Saturday, January 29, 2011

The Honeymoon

Our honeymoon started off with us staying at the Grand America Hotel in the Executive Suite. Wow! That place was absolutely amazing! I could not believe how fancy it was. Jesse and I arrived there in the limo that we left the reception in, and we were greeted by a man wearing a top hat and tuxedo asking us if he could take our luggage, then we went to the counter to check in and the man at the counter had an awesome English accent and there was a live jazz band playing in the lobby; we felt totally out of place. This was the entrance to the hotel:
Our room was just as amazing, complete with a bathroom made completely of marble!
Here is the entry way:
The sitting room:
And the marble bathroom:
The whole hotel was decorated for Christmas:
Complete with frosted chandeliers:
And gingerbread house displays:
And a huge Christmas tree in the courtyard:

When we checked out, they gave us a complimentary bottle of some fancy French sparkling lemonade, and a free upgrade to an Executive Suite if we come back next December. Staying here was definitely the highlight of the honeymoon. I wish I could say everything else was this nice, but it wasn't.. Our next stop was Zion National Park. We arrived the next evening, and it was rainy and cold. We checked into our cabin, which was one room, big enough for a bed and a table. There was no tv, no cell phone service, and, for the first night, no heat. It was absolutely freezing when we first got there, so I immediately started looking for the heater, which I never found, so I figured there wasn't one. I didn't sleep much that first night because it was so cold, and it was pouring rain the entire night. Luckily, Jesse decided to look again for a heater the next morning, and he found it. That made it a little more bearable, but it was still kinda miserable. We stayed there from Sunday night til Tuesday morning, and the whole time we were there it didn't stop pouring rain, so we were stuck inside a one room cabin with no tv or any connection to the outside world. When Tuesday came, it was still raining, and we were just about to check out when the front counter received the notice to evacuate the entire park because of flooding and rock slides. Luckily we were able to get out of there before many people heard the evacuation notice. We were glad to be gone.
Here's our cabin:
And our view of the mountains (I was so sad that it never cleared up enough for us to actually see them):
Then we headed down to St. George, hoping to see some sun and warm up a bit... too bad it was rainy and cold there too.. We didn't do much because of the weather, and we headed home that Thursday. All in all it was a good honeymoon; definitely different than what we were expecting, but it was so nice to spend a week with just Jesse, even though we didn't really do anything.
Oh, and here's a picture of our view from our hotel in St. George :)

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Lots to Catch Up On

I haven't blogged for a whole two months now, and seeing as how these past two months have been the most eventful months of my life, there's lots to catch up on. Starting with the wedding.
The wedding day came and went super fast. It was over before we knew what happened. Our sealing was at 10:20 in the morning in the Salt Lake Temple. I was up by 6:30. My sister Emily got up at 7 and did my hair for me. Here is the finished product:In the middle of me getting my hair done, I got a call from Jesse telling me that he had just slid off the road on the way to my house because the roads were so snowy and slippery. I had a little mini freak out, but luckily his uncle was able to come save him and bring him the rest of the way safely. Side note: his truck now has a huge dent in the side of it from where he ran into a mile marker sign. If he wouldn't have hit that sign, his truck probably would have flipped... scary.
Here's my dad, my nephew Krew and Jesse all in their matching ties ready to go to the temple:


So once my hair was done and once Jesse had arrived at my house safely, it was off to the temple. It was rainy and gross the whole way down there, but we made it safely. The temple was amazing, the sealing was amazing, and it was great to have family and friends there. A lot people couldn't make it to the sealing because of weather and what not, but it was still great.
So, just in case the incident of Jesse sliding off the road wasn't enough, we had another little mishap happen at the temple and I had another freak out. After we had taken the family pictures on the steps of the temple, we went back inside to change and get ready to leave. I got changed and sat and waited with my mom in the lobby for Jesse to come out. After sitting and waiting for about ten minutes, my mom tells me to go see if he is waiting in another part of the temple, because there was no way that he was still in the dressing room. I went to go look for him and had no luck. A nice temple worker even came up to me and asked if I needed any help. I told him that I had just lost my new husband and he said that he would go look for him in the dressing room. After just a couple of minutes, he came back out and informed me that Jesse had checked out of the dressing room already and should be out in the lobby where I was. That was where I started to freak out a little bit. I went to tell my mom that he was not in the dressing room anymore and I find out that my dad has not seen him either. By this time, we had been waiting for almost half an hour for him to show up. I really started to freak out and started thinking that he had just up and run away from me. I created a whole scenario of him realizing that he didn't want to be married to me so he just snuck away from me while I was changing and was now on his way to a different state where he would change his name and create a whole new life for himself... I got myself so worked up that I started to cry. Another sweet temple worker then approached me and told me that she would go look in one other place that he could be. I waited for a few minutes and when she came back, she brought with her my husband! He had been taken to the wrong door where he was told to wait they would bring me to him, which was wrong. Luckily my story about run away Jesse did not come true and it was just a simple mistake of him and I waiting for each other in opposite ends of the temple.
When we came out of the temple it started to rain a little harder, so we didn't stick around for too many pictures. Luckily we had all of our bridals done so we only had to stand in the rain for the family pictures.
Here we are just married!:
And then it was time for some quick family pictures:
haha, I love my nephews

We took just a couple pictures near the doors of the temple:Then it was on to the luncheon. We went to the church house that our ward meets in in Layton and had a Panda Express feast. It was delicious and so laid back, which is how we like it.
Socializing with the family:




The cute married couple:
After the luncheon we headed straight for the Victorian to set up for the reception and take pictures.
Here is the outside of the Victorian:

And the inside part where the food and dancing took place, it was decorated so cute:
Pictures before the guests arrived:
Cute nephews:


My family is awesome

That place was so perfect for our reception and it was so nice to have everything taken care of by the owners. We had a good amount of people show up. It wasn't too crowded and there were breaks in the line, which we liked because it gave us some much needed down time.

Our reception was from 6-8. We had a line until 7:30, and then it was time to cut the cake and dance.
I didn't like the idea of having a traditional wedding cake, so we had bundt cakes instead :) they turned out super cute.


and we smashed it in each others faces

first dance:

!
daddy daughter dance:


Then it was time to leave. We were lucky enough to get to leave the Victorian in a limo which took us all the way down to Salt Lake where we stayed at the Grand America.

It was the perfect day.. I can't believe it was a month ago from today. Happy one month to us!