Amsterdam

We love our friends Abel and Sinead so much! They live in Ireland, which isn't too far away, so we try and see them as often as we can. We were so lucky to have them travel all the way to Florida to read at our wedding. It was great to have them there - but we really didn't get to spend

too much time with them, so only a week after our Michigan wedding we planned to meet them in Amsterdam. I had forgotten how recently I had been in Schipol ( at ESTEC) but we met them there, and travelled to our amazing air B and B which was super modern!

We got there quite late the first night, so in the morning, we sent the boys out to get some breakfast food and we had a really relaxed morning. Because we all got up so early, we were up and ready by nine o'clock! We wandered around all the canals, and checked out all around the city. It was great to explore it all, and take the tram to some of the famous spots. But mainly, we just walked around and had a great time!

I finally got my Sparklers!

The Powell Crosley was a lovely venue, but they didnt allow sparklers, or balloons, or confetti, or anything - so in the end we just left in our limo after a final song (which was lovely!) But in Michigan, we had sparklers! And everyone lined up and they were amazing! We took a million photos and it was just so perfect! Apart from we didn't end up leaving for another few hours! But it was worth it for the awesome photos! We left a little later, after our photographer, and stayed in a cute little hotel, where Josh's mom had brought us a wedding quilt and lots of yummy candy!

Our beautiful Michigan Wedding!

We spent all day Friday setting up the wedding. It was a lot of work in the end - arranging all the tables, setting up all the plates and wrapping the cutlery in cute twine and all the mason jars for glasses. It was so nice to see it all come together - the s'mores pit, the candy bar, the popcorn bar and everything. It had been raining a little on Friday, so Daddy even went out and got wood chips to soak up all the water. It was looking really great - and then people started to arrive! We went inside and hid inside for a little while,

and then came in and had a mini ceremony. I wasn't nervous this time - it was just fun - and my Aunt did a great job officiating! Afterwards, we had a really great BBQ dinner - beans and cornbread and cheesy potatoes and Uncle Bart smoked a whole pig, for pulled pork sandwiches! It was so yummy!

We then went with our photographer out on the golf cart, with my cousin Kyle driving, and my cousin Carly for backup. It was a great time - we had gone out scouting places for photos the day before - there weren't any nice green trees - but there was this beautiful tall willow grass around the pond. I really hadn't imagined having photos not with trees, but holy camoley - these photos came out awesome! We took tons of photos, and came back to our reception and had a great time visiting with the family and friends who hadn't been able to visit Florida. We had all of our family photos taken right outside the barn, by the wood pile. I had the dads take the cover off of it on a whim, and it turned out to be a great place for photos. I LOVE that my family put so much effort into having two outfits, the green and the tweed just went so great together!

Setting up our Michigan Wedding

We left Mexico and headed to Michigan. It may seem odd, but we were having a second wedding! Yep, a whole second wedding! We got there on Thursday night, quite late. Rachel picked us up at the airport, with this little newlyweds sign, and we headed north. We had gotten there quite late on the Thursday,

at least to my grandmas, but my mum and sister and cousins and aunts had been working really hard for a few days, getting Uncle Bart's barn ready for the wedding. We dropped our bags off, at Grandma and Papa's, and drove over to the barn, taking Rachel, as she didn't know her way. It was the foggiest

I had ever seen the way, and we got lost too! But we made it. Everyone was inside the barn - they had all the tables and chairs set up - and it looked AMAZING! My aunt had done such an amazing job! She had all the tables set up, with these green books she had found at an antique shop and she had cut

all these logs and trees and cored out the middle of them for candles. With them, and all the elephant moss and all the little antique deer Mummy had brought all the way from England. It was just adorable, and so, so perfect. So different than our Florida wedding too!

The most beautiful place to Snorkle

After we pulled up in this inlet and looped our boats together, I was a bit worried about getting into the water to snorkle, because it was so cold. But it was fine, once we got in there. While all the other boats occupants went snorkeling all over, we asked our guide to take us to see some beautiful coral. It was so pretty there,

and we got to see tons of fish. We had snorkled three times in Mexico, once above Josh'scuba team, once after riding our horses, and this time. The sea was so beautiful and clear here! We had a great time and it was the perfect ending to our trip in Mexico!

Our own Mouse Boat

We had a lovely time at our resort, and Josh went scuba diving one day too. We swam a lot in the lazy river, and we had the most amazing balcony at our upgraded suite, with our own pool and huge sunloungers. But eventually, we came to our last day in Mexico. So we planned to go

on what was to be the best excursion - the mouse boats. I'm not sure if that is what they are called, but they look like little tiny, personal boats. We had to go right down into Cancun to get to the place that was running it. We got our little lifejackets, and then followed the lead boat all the way along these little rivers in the mangroves. It looked just like Florida actually! We did a lot of fast open water stunts, and went on this super long boat ride. I really enjoyed just riding along, the wind in my hair, taking some pictures, and Josh really

enjoyed driving the boat. I think it was the perfect sized boat for us - it had a little tiny backseat for all our stuff, and our snorkle gear and two little seats for us! Our guide led us all the way to this lovely inlet, where there was one hotel. We looped up all of our boats together and jumped into the water for some snorkeling time!

Kayaking in the Sea

We chose our resort for all of the things involved and included for free. One of them were the kayaks. I love kayaking, ever since I did it on our sixth grade field trip. We went out kayaking a couple times while we were there - especially because we couldn't really go very far with the waves! It was a great chance

for us to test out our Go Pro too! It was so nice to see how bright and vivid everything was! I especially loved our adorable matching life vests!