the last month

Some exciting things have been happening to me in the past month -- like getting married :) Life has finally slowed down enough for me to start the blog up again, so here is the low-down.
Cody & I got married on July 26 in the Idaho Falls temple. As is evident from the above picture, our families were very supportive and showed up en masse. I am still blown away by all of the kindness and love they showed to us. Everything went smoothly . . . and I have no complaints about any part of our wedding day.

The next day, Cody & I drove to Salt Lake and then flew to San Diego. We picked up our miniature rental car. It was super cute and according to Cody, very fun to drive. We zipped all over San Diego on ONE tank of gas.

We hit up the beach at Point Loma our first day in San Diego after sleeping until noon -- we had a lot to recuperate from!

The beach was incredibly scenic. A lot of people were kayaking and boating in the bay. If I liked water, it probably would have looked pretty fun . . . We started reading the seventh Harry Potter book and couldn't put it down . . . until we got cold and decided to go back to the hotel.We liked the beach so much that we decided to do back to back beach days. We headed south to Coronado and the longest sandy beach I have ever seen -- not that that is saying much . . . but it was even more breathtaking than Point Loma. We drove over this monster bridge to get there. Then, we got lost on the island (I was navigating) and found a pretty sweet yacht club. I took some pictures while Cody tried to figure out where we were. To make matters worse, the darned UV rays attacked our fair skin. We didn't realize the extent of the damage until some fellow beach-goers made comments like : "You guys are looking pretty red. You should probably leave." I think they just wanted our spot . . .

Day Three has been affectionately termed "SS Day" -- SS stands for sunburns stink. My back was burned so badly that I could hardly move. It was painful to have anything touch it, but I was brave and let Cody take me for a drive. We ended up in La Jolla. The beaches there were more like coves -- there were cliffs that almost went to the ocean with staircases that went down to little sandy beaches. The city built a walking path along the cliffs, so we went for a little jaunt. I was brave again and Cody talked me into waddling down one of the staircases to the beach. It was just beautiful -- I guess showing a little bit of courage has its rewards :) On the beach, there were little caves cutting into the cliffs. Cody liked exploring them, but all of the dead seaweed and grafitti did nothing for me. They did make for some pretty pictures though. The next day we went to the San Diego temple -- it reminded me of the palace in Cinderella. Wow! Obviously, it left me speechless :)Then . . . it was baseball day! When Cody asked what I wanted to do on our honeymoon, I told him I wanted to go to a major league baseball game. Being the sweetheart that he is, he took my request and got us tickets to the Padres/Diamondbacks game. I was so excited to go, especially since the Padres scored 11 runs in the first inning the game before we went. I totally expected a fireworks show! But, they got shut out . . . and the old lady sitting next to me had a lot to say about that -- after EVERY pitch. Baseball fans sure are funny. We also got hot dogs that we absolutely delish and mondoly expensive. Yay baseball!

To cap off an already wonderful trip, we headed to the border for some killer shopping. I went to San Diego last summer with my family and discovered a phenomenal outlet mall in San Ysidrio. The mall isn't very hard to get to -- you just take the last exit before you hit the border. Then you drive until you see a mall with a concrete wall with barbed wire and a Mexican flag waving behind it. We were cracking up in the parking lot because there were more license plates from Baja California than California. Needless to say, we were the minority -- but it was a small price to pay for such great deals. We hit up almost every store in the place. Cody went on a spending spree at Banana Republic for himself . . . I thought I had died and gone to heaven. He looks super handsome in his new clothes. He also surprised a few people when he spoke Spanish with them. The looks on their faces were priceless :) All in all, we ended up with a ton of stuff for a little bit of money. My favorite purchase is a pair of leopard print heels -- I saw them at Nine West and just couldn't live without them. Cody just rolled his eyes while I was paying, but deep down inside I think he really likes the fact that he is married to a girl with leopard high heels.

We flew back to Salt Lake the next day and are still recovering from the whirlwind of fun -- everyday life sure is exciting!