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.
