Soon to be Mrs. Morris!

I got engaged this weekend!!! On Friday afternoon, Justin was telling me that he wanted to do something fun this weekend. He gave me two options, skydiving or New Orleans. I figured it was WAY too cold to skydive so I picked New Orleans. We flew up on Saturday evening at 5:40. While at the airport I was thrown a curve ball when Justin told me that we weren't staying at the Hampton or Hilton. We usually stay there so he can get hotel points for free trips later on. I was kind of shocked and asked where we were staying. He told me he booked a room with a balcony at the Omni Hotel.



View of our balcony on the fourth floor of the Omni

When we got to New Orleans we got a cab to take us to the hotel. After dropping our stuff off, we started walking around the town. I have never been to New Orleans. That's surprising to some people, but I was never big on going to frat formals and I've never been a big drinker, which is mainly what New Orleans is there for, so I never felt the need to go. (Of course I say this as I am about to marry a frat boy). Anywho, we first went to Pat O'Briens and he got a Hurricane. I had a few sips, it tasted like kool-aid though and I'm not a fan so I never got one. He did convince me to get a hand grenade. I quote Bonnie when I say that it was like drinking sweet tarts.



Me with the hand grenade....nasty nasty....I didn't drink all of it!

After walking down Bourbon Street some more, Justin suggested doing one of those horse and carriage rides. So we found one parked in front of St. Louis Cathedral and took a 30 minute ride around the French Quarter. When the horse pulled back up to its spot at the church, I told Justin I wanted a picture with the horse. The driver gave me a carrot and told me to feed her. As I was feeding her, Justin was paying the driver and apparently also told him that he was about to propose and wanted him to take pictures of him doing it. He said he did this because he knew that I would want pictures of it. So sweet :) Anyway, after the driver took a picture of me feeding the horse, he asked us to climb back up in the carriage and he could get another picture. I climbed in first and by the time I turned around, Justin was already in the carriage and on one knee!!!! All I can remember saying was "OH MY GOD"......I couldn't believe it was happening!



Picture of me after feeding Jill, the horse!





After he asked me to marry him I just kissed him and gave him a hug. I wasn't aware that I never put the ring on. Apparently I just closed the box and hugged him. Justin was making fun of me by saying "you know most people put the ring on, they don't close the box". You can see the box in my hand in the picture below.

The driver wanted an "after" picture so I put the ring on and he took one last one of us. The next several hours is a blur. I seriously don't remember much. I called my sister Lindsey first. Lindsey had no idea I was even going to New Orleans. I purposely hid that from her because I didn't want her to think he was going to do it and then he didn't. So I called and she answered the phone and I told her that I was in New Orleans and engaged. She was so excited. I could tell she was holding back tears! I then called my other sister, Jennifer, but Jenn didn't answer. So I called my mom, who already knew because Justin met with her that morning for breakfast....sneaky little people! Jenn finally called back and so I got off the phone with my mom to tell Jennifer. Her reaction was pretty cool. This is how I remember the conversation going:

Marcie: "So I just had my first hand grenade"
Jenn: "what?"
Marcie: "oh yeah, I'm in New Orleans"
Jenn: "what??????"
Marcie: "yeah Justin brought me here to propose....I'm engaged"
Jenn: "WHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAATTTTT!!!!!!!"

Classic.....



The "after" picture

At that point I was trying so hard to send a pic of the ring to all my lady friends but IT WOULDN'T SEND!!!! I was unable to send it to anyone and it was hours before I realized that I could do it through email. But I didn't have everyone's email address! By that time, Jenn and Lindsey had both made their facebook status' about me being engaged and everyone already knew!

Justin and I gave up on calling people and wanted to enjoy our night so we went back to the hotel where we were greeted with chocolate covered strawberries and a bottle of champagne.



I rarely slept that night. It was really loud because people were on the streets ALL NIGHT LONG! I think I may have gotten 2 hours of sleep between 5:30 and 7:30. The next morning Justin ordered us some breakfast in our room. We ate then changed then went back to St. Louis Cathedral so I could get some pics in the daytime!







We went into a little store that had some ornaments and I had to get one with St. Louis Cathedral on it!



A pic of the ring in the box

Justin told me the next day all the ways he was going to do it, but chose against them. He is so freaking creative!

1) He was going to have me come home from work on Friday and he would already be gone and I would see an envelope with a plane ticket and a letter telling me to meet him at the top of the Empire State Building....He knows how much I love New York. But I was about to work Saturdays so going out of town for the whole weekend was out of the question.

2) He was going to get a hot air balloon and propose in the air! This was amazing! But it would have been freezing as cold as its been in Bham lately!

3) He was going to have us both go skydiving and ask me to marry him before I jumped out of the plane. I would have gotten the ring when I landed. This was such a good idea, but it again was too cold.

4) He was going to hire a plane to fly a sign behind it asking me to marry him, but the only place I would be able to see it good would be at Vulcan, and he didn't want to go there.

He is so amazing and creative and put so much thought into this. I love him so much! Some of you may not know, but every morning I get a text message from Justin that says "good morning beautiful. I love you". I just got one this morning that said "good morning beautiful future wife"....He makes my heart melt :)

When we got back to Birmingham, his parents wanted us to come meet them so they could see the ring. They also knew what was going on the whole time!!! We walked into the restaurant and Mrs. Morris was holding back tears....I could tell. They loved the ring and me and his mom started talking plans already.

Twilight Series = Phenomenal!

So I am FINALLY done reading all four of the Stephanie Meyer books. For those of you who don't know, I have been in a two week obsession with these books. They've been all I've thought about since my trip to New Hampshire.

Twilight - 498 Pages

New Moon - 563 Pages

Eclipse - 629 Pages

Breaking Dawn - 754 Pages

When Justin and his sister and brother in law and I went were flying to go on our hiking trip on December 20th, we got delayed in New York. While waiting in the airport, I wanted something to do, so I wandered into a bookstore. When I saw the book Twilight, I had a debate in my head. I really wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I have tons of friends that have read these books and the movie was a hit when it came out so I was very curious, but on the other hand, I'm not really a "dark" person and reading about vampires was not something I was really all that interested in. In the end, my boredom won me over and I bought the book. I was finished with Twilight by the time we flew back to Birmingham. In fact, our connecting flight back to Birmingham went through New York again. I passed another bookstore and the second book, New Moon, was on display. I immediately bought that one and started reading it.

All in all, I read close to 2,500 pages from December 20th up til last night, when I read the last words of the final book, Breaking Dawn. These books are absolutely amazing! What pulled me in every time to read the next book was the unbelievable love story that was present. If you've seen the movie, you still have no idea what I'm talking about because they didn't portray it the way the book did. The movie was fabulous, don't get me wrong, but a movie can only be so long and there was no way it could show some of the things that the book showed. When watching the movie, you can tell that the love between Edward and Bella is very strong, but when you read the book, you feel so much more. It's not just strong, it's unbreakable. They are soulmates. You can't really tell that from the movie.

Anyway, the second book, New Moon, will also make it to film and is coming out in November 2009. I'm not sure how interested I am in seeing the second movie. I'm sure I'll see it regardless, but I have to admit, the second book was not my favorite. SPOILER ALERT!!!! Edward disappears in the very beginning of the book and doesn't resurface until the very end. Essentially the entire book is Edwardless :( But the end makes up for it!

No one is happier that I am done reading this series than Justin is. My poor boyfriend. He usually makes some smart remarks by calling me a dork or something playful like that because I've been doing nothing but read for the past two and a half weeks. I didn't realize that he was seriously upset until we went to lunch one day where he told me that he wanted his girlfriend back and that he was upset that I wasn't paying any attention to him anymore. He looked heartbroken and I felt horrible so I stopped reading in front of him. I usually would wait until I had some downtime at work or I would wake up super early and read before he got up. I was able to get over 1/4 of the 750 pages of the final book read last night because Justin went to a bachelor party. Needless to say, I'm also glad that I'm done. My busy season has officially started and I won't have a whole lot of free time to read in the coming months.

Seriously, if you're bored and have nothing to do, read these books. They truly are amazing novels and all four are New York Times #1 Bestsellers. I am not a reader, AT ALL! The only books I read tend to be religious oriented or devotionals. Obviously I kinda went the other way on this one....reading about vampires and all :) What I'm trying to say is that if I can get hooked and read a book front to back without putting it down, anyone can!

I leave you with the trailer to the movie:

First Post of 2009!

The entire month of December was just like a dream to me. I blinked, and it was gone! I'm trying to post my pictures from Christmas, but since my incredibly large mutt sat on my computer and broke the screen, I no longer have access to the pictures. Justin is currently trying to take out the hard drive and put it in another laptop to recover all my stuff. Needless to say, my Gateway has passed away. As soon as I can get some of the Christmas pics I'll put them up!


We just recently got back in town from Gatlinburg for New Years. Justin and I, along with our friends Trevor and Tiffany, got a cabin in the mountains and relaxed for 4 days. Well, I use the word "relaxed" very loosely. Naturally, Justin and I did a lot of hiking. Trevor and Tiff even joined us for one of our hikes, but they preferred to stay at the cabin until we got back on the other hikes. We pulled into Gatlinburg on New Year's Eve and went downtown to see the ball drop from the space needle. I've posted a few pics of our Gatlinburg trip, but there are so many more. To see all the pics, see my myspace or facebook profile.

This is Justin and I at our cabin right before going to eat dinner downtown on NYE

We had dinner at Park Grill downtown. There was over a 2 hour wait!!!

Me and Justin at Park Grill

Welcoming 2009 to our lives!!! This will be a good year for us :)

The next day all four of us did a 5 mile round trip hike to Chimney Tops. It was BEAUTIFUL at the top when we got there. The hike wasn't too bad either. It was a little steep at times, but we've definitely done way worse climbs.

Me at the top of Chimney Tops

The view!!

Me and Justin at the top. There was a slight bit of rock climbing involved to get here. We wanted to go further, but if we had fallen, we would have fallen over 2000 feet, so we decided against it.

Some of you may even remember that this is where Justin and I took our first trip together. This is a pic of us in the exact spot where we had a picture taken of us 7 months ago. Times flies when you're having fun :)



Justin and I went solo the next day to Mingo Falls on the North Carolina side of the park. It was gorgeous!! It completely looked like it didn't belong in TN! The waterfall is just as huge in person as it looks in the pictures.




Justin and I enjoying Mingo Falls!



The next night we decided to go into Pigeon Forge and go to this interesting looking building. We didn't quite know what to expect, but we had A BLAST!!!! We felt like little kids on their first trip to Six Flags. It was great!

All four of our favorites rides was this little number that I happened to take a video of Tiffany and Trevor doing. The lady told us that the ride went upside down and we thought she was joking. It looks like a big bicycle, so we had no idea that it was actually going to go upside down. We were just told to pedal when the thing is going forward. Justin and I went upside down the very first loop and it completely took us both by surprise. We rode it twice because it was so fabulous!!

Like I said, I have way more pictures, but I don't have time to post them. It is officially the start of my busy season, so my time now belongs to BMSS and my clients. January won't be so bad, but February through April will see plenty of Saturdays and 12 hour days :) Maybe I'll blink again and it will be my birthday.....