9 States, 2 Receptions, and 1 Wedding Later...

It's been a while since I have written a post and a lot has happened in that time. The end of May and beginning of June were very full and busy with all things wedding. Everything went well, it wasn't stressful, and it was fun...but I am glad to be done with the endless To Do List that comes with planning a wedding and starting a marriage, as well as all the traveling we did in those weeks. It's nice to be able to go home to the same place every day and to not live out of a suitcase.

Samuel and I drove up to Washington the Friday before the wedding and were able to spend some time with his family before the wedding and to prepare for the wedding. On Wednesday all of my family came in to town along with my three good friends Kylie, Brianne, and Rachel. Under the direction of Jet, we prepared all the flowers and made the bouquets, boutonnieres, and filled the vases. The flowers were beautiful and Jet did a great job of assembling them.


That night we had a dinner with all of Samuel's family and all of my family in order to help the families get to know each other and it was a lot of fun. I felt really blessed to have my entire family at the wedding and all of Samuel's family as well. It was the first wedding of our family that everyone could be there due to missions, babies, etc so I felt really special. That night I stayed with my family at their hotel and Kylie stayed with us as well so that she could do my hair and make-up in the morning. A big thank you to Kylie for taking on that job, it was really helpful and I think she did a great job.

The morning of the wedding(Thursday) my dad brought in the newspaper and showed me the front page headlines which we found amusing for the wedding day:


It was supposed to rain the day of the wedding but it was a clear and sunny day. The sealing went really well and was very special. When we came out of the temple it was great to see everyone. The teal and orange turned out looking really good and I was very happy that I chose them as colors.

My number of brothers has doubled!

After taking pictures we went a luncheon at the Old Spaghetti Factory that Samuel's mom had planned. Everyone who had been at the temple plus a couple others were there. Then a couple hours later we had a reception at a recreation center near Samuel's house. The decorations were beautiful and everything went really well.



The day after the wedding we headed back to Utah and dropped a bunch of things off and then headed on to California to catch the cruise for our honeymoon. The cruise ship left from Long Beach and went down to Mexico and back, making two stops along the way: Catalina Island and Esenada, Mexico. It was really nice to be able to relax and to have all kinds of food available to us. We had a really great time.

On Catalina Island with our Cruise Ship in the background

We got to go snorkeling on Catalina Island as well

Ensenada, Mexico

After we got back from our cruise Friday morning we drove down to New Mexico for a wedding reception at my house the next day. We got in late that night and then the next day we prepared for the reception and spent time with my family and Samuel's parents who had come down for it as well. We got all set up for the reception and the weather was looking really nice, but then right before it was time to start, the crazy New Mexico winds started up and blew everything on our tables over no matter how much we tapped them all down. So we had to take everything off until the wind died down, but it all worked out alright. It was great to see all the people that I have known for so long come to the reception and help us celebrate.

Sunday after the reception we took Samuel's parents to Overlook Park

After spending Sunday with family, Samuel and I headed back to Utah on Monday morning. By the time we got back we had driven through nine different states and we were glad to be done traveling. We have been having a really fun summer and have been able to spend a lot of time with Samuel's siblings and other friends. I could put some pictures up of our apartment, but we will be moving to a different apartment in about a month(which we are excited about) and so for now I will just share a picture of my favorite addition to our apartment:

:)