One Year Anniversary Trip!

We finally got our computer fixed, so I can upload pictures and update the blog!
I decided to plan our anniversary trip and surprise Jon with the destination. Well, I planned it and then told him where we were going before hand...so it wasn't a surprise for very long. We waited to go away in September, when everything would be way cheaper after Labor Day. We went to Frankfort, and had (almost) the most beautiful weekend.

Arriving on Friday afternoon. It was a gorgeous, warm, sunny day.


I insisted that we go down to the beach right away. I wanted to enjoy the beautiful weather and watch the sunset from the pier.

The gorgeous sunset.

Saturday, we woke up and it was a rainy, nasty day. We already had plans to go to Traverse City that night, so we decided to just go for the whole day. We ate lunch at the Dish, one of my favorite little restaurants in TC. We also decided to go on a tour of all the wineries on the peninsula. That turned out to be a disaster. The first one was so crowded and we didn't really know what to do, so we ended up getting into a fight and leaving haha. But it all worked out. We did a little shopping and saw a movie at the mall. We later met up with our friend Heidi, for dinner. Heidi went to CMU with us, and I've been trying to get together with her for a couple of years now. She brought her boyfriend, and we all had a great time catching up. It was so, so great to see her. She is such a sweet friend and someone I wish I got to see more often. We ate dinner at North Peak and got ice cream at Moomers after.

Sunday, we woke up and had no agenda, so we ate breakfast and headed to the beach around 10. We spent the whole morning and early afternoon exploring, taking pictures, and walking a pretty long way down the beach.

Jon's idea :)

Jon climbed all the way to the top of this sand dune, while I stayed at the bottom to take pictures.

It was the most beautiful day. No clouds, not too hot, but warm enough that it felt good to walk in the water. I spent a lot of time looking for Petoskey stones.

We used the self-timer on the camera a lot :) There weren't many people around to take our picture.

Here's our room. We had to switch rooms after the second night, but we got a bigger room and bigger bed, so that's ok.

We got ice cream at least once a day. It was really rough...

Last time we went to Frankfort, this was our favorite part, so we had to go watch the waves crash at the end of the pier again. It was a little colder this time.

Soaking wet after standing in the waves. We ended up deciding that we might as well go swimming, since we were already wet. Plus, how could we pass up swimming in Lake Michigan on such a beautiful day. It was pretty chilly, though.

On our way home, we really weren't ready to leave the beautiful Up North, so we took our time and drove down Lake Michigan as far as we could. We stopped at a lookout north of Arcadia. We asked an 80 year-old couple to take our picture, and they told us that they had just gotten married and were on their honeymoon! So cute.

The colors were amazing.

We stopped in Manistee for lunch, and ended up spending another hour walking down the beach. We were really not ready to leave!

We saw so many butterflies on the beach. Most of them were dying though :(

Overall, it was such a great trip. We had mostly amazing weather and it was so relaxing to not have anything to do but walk down the beach. It was also relaxing to know that my sweet sister was taking care of our cat and dog, so we didn't worry about them at all. Thanks Catie!

Woah there, killer!

I have to share this story from yesterday. I get this text from Jon while I was grocery shopping after work and I couldn't stop laughing:

'New motivation: effin gorgeous muscle man that works at the gym...mmmmm...mmm...yum!'

This was some girl's status on facebook, and when Jon saw it, his reaction was "maybe I should get a new job.."

Apparently one of the guys that Jon works with is friends with this girl on facebook, and he noticed that this was her status, and pointed it out to Jon. Later that night, the girl came into the gym! Jon said that she was doing a lot of staring. The best part is that I know exactly who this girl is...she's in Drew's grade and we used to play together at recess in elementary school!

Settle down, girlie, this "yummy muscle man" has a WIFE!

UPBC

I got the chance to drive to the UP with my mom this past weekend to get Drew from camp. He worked there for 2 months this summer...I'm jealous! It was a gorgeous drive. My mom and I stopped a few times on the way up, once to visit her friend's mom, and once to swim in Lake Michigan once we got over the bridge. We got to camp in time to watch the festivities that happen on the last night of family camp. We enjoyed a delicious camp meal and got to sleep in one of the cabins, just like old times! It was so amazing to be up there. It definitely didn't feel like it had been 4 years since I'd been there last. The best part was that our friends, the Neals, were there. Their oldest daughter and I met when we were about 10 I think, and our families have gone to family camp together many times since. It was so great to see them and catch up. I felt so uplifted and encouraged being up there and talking to people I hadn't seen in a long time. I got to see some friends that I was on staff with and we walked and looked at the new retreat center that's being built. It's crazy how many great things are happening up there. We stayed the night at camp and left the next morning to bring Drew and his friend home. We stopped again at Lake Michigan and swam for a little bit. It could not have been a more beautiful day. It was so hot and humid up there though! I couldn't believe it. I'm hoping to convince Jon to go to family camp or at least work up there for a week next summer.

My mom, sitting on the dunes by Lake Michigan

Mackinaw Bridge

Lake Michigan

The camp sign! Always so exciting to pull into camp after a long drive.


Drew, me and the Neal kids. Last time we saw them, the 3 younger ones (on the left) were shorter than me!

Briana and me.


The morning we left, right as the sun was rising behind the trees.

The staff boys dressed up like safari animals. Drew painted himself gray and was a wolf that ate the zebras.

Canoeing with my mom.

Honeymoon Pictures

Here are some pictures of our honeymoon. I put Jon in charge of picking the place and surprising me...let's just say it didn't really stay a surprise for long, but at least I didn't know the exact resort we were going to be staying at. He did a great job! We went to a brand-new resort between Cancun and Riviera Maya and it was so beautiful. There was hardly anyone there and we spent most the time just laying by the pool or swimming in the ocean.


Here we are on the boat before going snorkling. It was quite an experience. They gave me a child's lifejacket and that didn't work out too well. Jon had fun though!





Dinner at the Asian themed restaurant.


Dressed up before dinner.

Dinner the last night on the lawn.

Again, dressed up before dinner on our balcony

The beautiful ocean

Sitting on the edge of the pool.

This is pretty much what we did the entire time. So nice to relax and get a TAN!

I miss this so much. All we ever do is talk about going back. Someday.

Our first day there, while we were exploring.

Jon loved swimming in the ocean.

One Year!

This past Sunday, Jon and I celebrated our one year anniversary! Wow...a year FLEW by. I can't believe it. I realized that when I started blogging, I never wrote about our wedding...so get ready for some pictures! I thought I'd start from the beginning of our story...





Jon and I met our freshman year at CMU in 2006. My best guy friend Greg and I went to school pretty much only knowing each other. We quickly made friends with a guy, Nick, and his roommates that lived in the same dorm as Greg and we all started hanging out a lot. Nick had happened to go to a leadership camp over the summer with a guy named Monty, so we all got together with Monty and his roommates to tailgate before the first home football game. Jon happened to be one of Monty's roommates, so we were introduced that day, but there were so many people hanging out with us that I don't really remember meeting him specifically. Since we had a lot of mutual friends (one of his other roommates went to high school with one of my roommates, so that was another connection), we ended up seeing each other a few more times before we actually started talking. I remember thinking he was cute, but I was too shy to talk to him. Finally, in November that year, I got an IM (yeah...I know, back when people still used AIM) from a guy named Jon. It took me a few minutes to remember who he was. We ended up talking for a long time and clicked right away. There was a big Thanksgiving dinner in our cafeteria (our dorms were connected) and we decided to get all of our roommates together to go, since everyone knew each other except Jon and I. After that, we hung out all the time and started dating in December. We had to do the long-distance thing right off the bat, since we didn't see each other over the long Christmas break. After our first semester of our sophomore year, we both decided to move back to our respective homes since we couldn't afford school anymore. He lived 4 hours away, in the UP. After 2 1/2 years, one failed attempt to have Jon live down near me, many hours spent driving to visit each other, a few months of talking about getting engaged, and a few almost break-ups, he proposed on May 15 2009. We knew we didn't want to do the whole long-distance thing for another year, so we decided to make it a super quick engagement and get married that August. It was very stressful and hard, but we did it and got married on August 15, 2009...3 months exactly after getting engaged. We definitely couldn't have pulled it off without my mom. She was amazing and basically did everything with a lot of help from friends and relatives.


Here are some pictures, not in any specific order.



Me and my beautiful mama





Cutting the cake. I made him promise not to smash it in my face, cause I'm no fun like that.






Our first dance..."The Luckiest" by Ben Folds




Me and my gorgeous bridesmaids, Tess, Catie, Katie, and Annmarie




Right after the ceremony

You may kiss the bride!

Instead of lighting a unity candle, we did sand.

My daddy walking me down the aisle.

Hanging out before the wedding.

Daddy-daughter dance.

Everyone in our wedding party. They were all so fun.

And again

Taking pictures in front of the ugly fireplace. Ha!

Jon and his guys and my dad

My and my brother and sister.

Me with the girls/leaders from our group at church. Most of us were together since we were little.