay down, I stayed in Andrew's room the whole time, and was greeted by a beautiful arrangement of flowers from Andrew :D It made me so happy during my whole trip. I slept for a while, trying to feel better. I woke up and Andrew made dinner for all of us. It was yummy! Andrew cooked alot of the time while I was there. He's a good cook, my sweetheart.



The first four days there, we spent in Glasgow. We visited the city, and saw all the beautiful architecture. It is an amazing and gorgeous city. I met his brothers and was at first nervous, but like his parents, I felt really comfortable with them and their families. They really are super fun :) We had dinner for his brother's birthday, went shopping with his sister, Kirsty. She just bought a new home and its really beautiful! I felt so happy for her, cause I could tell she was really happy.





We also went to church on Sunday and thought it was very nice! I loved meeting all of his family's friends and enjoying the gospel in a different country. The gospel is the same everywhere. But it felt more special cause i was there with his family :)



OK! On my next blog post, we go to London! There's just too much to write for one blog! Enjoy, friends!

BIRTHDAY, baby!

So some of you have asked what I wanted for my birthday. I made a list here to make it easier for you guys. Some of these things aren't cheap, but they are practical. You're probably thinking, "ugh! how lame. she wrote out a list for people to buy her stuff." Well, if you don't like it, tough. It's my blog... haha!

Here it is!

a Renewed Cost-Co membership



A haircut



Fill my car up with gas



Movie tickets



Clinique "All about Eyes" eye cream



Clinique High Impact Mascara



Zumba on Playstation 3



I'm sure I'll think of more... but for now, you all get the idea....

meow

Andrew and Michelle : part deux

SO! Andrew leaves for Utah for a week after we first meet here in California the summer of August 2010. I was a little sad to see him go, but didn't know him SUPER well for me to sit there and lose sleep over it.

We communicated every single day since we met the first time. No joke. I knew he was special when he insisted on calling every night, then we eventually moved on to skype and FB emailing because it got too expensive to text and call. I had to up my phone plan as a result. Now we just use facetime from his IPhone and my mac book pro. it works out really well.

He went back home from Utah and we kept the communication. It got frustrating because he wasn't here... it was really hard on me. It didn't seem like it was too hard for him, but I think boys cope with these kind of things differently then us gentle women creatures. :/

We tried to keep things fresh by doing things like playing UNO online and others games and we would send each other little packages in the mail.



Its also very hard with the time difference. I don't know if people realize, but the time difference between California and Scotland is eight hours! EEP! So Andrew made lots of sacrifices many times and stayed up very late to chat with me after I got off work. He's a sweetheart and a trooper... and a keeper :)

Andrew and his sister, Kirsty, decided to come out again to the US, but about four months later in December. This time, they went to New York with their parents for a week then he and his sis came out to california for an additional two weeks! I was so excited! We love having them here. This time around, it felt more official. We had already said our first "I love you"s on the phone at this point ( I think we had said them two months into our relationship. We made our relationship "official" on Facebook a little before that.



On his second trip here, we did more dating activities, naturally, but also I wanted to really focus on getting to know him. I fell in love with him the more and more I got to know him. Andrew is genuinely an amazing great guy. He is super sweet. He treats me like gold, like a queen. The way every woman should be treated. A true gentleman. He always without fail, got my coat for me and got my car door. Things that most dudes don't even think about doing. He's the greatest :)

Us at Disneyland around Christmas time!



Andrew met my parents!!! It was hilarious ! We got there and my grandparents happened to be visiting from Mexico so it was pretty good timing for him. I loved that he met them. It really meant alot to me, but that wasn't the hilarious part. The hilarious part was when we were doing introductions and he says to my grandma "Hello, nice to meet you" in his thick Scottish accent in English. My grandma looks and him and says "Nooooo". Mind you, my grandma doesn't understand english, let alone the language being spoken with a thick, Scottish accent. We then went to buy a rug for my parents as a Christmas present and also picked up some allergy meds for us.... my parents have three dogs and I'm prone to be allergic to them, and so was he. We popped those benadryls, had some of my mom's amazing cooking, sat there talking to my brother, next thing you know we had both fallen asleep on the couch for 3 hours! fail. well, then we decided to go drive around looking at Christmas lights and get some ice cream, then we went home. Next time he's here, we're spending more awake time with my family :/

Picture of us at my parent's place



We did lots of dates while he was here! Some of our favorites were Dino's Pizza (we had our usual table we sat at), Cafe Rio, Pomodoros, the movies and just moments where we sat and watched T.V. Our last night together, we went to the Smokehouse in Burbank. We both looked pretty good :) I was sad the whole time because I knew he was leaving :(

I cried the next day when I took him to the airport.... I mean, it was uncontrollable tears. I couldn't stop. Thats when I truly and really realized that I had fallen hard for this dude.

I then spent my Christmas and New Year without him.... and it was pretty devastating. I swore that I would spend the following holiday season with him if I could afford it.... so far, it doesn't look promising.

Next blog post I talk about my trip to Scotland to visit Andrew and meet his family! Till next time for that! meow