So wedding planning has died down. I am still excited to plan it, it just seems work has become more overwhelming and time consuming. Oh well. some ideas i have thus far. for flowers i want my bridesmaids to hold baloons. i think its unique and shows my personality. i will hold a slim boquet of iris's and maybe some lavender. we are having it at skibowl, and there is this amazing view of mount hood wich i LOVE! AND the workers will be doing all the setup. also to get to where the ceremony is at you have to ride the skilift! wich is amazing! I have found my wedding dress and my bridesmaids are well on their way to getting theirs. i went to bens wedding yesterday and all i could think of was my wedding and how scared i would be standing in front of everyone and in front of taylor ha. but i love him so much and cant even wait to be married! :)

So for the past few weeks, taylor and I had been planning on hiking up multnomah falls on the 4th of july. Me, being my forgetful self, forgot to ask for it off, so i had to work at 1:30. We decided to get up really early so we would have time to hike up and enjoy the views and the falls. So we got up and left around 6 am. I was so tired, and the night before i had had the worst night at thriftway where everything was going wrong, to put it bluntly i was in a very sour mood. I kept trying to enjoy taylors company but it was really hard. so we were driving along and taylor would ramble on about something, being his normal silly self, and i was slowly growing more annoyed. at one point i was trying to vent to him, to let him know how horrible of a night i had had, but in the middle of me talking he interrupted and rambled on about something else. I then just wanted to cry and i had a feeling that the morning hike would not be a very fun one. we arrived at Multnomah falls and started hiking. I was still really chilly and i had forgotten my jakcet so taylor let me wear one of his sweatshirts. It was nice and peaceful and there was no one around except some man wandering around with a camera. i finally decided after hiking for about ten minutes that i wasn't going to let the night before, ruin my day with taylor and i tried to ignore it. we made it to the top and we stopped and looked down at the falls. we talked a little and then we threw a couple pennies down the falls, just for fun, ya know. ha. then we continued hiking. there was this spot that taylor and i had visited last year that was so nice. there were a couple rocks sitting in the middle of the stream that you could sit on and there was a waterfall in front and it looked really pretty. As we approached that spot taylor asked me if i wanted to stop there for a while. I didn't want to because we would have had to walk through the icy cold water and i was still a little chilly. Taylor seemed a little upset, but i didn't pay much attention to it. so we kept hiking and i really had hoped we could get to the very top this time. we passed the nice romantic spot that taylor had wanted to go to, and a little ways ahead was another area where you could sit and look at another waterfall. this one you had to climb up a big rock and we found a tree that had fallen over that we sat on. we were sitting there enjoying eachothers company, watching the waterfall, and talking, when all of a sudden, taylor said "So I gotta question for ya." he looked at me and he looked really serious. but i thought nothing of it since taylor always had very odd questions he always asks me. i said ok, and he said very dramatically "are you ready?". i had thought odd....but "yes" i said. then he said even more dramatically "are you really ready?" "yes!" i said. i was very curious. then practically yelling he said "are you really really sure your ready!!??" "haha yeah! what!!!??" i said. then he whipped out his hand and in it was a box with a ring in it and he softly said "will you marry me?"

WOW! i was so in shock but without hesitating i said YES! then i said "really!? you serious?" and he said he was, and then i started to cry. hahaha! After all that time of me telling myself i would never cry when asked to marry someone, there i was blubbering like a baby. i don't remember putting my hand out, it was all a blur but he put the ring on and then we were kissing. aaaah, it was so nice. i remember i kept apologizing for crying and he kept saying it was ok. he seemed so scared and when we hugged, he was shaking. later i found out that when he kept asking me if i was ready, the ring had fallen out of the box and into it's lid and he was trying to put it back with one hand. hahah, silly taylor. i love him so much! so i finally calmed down but i wa still in shock. it took about half an hour for that foggy feeling to wear off. by then we were halfway down the trail. we had fun hiking back. people were passing us, and at one point we saw a man sitting on a rock and just as we were passing him i saw a little mouse like thing hop past me. i pointed it out to talor and i squealed! "look at the mouse!" and the guy in a very serious, and soft voice said "thats a pyke. only found in the gorge. they are almost exctinct..." he mumbled more about it and then me and taylor walked away and had a few laughs about that. then we drove to a truck stop, got breakfast then we were so tired we just sat in his car for almost an hour just sitting and talking and man we were both so happy! aaah...i am SOOO happpy! AND i am so lucky to have a man like Taylor! :)

So taylor and i went to the beach this last saturday. we left at around 9 am. got lost, following mapquest directions, and finally arrived in Lincoln city at around 1 pm. we enjoyed a fun-filled drive full of exciting conversations, lots of laughs and taylor getting really frustrated and making me drive :). we decided to immediately stop and get food the second we drove into Lincoln City. so we stopped at some hole in the wall restaurant that had random cows all around the place for decorations. I had clam chowder in a bread bowl...DIVINE...and taylor had fish and chips. his was pretty good to. after lunch we drove to the beach, and went on a walk up the beach for about half an hour. we found a large rock in the middle of the beach which we climbed up and sat and read the Bible for about half an hour. then we sat and talked. it was cozy, and relaxing. we then walked back to where we started and went into the city and wandered around the shops. We walked into a small shop called "Grandma's attic" which was basically a very neat version of Mike's second hand store. taylor bought a walking stick and then talked to the lady for over fifteen minutes about the weather. oh boy, talk bout embarrassing. ha. then we went into a knife store and he bought a cool machete. that was a cool store. so yeah. we kept walking around then we decided to go BACK to the beach and walk up the other side. so we walked...for about three hours. we kept looking at the ground because the ocean was washing up these colorful small pebbles and we were trying to find the most interesting ones. then we stopped by a washed up log and sat some more and talked some more. and then we walked back! WHEW! lots and lots of walking. when we half way to his car we saw another area of small shops and i was getting so tired so we went in and he got me an iced frappe which was poorly made and not worth the $4.50 he paid, but we each got a piece of chocolate. i got Peanut butter Toffee and he got a Peanut Butter Truffle. Both were very tasty. so we got back to his car and we drove to a restaurant which i forgot the name of, but Taylor would remember :) it was really fancy and we sat in the bar by a window that had a nice view of the beach. it was really nice. we had some really tasty food. aaah, it twas fun. we were so exhausted but we wanted to stay and watch the sunset so we walked back to the beach and found that someone had left a dying fire, so we sat down by it and i read my book and he just sat there. it was also very relaxing. unfortunately our hour wait on the beach was almost in vain because there was no sunset because of all the clouds, but it still was very nice, and i finished my book. we then drove back home. i took a nap in the car and woke up to a very frustrated taylor and we were in some city which i forgot already. so taylor made me drive again and he fell asleep while i drove around, through downtown portland and finally found our way back to estacada.
and thus ended our beachy adventures. it was very fun. :)

So yesterday i got so mad at work. Probably the madest i have ever been. It started when i got on. Tyler, a courtesy clerk who has been with the company well over two years, had started his shift at 8am. I started at 2 pm which meant he had 2 and a half hours left to finish all of his tasks. I walked the store to see all he had done, wich was absolutely nothing. I then told him he had until 4 to get everything done and then him and i would walk the store and i would check his work. He went off working, and I went and did my stuff. At four he was still working on stuff, wich really should have been done by the time i got on, so i gave him an extra 15 minutes. We then walked through the store, and he had hardly gotten anything done. The eggs weren't filled, the bottleroom was not cleaned or organized, the floors were dirty and not swept, the beer and soda weren't faced. Ahhh it made me so mad. So after i pointed all of that out i looked him in the eyes and ssternly said "You have been slacking so much lately, it's rediculous. I assume you want your job. You had better start impressing me otherwise you won't have one. Everything that we just looked at should have been don't BEFORE i got on. You really need to pick up the pace on stop slacking!" I think i actually scared the poor kid. He kept saying "yah, your right." then i told him to go home. So that was tyler. I really hope he gets better, because he really is a nice kid.
So the rest of my day was uneventful. It was a nice easy day, and i was getting everything done. That night we had to get ready for the floor crew by pulling all floor displays off of the floor so they could clean them. There were these three tables in front by the checkstands that had a bunch of little debbie snacks, which after we closed i was going to just pick up and move into the checkstands. Well, i was making my usual round of the store when i came up front and saw Matt with a shopping cart, throwing all the Little Debbie snacks into it. I looked at matt and asked him what he was doing. He said he was getting ready for the floor crew. i then said "No put those back. we can just pick the table up and move it." he gave me this dumb look and said "uh i really don't think thats a good idea." I then said "Matt put them back. I picked this table up just the other night!" He grumbled and then started putting them back. A few minutes later I walked back up front and matt had another cart that he was putting these mini watermeolons in, which were in this little cardbord box. I asked him why he was doing that and to put them back because, yet again!, we can just move them easily into the checkstands. He then looked me in the eyes and said, "Carina i am going to have to disagree with you this time, i don't want to make a mess." I got so mad. I said it wouldn't make a mess, but he just ignored me. WOW! i was so mad. I just walked away. I didn't want to say anything that i would regret later. Just the fact that he refused to listen to me when i was making a descision really irritated me. ah. Oh well. It sounds like it wasn't that big of a deal, but i have always had trouble with this particular cashier. He never listens to me, or he will sit there and argue with me. Usually i just shrug it off, i really don't like conflict, but now it just REALLY makes me mad, that my authorty would be questioned.
well, i guess such is life as a manager. It was bound to happen.

MOUNTAIN MAN GRADY!