Sarah and Mike!

Well, we've been home just a few days and already we've had our first visitors! The first people to see us fresh from our wedding and honeymoon and back home in Vegas....Mike and Sarah Prorok! Sarah and Mike are both good friends of my brother Jason's. I met and became friends while we were in Jason and Sara's wedding together. Our friendship has blossomed over long distance as we've kept in touch since then and realized how many things we have in common, particularly our beliefs on how to treat other human beings the way you want to be treated! Mike is a lot like my brother, a really nice, and quiet, Nascar fan! :) It was nice to have dinner with them and catch up in person instead of via emails and text messages. They were here in Vegas celebrating the one year wedding anniversary! So Happy Anniversary Sarah and Mike and thanks for hanging out with us! :)

Heading Home to Vegas

Today we made our journey back home and decided to make it one day instead of break it up in to 2...that way we'll have a full day at home together before we have to go back to work. Except ICK I don't even want to think about going back to work and the real world. I like living in wedding land. Anyway, we took a different route home which was allegedly a little bit faster (which is debatable), and a little more scenic (definitely true and nice except for the random road blocks, etc.), but all in all it went by pretty quick for me. I'm not so sure about Spencer, since he was the one driving most of the way. We stopped a little ways outside of Eugene at Salt Creek Falls...believe it or not, I had never seen a waterfall in real life. Not a big one anyway. It was really beautiful! (Even Tank was "intrigued!")We started our journey a little after 9:30AM, and made it home around 2:30Am with little to no hiccups. Tank was a MUCH improved passenger. Spencer managed to lift me up and "carry me over the threshold" when we got inside. We were exhausted when we got home, but not too exhausted to open all the wedding cards and wedding gifts and other mail we had gotten while we were away, and slept like a ROCK! It was a good trip...it flew by so quickly...we are so sad that its all over, but we can't wait to keep talking about and cherishing the great memories we have and make more as husband and wife! HURRAY!

The Honeymoon!

I couldn't begin to pick only a few pictures of our honeymoon to share on here (as you can see from previous blogs I'm not so good at that for a single day's events let alone an entire week's!) So, I made a little slideshow.

Married 1 Day!

I think most brides and grooms get to sleep in the morning after their wedding night...not us. But that's ok. We wanted to spend the morning with the wedding guests who were still at the hotel, so we woke up around 9:00AM thanks to some phone calls and text messages...and went to breakfast at Georgie's with Mom, Yvonne, Edmund, Alan, and Christa. While we were there, we ran into almost ALL the O'Neill's already eating breakfast and it was great to get a chance to say another hello/goodbye to them! After breakfast, Spencer and Alan decided it would be a good idea/end to the greatest weekend ever, if they took a dip in the icy Pacific Ocean...so they did...with many spectators who thought they were nuts:We also found a message in the sand from Craig and Tricia...it says: "Heather + Spencer" with a heart around it:After Spencer managed to warm up and feel his limbs again, we packed up several cars with all of our stuff going several different directions, including the one in which Papa took us to Portland so we could spend the afternoon at The Oregon Zoo before heading to the airport for our red eye honeymoon flight. We enjoyed the Oregon Zoo tons, even though we got lots of odd looks from passersby since we each were dragging our honeymoon luggage...luckily, if they were looking closely, they saw our "bride" and "groom" luggage tags and understood a little better.
I loved this fluffy guy!Spencer and the salmon swimming upstreamMe getting up close and personal with a beaver!Let's see how we measure up to the bearsThis beautiful chimp was IN LOVE with Spencer...understandable!Spencer is attempting to ride a bicycle that an elephant once rode in the circus!After the zoo, we hopped on The Max to head to the airport, but made a pit stop for dinner at The Macaroni Grill. After that we got back on The Max to get to the airport and on our way there we so the most beautiful sunset over Portland.

The Reception

Our wedding reception, like the rest of the day, was a blast, but it flew by too fast! I, of course, have some pictures to better put into words how the evening went, but the words I will use to describe it our, delicious, heartwarming, special, and FUN!
Seating assignments:CUTE cake!Speeches:The Blessing before dinner: "Thank you for the food we eat, thank you for our friends so sweet, bon appetite, now you may eat."Sunset photo break:Cutting the cake:Our first dance as husband and wife:DANCING!What an awesome night!

The Ceremony

Let's keep this to the point...what better way to do that than with just photos? Here's our wedding ceremony:Making An Entrance:The Processional:Giving Away:Words from The Rev:Vows:Exchanging Our Rings:The Kiss:"Mr. and Mrs. Spencer and Heather O'Neill":The Recessional:NOW ITS TIME TO PARTY!