Things to be excited about.

It seems like this week I have a lot going on that I really, really can't wait for. It's nice, because before I got married, I was excited about my wedding day, counting down the days. It's great to know that there are still things to look forward to, even after something exciting happens. By the way, Zac and I have been married for three and a half weeks. It's the very best.

Here are my exciting happenings for this week:

1. My sister, Rachel, gets home from China. She's been there for the past four months, teaching little Chinese kids how to speak English. I haven't seen that woman since before I was married! We'll pick her up at the airport on Friday!


2. The Manti Pageant (otherwise known as the Mormon Miracle Pageant). Zac and I are going together this weekend, and I'm so excited to share that with him. We also have a goal of visiting each temple in Utah by our anniversary next year, and this just means we can cross one more off. Awesome.


3. I ordered my first Bountiful Basket yesterday, and we get to pick it up on Saturday morning! I'm so excited for fresh, local produce! And for $15 for roughly 6 fruits and 6 vegetables, that just puts a smile right on my face!


4. Summer! Today is the first day of summer! It's the longest day of the year! I think I want to stay up and watch the sunset with Zac... after we go to a BBQ, of course! I love the summer, and everything that comes with it: rodeos, demolition derbies, parades, popcicles, picnics, and swimming! Wonderful!


5. Zac's cousin, Tannon, gets his endowments tomorrow, and we were invited to attend the temple with him! I love the temple, especially when we get to go two weeks in a row (Zac and I went last Tuesday).


6. The Provo Farmer's Market is on Saturday! Zac and I went to a Farmer's Market on our honeymoon, and I love them! All the wonderful colors and smells and sights! It just makes me automatically happy.


7.  I got a new calling in church, and it's not a teacher! I'm in charge of enrichment night in the Relief Society. I get to plan the activities, which is probably the most fun calling I know of! I'm so excited to start, and already have a few ideas of things to do. I get sustained on Sunday.

That's all for now. See how exciting my life is this week? I love it! I am one happy girl. Not to mention that I have a wonderful and handsome husband to do all of this with.

Full moon.

Today, I was on a roll. I kept busy from 7:00 in the morning, when I woke up, until just about ten minutes ago, when I finished getting ready for bed. That's over sixteen hours. I feel great, because I got so much done today. Here's how it went:

7:00am: Woke up, took a shower.
7:20am: Got dressed, made lunch for Zac to take to work, finished getting ready for work.
8:05am: Left for work [late].
8:10am: Arrived at work, and did my priestly duties.
2:00pm: Got home from work, changed my clothes, and started cleaning the front room. (There were tons of stuff everywhere, mostly our wedding presents.)
3:00pm: Zac called.
3:05: Continued to put stuff away, organize, find places for everything, iron the table cloth, sweep the floor, do the dishes, hang frames up on the wall, vacuum, fold clothes, make the bed and clean the table.
4:45pm: Zac came home and gave me a long, tight hug.
5:00pm: Continued to put things away and finish everything up, and then went and helped Zac take all of our boxes to the dumpster on the other side of the house. (Our whole porch was occupied with said boxes. Can you say white trash?)
6:00pm: Started dinner: homemade fettucine alfredo, while Zac played Magic: The Gathering.
6:45pm: Ate dinner.
7:00pm: Our new neighbors, Kristi and Scott, came over and introduced themselves. (I'm really quite fond of them.)
7:30pm: Decided to make cookies (from a mix--I regret it) for the Bishopric when they came over.
8:30pm: Bishopric came over and chatted with us, and gave us advice. (I'll extrapolate later.)
9:00pm: Gave cookies to our new neighbors, mentioned above.
9:15pm: Went on a walk with Zac around the neighborhood, and ended up at a park playground.
10:30pm: Came home and got ready for bed.

You see?! My day was filled with never-ending tasks. I kind of liked it. I've never been so busy before, nor so... not bored. I have a goal of becoming more productive. I've always admired my friend, Celeste, because she isn't afraid to get out there and get things done. I've always wanted to have that kind of attitude, but was always too lazy or too scared to start things. But today, I started (and finished) things that I've been wanting and needing to do for a long time, and it felt so good!

My favorite part about today was the evening. The Bishopric coming over and visiting us, eating dinner and meeting our new neighbors, and spending the night outside with Zac.

While the Bishopric was over, the Executive Secretary (I can't remember his name--it was a weird one) gave us some advice. He said to get involved in the ward, because the more you get involved, the more people get involved in your life, and you are able to bless each others' lives, and make friends, too. Then Bishop suggested that we both keep up on our home teaching and visiting teaching, because "it's like Heavenly Father giving you two people to take care of, just for you." Cool. I'm going to like this ward.

When Zac and I escaped out of our house (after the Bishopric had left, of course) to go on our walk, we first ended up at a gazebo just two blocks from our apartment. We talked about how we like being married so far. Then I had the idea of going to a park and watching the full moon come up over the mountains. We walked four more blocks, and came to Maeser Park. We climbed up on the playground, and talked about things we used to do as kids. For example, I used to jump off our old fort into the snow in the winter, and walk to the local Maverik gas station with my sisters to buy an Icee or a bag of candy, and walk in circles on top of the humongous tractor tire in our old backyard until my feet were black. Zac used to go to his church parking lot and skate board there for hours on end, and go to Fast Gas gas station and get treats. It was fun to get to know Zac a little more, because I never knew that about him. I kept glancing towards the east mountains, but never saw the moon come up. It started to get chilly, so we left for home. The air on the walk home smelt like lilacs and pine trees, which was a lovely plus to a great stroll.

You might be wondering what our apartment looks like now that I've got it all organized and clean. Let me tell you this: at first, our bedroom was clean and our living room was a mess, but now, our living room is clean and our bedroom is a disaster. I will post pictures as soon as I get everything situated. And as soon as I can figure out why there are so many bugs in this house.

Our honeymoon.

Welcome!

Thirteen days ago (on May 27th), Zac and I were married. The first half of the day (when we were at the temple) was sunny, bright and warm--just what I wanted (and prayed for). But as we were driving to our reception center that afternoon, Zac and I could see dark storm clouds over Utah Valley. It rained at our reception, but it was kind of cool, because Zac and I got to have our first dance in the rain. Not to mention the entire bottom seam of my wedding dress was soaked and dirty, which was cool, too, because I've always loved Trash-The-Dress photo shoots. I'll do it officially in a few years, but getting it dirty the night of my wedding was pretty fun.

I'll tell you more about my wedding day in a later post, when I get the pictures from our photographer. What I want to write about right now is our honeymoon: where we went, what we did, what we saw. So here goes.

The Sunday after we were married, Zac and I packed up our car and headed down to Las Vegas to spend the night. His parents let us use their time share at the Marriott hotels for our entire trip, so that's where we stayed in Vegas. It was beautiful. It was nice to get away from the cold, stormy weather of Utah, and be in the sun with palm trees standing over you. We didn't do much in Vegas; we didn't even walk the strip. But we did have a fantastic breakfast the next morning, which we recreated when we got home.

That Monday morning, we packed up our car once again and headed to Newport Beach in California. The Memorial Day traffic was terrible, and it took us about 8 hours to drive there, when it should've only taken us about 5 or 6. It was okay though, because Zac and I both started going crazy near the end from being in the car for too long, and that was funny, and cheered me up. {Funniest quote of the whole trip, spoken by Zac during this car ride: "Stupid bird... trying to fly uphill..."} We arrived in Newport Beach around 7:00pm. There was a mix-up when we checked in, which took about an hour to solve. The lady who checked us in, Robertha, commented on how our receipt said "Mr. & Mrs. Swenson", and how we looked too young to be married. Then, without hesitating, I said, "We're from Utah." That got Robertha laughing so hard, and it made me feel cool, because no one ever laughs at my jokes. We got to our room around 8:30. We walked in and toured the 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, suite that would be ours for a few days--complete with 3 big screen TVs, a kitchen with all the dishes and cookware you would ever need, and an ocean view. Wonderful.

On Tuesday, we drove an hour and a half to Six Flags. It was pretty crowded there, and the lines were 30 minutes to an hour long, so we didn't get to ride very many rides, but Zac knew about all the cool ones, so we rode those. My favorite was Deja Vu. We went to Cafe Rio for dinner that night, and I spotted some fellow Mormons.

When Wednesday came, I was really excited. Zac and I drove down to San Juan Capistrano, a cute little city just 20 minutes south of Newport Beach. There, we went to the Farmer's Market, something I've always loved to do. We bought strawberries, dried mangos, and Zac bought me a bouquet of gorgeous flowers. When we were done there, we drove down to Capistrano Beach. Neither of us brought our swimming suits to San Juan, so we hung out on the beach in our rolled-up jeans. The waves were fairly big, and the tide was coming in, so I told Zac to run from the waves with me. When I was little and visited the beach with my family, my mom or dad would always run from the waves with me. So that's what Zac and I did. We would run out to the ocean, as far as we could go when the waves were the furthest from us, and run away from the waves as they came rushing onto the shore, and try not to get wet. It was so much fun--my favorite thing we did on our whole honeymoon. By the time we left, our pants were wet and sandy. That night, we experienced the most amazing Italian Food at Mama D's Italy Kitchen. If you're ever in Newport, I highly recommend it.

On Thursday, we went to a giant shopping mall called Fashion Island, which really isn't an island at all. After walked around for a while, and realizing that all the stores were overrated and really expensive, we decided to go to Laguna Beach, this time with our swimming suits. We did the same thing at Laguna Beach as we did at Capistrano Beach, but at Laguna there was sea weed--tons of it! It was gross. So instead of running from the waves, we ran from the sea weed. And Zac threw sand balls at the seagull who was trying to get into our beach bag. We also got a chance to go to the pier at Newport Beach, which was gorgeous. We walked on the pier, and walked on the boardwalk with all the little surf shops lining it. Later that night, we went to a show. I thought it was going to be a Cirque du Soleil show (because that's what it said on the website), but it was actually a Broadway sex-themed ballroom dance show. Awesome. We left during the intermission, and went and got ice cream at Cold Stone.

Friday was the day we left. We checked out before 10am, and drove the whole way home. It was long and exhausting, but I'm glad Zac and I did it together. I'm also glad he can entertain me in the car for 12+ hours. We stopped in Beaver and got some of the best beef jerky ever, which we still haven't finished. We got home and collapsed on the bed.