ENGAGEMENT PICTURES!! :D

http://picasaweb.google.com/ABQPhotos/JACKIE?authkey=IZYxVs2hPzM#slideshow

Here is the link to ALL our pictures.. it is easier than downloading them all on here. :)

There are A LOT of kissing ones... which I don't really like, but whatev.

ENJOY!!

My not so Sarah Palin Wig

So this is what was supposed to be my Sarah Palin wig... As it turns out my parents are coming to visit us on Halloween. Soo, I'm not sure I will even dress up, but it is ok because I was kind of mad that my wig wasn't as palinish as I would have hoped.

My Soccer Teams' Pictures

So this Saturday is the last soccer games in the season for Coach Jackie... well and for everyone else too.

Here are our team pictures!! I look ok in one and not so ok in the other because we had to run during half time of one game to take the second picture and it was like raining and windy outside.... Anyway. Enjoy!!!

I am soo freakin' mad at myself right now.

So Ryan and I are driving home from a day in Alb. when we get a phone call from his grandparents. They tell us that they need a tutorial on our honeymoon registry because they can't figure it out. I blow it off at first, assuming it is just their age... but then start to think that maybe there is something to that. Well there is... I apparently made a tiny mistake with the stupid, damn, POS registry and forgot a forward slash in between 2 words.

I do not know how the hell I did it. I checked that damn thing SOO many times it was insane. I even had another mistake and re-did them all because the website wasn't working... apparently I missed something else though. So I sent out ALL of my invitations and nobody has the correct stupid registry address. How freakin mortifying.

So now I am frantically trying to email and message everyone to let them know that there should be a slash in between wedding and jaclyn and give them the correct link.

I guess that is what I get for doing a not so normal wedding registry.... grrr.


And in case you are having issues accessing the damn thing it is :


http://www.honeyfund.com/wedding/jaclynandryan12062008

I can't wait for all this wedding crap to all be over with... I should have eloped.

Excitement!!

Ryan and I have already taken Engagement pictures, via my mom. She took us to the duck pond at New Mexico Tech and we took a ton of pictures. They came out pretty awesome and we are really happy with them.

HOWEVER, Our wedding photographer only has one package and it includes engagement pictures. At first I was thinking about just skipping the pictures because we have already taken them, but the more I thought about it... we are paying for them so we might as well take them.

So Ryan and I are going to Alb. tomorrow and I thought what the heck and called the photographer to see if he was available. Sure enough he was and he wants to meet us at the UNM duck pond around 5:00.

I am SOO excited because I am a UNM Alumni. I think it will be very special to have more pictures of us together and this time taken at MY old stomping grounds! :)

I have even been thinking of using the pictures for either thank you cards for the wedding gifts or maybe even christmas cards! :D Yay.

Wig

My Sarah Palin wig just came in.... and it is WAAAY darker than I had anticipated!


The 2 colors that were most like Sarah's hair were sold out so I got the next darkest... which looked real similar in the picture. It wasn't. It is BLACK! Ugh... and there aren't really bangs, so I am going to have to cut it. :( I wonder if I should even still try and pull it off.

Hmm... maybe I will still wear it and just wear the wig to work at the Ranger station all day so I look different, but none of the visitors will even know and then just go as an old man to the next door neighbor's Halloween party. :) Stupid black wig.

I will post a picture later.

Weekend Shananigans

Man did I have a productive and friend filled weekend!

This weekend was 49ers in Socorro at New Mexico Tech. It was the 89th year of 49ers, which is their annual homecoming event (AKA, a Big Ole Party) and it was the first time Ryan and his friends were participating as Alumni.

Besides all the partying and celebrating I also got to see some of my friends and get a bunch of wedding stuff done! :)

We left Grants late on Friday after my soccer game and headed to Alb where we met up with Ryan's good friends, Anthony and Tim Fred. We had a delicious and very late dinner at the Olive Garden and then headed to a bar. It was quite possibly the weirdest bar I have ever been to. There was a very weird mixture of people and a crazy 80's band performing. The best part was that I invited my good friend Traci and her man and I got to hang out with her while Ryan hung out with his friends. lol.

The next day (Saturday) we met up with another friend of mine for lunch. My friend Helga was in town from Arkansas... Helga and I went to school together and I have known her since preschool! I haven't seen her in a REAL long time so it was great to catch up.

After that we went and picked out TUXES!!! Whoo Hoo... Both of us weren't really looking forward to that, but I am soo glad that we got that over with!! Then we stopped by Ortega's Flower Shop, a long time family friend of ours from Socorro just opened it up in Alb and he will be doing the flowers and decorating for our wedding. So we spent about an hour talking to him and picking out all of our wedding flowers! That one was fun! lol And if you are in Alb and ever need flowers I highly recommend Ortega's Flowers!!! :)

Then we headed to Socorro where my mom had a homemade Italian dinner waiting for us and then we went out on the big ole town of Socorro to hang out with Anthony and Tim Fred again.

On Sunday it was church, then we ate lunch and talked with our caterer for the wedding. That was fun because besides the food we also got to pick out Alcohol. :)


Anyway, with Tuxes, Flowers and Food all checked off of my wedding to do list and friends and fun included in my weekend it was quite a productive and eventful weekend!

Hope yours was just as fun! :)

Good thing I took Today off...

Today is one of my days off... kind of... but anyway I am SOO thankful that it was.

I went in to work just to do my time this morning and when I came back home. I was going to let Bailey back inside because it is freezing here! I opened the back door and usually she runs right in... she was nowhere to be seen. I walked around and noticed that the front gate was open... I must have accidental left it open last night!

I walk out and start calling her. Nothing. I start walking down the road, where I took her for a walk last night. As I was walking I noticed someone (about 2 houses down and across the street from our house)doing yard work in their front yard and thought I'd ask them if they had seen a dog run by. As I get closer I notice a dog sitting at the guys' feet playing with a toy and staring at the guy. Yeah... it was Bailey. I called her and she got all excited and ran up to the guy, like to tell me that she found a new friend. I walked over and asked the guy how long she had been there. His response was, For awhile.

I was soo thankful she didn't run away. But kinda baffled at why she decided to hang out with the man doing yard work... Anyway I told her to go home and started walking back to the house and she passed me and ran right into the backyard. Crazy dog. I am soo glad I am off today otherwise who knows what she would have done or who she would have hung out with today!

Halloween

So we were going to have a Halloween party... although I am not sure who we were going to invite considering we are new in town, but then the next door neighbors invited us to their Halloween party. :)

I ordered my Sarah Palin brunette wig and man those things are going like hot cakes. On this one website all the wigs that they said was exactly Sarah's hair color were out of stock. So I had to settle for a lighter brown and a more expensive wig. I just hope it comes in on time for Halloween... I am very excited to wear it. :)

So that is my update. Have a great week.

Plants...

This is going to be a lame post, but it is currently my life.. lol.

I just got done re potting all my plants. :)

lol, How lame do I sound. But I have never really had plants before.... I lie... I have never had this many plants and I have never had plants that have lived this long.

I currently have 8 plants in my house and 1 I just put outside. 2 I have had for 3 months and they look as good as ever. And the rest I just got 2 weeks ago from my Grandma's funeral. I had fun finding places for them all over the house and now that they are all re potted (some of them were all jammed into their tiny little pots) I am hoping they will start to grow more and really thrive in their new environments. :)

My fabulous next door neighbors also brought me a HUGE pot of beautiful yellow mums. So I put those in the planter right outside my front door... and in between my Halloween spider webs. lol.

I really think all the plants in the house kind of make the house look more like a home.

Ok, now that I am did with the plants I am off to laundry, tanning, walmart and... wedding planning phone calls. I have such exciting days off...

Aunt Barbara

My dad’s family is not a close family. It is pretty much the polar opposite of my mom’s family. My mom’s family (well most of them… I will go w/ 3/4 of them) always find a way to get together during the holidays. They try in stay in close contact and really make an effort.

I have met 2 of my dad’s immediately close relatives: his mom and his half brother. His mom lived with us for a couple of years when I was real little then moved to California and I have since only seen her once, when we went to visit her there. I currently haven’t seen her in over 10 years, but we do try to talk on the phone and send letters and pictures as often as we can.

My dad’s half brother came out to visit us once when I was about 7. But now he no longer talks to my dad or my grandma all because of a lack of effort on all sides and some hurt feelings. (I actually found him and his kids on myspace last year and tried to get him to talk to his mom because life is too short and I knew that she really missed him, but I guess I made him mad because he hasn’t responded.) This all kind of baffles me because I grew up around my mom’s family who are just soo different.

My dad also has a full blooded sister. Her name is Barbara.

Barbara is almost exactly a year younger than my dad. The story I know is that when she was born she had some lung problems. My grandma claims that her husband didn’t want the baby because there was something wrong with her so they put her up for adoption. Luckily my grandma’s mom, Barbara’s grandma ended up adopting her so she could grow up with her family. I guess as she got older and realized what happened and she had some animosity towards her mother (her parents divorced and her dad died at a young age). I am not exactly sure what happened between Barbara and my grandma, but knowing my grandma I am betting she said something to piss her off. Barbara eventually cut off all of her ties with the family. They have not seen nor heard from her in over 30 years.

My grandma has been asking me for years to search for her on the Internet. She made me vow that if she died I would try anything I could to find her and reconnect. And when I asked my dad if he wanted to find her last weekend, he said that he would really like to see her again. The only issue is that it is really hard to find someone if you don’t know what their name is.

Barbara was born Barbara Chavez, but got adopted and became Barbara Barbers (I know, horrible name). She got married to Robert Warne, who was an inventor and about the only thing that I can find is some patents online from him. They had a daughter named Denise and then got divorced. (I looked up Denise, but she is in her 30’s or 40’s and is probably married already because I can’t pull anything up on her with her old last name.) My grandma thinks Barbara got married again to a biker dude who got in a motorcycle crash and died. So she could have the bike dude’s last name or even another. I have no idea. My dad said that she was a registered nurse and has a very distinct birthmark on her face near her eye. And my grandma thinks that when she got adopted that they changed her birthday.

Any suggestions on how to find her that doesn’t involve a lot of money? lol My grandma is getting up there in age and I know it would just make her life to get in contact with her daughter again. I submitted our story to Troy the Locator... have any of you seen that show on WE TV?? I love it! I record every episode and cry for everyone too. I know Troy the Locator could find her, but I also know that he receives millions of requests a day and probably has way more exciting ones to pursue than mine.

When I was in middle school I was obsessed with finding her… I quit when my dad got mad at me. He told me that if she wanted to be found she could be. He said that his name is the same and his mom’s name is the same and if she wanted to she could find them. But she obviously didn’t want to be found and then he told me to stop trying to find her. I did, but started up again this year. I think it is harder to find people than you think… and maybe she has been trying to find her family and is having the same problems I am… probably not, but hey I can hope. Lol. I guess I am just really family oriented and I think it sucks that I have a full blooded Aunt out there and at least one first cousin who I don’t even know.

I was going to upload a picture, the only one I have of her... but I still need to scan it in. Maybe I will do it this evening. :) Thanks for listening and have a great day!

Cousin

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, there are some cousins of mine that I don’t really speak to.

It sounds bad, but most of it stems from jealousy, them jealous of me. I was the only grandkid that grew up in the same town as my grandma, so we were always a little bit closer than she was with her other grandkids. And I know that always bothered my cousins. Most of them would never ever tell me that, but I know it is true. She talked about me to them and I am sure they didn’t want to hear it and I am sure it got old.

After my grandma’s rosary I went to her coffin to go kneel and say a little prayer. My cousin Peter (a cousin that actually participated in the rosary, not one that rudely sat outside) came over and asked me if he could kneel with me.

Peter is probably my closest cousin over the age of 10, he is 4 years older than me and he and his sister are the only cousins I had growing up in the same state as me. We were very close when we were younger, but have recently drifted apart.

After we both prayed and cried a little, he gave me a hug and told me something that I thought was very profound:

He said, “You know Jackie I was always a little bit jealous of you because you were so close with Nana.”

I tried to play it off like that wasn’t the case and said that, “Nana had a special place in her heart for all of her grandkids.”

He said, “No it was different with you, I was always a little jealous, but knowing how hard this is for me, I can’t even imagine how hard this must be for you.”

Wow. What a mature thing to say, I thought. (Too bad not all my cousins are that mature.) It totally blew me away and then and there I vowed to be a better cousin to him and stay in better contact.

Coldstone = Jackie Comfort Food

So Ryan and I have been trying to get in shape for the wedding since we moved to Grants. The first couple of months went really well. We were going almost every day and feeling really good. Then we went to New York… We took a little break, I started coaching soccer, then our membership expired and we never renewed it and we haven’t gone since. We have still been trying to eat really healthy and we actually don’t eat junk food (at home… I sneak a little at work. :) ). Then everything happened with my grandma and it seems like we just got out of our exercising mode, but we are still trying to be healthy in other ways.

I had Monday and Tuesday off because of the federal holiday and the fact that Monday is my normal holiday. I went to Socorro to help my mom go through some of my grandma’s clothes and jewelry, since my uncle brought it all for her to go through. She was a bit overwhelmed doing it all, so I volunteered to help out. As you can imagine it was fairly emotional.

Tuesday just happened to be the BLM’s annual employee appreciation picnic in Socorro. So I decided to go. That was a lot harder than going back to work, considering I pretty much work alone most days and at the picnic was everyone that I have ever worked with combined in one place. I feel like I was being really strong, but sometimes on the inside I just wanted to cry.

It is weird lately… I am sad, but I am not crying. I feel like I want to cry or should be crying, but I just can’t do it.

Yesterday while I was driving home, I drove past Coldstone Creamery….

Coldstone is quite possibly one of my most favorite places ever. BUT I haven’t been to a Coldstone in over a year because I’ve been really trying hard not to eat bad things and I know that how good it is, is also equal to how bad it is for me.

As I drove towards it I thought, what the hell. Life is too short. I already know I fit in my dress. I will just do a couple extra sit ups tomorrow morning. And I got a milkshake for the road and a quart of ice cream to take home… I feel very guilty for doing so. BUT I also feel like I really needed and deserved it. :)

We are planning on going back to the gym soon… maybe today? I will keep you posted.

2's

People always tell me that bad things happen in 3’s. Well Sunday, a week from my grandma’s rosary, my great uncle passed away. He was my grandpa’s brother. He had even sent flowers to my grandma’s rosary. I wasn’t very close to him because he lived in NY, but I had met him at least 3 or 4 times when he came to New Mexico to visit, the most recent time was 8 years ago at my grandpa’s funeral. He was also my mom’s godfather. My mom was very upset, we were all just starting to feel a little better.

Hopefully with us it ends with 2.

Cactus 1 Bailey 0

Behind our house is a big empty lot.... I mean it isn't just big it is probably like 10-20 acres! It is privately owned, but our backyard opens up to it and there are walking trails throughout. Bailey really enjoys walking out there because we let her off of her leash and she runs all over in search for a rabbit to chase.

Last night, it was getting dark, but I thought we could take Bailey on a quick walk behind our house. We weren't 200 yards from our house, when Bailey got a sticker in her paw. I guess it was in a bad spot because it caused her to trip and she landed face first into a cactus. She ran for a minute and then realized that she had a face for full of cactus thorns and just kind of stopped and looked at us. We pulled some of them out, but it was too dark so we went back to the house.



We got the majority of them out, minus some under her chin that she was not happy about us getting. I will work on the rest of them today. She also hurt her ankle (do dogs have ankles?) in the fall, but she is better today and is now walking on it again.

Maybe we will be walking when it is daylight, so she can see better.

My poor little prickly pear!

Cactus 1
Bailey 0

Sarah Palin

No, this isn't a political blog. lol

I have been trying to come up with a Halloween costume for this year for some time now. I am going to pull my old man costume like I did last year again at work, since I work at a new office and these people have never seen it before. But Ryan and I were talking about doing something after work for Halloween and I don't want to be his old man date.

I read somewhere that Sarah Palin masks were selling off the shelves and I thought, what a GREAT idea.

I mean, hate her or love her, it could really be a hilarious costume!

I am still debating plus it depends upon if we even do anything, but I thought if I bought a wig, I already have the glasses, I can put on a business suit,some heels and carry around one of Ryan's shot guns (unloaded of course) while talking all kinds of Maverick talk. :)

What do you think?

Revised Blog... turned into a Rosary Speech... just though I'd share

I know that I would not be the woman that I am today without my grandma, my Nana: Grace Conticelli.

She was much more than a grandma to me, she was like my second mother and one of my closest friends. I know this was reciprocated because she often referred to me as her fifth child because she contributed soo much in raising me.

My grandma taught me and showed me many things over the past 23 years and I would like to share some of them with you:

Some of my very first memories were with my grandma, from baths in her kitchen sink to nap time, where I was supposed to take a nap and instead she was the one that fell asleep.

I remember watching my TV shows, Flipper and Lassie in between her soap opera. Then growing up to watch the same soap opera and talking with her about how stupid it is, but we both still watched it!

She told me her amazing life story, from loosing her dad at a very young age, living and working in New York, to meeting my grandfather, robbing the cradle and their adorable love story.

She taught me how to be a loving and caring person.

How to stick up for the people that you love, no matter what.

And how to cook amazing food, especially Italian food. But nobody will ever be able to cook it as good as she did.

She told me that good things would happen to good people and that if you work hard you will be rewarded.

She taught me that if you say something, you better mean it. Especially I love you.

She used to tell me that you don't need patience because we aren't doctors. Even though she was probably one of the most patient person I have ever met.

She taught me religion and she taught me faith.

And she showed me strength that I didn't think she had when her husband of over 50 years passed away. And then again when she fought until the end of her life because she wanted to make it to my wedding.

And best of all she showed me a woman that I will always aspire to be like.

I am getting married in exactly 2 months from the day we buried my grandma and I know she will be at my wedding. I know she will be in the front row just like she should be, in fact I am saving her a seat... actually 2 seats. I think she just needed to go to heaven and bring down her date, my grandpa to watch it with her.

So Nana, have fun catching up and we will see you in December!

Let me just ask....

Your grandma dies, raised you to be Catholic. Your family changes after years of being Catholic to another religion. At your grandma's rosary, you don't come in and participate in the rosary. You sit in the front entry way at the funeral home on the couch and giggle during the entire rosary for your grandma.

Granted this isn't part of your religion, but half of the people at the funeral home aren't Catholic, but were your grandma's friend and sit through it in her honor.

Is it not rude of you to not participate?? I think so.

And that is one of many reasons why I don't speak to my cousins (1/4 of my cousins).

Bad Dream?

This week has been one of the biggest emotional roller coasters I think I have ever had. From being sad to happy, to sad again, to pissed off, then sad, then happy. Ugh.

One moment I am sad, then I am reunited with family I haven’t seen in 8 years and I am happy, then you realize why they are there and you are sad again. I enjoyed spending time with all my wonderful family but at the same time I was pissed off at about ¼ of the family for being rude and insensitive little…. And then I was sad. I gave a speech at the Rosary, after which I was very relieved it was over, but realized I made everyone else at the rosary cry. I was sad at the funeral, but happy that the deacon did such a wonderful job. I had a fun/exciting funeral procession ride all the way to Santa Fe with a police escort to the burial, but then was sad at the burial. And finally had an entertaining dinner with all of my family where we took lots of pictures.

Right now I think it all seems kinda like a bad dream. Like I know that it happened… but it just doesn’t seem real. My mom told me that her heart hurt yesterday and I kept thinking that I’m not sure it has sunk into me enough to realize that my heart hurts yet.

I haven’t really cried in since Monday day except for little minor things. Like being stuck on I-40 for 3 hours trying to get back home made me break down and then coming home and seeing a sympathy card signed by my little soccer teams.

I haven’t been to work in over a week! Eeek…. And I am not looking forward to going back at all! Lol. But I am very glad that I decided to spend so much time in Socorro because my mom really needed the help. My mom is the only kid that lives in the Socorro, where we had all of the services, and she is the oldest so she was the executor and power of attorney. Pretty much she had to make all of the funeral arrangements and I am not sure she could have done them all on her own. Not only did we pick out my grandma’s clothes, but we picked out the casket, called everyone that knew her, set up all the services and met with people from both the funeral home and our church, and then after the fact I helped my mom with thank you cards. What a whirlwind of a week.

Anyway… that is my update, since I haven’t written a blog in awhile. I am going to post my speech that I read at the rosary later (which is just a revised blog that I had written earlier) and possibly another blog about either some of my wonderful family or some of my not so wonderful family…. We will see, stay tuned…

Nana

April 10, 1926 to October 1, 2008

She died at 10:10 this morning.

Lucrezia (Grace) Elizabeth Conticelli, 82 died October 1, 2008 in her family’s home. Grace was born April 10, 1926 to Josephine and Dominic Azzarito in Brooklyn, New York. In 1977 Grace and her husband retired to Socorro, New Mexico where she lived for 30 years.

Grace is preceded in death by her husband, Peter Louis Conticelli. Grace is survived by her brother, Fred Azzarito and his wife Phyllis of South Carolina, her daughter, Patricia Hall and her husband Ryan of Socorro, NM, daughter Joy Romano and her husband John of Albuquerque, NM, son Peter Conticelli and his wife Carla of Rio Rancho, NM, son Andrew Conticelli and his wife Lori of Albuquerque, NM and 9 grandchildren: Angela Conticelli, Peter Conticelli and his wife Christina, Jennifer Romano, Jessi Valasquez and her husband Jose Valasquez, John Romano, Jaclyn Hall and her fiancé Ryan Waggoner, Andrew Conticelli, Dominic Conticelli and Ava Conticelli.

She was a wonderful woman who loved her family and friends very dearly. She will be missed greatly.