We did it!

We're finally married! We haven't been faithful bloggers through it all, but I'll try to recap the main events of the last few weeks. (It might be boring, but it's also for my own documentation!) We are expecting to get the rest of our wedding photos back sometime soon, so I'll put those in a later post!

Dec. 18th- I took my last final ever at BYU! They don't have a graduation ceremony in December (I can attend one in April if I want), but I should be getting my diploma soon!

Dec. 20th- I received my endowments in the Salt Lake Temple. It was really cool that it was a live session!

Dec. 21st- We traveled to Sunnyside to Rob's parents' house. The roads were terrible and the drive took us 15.5 hours, but we made it in one day... mostly because we left at 4:30 in the morning!

Dec. 25th- Christmas! We spent the morning with Rob's family, then went to Yakima where my family was staying at the home of a family in their old ward who was out of town.

Rob's parents and siblings pitched in and got us a Bosch! For those who don't know, it is a very powerful stand mixer that is well-known for its ability to make bread easily. On Christmas, Rob's mom taught me how to use it to make bread/rolls!

Dec. 26th- We went to Tri-Cities to take wedding pictures with our photographers (my friend from high school, Amy, and her husband Tavis). We took mostly indoor photos, and some around the temple (as many as we could bear in the cold). We were so glad we did this because we were able to take TONS of pictures of just the two of us without having our whole families waiting for us in the freezing cold. Plus, on our actual wedding day, it was really busy... and really windy! **see my hair and veil in the picture below.


Dec. 27th- Marriage!! We were sealed for time and all eternity in the Columbia River Temple. It was perfect, and lots of our families and friends were able to be there. Our reception was that evening at the home of the Tree family. It was beautiful. Lots of people came and it was good to see them all. Rob's uncle Reggie took all our family photos there.

Outside the temple

With both sets of parents

Cupcakes! I wanted them to be fresh, so I insisted on decorating them during the time between the wedding and the reception. We were a little pressed for time, but with help, we did it.

Cutting the cake!

Rob and his nephews: Keanu, Kalani, and Eli

Me and two of my neices: Annika and Meagan

Dec. 28th- We had an open house at Rob's family's home. Rob and I were both sick! We had been having cold symptoms off and on all week. We both felt alright on our wedding day, but I had kind of a scratchy voice and after talking all night in the reception line, I had no voice the next day. But it still turned out well! Afterwards, we took off for our honeymoon!

We are planning to go on a delayed honeymoon during the summer, but for the week after our wedding, we were able to go to a "cabin" (out of habit, we refer to it as a cabin, but it's really a 6 bedroom house) owned by Rob's uncle Dennis on Palmer Lake in Northern Washington. I have been there with Rob's family before during the summer, but it was very different in the winter. It was perfect though! The house was warm and comfortable and it was so nice to sleep in, relax, and be with only each other after all the busy-ness of the previous weeks.

This is the view we had from the house. Under all that snow somewhere is a frozen lake.

We found some halibut in the freezer, and Rob made us beer-battered halibut while we were there! It was delicious!

We did have one adventure while we were there: First of all, even though there wasn't really anything to be afraid of, we knew it would be a little creepy to be there. The house had been kind of abandoned for a while, and it was in a woodsy area without any close neighbors. I had told Rob that we weren't allowed to watch any scary movies while we were there, and as soon as we got there, I made sure he checked every room, every closet, and under every bed. Well, everything looked fine and there was still some daylight left outside. So I decided that it would be okay to disregard my rule and watch the X-Files movie we had gotten ourselves for Christmas, and that I was dying to see. Well, by the time we got unpacked and got the movie started, it was dark outside, but we were feeling brave (and made sure to keep the lights on). About 10 minutes into the movie there was a scary part (just an alien attacking a cave man) and suddenly, the TV and all the lights went off. They came back on again, then a minute later went back off and stayed off. It was pitch black in the whole house and we didn't know what to do! We hardly knew where anything was in the house, and I just had images of a creepy lumberjack serial killer messing with the fuse box and getting ready to come out and grab me. Rob took me into the kitchen looking for a lighter, and then he somehow remembered that he had seen a flashlight in one of the bedrooms, so we got it. He also remembered that during power outages, landlines still work, so he called his Uncle Dennis on the land line phone. Dennis gave us the phone number of the closest neighbors, so Rob called them and they reassured us that power outages usually only last about an hour. The lights eventually came back on, but it was a frightening hour or so. We even built up the courage to watch the rest of the X-Files movie a few days later... in the broad daylight. Overall, our honeymoon week was great and we didn't want to leave!

Well, this blog is getting pretty long, so I'll try to put what's happened since then in a new one!