Mrs. Houston

 I got married! Almost a week ago now, and no, nothing feels different because we're still living in the same place living the same routine; I have a second ring on my finger and Zach can't even wear his to work. But I love being married. And I love my husband.

We got our pictures done by Annie Ruby back in January and I want to frame every single one. It was below freezing and the waterfall mist was soaking into my bones.

My sister and her family were able to come up from Arizona, my baby and his family came from the other side of the state and all the chairs were full.

Everything was completely unrehearsed and humble. I really didn't want to be performing, I just wanted to be married to him.

After our reception, we drove to Seattle and stayed in the Grand Hyatt. HUGE RECOMMEND. First off, most beautiful hotel I've ever been in. And since we walked in dressed in our wedding attire, they upgraded our room to a corner suite aka the bedroom walls were all glass and we could see all the way down to Pike Place. It was literally a slice of heaven. Me and Zach occupied ourselves with cheese and wine (apparently it tasted fine but really the wine was awful), and cold McDonald's because we waited too long to eat it. Oops. We studied the surrounding cityscape to see if we could find where "Escala" is ;) Basically, it was the happiest night of my life.

In the morning, we got to take a bath in a marble tub and lay back in the comfy bed watching the sun rise. Heaven. 

As mentioned before, Ben was able to come over to see me, so we made sure to get in a good play date before he had to leave. This was the first time my sister Jen has seen him and it was so fun watching them play together. I feel so nervous whenever Ben comes around, like any move I make towards him will be wrong and he'll turn away. He seems to like everyone else more than me (except his birth dad lol) so I like to just observe and try to memorize as much as I can. 

Jen's sweet chunk turned ONE while she was up in Seattle, so we had to do a cake smash shoot. I had never seen her so animated and excited. She usually has a shy little smirk, but today she went wild for being able to make a mess with her own personal treat. 

Chunk aka Kensleigh is one of my favorite people in the world. 

Zach and I are planning on a wonderful European honeymoon later this year, so we didn't plan anything much for our days off besides maybe a little side trip somewhere. We decided on Portland, and wanted to go all out and see if we could top our experience at the Hyatt. We drove down on Sunday, checked into The Nines (and got another upgrade since we told them we were honeymooning) then went immediately to Bdub's and ate lots of wings! We were going to go shopping in downtown, but apparently Portland closes at 6pm. Bad impression of the city #1. Back to our expensive hotel we went. But hey, it's our honeymoon so we found stuff to do ;) 

The next day we wanted to do the things Pinterest told me was awesome in Portland.

We went to Blue Star donuts, and I got the Horchata glazed donut (super good, but not worth $3 or a drive to PDX)  Zach's blueberry thing was stale. Basically, bad impression of the city #2.

Next, the book lover that I am begged Zach to go to Powell's City of Books, a huge new and used bookstore. It was awesome. It smelled like books. There were tons of rooms for the different genres. I was too overwhelmed so I got Water For Elephants and The Screwtape Letters. And a key chain. Zach was patient as I critiqued his picture taking skills of me faking reading. 

I was kind of worn out from being let down by this supposedly cool city (and not being able to find street parking, seriously, I'm a scrawny woman, I don't like dark parking garages even though my husband is a giant who will protect me) so we went back to our expensive hotel to take a nap. Aka watch Avatar for three and a half hours while husband slept. We had dinner in our hotel and it was expensive AF but good enough. Okay let's be real, Zach can cook me food better than that for less moolah.

Tuesday morning, we happily packed up our bags, ate some breakfast then scurried to the car. It was down pouring. Perfect Pacific North West weather. 

Our first stop was the Portland temple. I forgot how gorgeous it is. They thankfully had a visitors center, and two sister missionaries talked to Zach and I and brought us around the temple. We don't talk about religion much because we have different opinions, and he had firmly expressed to me he wouldn't be converting. Which I'm totally fine with. I like the whole idea of  you do you and let me do me. But you just have to share the beauty of the temples with people as much as you can. I haven't been inside since I was seventeen, before I became pregnant. There is such an intense, humbling spirit there just like what I feel when I'm in Arizona (it was so strong in AZ, even just at Deseret Book.) 

Then on to Multnomah Falls. Way smaller than I thought it would be. Ugh maybe I'm too pessimistic to like this city (bad impression of the city #7000) but I mean it was subpar. I like falls that I can hike to and get in and aren't basic. There's this fall on the road to this one called Horseshoe and even that one was cooler. But hey, crossed it off my bucket list.

In summary, if you go to Portland, go in the summer time, go to the rose garden and the temple. Don't eat donuts (Voodoo isn't even going to be mentioned becuase it was boring and loud and dirty and hipster/ghetto which is somehow a thing in Portland.) 

Stay at the Grand Hyatt in Seattle and wear lots of white lace.

And love your husband.

And hold your babies tighter for me.