Cherish Every Moment

Pine Valley Four Wheeling with my FIANCE :) :)
Thanksgiving Bowling With the Love of My Life
Jer's Eagle Court of Honor...Kor and Mike in the "Eagle's Nest"
Family Pictures
I LOVE HIM SO MUCH!!!!!!!

Thanksgiving was awesome! I love my family and time with them, but I must say my favorite part was spending 2 and a half weeks, STRAIGHT, with Mike. As most of you know, we are doing the long distance thing, but he had a long Thanksgiving Break, so he came up to Provo while I finished the week of school before my break started, then we headed to St. George to spend a few days with his family. It was a blast, I was able to meet his best friends and their wives for the first time and I know of a surety they will be life long friends of ours. We also got to go up to his family's SICK cabin in Pine Valley. It was so much fun to get away for a mini vacation with his family. They have lots of fun things to do up there, one of them, as you can see, is four wheeling! It was my first time and I thought we were going to die a couple times ;) but I LOVED it! Then on Sunday we headed down to California to spend the week with my family. We took our engagement pictures which we ended up LOVING, we saw New Moon, AWESOME!!!, Mike went golfing with my dad and Jer, and just spent time with the fam. Got the bad news about Brit on Thanksgiving Day, which made me pretty dang emotional. I was able to see Taylor Thanksgiving Night, which really helped me. We were also able to take family pics for our Christmas card and my mom took some fun ones of Mike and I. It was such a crazy week. I must rave about my fiance for a bit. He is seriously perfect for me. He has such a good sense of exactly what I need, exactly when I need it. One of my favorite things about him is that he is like perfectly on cue when he pulls me in and holds me in his arms. I can't believe I'm so blessed to have him for all of eternity. Saying goodbye to him on Monday morning was by far the hardest thing I've ever done. Long distance relationships are not fun, nor easy. But Mike helps me through it. I can most definitely say that we have learned to CHERISH EVERY MOMENT we have with one another. He's seriously my Prince Charming. Just what I always wanted. Love the man to death. Thanks for choosing me babe :)

Prayers For Brit

So, you know how sometimes you truly don't know the value of something until it's gone or there's a possibility it may be gone? Thanksgiving Day, we did the traditional morning movie with all the cousins and afterward, I saw my mom on the phone, her eyes bright red and filled with tears. I was very confused on what was happening. My dad came over to me and said the words that NO ONE wants to hear, "She's ok.......but she's very, very hurt...." and my mom says, as she wraps her arms around me, "Ashley, Britney Sander has been in a very bad car accident. She has broken her neck and lots of facial bones. But she's moving, which is a good sign." I truly felt my world crumbling, Britney has been my best friend ever since her family moved to Corona. Britney, Taylor, and I were like the three amigas growing up. I haven't seen Brit since May. After many many prayers, we have come to learn that she fractured her C1 in the neck, TONS of bones in her face (too many to list), and her left eye has some vision, her right eye has none. She is one blessed girl, we're lucky we still have her. I love her so much and it's been an emotional few days. I hate that it takes things like this to make me take a step back and remember the things that have REAL value in my life. I love you girl, prayers are with you.

At Brit's Bridal Shower!
Girl's Night To Pinkberry!
Maids of Honor With Our Bestie
Taylor, Brit, and I

Halloween Fun!!!

Carving our 43 pounders :)
My ghost!
Kaylee, Mike's 3 year old niece who's OBSESSED with him
The future father-in-law's birthday dinner
Mike's cute niece's on Halloween

I just love Halloween, it's one of my favorite holidays! As some pre-Halloween fun, my old roomie, Jess, and I went and picked out the biggest pumpkins we could find and carved them! SO FUN! She's also engaged so she's my good engaged friend this semester :)I went to St. George for Halloween weekend, Mike didn't get there until later Friday Night so all of us (his whole family was there except him and his two little bro's who are on missions) went to the Stahely Family Farm. They had tons of fun things there including a little petting zoo a couple of rides and a corn maze. Mike finally got into town and we all went to dinner for Mike's Dad's birthday. The boys decided us women needed bonding time and figured the best way for us to do that was for them to go golfing. Haha they would use that as an excuse ;) Saturday was quite the eventful day, between carving pumpkins with all the little kids and getting the annual Christensen Haunted House up and running, we were a tired bunch by the end of the night. It was a fun and CRAZY weekend. Now only 12 more days till I see him again.......I HATE SAYING GOODBYE TO MY FIANCE!!!! It's no fun :(

Home to Cali for Fall Break!

So a couple weeks ago I had the wonderful opportunity to go home to California for a week over my Fall Break. I had told my parents not to tell my little brother that I was coming home, so when I walked up the stairs, he was in the office sitting at the computer and didn't pull his eyes away from the screen because my mom was talking to him, but I was the one standing in the doorway. He FINALLY after a good 45 seconds of my mom talking, turned and looked at me, looked back at the computer...and...oh!...LIGHTBULB! Haha he did a double take and couldn't believe his eyes! Hahahaha he stood up and was like "No, No, No, WHAT? NO. Is this FOR REAL????" and then he finally squeezed me tight and we stayed up until about 12:30 am talking (ha even though he had seminary the next morning)! It was SOOOOO nice to spend time with him, I miss that kid like crazy whenever I'm not around him. Then Mike drove into town for the weekend and we went to the Santiago High School Homecoming Football game with my family. It was so much fun!! It was a much needed weekend, but I'm once again counting down until I see them next!!!! Thanksgiving needs to hurry up and get here!!!!!!

Dear Victoria's Secret,

I am a recently engaged gal who loves your website. After deciding my colors for my wedding, I decided to browse your site for any cute Little Black Dresses for my bridesmaids to wear. I quickly fell in love with your Little Flirty Black Dress and decided it was a MUST have for my girls. So we ordered them, in hopes of receiving this.... ...but instead, received this.....
Might as well make our own dresses out of GARBAGE BAGS, everyone knows they'd look A LOT better than what you sent us. So my loving bridesmaids have been so kinda and have helped me locate this AMAZING website called SHABBYAPPLE.COM and we are now deciding between this dress...

....and this dress.... I'm sorry you have lost our business. But I would request our money back and better advertisement if you'd like to keep your customers happy.
Yours truly,
The Future Mrs. Christensen

He's Legit

And the long road begins! I had the chance to fly to AZ to spend time with Mike and my cousin Amber (and her family) over General Conference weekend. It was my first time ever to AZ and I absolutely loved it! I'm going to be spoiled because Amber's husband just started his residency and they live about 8 miles away from Mike's school. I LOVE HER KIDS!!!! And then I have another cousin, Heather (and her family), who lives about 2 hours away from where we'll live. AND my cousin Joy just moved back to AZ with her family and they'll be about a half hour from us! AHHHH SOOOOO exciting! Then the following weekend, after gen conf, I had the chance to go back to AZ with Mike's parents for Mike's White Coat Ceremony. "Now presenting, Student Doctor Mike"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I know he's not legit, legit, but as legit as a doctor in training can be, that's what he is! He's doing well in school....studies his little brain out ALL THE TIME. But, he's so amazing and makes sure that I know I'm loved. I love this guy to pieces!!!!!

I'M ENGAGED!!!!!!

This is when he was distracting me....
Pretty huh??
This is what we walked into
SO beautiful
Mike's cute little niece, Kaylee
Flaunting the BLING
Mom was the first one I called
Talking with Grandma!
Pretty huh???
Close up of the ring!

Wellllllll it happened! Mike proposed to me this last weekend!!! Ok, so I've told this story well over 50 times, and I'll tell it again. So we had dinner with his family, and he wanted to go up to the pretty rocks and take pics over looking St. George, with the pretty sunset in the background. He made his story VERY clear that he didn't have the ring, but part of me was wondering if he was lying to surprise me. Well, we were done taking pics, and he said "K, Let's go"....of course, making me think "Ok, he really DOESN'T have the ring...." So then we headed to his house, walked in, and I saw candles everywhere. There was a trail of rose pedals leading to this cute little table that was set up all fancy. I started crying and said "aw, you're parents didn't need to do this for us" (still totally clueless that he was about to propose). We sat down, and my eyes were pulled to the backyard, where on the back gate, there were rope lights that spelled out "I love U" so those turned on at the same time the water fountains turned on. Out of no where, his little 3 year old niece walks up to us, all cute in her foofy white dress, hair all done...and she hands me the bouquet of roses and handed Mike the box with the ring in it. Then, he got down on one knee, and proposed!!! I was BALLING my eyes out. Wow, I am truly the luckiest girl in the world. He's so good to me, I never imagined I'd ever be this in love. His family got the whole thing on video, ha they came out cheering and all happy. I LOVE HIS FAMILY SO MUCH!!!! They are so sweet, truly make me feel like I'm a part of their family. I can't wait for the upcoming months. I hope you all will be a part of this time in my life. Love you all, hope you enjoy the post!