We went to the moon, it's made of honey

Well, we're back!  It's been a fun and adventurous week, but now it's time to say "goodbye" to paradise and "hello" to real life back in good old p-town.  Our wedding was beautiful and it was so wonderful having all of our families together!  That is something we're already missing.  But it is exciting for us that we are now a new family unit and our fun honeymoon was a great way to start off our marriage.
Unfortunately, the beginning of our honeymoon was not so great.  I got really sick our first night there.  I'm pretty sure it was food poisoning because I was throwing up all night and it felt like my body was trying to get rid of something it didn't like.  I was up almost every hour between 7:00 Sunday night and 9:00 Monday morning vomiting.  It was awful!  But it's a good thing I have a wonderful husband who was willing to take care of me.  He was up with me every time and he cleaned out the trash can every time I threw up in it.  We went to the medical center on Monday morning and they gave me a painful injection in my bum to keep me from vomiting any more.  It did it's job and I was no longer throwing up, but it didn't really make me feel any better.  They also quarantined me in my room for 24 hours.  Grant was constantly running out to get me things.  He even ran extra errands because I talked to him in my sleep a few times, asking for things that I didn't actually want.  What a sweetheart!  The one plus to all of this was that we got pay-per-view and anything from our mini-bar free.  But I think I would've traded that for better health!

Luckily, I got feeling better so they cleared me and I was able to venture out of our room on Tuesday.  We went up to the deck for most of the day.  We laid out, hoping to get some sun, but it was too cold and windy so we had to cover up with our towels.  Unbeknownst to me, I was getting some sun and I ended up with a ridiculous sunglass line on my face!  

On Wednesday, we were able to leave the ship for the first time.  We docked in Montego Bay, Jamaica and got a bus tour of the island.  We then got to ride a motorboat, which Grant did a great job driving.  When we got in, our guide tied a rope over my legs and told me to hold on because that was my seat belt and I was going to need it.  He was right!  It was very choppy and I thought I was going to fly out a few times!  But we made it!  The boat ride brought us to some beautiful falls that some people call the 8th wonder of the world.  A guide led us up the falls and we had to hold hands and a make a human chain with our whole group.  It was a lot of fun.  We weren't able to get pictures on the way up because we didn't have a waterproof camera, but we have one at the top.

Our trip on Tuesday was to Grand Cayman.  We were originally supposed to go parasailing, but the guy in charge of it said the winds were too strong so it was cancelled.  We ended up going to the beach instead.  At least we saved over $100 because of it!

Our last excursion was in Mexico.  We docked in Cozumel and then travelled on a ferry and bus to the city of Tulum, where there are ancient Mayan ruins.  We learned a lot about the Mayan culture and got to see some beautiful sites.  It was a great day!

Life on a cruise ship is a blast!  There is always something to do, always great food to eat, and always someone waiting on you hand and foot!  Every night when we came back from dinner, there was an animal made out of towels waiting for us and chocolates on our pillows.  There were shows every night from singing and dancing performances to magic shows and comedy acts.  There were games to play and watch and dance classes to enjoy.  We had so much fun!!  I would recommend a cruise to anyone!

Now we're back in Provo and I'm ready to tackle the daunting task of getting our apartment in order while Grant works this week.  We have a lot of shopping to do and I lot of things to set up and organize before school starts next Monday, but we're excited for it!

Beds and Bunnies

So, we have started moving some things into our new apartment!  It has been fun to start populating our empty apartment.  We have already gotten some gifts, one of them being our bedding.  Look how comfortable our new bed looks!

Ok so about the bunnies-
Katie came home from work this week and told me this crazy story.  One of the kids in class brought a note to her teacher.  The note read as follow:

Dear Ms. Hammond (name has been changed)
Our rabbit just had baby bunnies and my daughter has one in her backpack.  Please make sure you feed it every half hour.
Sincerely,
Mom

Sure enough, the teacher went over to look in the girl's backpack and their was a baby bunny in there!  The bunny was so young that it's eyes still weren't open!  They took the bunny to the principal but she is terrified of mice (pretty much the same thing as a bunny).  They called the mom several times on her cell work, and home phone but she was screening calls.  So they took the bunny to the librarian for the day and she took care of it.  And the bunny made it through it the day!  Crazy huh?!

Our new home!

The search for a new home has been an interesting one.  Everyplace seemed to have something the others didn't and we felt like all of them had at least one major compromise.  Just one quick story about one of the places Katie called.  She talked to this Asian women about her basement she was renting out.  The Asian women said, "I just have one question for you- How tall is your husband?"  Well, come to find out, that was a very applicable question.  We went over to look at the place at it was great.  Remodeled everything, lots of space, only one thing- the ceiling was 6ft tall!  Crazy!

After much searching, we finally came across one we both felt good about.  As soon as we walked in, we both felt like we should live there.  It was a great blessing to find this place and we are so excited to have our very first apartment together!

This is the outside of our 4-plex.  Our apartment is the top right!

Here are a couple shot of the living room

Cute kitchen!

Bedroom

Fun little backyard

What a week!

It's been a fun, but very busy,week!  It all started last Saturday with a full day of working (for Grant), apartment hunting, football games, and registering.  Grant already posted about our registering adventure, but I love this picture of us at the football game and had to include it:

Sunday was filled with meetings and wedding plans, but we did set aside some time to make dinner in a pumpkin and it was DELICIOUS!  It also provided me with leftovers to eat for lunch the next few days, so it was great!

This week at school was Red Ribbon Week, so I got the opportunity to dress up in a different way each day. The kids loved it and, I have to admit, I really did too.

Monday was crazy hair/sock day.  The pictures aren't very good because they were taken on Grant's phone. If you can't tell, my hair is up in a high side-ponytail.  Grant said I looked like Napoleon's girlfriend.  Tuesday was inside out day and Wednesday was sports jersey day so I had to support my astros!  Thursday was the day for Halloween costumes, parties, parades, and basically a whole lot of craziness!  The second grade teachers at my school dressed up as the 5 little monkeys jumping on the bed.  Here are the pictures from the fun-filled week:

It was a fun-filled week at school, but it was definitely nice to get a break on Friday.  We spent the whole day with wedding plans and apartment searching.  The best news of the week is that Grant and I found an apartment on Saturday!!!!  It is the biggest relief.  We've been so many places and weren't sure what to do, but when we found this place it was absolutely perfect!  We knew it was the one when we discovered that all of the parking spaces were to the left (I have issues parking to the right and avoid it if at all possible).  We will get the keys next week and can't wait to post pictures!

We also spent part of Saturday putting together wedding invitations!  It was exciting, but very time-consuming.  And it's still not done.  Thanks to my roommates (current and past) for helping out!

Grant and I ended up being lame and going to the library instead of the ward Halloween party this year.  Grant has test week coming up and I had to get report cards done.  So, unfortunately, we don't have any fun costume pictures to post...  Maybe next year.

On a wonderful side note, we had our first snow of the season this week.  It's my absolute FAVORITE time of year when the snow starts to fall.  I don't think there's anything more beautiful.  Grant was in his room studying when it started, but I made him take a break to share this wonderful moment with me!  There really aren't many more things that make me happier than falling snow!

So that's a lot of updates for the week, but now you know what we've been up to.  We're definitely staying busy, but we're enjoying every second of it!

3.5 hours later...

Who would have thought registering for gifts could be so fun!  Ok, just kidding.  It took forever!  But I expected it to take that long after talking with some friends about the process.  And we still aren't done, but we've knocked most of it out!  We got a little hung up after realizing that we didn't even know our color scheme (which yes, I found out from Katie is a big deal!)  But after successfully avoiding that breakdown, we were able to plow ahead and finish the rest!

Katie really wanted to document this so here is a shot of her in action!

I had to find ways to make this enjoyable so I pretended to shoot merchandise and people walking around in the store.

Using that handheld scanner sure brought me back to the days of working at Target!  I'm glad I was able to pave the way for my little bro to experience the joys of scanning merchandise at 4 in the morning.  Katie had to put up with my detailed explanations as to how stocking really works at Target.

So, our wedding website is up!  It's still in the workings but check it out at www.mywedding.com/grantandkatiezinn.  December is coming up!

We're off on an incredible adventure!

     It's official!  Grant and I will be "tying the knot" on December 18, 2010!
     As we're both starting to let go of the facebook world, we've decided that we'd rather be more of a "blogging couple," as Grant puts it.  For our first official blog entry, I have decided to tell the proposal story from my perspective.  Grant always makes me tell it, saying that I do it better.  When I think about it, though, he's never actually told it, so I don't know if that's a fair claim.  BUT, because I have gotten used to telling it, I might as well share it here...
     Over a year ago, Grant and I had our very first date.  It was a double date with his roommate/old mission companion, Paul, and his date, Katalyn.  We went up into Provo Canyon and had a fire with stuffed peppers, chips, pineapple, juice, and s'mores.  Paul brought a guitar and we all sang around the campfire.  More details of this date will come later, but here is a picture:

    So that was all in May 2009-- Pretty long time ago.  We sure have come a far way since then.  Grant and I have been planning on getting married in December for over a month.  I, being a girl, have been really excited about it and I wanted to tell everyone!  But I couldn't because I didn't have a ring.  And, as excited as I was, I didn't want to make a big deal out of it until it was "official."  Grant's been very busy lately with school, work, and church meetings so he hasn't had a lot of time to go get one.  I wasn't as patient as I could've been (Sorry, Grant!)  I'm sure he felt pressured to get one soon so he said that we could go together last Saturday.  I felt good about that because it meant we would be getting one for sure and that the proposal would come soon after.
   We set aside time on Saturday for ring shopping, so Friday night was open.  Grant usually works Friday nights, but his companion teacher had to switch shifts with him so he worked the afternoon instead (or so he told me).  Because Grant had Friday night off, Paul (the same one from our first date) and his wife, Chris, wanted to hang out with us.  I found out later that it had not been there idea, but was actually all Grant's doing.  When Grant "got off work" Friday evening, he called to ask what I wanted to do with Paul and Chris.  He gave me two options:  go to their place and watch a movie or go to the canyon and have dinner.  I said we could do both.  I honestly don't know how the night would've turned out if I had chosen to stay in.
   Grant and Paul got the food and wouldn't tell me what it was until we got there.  Turns out they had recreated our first date.  There were stuffed peppers, chips, pineapple, and even the same type of juice as the year before.  It was really sweet, but I still didn't suspect anything.  We got dinner started and then Paul and Chris went to the car to get a blanket.  While they were gone, Grant brought out the guitar and started playing one of our songs, "When You Say Nothing at All," by Allison Krauss.  There were a lot of people staring at us from across the creek, but I just thought they wanted to hear us sing.  Toward the end of the song, Grant kept looking over my shoulder so I turned around and saw Paul in the bushes with a camera.  I STILL didn't suspect anything because, in my mind, we were going on Saturday to get a ring.  I seriously thought Paul just thought we looked cute and wanted to secretly take some pictures.  I told Paul to come out of the bushes (by the way, that's where Grant was instead of work in the afternoon.  He had gone to the canyon to scout out good picture-taking spots).  Then I saw Grant fidgeting in his pocket.  That's when I knew what was coming.  He said a cheesy (but really adorable) line to transition into the proposal (he claims it wasn't planned before) and then got down on one knee and proposed!  I still was a little confused so the first words out of my mouth were "are you kidding me?"  That's one moment I'll never get back (I also had my hood on and was wearing socks with flip flops... I might regret that for the rest of my life :)).  But once I realized that the proposal was, indeed, sincere I, of course, said YES!!
     Turns out Grant had ordered the ring Tuesday, picked it up Wednesday, and called my dad Thursday, all without me knowing.  He said he knew he had to propose before Saturday or else he'd get in trouble for not going ring shopping.  He's a pretty sneaky fella :)
     Paul and Chris left for a little while after that so Grant and I were able to enjoy being together and talking about our future.  We're so excited to see what we can accomplish and how we can grow together.  It's been a great journey so far and we know that it will only get better!  Here's a picture of us a year and a half later (with a ring!)