My boyf--I mean Fiance!

So here's the story. These two goofballs got on a plane and went to Florida for Vacation! Oh yes, and they dragged along his Mom, Dad, Brother and his Brother's Fiance.
Whilst all the other people had been on a plane before, this was my first time flying. That you can get from Illinois to Florida in two hours is awesome, the being on the plane for two hours part? Not so awesome. ;(
We rented a car, all squished inside and drove (I, making much fun of all the "Florida Pink" & Teal buildings) to this supa sweet hotel....rode the elevator to the 7th floor and stayed in the biggest hotel room I'd ever been in. Twas like a small apartment.

There, we swam in the pool, we swam in the gulf, and we swam...in the pool again. And in the gulf, and then we sw---You get the picture. ;) By the 2nd-3rd day my poor cutie-face up there was quite sunburnt, while I hung on his arm and whined I wanted to go back out into the blazing heat and reflective white sand to go play and find shells. He's quite pasty, see. And I tan fairly well. He said we'd go that night when the sun wasn't out to hurt him.

He fibs quite well! Actually, he didn't fib at all. He just-so-happened to decide that this could possibly be a good time to pop a question, and stuck this fancy white box with some expensive bling in his pocket "just incase." Apparently he decided the moment was as good as any, and when he finally got me to stop writing "FLORIDA ROCKS" in the sand for a moment, he told me how all aflutter he was for me, got down on his knee and offered up the bling. I said no. Just kidding, obviously! ;]

This all happened on Sunday night, July 13th...pretty late in the evening. I only have one or two super awful photos of the hot and sunburnt us and his mom has a pretty good one of us she snapped (against my will, again..obviously) when we came back up from the beach into the hotel room to make our announcement.
I made him dress up with me and we went out again the following morning to take some good 'ol we just got engaged photos, because I knew people would murder me in my sleep if I didn't. I take that back, they wouldn't even wait for the sleep. Prolly just shank me right out there in the open...
I found the exact spot he proposed because he remembered the rough area and then I found my FLORIDA ROCKS drawing in the sand.

Those are our feet (just incase)...in the heart of proposey looove. :)

We went on to have us some amazing Florida time. Ate at some fishy restaurants, Disney World, fishy restaurant, swimming, walking around a boardwalk, pizza (YAY!), shopping, fishy restaurant, swimming...shopping...yeah. But don't be fooled. It was a jolly good time. So good his Mum said we should make it a regular and come back every year. I agreed. :D

Anyway, so that's how it all went down. I'm working on designing a wedding webpage for us (progress is slow, but hey..I have a year!) where you'll be able to read this story again, check out some details on my plans, how stuff is going, who's in my bridal party, where I'm registered, etc. etc. Doesn't that sound cool?! ^_^ Oh. But the wedding date is September 26th, 2009. Guess you can know that!

Okay, I think I'm gonna go to my boyf--I mean Fiance's house right now. So I'll talk to you guys later!! Go me for actually following through and posting again like I said I would. -Does a happy dance.-

PYC Out. :P

Serious?

Wow, seriously? My last post was 2 MONTHS ago? Omg.

I am so sorry...

Have you heard?

Hey! I'm still alive! :)
This is a blog Nick (Fiance) spent quite a few hours on last night and posted it on his Myspace. Well it was sooo good I just had to share it with you guys. I would have posted a link to his 'Space, but it's on Private. So here goes...

!!NOTE!! Befoooore you start reading, this could be a little..uh, kid innappropriate as it talks about abortion, and thus the act you got into for wanting an abortion. So "Viewer discretion is advised". Or whatever.

Have you heard the new 'Dead Baby' Joke?

"The Election. The time of the year when the only piece of news worth reporting on is which candidate did what or said what or slung mud at who. Boring, really, because if you think about it, each candidate is completely capable of filling the position. Have you ever heard a candidate say, "Hey, don't vote for me, because I have absolutely no idea how to run an entire nation and will most likely raise taxes while running the economy into the ground." Didn't think so. Well this blog isn't going to be about which candidate I'm endorsing (I haven't really decided one way or the other. McCain looks like the living dead and I'm a little weary of Obama's "America needs change, and we can take America back! How're we going to take it back, you say? Through change. What change? The change of taking back America!"). No, this is going to be a blog about a much larger issue.
You see, I happened to be watching (or rather it was playing in the background and I zoned in every now and then) FOX news the other day and heard that the majority of women found McCain unappealing as a candidate because of his Pro-Life stance ..ion. This shocked me a little bit. Let's back up. The majority of women found McCain unappealing because of his Pro-Life stance ..ion. I'll get back to this later in the blog. Now I've long been a Pro-Life advocate myself, but never really thought about it or gave it much thought, probably like most of you. But on my way to Clinton a few days ago, I saw a license plate banner that read, "If it's not a baby, then you aren't pregnant." Isn't it funny how crazy good wisdom and logic can be found in the strangest of places? I thought so, too. The following rant/blog/sermon/seminar erupted into my brain and now I've decided to put into bloggishness.
Well, what is abortion? Abortion is the act of terminating a fetus (here on out referred to as a baby. Since…ya know, that's what is) before birth at pretty much any stage of pregnancy. Seems pretty awful, but most people, and apparently the majority of women, are totally down and cool with this, but a lot of people, as well, are not. This breaks the camps into two groups: Pro-Choice favoring Abortion and Pro-Life favoring, well, not killing babies. But this got me reeeeally thinking: Is there ever a good reason or good time that Abortion is right/moral? I racked my brain and tried to think of every possible reason where one might consider abortion and came up with these conclusions, which will comprise the rest of my blog.
Most doctors and Pro-Choice advocates (here on out referred to as PC) will tell you that aborting the baby at the most earliest of stages is pretty much nothing at all. Kind of like a get out of jail free card for the woman. That the baby is so underdeveloped that there isn't any way it could feel pain or such like that. The problem of abortion is the complete and utter trivializing of human life. By reducing the baby to a 'fetus' it becomes something less than human, which in turn justifies murder or infanticide, as I like to see it. To be honest, a baby and a fetus are not two separate entities.
Dr. Greg Bahnsen, a Christian Apologetic and amazing philosopher, stated that, "After conception, there is no denying that you have all the biological make up of a human being." Strange. It's almost as if he's saying that after conception (hanky panky or however you like to refer to it), the woman is carrying all the genetic and biological beginnings of a HUMAN BEING inside her. That when a woman becomes pregnant, she isn't carrying around some unknown, inhuman creature. She's pregnant with a human being; a baby.
This got me thinking back to the License Plate of Divine Wisdom (+43 Logic, +38 Genius. Requires Common Sense level 70. Most likely an epic drop). If what the PC advocates say is true, then a woman is not pregnant with a baby after conception, but with a fetus. So if a fetus isn't a baby, then the woman isn't pregnant. Because, by definition and common sense, when a woman says she's pregnant, do you actually think of a fetus first? Some weird not quite human…thing inside of her? Uh-uh. You think of a baby. But a fetus isn't a baby. Well then that woman is lying, because then she's not pregnant. So why do we need abortions? From what I know (which isn't much, I'll tell ya right now), if left unchecked and undisturbed, that mess of gooey, disgusting, mush inside the woman magically turns into a baby…Isn't modern science and medicine amazing!
But now I've confused myself. If a fetus, by means of magical intervention, becomes a baby if left alone, does that mean the fetus was actually a baby all along? Or do you start out with a fetus, then….something unknown to modern age man happens and turns the fetus into a baby? Going by what Dr. Bahnsen says, that fetus was a human all along. A fetus doesn't become a baby at some random point; it's a baby the entire time: from conception to birth.
If I were to show you a pregnant dog and ask what was inside of her, what would you say? Puppies. And what is a puppy? A baby dog. But according to our friends, the PC, that dog, depending on how far along the mother dog is, is ACTUALLY carrying K-9 fetuses. Not dogs or puppies. Ok…and what is a K-9 fetus? Why, it's an undeveloped baby dog. Oh. So it's still a baby dog, just a baby dog at an early stage. So if it's not a baby to start with, then the woman isn't pregnant, and I demand to know what the h*ll, exactly, is inside of her.
See? This is the problem I have with abortion. It's nothing more than reducing human life to nothing so it's easier for society to kill babies. Think about it: is it easier to say, "That's only a fetus, it's perfectly fine to terminate it now because it's so undeveloped," or, "That's just a baby, it's perfectly fine to kill it now because it's so defenseless and small,"? I'll let you decide. But what's even more ghastly is that the majority of women in America find this appealing and acceptable. Not just the majority of Americans…the majority of women! Women. The caregivers, the nurturer, the one person you can go to to make all the bad and evil in the world go away; that same motherly figure (if you can even think of her as that anymore) are the people that want to kill our country's babies the most. How awful…
But there are reasons for why abortion is useful, didn't you know?! Let's go through them and examine them:

A woman should be allowed to abort a baby if it was a mistake or an accident

Um…why? People, this is the 21st century…we know in this day and age just how exactly a baby is made. A woman knows that if she enters into unprotected intercourse with a man there is a very high chance the woman will become pregnant. PEOPLE SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME HAVE KNOWN THAT THIS PROCESS CREATES BABIES. There is no 'accident' involved. So a woman should not be allowed to kill a baby because she was stupid and didn't use some kind of protection if she didn't want the pregnancy. Stupidity and recklessness do not justify the murder of babies.

If a woman was raped and becomes pregnant, she should be allowed an abortion to destroy the unwanted pregnancy

Most people seem to be on board with this one. It seems logical, but is it really? A woman is raped, forced into sex (most of the time) against her will and, as a product of that, becomes pregnant. Most would say, "Abort it, you didn't want it and you didn't have a choice. It's ok if you do." I fail to see how just because the woman's choice of pregnancy was forcefully taken away from her, that it justifies taking the choice of life away from a baby. In essence what this is really saying is: You can justify one wrong turn of events by committing your OWN wrong turn of events. WRONG! Adoption does exist. Instead of murdering a baby, why not let him live with a family that will actually love him? Just because your choice of pregnancy was taken away does not justify the murder of babies. Doing wrong yourself does not justify wrong done to you.

It's ok to abort a baby that may have mental or physical handicaps

Again, why? If you don't feel like you can handle the demanding needs of a handicapped child, again, adoption does exist. Just because the baby is born handicapped doesn't mean he can't live some resemblance of a fulfilling life. Why take that away from him or her? Mental or physical handicaps are not justification for the murder of babies.

An abortion is acceptable if the birth of the baby will lead to the death of the mother
This one is kind of tricky. It would be hard to lose both your child and your wife to a fatal pregnancy. Personally I would see if there were other means to deliver the baby or what exactly will cause the death of the mother? The only thing I can think of is that people from thousands of years past have gone through the pain and loss of losing the mother and child to child birth. It's a traumatic and awful thing to happen. But somehow we managed to make it, in light of that, all the way to 2008. Bad things do happen to good people, pregnancies do go wrong. It would also depend on whether the baby would live, but kill the mother. Would it be better to let one person die to save another? An enigma. I have no reprimand for this one, because it doesn't involve suspending reason or common sense. It's based solely on the parties involved.
In closing, is abortion actually a moral and acceptable procedure? I would have to say absolutely not. In most of these cases, rational thinking and logic have been suspending for ridiculous reasons. Are we saying as long as the baby was an accident and unplanned, it's ok to murder it? Are we saying that because you were raped and became pregnant, you now are allowed to kill a baby because of it?
I listened to a Jewish lawyer (he was an atheist, but had relatives murdered at Auschwitz) say, "Abortions are fine since the human is undeveloped in their mental capacities." ORLY? FO REALZ? J/K? I'm sorry, I'll just let Dr. Bahnsen sum it all up (from his debate with the same lawyer):
"A child does not become a human being when his mental capacities are fully developed. I can't believe a man who had relatives killed under that kind of thinking would now apply it to innocent, unborn children. Because, you see, if you start saying that those who you deem not fully developed can be executed, then we're right back to Hitler and the genocide of people that you don't think are fully developed."
And he's right. It's a scary age we're moving into when our society can trivialize human life into something less than human, so we can feel better about executing it. It's not a matter about varying stages, or undeveloped mental capacities…it's simply a matter of taking human life, thinking, "I'll just pretend you're not really human yet," and then murdering it. Disgusting. And it disgusts me that there are so many monstrous women out there that condone this very act; call it 'Women's rights,' even.
I fail to see where somewhere in the past women were given the supreme decision of murdering life. We have laws and judicial people that pretty much frown on people murdering other people. But, if we change people to baby and baby to fetus and fetus to undeveloped embryo with little to no mental capacities, then murder becomes a woman's right and is perfectly reasonable. Pardon my French, but that is the biggest load of sh*t I have EVER heard.
I feel truly sad for our nation if candidate acceptance is based on whether he thinks murdering babies is cool or not. And if he does, women like him even more. It's really sad that women in our country would rather murder a baby, than take responsibility for their actions. So…have you heard the latest dead baby joke? It's called Abortion. Peace and God bless."

Well, whatcha think? His smartness astounds me. Haha. Even stuff I already knew it was just nice to have a refresh on the subject and put down so good and bluntly. Anyway, I swear I'll post again within the next few days, okay? Missed you! <3

Little Laidey

Emilie is babysitting our niece Adelaide today.
I swear, all I ever do with this child is hug, kiss, and take pictures of her! Nick was like, "She's a baby. That's what you're supposed to do with her."

This is her checkin' out the kitty cat, Cal. Who, PS...had 5 kittens a few days ago! Anybody want a cat? :P I love them all though, and I'll prolly post about them later maybe when they have open eyes and aren't quite so...um, pathetic. Lol. Think Pixar's Monsters INC. here. "Kitty!"

Also, I think Emilie has started to rub off on her.

She's a little texting queen! Lol. Bright, colorful toys that spin, rattle and crinkle? Not for this chickidee. She's pretty into the electronics. Phone, camera, iPod. I wonder how many people have had to get new phones because of baby drool. Hah!

This little sugarbee holds her own bottles now just fine. For awhile there she wouldn't do it because the ladies that had been babysitting her held her and fed her every time. So she kinda un-learned doing it herself. Now she's got the hang of it again. Also, there's no crawling yet...-sigh.- BUT she does scoot herself across the floor with her hands and spins around on her belly to get where she wants to go. Lazy bum! :PCutest baby contest winner RIGHT here. Look at those dark, gorgeous eyes. And the pretty eyelashes! She's such a beautiful baby.

Anyway, that's all. Just thought I'd share a little bit of the cuteness we have with us today.
Hope you're having a good Saturday!

She's my Priestess, I'm your Priest. Yeeeeah...

Thought it was about time for a real gamey post! I've been playing my Priest alot..because I love her, and because I downloaded this thing called Quest Helper that shows me where to go (without having to look it up on thottbot.com) for all my Quests! It's been a GIANT help, because I could not play her without it.



Here's she is. Looking all epic and wonderful. -Sigh.- I love it. I'm level 69!!!!!!!! Only 1 more level to go until I'm freakin' finished with leveling and it's time to get money, money, money and fight, fight, fight for all my EPIC gear! I am so excited (if you couldn't tell). There's this gorgeous cowl that I want for her that puts a glowy halo circle around your head when you have it on. -Droolz.-



Isn't she perty? ugh, and so matchy. I ran Durnholde with some people a few days ago, and it has this thing where it disguises your character into a human? OMG. I am sooo glad I'm a Night Elf! I look so freakin' awesome the way I am. But when it turned me into some pasty red-head I looked like such a loser. Gag me.

Beloooow are pictures of my EPIC MOUNT!!! Yeah, I finally bought one. I was working on getting Exalted reputation with Stormwind (The human city), so I could buy an epic horse instead...
I'm sorry, but personally I think the gear on the frostsabers/nightsabers make them look beyond stoopid. Anyway, it was taking too long...and I just know I was getting all this crazy looks in-game like, "Dubya tee eff is a lvl 68 doing on a lvl 40 mount?! Reeeetard!" So i bought one. That's my first purple. <33>
Rawwrrr, kitty!
Here I am hanging out with my hottie quest-giver and his flying mount. Hey there, handsome...;D
















Hmmm. What to say about this below picture. Hopefully you can read what I pasted on there, but....this is me getting raped by some Horde players who popped up while I was questing and snapping pictures for my blog (and your viewing pleasure. See Night Elf above. Hehe.) Needless to say they killed poor little innocent me. And you know what? Freakin' KUDOS to them. Like it's totally hard to kill a Holy-spec priest decked out in pure holy GEAR. Yay...heal bonus FTW in Player vs. Player. I think not!

Ummmm....This is me killing a spider. I just thought it was a neat-o action pic. Oooh, blasted with Holy Fire for 807!!! Take that, you creepy crawler. ;P And burn damage afterward for 10 seconds. Pow, pow.

Okay, that's all. Sorry if you didn't understand a word of this post...but just know that I am wasting my life away on it a bunch again...and having a great time!!
Look, see? Didn't I tell you to check back? I forgot how much I like blogging.....hehe.

Night, peeps!

Gradamation. Er, wait..

Yeah, yeah. It was forever ago. But who cares! I finally have the time to post, so I'm gonna. Time not spent playing WoW anyway.

Finally got my computer in the shop, and it turns out the reason it was running so slow was that when I had to system restore it the last time--I installed Windows...over Windows. So it was totally bogged down.

Now let's try this whole picture thing again. Cross your fingers! -Clicks.-

Ah yes....walking down the aisle. I was last, of course. Darned last name!

My pastor...giving a little graduation sermon/charge thing. I dunno!

My parents and I!

Me and Nick. Gorgeous couple, as always. Our children will be models. ;P

We're sisters. Could you tell? Yeah, me neither. Hah!

Okay, okay. I guess I can't bring myself to take ALL of the glory. It was Emilie's 8th grade graduation too. She went IN to her 4 years of torture good ol' education just as I got out! Close call, eh? :P

Here are the parents with 'Milie dear.

Friends are awesome. :)
I love Emily for being there. She got me flowers and a Princess Bride themed Grad card (Inconcievable!)
None of my bestests (Square) were there. Britt had to work, Emily's sister got married, Keeley had to work.
(Inconcievable!)
But Nick's parents came too (Thank you!!!) and that was really sweet.

Awwwwwe. Graduated togeeeether. How cute.

If my computer didn't suck, I could show you my graduation speech video. Hahaha...Nathan recorded it. I received looots of compliments on it. The 3 other people who graduated with me either cried, talked forever or both. And mine was short, comedic and matter-o-fact. No sob-fest here. My youth pastor's wife, Jessica, was the first to say something. "Natalie, I loved your speech! You're a woman after my own heart. I swear, if you had got all mushy up there I would have been very disappointed." (Many to follow)
Anyway, it was a good day. Good time. Good Graduation. I'm glad to be out!

P.S.
The pictures uploaded 1 at a time when I shrunk them to practically nothing in MS Paint first. So sorry if they're kinda dingy, but...thas all I got for ya. Since I know the way to get around Blogger constantly giving me picture upload errors, there will be more posts VERY soon. Check back! And thanks for reading. <33

A short story.

"Each of her fingers made a small protest of impatience in turn. A steady and constant drum upon the wooden desk. Tap, tap, tap...no, not click. Not long enough fingernails. But a subtle pat as she rolled her knuckles to tap, tap tap again and again! Words that were picked up from nowhere decent rolled through her brain, but by some grace never escaped her lips. She released a long, bored sigh....And finally closed the program."

Like it? That's just a tiny piece of the NOVEL I wrote while waiting for Blogger to upload my pictures!!! Never happened. I waited for flippin' ever, man.... nothing! So I'm sorry again...and I'll try it again. But it was making me annngry. >;( Grr..

"Well, yes, we could read your blog...or you could just tell us about your school day."