Catch Up!

Hello blog readers!  It’s been about seven weeks since I last wrote, so there’s a lot to catch up on.  Let me see how much I can remember….

*BEWARE: LONG POST WITH LOTS OF PICTURES*

DECEMBER

• First and foremost: I graduated!!  Yep, it’s official, I am a BYU Accounting graduate.  My diploma has been mailed, and I should be receiving it in a couple days! They even emailed me a picture of it…

• After finals were over, I packed up all my stuff and made the trek (for the last time in a long time) down to California. Kenny and I were only there one night because the next morning we caught a flight to Georgia to spend Christmas with my family.
• We did tons of stuff in Georgia!  Some of the highlights include:
• Spending time with family and friends
• Christmas morning with family!  Kenny and I were spoiled like crazy.  Kenny got a 2 terabyte hard drive (which he has almost filled already, crazy man), a nice new leather wallet, tons of gift cards so he can take me places, and other stuff.  I got some cute clothes for work, a nice leather jacket, the entire series of LOST – in Blu-ray, and more!  It was really fun to spend the day with family playing with our new toys.
• Going bowling and mini-golfing while my Mom and Alison set up for….
• My bridal shower!  Alison threw me a bridal shower on my birthday, and she even got me a Cold Stone Birthday Cake and the girls sang “Happy Birthday” to me. Lots of friends and family were able to come – a special thanks to everyone who could make it!  Haley even put together the “game” in which I had to answer questions about Kenny and our relationship and see if Kenny’s answers matched.  I did pretty well, but I still got a few wrong – it was still pretty fun :)  It was so nice to be able to see everyone I miss while I’m away from Georgia.  I was, again, spoiled with lots of nice gifts!  Thank you, everyone!

Here are a couple pictures of the festivities:

The lovely table Alison and my mom spread.  We had yummy sandwiches, Chik-Fil-A nuggets, fruit and dip, chocolate covered strawberries, fruit punch, etc!  Again, I am one spoiled girl.

The Brown girls (yeah, Alison still counts) by the table and the “Kenny and Darcy Shrine.” 

Funny side note: This picture frame was covered in pictures of my brother, Kevin and his wife, Amy, since their wedding (back in 2007).  We called it the “Kevin and Amy Shrine” because it had all their pictures on it displayed in our house and everyone was too lazy to change out the pictures.  For the shower, I changed all the old pictures to pictures of me and Kenny.  I wonder how long these pictures will stay in there…. :)

• On New Year’s Eve, Kenny and I were on a plane flying back to California….

JANUARY

• Since we had to wake up early for our flight that day (and we had a 3-hr time difference), Kenny and I did not stay up until midnight to celebrate the New Year (I tried, I promise!).  Our first New Year’s together and we were both asleep, kinda sad.  At least we have many more New Year’s to come that we can stay up for :)
• I found an apartment here in Brea!  It’s not very big, but it’s perfect for me.  Here are a few pictures:

When you walk in, this is pretty much what you see.  I don’t love the layout right now with the loveseat right in front of you when you walk in, so I’m still kind of playing around with it.  Again, it’s not a very big apartment, so it’s hard to arrange everything so it looks nice and not too crowded.  I do love the couches!  I went to a small furniture store that looked kind of sketchy, but their prices were amazing!  I got the couches, kitchen table, 4 chairs, coffee table, and 2 end tables at this place.  Kenny found a frig on Craigslist, my mom bought me a microwave (thanks Mom!), and voila, my apartment was furnished.

Walk in, look to the right, and this is what you see: my kitchen!  It’s still kind of a mess, but I love having my own kitchen.  I don’t have to worry about roommates leaving a mess or not refilling the water filter.  It is a luxury I have quickly grown accustomed to :)

The kitchen table :) I got the tablecloth and placemats from my shower (thank you!) and my mom got me the fruit bowl.  I like that it’s clear so you can see all the fruit in it. 

This is all Kenny’s handiwork.  He already had the entertainment center, so he just set up his TV, sound system, etc.  You can see the LOST series in the bottom left :)

My favorite part of this apartment – a walk-in closet!  As you can see, I’ve already filled most of it with all my clothes, but I’m working on giving some away to free up some more space.

And the vanity!  My mom also bought me a new hair dryer (I really needed a new one) as seen on the bottom left of the picture.

Unfortunately, the bedroom is a complete mess right now.  The only piece of furniture I still need is a desk, so most of my desk things are just sitting in boxes on the floor of my room.  Once I get a desk and organize it all, then I’ll take a picture of the bedroom :)

Also, you can’t tell from the pictures, but since I live on the top floor, I’ve got vaulted ceilings! I love my vaulted ceilings – they make the rooms look so much bigger.

• My mom and Alison came to visit!  They came and stayed with me for about a week and a half to help get everything in my apartment organized and help with wedding plans.  I would’ve been lost without them!!  Unfortunately, we were all sick at some point during the trip, but enough of us were healthy at any given time to keep getting things done :)  We visited a lot of venues, but ultimately, I decided Kenny and I will be getting married on June 10, 2011 at the Friendly Hills Country Club!

And yes, this is an actual picture of the golf course at the Club.  This will be the backdrop for our wedding – pretty, right?? I thought so.

While Alison and my mom were here, my mom also bought me lots of stuff for my apartment (food, towels, my cute fruit bowl, the microwave, etc.).  It was so helpful to have both of them here to help out – thank you, thank you!!

• I started my professional internship at Disneyland! 

My nametag.  Yep, I work for Disney :)

And here we are, the finance interns (and Phil on the far right) of Disneyland in front of Sleeping Beauty’s castle.  We are squinting because the California sunshine is blinding us….

The interns with Goofy!  Of course we only got one picture with him, and I had to be blinking in it.  But it’s still a cute picture.

This is a picture of us in the apartment Walt Disney would stay in while he visited the park.  It sits right above the Fire Station on Main Street.  Only Disney employees are given tours up here (or you can pay lots and lots of money if you’re not an employee), and it was great to see the apartment!  I think it’s actually smaller than the one I’m in right now, but it was decorated as it was when Walt and his family would stay there.  I feel fortunate to be part of the park’s amazing history and heritage.

And here we are in the Dream Suite.  The Dream Suite is a suite that you can stay in inside the park!  It’s not used very often now, but it was used for Year of a Million Dreams for kids and their parents to be able to stay inside the park for a night.  This suite was created for Disney lovers.  I don’t want to give anything away in the slight chance that anyone who reads this will one day stay in it, so just know that it is AMAZING!  I would love to stay there if I ever get the chance.

And yes, I’m incredibly short.

As for the internship, I like it so far!  I work in Business Operations – Credit Card Management.  So far, I’ve been going to lots of classes/orientation and learning about the different systems and processes the company uses.  In my office, I’ve mostly been combing through online ticket transactions and looking for fraudsters.  And trust me, it sounds more glamorous than it actually is :) I still like it.

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And that’s pretty much it!  Things have been crazy, but very, very good.  I am absolutely loving being out of school, out of Utah and in the California sun, and working in a theme park!  Life is very, very good.

:)