The Honeymoon before the Honeymoon

Well, averaging about one blog post a month seems to be the best I can do right now. Sometimes it's hard to find time to write about your life when you're busy living it.

Anyway...as I said in my last post, Pat and I had to postpone our Florida honeymoon until June due to school and work. However, we were able to go on a "mini-honeymoon" for a few days after the wedding in March. After all our friends and family pelted us with birdseed, we stopped by our apartment, shook the birdseed our of our hair, grabbed our bags, and hopped in the car to drive to San Antonio for the weekend. We stayed in a hotel on the River Walk, took a riverboat tour, ate at yummy restaurants, walked around town, and went to the movies to see Hunger Games. It was a fun way to spend the first few days of our marriage. Here are the pictures I took:

Riverboat Tour

That's our hotel on the right

Mariachi bands serenading people at restaurants by the river

Pretty mosaic we passed by on the riverboat

 I loved all the tall trees with big roots right by the water

 Tall building

 Freaky faces on the tall building

 Of course we went to the Alamo! I had never been before.

We saw some wildlife...like this owl...

...and this family of ducks...

 ...and Pat's new friend, the Jackalope.

 Pretty waterfalls at HemisFair Park

 I'm pretty sure this used to be a door leading to Narnia

 Tower of the Americas

View from the top of the tower

 

The end! 

Or should I say, the beginning? 

No, the beginning was the wedding. I'll get to wedding pictures next month, maybe. :-)

Blue water and white sand

Well, it's about time for my belated post about our belated honeymoon. Recent events have kept me out of the blogging world...but I finally uploaded some pictures. Months ago, when Pat and I first started planning our wedding, I asked him where we should go for our honeymoon. His reply: "Somewhere with white sands and blue water! Where we can fly to in a plane." Pat had never been to the beach before, or been on an airplane, so we decided on Destin, Florida. Since school wasn't out yet in March, when we got married, we postponed our "real" honeymoon until June. It was actually kind of nice, to have the busyness of the wedding behind us, and to have had a couple of months together to get settled into married life, and then get to go on a relaxing vacation. We had a fabulous time....although, it didn't start out so great. I got food poisoning or something the night before we left, and was up til about 1 am being very sick. Then we had to get up at 4 or 5 to make our insanely early flight out of Austin. But no worries, it all turned out fine.

Pat's first flight!!!

He might have been a little nervous, and I a little queasy, but it was still fun.

It was something of a relief to arrive at our hotel on Okaloosa Island in the middle of a very beautiful day. We got unpacked and headed down to the beach.

Blue water...

...and white sand

The next few days were just wonderful.

Our sandcastle was truly an architectural wonder. And everyone else on the beach loved it! When we make sandcastles back home at Belton Lake, all the drunk idiots eagerly run up and smash it the second we finish. But in Florida, we told kids on the beach to have fun and play with it when we were done, but nobody would touch it. A little boy said "Oh no, I wouldn't want to mess it up," while other people walked by and took pictures.

We might have gotten a little too much sun.

Snorkeling off the Emerald Coast

We saw this fenced-off sea turtle nest while walking on the beach one night.

We took lots of walks on the beach at sunset.

And one morning, we got up early to see the sunrise and read our Bibles together on the beach.

All in all, it was a wonderful honeymoon. 

I love being married!

 

Kissed the World Goodbye

Last Tuesday night was difficult and painful, but also full of blessings and love. My little brother Jonathan called to tell me that our dear Grandma was struggling to breathe, and that the hospice nurse thought she probably wouldn't last til morning. He asked me to call the rest of our siblings, and while I did that, my wonderful husband ran to our bedroom and started packing our bags, saying "we ARE going to Magnolia tonight!" Less than 30 minutes later we were in the car, bags packed and a sleeping Madi in the back seat. We didn't tell we were coming, and when we walked into the house at 1:45 AM my mom started crying, she was so happy we came. Women from church were gathered in the living room, but the hospice nurse had gone home for the night. They had gotten Grandma's breathing under control with medications, oxygen, and breathing treatments, and she wasn't in pain or distress, but she hadn't opened her eyes in hours. 

The remainder of the night I took turns with my mom and Aunt Heidi sitting up with Grandma, stroking her hair, kissing her face and holding her hand as soft praise music played in the background. It was a heart-wrenching night, but I wouldn't have missed that experience for anything. I'm so thankful she was able to be at home, in her own bed, wearing her own clothes, surrounded by family who loved her. At about 7 in the morning I laid down to get a little sleep, but a couple of hours later Mom woke me up to tell me Grandma had opened her eyes. I hurried downstairs and, sure enough, she was looking around the room at whoever was there, and we could tell she could really see us. Aunt Heidi, Mom, and I received the most beautiful gift from Grandma there at the end. She turned her head, looked directly at each one of us, and gave us each a smile. My Grandma had the most beautiful smile. She gave smiles to every single person she met, full of joy and love. After those last few smiles, she closed her eyes for the last time, and a couple of hours later we said goodbye as she flew away to Jesus. 

Later that afternoon, Aunt Heidi played the piano and Jonathan his guitar and we all held each other and sang together through our tears. It was hard to get through the last verse of the Untitled Hymn:

And with your final heartbeat

Kiss the world goodbye

Then go in peace, and laugh on Glory's side

And fly to Jesus

Fly to Jesus

Fly to Jesus, and live!

I'm going to miss you so much, Grandma. But I know I'll be seeing you again soon.