Our Honeymoon

Oh, that Betty Beguiles. She has the greatest blogging ideas ever! She has had these fun link-up's to participate in and now she wants us to write about our honeymoon! Go check her out to read her story!

Ryan and I never really planned on having a honeymoon. We got married in April of 2009 and I was still finishing up my final semester of college. It was stressful enough to plan for a wedding, take some really tough senior seminar courses, travel to get to college (1 1/2 hours away) and to visit my soon to be husband (3 hours away.) I wasn't going to add to the stress of trying to plan a honeymoon as well.

Besides, we couldn't really afford a honeymoon. And to add to that Ryan had recently started a new job and didn't have vacation time built up. We just figured that we'd take a honeymoon someday in the future. It wasn't really that big of a deal for us.

The wedding came and went and it was perfect. I moved in with my husband and focused on writing some huge research papers to finish up my degree. I was driving an hour and a half to school two days out of the week. I was beyond stressed but finally the papers were turned in, graduation day arrived, and I walked across the stage and received my diploma the month following our wedding.

It was time to relax and start to enjoy married life. The thought of a honeymoon was far from my mind. The week leading up to Memorial Day weekend Ryan mentioned that he had a very rare four days in a row off of work starting on Memorial Day. What were we going to do with all that free time? Go to St. Louis since I had never been there? Go down south so I could see the beach for the first time? I remembered my mom had taken my nephew to South Dakota to Mouth Rushmore the previous fall and had a really good time. I suggested we go up there since it wasn't too terribly far. I had received quite a bit of money from my graduation in addition to the money we had received from our wedding. It didn't even really dawn on us that we were planning for our honeymoon. This was just going to be a fun trip.

On Sunday evening around 8:00 we left for South Dakota. We drove through Iowa in the darkness, but were excited to be off and doing something new and different. We stayed the night in Sioux Falls. We mentioned we were newlyweds and they gave us a huge suite for a discounted price. There was a hot tub right in the room which was awesome. The next day we set out for the long trek across South Dakota.

We had no itinerary. No schedule. We just set out to where we wanted to go and spent however long we wanted to be there. It was relaxing not to stick to a schedule or budget. I don't get out much of this great state of Missouri, so it was so exciting for me to get to another state and see a different landscape. We went to Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Bear Country and Custer National Park. We roamed around Keystone and bought some salt water taffy and had pizza out on a deck. We drove around the Black Hills Forest and listened to the calming, ethereal sound of the wind through the pine trees. We hiked around the Badlands.

This honeymoon wasn't too terribly exciting or exotic. However, we did have a bit of a conundrum. While we were in South Dakota I was looking at my NFP charts. I realized that I was in my peak fertility. We were newlyweds, and this was our honeymoon. Did we really feel called to avoid pregnancy at this time? It was a bit of a risk but we decided open our hearts and trust that God would pick the right time for us to conceive. If I got pregnant on our honeymoon, then so be it.

It turns out that I did not get pregnant. I was shocked because even someone who barely knows anything about NFP could see that my body was in prime baby making mode. But God chose differently. This experience on our honeymoon really taught us to trust in God. It taught us the value of NFP. He knows what is best for us and our marriage is happier because we include the Almighty in it.

As we were driving back from South Dakota my husband asked if we were going to consider this our honeymoon or if were were going to save up and take a fancier one in the future. We both agreed that this was the perfect honeymoon for us. Talking, driving and being outdoors was exactly what we felt was right for our honeymoon. We didn't need a fancy cruise or sandy beaches to make us feel like we had a good trip.

It didn't matter where were, as long as we had each other, it was perfect.



Gosh, I feel like we look so young in these pictures and they were just taken 2 1/2 years ago!

Thanks, Betty, for hosting this fun link-up!