Now it’s time to catch you up on the last month and a half, the first month and a half of Daniel’s and my married life together (since it’s taken me that long just to tell you about the wedding weekend!). I absolutely love being married. I love getting to see Daniel every single day no matter what—waking up to his kisses every morning, coming home to him every day after work, and cuddling up to him every night when I go to bed.

We had a great time on our honeymoon to North Redington Beach, Florida. The condo we stayed in was right on the beach, with a beautiful balcony view overlooking the water. Unfortunately, it rained almost the entire time we were there. We only sat on the beach for a couple of hours of one day, and didn’t really go in the water at all. But we did drive the two hours to Orlando on two days, once to go to Discovery Cove, which was the coolest place either of us had ever been. Seriously. I highly recommend it.

The second day we went to Sea World, which was somewhere both of us had always wanted to go. It was stormy and cold all day there, so all of the rides were shut down. That wasn’t such a big deal, though—we can ride rollercoasters anywhere. We ran through the rain from exhibit to exhibit to see the animals, usually avoiding the ones that weren’t under cover.

Other than that, we took a few long walks along the beach, spent a lot of time reading, and went to a lot of delicious restaurants. Our goal was to go to non-chain restaurants only, which we followed pretty well, except for the Wendy’s where we stopped on the way to our condo from the airport our first day there. Overall, it was wonderful to spend a vacation together, away from all the stress we had been under for so long before the wedding.

When we got home, it was time to “settle down.” Daniel still had stuff that needed to be moved from his parents’ house, so we made a couple of trips back and forth from there. We still have some remodeling to do in our bedroom and bathroom so that two people can live in them comfortably. What seems most important right now: There’s not currently enough storage space for everything we’re trying to cram into that room (not that it was much better when it was just me in there). There have also been wedding gifts to put away, a new dishwasher to install, and a new tractor to buy since we’ve been home. Daniel’s car has had to be towed twice in the last month (it’s getting old). So we’ve been busy. Regardless of what we’re doing, it’s exciting to get into new routines now that we’re living together!

We got our photo discs back from our photographer a couple of weeks ago, some of which you have seen. He did such a great job! We’re presently in the process of choosing pictures to have him print for an album, and then we can choose larger prints for all of the new frames we received as gifts! Definitely a fun project. Speaking of frames, we were also given an apostolic blessing from the Vatican by my bosses, which we still need to have framed so it can be hung on our wall. It is so beautiful and special.

One thing that I’ve had to deal with that I hadn’t really considered before the wedding was what I’ll call “post-wedding depression” for lack of a better term. During the wedding planning process, I know that I really tried to put my focus in the right place: on the sacrament, and the marriage that only begins on the wedding day.

But it’s still hard to escape the fact that most girls start thinking about their wedding day as soon as they’re old enough to know what a wedding is, and I was certainly no exception, dressing up as a bride just for fun as a little girl, playing “wedding” with my Barbies, and reading the newspaper’s annual wedding guide section from cover to cover every year in high school. Plus, to have spent the last two years thinking about and planning for that specific day, May 16, 2009—let’s just say that having it behind me was, for the first few weeks, the biggest morning-after-Christmas feeling ever. I’m sure you all know what I mean by that.

Luckily, though, I think that having at least tried to put my focus in the right place during marriage preparation has helped. The “post-wedding depression” has almost completely cleared up now. It has also been comforting and exciting to think about not only marriage, but also the wedding as a foretaste of Heaven. Having experienced my own wedding Mass and reception, being completely full of joy and celebrating with everyone that I love, I think I can really appreciate the analogy of Heaven as being “the wedding feast of the Lamb.” It’s hard to imagine anything happier than my wedding day—to think that Heaven will be exponentially better is incredible. It really gives a person something to look forward to; and that wedding feast will never end!