Our awesome wedding week and two-part honeymoon!

Let me start off this post by saying that this is going to be really long. And probably uninteresting. Unless you really love Aaron and me, in which case you might love it. But I feel like I need to somewhat explain my life from my last post up until my wedding pictures. You know? So here it goes.

When we set the date for our wedding, we kept in mind that it would be nice to have a couple weeks off from school before we had the wedding. That way we could relax, enjoy the company of our out-of-town friends and family, and do any last minute details without the distraction of work. 

The end of this school year was especially bittersweet for me. I was SO EXCITED for our wedding and to get a much needed break from all 35 of my crazy kindergarteners and first graders. But for some strange reason, the kiddos turned on the charm and sweetness for those last couple days of school. They brought me gifts and constantly wanted to be holding my hand or sitting next to me at snack. I'm telling you, they were NOT like this at all during the regular school year. Their shenanigans could fill another blog post, but I'd rather not give myself a migraine. Anyway, I snapped this picture on the kindergarteners' last school day. I was down to only 4 at this point, but this picture shows the personalities perfectly.

So, a week went by. It was filled with moving and having garage sales and 347 trips to our storage unit in record high temperatures for western Washington. It was a lot. And it was a lot of fun. (Mostly because our friends and family helped out SO MUCH.)

And so one week before the wedding, Aaron's mom Ruth and sister Alexis headed over from Spokane. I took this picture when we got home from dinner. They are obviously related. :)

Ruth and Alexis stayed all week and hung out with us, helped with wedding stuff, and just made our wedding week more fun and memorable. 

By the 4th of July, Phil (Aaron's stepdad) and his parents, plus Dave, David and his daughter Trinity, and my friends Kristin and Heather all made it in from out of town. (Spokane, Northern Ireland, Alabama...) My mom and Joe opened up their house and hosted us and all our out of town friends for the 4th. IT WAS PERFECT. 

We grilled, we did sparklers and smoke bombs and baby fireworks. We watched the neighbors practically blow themselves up. That is what I love about the 4th... watching other people literally blow up their money. :) If you haven't noticed by now, I'm a failure of a photo taker. I am working on it, so I'm sorry that I didn't get pictures of everyone at the party, or the food spread, or aftermath of fireworks littering the street. ;)

[Trinity and Alexis doing sparklers.]

[Aaron and the baby fireworks. They were buy one get one free, and we had a wedding two days later, so you better believe we weren't spending 100's of dollars. :)]

Now right here is where we skip the entire wedding in my blog post. I don't have the photos yet, and it kind of deserves an entire post. :)

The night of our wedding we stayed at the super fancy Hotel Murano in Tacoma before we headed out to Canada the next morning. Our summer has been filled with many, many firsts for me. Like my first room service order. Scrambled eggs, bacon, red potatoes, toast and orange juice. DELICIOUS. And I'm thankful I ate a big breakfast because it was a long trek to our resort in Canada. :)

Aaron took a ton of pictures of our place in Canada. (But right now he is doing sermon prep and has his super sonic headphones on, so I'm not about to bug him for the pictures.) We stayed at Point-no-Point, just outside of Sooke on Vancouver Island. IT. WAS. PERFECT. We had our own little cabin with a full kitchen (we loved that because we LOVE cooking) and a hot tub and fireplace. There was no cell phone service or wifi or TV. So we got to relax and read and what not. 

One day we ventured into Sooke and found the coolest coffee shop called The Stick. The coffee was delicous (and roasted on site), and their pastries were great too! The first day we were there, a man walked in (we found him to be the owner), and immediately looked at us and said, "You must be the newlyweds!" and proceeded to give us free cold brew coffee. From there on out (you better believe we went back everyday) he affectionately called us "Washington" and chatted us up about coffee and life. We loved it and I really hope we can go back there someday.

We also adventured around Victoria for an afternoon. The food highlight of our entire honeymoon for Aaron was going to Dim Sum in Chinatown. He has brought it up so many times since we were there. He said it was as good as the place he went for Dim Sum in Hawaii. I'm trying to be adventurous eating, and tried some things there, but it is not for me. 

We also walked through the Empress Hotel, which is amazing. It was funny to be in Victoria because the book I was reading at the time was a true story set in the PNW. The main women in the book had been staying at the Empress in 1912, just after it was built. I thought that was cool. 

So after our chill, laid back honeymoon part one in Canada, we came home for exactly 36 hours. In that time, we opened all of our gifts, returned multiples, did laundry and repacked for Mexico.

This was our second time together in Cabo, the first being when Aaron proposed! :)

We continued to kill the list of things we'd never done. We took an ATV adventure tour (okay, Aaron had done this before) that took us up a mountain and down to the beach. It was super hot and dusty, and they made us look like banditos with our bandanas. But it was SO MUCH FUN. Its definitely on the list of things to do in Mexico again.

At our hotel, one of the guys at the front desk told us how we could walk to this popular beach that most tourists only get to by water taxi. We had never been, and it was awesome. There were some spots where we had to scramble over rocks and wade through a foot or two of water, but we got the beach in no time. I definitely did not take my phone or camera on that trip for fear it would fall into the Sea of Cortez. :)

A favorite of Aaron's family is Mi Casa. Its a Mexican restaurant that has an open roof. It is really neat. And the food? Best fajitas I've ever had. This was my third attempt at a panoramic shot of the place (waiters kept walking through), so that explains the excited look on my husband's face. :)

Lastly, I just have a few quick shots from around our resort. Playa Grande is so beautiful, you wouldn't really need to leave the resort itself.

They offer a free breakfast if you tour the resort with a timeshare salesman. We did it, and our salesman, Steve, was super cool. We pretty much told him right away that we are teachers and newlyweds and a timeshare in not in our budget. He showed us anyway and told us of all the great features for future considerations. :) Below is the newer resort that we toured, which I believe is owned by Playa Grande. It's called the Grand Solmar... and it is beautiful! (Its the building off in the distance more, with the giant crane. Phases one and two are completed, and phase three is still under construction.)

This may be one of my favorite spots from our honeymoon. Our room at Playa Grande was bigger than our house. I'm not exaggerating. And while I laid in bed during the hottest hours of the day, I could see and hear the ocean. Talk about relaxing.

So that's all for now, I'll try to be a better blogger in the future and keep from having to do massive 3,497 word posts with 100+ pictures. ;)