Honeymoon Plans

We've made a lot of progress with the plans for our honeymoon (in October)! :)  We are already getting so excited for this trip - It's going to be awesome. I thought I'd go ahead and give you a little sneak peak of our plans, since we already know a lot of the basics! We just haven't planned out our hikes or activities yet, and we'll probably just do a lot of that planning while we're there. We've also booked our campsites for all but one place, and we're going to have two nights in hotels, and we already booked those too. I know it seems early, but they recommend booking everything 6 months in advance because they fill up! A lot of places were already booked up, so I'm glad we started planning this when we did!!

Day 1: Fly into Vegas. Drive (about 4 hours) to the Grand Canyon, and camp 2 nights. We already booked this campsite (it's on the North Rim), and it's AMAZING. Here's the view from our campsite:

Yep, that's the frickin' canyon right through those trees! Crazy...

Day 3: Drive to Canyonlands National Park (about 5.5 hours). We're staying one night at a cute little B&B. We figured we'll want a shower after a few days of hiking around the Grand Canyon. Here's a few photos of Canyonlands: 

Day 4: Drive to Arches National Park (only about 30 minutes away) and camp 1 night.

This is not our campsite (I don't think this is an actual option), but our campsite is pretty darn beautiful too. 

One of the many arches we will see! 

Day 5: Drive to Capitol Reef National Park (about 2.5 hours), and camp 1 night. This is the place that we don't have a camping reservation yet, because they don't allow reservations... They only have 1 campground with water available (with about 50 campsites), so hopefully we'll get one of those... If not, we'll be roughing it a bit more in one of their "primitive" camping options, which have no water available. 

Capitol Reef! So pretty. 

Day 6: Drive to Bryce Canyon (about 2.5 hours), and stay 1 night in a hotel. This one has a hotel right in the park, and it has the option to stay in these cute little cabins that were built in the 1920s (that are only $20 more per night than the standard hotel rooms... so we opted to spend the extra $20). Here are a few pictures of Bryce Canyon and the cabins: 

That big rock protrusion on the left side of the picture is called Thor's Hammer

Beautiful! 

One of the cute little cabins!!  So worth the extra $20!!  

And here's the inside of the cabin. It's so charming. And the fireplace works! There's no TV or internet, but that's kind of the point of being there! 

Day 7: Drive to Zion National Park (about 1.5 hours) and camp for 2 days. We wanted a little extra time at this park, because there's so much to do. We're for sure going to hike the Narrows (picture below if you don't know what the Narrows are), but we don't know what other hikes we want to do yet! 

Here's two people hiking the Narrows! That'll be like us, except neither of us is that tan... Haha. Imagine them with much paler skin!

There ya go, that person looks a little paler. That's more accurate probably. But aren't the Narrows super cool? 

Here's another picture of Zion! I kinda doubt it'll be green like that in October... but it sure is pretty.

And then on Day 9 we head back to Las Vegas airport (which less than 3 hours away). We have a late afternoon flight, so it'll be very do-able! 

Vines, a Surprise Party, and Honeymoon Plans!

McGee and I have definitely been really busy, so I apologize for the delay in posts! Man, I'm exhausted. I don't even know where to begin with updates on our house... I don't really have any cool pictures to share because most of our efforts have been on the trees on our property. They've all been kinda neglected and have a million vines growing up them, which is terrible for the health of trees. It also hides any cracks, etc in the tree, so it's important to remove those vines. We've spent a LOT of time cutting the vines and trying to pull them down and pull the roots out of the ground too. McGee even got Poison Ivy a little over a week ago from this oh-so-fun task! We both worked about 5 or 6 hours on the vines this Sunday, so we made sure to really scrub ourselves with some good soap that's supposed to remove the Poison Ivy oils from your skin. So far neither of us is showing any Poison Ivy rashes or anything... so... fingers crossed we both escaped it this time! There is definitely Poison Ivy on our property (and all of our neighbors' properties too). Oh, and I planted some Marigolds by our front walkway on Sunday too! We had a dirt area that was clearly supposed to hold flowers, so I read that Marigolds are supposed to be pretty sturdy (so maybe I can't kill them?) and they're supposed to repel mosquitoes (yay!!), AND they're deer resistant (we have a lot of deer going through our neighborhood, and they like to eat people's flowers).

Here's the marigolds!  They aren't dead yet, so that's something... 

Here's some Alyssum. I don't know anything about this flower, except that the white one in the middle started to commit suicide as soon as I planted it. The purple ones seem to be doing ok though...

So, the vines and yardwork were our entire Sunday, but on SATURDAY... we had a surprise party for McGee!!  And no, it is not anywhere near his birthday. His birthday isn't until June 2nd, but that's the day before we get married, so I wanted to make sure his birthday was properly celebrated too! So about a month ago I contacted McGee's friend Timmy and told him my idea, which was for me to "surprise" McGee with some tickets for the two of us to go to a Phillies game, and then when we get there all of his friends would be there tailgating as the actual surprise. All of the weekends in May were bad for McGee's friends, so end of April was the closest we could get to his birthday! So, awhile ago I told McGee I was reserving April 25th for Romantic Date Day (I figured that was the exact opposite of what I was planning, so that was a safe bet), and then I didn't tell him about the Phillies game until the morning of our Date Day. And McGee drove us there (so I could secretly text Timmy during our drive...), and then when we got there I convinced McGee that I really wanted us to park in Lot K (which is a tailgating lot) because I thought it'd be fun... And he was confused (because we hadn't brought any tailgating supplies...) but he was being a really good sport so he drove into Lot K. And then he wanted to park near an exit (so we could escape easily after the game), but I was like, "No, let's go park in that far corner over there! That looks like a good area" (because Timmy had told me that that's where they were tailgating...), so again McGee was confused, but he went along with what I requested since I told him I'd thoroughly planned out this "romantic date day" for us... And then when we got to that corner all of his friends came running towards our car yelling "Surprise!!!".  He was BEYOND surprised, so it was amazing. A bunch of his friends that are now living in other states (Connecticut, Massachusetts, etc) came down for the party, and everyone had a great time!  And Timmy and Juliff organized the whole tailgate, and they did a GREAT job :)  It was a success.

Here's Timmy! He's grilling up some burgers...while wearing a Disney Princess birthday hat. They also purchased a Disney Princess "Birthday Princess" sash for McGee to wear, but he didn't wear it for very long so I didn't get a picture. 

Here's McGee with some of his best friends! That's Earl (with the big beard), Juliff (blue hat), Gazarra (the other red hat), and Timmy (getting a beer I think)

Here you can see a bit more of the tailgate set-up (including the pink balloons)

Timmy's explaining to me that he has to shotgun that beer, because it already has a small hole in the side of it (I think someone dropped it... dropping beers was the theme of the day!). 

Timmy is saving the beer! Thank goodness Timmy was there to save it! 

Here's McGee's friend Sarah Fro, holding his awesome birthday cake that Timmy and Juliff got for him.

McGee and Earl are laughing at something... 

This week is a bit nutty, because we're having our air conditioning system installed!  Yesterday and today they've just been working on all of the ductwork... It looks like really hard work! The kinda funny part is that our weather has been SUPER cold lately (we were all freezing at the Phillies game!), so it feels like we're nowhere near needing our AC system... But I guess the summer weather will be here before we know it!  I think they'll be finished by Thursday or so...

Oh, and some other big-ish news:  We decided not to do Maine for our honeymoon after all. The timing just wasn't good at all, and we're also trying to save money right now because of the air conditioning installation. BUT, don't be sad for us because we decided to do a really big honeymoon a little later in the year instead: We're going to go to the Grand Canyon and a bunch of National Parks in Utah in October!  We'd wanted to do that trip this Fall anyways, so we decided THAT will be our honeymoon (it'll just be like 4 months after we get married, but that's ok!!). We're already working on the planning, and we're SO excited. We're going to fly into Las Vegas (we already bought SUPER cheap flights with Southwest!), and then rent a car and drive to the Grand Canyon and camp there for a few nights (we actually already reserved an AMAZING camping spot in the Grand Canyon), then we're also going to see Canyonlands, Arches, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon, and then Zion!  It's going to be about a week, and we'll stay in a hotel a few times so we don't get too gross, but we want to do mostly camping. It's going to be so fun! I'll give you more details on that soon. And if anyone's been to that area and has recommendations, just let me know!! :)

More unpacking, and our new table!!

We got our new table! The color doesn't look NEARLY as bad as it did in the store, so we're thinking we won't have to sand it and re-stain it! Whew!  It had looked SUPER yellowy when it was in the consignment shop, but we're thinking that must've been because of the fluorescent lighting. In our dining room, it looks like a normal wood color, which is all we wanted! The chairs are kind of a rust-ish red color, which we don't mind at all. It clashes like crazy with our rug, but we don't love that rug anyways (we got is SUPER cheap on Craigslist last year, when we needed a million rugs to protect the hardwoods in our rental house). 

The chairs are so comfortable! And it's such a solid table and chairs set. 

The table has cool drawers on one side of it! That's kinda what sold us (plus it was a great deal)

So, we may be getting a new rug sometime in our future, but not anytime soon! We are going to be super poor for awhile, because we've decided to go ahead and get air conditioning in our house, which includes duct work (because we have none), so it's going to be like a million dollars. I'm exaggerating by quite a lot (don't worry), but right now it FEELS like a million dollars. But, luckily we've already planned what we want to do for our honeymoon, and it's going to be quite affordable: We're going to take a nice roadtrip up to our favorite place in Maine (Boothbay Harbor). We sure do love it up there, and it's so peaceful and fun and relaxing. It's the perfect place for our honeymoon :)  

We also unpacked a bit more (I feel like we'll be unpacking for a year...), and everyone in my Fantasy Football League will be happy to know that I found the Loser Trophy that I "won" last year. So, it is prominently displayed in our new house, just as the rules require... Haha :)  It's on a wall by our coat closet, right when you open our front door. So... I'm sure everyone that comes over will think we're incredibly tacky and weird! Haha :)  I hope I don't "win" it again next year!!  

Our Loser Trophy (it's plastic, don't worry). 

And here you can see how prominently displayed it is! 

After all of that, we had a nice evening sitting in our screened patio room, and we enjoyed some wine! I'm not usually a fan of red wine, but the guy at the wine store suggested one I might like (it's semi-sweet), and I do enjoy it!!  And I had it in my favorite wine glass... It's from a series of glasses that I have, and one says "Lit" and has a lightbulb, one says "Buzzed" and has a bumble bee, one says "Juiced" and has some fruit, and my favorite one says "Toasted" and has a little campfire. They make me chuckle (even moreso after I've had a few glasses of wine!). 

Happy Monday, everyone!

Spring is here!!!

It has been quite awhile since I've posted anything! Sorry about that. Last weekend was my birthday, and it was so great!! It was also Easter weekend, so we got together a few times with McGee's family too. It was a very fun and busy weekend!!

This weekend we've tried to spend a lot of time outside, because it is finally feeling like Spring!!  Yesterday and today were both so warm (in the 60s!!) and sunny. For some reason, the temperature still dropped below freezing last night though, so some of the flowers that started to bloom in our yard weren't too happy about the cold temperature overnight.

You can see the daffodils are a bit droopy! Probably from the freezing overnight temps. 

Here's a purple flower that is sprouting up everywhere! It's all over our lawn and side yard. I'm guessing Lindsey might know what it is?? 

One of our neighbors told us about a really cool hiking path and creek that are nearby, and he said Guinness would love it. So, a few weeks ago we went looking for the path and we found it!!  It's really awesome. We've gone a few times now, but today I finally took my phone with me so I could take pictures! It's such a beautiful area, and it's only about a block or two from our house! We can't wait to see it once the trees have leaves again...

You can see Guinness off-leash if you look closely! He loves it. 

There's Guinness checking out a tree! He runs all over the place, but is very good about coming back to us when we call him. 

My two guys! 

Guinness is checking out the creek.

Guinness is across the creek, and McGee is asking me why I'm not joining them (I didn't wear appropriate shoes... I only had on my chucks, so they had no traction).

You can kinda see a little waterfall! 

Guinness looks like he's getting ready to jump in the creek... 

More Guinness and the creek! 

We've also made a few big purchases! We bought a couch for our den, because we were all just sitting on a loveseat, which worked fine when it was just me and McGee but when Guinness insisted on joining us it got a little cramped! We also bought a dining room table and chairs from a consignment shop, and we're also checking into buying air conditioning (soooo pricey!!). The table is getting delivered today, so I'll post pictures of that another time!

Here's s our new couch (yes, we still have the tags on it... haha)!  Oh and that's Guinness's dog bed on the floor (it kinda matches, coincidentally!). 

And here's the couch with our TV. Excuse the mess (dog toys everywhere... and there's Guinness's tail at the bottom of the picture!). 

I hope all is going great for everyone!!  And thank you all for making my birthday so great last weekend!!  It was a really wonderful weekend.