Our Honeymoon

For our honeymoon, we spent 18 days in Spain, Morocco, and Scotland. In Spain, we went to Toledo, Granada, Cordoba, Sevilla, and Santiago de Compostela, and spent a little bit of time in Madrid and Tarifa. We stayed in Fes and Rabat in Morocco, and in Scotland, we visited Edinburgh and Glasgow.

This picture is from the bullfighting ring in Sevilla. They only have bullfights in the summer and at Easter time. The box at the upper right is where the royal family gets to sit, though we were told the queen is against bullfighting.

The weather was very uncooperative. We only had a few days of sun. We experienced rain, fog, snow (in southern Spain!), sleet, and even a hailstorm.

We saw a lot of museums, palaces, and old churches on our trip. We literally walked around the old city of Toledo and tried hiking Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh, but didn't get very far, since my shoes kept trying to slip off. We also did some pretty random things, like going to a bowling alley in Madrid. Don won -- surprise, surprise. He creams me at bowling on the Wii too (the only thing I can do really well is hula hoop).


In Scotland, I spent most of my time in conference sessions, while Don got to go explore on his own. He walked up a lighthouse in Glasgow and toured underground in Edinburgh. He also got to experience the British health care system because of some dental problems. We definitely want to go back to Scotland and see more of the countryside. We also didn't get to spend enough time in Morocco. We hope we will get the chance to travel again soon!

We committed matrimony!

Yep, we're officially married, folks!

It was truly the best day of our lives. We are so happy to have been married in the temple. We are grateful to all the people who have supported us and look forward to seeing many friends and family this Saturday to help us celebrate.

We survived the Houston weather, and Houston traffic. It actually snowed a couple of days before the wedding! It was windy and overcast the day of our wedding, so our wedding pictures will probably look like we and all of our guests had bad hair days.

Random Facts and Figures About Don and Maggie

1. Don has traveled to 11 countries and 25 US states, plus Washington, DC. Maggie has traveled to 3 countries and 28 US states plus DC.

2. During our honeymoon trip (Spain, Morocco, Scotland, and several hours in Amsterdam) we will get to add 1 state (4 hour layover in Atlanta) and 3 countries to these statistics, but not the same ones, since Maggie has been to the UK and Don has been to Morocco.

3. Besides English, Don has studied 7 languages, including 3 spoken in his mission. Maggie has studied 4 languages, most of them dead (Latin and two obsolete forms of English).

4. One of Maggie's New Year's resolutions was to read 50 new books by the end of the year. In the three months before starting to date Don, she read 11 books. In the nine months since, she's read 25 books, 10 of them while she was sick with mono, 8 of them for work-related research, and none of them since getting engaged in October.

5. On our first date, it rained the whole night. We ended up playing miniature golf and air hockey. Don gracefully admits that Maggie pretty much creamed him at both.

6. Don's three-year-old nephew Wyatt held Maggie's hand before he did.

7. Two of Maggie's obsessive-compulsive habits are checking her hair for split ends and checking her purse to make sure her keys are still there every time she leaves the house. Two of Don's obsessive-compulsive habits are checking the Major League Baseball website and checking to see if Maggie is still in the room every time he wakes up from his pre-graveyard shift nap.

8. Maggie hates monkeys. Don hates camels. Thus, the most shiver-inducing place we've been since we started dating was a room in the Asian art exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Apparently, there is a culture that considers both monkeys and camels to be lucky and worthy of being portrayed on five-foot-tall wall paintings.

9. Maggie introduced Don to Invader Zim and vegetable pizza. Don introduced Maggie to a plethora of sugary cereals and nearly every Mel Brooks film.

10. Don says one of the best things about dating Maggie is all the free meals. Maggie says that one of the best things about dating Don is having another excuse to go clothes shopping.

It's Foraculous!

Two things that I never thought I would be doing after graduating from college were getting married and going back to school. But lo and behold I’m getting married next month and taking the GRE this Friday. My plans after college were to pay off all of my school debt and continue to study Arabic in Syria for a year or so; but fate would have it otherwise, and I would not want it any other way. Maggie and I like to call our being together a little between fortuitous and miraculous—or as we have phrased it “foraculous.” Maggie has been this beam of hope in my life and I cannot imagine my life without her. Anyway, any one who can put up with my obsession with Pink Floyd, baseball and the NY Yankees, the Middle East, The Simpsons, and Mel Brooks’ films and Horror movies, not to mention that I lived at a mortuary for two-years, worked at a cemetery, and now work the graveyard shift, and gave her mono, and she still loves me—all I can say is I am one lucky person and she is the most wonderful person in the whole entire world!

Our engagement photos

Our engagement photos were taken at Cascade Springs, which is several miles off the Alpine Loop. It's a special place for us, since it's where Don proposed to me. We first visited Cascade Springs in June during one of our long drives to get me out of the house while I had mono. I didn't get to enjoy it very much since I was sick, so we went back to explore later in the summer once I was stronger. Since Don is probably the reason I had mono and couldn't enjoy the scenery on the first visit, I have to say that he definitely made up for it by giving me a gorgeous ring there!

It was a nice day when he proposed, almost summery, but by the time we went back for our photo shoot, it was freezing! It actually snowed a few days before we went up there. This is what went on behind the scenes: me shivering despite a jacket, scarf, and Don's hoodie.


And many thanks again to Whitney Keller for taking such great photos!