Mr. and Mrs.

Well, this Miss is now a Mrs.! John and I tied the knot April 11, 2009, at the Gateway Canyons Resort in Gateway, Colorado. The setting was absolutely perfect for our ceremony. Our parents, my nephew and a couple friends made the trip for the occasion.





The ceremony was short, sweet and to the point, but the vows were incredibly appropriate. They weren't the standard, but it seemed that they were written just for us. You can see from the photo of us taking our vows that a storm was moving in. While we were driving to Gateway, which is an hour south of Grand Junction, it was overcast and stormy. We drove over the mountains with snow, and as we pulled into Gateway at 2 p.m., the weather stopped. Our ceremony at 4 p.m. had sunny skies except for this piece that was behind us. We took the picture in front of the palisade after the ceremony and then the front moved in. It couldn't have been more perfect timing.










You can see how picturesque the resort is for weddings. While at the resort, we took a hike and John took this picture overlooking the resort and the dramatic landscape. I wouldn't do one thing differently. The resort was the perfect place.




After the ceremony we ate at the resort's Paradox Grill, and I've included the picture of me and John feeding each other cake for Debbie. She was very concerned about it, and we'll be sure to have cake at our one-year anniversary ... It may not be the same cake, but we just might drive down to Gateway for that slice!

Here's the entire family: Levi, Mom, Me, John, Linda and Rick




I'll post more pictures and stories soon. Be sure to check back.

Bridal Bonanza Begins

It's hard to believe, but in less than a month I will be on a one-way flight to Grand Junction to start my married life! Wow! I can't wait, but there's much to do before I go ...

It all began Friday with my girlfriends taking me to the Kansas City Power & Light District. We had dinner at the Peach Tree, which was absolutely delicious. I had grilled pork chops and baked mac & cheese. They even had live jazz. The one hiccup we had is that it took nearly an hour and a half to get our food. The restaurant had been slammed due to a conference. In short, everyone received their meal on the house. The food was definitely worth the wait.

The hostesses Donna and Kayla

Afterwards the gals and I walked over to Howl at the Moon to listen to the dueling pianos. These guys are phenomenal. You give them a request - any song - and they can play it. Then others bring requests up and they're looking at that request while singing another. So much fun!

Kayla, Season, Debbie, Pamela and Donna at Howl at the Moon

On Sunday my mom's church threw a shower for me after a potluck and it turned out great. We had great cake and punch and some fun games.

It's an adjustment having the attention put on me, but I've been told to just soak it up. So that's what I'm trying to do. Everyone has been so kind. I have another church shower Thursday and one thrown by friends on Saturday. It's a party all the time!

And to end the post, this was a gift from Donna ... I told John about it, and he didn't think it was as funny as me. It's just luggage tags ...

Possible Interest ...

Friends have asked how the home-selling process is going. I've had 10 people come to look at my house. The exciting part is someone came to look at it for a second time today! A second look is always a good thing ...

Arches National Park

I promised a while back to write about our trip to Arches National Park. We decided to drive down to Moab and visit the park earlier in the weekend. It was a beautiful day - chilly, yet sunny. We got into the park around noon and began our adventure ...

It began innocent enough with the mandatory picture at the sign.

And taking roadside pix.

We then decide to stop at Balanced Rock and try to take some self portraits ... but we're so tiny!

Then we stop at the double arches and take some goofy pictures. I'm so clever!

At the same double arches stop is this treacherous bit of hiking ... very slick but no falls.

To avoid going down this hillside skating rink, we decide to go around the double window arches on the primitive trail. Mind you we're not prepared. We both have on heavy coats, but we're not in hiking gear. I have on rubber soled ballet flats ...

It starts out well with spectacular views we wouldn't have seen otherwise. We continue to follow the snow tracks, but we're not sure if we're on the trail or not. We get to a point where we need to either go over these arches, go back the way we came or go over and around steep cliffs. My vote was to go back the way we came.... about a mile or so back ... but John went up a steep incline to see if he could see the parking lot from where we came.

Up the snow and ice cover cliffish incline, John found this.

To get to this, there was a lot of this ... which is much slicker and behind us was even more of a steep, icy incline, cliffish thing.

While John was taking these pictures, I was climbing up the icy incline, thinking with my gracefulness that I was surely going to fall back and really hurt myself. Remember ... ballet flats! So, I climbed up this on my hands and knees. Fun. Somewhere around that tree is where there was a place we could go over the rocks, down through an ice covered crevice that was VERY steep and where I proceeded to sit on the ice and scooch down the ice-covered rocks.

We did make it to the lot and had a good laugh after the fact. I really was scared, thinking that I was going to kill myself out there. I could see the headlines now, "Two ill-prepared 'hikers' found in Arches ... if only they had stayed on the trail ..." We couldn't find the trail!

We then went and took many more beautiful pictures throughout the park.

We're so small!

Three football fields could fit in the middle of this arch. This was quite a snowy hike to this arch, but we stayed to the well-marked trail.

Walking back to the car, we ran into this little guy. We thought it was a chipmunk type thing but it then jumped off like a kangaroo. It's rightly named a kangaroo rat.

Our final photo of the day.

This was a fun trip, and we didn't see everything there. It's definitely a park worth visiting, and we'll be sure to visit again with a pair of hiking shoes and gloves!

Where and When

If I've forgotten to tell some of you, John and I now have a date for our wedding. To make sure a cyber-stalker doesn't come, I won't tell you the actual day, but it's in April. However, I will let you know where it will be.

We're getting married at Gateway Canyons Resort in Gateway, Colorado. It's a beautiful place about an hour south of Grand Junction. The gentleman that owns the Discovery Channel decided to build his home in the area, and then a resort and auto museum. There's hiking, jeep excursions, rafting and more. It's all very exciting!

Dress-capades

This isn't necessarily a story about me and my travels ... there aren't too many these days ... but a story of the traveling dress.

Since my ideal wedding involves just me and John and our immediate families, my ideal dress isn't traditional. I would like something more like a cocktail dress. I found a cute dress on sale, bought it just in case I didn't find anything else, but it was black.

I ordered the dress that I thought was perfect ... It came, I tried it on, but it didn't even cover half my body. I thought to myself, "Surely I have the skirt bunched up and it's not going on my body correctly." It's not going on my body correctly because it's a size 4! My bone structure isn't a size 4. Therefore, this dress traveled back to the store to have the appropriate size ordered.

Dress number two arrives in the appropriate size. I try it on, it looks nice and the zipper splits. This is the last straw. This dress travels back to the store to stay. However, I travel around the city trying to find the right dress.

My mom arrives the following day to give her opinion on the dresses I try on. Low and behold, we found the perfect dress. After going through all the dresses, which I thought would be an easy affair, I'm now even more happy that John and I have decided to elope. I don't have the patience to go through similar escapades with bridesmaids' dresses, flowers, decor, etc.

Although the dress-capades have the potential to end in seven to 10 days, they may go on. The dress I've picked out has been ordered from the store where I was able to try on others in a different color. Here's hoping it comes in the my size and color!