Easter Weekend

We headed back to Illinois over Easter weekend to spend time with family while we reflected on the death and resurrection of Jesus.  We loved seeing everyone and of course eating at Caleri's (twice) again!

 

 

Saturday my mom worked and asked us to run an errand for her in Peoria.  The errand only took about 20 minutes so after that was finished we went to Grandview Drive and walked around a little bit. 

 

 *side note* The stalls in the women's bathroom in Grandview Drive park have no doors!  It made for a very vulnerable feeling bathroom experience!** 

 

Anyway, we noticed a couple houses were for sale and thought we could maybe put an offer in???  (just kidding- maybe someday after we both start earning millions per year!)

 

We found a house whose owners reeeeeaaaalllly like Easter decorations!  We thought it would be interesting to see what they come up with for Halloween and Christmas.

 

Easter egg hunt at my grandparent's place!  This was the first family gathering I had been to since they moved into their new duplex and it was a little weird not being in their house.  But they love it there so it's all good!

 

Molls checking out her goodies.

 

Sunday was supper and kite flying before we took off again.

 

The girls got bubbles in their Easter baskets from grandma and wanted to blow them as we drove away, just like they did at our wedding:)

 

It was kind of hard to leave but not as bad as I thought it might be.  But I will be looking forward to our next visit!

Befores And Afters

About a week before we got married, we had a cleaning party at our new house before we started moving in.  It was a big job but now I feel perfectly justified not doing any major spring cleaning this year!  Next year I will have no excuses and probably not all the help we had either.  Thanks to our families for coming and helping!!  You made it much more bearable:)

 

 

While we had the house completely empty, we decided to go ahead and paint our bedroom.  We have other places in the house we'd like to paint, but the bedroom seemed like more of a pain to do once we had all the furniture inside.  So we went from this light bluish-grayish color....

 

To this lovely shade of fuchsia!

 

I kind of had this pictured in my head with the gray and white bedding, so I'm glad Danny went along with it!  And after almost two months, I still love it:)  We'd like some curtains too but beyond picking out paint colors and painting, my interior decorating skills are very limited.  Soooo...... hopefully someday sooner rather than later.

 

Our bathroom was the next painting priority.  Judging by the living room and our master bath, the house was built, or at least redecorated, during the time when maroon was THE color.  And country mauve.  Let's not forget that!  I mean, check this out!

 

 

The pink tub (and toilet and shower stall) has been the butt of a few jokes, and eventually it might be replaced but we thought we would at least tone down the room and get rid of the maroon walls.

 

So gray it is!

 

Sometimes it looks gray and sometimes it looks blue, but I think we decided we prefer it over the maroon.

 

I'm not sure what's next on our list.  Eventually it will be the second bathroom, living room, and kitchen.  We've got some beautiful early 1990's wallpaper to deal with so we might have to wait until we get really motivated before we tackle those projects!

Our Amazing Honeymoon:)

First picture of the honeymoon!  Riviera Maya, Mexico bound- soooooooo excited for warm weather!

 

 

We had three nights at the different restaurants at our resort and the rest of the time we just ate at the buffet.  Which was a feast.  Our first restaurant was a Japanese steakhouse.  It was my favorite!

 

Lizards were aaaalllllllll over the place.  And Danny was intrigued:)

 

Our second restaurant was a Mexican place.  I think that was Danny's favorite.  His food was amazing!  Mine.... well, I've had better.  We were wondering if we could manage to kiss while wearing those huge sombreros.

 

We could!

 

Our first excursion was a "Mayan experience".  Seeing some ruins, climbing a (very steep) temple...

 

Made it to the top!

 

And back down again.  We conquered!  Our legs felt like jello but we did it!  And it was great fun.

 

The afternoon was filled with things I don't have any pictures of.  Sooooo sad about that:(  Lunch at a Mayan village, canoeing, zip lining, hiking, and rappelling down into a giant sinkhole filled with water where we swam around in inner tubes.  This was my favorite day.  And while I don't have any pictures of the afternoon, I do have this picture of a turkey in the Mayan village!  Gobble gobble:)

 

Next excursion: Xel-Ha.  (pronounced Shell-Ha)  This was Danny's favorite day.  I wasn't feeling good and I kind of struggled through it.  Which was a bummer, cause it was a really cool place!

 

Biking through the woods,

 

seeing some of God's awesome creations,

 

snorkeling, (this is what he waited for the entire trip, and he couldn't stop talking about it after it happened:))

 

more lizards,

 

and, well, there's that bench, too!  They had a bunch of stuff that we didn't do, like swimming with dolphins, manatees, and stingrays, a huge lazy river, and some bicycle zip line thing.

 

Here we are on our last night:(  Sad to see it come to an end but kind of ready to come home too.  We went to an Italian restaurant that night.  Neither one of us really enjoyed it enough to get a picture.  But I do really like this one of us on the dock!

 

And after a stop in to see my parents, pack up the rest of my clothes and stuff, and of course eat at Caleri's, it was time to head back to our new house!  But first we stopped at prompt care because I still felt nasty.  Turns out I had had tonsillitis, swollen gums, and about 12-15 canker sores.  Really painful and NOT fun.  Or maybe I'm just a wimp.  But it took a good three weeks to completely feel normal again.  I never want to do that again!

 

We got home to a fridge filled with oranges that each had a message written on them, and tootsie rolls.  E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E.  Hidden all over the house.  In fact, we just found another one this past weekend and I'm not convinced we've discovered all of them yet.  But it was good- a little fun with no harm done:)

 

Ever since we got back we just work, work, work.  Just kidding!  We went to Florida:)  But I'll write about that another time.  Adios!

Rehearsal Dinner And Wedding

*Disclaimer: This got a little longer than I had originally planned...*

 

Soooo...... I'm getting more and more behind on blogging. We just had our one month anniversary (yay!) and I'm just now getting to the rehearsal dinner?  Bad Sarah.  I'll use the excuse that we don't have internet hooked up at our house yet.  I think that's a good one.

 

Anyway, I loved our rehearsal dinner.  My aunt (and some great helpers) did it for us at my cousin's restaurant.  It was personal, cozy, fun, and delicious! 

 

 

A few simple decorations was all it needed.

And I loved our place cards! 

The fact that it was delicious deserves mentioning again.  I didn't get a picture of any of the four dessert choices, but Danny still talks about the lemon raspberry cheesecake he had!

 

 

It was a really special evening with our closest friends and family.  Everyone said such nice things and I cried.  Then we stood and talked and I cried again. 

 

After the supper some of us headed over to the singing that was going on for any wedding guests who wanted something to do that night.  After catching up with some old friends we hadn't seen in a long time, the night ended with an awesome, impromptu, joy filled and very LOUD singing around the piano.  It was the perfect end to the night!

 

Then there was the wedding day.  Which I don't have any pictures of on my camera so if you haven't seen the link yet to the photographer's blog and would like to see pictures, you can go here. 

 

 Oh how I loved our wedding day!  Someone had told me awhile before to really try to be present.  Be present while I'm with my bridesmaids, be present while I'm walking down the aisle, be present during the service, during the reception, and when we're leaving the reception.  Because it all goes so fast and if you don't make the effort to be present, it will all be over and you'll hardly have a recollection of anything that happened.  So I really tried to take that advice to heart and I think I did a pretty good job of it.  Not perfect- there's a few things that are maybe a little fuzzy but overall I loved just soaking up the day.  It was a day that I had prayed about for so long.  One that I had wondered if it would even happen and one that I had completely surrendered to God.  For the most part.  I had my days when I would doubt and feel completely discontent but for the most part God had brought me to a place of contentment and trust that whether or not marriage was in my future, life would be just fine.  So walking down the aisle and taking my vows with the man I have come to love a whole lot more than I ever thought possible was amazing.  And a little surreal.  One minute I'm not married and the next I am.  Just like that!  Crazy how that works:)

We loved our wedding sermon and our reception too.  The weather threatened to put a damper on things but the church prayed away the snowstorm the weatherman called for.  It came our way and then pretty much split in two, going north and south of us, barely leaving it's mark in our area!  The only complaint that I have is that we couldn't take the time to sit and talk with everyone that came through the line like we wanted.  I told the parents that it wasn't an appropriate time to figure out family trees so I figured I should help with keeping the line moving too:) 

 

Well, if you're still reading, good for you!  Hopefully I'll be back sooner than later with gripping tales of our honeymoon that I'm sure will keep you on the edge of your seats!