Honeymoon Recap Part III: Favorite Things We Did in Maui

Hello from Chicago! I'm back with a post about favorite things we did in Maui!

One reason we were drawn to Hawaii as a honeymoon destination is that it's a beautiful, beach location but it also has hiking and other outdoorsy things to do. Since we were there for 9 days, we alternated days of relaxing/reading/snorkeling at the beach by our condo with days of exploration. This was the perfect approach for us as we came back from our honeymoon feeling relaxed and refreshed (well, except from dealing with the exhaustion of an overnight flight on the way back). We usually take shorter 3-5 day trips as Phil has limited vacation time and prefers shorter trips, but when we take shorter trips, we don't have the luxury of really relaxing since we always want to do and see as much as possible. I'm so glad this trip was longer and allowed for more down time because if there was ever a time that we needed to relax, it was after our wedding!!

This post will cover some of the adventures and day trips we did. I would also add that one of our favorite things we did in Maui was snorkeling right out in front of our condo! But this is a summary of our favorite excursions, outside of spending time on the beach! I debated breaking this up into 2 posts because it's going to be a bit really long, but in the end, I decided to just keep it as one post as it's going to be mostly pictures! So settle in for LOTS of Hawaii photos!

#1 - Waihe'e Ridge Trail - Phil and I LOVE to hike. We tend to pick vacation destinations with hiking options because it's one of our favorite things to do together. So it's no surprise that our first 'adventure' in Hawaii was a hike. This hike is located on the north shore of Hawaii, not far from the airport. It's a moderately challenging 4-5 mile (we saw conflicting info and I didn't wear my garmin that day) hike.

At the start of the hike

At the mid-way point! How gorgeous is that view of the ocean?

The beautiful, lush mountains of Hawaii

At the top of the hike, feeling like I'm on top of the world - literally and metaphorically!

If you do this hike, make sure you bring lots of water. I wore my camel back and we drank about 2 of the 2.5 liters it holds (I probably drank 2/3 of the water because Phil is like a camel and does not need to drink as much as I do!). This was probably my favorite thing we did in Hawaii. The views were so beautiful and it was awesome to be surrounded by gorgeous, lush mountains. We both said this is exactly what we picture when we think of Hawaii.

#2 - Kapalua Coastal Trail - Napili Bay is adjacent to Kapalua Bay, which has a beautiful point-to-point trail for walking/running. The trails starts at Kapalua Bay and ends at DT Fleming Beach. There is a parking lot at Kapalua Bay but it fills up early in the day so we opted to run to the trail head since it was so close to our condo. As the name of the trail implies, it runs along the ocean. The views are absolutely gorgeous!

We only did this run once which I kind of regret. In hindsight, I should have ran this trail on some of the mornings that Phil was sleeping in...  but it was also nice to relax in the mornings and read on the lanai so I can't say I regret it ALL that much. But hopefully we'll be back some day and can run it again!

# 3 - Snorkeling Excursion to Molikini - Snorkeling is one of our favorite things to do in tropical locations, so we knew we wanted to do a snorkeling excursion while we were in Maui. The snorkeling in front of our condo was amazing, so we debated whether we needed to spend the money to do a trip, but we are glad that we did because it was fun to see a different area. There are so many different tour companies to choose from and many of them come highly recommended, but we decided to go with Triology as they had the best ratings on yelp. We had a wonderful experience with them. Unfortunately I do not have any photos as we decided to leave our phones behind that day as we didn't want to risk having them get wet. Trilogy usually does 2 stops - one at Molokini, which is a crater island with great snorkeling, and another along the coast where you tend to see sea turtles. The visibility was 150-200 feet! The highlight of this trip was seeing a reef shark!  People have asked if that scared me, but it didn't not scare me at all - it was just like seeing another fish. Plus it wasn't huge and it's my understanding that they are not aggressive. On the way back they serve adult beverages, including mai thais which sure were refreshing after being in the sun so much!

#4 - Road to Hana - This is a very popular thing to do in Hawaii. Before our trip, I read my friend Kelly's post about The Road to Hana. We debated whether to do this because it's a long day and a difficult drive with all the winding roads and single-lane bridges. But we ultimately decided to do it. I'm glad we did it (Phil might feel differently because he did 100% of the driving - I did offer to drive on the way back, though!) but we wouldn't do it again on future trips to Maui and I wouldn't say it something you HAVE to do.

If you do this drive, buy the GyPSy ap for the drive. It runs off your GPS so you don't need cell service for it to work (which is good because there is little to no cell reception for much of the drive). The guide tells you about the different stops and what is worth stopping for. On the way back, he gives you the history of Hawaii, which is fascinating and heart-breaking.

One thing we never would have noticed or known about if it wasn't for the ap was the rainbow eucalyptus trees, with the ap points out as we drove past. The ap also told us to stop at a free Botanical garden to see them up close.

Not the best picture, but how cool are these colorful trunks?

Some of the stops were short, like this stop on the Keanae Peninsular. We stopped and got fresh, warm banana bread here, which I wasn't able to eat due to my gluten intolerance (doh!) but Phil thoroughly enjoyed it.

This little guy hitched a ride for us for awhile after we left the peninsular!

One of our favorite stops was Wainapanapa State Park, which has a black sand beach. We stopped here for quite awhile as there is a lot to see.

Selfies in one of the coves

The black sand beach

We also saw several waterfalls along the road, like this one!

Our final stop was Haleakala National Park for the Pipiwai Trail. This was a fairly easy hike, but the views along the trail were gorgeous as you hiked through a bamboo forest. I took so many pictures

The beautiful Banyan tree we saw before getting into the bamboo forest

Hiking through the bamboo forest was just amazing. The bamboo were swaying in the slight breeze, which resulted in a chorus of bamboo clinks. It was so peaceful and beautiful.

At the end of the hike, there is a cool 400 foot waterfal!

At the start of the trail there are some pools that you used to be able to swim in, but they have closed them for safety reasons. We thought this hike still made the stop worthwhile.  It is about 45 minutes beyond Hana, though. At this point we turned around and headed back. The road does go beyond this stop but it's not paved for part of it and rental cars prohibit driving on it.  After the rental car damage debacle in Bend, we decided not to take the risk of damaging another car and we turned back.

It was about a 10-11 hour day, so if you aren't in Maui for a week or more, I would probably skip this excursion as it's a very long day!  And Phil would tell you that the drive was pretty awful because of the countless single-lane bridges. We would also advise renting a smaller car if you are going to do this drive because the roads are quite narrow. We met so many jeeps on this road and were glad we didn't rent a jeep as there would barely be enough room for 2 jeeps to meet at certain parts of the road! Also, if you get car sick - don't do this drive!  We saw one person throwing up in a tour van, and another on the side of the road. There are 600+ turns on this road so it's not a drive for those who get motion sickness in cars!

#5 - Sliding Sands Trail at the summit area of Haleakala National Park - We opted not do sunrise at Haleakala National Park as I couldn't convince Phil to get up at 3 am to drive 2 hours to see the sunrise. You need admission tickets to do this (in the past you just showed up), and we weren't able to secure tickets in advance. I could have tried to get a ticket as they release more 48 hours before each sunrise, but we decided to visit it another time besides sunrise. Please note that this is in a completely different area than the Pipiwai trail that we did on the Road to Hana. It was cool to see a volcano and I'm glad we checked it out as I don't know when we'll be up close and personal with a (dormant) volcanic region again!

If you made it this far - CONGRATULATIONS. This was one super long post. But hopefully if someone stumbles upon it, they'll have a nice summary of the best things we did in Hawaii!

That wraps up my honeymoon posts!  Any extra questions or things you wish I would have covered? I highly, highly recommend going to Maui if you have the opportunity/budget to do so. It is a pricey destination but I would say we did not spend all that much money on this trip as we used airline miles for our flights and saved a lot of money staying in a condo versus a resort. It was the trip of a lifetime. Now I'm trying to convince Phil that we should try to buy an investment property here so we can go back for future vacations and rent it out when we aren't there. He's not *quite* on board with that yet because we are planning to move (within the same neighborhood) next year.

Weekend Recap + a Shouldless Sunday

Happy Monday, everyone!  Did you have a great weekend?  Mine was excellent!  I kept it pretty unplanned because this week is really busy (work trip to Chicago Tuesday-Thursday, heading to the lake for Father's Day Friday-Sunday). I'm also still reveling in the joy of not planning a wedding. Don't get me wrong, getting married was amazing and the day was a dream come true, but it's SO MUCH WORK to plan a wedding. So I am fully enjoying just being married. I'm also enjoying not bleeding money (Frugal Phil is enjoying this aspect, too).

Here's how we filled our weekend!

On Friday I had a mandatory work from home day, which was required by our business continuity/disaster recovery group. Basically they want to make sure that everyone can work from home in the event that something happened in our office. My job is not super conducive to working from home because I work in a collaborative team environment and some of my excel work is really complex and requires two screens. So it wasn't my most *productive* day. But Oscar seemed to love having me around!

My office mate for the day

It was a beautiful summer day so on Friday night I enjoyed a glass of wine on the patio before dinner while Phil cooled down with water after his run. By the way, if you are a white wine drinker, do yourself a favor and buy these glasses from amazon! My mom gave them to me for my birthday and we registered for 2 more for our wedding. You keep them in the freezer. They keep your wine nice and chilled!

I've been on a mission to use up some of the meat from our farm share that's been accumulating in our freezer over the last several months. So on Friday night we had grilled pork chops and asparagus with baked sweet potatoes. The pork chop looks huge but it's a bone-in pork chop so it was a reasonable serving for one person!

Grilled meals are my favorite!

After dinner, we watched the movie Lion which was so sad and heart-breaking, especially since it's based on a true story.

On Saturday morning I was up at 6 am because my body doesn't seem to know how to sleep in! Oscar was waiting patiently for her treats when I came down to make coffee.

Don't forget to give me my treats!

She enjoyed a drink from the sink before heading back upstairs to cuddle with Phil.

I know some people are probably outraged that we let our cat drink from the sink, but you do you! We wipe our counters down frequently. Phil established this routine with her when she was a kitten so there's no way we could ever break this habit.

After breakfast, I headed out to meet 2 friends at a Bounce barre class at Balanced Barre. This is an exercise class on trampolines that I did in March. I loved it so much that I bought a 10 class package. It's a long drive from our house as it's in the west metro in Wayzata, but I love the class so much that I'm willing to drive 25-30 minutes. That's saying a lot coming from a girl that hates to drive! After class I grabbed coffee with my girlfriends. I love combining exercise and girl time!

When I got home, Phil made brunch for us. And then I received an email from our photographer saying our wedding galley was ready to view a week earlier than expected - so I got sucked into that for over an hour. I absolutely LOVE our photos. I'm going to start putting together wedding recap posts later this month when I have some downtime!

It was over 90F that day so I had to pull myself away from the wedding galley to water and weed my garden as it needs water every other day right now since it's been so hot. I am absolutely amazed at how fast my garden has been growing. These 2 pictures were taken 8 days apart!

June 2

June10

It was so warm, humid and windy on Saturday so by the end of the afternoon, I looked like Ms. Frizzle from the Magic School Bus books.

There's no taming this hair on warm, humid, windy days!

On Saturday night we went to mass at the church where we got married. It was neat to be back in the church where we said I do! After church, we went to our favorite Mexican taqueria, Maya Cuisine, for taco platters. We love this place. The food is so good and inexpensive (our 2 taco platters were $20), and they make their corn tortillas in house. I was too hungry/excited for my food to take a picture.

After dinner we got together with friends that live close to us for a game night. We frequently have game nights with this couple as they live about 10 minutes away and also love playing games. Plus they have an 18 month old so tend to be home in the evening most weekends. We played Catan which is a strategy game that Phil and his college friends love playing. It has a major learning curve, especially when you are playing with people who are experts at it, but I won for the first time ever!

Woo hoo! I won! (I'm usually dead last)

We woke up to strong storms (heavy rain, wind, and hail!) on Sunday morning and the weather seemed unlikely to clear up, so on a whim I decided to make it a shouldless day. Our honeymoon was a long stretch of shouldless days, but it's nice to have one of those days at home!

Since it was raining, instead of running I decided to do a 21 day fix workout mid-morning. I did the total body cardio workout, which is my favorite one as it's so hard and leaves me sore for 2 days afterwards!

Ms. Frizzle, the post-workout edition

After the workout, I had a simple lunch of cottage cheese, leftover grilled chicken apple sausage, and chips and pickles. Mmm, I love pickles.

The rest of the day was pretty lazy. I made some ham and northern bean soup as I had ham from our meat share that I wanted to use up. Besides that, I laid on the couch and read.

I had some company!

I wish I looked this cute when I sleep!

She did eventually make her way over to my chest. Her purrs lulled me to sleep! I woke up from my nap, video chatted with Amber, and ate soup for dinner (an odd summer meal choice, I know, but I eat soup year-round).

Phil got home from his mom's around 8 on Sunday evening. We caught up on our days and before we knew it, it was bed time!

What was the best part of your weekend? My favorite part was playing (and winning) Catan with our friends!

Honeymoon Recap Part II: What/Where We Ate

I'm back with a 2nd post in my Maui recap series - what/where we ate!  Every couple has their own approach to dining out. I will say that our approach is a little bit different for two reason. One - I have a gluten intolerance which is the #1 driving force behind where/what we eat.  So I always start by looking for places with gluten free options and I read the gluten free reviews for the restaurant on yelp. Two - Phil and I are not big spenders when it comes to eating out. We all value different things, and expensive meals isn't one of them for us. We appreciate good food, but don't feel like we get enough utility out of expensive meals to make it worthwhile for us.  We do go out for nicer meals occasionally, but it's usually a 1-2 times of year kind of thing.

For example, several people recommended that we go to Mama's Fish House when we were in Maui. Except it was in Paia, which was on the opposite side of the island from where we were staying, so a 1+ hour drive for us. We were in that area several times when doing site seeing/hiking, but it's a fine dining restaurant so we couldn't exactly show up unshowered and in hiking clothes.  :) Plus, the entrees were all in the $60-75 range. I am sure the food is incredible there, but we just couldn't justify spending THAT MUCH on a meal out, especially when you factored in the long drive to and from the restaurant.

We did consider going out for one nicer meal at the end of our trip but ended up skipping it because at the end of the day, we were pretty tired from being out and about and in the sun, so opted to go somewhere casual so we didn't have to deal with waiting for a table or getting dressed up. Some people build their vacation days around where they want to eat; we are the opposite as we build our days around what we want to do and then we find a place to eat that is convenient, reasonably priced, has gluten free options and positive reviews on Yelp. I'm sure our approach to eating out doesn't jive with what others like to do on vacation but like I said before, but my mantra for life is - YOU DO YOU!

That said, we found some awesome casual and fairly inexpensive places to eat while we were on vacation. Our favorite place, which we went to 3 times (!!!) was The Fish Market Maui. It's halfway between Kaanapali and Napili Bay and was only 3 miles from our condo. It's a casual/take-out kind of place so there's no ambiance but the food was so good and inexpensive. I each 2 tacos every time alternating between pork, grilled fish or shrimp for the filling and we would split a basket of french fries. They also had a fresh fish counter where you could buy fillets to cook at home. We saw locals eating here which was a good indication that it was a good place to eat!

grilled fish and shrimp tacos = YUM!  This is the combo I got 2 out of 3 times.

And since we were in Hawaii, I had to get shaved ice for dessert a couple of times.  I loved snocones as a kid - in fact I loved them way more than ice cream!  And shaved ice is even better. My favorite place was Ululani's in Lahaina as I think they had the best flavors.

Another place we loved was Paia Fish Market. Paia is the name of a town, but they have restaurants in other towns, such as Lahaina. We liked the food so much that we ended up eating in both their Lahaina and Paia locations. The first time we split an appetizer (ahi tuna) and the fish dinner (pictured below). The second time we just split the fish lunch because it was so much food! I'm always reminded that Phil and I are not huge eaters when eating out because we often split things but will see others eat what we ordered on their own (we saw lots of people eating the fish plate below on their own). Phil and are about the same size/weight and tend to graze throughout the day so that's why it works for us to share things.

Another popular dish in Hawaii is Poke! Every supermarket we went into had a poke section in their deli, but we went to Foodland Farms in Lahaina as that store has so many positive reviews on yelp. We tried 2 different kinds of Poke over rice and it only cost $9.99!  We weren't super hungry the evening we got this, so it was plenty to fill us both up.

Not the best picture but this poke was delicious - this is a small fraction of what we got from the deli!

And of course, lots of our meals were prepared in our condo and enjoyed on our lanai.  Like this fresh fruit bowl. The pineapple, mango, and papaya were grown in Hawaii, but the banana came from Ecuador (random, huh?  We thought bananas were grown in Hawaii!).

And most mornings Phil would make hashbrowns, eggs, and chicken sausage for breakfast.

Nothing could beat that view.  Phil and I both get sick of eating out pretty quickly so having a kitchen is a must for any vacation that is longer than a couple of days!

We definitely ate well while we were in Maui and pretty much exclusively ate fish when we ate out!  Things are definitely pricey in Maui, but if you look around, you can find reasonable places to eat. But if you don't do some research, you might end up at an over-priced place. Like the night we arrived in Maui and ate at a Mexican restaurant in Lahaina where a taco plate with rice and beans cost $20+ (which I feel is an unjustified price tag for a basic Mexican meal)!

What is your eating out style when you vacation? Do you like to splurge on meals out or do you tend to consider the cost when eating out? I don't want it to sound like Phil and I don't appreciate good food, because we do.  We just don't value eating at pricier restaurants when there are reasonably priced options with wonderful food.

Podcasts, Books, Workouts and Looks of May

Oh May, what a month you were! It was the most amazing month of my life between the wedding and honeymoon, but it was also one of the most exhausting months of my life between being busy at work and planning a wedding!

Also, if you'd like to see more photos of our day, our photographer published a post about our wedding day yesterday (which I've read so many times!!!!).  She did an amazing job capturing our day. I can't wait to see the fully galley in a couple of weeks!

Here's how the month of May shaped up!


Podcasts:

Pod Save America - I'm enjoying this political podcast by 3 former Obama speech writers/staffers. There's so much going on in the political world, which makes my stomach hurt/makes me anxious, and sometimes I feel like I can't keep up with everything that is happening. Listening to this podcast helps me stay on top of the news, but they deliver it in such a witty way and given their career backgrounds, they can bring more context to what is happening.  Warning - there can be strong language at times.


Books:

I was surprised to realize that I read 7 books in May as I felt like I did not read all that much since like was so dang busy! But I read 4 of the 7 books on our honeymoon! It was sort of a 'so so' month of reading for me as I gave 3 of the books 2 stars (with an explanation of why I didn't care for them). But I did read some fun books on my honeymoon! My favorites were The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper and The Bookshop on the Corner, both of which was wonderful vacation/summer reads! The starred book is a book I own, which counts towards my goal of reading 6 books I own.

The Twelve Lives of Samual Hawley by Hannah Tinti - 2 stars (this book has received a lot of praise but I did not care for it and my good friend who read it at the same time also did not care for it)
Mercies in Disguise by Gina Kolata - 4 stars
The Shack by William Paul Young - 2 stars (the writing quality was poor, IMO, and the story didn't work for me)
The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan - 3 stars
Grand Opening by Jon Hassler* - 2 stars (I read many Hassler books when I was in my 20s and loved them, but this one fell flat for me. It's evident it was written many years ago (in the 80s) because the author speaks about subjects such an mental disabilities in an insensitive and inappropriate manner)
Cinder by Marissa Meyer - 3 stars
The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick - 4 stars

Workouts:
May wasn't my best month for workouts as I had a few things going on...  but I did have some great runs early in the month, especially a 8:40 pace (!!!) 5.5 mile run during my wedding week. I also went to several barre classes in the first half of the month. We were quite active during our honeymoon between swimming/snorkeling and hiking. Most days I seemed to hit 10,000 steps. I'm looking forward to having more structure in my workouts going forward, though!

Looks:

First, a non-wedding-weekend-related look! I wore this outfit to the pre-wedding work party my coworker hosted. I wore our wedding colors! The pants and top are from Banana (as usual!), the top is from a Cabi party I attended last spring.

This isn't the best picture of my rehearsal dinner dress, but it's the best I have as I did not take a single picture at the rehearsal/rehearsal dinner. I stayed in the same hotel as all my blogger friends that night. They were having dinner at the hotel restaurant so I got to chat w/ them a bit before heading upstairs for my last night as a single lady!

And of course, I had to include a photo of me in my wedding dress. I just absolutely LOVED my dress!   

How did the month of May shape up for you?

Honemoon Recap Part I: Where We Stayed

Happy Monday, everyone! I'm back at work today for the first time in nearly 3 weeks. I'm expecting the next week to be extremely busy as I get caught up. But I'm going to try to hold onto those peaceful, easy-living vibes from Maui as long as I can!

And what better way to hold onto vacation vibes than to share your vacation experience with others!  I'm going to break up my recap into 3 posts:  this post about where we stayed, a post about where/what we ate and a post about our favorite things we did in Maui. If you ever plan to go to Maui, let me refer you to my good friend Amber's posts about Maui (found here, here, and here). I love planning trips but I have to say that I was pretty overwhelmed between a busy season at work (the busiest season I've had in years!) and planning a wedding. Amber and I are so much alike, have the same interests and value the same things when it comes to vacations. So I figured - why reinvent the wheel when I can utilize all the planning she did!  So, thanks Amber!  I am sure we would have found the same things to do and places to eat, but we wouldn't have stayed where we did if it wasn't for you, so I'm incredibly grateful for all the advice/recommendations she made!

Our honeymoon was so incredible. I am so glad that we went to Maui because our vacation was the perfect combination of relaxing/swimming/snorkeling and adventure/exploration. I would go back in a heart beat (although I wish the flight wasn't so dang long!).  

Where we stayed:

Phil and I prefer to have a kitchen while traveling and prefer the feel of staying in a condo over staying in a resort, so we opted to rent a condo through VRBO. We stayed in this unit in the Napili Bay area, which is on the north side of the west part of Maui. No where in Maui is cheap, so the cost to stay there for 9 days added up, but it was far less expensive than staying in a resort and we made at least one meal a day there, sometimes 2. Plus we used my airline miles for our flights so that cut down on the cost for this vacation.

We could not have been more happy with the location. I think Napili Bay is an undiscovered area of Maui, probably because there aren't any big resorts there - it's all smaller privately-owned condos (as far as we could tell). Further north in the Kapalua area, there are some resorts, like a Ritz Carlton, but they are tasteful resorts and not huge high rises (this is personal preference but we are not a big fan of HUGE resorts.  We prefer smaller developments as they tend to be less busy and a bit more low key, which is our vacation style). Our condo was a small studio but you don't need much room since the whole point of being in Maui is to be outdoors!

The reason we were drawn to Napili Bay (besides Amber's glowing recommendation of the area) was because it has fabulous snorkeling. Since it's on a bay, it's a bit protected from the wind so has excellent snorkeling. We don't have an underwater camera so I don't have photos to share from our snorkeling, but it was AMAZING!  We saw many sea turtles - 2 different kinds actually - and so many different tropical fish.  It was awesome to walk out the door and walk into the ocean and snorkel. Plus there was a snorkel shop that was a 5 minute walk away, so it was easy to get snorkeling equipment.  So if snorkeling is your thing, this is the place to stay! Also, Kapalua Bay is another bay that is about a 10 minute walk from Napili Bay. We walked over there to snorkel one day and the conditions there were also amazing.

Our unit was on the ocean so we had a gorgeous view from our lanai.

I get up earlier than Phil, so each morning I would brew some coffee and head outside to read until he woke up.  There isn't a better way to start the day in my opinion!

We also had drinks on our lanai each day. I always had white wine; Phil drank local beer. We rarely bought drinks while eating out since we could head back to our room for a post-dinner cocktail (ok, and we had pre-dinner drinks - we were on vacation after all!)

This is what Napili Bay looks like standing on the north side of the beach. Our condo was towards the south side. The beach was never overly busy.  You do have to get there early to get a spot in the shade, though.

 

Proof that I was actually on this vacation/on this beach. :)

We saw a lot of Maui, with the exception of the south part of the east part of Maui and we both agreed that Napili Bay is the place to stay.  I feel confident that we'll go back some day and we will definitely stay in the same area. The combination of the beautiful beach + great snorkeling + the quiet scene are just too hard to beat. A couple of downsides to this area is that you aren't walking distance to restaurants and since you are pretty far north, it makes for a longer drive to places like Haleakala and the Road to Hana. But that longer drive is on a road that goes alongside the ocean. So really, it wasn't that bad. And the longer drives were more than offset by how beautiful the location was.

Have you been to Hawaii?  Do you enjoy tropical vacations? This was the best tropical vacation I've ever been on and I hope we can come back for a future anniversary celebration!! 

I'm Back + Sneak Peak of Wedding Photos

Hey hey!  Look who's back after a 3-week break!  The last 3 weeks were truly the most amazing weeks of my life. My wedding day was an absolutely dream come true and I can honestly say that I would not change a single thing... ok, except maybe the cost because DAAAAANG weddings are expensive!  :P  That said, I still think it was worth it! 

We totally lucked out and did not have a single drop of rain on our wedding day.  We got so lucky as that was the only day that week when it didn't rain and it all-out POURED the day after the wedding. So God was definitely smiling down on us on our wedding day.  It was pretty cold, though. I was definitely shivering when we took our outdoor photos as it was in the 40-50s. I was envious of Phil's warm suit!  But I did absolutely love my dress so it was worth all the shivering. 

I will be sharing some more detailed posts about the wedding day once I have the professional photos back. The day was such a blur and went by so incredibly fast.  I can't wait to get the photos back so I can re-live the day and see all the different details!

However, I know some of you are anxious to see some photos, so here are some of my favorites that some of my blog friends took!  Most of the credit for these go to Becky! Having Becky at your wedding is like having another shooter because she takes and shares soooo many photos!  So if you are friends with her on social media, you probably felt like you were there!  Becky, thank you so much for all of the photos! 

This was one of the "sneak peek" photos shared by our photographer!

Phil and I with my parents!

Walking down the aisle with my dad to marry my one true love

Surprisingly, I did not cry on my wedding day but I came close when I hugged my dad!

Not the most flattering photo but this is my "oh my gosh we are getting married" face!

This is another sneak peek from the photographer that she took on our walk from the church to the reception! The "oh my gosh we are married" look on my face was a common expression that day!

Me and the many bloggers that traveled far distances (Iowa, New York, Virginia, Ohio, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, British Columbia, California, Illinois, North Carolina, and St. Louis!!) to be there on our special day!

There aren't adequate words to describe how magical our wedding day was.  From the guests to the speeches (which were so amazing!) to the food (especially our amazing dessert table which included macarons) to the conversations - it was an amazing day from start to finish. I even got called "Bride-chilla" by the hair and make-up ladies because I was so relaxed on the morning of my wedding.  I will say that the afternoon/evening before the wedding was NOT relaxing and I was kind of stressed and sort of lost my mind/couldn't keep track of what I needed to do very well, but I'll tell you more about that in another post.  I can laugh about it now but it was not my favorite day! But I am glad I got that out of the way before the wedding so I could truly enjoy my wedding day and not worry about a single thing!  I did not spend a single minute stressing or worrying about anything on the wedding day - all thanks to my amazing day-of coordinator who took care of every single detail.

Since I won't have wedding photos until later this summer, my first series of posts will focus on the honeymoon (which was AMAZING - best trip EVER!).  I'll start to share those posts in the next week or so.

But for now, I'm basking in being a newlywed. And I'm so glad I decided to take yesterday and today off to get our house back in order.  My to do list is OUT OF CONTROL but it feels good to get our life back in order!

What's new with you?