We're FINALLY Going on Our Honeymoon

Jacob and I are getting ready to leave for our honeymoon. The plan was always to go on our honeymoon at some point after our wedding. We thought maybe we’d wait a year and the least, but lately it’s felt like the right time in our lives to go on a trip and appreciate our love for one another.It seems silly to be going in May, a month that has no significance other than the temperatures rising and having a free weekend. It seems silly, and then it doesn’t.

A week after our wedding Jacob and I got a call from his aunt. She had an empty house in Olathe, KS that needed love and attention. She wanted someone to live there who would make it a home and take care of the property. She made us an offer we couldn’t refuse, and even though it would be a lot of work, we wanted somewhere to call home more than anything.

The last year and a half has been nothing but putting pry bars through walls, breathing dusty air, completely removing the old and rebuilding as much as we possibly can. It’s been hard work on some cold mornings and hot days. There have been projects that have worked out beautifully and our efforts were rewarded. Then there are projects that don’t work that have made us question what the effort is all for. There are a lot of highs and lows to fixing up a home, but recently we’ve been seeing the impacts of every subtle improvement. 

Things are easier at the house now that we live in it. I can still remember riding in the passenger seat on the way home from working on our house on a Sunday morning. I’d be bundled from head to toe: two pairs of socks, leggings under sweatpants, a long-sleeved shirt under a sweatshirt under a coat, and a beanie to cover my ears. Everything not covered was speckled with dirt, sticking to the sweat on my skin. When I smiled, I could feel it making the skin around my mouth stiff. When I looked at Jacob, he looked exhausted; we wouldn’t be doing anything else the rest of the day. We’d have a shower, cook dinner, and fall asleep on the couch by nine.

Now, Jacob works on the house a lot while I’m at work. Since he works from home, he’ll just set his laptop up where he can see it and do small things while work is slow. On the weekends, we work on big projects together, then split up to work on smaller projects. Every detail changes the way our home looks and feels. Clutter finds its place, the dogs play in the yard, and things start feeling better. 

Jacob and I have put so much of ourselves into our home and now we’re rewarding ourselves for the work we’ve done. We’re rewarding ourselves for the efforts we’ve put into our marriage and the beautiful things we’ve created together. We’ve been together for five years and in that time we’ve accomplished a lot together. We’ve both graduated from college in the time we’ve been together, gone through promotions at work, disappointments in our personal lives, loss, all kinds of ups and downs. The other day Jacob said we’ve been together for 1/5th of our lives. While that’s far less impressive than what some couples have achieved, for us it felt pretty significant. Someday, we’ll be able to say we’ve been together for half our lives, someday it will be even more. 

We’ve started building a family together. Right now it’s just us and the two dogs, but I think we’re a pretty solid bunch. Onyx has always been such a quiet and gentle dog who brings us a lot of comfort and peace. Gert has been a lesson in patience, but we are obsessed with her. She is a little monster and the cutest little girl ever. When we have children together, they will be part of a family who already has so much love , and I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

With all of that said, we have so much to be proud of and celebrate while on our honeymoon. We decided to go somewhere secluded where we can just exist with one another without having any major plans or responsibilities. We’re staying in a dome on 400 acres of Wyoming countryside. We plan to gaze at the stars, go on aimless walks (and before my dad has a heart attack at the word choice, I will make sure I know the way back to the dome), and dress-up as cowboys. 

Yeah, that’s right, dress-up as cowboys. 

When we first started planning our honeymoon, Jacob was just finishing the game Red  Dead Redemption II. In the game, the main character is a cowboy who rides across the wild west being a cowboy. I’m 100% sure there is more to the story than that and I’ve been told it’s super sad, but whenever I’ve watched Jacob play it he is a cowboy riding a horse in the wild west. When we chose the dome in Wyoming, Jacob proudly declared, “I’m going to dress like Arthur Morgan”. After he explained who Arthur Morgan was (the main character, for those of you who also may not know), I thought maybe he was joking. I laughed when I told my friends about it, but then a cowboy hat showed up at our house and I knew he was serious. 

There’s nothing I love more than a costumed event. I love pretending to be someone else and doing something different; I love doing things people wouldn’t do or expect, just to do them proudly. When I was younger, I think I was a lot less afraid to do the goofy thing. Now I care too much about what everyone is going to think, or what will be said when I’m not in the room. I’ve dealt with people talking about me behind my back one way or another my whole life, after a while it really catches up with you. Jacob is one of the only people who has helped me feel less afraid of the things I can’t control. He is spontaneous and encourages silliness and doing the over the top things. He supports me when I want to paint daisies on our kitchen wall or when I want to put dinosaurs in our nativity scene every Christmas. Everything is okay when he is around. Nothing is too much. So, we’re dressing up as cowboys on our honeymoon.

There are many reasons I love Jacob, and his acceptance and silliness are two of the big ones. He has worked so hard on our home and has put genuine effort into our marriage and I am blessed by him every day. There’s a lot to celebrate out in Wyoming, more now than there was right after we got married a year and a half ago. It seems silly to go now, in May, but if we were celebrating something else, then we might not truly think about how important the trip truly is for us.

This month I’m thankful for a break from chaos. I’m thankful for peace and quiet coming at the right time. I’m thankful for my dogs, Gert and Onyx, my little family. I’m thankful for a mother-in-law who is willing to take care of them while we’re on our trip. I’m thankful to have made it through another winter. I’m thankful for those who continue to read my posts and support me in what I love to do.