Christmas Countdown!

I cannot tell you how excited I am that only one work day stands between me and my "Christmas break." I don't know if I can really classify my 2 and a half days off from work as a Christmas break, but I guess in my new 'grown-up' life, that's what I am going to call it.

This Christmas is going to be a lot different than the last 23 Christmases that I have had. This will be the first Christmas (that I know of) that I won't spend Christmas Eve with my immediate family, go to the Christmas Eve service at church, and then wake up early (our definition of 'early' has gotten a little later, though) on Christmas morning to wake my parents up so we can open presents. That is a little sad for me, just because I don't typically handle change all that well. But don't you go thinking that you need to be sad for me because I am not going to be there! I am extremely thrilled that I get to wake up Christmas morning, get out of bed and walk out of the room where I'm sleeping, and give my soon-to-be husband a kiss and tell him Merry Christmas! And even though I can kind of give myself a minor anxiety attack when I think about things changing, I don't think this qualifies as one of those situations. I am very blessed to be able to spend all of the days surrounding Christmas with not just one family that loves me, but TWO! How lucky am I?!? I'm very excited for all of the new experiences I am going to have during this year's holidays, and I can't wait for it to begin.

Trent and I are taking off from Omaha tomorrow evening after I leave from work. We are spending the 23rd and Christmas Eve with his family and then heading to my parents' house on Christmas morning to spend the weekend there. We've got a lot of holiday partying jammed into 4 days, but that's why Christmas is my favorite holiday!!

Since Trent and I will be spending the entire Christmas weekend traveling around and having our family holiday parties, we had our own, private Christmas party last weekend. We wanted to start a tradition of what food we would eat every year for our Christmas supper, but instead of picking the food and having the same thing every year, we decided to start the tradition that we would just go to the store on the day we were going to have our Christmas supper without a plan, and pick out whatever we wanted to have for supper that evening. I think that this year's excursion went very well. We had baked 'chicken grillers' (chicken breasts wrapped in bacon and stuffed with cheese and jalapenos for him and ham and cheese for me), mashed potatoes, and corn. Very good, in my opinion! We then opened our presents from each other. I was very disappointed in myself because I had forgotten to get something to fill his stocking. :( He was very good, though, because I had gum and toothbrushes in mine. (I thought it was very sweet, but when I told Lauren about it she just said he must be trying to tell me I have bad breath!) We then preceded to take turns opening our presents from each other. A game and running socks and shorts for Trent, and a game, perfume, and a new ring for me. Yes, that's right, I said a ring! And I know, I am spoiled. I was so shocked and surprised when I opened it, I almost burst out in tears (in a very good way), but I held myself together. Here is the beautiful white sapphire ring:

The rest of the night, I played my new game for a few hours. I am going to need to practice a lot more to get good at it, though. We then watched a movie and called it a night. It was a great night. I love Trent and I's private little holiday parties. I especially love to think back on how things change for us from the year before. It will be very interesting to see where we are and what's new when we get to Christmastime next year!


Sunday was also a day filled with Christmas cheer. We went to Hy Vee and bought all the supplies needed to make plates of holiday goodies to bring along to our family Christmases this week. We made chocolate covered pretzels, some chocolate bars with graham crackers and marshmallows in them, and sugar cookies with frosting. We made the treats up into plates to bring along, and stuck them in the freezer until it's time to go on our merry way.


Tonight I finished up wrapping my last presents and made some pumpkin dessert for the family Christmas on Christmas Eve and packed for the long weekend. I am excited about seeing family and for celebrating Christ's birth with them all!! I hope you all have a great holiday as well!!


Merry Christmas!!

And the family grows by one more...

I contemplated not putting that title to this blog post, but I decided that it's kind of humorous. When you first read it, it might sound like someone is having a baby... but NO.... KELLSEY'S ENGAGED!! YAY!!!

Kellsey and Wade got engaged last week on the Friday after Thanksgiving while they were visiting Wade's family in California. I think it is safe to say that everyone in the family is pretty darn excited! I know that we are all lucky to have Wade added into our family. They have just started the planning process, so we don't know many details yet, but I know I am anxious to hear about it all. As of now, they are thinking they will get married next fall and I can't wait!

I am doubly excited because, now, Kells and I get to plan our weddings together! I have a feeling they are going to be quite different, but it will still be fun to be going through the same thing at around the same time. It's like we each get to be a part in planning two weddings. So if we don't get to have something in our own, maybe we can live that part if it out in the other one's :)

I haven't seen her since she got engaged since we were apart for the holiday, so I'm very excited to see her this coming weekend when we are going to look for bridesmaids' dresses for my wedding. I can't wait to see her gorgeous ring and to give her a big hug and hear all the details again!

Congratulations Kellsey and Wade!!!

Baby steps forward...

It feels so good to be getting wedding tasks accomplished. Although they are very small, it's still nice.

Sunday, Trent and I met with Pastor Richard Francis for the first of our pre-wedding meetings. It was pretty much just an introductory meeting. We talked about what we were doing now as far as our jobs and things and where we saw that going in the future and about we met and how our relationship started. Then, we discussed how the rest of our meetings will go, which we will start up after the 1st of the year. I have to say I'm excited to see what the class brings up and I'm excited for the opportunity for something to be brought up, about marriage and Trent and I's life together, that we haven't thought of or discussed yet.


Also, on Sunday, Trent and I went through my mom's big Carlson Craft books to look for inspiration for our wedding invitations. The design inspiration we picked out was like this:


The design will be on our Save the Dates, invites, programs, and thank-yous. It will have a lighter blue on the bottom and darker blue on the top. My wonderfully talented Aunt Doreen will be constructing this fabulousness for us. :) So, I'm excited.
Last week I got a call from the jewelry store to tell me that Trent's wedding band was in. It was a month and a half early! But that actually worked out very well because I was planning on bringing in my engagement ring and wedding band to be sized this week anyways. So, I did it all in one trip. I was very excited to get to see the ring that Trent and I picked out for him again. I have to say, Trent looks pretty good with a ring on :) But maybe that's my 'proud wife' talking or something... It was also nice to get to see my band again, since Trent had put it into hiding after we got it. So I did have to leave my engagement ring at the store, and that was a little strange for me. After having the ring on for almost two months and thinking about it all the time and constantly stopping what I'm doing to look at it, it is weird to have it missing from my finger. But very soon we will be reunited and it will fit oh-so-perfectly!
Dress shopping for bridesmaid dresses with ALL of my wonderful bridesmaids is coming up in 2 and a half weeks and I'm super excited! After that, all of my wedding projects can get started for real! Yay!
To end this post, I'd like to give a shout out to my Grandpa Kock, who I hope is up and to reading this himself!
Grandpa, I hope you're feeling alright today. I am thinking about you and praying for you and praying for the doctors, as well, to have the knowledge and expertise to take care of you and get you back to normal so you can bust a move with us out on the dance floor at my wedding! :) I love you very much and can't wait to see you again.

What a Wonderful Weekend

Trent and I had a great weekend with his family. We took off on Friday after work for his parents' house to spend the weekend there. Saturday morning, the girls, Trent's mom, sister, aunt, cousin, and myself, spent most of the day at a huge craft fair in Ankeny. There were many great booths with beautiful crafts made by different people. Unfortunately (maybe), I didn't buy anything, but I was majorly tempted to make a purchase as we passed a booth that had one-of-a-kind purses. I just keep reminding myself that I didn't NEED it, no matter how nice it was :) There were also a few booths that had some crafts that were similar to a few things I am planning on making for the wedding. So it was great to be able to see those things up close and made me even more excited to get going on the DIY part of our wedding! Us girls had a really great day. It was a lot of fun to bond with my future in-laws and I am so grateful to be included in the tradition of going to the event now.

Saturday night, we were back at Jan and Chuck's house for supper and watching a heartbreaking loss by the Cyclones. :( Right before supper, I took the opportunity to ask Trent's 3 year old niece if she would do us the honor of being the flower girl in our wedding. I had a book that I read to her that was all about a flower girl in a wedding and it had a little pouch of practice flowers in the back of the book. She told us that she'd love to be in our wedding and then we took some time for her to practice dropping petals on the ground and then, when she was done, I would follow her and walk on the petals just like we will on the real wedding day. I think she had a good time with that. When we sat down for supper, she told me that Trent was going to be the groom, I was going to be the bride, and she was going to drop flowers. Which is very true! :)

The next step in the wedding preparation process is to go shopping with my bridesmaids and get their dresses picked out. Which I'm really excited about! All of my attendants are beautiful, so it won't be hard at all to find something that will look great on them all!

That's all for now! Chow!

I Said YES to the Dress!!

Only 237 days to go! :)
Trent and I have now officially been engaged for a little over two weeks. It has been a two weeks filled with planning and talking about our future (in my opinion anyways - you'd have to ask Trent about how much he likes all the planning!).

Over the past two weeks, we have booked our caterer and our reception site, found a photographer and set the date for our engagement pictures, and began asking our wedding party to be a part of our special day. I've been looking at all kinds of wedding websites to get some ideas about every thing you could imagine about a wedding, and I've gone wedding dress shopping and found THE dress!!

Saturday, September 25, I went dress shopping with my mom and my sister as well as my future mother-in-law and sister-in-law. We went to a bridal shop in Boone and to one in Ankeny. The Bridal Connection in Ankeny is where I found my dress. I had tried on a lot of dresses before I tried on the one that eventually ended up to be mine. I never would have picked the dress that I ended up falling in love with and purchasing, so I owe the great find to the consultant that was helping me that day. When I first tried on the dress, I really didn't want to like it. I had already tried on a dress that I really liked, and I had it in my head that I wasn't going to like this new dress. When I was in the dressing room with my sister, I said very nonchalantly that I kind of liked the dress, and then when I came out of the room to show the rest of my crew, I could tell that they all really liked it. I stood in front of the mirror and tried to find something that I didn't like about it, but I really couldn't come up with anything. The consultant then told me that I should try a veil on with it so I could get the full effect, so she grabbed one and put it on my head. It was also a veil that I never would have picked on my own. I looked at myself and started trying to imagine myself wearing this on my wedding day. I thought about walking down the aisle and seeing Trent at the end waiting for me, and I just lost it. I had tears all over the place and when they asked me why I was crying, all I could say was "I really like it." I looked over at the four women that came with me and they all had tears in their eyes, too.

We decided to try a few more on and go back to the one that I thought I liked before and then try 'the one' on again to see if I still had the same reaction later. When I got back in the dressing room with Kellsey, she asked me what made me cry, and I told her, "I was just thinking about Trent seeing me in this dress." We tried on a couple more dresses, but when I came back to the dress I had such a strong reaction to, it was clear that after hours of trying on dresses and none of them being good enough, I was able to say, "This is the one."

I truly can say that I had the best wedding dress shopping experience ever. The staff at The Bridal Connection was great. I could tell they really cared about me and they were just as happy for me when I found my dress as my family members were. I am so happy that I got to share the day with my mom and sister and future mother- and sister-in-law. I can't wait until everyone gets to see me in the dress we all fell in love with that day, especially my future husband!

Forever Love

I'M ENGAGED!! :) Last Saturday, September 18, Trent asked me if I would be his wife. I, of course, said YES!! The last four days have been filled with wedding planning, talking about our future, and reminding each other that this is real! It’s definitely exciting and both Trent and I are eager for everything to fall into place and the next 248 days to zip on by!! Monday afternoon we got our reception site booked and our date set. Sunday, May 29, 2010, the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend will the THE DAY! Everyone should start praying now for great weather that weekend =)

I will certainly share more about our wedding plans as time goes by and more and more details are set in place. My work days have definitely gotten busier, trying to fit in my work activities AND wedding planning!! =) As a little starter, I will leave you with what I wrote for our wedding website about the proposal day. I will get all of you the URL for the site as soon as it’s done so you can check out the whole site, including Trent's rendition of the day!

Have a great one!!

Kendra's Story

I woke up on Saturday, September 18, 2010 thought that I knew what was going on that day. I thought that I was going to be picked up by Trent at 8:30, we were going to drive to Dayton Oaks Camp the camp, that Trent spent a lot of time at growing up, to go hiking, and then we were going to go to his parents' house in Ankeny for a birthday party for his brother-in-law and his uncle.

The day at least started off as I thought it would. Trent came and picked me up. It was a pretty gloomy and rainy day, but we weren't going to let that ruin our plans. And you can bet that Trent gave me enough chances to get out of going hiking, but I knew he really wanted to go and I was really excited about sharing my first real hiking experience with him. It was a pretty fun three hour drive there, just talking and singing with Trent. We arrived at Dayton Oaks Camp, got out of the car and went to the trunk to get the backpack out that had our water and the camera in it. I was kind of surprised when Trent held out the backpack for me to put on, but didn't think anything much of it because he pulled out an umbrella and said he was going to carry that. I thought that would be better to carry the backpack on my back rather than have to carry an umbrella in my hand, so off we went.

We walked hand and hand down the path to get to the trail we were going to take. We passed different cabins as Trent told me about which ones he'd stayed in, what they were like on the inside, different maintenance he had done to them as a counselor at the camp, and a few memories he had of going to camp and staying in those cabins. We walked up to a circle around a campfire, and it was at that point Trent told me that that was the place where he devoted his life to Christ. I was so happy and honored that I could be at that place with him and that he could share that part of his life with me. It was at that moment that I really realized how much this place meant to him and it crossed my mind that this could be where he asks me to be his wife. But, as Trent would tell you, I think about that he could propose to me pretty much no matter what we're doing, so the thought passed, and we started off onto the trail for our hike.

We walked down steep hills, around trees, and over creeks. I am very impressed with myself that I didn't slip and fall down a hill in the mud or anything! Trent told me about how he used to know the trails really well and how he and a friend of had even marked some of the trail that we were following. We hiked a while and ended up at a very beautiful creek. It sounded like the creek setting that you would have on a nature sounds alarm clock. After we left the creek we hiked up a really steep hill, and when we got to the top of the hill, I walked up to the ledge of the hill and couldn't believe how beautiful it was. We were on a very high ledge overlooking the creek we had just been at, as well as, trees as far as I could see across on the other side of the ravine. The place where we were at was called "The Top of the World." There was a sign nailed to a tree, so Trent told me to turn around so he could get the camera out of the backpack to take my picture (I didn't know at the time that that was all he was grabbing out of the backpack). I went and stood by the sign and Trent took my picture. I then went to try to grab the camera from him so I could get his picture by the sign, but he didn't hand it to me. Instead he put his arms out to hug me and told me to come over to him. He hugged me and told me he loved me and then he stepped back to look at me. It was then he told me that he knew for a long while that he wanted to marry me, and he might have said something else, but at that point I realized for sure what was happening and I think that I blacked out from the happiness for a second. Next thing I know he is grabbing something from his back pocket and getting down on one knee and the words "Will you marry me?" came from his mouth. And of course I said YES!! We hugged and I cried and I was so excited I was shaking. It was amazing. I then looked at the ring he had been holding and couldn't believe how beautiful it was, and that it was mine! I put the ring on and couldn't stop smiling. I couldn't believe what had just happened, and that I was now engaged to the most wonderful man, the man of my dreams!

I went back down by the tree that I had just taken a picture by moments earlier and took the 'after' picture. I couldn't have hid my happiness if I tried. Trent and I then sat down and looked at the beautiful place we were in. I really wanted to just soak the whole thing in.

Trent then told me that the birthday party that I thought we were going to that evening was made up and that we were meeting the in-laws for lunch. (We were both getting in-laws!!) That was such a great surprise and I was so happy that we were going to see them and could share this great day with them.

It wasn't until we got to Boone for lunch that I really realized how special this day was. Trent's mom then shared that the 18th of September was her late mother's birthday. I was so incredibly honored that Trent and I could bring happiness to their family on a day that is usually a bit sad.

After lunch, we had a fun time getting to go see our family members and share the good news with them. We went to Adel to surprise his sister and her family to tell them the great news. Trent's 3 year old niece filled us in on the fact that when Trent and I get married, I will be Aunt Kendra. That was something that I hadn't thought about yet, but just another great thing that comes along with marrying Trent. We then drove to tell my grandparents, aunt and uncle, sister and cousins. It was great to share that news with them all!!

When we finally made it back to Omaha, Trent dropped me off at my apartment so I could shower and then I was going to go over to his apartment so he could "watch some of the Iowa game." But when I walked into his apartment, there were two dozen roses sitting on the counter, the apartment was romantically lit, there was music on, and he was making us supper. After a long and exciting day, it was great to sit with my now fiance and talk about the day as well as talk about what our future together will hold.

The whole day was just perfect. I was literally on "top of the world." I am so happy that Trent and I now have such an amazing memory together at a place that has meant so much to him throughout in his life. A place that was so important in shaping him into the man he is today. A man that I am lucky to be able to say is my future husband!

In Better Hands Now

This past weekend was an interesting one. It was great because I had a chance to just hang out with Trent, watch football, play games, eat, and relax, but it was also a sad time because a lot of people lost a very good friend on Saturday. Pastor Virginia really was a great friend to me. She genuinely cared about what was going on in my life and has numerous times gone out of her way and sometimes traveled 3 hours to be able to come and support me in my activities that she knew were very important to me. I will never forget all of the basketball games that she came to, nor will I forget her being so excited to come to my dance recitals every year. She was also great enough to drive from Ames to Sioux City to attend my dance show at Morningside. She was there every year, and when she couldn’t be there you can bet she was thinking about me and wished me the best and wished with all her heart that she could be there. I could always count on an email or an ecard on my birthday every year. I could count on an email from her at the beginning of the school year to wish me luck, a congratulatory email when I made the honor role, an email to ask me how my job search was going, and even a phone call just to ask I am. To know that she thought that much of me to think of me at all those random times makes me feel so happy and loved. I really knew that I could tell Virginia anything and could look to her for advice and a comforting and reassuring word when times were tough.

The toughest thing about losing her is realizing that I won’t ever see her again or talk to her again while I’m on Earth. It is just a hard thing to swallow for me, but it is something that I know is a reality. I do have to really step back and look at my sadness, though, and know that I have no reason to be sad. I know that she is in a much better place, a place so great that I am unable to comprehend it. As Lauren said to me, she’s up there being completely happy and she’s dancing and jumping around clicking her heels. Now when you think about that, how can you not smile? =) I am going to try to not be sad about all of this and do my best to just celebrate her life. I know she touched many people, and I hope people can learn from her as much as I have. She has truly taught me how to be a better friend and how to really rely on God to get us through the tough times, because He always will!