I am writing this post tonight because I'm irritated. About what you ask? Obnoxious feminists that's what. This is a hard topic for me to discuss with people because while I believe positive feminism is good, I don't believe all feminism is good. I think some of it is ridiculous, or basically just "doing it wrong". Don't misunderstand though, I am all for women having the same chance for success in life as men, and to be seen as equally valuable. I am totally going to teach my daughter (the one I'll have someday) that her right as a human being is to do whatever makes her feel successful; and her gender shouldn't stop her, even if she wants to be a Fortune 500 CEO, a brain surgeon, an olympic snowboarder, or a mother. She should be proud of what she can contribute to this world.

But guys... radical feminism and radical feminists just drive me bonkers.

Currently today there is a lot going on in our world by way of feminism movements. More women enroll in college and graduate than men. In the entertainment industry it seems like more women are featured as tough gritty detectives, lawyers, doctors, than used to be, and they're even being dressed down, instead of provocatively, in some of these roles (examples: Mariska Hargitay in Law & Order SVU; Maria Bellow in Prime Suspect. Both awesome shows, both have a very serious lack of gratuitious cleavage! Finally something realistic. No cop wears heels to work, Hollywood.) It's awesome that women are thriving, but are there some of us women that are doing it wrong?

YES.

SO VERY MUCH YES!

First of all, a lot of women think they need to be seen as identical to men. But quite frankly, that's impossible. Why is that? Oh let me think, I don't know, maybe it's because you don't have a penis, or testicles, or the same hormone levels as a man. How about we talk about your brain for a minute, too. You know how you can think of 5 things at once and listen to your girlfriend tell you about her day and she feels like you successfully listened to her? Ever notice how your husband/brother/dad/boyfriend watches something on tv and suddenly seems catatonic? It's because we're diff-er-ent.

I don't want to be seen as a man. I just want to be equally valued as a man. I am a woman, and I am proud of the things that make me female. I am more inclined to nurture, and I feel things in such a different way than my husband does. I cry in sad movies. He just looks at me like I'm weird, because he's a military guy and can keep a stonewall face under any circumstance. We are both so stereotypically our gender, but that's a great thing. The very way he is designed, is the reason I love him. I don't want to be male. They have their own set of problems. I've spent 28 years mastering mine, and I really don't want to have to deal with what they do... but then again, guys would never be able to deal with what we do either *ahem* vagina-tearing childbirth *ahem*.

What is so wrong with being appreciated because you are female? And what is so wrong with appreciating men because they are male? And one more... what is so wrong with appreciating yourself because you are female?! I feel like radical feminists that I encounter, or see in the public eye seem to have a problem with their female-ness. It's really irritating. It's like they're fighting to be seen as the same, when they should hold on to what makes them women.

This leads me to what brought all this on... There are 2 women in the LDS faith, which I happen to be a member of, that are holding a "wear pants to church" day this weekend. Every woman that supports the idea that men and women in the church should hold entirely identical roles should wear pants in support of their cause on Sunday. It's caused all sorts of backlash because culturally, you are told to wear your "best clothes", and in the American culture, that's typically a nice dress for women, and a suit for guys.

Let me just set this straight though, there is no church rule that you have to wear a dress. If I were to show up in jeans one Sunday, I would be welcome to stay and participate just as much as if I were in my best dress with my hair and makeup done well. Gospel and religious ceremonies, should be respected, therefore if you have the opportunity to wear your best clothes, you should, and if they happen to be pants instead of a dress, then go and participate! You know you are dressed in your best! I would do so in any other meetinghouse if requested to do so. But what if you only have jeans or dirty clothes? What if I'm on vacation and my luggage got lost, but I wanted to attend church and only had the clothes I wore with me on the plane? Well guess what, I and you would still be welcome. And I've never seen anyone turned away for wearing pants. It's the dumbest approach to the situation. (There are those that gossip about others that are different than them, but those aren't church regulators, or authorities, so they should be ignored at all costs. Besides, they are dumb people anyway.)

What these women really want is to be given the priesthood rights that men in our church have. It's really foolish of them. The roles given to women are extremely valued by God, and by men (the men who have good brains) and should be valued by women. The Relief Society in the LDS church is the biggest women's organization in the world. Sure it's very typically female in its roles -- sharing recipes, chatter-box conversations, and teary-eyed meetings where women share their feelings, but have you ever thought about how amazing the organization is? They are always providing service for other people that need it. Passing around dinner-delivery signup sheets for women in their neighborhoods that just had a baby and need meals, or someone whose loved one just died and needs help. They do charity drives, blanket drives for those that need warmth from the cold, and provide friendship and a safe haven for women. For some women this is the only place they find friendship and understanding.

And then there's the awe-inspiring role of motherhood. Broken down in its simplest form, you grow a human in your body while it sucks the nutrients out of you from the inside, then you push it out of you, in a way that only seems like magic because visually and logically it seems that it should be impossible. And then you raise the child into a productive, functioning human. (That is the simplest way to explain it, we all know motherhood is NOT that simple).

It seems to be reverse now, men are being downgraded as important, and are losing self-esteem and drive.

The comment boards of an article talking about this "wear pants to church" movement had such a great comment from an LDS person. They said (and I'm paraphrasing), "Men are given the priesthood roles because they need to learn to be service-oriented. Women are innately built better than we are at this task. We are given these challenges to become better at what women are already professionals at." And let me take this a step further. My belief is that God created women to be a partner to men. That means they are equal in value.

Let's talk about this in a business format. Men and women are designed differently for different reasons. Therefore to further this analogy, you would talk about business partners. Who does what and how often? Well, you have the one person in the business partnership that is excellent at sales... he brings in all the prospective buyers or investors. He's your basic people-person, the schmoozer. Then you have the other guy who excels at data organization, and we'll say this is you. You handle all the information that the sales guy just can't process because he deals with how he makes people feel, and you handle the numbers. Do you think you'd have great investors if the people-person of the partnership was just like you? Nope. Do you think your business would last long if your organization skills didn't exist and you were just a schmoozer too? Nope, you'd both end up schmoozing about everything, and nothing would get filed properly, or taken care of.

THIS IS WHY MEN AND WOMEN ARE DIFFERENT. It's the same basic principle. One of you has more to offer in one area than the other, and vice versa, but you're both equally valuable because without one the other couldn't function. Imagine a world of strictly men... my brain exploded. I can't... compute... that idea. All I know is, it would smell like feet and sweat.

Imagine a world of strictly women? Eeesh, it really would be awful, no one would get anywhere because we'd all be trying to protect each other's feelings. It wouldn't last long though, we'd all eventually get in one massive car accident and most of the population would be gone (I know, sorry, some women drive well, but we all know we've done some dumb things driving and got away with it because we're cute). Yuck. I do not want to live in an all-female world.

WHY, OH WHY, you radical feminists you, do you not see all the wonderful that you have in you? But also, why can't you see how important men are to the equation as well? We are both extremely valuable in our differences.  We cannot survive in a world without the other.

So all I have to say is this,

Stop doing it wrong...ladies.





Any thoughts?


Some interesting sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relief_Society
http://www.prb.org/Articles/2011/gender-gap-in-education.aspx

Have you guys ever had sweet potatoes? I love them, and I also love yams... (I thought they were the same thing but I was corrected recently on that idea.) My sister in law made candied yams for Thanksgiving, and I couldn't stop eating them... it was probably one of my favorite things to eat this year.  So naturally I thought a soup mix I purchased called "Sweet potato soup" would be delicious. All the other soup mixes I bought from this brand are amazing.

Hey everyone... I sometimes contribute to the Embodyed blog (you know the one about bodies and self -esteem... totally worth checking out) and the simplest post caught my eye.

The title was "You don't have to be pretty", and the only thing written in the body was "you knew that right?" and it linked to the following blog post about pretty.

You must read it. Men seem to get this. Women seem to feel their life must be the total opposite. If you read anything today, read this. (Click the highlighted text). I can't believe how perfectly written this post is. I feel like it is the truth. Everything else the media and world tell you is a lie.

The Guy

Hey guys. This post is just to talk about how, believe it or not, I know the coolest animal. I know you're all thinking, "...wait a minute, she really knows THE coolest animal? How does this girl do it?" It's true guys. It's Justin's cat, T-Money. He's in the photo to the right.

Let me stop you right here though, I'm not on my way to being a crazy cat lady anytime soon. There's only one cat in my life at the moment and that's usually how it stays. Ok, so there was that one photo when I was a kid where my brothers and I are all holding a cat.  Maybe I am a cat lady in the making. I just really do love a good cat, or a good animal. (I would love to adopt a dog from a shelter soon.)

Some of you may have seen some of the photos of him on Facebook. He's the ultimate cuddle-monster. He is notorious for wedging himself between Justin and I whenever we're by each other. One time we were spooning while watching a movie, and we ended up being a platform for him to sleep on, like he was King of the Mountain. He HAS to be touching one or both of us when he sleeps.  He has even been our caretaker when we've been sick. He wouldn't leave my side the whole time I was cooped up, and then when Justin got sick he did the same thing for him. This guy is the greatest! We took him to live with Justin's parents for a while and he even decided to cuddle-block the neighbors when they were trying to have a romantic evening while laying out in their backyard. The little jerk.

Recently he decided he wanted to sleep under my legs while I was resting my feet on Justin. Check out this moment of pure, catnap bliss...

Could you find a happier animal?

I thought it was the cutest thing, so I had to share. Plus, nothing is better than cats on the internet... NOTHING.

Sorry I haven't written in a while. I just wrote up a super long post that would've been lovely to read had blogger not messed up and erased it. So... this is the shortened version.

We were gone for Thanksgiving, and had a blast visiting family and enjoying the awesome food. (It's my favorite food holiday, next to Christmas!) Shortly after we got home from our trip, I got taken down by the worst germ I've ever had and today is one of the first days in a week that I actually feel decent!

Yeah, it went something like this. Only I wasn't looking for a drink in there.

This germ is a stomach flu, but it really takes all you've got. In a matter of 4 hours of getting sick, Justin had to run me to the hospital for some IV's. I was starting to pass out from dehydration, and it was NOT pretty. The next day I developed a really high fever, and still couldn't eat. It took a few days to be able to eat solid food, but I'm doing much better now! Just as I started to get better and Justin and I thought he'd been lucky enough not to get it, he got stuck in the throes of the miserable hell that is this germ. We almost had to run him to the hospital too but were able to get him to feel well enough to ride it out.

I'm a few days ahead of Justin but we're both on the mend. This germ really takes it out of you. Even though I'm eating now, I am still unnecessarily tired. Yesterday I slept until noon. I haven't done that since I was probably in my early 20's, so I know my body is recuperating from the madness. I imagine in a few more days I'll be back to normal, and then a few days after that Justin will too. Poor guy, he spends the week taking care of me, and all he has to show for it now is being taken out by the germ too.

The hospital told us it's going around like wildfire so if you end up getting stomach cramps, you may be wishing you were dead a few hours later! Just remember to wash your hands ALL the time. You really don't want to try to tough this one out. It will be better if you just don't get it at all!

I'll try to come up with some interesting stories over the next little bit and get back to regular blogging soon!

I'm so excited for the holiday season, and hope you're having a blast, and I hope you don't catch the nasty bug yourselves!

MUST BUY ALL THE THINGS!!!! GRRRR...

So with all this hullabaloo going on about Black Friday extending into Thursday this year to allow for more shopping madness, it kind of makes me angry. What is wrong with America? Maybe stuff like this happens in other countries too, but I live here so I'm complaining about here. America you are ridiculous. I love you, but sometimes I don't like you. Wasn't the first Thanksgiving about sitting down to eat and celebrate the successful harvest by not working or doing anything crazy?

Thanksgiving happens to be one of my favorite holidays. Maybe it's the food that makes me love it, or maybe it's the fact that my mom and I can be found pulling out 500 piece puzzles and attempting to do one of them throughout an entire day. I don't know what it is exactly, but I know what it isn't. And it isn't BLACK FRIDAY.

Black Friday is a grotesque display of how awful Americans can be. I love America, but I don't like certain things that are becoming the norm.

BLACK FRIDAY IS DUMB.

I mean that, and yes I wrote it like I was yelling. I want to stand in the middle of the mall like a crazy protester with signs and say, "GO HOME AND STOP BEING SO DUMB."

I know that Black Friday is a great day to get great deals. But why do you need to go through all that drama to get all that crap? Whatever happened to making memories with your family that don't involve shopping malls during the holiday season? I mean do people even know what the holiday season is about anymore? Or is the holiday season now just about shopping for new crap? New plastic pieces of technology to fill our brains with nonsense and kill our ability to concentrate, new clothes that look great, but only until fashion designers say in 3 months it is out of style, new crap that will sit on shelves in your home and turn you into a hoarder?

Don't get me wrong, I love technology. It's an amazing invention. I love giving and receiving gifts. I love buying new things that I need and want. But I refuse to stand in a huge line like a ravenous wolf after my prey when I buy things. I HATE STORES FROM NOVEMBER TO JANUARY. It's like normal humans turn into salivating dogs at the ring of Pavlov's bell when the fourth Friday in November rolls around. Wasn't it just last year or the year before that a woman started pepper-spraying the crowd around her to keep them away from what she wanted to buy? WHO EVEN DOES THAT?

I seriously can't stand it. STOP BUYING THINGS YOU CRAZY WOLVES! If you can't be nice, and mentally stable during November and December, you're not allowed outside of your home.

Acting out the Christmas Story from the Bible.

I miss being oblivious to Black Friday. I was young enough that I didn't know that stuff was going on. I just knew that Christmas time was magic. Christmas lights were everywhere, the tree decorated in our home, we always had a fire going in our fireplace because it's cold out, and the air gets crisp and cold. My church youth group would deliver gifts to and visit with the elderly of our neighborhoods. Every time I would come home from school my mom would have a spice candle burning, and christmas music on the stereo. She would make chocolate mint treats, and we would prepare for the most magical night of the year. A night that would never allow me to sleep, because my stomach would be too full of butterflies to be able to sleep.

Usually that night of angst was preceded by a fancy candlelit dinner. This is my favorite Christmas tradition. Every Christmas Eve my mom cooks a nice ham or something fancy and we eat by candelight. Usually the candles would get blown out half way through and the lights would be back on... having 5 brothers makes for some little pyro-maniacs at the table messing with the fire. It was fun while it lasted though! Then we'd all read the Christmas story from the Bible and get ready for bed. This is still the best memory for me of Christmas. It's still magical to me because I crave family time during the holiday season.

I am so excited for this weekend. I can't wait for the feast, the family, and the Friday off work (but it won't involve anything black). I am also very excited for Christmas this year! It is my first Christmas living with Justin and our 3rd since we got together. Sure we kind of have no surprises this year for Christmas, but that's because we both needed some things so we just bought them for each other. But who cares, I don't love Christmas for the gifts. I love it for the magic-ness that it brings. I can't wait for us to start our own traditions and have many more holiday seasons to come. We already set up our tree and it's cute! It's small, and sparsely decorated, but every ornament is from a place we've been or something we've done. It's a sentimental tree that will get more additions to it as our lives progress.

What about you? What are your favorite holiday season traditions, memories, or crazy stories?

So it's time for my regular Saturday post! I know, I should post more during the week. It's not like I don't have the time. But my mind seems to be at it's best on Saturday mornings, when my eyes pop open around the time I usually start work every weekday. Justin never gets this (he's a night owl), and I used to fight against it, but I have to say, I do my best work in the mornings the older I get. I just can't seem to sleep in without my muscles starting to ache from laying in bed for too long. I think this comes from having a desk job. I had them all through college but I also danced for a good 3 hours at least 3 times a week. (College dance parties: keeping busy students healthy since 1955).

I remember waking up between 12 and 2 pm the whole summer after high school. I was a night owl for the next 5 years, with a regular bedtime of anywhere between 2am-7am... then suddenly my clock started shifting and I became a regular adult. You know, in the world where regular adult = 8 hours of sleep or I become a walking, emotional, grizzly bear. The kind that says things like, "I'm hungry let's go eat," only to thwart every restaurant suggestion/food idea Justin has, which just confuses him and makes him try to dodge the grizzly bear that was currently me (this happened yesterday). Good thing he's as tough as the craziest grizzly bear days I have, or the guy would be running for the hills. Luckily I like to sleep at night so this doesn't happen all the time.

Aaaanyway...

This is a great photo showing the nerdiest couple ever buying bananas. It also is true. If you get married, you smile the whole time you're buying bananas because you're like, "What up! I'm buying bananas with my spouse, while you're buying bananas alone!" (Disclaimer: this actually doesn't happen as grossly and cheesy as this photo.)

My post today is on how normal life is just cool. I'll tell you why. I spend a bit of time every so often talking to my single friends that need relationship advice. Sometimes I just can't help but laugh partly because I'm graduated to the married world, and other times it's because maybe I can finally see all the crap I was going through as a single in this area and I can totally relate and for some reason that is funny. My friends just vent about how a guy said this, but then had no follow through, or once again something didn't work out and they are starting all over. Before I start a rant about how weird being single in Utah can be, let me go off on a better tangent.

I just want to say how thankful I am and how wonderful it is to be married to Justin and just living a normal life. We have a nice apartment, and good jobs, and we spend the bulk of our days at work, and come home to each other and just hang out or he does homework. We do simple things like watch an episode of our new addiction Breaking Bad, or go grocery shopping, or I do yoga while he knocks out more homework assignments. I see my friends' Facebook posting about "fun" activities they do as singles, and I am just grateful. I'm grateful that I no longer have to try on 5 outfits before I go out, so as to look my most attractive, then make sure I am as subtly-but-perfectly-funny as I can be or as interesting/cool as possible so as to attract a potential mate. And then don't even get me started on how awesome it is to not have to go on first dates... blegh. If dates were beans, first dates would be the lima beans of the group... nobody likes lima beans. I'm still not even sure they're edible. So I guess it makes sense that our first date was more of a meet-up, not a date, since I prefer to avoid lima beans.

Last night we got home from work, caught the movie Argo at the local theater, and then hit up the local Walmart for a few things we needed.

Side note: I recommend this movie, it's got good suspense, and is based on a true de-classified story from the CIA. Who doesn't love a story that used to be classified, but is now de-classified? Also, I chose it and finally redeemed myself from the bad string of movie choices I had earlier this year, which led Justin to saying "You don't get to pick movies anymore", and now he takes that back. 

They look like this, but were a little tiny bit cheaper and a knockoff, but they are weird, and awesome. Ok, not  even weird, just awesome.

I'm not going to lie, it was an excellent Friday night. Maybe it's because I have a partner in crime to do everything, so buying lightbulbs and water bottles becomes more fun to me than it was before. But also it's because I don't have to try anymore, I can "be". I have my best friend there with me at all times. All I have to do is be myself in all my self's glory. He encourages me to do things a little more boldly than I used to because he knows whatever I do will be awesome and will make me happy, and he also knows that I hold myself back a lot. Dumb little encouragements, like buy that friggin pair of moccasin booties you've been eyeing for weeks even though you're not sure they go with your clothes. Turns out they do. It also turns out, not trying to look perfect is what makes for better outfits, and more fun in life. Who knew getting married to Justin could teach me little things like this? I was slowly learning it, but he teaches me faster.


Also, he earns extreme bonus points for de-webbing our place and spraying a few weeks ago. Now that it's getting cold we have very few bugs, but he's going to do it again because he knows life without spiders equals the best life and some of those little buggers are already making new webs on our exterior doors. The little jerks.  Last night we were relaxing on the couch watching an episode of our addiction before bed, and he said "Those are cool shoes, let me look at them!". I was wearing my new moccasins, and he took one off and then promptly slams the bottom of it into the wall, not before I caught a glimpse of a black crawly thing that was his direct target. Such a tactically sound move. He's so great, he knows that it's better to kill the spider and tell me it's gone, than to show it to me first.

So this, my friends, is why normal life is just cool. I can't wait for more normal cool things to happen to us. Like maybe tonight we'll buy some produce and listen to the radio. Life is good.

Also... please enjoy this fun song by Grouplove, called Tongue Tied. The video is a little bit in the way of hipster style videos, so it might seem a little weird but the song is definitely great!

A quote from a favorite book of mine.

Mr. Awesome and I decided to sit down tonight and write out the list of what will go on our dream boards. We both are firm believers in goal setting and we decided if we're ever going to get anything in life that we want, we have to start mapping it out.  I did this on this very blog 4.5 years ago when I first started it. You can find that post HERE. I was surprised to see that when I went back and looked at the post tonight, of the 3 things on that short dream board post... I have 2 of them. I won't tell you which ones they are, but I will tell you one of them is almost identical to what I posted that I wanted, and the other is a close version of one of them. You decide or guess which ones I have! :)

It's fun to see that even though I didn't really put too much emphasis on staring at my blog post with my dreams on it... I still sent them floating out in space, and it helped me make sure I achieved them. Funny though, the ideas never left me and when I was able to get the things from that list that I have, I knew exactly what I wanted.  So that is precisely why our dream board task tonight is happening. We're sending our dreams out into the vastness of space and time, and we're asking the universe to help us get there throughout or journey in life together.

Tonight Justin and I decided to do just that. We made a small one for ourselves and one together.

I will share with you some of those things on our or my dream board here. This is not a complete list by any means, and it's not his personal list either. For the items on his list, you'll just have to ask him and see if he tells you.

I have 3 skills/trades that I want to master and also start selling them on Etsy or in a small shop of my own.


The courage to have red hair:

A small family so we can travel the world easily and experience all the different and great things other cultures have to offer:

And one of our favorites:


We are going to frame and hang the dream boards in our room so we are reminded everyday of what we want out of life. I am excited to look back on these lists and see what we've done with our lives. I only hope that we have no regrets when looking back!

What's on your dream board? Or what would be if you made one?

So if you can't tell I'm excited!!!

And here's why.

My photographer posted a bunch of our wedding photos on her blog. That means I get them from her soon, and I'm really excited!

To see them, click HERE to view them on her blog.

They are lovely, and I love looking at them over and over and thinking what a crazy day that was in my life. I love love, and I love Mr. Awesome, and I love being Mrs. Awesome, and I loved my wedding, and I love my photos!

Happy Thursday, indeed!


Also, I know tons of you are sad you didn't get to watch our amazing slideshow at our reception. So guess what?! I am sharing it RIGHT HERE. I know what you're thinking, "HOW DOES IT GET ANY BETTER THAN THIS? This girl's blog has everything I could ever want, I can die happy!"

Well, don't die yet, but you can after you watch the most amazing slideshow in existence. Actually wait, scratch that. Leave a comment and keep reading my blog each week because I'd prefer my readers didn't die. I like you.

Here's the slideshow.

The other day a friend of mine briefly mentioned to me that she had a funny conversation with her boyfriend about how they'll be remembered when they die. Justin met him once and he was wearing a Christmas sweater, they briefly were around each other. When they ran into each other again, Justin remembered him from that sweater. The boyfriend told my friend, "I always wondered how I'd be remembered when I die, I guess it's the sweater for me."

Pretty funny to think about, but in all actuality, it is an interesting thought. I wonder what people will think of me when I leave this life? I'm not planning to anytime soon, but I am curious what other's memory of me would be if I were to leave.

I've often just thought it would be this,

"Did you hear Lana's gone?"
-- "Oh that one blonde skinny girl?"
"Yeah that blond skinny girl."

Not that being skinny or blonde is bad, it just seems like that's all people ever notice about me.  I've always wanted my legacy to be something else besides that. I want to be remembered as that insanely funny girl, that could take a room full of bored people and make them laugh and feel awesome, or cheer up a friend that needs a good laugh. I've wanted to be thought of as someone people could come to when they need a friend to talk to. Perhaps I'd like to be remembered by having some amazing talent in the arts, or business skills in some field beyond what I have now.

My point is, I'd like to leave my mark on this world in some great way that people remember me for what I did for good and that I had great character, than what I looked like.

And I guess what I'm also saying is I feel that what I'm doing and who I am right now isn't making a mark in this way. I'm not really leaving a negative mark or doing anything in poor character. I just feel like I could be doing more, or making bigger things happen than are, or than what I can even see. It's interesting to think about how much of a mark we'll leave on this world. I don't even want to necessarily be famous, just leave a legacy for those I may have come after me, or those I already know.

How do you remember me? You readers of my blog. If you had to explain me to someone, what little phrase or few words explain me as a person? (If it is that I'm that one skinny blonde, please tell me anyway, it means I have to try harder to make my mark!)

Also, how do you think you'll be remembered? I'd love to hear what you have to say, so please comment! It would really make my week if you did. Most people just read and move on, I really value what people have to say, so please leave me one!

This post wouldn't be complete without a good song from a band I'm falling in love with. You may recognize them from the song "Little Talks".

Here's another of theirs called Mountain Sound by Of Monsters and Men

We're good lookin' kids.

Today is my 3-week wedding anniversary. I'd say that's a huge milestone since Justin and I are such independent strong-willed souls. Our honeymoon was awesome, it involved relaxing, eating everything and anything, swimming, long gazes at the ocean, and of course the most amazing part... we got to receive a hug, kiss, and a ride from a sea lion named Shanna!

It was a blast and so was getting married. Our wedding day is kind of a blur to me, so I can't wait to get our photos back from the photographer!

We did NOT take as many pictures on the cruise as we should have, but we did take a lot of gorgeous ocean sunset photos. Having a balcony cabin was the best idea (Thanks Justin for being so awesome and booking us the best room on the ship!). We got lots of natural light. We were 8 levels up so the rocking motion didn't make us sick, it just made us sleep like we were dead.

Also we ate probably 7 meals a day. Shrimp, lobster tail, filet mignon, mongolian grill, deli food, fondue, sushi, fresh breakfast everyday, all the free room service, pizza and icecream you could eat. Justin even had frog legs, snails, and alligator! We both put on 5 lbs. It was SO WORTH IT!

We're currently waiting for our disposable water camera to get printed and then we'll have fun pictures of us snorkeling, parasailing and swimming in the ocean.

Until then, you just get a few awesome pictures from the boat.