weddings honeymoon and clogging

Well it has been way too long since I've updated! Almost two months! Not that much has happened ;) Only a wedding and a honeymoon! I'm married now! Can you believe it? Sometimes in the middle of the night I have to admit I look at Jer on the other side of the bed and it just feels so weird to me that I'm married. Its like I can't quite wrap my brain around it. But I am enjoying being married. Single days were fun, but being able to share a life with Jeremy has been amazing. One movie I've always enjoyed is "Shall We Dance" with Richard Gere in it. Partially because I love ballroom dance. But the other is the portrayal between the husband and wife. At one point the wife is asked by an PI why people get married. He thought she would tell him passion or romance. Instead she makes this poignant statement. " We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things... all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness'." This statement has been something that I've really thought about. Its quite the different take on marriage, even in the LDS world. I like it because she mentions the part you're promising to care about everything. In a way that does seem to be what a successful marrige does. Caring so much about the details and the ups and downs of your love's life. Being there for them through it all, being if no one else, the one who will be there for them through it all. Noticing and sharing the joy and easing the sorrows. Now for the application. :) For the rest of my life.

 The wedding day went beautiful. I truely enjoyed every minute of it. Everyone who helped plan and make the day go did such a wonderful job. It was great! The temple was amazing. I knew before we were married that it is worth it to be worth to go. I had no idea. To be in the temple, in a little sealing room waiting for the sealer to come in and instruct us, before taking us to the room with family, I've never felt such happiness and joy. Every night of saying good bye, or not now, or any sacrifice or fight of temptation, was worth it. Kneeling in that room knowing we had both lived lives to bring us to that point...I just felt such incredible joy. I hope I can always remember that joy. The sealing was beautiful, and very much a highlight of my life. 

The rest of the day went smoothly, we had lunch at Gia's. I ate way too much. It was good though. Loved the cheesecake, even if I wasn't able to finish it. It was way rich. How Jeremy ate his and finished mine I'll never know. Both receptions were very nice. I enjoyed seeing people and talking with them. I thought it'd be more stressful that it was, but I just enjoyed it. Both backdrops were beautiful and both my mothers did a wonderful job. I owe them a big thank you. Thank you everyone that came and showed your support!

The honeymoon was quite the adventure. For the longest time Jeremy was bound and determined to keep the honeymoon a secret. He was doing a fairly good job. He only let a few details slip. I knew we were flying to New York for our first leg, so it had to be somewhere back east. I whined to him about not knowing what to pack (a ploy to see what I could get out of him), so he informed the average temperature in March is 82 degrees, and that was all I needed to know. And we were going to somewhere that had a beach. That was ALL I was able to get out of him. Jeremy did a really good job. Its not easy for Jer to keep secrets. Especially from me! His mom says he's only ever kept one secret in his life. I wonder what that is... He did good until about a week before the wedding. He got a job with a start date (more on that later) and was so excited. He was going on about his job, and the benefits and what it means for us, then all the sudden starts talking about Puerto Rico. I must say I stared at him! Yup, he'd let the cat out of the bag. Poor guy, he can only last so long. His family was all betting how long he'd last. So Puerto Rico it was. It took a little adjusting to, but then I started to get really excited for it.

 We were supposed to fly out on Sunday night and arrive mid-afternoon Monday. So Sunday we are at the airport. Jeremy's aunt works for Jet blue and her gift to us was buddy passes anywhere Jet Blue flies. But that also means we fly stand by. Our flight left at 11:38. It was about 11:30. There was one open seat and one person who had checked in online, but hadn't showed yet. They called and called for him on the intercom. The terminal was deserted except for a guy lounging around one of the other kiosks. But he wasn't doing anything to look like his flight was leaving in 8 minutes. So they gave us our boarding passes, and we got on the plane. We were on our way. At 11:35 an attendant shows up and informs us the gentleman had showed up to claim his ticket. So either one of us could get off or and wait in new york for the other, or both of us get off. Of course we both got off. I was heartbroken. The guy who was lounging around finally decided he wanted to get on the plane. So we missed our flight. :( I was heartbroken So now we were faced with a choice of what now to do. We can try and catch the next flight to New York, which was Monday night, but we'd lose a whole day of vacation. Jet Blue only flies two places out of SLC, so our other option was Long Beach. I have friends in San Diego so I thought maybe we could work something out...if nothing else they can let us know what to do. So at about two in the morning we switched flights, and rented a hotel room in Long Beach. Our flight left at 6:30 in the morning. So we found ourselves in California at 7:30 in the morning. We decided to get some breakfast and wait for the shuttle. If nothing else they can take us to the hotel and we can go from there. So thats what we did. About 9:30 the shuttle shows up to drop some people off and we prevail upon the driver to take us back to the hotel. We were supposed to call and request, but he took us on good will. Here's another I'm thankful for my mission moment. I started talking to the driver. (poor Jeremy was a zombie by this point) I asked where he grew up and family and he asked about us and we told our sob story. He sympathized. We arrived at the hotel, probably around 10. Of course check in isn't until 3 and we had five hours to kill. But at least the lobby couch was more comfortable than the hard steel bench at the airport. But then we got blessed. Turns out the shuttle driver was filling in, and in reality he was the manager. He checked to make sure really did have reservations like we said, and told the receptionist to have a room be cleaned out for us and let us check in early! What a tender mercy. We were able to check in and just crash on the bed.

 By now I had been pushed past my limit and was borderline meltdown mode. (I ate almost an entire pint of ice cream. That wasn't a good sign.) We'd both slept maybe two or three hours in the past 24, and were both exhausted, not to mention the stress of changing plans. So we slept off and on until the evening and decided we'd better plan our honeymoon. I had friends in San Diego and they offered to let us stay with them. Well it was cheaper than a hotel, and since they are in the military they can also get us discount passes for things in San Diego. So we decided to rent a car and off we went. I know, who stays with friends on their honeymoon? Apparently the Cranes. But we were planning on a Puerto Rico budget, not a California. We rented a car Tuesday morning and decided to brave the California Roads. We talked to the guy who was giving us the run-down of the car and he told us of the pacific coast highway and suggested it as an alternative to the freeway. We weren't in any hurry, nor had a desire to brave LA traffic, so we took it. I'm so glad we did. It was beautiful. It went through all the coastal towns, like Huntington and we stopped in Laguna Beach, we saw the coast and all the little towns. It was beautiful and relaxing. Something very much needed. The town we stopped in we had lunch and walked on the beach. There was little reef with some critters in it Jeremy found fascinating. I humored him. :-) Eventually we made our way to San Diego and my friend's house. We stayed there for about three days. We went on a tour of San Diego, stopped at the Mormon Battalion Monument. The San Diego Monument was really neat. They had a tour and shared the history of the Battalion and we took a picture of us as a souvenir. And Jeremy got to pan for gold. :) The next day we spent our time at Sea World, which was fun as well. We borrowed my friend's season passes so we were able to get in for free, which was nice. Its amazing how acrobatic those animals are! Finally on Friday we drove back to Long Beach and boarded our plane. We took the same pacific coast highway, which was still really petty. All in all, for being a on-the-spot honeymoon, it turned out just fine. But it sure was crazy.We'd still like to go to Puerto Rico. It'll be our dream trip that we save for. We don't know why we weren't able to go. I must wonder if the Lord had a reason. At least I can say we made the best of it.

 Life has since been an adventure. I've discovered I married a sleep talker. I'll never forget the first time. He started mumbling about the wife being cold. I was pretty sure he was sleep talking so I asked him why. The answer I got was "Because of the husband." Once again I asked why... He suddenly is like "I don't know! I'm tired! Leave me alone!" and rolls away. I had to laugh. Its been fun to give him a hard time. He doesn't ever really remember it. The other night he was mumbling about "not sure if I'm up for this" I asked him up for what? "Clogging" Clogging?! where in the world did that come from? So I asked "For you or someone else?" "The girls" What girls? He then continues "Well if they want to do it I'll support them..." By that point he was starting to wake up. Clogging? of all things clogging... What will he come up with next?

 Jeremy also was finally able to start for Ebay. They had called a few times to start him, but he has to have 100% attendance. The first time was during the day, and he had school. The second time the wedding and honeymoon would have gotten in the way. Pretty disappointing. And we didn't know if they would call back a third time. So back to the job search. I had to admit I was pretty worried about how we would live. I didn't like the idea of living on unemployement, and I wasn't picking up hours at work like I'd hoped. But the Lord does test our patience and faith to the utmost. Sometimes it seems like he waits until the last minute to bless us. Finally a week before the wedding Ebay called Jeremy (We'd given up on them) They offered him a job again with a start date of the Monday after we get back from our honeymoon. What a blessing! Only the Lord could time it like that. We have to remember to have faith in the Lord that he'll take care of us. Its hard in the middle of the trial. I have to keep telling myself that it will work out, and just hold on. But the light will come and blessings and tender mercies will follow. I'm grateful for the blessings I've been given. Well I think that wraps up most of the major highlights of the past two months. I have wedding and honeymoon pictures on Piacasa if anyone wants to see them. Here are the links. Or I think you can get to them by the little slide show on the side of my blog. Happy viewing!

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