I'm getting married in the morning, ding dong the bells are gonna chime!

Less than a week until my wedding! I had expected that we'd have a spring wedding but Josh wanted a Christmas wedding, and I couldn't say no when I thought about how magic this time of year has been for us.

We also bought a house in October. It's our dream house. We have a large private backyard and a lot of space. It was hard to leave my apartment at the dance studio, but this is much better. I have a dream house and my dream guy.

Josh and I went with his family to New York City this past weekend to celebrate our engagement. His parents and sister were staying with his aunt, but Josh and I got a hotel room. We pulled up to the hotel and Mrs. Anderson said, "we've stayed here before." That's when I realized it was the hotel that we stayed at my junior year for our high school choir trip.

It was pretty funny. I kept thinking about my younger self, and how all I wanted back then was a few minutes with Josh and now I'm going to get a lifetime. It's pretty crazy to think that the last time I was there, I was a high school girl with an enormous crush on a boy, and now I'm a grown woman celebrating her engagement to that same boy.

I was telling him how badly I wanted to see him, and how glad I was that he had stopped by that day to see his mother. He laughed at me and said, "I wasn't here to see my mother." I asked him what he meant and he said, "I was here to see you, silly!" I really had a hard time believing this - maybe because in my mind for the past 11 years was a story about him coming to see his mom that day. He insisted, "I love my mom, but I was here to see the hot girl that I was couldn't get out of my head. I had a one track mind with you on repeat." This made me very happy. I kind of wish I could go back and tell 2005 Nicole that he's way more into her than she knows!

It was a nice weekend. Mrs. Anderson, Lauren and I went to a spa on Saturday for a girl's day, and then we went out to a fancy dinner that night, brunch Sunday morning and then we came back to Pennsylvania.

Josh is on summer break now and he decided not to take a summer job. I'm going to work part time this summer. The only thing that is really going on at the studio in the summer is fitness classes, and the dance competition (which I am not in). It will be nice for us to have some down time together. We want to travel but we haven't figured what we are going to do yet. I really don't care. I am just glad that we are getting a fun summer together.

Last weekend we had a showcase at the dance studio and Josh and I danced to "Dear Future Husband." We did the routine that we were supposed to do in the competition last fall. It was fun. At the end of the dance, Josh gets down on one knee like he's going to propose so I wasn't surprised when he did that, but he didn't get up...instead he pulled out a ring!!!!!! He said "I thought we should make this 'Future Husband' thing official." He then went on to ask me to marry him!

I said "YES!"

I am the Future Mrs. Anderson.

I was reading very early entries in this blog and I keep thinking how 2004 Nicole's mind would be blown if she could see that Josh and I are getting married. It's crazy to think how far we've come. Josh is my fiancé!

As I get closer to Natalie's wedding, I have to admit that marriage is on the brain a lot more than usual. Especially since Josh made the comment about his dream wedding making me his wife. We haven't really talked specifically about marriage since then, but we have talked about the future. Things like, "how many kids do you want?" or "what kind of house do you want to live in?"

We were also talking about the fact that he goes out to California during the summers. I brought it up last night and he said, "If the opportunity for me to go arises, we will talk about it." I was kind of surprised and said, "You mean I get a say?" He said, "Of course you get a say." This made me very happy - much different from when we were younger and he would just tell me that he was going somewhere for x amount of time. Now I get a say. He also said, "And I'm not going unless you go with me."

I guess we can have a grown up relationship. :)

I know it's been some time since I last posted. I'm such a slacker. I got busy with life. Life is good though! Lauren has moved into my second apartment and it's been fun having her around. Things with Josh are going great. 2016 has definitely been a "sweet 16."

Molly and Tim got married on Valentine's Day in Las Vegas. Josh, Natalie, Jason and I flew out for the weekend. We had a good time and the wedding was a lot nicer than I would have expected. We weren't in a cheap little shotgun wedding type of chapel. There was no Elvis impersonators... It was classy, but still not what I would have expected from Molly.

Later that evening Josh and I were walking around the city and we stopped outside of the Bellagio to look at the fountains. I was telling him that the wedding was nice but it wasn't really my style. He asked what my dream wedding was and I told him a few things I wanted. Then I said, "do you have a dream wedding?" I was half joking because I don't really think that guys think all that much about their weddings. He smiled and said, "My dream wedding is the one that gets me married to you."

My heart practically flew out of my chest. I asked him if that was a proposal. He said, "No, but maybe it's something we should talk about." I said, "Maybe it is."

Josh went back to work on Monday after a long holiday break. The holiday week was amazing. We got to spend a lot of time together and I loved every minute of it. He got sick on Monday so we haven’t seen much of each other this week. Last night was the first time we got to hang out.

We were having dinner when he mentioned that last year he was working with a realtor to find a house. He put it on hold but she is trying to get him to consider house shopping again. He’s not sure whether to wait a while or to move forward. He also mentioned the lease is up on his apartment in April and he needs to decide whether to sign for another year. I got the feeling he was trying to gauge where I’m at with our relationship.

I am totally 100% all in, but I’ve always thought that living together before marriage isn’t a good idea. It’s not because I’m a prude or anything like that, but to merge finances with someone without the legal protection of marriage seems like it would be a mess if things went south.

Josh knows how I feel, but I still suspect that he was testing the waters. Part of me was tempted to say “if you like it, then you better put a ring on it,” but we’ve only been back together for two months. Is that enough time to be together before talking about marriage?

Speaking of marriage, Molly and Tim are finally tying the knot. They have been engaged for a few years, and for one reason or another, they keep postponing. She sent out an invite for a Valentine’s Day wedding in Las Vegas. I’m a little surprised because a Vegas wedding is not what I ever would have expected from Molly, but it’s happening. Josh and I are going to book our flight and hotel this weekend.

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me a promise for an awesome 12 months together in 2016. Best present over.

This was the first year I had gone to the Anderson’s Christmas Eve Party since 2011. They didn’t have them for a couple of years and then last year I had other things going on.

It was so nice to be back, and I wasn’t there as just another guest this year. I was Josh’s date. This is actually the first time I’ve gone as his date, where he picked me up and took me and then brought me home. It was nice. I didn’t have to feel like I was waiting around until he had time to give me some attention.

I forgot how much I loved those parties. It made me feel all Christmasy and happy. They always have amazing food, and I love singing Christmas carols, and Josh and I spent time under the mistletoe - out of respect for tradition of course.

I had a naughty-or-nice detector app on my phone. You “scan” people and it tells you if they have been naughty or nice. We were joking around with it because you can rig it to have the outcome of your choice and Josh got a kick out of making everyone naughty - except for me, of course, I was nice. I suggested that we should scan him. He pulled me real close to him and responded with, “What do you want me to be? Naughty or nice? Or maybe both?” He winked at me and gave me the double eyebrow lift. I asked what he was proposing. He said, “I’m proposing that we put an end to this taking-things-slow stuff.”

And so Christmas started off very nice… ;)