We flew up to Seattle on Monday and spent some time going to Pike's Place (after I totally missed the exit) and checked out Target city. It is a store but customize to fit better in a city. It is three stories and even has an escalator for your cart. It was awesome. We sampled lots of things at Pike's Place like rhubard jam and chocolate pasta.  We ended up buying some garlic and lemon pasta that we still need to make. What the heck do you eat with those kinds of noodles to make them worth it? I definitely don't want to ruin them but  I am excited! That same spot had awesome bread dipping oils.

We then headed to Manson. Throughout the week we helped get the deck ready by staining the railings. My parents redid the back yard and it looks amazing. We went to the lake and of course, went up in the helicopter.

And made cider!!

It was great to be back for a whole week and show Stewart around some.  Saturday was Apple Blossom Festival! We had the pancake breakfast, parade, and band booster burgers. SOO good. Juliana took some pictures of us in the orchard and down by the lake, something I have been looking forward to do my whole life. I am so excited to see them! We had the reception that night and it was awesome. We had tons of pies from Donna.  Even with the fountain overflowing a little it was a lot of fun!

We headed back to California on Monday to stay for a few days before coming back to Provo.  We got to go swimming, babysat and he took me to his favorite restaurants.

We expected to move into our apartment the day we got back. We had talked to maintenance twice about leaving the keys in the apartment with the door unlocked because we would get there after hours. Well, it was locked when we got there and we couldn't get a hold of maintenance... so, we didn't have anywhere to go. Besides all of our family around of course. Grandma and grandpa took us in for the night until we could go back the next morning.

We are now all settled in! We even had a fun date on Saturday where we did an art project to help colorize our apartment! We found a blog with a fun idea.  We got five canvases (they were on sale at a super good price), different colored acrylic paints, and potatoes.  Stewart cut out circles in the potatoes and we used them as stamps. It was super super fun and we are looking for other diy projects we can do. We love it!

Also, you see the cute KitchenAid??

Stewart did an awesome job planning our honeymoon. Seriously. It incorporated so many of our favorite things. First, we went to Park City for a couple nights. The room had a super ghetto oven that we weren't sure if it was on or what temperature it was on but it cooked our pizza so that's all that really mattered. Before leaving Park City on Monday morning we stopped by the outlets for a little bit of shopping and some sweet deals. On our way to California we stopped by Sherry's to drop off our presents from the reception.

We stayed a night at his parents' house before heading to Yosemite for a couple more nights. Yosemite was so much fun! Yes, we did camp.  We also went on a cool hike up to a waterfall on the Mist Trail. It was awesome.

We were then on our way to Monterey.  Our hotel was sweet! We had a bell boy who drove us on a golf cart to our room.  We also had our own personal golf cart to use while we were there.  We were welcomed with a card from the hotel room congratulating us on our marriage and there was chilled sparkling cider waiting for us.  The bathroom was HUGE! And we had an ihome that we could use while there.  There was a card to fill out for what we wanted for breakfast.  We marked what we wanted and put it on the door.  They brought us our breakfast to the door at the time we specified. It was awesome. We fell asleep and woke up to the sound of the waves with the electronic fire starting whenever it got a little cold. Such a sweet place! We also went on the 17 mile drive at Pebble Beach. It was pretty cool

On our way back to Orangevale we stopped by the Stanford campus and picked up a couple shirts.  It is a pretty cool campus! We then made our way to San Fransisco.  I am so impressed by whoever drives those roads every day.  Well, pretty much everyone there had Mercedes. But I seriously thought our brakes would go out any minute. So incredibly scary driving on those! Thankfully, we missed Lombard street. It would have been cool to think back to later but at the time it would have given me a heart attack. We went to dinner at Boudin Bakery down by the pier and walked around the pier for a little. It was so much fun! And so pretty.  We decided to go take a picture with the Golden Gate bridge in the background. It took us awhile to get a picture but worth it! haha

When we got back to Orangevale we were welcomed by this sign that his dad made with the nieces and nephews.

Monica, his sister, did an AWESOME job putting the reception together. There were such cute little crafts she did that made it adorable. And she made an awesome cake. I don't have pictures myself of anything that night but it really was sweet.

Now, off to Washington!

I will try to keep this as concise as possible.. Well, probably not. I have too much to catch up on so I will just do multiple posts.

The weekend of our wedding was definitely the greatest weekend of my life. Throughout the week we had family members coming in from all over the place, finals to finish, cleaning checks to do, and packing. It was a very busy week but we had so much help to make it a little easier.  Thursday night my sisters threw a bridal shower at my grandparent's house. It was so much fun and the mini fruit pizzas were awesome!

 Friday is when everything was becoming more real. We went to lunch with Ste's family.  This was my first time meeting one of his sisters, his grandparents, and the second time meeting rest of his family.  It was so much fun but we had to kinda book it out of there so Lindsea could finish my hair (it was in a 90's curled pony tail, great first impression! haha kidding, linds, I didn't really care) and do my make up for pictures.  Ste's sister Jenner took our pictures up at the Draper temple.  Even with all the wind she did an AWESOME job.  I couldn't have been happier with the way they turned out. I had my endowment session that night.  I felt like I was going in to get married because I didn't have time to change out of my wedding dress before going in.  

That experience is one I will never forget. I was so excited to go back! As amazing as it was, the next day was even better.  

Saturday morning was time to finish up all the decorations as Sherry's house. My family called me Cinderella because I was on my hands and knees with a bucket of soapy water cleaning the bird poop off the cement on my wedding day. My mom and Sherry (and everyone else) did an amazing job of decorating. Thank you!  Lindsea did my hair again and Janae did my make up. Also I just have to say I loved having so much family there! People I don't get to see very often were able to make it and it really did make the whole experience awesome. Stewart's family held a luncheon for us catered by Zupas. Ste and I got to choose our favorite things off the menu so everyone could experience the best that Zupas had to offer. At the luncheon his sister, Lori, had us play the shoe game.  It is when the bride and groom have a shoe from each and sit back to back.  Lori would ask a question and we had to raise the shoe of who we thought fit best. Apparently I get lost more, have worst grades, more likely to get into a car accident, and have the worst style out of the two of us.  BUT I can cook best and don't have the smellier feet! Afterward she had everyone go around and say how they knew us and a favorite memory of us or the first time the met us.  I was able to cry the entire time. Okay so I did cry a lot of it. I had a bottle of water so I could take a sip every time I got choked up to try and stop the tears. Didn't help. And the whole bottle only lasted half way through.  I loved hearing how so many family members trusted him completely on his decisions.  One of his cousins explained a time when they went to Yosemite and she saw how Stewart acted and told herself that if her boys grew up to be like him she knew she had succeeded.  That one still makes me choke up when I think about it.  

We couldn't mingle too much afterward because we had to get to the temple to get sealed!!!

Stewart and I drove down together and as we were handing our temple recommends to the workers I realized a very scary thing... My recommend was NOT where I thought it was. I swore that morning I had gone through my bag to make sure every single little thing was in there.  My aunt Judy was there because her husband was doing the sealing. She took my bag for me as I booked it out of the temple.  I hightailed it to the car. I heard my mom yelling, "YOUR GARMENTS ARE SHOWING!" Okay, this didn't surprise me or really phase me because I was having the hardest time with the bottoms because they went sooo far down my leg and I had only left out one dress. haha And all I could really think was that I couldn't get married unless I found the darn recommend! My mom, Ste and I rummaged through the car trying to find it. The longer it took, the more tears that started to fall. That was one of the scariest feelings in the world. As I finally spotted my recommend tucked up in the back of the middle console I saw Ste coming (he went to go talk to the workers to see if we could still get married because I was there the night before) and I just grabbed his arm and ran back inside. He then told me the workers said that we would have been fine.  Anyway, I was then bawling and passing everyone that was arriving for the sealing. I tried not to make eye contact with anyone so I wouldn't continue crying.  But as soon as I was in the temple all the darn workers were just too sweet! They just wanted to comfort me but that just makes me cry more! I finally got myself dressed and ready to go see my soon to be husband. Man he looked good! Gary took us in a room to talk to us about how things would go and I realized I forgot his ring in my bag. The temple worker who was helping me through everything went back down and got it.. she almost grabbed my pearl earrings though on accident. Wouldn't have surprised me to have that happen.  

I have to say, all the preparations and waiting for the time to be sealed to my eternal companion was completely worth it. I cannot explain the amount of happiness and understanding that I was filled with during that time.  As I looked at him throughout the sealing, I just knew that who I was marrying was the absolute perfect and right man for me. Gary did a beautiful job and I was so happy that a family member was able to do that for us. 

We took some more pictures and then headed to Sherry's for the reception! We had Cafe Rio cater and it was definitely a hit. Nick made an awesome video of us growing up, dating, and engagements.  My favorite part was the quote he inserted at the end by President Hinckley.  Thank you Nick!  The reception was a lot of fun.  Mary made our cake and it was beautiful! when we were feeding the cake to each other I thought Ste was getting it on my face so I slid my hand onto his cheek and got it on his face.. neck.. hair.. and suit. He didn't get it anywhere but my mouth. Whoops! After that we had the bouquet toss. We didn't get a throwing one so Linds went to the welcoming table where yellow calla lilies were planted in a little thing.  She cut them off and tide a ribbon around them. Good work Linds! Alyssa caught the bouquet and Ste's friend Hayden caught the garter. It was so funny seeing the little girls watch Stewart get the garter.

We left at 8 on the dot to everyone blowing bubbles and escaped in a undecorated car! Off to the honeymoon!