Pumpkins or Bridesmaids?

What color grey (or is it gray)? Long? Short? Bow? Bubble hem? Beading? Lace? OMG (please read not like a valley girl but a woman who never thought BM (bridesmaid not to be confused with the bridesmen that will be at our wedding) dresses was so complex.

When I first started this whole wedding planning process I thought I would have all my BM in a nice summery orange color dress. I was convinced finding the right shade of orange would be easy because in my little mind their were two shades of orange: burnt orange, the kind you see in fall and orange orange, the kind you see the rest of the year. So for about a year I was set on finding orange orange, but than I read an article about hideous BM dresses that Brides make the women they love wear. A quote in the article said that a group of women all wearing pink “looked like the row of Pepto Bismol bottles at the grocery store.” WOW can you imagine if that is what your guests thought of your BM? So I had a vision of my guest saying that my BM looked like a row of little PUMPKINS all lined up standing next to me. So with the pumpkin imagine still firm in my head I convinced my cousin, Amanda, to go BM dress shopping with me one day while she was out in Arizona visiting. We went to a local bridal shop and pulled a few dresses that we liked (none of which were orange) and we found a couple that might work but I still wanted to see what she would look like in an orange dress. So Amanda being the nice cousin that she is, usually looking great in anything, put on the orange dress that matched my vision the best. Amanda came out of the dressing room and there in front of me stood a PUMPKIN a very HOT pumpkin but a pumpkin none the less. So we looked at each other and I said “We need another color, this orange is not working.” With that we brain stormed and came up with grey and little did we know at the time that we were choosing the HOTTEST new color of the season.

Surely finding a gray dress will be easier than finding an orange one. Hopefully we can find a designer who all the girls (only 3) like and a dress they like and than we all like/agree on his/her gray. And a bigger hope of mine is that my ladies can also wear their gray dresses again because lets face it gray is a little more elegant than the orange color I was originally going with. So now we need to find BM dresses (as my mom has instructed)– but I guess I/we should formerly ask our Bridal party first.

xoxox

britt

Oh and if you want to know about Grey vs. gray here is a good link... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey

Weekend Celebrations

This weekend was so fun. I want to first start out by saying Happy Birthday to Sam. Sam is getting old but so are all of us and I am still pleased to be one of, if not the youngest in our core group of friends. So Happy Birthday Sam.

Friday afternoon was a good time for a little Happy Hour. Our only reader from Leesville has come back home to the G-town and wanted a little Mexican food and some good drinks. So with that in mind our resident food guru (Mr. Bach) suggested Mucho Gusto. Now I love Mucho Gusto and their yummy margaritas and Mexican pizza so I was more than game to tag along. So we spent a couple hours hanging out drinking and chatting. Friday night was nice. Barry and I just hung out at home just the two of us. Most of you who read this know that Barry has been working some crazy long hours and for us to just hang out and watch some TV it is nice. We went to bed early for a Friday but it was nice to catch up on some sleep and plus Barry had to wake up early Saturday for another fun field day at the bank.

I feel like I got so much accomplished for a Saturday. Barry was up early so I too was up early. I hung out on the couch with Lilly for a while than decided it was my time to get up and out of the house. So I decided I would go to Michaels and this place called Kelly Paper. I guess I should back track a little. With the wedding less than a year away and considering our wedding location we feel we need to get our Save the Dates out as early as possible so I have been working with Mike (the paper guy) to get the design done so they can get in the mail. So off to Michaels and Kelly Paper, I went in search of various items needed to “test” out my (well really Martha’s) design. I got all the stuff I needed and I even got myself a sticker/magnet/laminator to save myself some time in this whole wedding planning process. So since I had all the time in the world I went back to see Mike (second time in two days – yeah he thinks I’m crazy) to get a post card to test it out. Went home got it all assembled and sent out the “test” to my mom. Now it is a wait and see game to determine if that design is a go.

On Saturday night we were all going out for Sam’s Birthday. Once again our resident food guru suggested a place to eat. Now I am fine with trying new places but this place was in SCARY Phoenix with crack heads and homeless people walking around and it was getting dark. So after determining our wait was going to be about an hour and forty five minutes we decided to go to Radio Milano. Radio Milano was a safe bet: we knew the food would be good, the drinks would be fun, and the atmosphere would be nice. Just like we had thought all those things were GREAT but the service SUCKED. Our waiter was bad, really bad. I had ordered a second drink and never got it, bread was asked for that took forever to come, water was slowing coming and not one plate ever got taken off the table, among other things. So when we got the check we started figuring out who owed what (said waiter said he could split it but turns out he couldn’t) than between 5 and 10 minutes later he comes back and said he gave us the wrong check. Yeah the only thing different on check #2 was his 20% gratuity. At this point we needed to talk with a manager and ask her to take the gratuity off the bill. So in a rookie move she took care of the whole thing and we all walked out of the restaurant feeling a little weird about her paying for the whole bill. But we all got over it quickly and moved on to Drift to end our night celebration with a few drinks and laughs.

Sunday was a lazy day. We didn’t wake up until noon when one of our cell phones rang. So seeing what time it was we got up and got ready and made our way to Chandler Mall for some lunch, to get my ring cleaned and to watch a movie with Barry’s brothers. We saw X files which is not a good movie in my opinion but I have never seen an X Files episode in my life so I am not the best judge of how this movie is. Sunday night was just TV watching and getting ready for the work week ahead.

So I hope everyone in reader land had a good weekend and has a good week. I would like to send out a little love to Jen and Matt who will be taking the Arizona Bar Exam on Tuesday and Wednesday. Good Luck we know you both will do great and Barry and I can’t wait to celebrate Wednesday night when you get back from T-town.

Matt, Jen, Britt, & Barry at the Sun's game for Matt's Birthday.

xoxo

britt

What the World Needs

What the world needs now (besides love) is a bit more tolerance, specifically religious tolerance. I do not like to wear my religion on my sleeve, but I feel the need to get this out before I criticize. I was born and raised Catholic and I now attend church weekly. Not that this is what qualifies me to have an opinion, but I am a proud and happy Catholic.

I am very tolerant about other religions, in fact, I love that the world is rich with so many varieties of religion. Not one religion works for everyone and if someone finds a religion or spirituality that makes them a happy and good person, I think that is fantastic. I am happy I found that in Catholicism and I hope everyone finds something that works for them.

What brought this blog on: I do not like it when I am told in my Catholic Church to “evangelize.” Catholics are Christians (anyone who believes in Christ is a Christian) and have been doing this since the time of Jesus. I think we know how to worship. I am willing to talk about my religion to others who ask and I will show it through my every day actions, but I am not going to say grace before dinner in a restaurant to show people that I am Catholic. That is superficial. I know what is in the Bible. I know in Matthew it is stated to go and make disciples of all nations. It comes down to interpretation. The Catholic Church for years has used actions and love to spread the Word, not “evangelizing.” This is the state of religion in the United States, whoever can shout and yell the loudest about their religion wins. I do not think so.

And I also resent the fact that religion is used in politics. How dare politicians use a person's religious fervor to advance their own political cause. I agree that religions and political beliefs can overlap at times, but how dare they use religion to get a vote. That is cheap. There are religious, spiritual people of all brands of political parties.

Religion is not something to brag about or to shove in other people’s faces. It is easy to speak about religion, but harder to show it in actions. This is why some nuns no longer wear their habits, because they choose to show love through actions and some do still wear it because they are comfortable in it and that is great too. One person’s religion is not better than another’s choice. No individual is going to “hell” because their choice of religion – and I have heard individuals state this and I wish those individual realize this is what the Islamic fundamentalists believe. I went to a private Catholic school and loved it. One of the required classes I had to take was World Religions and it was a great class. I grew to appreciate Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and so forth. Each religion has great things about it and we could learn from each. If we could all appreciate one another’s choice of religion, things would run much smoother. Religion is about love, not judging others. I think that is God’s job.

P.S. – Great homily today at Mass about King Solomon and it is pertinent to taking the bar on Tuesday and Wednesday. King Solomon asked God for wisdom, that he may be able to rule wisely. The Priest noted that many people ask him to pray for football games, safe vacations, all sorts of things, but rarely does one ask for wisdom. Wisdom is not only about intelligence, but showing humility and making good choices as well as decisions. With that, I hope God graces all of us taking the Bar with wisdom this upcoming week.

-Jen

Candy "Bombs"

It is nice to hear a heart-warming story about the US, especially since there are so many negative news stories. Here is an uplifting story that aired tonight on ABC World News about the Berlin Airlift:

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=5453206

Author Andrei Cherny is featured in the news clip as well.

-Jen

Blog Band Wagon...

Don't get me wrong we love to read about what our friends and family are doing but since Jen and I have started our Blog we have noticed many of our readers who happen to be friends have also started their own blogs. We think it is GREAT that you too would like an outlet for your thoughts and daily banter but just remember who started this trend. Yes that is CORRECT the two smartest, independent, beautiful, etc. women in the world.

So with that we would love to link your blog (if we determine it is worthy) to our own. So leave a comment with your blog address if you think we would enjoy reading your daily happenings.

xoxox
britt

Soon...

While Matt and I were studying last night (I was doing PMBR Constitutional Law questions, very depressing), the electricity went out. We knew it was not going to come back on when we heard the sirens outside. I was also perplexed because back in the Midwest, the electricity only seems to go out when there is a big thunderstorm and that was definitely not the case last night.

Matt called Barry, we packed up our books, drove over to Brittany and Barry’s house, and stayed the night. You forget how vital electricity is, especially since it took us a few minutes to figure out how to manually open the garage door… And we definitely did not get electicity back for awhile - someone hit the electricity box with his car, which when I saw that, all I could think about was private necessity, trespass to land, etc. It was like a multiple choice question had come to life. Then I thought there was definitely an issue of negligent infliction of emotional distress. Ahh! At their house, we watched the the Diamondbacks lose to the Cubs, which was annoying too, but at least the Diamondbacks won the series.

I did not have a hard time falling asleep last night, but I did not have pleasant thoughts. Elements of crimes and torts, community property definitions, and then hearing “dooooooooooing” business for civil procedure kept running through my head. It was not in an organized manner either; my thoughts would jump from subject to subject randomly. I can not wait until next week, in which I will probably forget everything all over again.

Looking forward to: movies, dinner with friends without outlines, golf, unpacking, scrap booking, playing my guitar hero…

Days until day one of the Bar: 5

-Jen

Off to a GREAT start.

So today has been a fun day already. Well I guess I should back track a little bit. So on Tuesday a dummy light in my car came in and after a little investigating on my part I found out this dummy light was saying to me “Hey dummy you need to get yourself some new breaks.” So I call the car dealer and schedule my appointment for Wednesday afternoon. After running a little late I get my car in and Scott (my service specialist) tells me an estimate of $200 but I politely remind Scott that he told me this would need to be fixed and quoted me $500 last time so whatever it is just a quote. So I am sitting there waiting for Barry to come get me (the car will have to spend the night at the Chandler dealership as opposed to in her Gilbert abode) Scott comes over and says to me “well it looks like it is going to be about $700.” Ouch is what I thought but I politely smiled and said to Scott “well it has to get done; these are my breaks we are talking about.” So with that I sealed my fate at having a $700 repair bill to deal with but lucky for me I didn’t have to deal with it tonight and I got a “free” car wash out of the deal. So at about 5:00 Scott calls to tell me the GOOD news. My care repair bill will only be $599 and some change and that he was happy he could save me a little over a hundred dollars. WOW what a deal I thought but than I remembered the original estimate of about $200 oh wait no $500 and realized I hate having to spend my money on LAME things like tires (which I had to do about a week ago), breaks, and any other car related expense. So that is how my day ended yesterday.

Today I go to pick up my clean car with new breaks and go to the cashier lady hand her my new debit/credit card and she tells me it is declined. WHAT? I don’t understand but I hand her my other card and am completely embarrassed by what happened but also know that there is plenty of money in that account to cover the $599 and some change charge I was trying to run, that is unless someone had gotten a hold of our account and drained it (highly unlikely considering Barry check the balance every morning and gives me an update on how much interest we earned the pervious day). So I get in my car still embarrassed and call Barry – he will have some answers for sure – and tell him my whole saga, of course I was being really dramatic and trying to stay calm. So I ask Barry to call the bank (not Bank of America) and find out what the deal is and they inform him that the account has a max amount that can come out in any given day and that it is X number of dollars (I don’t know what X is but WTF). So Barry tells the lady that when we signed up for the account we had asked it to be at Y amount (Y is much larger than X and would have covered my repair bill and not have caused me the embarrassment of this morning) so she changed it to Y so hopefully those situations are behind us and we will never have a card declined again. I just don’t get how people with no money in their accounts and always get declined get over the embarrassment.

So hopefully the rest of today will be better and my red cabbage salad is ready to have with tonight’s dinner because I am really excited to see how this recipe turns out.

xoxo
britt

Defeating the Communists with Candy

Kind of.

Author Andrei Cherny wrote about the Berlin airlift in his new book The Candy Bombers. Mr. Cherny works in the Arizona Attorney General's Office, in the division I interned last summer. It is interesting how themes repeat throughout history and only if we could learn from them. After WWII, the United States was the moral authority and leader in the world with its impeccable performance with difficult situations. It is too bad the United States, in recent years, has given the world a reason to question its moral authority, with Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, water boarding (note that some Japanese soldiers during WWII were prosecuted for water boarding US troops, it is most definitely torture, thank you Senator McCain for voting for the torture bill), extraordinary rendition, the "CIA torture flights" and other things. The US did not do this kind of low-level stuff during WWII, which that War was perhaps the biggest threat to modern democracy. Remember the Nuremberg Trials to prosecute the Nazis? Seems like amuch better idea than locking "terrorists" up in some random prison.

Story about Mr. Cherny's book in The Washington Post today:

From Berlin to Baghdad

By Ruth Marcus
Wednesday, July 23, 2008; Page A15

The city is in dire straits -- its economy shattered, its citizens desperately hungry. Random violence is rising, electricity is sporadic. Three years after the invasion, hope for a brief occupation has faded. The mission is to build democracy from the ruins of dictatorship, but sober analysts question whether a flaw in the national character makes freedom unattainable.

This is not Baghdad 2008 but Berlin 1948, which makes the reunified German capital a particularly fitting venue for Barack Obama's speech tomorrow. The lush Tiergarten where Obama will speak was then a wasteland where Berliners struggled to grow vegetables in the shadow of the bombed-out Reichstag.

Sixty years ago this month, Berlin stood on the pivot point of history. The Soviet Union choked off food and fuel for the western sector of the divided city. The United States launched an improbable mission to supply it by air.

And a Utah farm boy named Hal Halvorsen, flying C-54 Skymasters in the relentless shuttle, made an impulsive promise to the scrawny children gathered behind the barbed wire fence at Berlin's Tempelhof airport: He would drop some candy for them. Operation "Little Vittles" eventually delivered tons of chocolate, attached to tiny parachutes fashioned from handkerchiefs.

The story of the Berlin Airlift and Halvorsen's mission is told in "The Candy Bombers," a new book by Democratic strategist Andrei Cherny. If the plural of anecdotes is not data, the stacking of historical analogies is not sound policy. Yet, as Cherny writes, "Their story has powerful resonance for our own time. In confronting the Berlin blockade, America went to battle against a destructive ideology that threatened free people around the world. In a country we invaded and occupied that had never had a stable democracy, we brought freedom and turned their people's hatred of America into love for this country, its people, and its ideals."

The lessons of the Berlin Airlift are anything but simple, which is what makes it such a useful historical moment. Cherny's book is something of a Rorschach test on Iraq: The message readers receive may depend on the mindset with which they arrived.

Thus, Obama can rightly point to the airlift as evidence that maintaining America's moral voice is an essential component of its foreign policy. The United States stands to gain as much from a modern-day Candy Bomber as it risks losing from Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Those who doubt the capacity of government, in the aftermath of Katrina, to mobilize quickly and implement deftly can take heart from the example of organizational whiz Bill Tunner, who turned a slapdash operation incapable of supplying Berlin into a precision drill that kept the beleaguered city going through a long winter.

The rest of the article can be read at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/22/AR2008072202113.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

-Jen

Finding "the One"

I picked up my bridesmaid dress for Barbie’s wedding yesterday and then I shipped it this morning. I am good at stressing myself out and I have definitely done that with this dress. I can not carry it on the plane when we fly back unless I pack it in a carry-on and I did not want to put it in a checked bag. Thus, I shipped it with super insurance. Barbie gets married the Saturday after the bar, three days after the nasty test. (Barbie is my best childhood friend and I have known her since we were babies; we were also neighbors. I do not know what my life would have been like without her!)

I had my first nightmare of the summer the other night. It was not about the bar, which I am perplexed why I have not had a dream about that disaster yet. My dream was about the bridesmaid dress. I dreamt that the day of Barbie’s wedding the dress was missing – it never arrived. I did not have the heart to tell Barbie until right before we had to walk down the aisle. Oh what a catastrophe!

The bridal shop that did the alterations for the bridesmaid dress, Suzanne’s Bridal in Gilbert, is great. Both Brittany and I like the store and will probably get our wedding dresses there. But they freaked me out. When I took Barbie’s bridesmaid dress in for alterations, I told the lady when my wedding is and she told me I should order my dress soon. Yikes! There is no way I am going to find a wedding dress during bar season. But the pressure is on.

What if I never “find the one?” I have tried on various dresses, which I definitely like some a lot more than others. And there are a couple of dresses I really like. One I think could possibly be the winner. It is a lot of pressure to find a wedding dress. I do not want to buy one just because time is running out. Do you immediately know when it is the one or does it take time to let it sink in? Do all girls find “the one?” Or am I just expecting too much?

I think Brittany’s theory is correct. Some girls, when they try on “the one,” those present with her (mothers) cry. I think this is interesting; after all, it is just a dress. Her theory is that for some mothers, the most important thing in life is for their daughter to get married and have the perfect wedding dress. I know my mother will not cry when I find “the one” and for that, I am thankful to save me from the embarrassment and that she had bigger dreams for me. I know she will be excited and happy for me, but there is more to life than getting a wedding dress, although it is very exciting.

Also, to those spectator women in bridal shops, stop making elaborate comments about a stranger and the dress she is trying on. I do not care about your sundry opinions about the dress I currently have one and which one you like the most, especially if it is a negative opinion! If you make comments, only share friendly opinions.

Do not get me wrong – I am very excited to find a wedding dress, and I think I have already found "the one," the most important one, Matt. That is all that matters in the end, right?

And there may be tears if I pass the Bar.

-Jen

Life after the BAR

I did not introduce myself properly earlier, which I easily become passionate about current events and have a lot of opinions (as many others do as well). One of my law school professors told me, “I am very thoughtful” – hopefully she meant that as a compliment! The first websites I visit in the morning are all the major news sites, so there will be various other current event postings… I am just interested in current events and politics, always have.

Just a little about me: I finished law school at the University of South Dakota in May of 2008 and have been studying or thinking about studying ever since. My fiancé, Matt, graduated from law school from Drake University School of Law in May of 2008. After spending three years over two hundred miles apart, it is great to be living in the same city again. The long distant relationship was not fun.

We met each other at the University of Arizona. We were initially friends, but soon that friendship grew into something more. In October of 2003, we began dating. After four plus years of dating, we are still very happy with each other and I can not imagine being with anyone else.

I also met Brittany at University of Arizona when we were roomies. The times we had in #405 are still some of the best! We are now older (getting too old!) and are planning our weddings together. We will continue to show are U of A love as being crazy, old, ugly-earring-wearing, Alumni. I can not wait for football season!

Currently, Matt and I, yes both of us, are studying for the bar exam. I suppose that if we can make it through this summer, both studying, without any major disasters, then marriage will be easy, right? Well, after over four and half years dating, three of which were long-distant during law school, and while during the bar, I think we will be just fine with whatever marriage brings us.

I can not wait for life after the Arizona Bar Exam. It has been a long summer. I hope not to do this again.

What I am looking forward post-Bar:

1. Barbie’s wedding!
2. Guilt-free wedding planning – finding a wedding dress!
3. Guilt-free pool time
4. Finding a JOB
5. Being nice and patient again
6. Seeing friends guilt-free

I am sure there are many more pleasure to look forward to, but I do not want to tempt myself right now.

Days until the Bar: 7
Days until freedom: 9
Days until Barbie’s wedding: 12

P.S. Matt and I also booked the hotel room for Brittany and Barry's wedding. I am very excited and can not wait!!

-Jennifer

Sunday Funday

Today was a GREAT day, it was far better than yesterday. This weekend was a productive one too. Last night (I think one of the only highlights of Saturday) was that we booked the hotel room for the wedding night. It was fun to know we had a place to stay the night we get married and the night after and also a place for Barry to hang out with his groomsmen before the wedding.

Sunday was awesome. We woke up Sunday morning and Barry got us some ice coffees (yeah we are addicted to them), we hung out watched some TV, Barry played me a couple potential wedding songs and than we decided to donate some of our clothes to get them out of our house and clear someway for more shopping. After that we got to hang out in the pool at Jen and Matt’s house and BBQ some burgers and hot dogs. It is always nice to hang out with friends on Sunday Funday. Barry and Matt were so envious of OUR blog that they too wanted one so I set them up with their own. Check it out at tuiheisman.blogspot.com. Tonight Barry is at the movies with Ryan and Chris and I am just hanging out enjoying the time will Lilly. The weekends are always nice but never long enough and I think this might have been the last time we hang out with Jen and Matt until after they PASS the bar on Wednesday, but we know there will be plenty more Sunday Funday by the pool.

In honor of our boys getting their own blog I will leave you with this photo of their and some of their blog readers’ backs at a local Gilbert bar.

xoxo

Brittany

Becoming a Lawyer...

Let me start with my favorite lawyer joke: While doctors were using leeches on their patients, lawyers were writing the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

While studying for the bar, it is hard to keep myself motivated. I have a statute of “Lady Justice” sitting by my computer, and yet, sometimes I just want to throw it. I try to motivate myself by using encouragement and admiration for the law. We are a country of laws, where the Rule of Law prevails. We are blessed to have a nation with a strong tradition of following the laws, as many young democracies fail with this requirement, due to the fact that they do not hold their own leaders accountable for violating their country’s laws. But for all those previous lawyers creating our laws, we would not be where we are today. The great Framers of our country, most of them lawyers, had incredible foresight and left us a living Constitution so we could deal with any problems that arise in our great Nation.

I understand why people have animosity towards lawyers, but it is also frustrating. The “ambulance chasing” lawyers do not perform any service to the profession or the community. I, too, get very frustrated with the terrible and misleading lawyer television commercials; I am a firm believer in free speech, but I think one ought to be responsible with it too.

Many individuals dislike their lawyer, but love their family doctor. Why do only lawyers get such a bad reputation? What about those doctors advertising Botox to the college-age community or those doctors promoting unnecessary plastic surgery? Hello Dr. 90210!! There are doctors telling young individuals that if she starts “botoxing now,” she will have fewer wrinkles in the future. I think that is just as bad as those “ambulance chasing” lawyers. There are both good lawyers and doctors as well as bad lawyers and doctors. But why do lawyers get the worst reputation?

I think that lawyers do not get enough credit. Lawyers are highly encouraged through the American Bar Association and their local state Bar to do a certain amount of Pro Bono hours, meaning provide free legal service, and if they can not do that, then to donate money to something like a free legal clinic. The profession strives to help the community by providing free service among other requirements and yet has a very poor reputation.

Hospitals, on the other hand, are not required to give any free service; they happen to give free service when patients cannot pay the bills. Non-profit status is given to charitable organizations because the organizations give back to the community and for that service, receive federal tax exemptions. Most of the hospitals in the country are non-profit. I wrote a paper about non-profit hospitals, which non-profit hospitals are not required to provide any charitable service! The tax code has long since removed any such obligation for the hospitals. Granted, hospitals do write off a lot of losses, but this write-off is after the fact. But maybe, just maybe, if the medical industry was not ran like a business, maybe the prices would come down. Just a thought.

I know. There is a federal law, EMTALA, where hospital emergency rooms can not turn away a patient in the ER and also cannot “patient dump” to a different hospital – obviously for good policy reasons. But this still does not require direct charity.

I have a high level of respect for doctors and the medical profession, but I just wish people had the same level of admiration for lawyers. After all, lawyers and doctors receive equivalent degrees, each a doctorate degree and both are professionals in the community.

-Jennifer

How did the Wedding come about?

So you all know that we are planning a wedding so I thought I would share a little about the propsal and the groom with you all. Barry (the groom) and I “met” dead day eve of Spring 2003. I was completely wasted and hanging out with a large group of friends at Barry’s apartment. I didn’t know Barry but his first words to me were “Shut the F@#$ up.” Yeah that was my first interaction with my future husband. But fast forward a summer to August 2003 and we ran into each other again at a party in my apartment complex and well the rest is history (although it had a slow start at the beginning).

We got engaged on June 8, 2007 and it was perfect Barry. We were in Vegas with Jen (co-author of the lovely blog) and Matt (co-author’s envious fiancé of our blog) and after a long day in the pool drinking pina coladas we went up to take showers and rest up for the night. Well Barry had other plans for us. He told me to get out of bed that he wanted to go down stairs and gamble. So after some coaxing me out of bed I put on some clothes, threw my wet hair into a pony tail and walked out the door with no makeup on. We walked right out of the Monte Carlo down the street to the Bellagio up the elevator to the 33rd floor where Barry assumed would be some GIANT windows over looking the fountains and the Vegas Strip. Wrong. We get all the way up there by way of the VIP elevator and Barry figures why not and starts talking right there in the sitting area off the elevators and drops to his knee and asks me to marry him. Yes I cried – Barry says I’m a crier and I cried because it was official he finally proposed.

We celebrated with some of the “finest” Monte Carlo champagne and went to dinner at the highest quality dining option in Vegas --- ESPN ZONE. Like I said before the proposal was PERFECT Barry, but I wouldn’t change a thing. So that is the story and now we are less than a year from the wedding and over a year since he proposed. But I think that is all for now I should get some work done so I can get outta here.

So I will leave you with a photo of Barry and Me on the flight back to Phoenix the Sunday after we got engaged!

Xoxox

Brittany

Where to Start?

Wow, we have a blog. I knew Jen had told me she had a couple entries but I didn’t think she actually made it live for all those in cyber space to see. It is kinda cool how this whole blog thing has started for us.

A little back ground if you may. Jen and I met in August of 2002 in Tucson at the University of Arizona. I was an incoming freshman from Southern California who waited to long and was denied on campus housing and Jen was a returning sophomore from South Dakota who already had another roommate. We were “matched” and by that I think they saw female on the leasing application and put us together. We lived together for 3 years until Jen graduated college and went on to law school and in that time period we went through 2 other roommates and the occasional over night guest.

This blog might and will be all over the place as we (Jen and Britt) are a lot alike but a lot different. We are both currently planning weddings to our college sweethearts that are about a month and a half apart (yeah I think Jen’s honeymoon might be my bachelorette party – what do you think Matt?) all while dealing with the stress of day to day life. So sit back and enjoy as this will hopefully be as fun for you as it is for us.

xoxo

Brittany

The BAR

And I don't mean the fun one.

July 29 and 30 will be the worst two days of my life I’ve determined. Studying for the bar exam is the most utterly depressing experience. I go through a range of emotions from confidence to utter despair, sometimes within a matter of minutes; there are times where I feel incredibly nauseous. The bar is like taking 12 law school classes and having all 12 finals in 1 day (6 hours) and then a multiple choice question test the day after about different laws, the common law. One must study state specific laws and then the common law for the multiple choice exam.

I can deal with most topics – Torts, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, even Property and Evidence I don’t mind. What really makes me angry and homicidal is CONTRACTS. I love how instructors tell you “don’t try to improve your contracts score on the MBE (multiple choice) because the questions are too tricky.” What??? Lame.

During this process, I have noticed that I have become an increasingly impatient, irrational, and mean person. This “bar studying Jennifer” is not the normal Jennifer. Little things irritate me beyond belief – I am surprised Matt and I have made it this far without a major fight. Thus, I apologize to anyone who may encounter “mean Jennifer.” Studying two months for a two day test will do that to a person, and I am not sure if I will be nice until the results are in, which is sometime in October. .

Countdown: 22 days until doom.

My advice – NEVER go to law school. :-(

-Jennifer

Support the Troops

Throughout history, patriotism ebbs and flows. In recent years, if one spoke out about the country, the individual was “not patriotic” and this angers me. This term is thrown around as an insult to undermine what an individual is advocating. The Founding Fathers (though those wives who stayed home on the farm should be given more credit too, but that is a blog for another day), would believe that dissent is the ultimate form of being patriotic. We should be thankful for their dissent, because, but for them standing up for what they thought was right, the United Kingdom would still be our “Mother Country.” (I am currently watching the HBO series on John Adams…)

This brings me to “support the troops.” This is an insult that is also thrown around. If you speak out against the war, then you don’t support the troops. If you don’t agree with the war, you do not support the troops. This is disrespectful and detracts from the troops. I believe there are different ways to “support the troops.” Putting a magnet on a car is not the only way to show support. Supporting the troops is not wearing a flag pin or putting your hand over your heart. Those simple actions are a great way to show support, but the actions can be superficial if that is it. Senator Obama should not have to give a speech about being patriotic; he has shown his love of our country through his public service as a politician and he has done nothing to permit such questions of his dedication.

Senator Clinton, a few years ago, helped sponsor a bill that would have given permanent health care to any individual who was served our country in this capacity, but it was laughed at. And there have been others. Additionally, the new GI Bill has been greeted with resistance from various republicans and Senator John McCain. Any soldier who serves our country should be welcomed home with the same opportunities our WWII troops were given.

What brings me to this topic, as being my first real blog topic, is an article on CNN, “Homeless veterans face new battle for survival.” It is noted that veterans make up almost a quarter of the homeless population and this number is expected to rise. Individuals dismiss the homeless population as being lazy and not deserving of any help. But the homeless population is made up of primarily veterans, former foster care children, individuals who are mentally ill, and others. It is embarrassing that the richest country in the world cannot take better care of its veterans, (the state of some VA hospitals is terrible, we can do better). The federal government is the most competent organ to address this issue; the individual donative person cannot fix these types of problems. They served their country, their country should serve them.

With that, Happy Fourth of July!

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/02/homeless.veterans/index.html

-Jennifer