Wedding and a Funeral

Me, Randy, Grandma Richins, Grandpa Richins

I am so bad for not posting in such a long time. I love reading other people's blogs and enjoy blogging however life is crazy busy now that I am happily married!

Randy and I got married on July 6th in Rocklin, California. It was a beautiful wedding. My good friend Amy Hansen and her son Dane drove to California with me and Amy took a ton of wedding pictures. My mom, Trent and Trina and kids came as well as Kendra and Morgan. My sisters surprised me by making bridesmaid dresses. Randy's Aunt Joyce and Uncle Jerry hosted the wedding and did most of the preparations. It was just beautiful. We went on a honeymoon to a bed and breakfast. It was just a magical time in my life for so many reasons.

We drove back to Washington and started to settle in to our new lives as husband and wife when Randy's grandma Richin's passed away. She was 93 and the day we were packing the car with Randy's belongings from her house she fell and went down hill from there. Randy spent the last 6 months living with his Grandparents and helping them out. On July 15th his grandma passed away. So Randy and I returned to Gridley California to attend her funeral and spend time with family. I am so grateful that families are forever!

Life is crazy busy! Still love my job, I love my church callings and will not go this long to post on my blog again!

For more wedding pictures click here and more here!

How could I not love this man?!?

Randy and I send each other videos on our phones daily in addition to our daily phone call. This is my favorite that he sent me last week (I got his permission to post this on my blog). How could I not love him? He has the biggest heart, is so compassionate and asks for nothing in return! I am so excited to be his wife and make him as happy as he makes me!

This is the gorgeous wedding ring he bought me. It is being sized right now and I won't be wearing it until he places it on my finger at our wedding. He said that he chose this ring because it represents our life, the center stone is the God Head and he and I are the other stones on each side. I have a feeling his aunt Joyce helped him pick out the ring.

I am not only so blessed to be marrying such a wonderful man but also into such an awesome family! His aunt Joyce has become the best wedding planner and is turning this wedding into the wedding of my dreams! I have never had a nice wedding so I am nervous yet so excited.

The days are going by so slow. I am flying down on the 19th for the weekend to spend time with Randy. I am looking forward to it. I will be staying with Aunt Joyce and her husband Jerry. I am almost as excited to see Joyce as I am to be with Randy! I said almost :)

Here comes the Bride!

Yep I am getting married! Randy and I have been talking non stop ever since we reconnected and he asked me to marry him. I fasted, prayed and talked to my bishop and got confirmation many times. He is in California but will be moving out here to be with me once we are married. We are getting married at his aunts house in California and then a year from now will go through the Vegas temple to be sealed. Our families are very happy and supportive. One of his aunts, Joy Trotter was my mutual teacher growing up.

The wedding is July 6th at 7pm in Rocklin California. Anyone who would like to attend is invite just let me know in advance. Our colors are pink and dark brown. His Aunt Joyce has been so gracious and is planning the wedding. She goes above and beyond the call of duty and is so sweet!

He is the man of my dreams and I should have married him the first time 23 years ago when we were dating. However we both had things to learn. I will post pictures of the wedding! It does seem crazy but trust me it is right. If I posted a list of all the ways the spirit has confirmed it to us and how we both have been being prepared by our Heavenly Father to be together it would give you goosebumps and it is a long list!

I am Twitterpated!

I love Facebook! Through it I was able to reconnect with an old boyfriend. He is not on Facebook but his cousin is and I emailed her asking for his contact information. Long story short we have been talking, texting, emailing back and forth none stop since we reconnected!

I met Randy Couch in Moab when I was 17. I kept in touch with him when I moved to Las Vegas and he came and stayed with us in Vegas for a couple of months. I was young, he was older and little wild and things didn’t work out and we went our separate ways.

Our lives have been very similar. We both have been married 3 times and he has only a son and so do I. We both were inactive in the church for many years and we are both back to being active in the church! I am further ahead in my journey but he is making huge progress.

It is weird how it was so long ago that we were dating but now it seems like yesterday and we have started right back up where we left off. We are taking it one day at a time. But we both want a temple marriage and feel that if we base our relationship around the gospel we will create a strong relationship and/or marriage. No matter how far it goes we will always be friends. But I love the feeling I get when we talk. It is so exciting and gives me something to look forward too. I just might have found my happily ever after!

I love my new to me car!

My Dodge Intrepid has been on its last leg for a while. The car was a lemon from the get go and I had to replace the engine 2 years after buying. Chrysler does not stand behind their product so I had to pay for it. Any ways the newer engine is about to go out, the brakes were shot and the a/c went out. I hate the car!

So my parents are downsizing and were telling me how they were going to get rid of their Pathfinder and I said I wanted it! And would take over the payments.

It is so funny how somethings just fall into place and are suppose to happen. I was trying to figure out how to get the car from Vegas to Washington when I saw a friend on Facebook that used to live here but had moved to Vegas. So I added him and a couple days later his status said he was coming to Washington from Vegas to meet his new grandbaby. I contacted him and he drove it up here!

I love it! I love riding high. I was playing with the stereo today and figured out how to make the display on the stereo PINK!! Now I am really in love!

I am so blessed. I have a great job with 2 awesome bosses, I live in a really cute house, have a great new to me car, and have great friends and family. Life is good!

I am not just the crazy cat lady, I am a dog sitter was well!

I had the pleasure of watching Barkley for my friend Rob while he and his family went on vacation. We had Barkley for 10 days! He is the best dog ever! He is trained to ring bells that hang off a door knob when he needs to go outside. He is well behaved and only poops once a day!

Barkley slept next to me, he loves to cuddle and he went to work with me. Any time I would leave to go some where he wanted to go. The cats did not like him at first but they didn't mind him by the time he left. My cat Rat (short for Ratatouille) however loved him. Rat would follow Barkley every where and play chase with Barkley in the house. They were buddies! I miss Barkley and look forward to watching him again in the future.

Death

I hate it, I fear it, I wish it didn't exist. There is not a day that goes by that I don't think about it. I know it is all part of the plan and I do believe in life after death. However I miss those who have died. I miss my Grandma and Grandad Dickerson, my Grandma and Grandpa Branscom, my good friends Jacqui Looney and Jana Walls.

I mourn the death of those I have never met! Princess Di, Pedro from the Real World, Anna Nicole Smith, Heath Ledger. It takes me about a month to get over someone's death to where I don't think about it every day and that is just for those I have never met. It takes me much longer to get over death when it is someone I care about. I am sad when animals die.

I hate getting older. I just started to learn how to enjoy life and I feel that mine is now about half over! And it freaks me out that the first half went by so fast. I fear the day I lose one of my parents and I think about that every day. I could not imagine life without them. I have about 20 more years to have my parents, if I am lucky. That is how old my son Colin is and it seems like yesterday he was born! The time goes by so fast.

I have started to reconnect with friends from high school and regret not keeping in touch with them. It is hard to comprehend that we are in high school 4 short years however they seem to have an impact on our entire lives. The friendships made during those years carry on with us for a life time. At the time high school seemed to last forever.

When Christ and Satan presented their plans in the preexistence I am sure I was one of the people on the fence. To me Satan's plan sounded good because we would just come to earth to receive a body and return. I am assuming the veil would not exist so we would remember the preexistence. I would bet that my family had to remind me why the Saviors plan was the right choice and pull me to the Saviors side.

I don't want to die! I don’t' want anyone close to me to die. You would think that I would take better care of myself and become healthy so I could live longer. However, when you are an addict you don't think of the consequences of your actions. You just feed the addiction.

The house is finally put together!

It took forever it seems but my house is finally put together! I love my house and I think Colin does too. Although the bedrooms are smaller than we are used to, it is so nice to have such a large kitchen, living room and tons of storage. Our cats seem to like the house as well. It took them a while. Some of them hid for a couple of days.

I feel so blessed to have such great friends, awesome bosses, great job, and a beautiful house. I am now looking forward to having friends over, planting a garden and just enjoying life!

I miss my friends in Issaquah and I hope they come visit. I would love for anyone to come visit anytime. I now have a home I am proud to let others in.

Additional photos

Happy 20th Birthday Colin!

Tonight at 6:30pm Colin will officially be 20 years old. He was born in Las Vegas at the no longer Women's Hospital. He was born by C section after I was induced for almost 24 hours! The first thing the doctor said when he pulled him out was "wow look at the size of balls this kid has". He was talking to the other doctor and he must have thought I was too out of it to pay attention.

Colin weighed 9 pounds 12 oz. He came into this world very stubborn! The nurses in the nursery would call me and ask if I could take him because he was throwing such a fit in the clear plastic crib thingy that he turned himself sideways. The nurses would constantly wrap him up in a blanket and cover his arms. He hated it and I finally told them if they would leave his arms free he would stop throwing fits and I was right.

It is hard for me to believe life has gone by so fast and that my one and only baby is 20 years old. I feel like it was just yesterday that he was born. I remember every detail. I love you Colin no matter how angry I get at you. I am not the best mom in the world. I know there are things I could have done better when raising you and because I didn't I am sorry. But I only wanted and continue to want the best for you in life. Just know that there is no one else in the world that will love and support you as much as your mom will and does so try to remember that when you get angry at me.

Love you Colin and Happy Birthday!

I hate moving! But love my new house!

So I am moving this weekend to Tacoma Washington. I am moving into a cute house that the company I work for owns. Yes Colin is moving with me and we are very excited to be living in a city again. I love Issaquah but I am ready for a change. I finally changed my name to Dickerson on my bank accounts, utilities and drivers license.

It amazes me how much crap I accumulate in such a short time. I have lived here almost 7 years. Moving is a great excuse to get rid of stuff I know I will never use or need. It is a lot of work however. And once you start packing and moving things around in your place you have lived in for a while you see all the dirt! My current apartment is so dirty it is freaking me out. I am going to have to clean it before my friends from my ward come over to clean!! I am very overwhelmed but trying to take it a day at a time and by Friday night if everything is not done then I will panic.

Good thing about the new house is I have a ton of storage space. There is a garage and lots of closets, pantries, etc in this house and the kitchen is 3 times the size of the one in my apartment! Who knows I might start cooking a lot more now that I will have the room. I also have a huge back yard and a great place to plant a garden!

I will post pictures once I get my house put together but here are pictures of it empty.


I am sad I will be moving out of my ward and will not be close to a lot of my great friends but I am looking forward to meeting new friends and a fresh start. I have heard from several people that the single adults in my age range are a very large and active group down in Tacoma! I have joined a group for them on Facebook and am shocked at all the activities they plan and do.

I love you my Issaquah friends and I am so grateful for knowing you. I will not be a stranger! You will see me often I promise!

Change has come. It is a good day!