Our Wedding: The Honeymoon

We had planned to spend our wedding night in our own apartment, for the first time as husband and wife. We didn't live together before marriage, so it was going to be special for us. Little did I know, my best friend and her fiance had bigger plans for us. They booked us a room at the Opryland Hotel. The place we had our first date. The place Jackson first asked me to be his girlfriend. The place we took our prom pictures as Nashville flooded in 2010. The place he asked me for forever.   Our room was beautiful. It overlooked the Cascades, and you could hear the waterfall from our room. They had gone in before us and sprinkled rose petals on our bed in an "H".   After we got settled and.. well.. you know... we realized we were starving. We hadn't gotten a bite to eat at our wedding. We had a to-go box of wedding cake, and so we decided to order room-service chicken tenders. There we were, I in lingerie and he in his wedding boxers, stuffing our faces with chicken and wedding cake. #notsorry We slept like rocks that night.   The next morning, we gathered our belongings, checked out of our hotel, and headed to his parents house to give them the key to our apartment. They were going to deliver our gifts, watch over it, etc. while we were gone.  On the way to our apartment to finish packing and gather our belongings, I realized I left my adorable veil panties and my actual veil in the bathroom of our hotel room!! So, the wonderful husband he was, he took me back to the hotel and ran back up to get them. We were finally on our way to our home to grab our bags and start the trek to Savannah, GA.    11:30am, we set out on an 8 hour (plus potty breaks) drive. The drive was beautiful.

  Our first night was booked in the Fairfield Marriott in middle of nowhere, Savannah. We got there and went to check in.  Well, they couldn't find our reservation. When they did, it was all my fault for not booking it correctly.  When we got to our room, the door was jammed, the curtain wouldn't close, the lamp didn't work, and there was a walmart dehumidifier in our room. WHAT!!? I was livid. We ate at Five Guys, sat outside (in February!!) and watched the fog roll in from the river.   The next day, we went to check in to our B&B, The East Bay Inn. Oh. My. Goodness. Our room was beautiful. The ceilings were forever high, it was bright, and old.

 We threw our stuff in our room and ran to play in the city. Right across from us was River Street, so we went for lunch at Dockside. Jackson had Shrimp and Grits and I had the best Ruben Sandwich of my life.  

   Then we did some shopping. We strolled up and down River Street, wandering in and out of shops and boutiques, art museums and vendor stands. We wandered into this place called Christmas on the River. We bought our very first Christmas tree ornament together:  

(sorry about the awful quality webcam picture)   The rest, day by day, is a blur, so enjoy the photodump that documents our sweet honeymoon in Savannah, Georgia. 

 

Krystal's Drive-Thru

Something important that marriage has taught me is what my job as Jackson's wife entails.   Having a Holy marriage in the world we live in is hard. It's not always easy to argue intentionally, or to uplift Jackson when I'm angry with him.  But it's my job.  It is my place as his wife to encourage and uplift him, to be intentional with my words, and to support him.    Sunday, we were going through the drive thru at Krystal's. We had somewhere to be, we were running late, and I had already mentioned that more than once. We get to the microphone where you place your order. The young man on the other side of the microphone couldn't hear what we ordered. A sackful of 12 - four regular and eight with cheese and onion only. Medium fry. Medium Dr. Pepper and Medium Coke. He repeated our order to us: Sackful of 12 with onion and cheese only. Not quite. So Jackson, more annoyed, repeated himself.    I squeezed his hand to get his attention, and I told him to chill. When we got to the window, we paid and then sat there as they finished filling the order in front of us that belonged to the minivan in the parking spot out front. Jackson started bouncing his knee and shaking the car in annoyance. I whispered to him that it's not that big of a deal (whoa? Usually I'm the one irritated when things take forever) and that he needed to be gracious. We noticed that the dine-in room was closed and that there were eight people in the kitchen. To me, that meant that something was up; to him, that meant it should take five seconds to fill his order and he didn't understand why it was taking more than that. I kept saying, "Jackson, you don't know what kind of day they have had... you don't know what caused them to get behind."   I don't really know where that wife came from. I don't know when that switch flipped. When did I start recommending that my husband show people the kind of grace he wanted to be shown? When did my Biblical Jiminy Cricket show up? Where did the time-sensitive Chrissy go?   I've been prayerful lately that God would mold me into the kind of wife Jackson needs... the kind of wife that leads my husband back to Him in all instances. Boom.   Am I always the most gracious person? No.  God is answering my prayer, though, and molding me for myself and for my husband. He is making me into the wife He wants me to be:  

Yay Weekend; Boo Allergies.

We had a great weekend! If you don't count me having to leave a bachelorette party early because I was so sick I could die... or me missing church and Bible study because I was still sick.... or waking up this morning with my eyes caked together and my nose running away.    Friday night, we had dinner and snuggled the night away until we were bombarded with our dishwasher spewing soap. sigh.   Saturday, I got up early to go to a Bridesmaid lunch for Brittney's wedding.  It was beautiful, the food was yummy, and our gifts were so sweet. :) Saturday night was Brittney's bachelorette party. We had fun playing games like "guess who brought these panties" and truth or dare where someone has to prank call the groom as a stripper. There was a lingerie shower, and then we went to dinner at The Tavern, and then came back to her sister's house for cake and dancing. It was a lot of fun until I got sick. that 11:30pm 45 minute drive so I could be sick in my own home was totally worth it. That would not have been pretty.   Sunday morning, I was still not feeling too hot, so I stayed home from church and our Bible study. I got up, watched Jeepers Creepers 1 and 2, did a little bit of cleaning and organizing, and we went to the grocery. Hey there week 4 underbudget!! :) I'm so thankful for the Kroger e-coupon that allows you to get 2x the fuel points for any purchase on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. We can still be underbudget and get our gas points for the week! I ordered decorations for Taylor's bachelorette party this Friday, and I'm so excited for them to get here:

garland

truth or dare game

Bride to Be Sash

 

I'm ready to kick today and this week in the buttocks (I hope you heard that in my best Forrest Gump voice...)

 

Friday again!!!

 1. Last week I ordered our wedding pictures and some pictures to go in our frames around the Little Hiney Home. I love the way this wall in our bedroom looks. I'm fighting the urge to order some gold and navy and silver tassel garland.

(Middle frame: Target - smaller version here)   2. We celebrated being married for three months on Thursday. 25% of a year! Holy cow. :) It seems like yesterday we took our engagement pictures! Jackson bought me these beautiful tulips to celebrate.

 

    3.  We have these really cool looking lizards at work (I grew up a tomboy when it came to camping and catching lizards and snakes). They're HUGE! Jackson thinks its a skink, but to me it reminded me more of Randall from Monsters Inc.

  4.  I finished paying for my bridesmaid dress for Taylor's June wedding.  It wasn't as expensive as I thought it would be... I was expecting that $160 was left (because that's what the first half was...) but it ended up only being half(ish). Thank goodness, because broke newlywed life doesn't have room for $200+ dresses.    5. Wednesday, I made my last purchase from ThredUP (here's $10 to spend!) for a little while to concentrate on "Money Saving May". I love the items I got, though!  

1. Crown Vintage Gold Flats ($13.05) // 2. Ann Taylor Top ($6.30) // 3. Summer Dress ($9.90) // 4. White Khakis ($11.70) // Land's End Top ($6.25)

6 (just because).

I joined ThreadFlip to host my "Shop Her Closet" inventory. You can click the link or the little coat hanger in the left hand sidebar. :) If you see an item you'd like, e-mail me, and I'll take the shipping off just for my readers!

His + Hers = Theirs

One of the hardest things so far has been not thinking of things as "Jackson's" or "Chrissy's", but "ours". We joined our home.   We took joint custody of bank accounts, savings, and debts.  We took on each other's woes and worries, fears and goals. We learned to nurture the other's weaknesses and core values that can turn sour in an instant.   I heard pros and cons of joining bank accounts before we got married. "As long as the bills are paid, why does he get to tell you what to spend your money on?" "We each pay half of the bills from our separate checkings and the rest is ours to spend." "You can monitor all of your money in one place at one time."
"You don't have to worry about your electricity going off because he forgot to pay his half."   I was listening to talk radio on the way home one day, the financial analyst (may have even been my BFF Dave, but I don't want to discredit the concept) made a wonderful point: When two become one, that shouldn't exclude anything.     I get laughed at, yes, for calling my husband to ask if it's okay to go to lunch with co-workers. I'm sure he does, too. However, it allows us to keep each other accountable. If he doesn't think it's in our best interest for me to go to lunch four times a week, then I don't go.  The same goes for him.  It has allowed us to establish a level of respect for the other.

To keep finances in order, we budget every time one of us gets paid. We have a tablet we share, and we use the Financisto app. We put every category in the app from our Church Contribution to our Disney Savings to our iTunes budget.  We're a weekly/bi-weekly household which makes the one-check-weeks hard.  To handle that, though, we break our bills up like so: Comcast: $97.99/month Jackson gets paid four times a month, Chrissy gets paid two.  $97.99 divided by 2 (what each person ends up paying) is $49 (because we round up that half penny) Divide that by 2 (what the bi-weekly earner pays each pay period): $24.50 Divide that by 2 (what the weekly earner pays each pay period): $12.25 It's that simple.  Okay, so it doesn't look that simple when I write it out, but it makes sense for us.  
  Newlyweds, how are you making your budgeting work? Do you have any tips or tricks to staying true to your plan? Veteran Budgeters, share!