• Making a name for myself in the community I live in as a fair, impartial journalist. I’ve also made some great friends with community members this year!
• Visits from various friends and family. We had a great summer with tons of visitors (we’re hoping even more people come visit us in 2011 *hint hint*). We spent a great week with Shawn’s folks camping in Two Medicine and exploring the east side of Glacier National Park, where neither Shawn nor I had ever been. It was a great hiking summer, period. We went camping with Michelle, hung out with my mom and sister and saw Shawn’s cousins.
• Parties with our Montana buddies. Hubs and I have a great time with our Flathead County friends. Jasmine and Nate sure know how to throw parties, Tiff makes unbelievable cupcakes, Kristi always has wry, funny observations, Dillon is always good for a laugh (and if he’s not careful, a spilled drink!), Sydney is the most cheerful person I know (I need some lessons, Lil’ Miss Red!), Eric has jumped on the “Go Big Red” bandwagon with us, Britanni has a great artistic talent and generosity I am insanely jealous of and Jordan makes me laugh so hard with her stories I practically pee my pants every time we talk. Shawn and I are really looking forward to the Snob party in just a few weeks!
• Starting to write a novel. I’ve got a great idea, I just know I do. Now it’s just the getting down to work part that’s hard!
• Visits to Nebraska for Whitney and Nathan’s wedding and Kristin and Nate’s wedding (have I told you about how we have FIVE friends named Nate/Nathan? At least we don’t have to learn new names!). It was so good to get back to “The Good Life” and spend time with our friends. I was a bridesmaid in Whitney’s wedding and had a great time with my fellow ladies in the line.
• Discovering the North Fork and the Polebridge Mercantile. We spent many happy hours up the North Fork this past summer and ate many mouth-watering huckleberry turnovers. Alas, the Merc is closed ’til spring. Counting down the days until we cross the threshold into the Merc again.
• Our mini-moon trip to Seattle. Hubs and I fell fast and hard for “our future city,” and we’re already making plans for that delightful town to be our next stop in life. Visiting Pike Place Market, the Seattle Art Museum, ogling at the buildings, spending time with Molly and taking in a Husker game at a Nebraska bar in Kirkland made our trip fantastic!
• Getting married to the love of my life and my best friend, Shawn, in October. We had a beautiful wedding day and one heck of a party afterward. Going with Famous Dave’s as our caterer was a huge hit. The centerpieces I envisioned became a beautiful reality (sunflowers in mason jars) and a fun moment was watching my sister learn how to fold napkins in neat ways using her iPhone. We had a fabulous time with our guests (the party ended much too soon!) and will treasure Oct. 23, 2010 forever!
There were parts of the year that were difficult, however. The plane crash that killed Melissa and Erika, two friends and local journalists, was hard on us all. Their lives were ended much too soon, but I’m glad those two lovely ladies were having a fabulous adventure when they died. And I know I’ll see them again someday.
Shawn and I are adjusting to living apart again. Each goodbye is as hard as the last and we hate being so far apart. But I’m happy that Hubs is pursuing his desire for an engineering degree and I know in the long run our separation will seem brief. Can’t wait for it to end, though!
• Chili cookoff with the Outside Media people in a few weeks. Let the best chili win! We’re sure our “Afterburn” chili will be a hit.
• Taking a master gardener class through the Montana State University extension office.
• Snob party with the Montana friends. There better be Jarlsberg, dah-ling.
• Seattle/Tacoma trip in March. Got to keep the love affair going. And we’re looking forward to a visit with the Gregorys.
• The launching of the Columbia Falls Community Garden.
• Hiking and camping in Glacier National Park and in the forests around Butte.
• Honeymoon trip to California. We’re hitting up San Francisco and wine country with the Knisleys. SO EXCITED.
• Meagan and Jeff’s “Junebug”. I can’t believe my friends are starting to pop out babies. But it’s a good thing and I’m so looking forward to watching my friends’ families grow over the coming years.
A hard frost coated everything in ice, from barbed wire to grass to trees. A hoarfrost, right?
It was a beautiful morning and I’m glad I took the pictures when I did because the frost burned off about an hour later. We had wonderful weather for our trip home. Northwest Montana is rather dreary and gray these days, but Denver and Lodgepole were sunny and warm! One thing we both noticed was how much earlier the sun comes up there. We leave at the 48th parallel, and these days the sun doesn’t come up until 8:30 or 9 a.m.!
This tree was the most beautiful of all. I love how the frost contrasts with the green pines to the right and the grass to the left. I think that reddish-brown grass is so beautiful, especially in the winter.
Christmas Day we enjoyed spending time with Shawn’s family. The highlight of the day was the three-hour game of Liverpool Rummy that got quite intense!
All in all, a fabulous trip home.
There I was, lying in bed in the hotel room the night before my wedding, attempting in vain to get my brain to turn off so I could get some sleep.
In the room next door, someone whistled incessantly. Whistling? At 2:30 a.m.? I considered banging on the wall.
The phone rang. I ignored it. It was 2:30 in the morning after all. It rang again. And again. I stumbled out of bed and across the room.
The screen read the name of one of the groomsmen. He’s a sweet guy, but he’s always been kind of a wreck. We’ll call him Pete.
“What?” I asked, not bothering to hide my irritation.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know where anyone is and I don’t have anywhere to sleep,” Pete said in a drunken slur.
A string of profanities whirred through my head. I pushed back images of the grisly violence I would inflict on the offending groomsmen to answer Pete’s cry for help.
“Can’t you call the others? Call them to come get you,” I suggested.
Who’s Ashley? I thought to myself as he hung up. Maybe she’s coming to get him.
“Just let him figure it out,” Shawn said in a sleep-muzzed voice.
About two minutes later, just has I had crawled back into bed and pulled the covers up, the phone rang.
“What is it, Pete?” I answered through gritted teeth.
“I don’t know what to do,” he whined.
“Oh for heaven’s sake, come to our hotel room and spend the night,” I practically shouted.
I told the groomsman which hotel we were staying in and despite my specific directions and the fact that he lived in Lincoln for years, somehow he managed to lose himself. Again.
“Which streets is the hotel on?” he asked during the 10th phone call in the past half-hour.
Out we went into the muggy Lincoln, Neb. night to track down the groomsman.
Standing at the door of the hotel eating a taco was a good friend who had flown in for the wedding.
“Oh hey, Nat” I said to her as I walked past. It took me a minute to recognize her because of how out of place she was standing there.
She followed my then-fiance Shawn and I into the street. I complained to her about the situation while she munched on her taco.
“Well, when the other groomsmen get married, make sure Pete has to spend the night with them,” Nat suggested.
Pete came tottering down the block, finally. On the corner another group of drunks harassed him and Shawn went across the street to lead Pete over.
We got him up the elevator to the eighth floor and were walking to the room when Pete leaned over the railing to look down on the atrium below.
Oh god, I thought, now he’s going to ralph all over the hotel.
Shawn and I were of one mind and we dashed back to guide Pete to the room. We steered him toward the bathroom and then deposited him firmly on the sofa.
We were finally getting wound down and falling asleep when Pete’s phone started ringing. He answered and began talking to whomever was on the other line.
I’m proud to report that instead of killing Pete where he slept — I was sorely tempted — I even brought him a bagel for breakfast the next morning.
Our wedding went wonderfully. The reception was one heck of a party and everyone had a great time talking and dancing. I was glad the day went off nearly without a hitch.
Monday, as Shawn and I were making our way back to Montana, my mother called.
“I want to tell you about one incident at the reception,” she said.
Turns out Pete was hitting on her all night.
It’s been a very stressful week at work and on top of it, I’ve still got an awful lot to do to prepare for the wedding in (gasp!) 16 days! I am trying my best not to become bridezilla. ROAR!
However, one of my lovely bridesmaids gave me a good piece of advice: it’s OK to be upset, but it’s not OK to be rude. Another friend, the fabulous Kristin K, suggested I delegate the responsibility of bridezilla to someone else. Now that’s good planning!
– Draw up a wedding day schedule for the people who need to know where to be when.
– Put in a “not to be a badger — ROAR BRIDEZILLA! — but how are things coming?” phone call to the florist, cake maker, caterer, DJ, photographer, reception hall.
– Get my programs printed.
– Make sure the people who need to be at the rehearsal realize they need to be there.
– Draw up a list of toasters and coerce said toasters into actually toasting.
– Resist temptation to call the people who got invitations who haven’t RSVP’d and ask them what the h*ll is their problem why can’t they read that the invitation clearly says to RSVP by Oct. 5 don’t they realize how rude they’re being ROAR BRIDEZILLA! I mean, calmly continue to accept the slow trickle of RSVPs and grin and bear buying 25 extra meals that may not get eaten.
– Get super excited for a week vacation and spending the majority of that time with my soon-to-be husband, who rocks my world. Most people hate 17-hour car rides (yep, Montana is a big friggin’ state), but I don’t when I have Shawn to talk to!
BUT! Saturday night is my Montana bachelorette party with some seriously awesome ladies and I am pretty stoked (and pretty afraid — please me nice to me, gals!).
… that I’m getting married in exactly 36 days.
Dropped off my wedding invitations yesterday at InstyPrints in Kalispell. After looking at countless wedding invitation websites and continually being dumbfounded by the prices (I realize that in purchasing the invitations, one is purchasing someone’s design, which they put a lot of effort into, but my little budget just can’t handle that!), I decided to design my own. Part of my job is designing newspapers, after all. Surely I can handle designing invitations.
Hmm… maybe I should start designing wedding invitations. Thoughts?