Life in AZ

I have mixed feelings about time. On one hand I really want time to fly by until the wedding. On the other hand, I love spending time with James and getting to know him as his fiance. I feel like I've been living in AZ for months but at the same time it seems like I just got here yesterday. However quickly or slowly time passes is irrelevant though. It passes and once a moment is gone it won't be relived.

While all the time James and I spend together is special, there are a few moments that really stand out.

On Sunday, September 5 I went to the apartment to meet James before going to church together. He had asked me to arrive early so we could have breakfast. We had some extra time after we ate so we read the Bible together and prayed. After that he asked me to stand up, he got onto both knees and officially proposed. I know that this may seem backward since I have spent the last two months planning a wedding for October 30. But we wanted the official proposal to be face-to-face and not right after I arrived in AZ and was exhausted from a three day trip. James also wanted the proposal to be in our future home. It was the perfect proposal for us.

Last Saturday morning, James and I hiked up a mountain together. We went up North Mountain because it is one of the easier ones to hike and I've never hiked up a mountain. After we were done with our hike, we went swimming, and then made lunch together. It was another perfect day.

Sunday we went to church, washed the cars, made lunch, then drove to the town of Cave Creek. Cave Creek is the town where James's mentor used to live and James wanted to show me the house where he lived before passing away. Then we rented a movie and made dinner. While we were cooking, we lost power three times. During the spurts when we actually had power we were able to make things somewhat edible. The broccoli ended up a bit scorched because we turned the electric skillet temperature WAY up in hope that we could get it to cook while we had power. The cheese crisps turned out. We could have enjoyed a nice candle light dinner if we had candles. Somehow cell phone light dinners aren't as romantic - especially when you have to keep pushing buttons on the phones to keep them lit.

Monday was another good day. James had training so he didn’t get an afternoon break but instead he was done for the day by about 1pm. As soon as he got to the apartment we went to Julie’s house to pick her up so she could sign as our witness on our wedding license application as we got it notarized. Julie made it so much fun. She took her camera out as we were signing the paperwork. Once we were all done signing she asked the Notary Republic to take a picture of the three of us. She is a precious jewel.

I've hit a bit of a routine, my typical day starts out with waking up at Julie Crum's house, getting ready for the day, then heading to James's apartment. I do random things until he comes home for his afternoon break then once he goes back for the second part of his shift I do more random things until he is done for the day. During the average evening we will go for a walk, grocery shop, swim, spend time with his parents, or read together, etc. After that I head back to Julie's house to sleep.