I've always wanted to visit Wine Country and I had high hopes for this part of the trip but I definitely realized that I'm much more of a beer girl than a wine girl. I've always been the girl to choose wine if I have a choice so this really surprised me. After our first day of tastings I knew that sipping on a lot of different wine over a long period of time is just not my thing. Beer on the other hand is a different story. I could taste all kinds of well made beer all day long. Since my husband is an at home beer brewer and loves beer almost as much as he loves me this is a good thing. 

Beer > Wine pretty much sums up this part of our trip and we were perfectly fine with that. 

^^^ our beautiful hotel in Sonoma!

^^^ some tasty beers on our first night after the long drive and a delicious meal.

I chose the 10% dark sour and it was absolutely perfect!! Mmmm. 

^^^ Our first winery stop on Thursday at Matanzas was also a lavender field and since we used lavender in our wedding it was so wonderful to be surrounded by that lovely scent that reminds me of our special day! 

^^^ B.R. Cohn was one of our favorite wineries and the only winery we bought a bottle of wine to take home with us. I can't wait to drink it on a special date night at home with Peter! 

^^^ Benzinger was the only winery that we had a cheese pairing and I think it really helped with the tasting.

^^^ it was also the most beautiful winery too! 

^^^ Peter snacking on a grape from the vine! 

^^^ after all the wine we dedicated Friday to Lagunitas Brewing Company on our ride out of Wine Country. It was so much fun!! 

Since Yosemite was closed we couldn't spend the two nights we had scheduled there so we got lucky and found a hotel for Friday night and then another hotel on Saturday night. It turned out to be a great way to break the trip up a little bit and gave us some extra time to explore. Plus, now we have an excuse to travel back to Northern California and see Yosemite someday! Sounds like a win-win to me.

I can't believe I didn't get car sick!

On the third day of our honeymoon we picked up our rental car and left San Francisco to drive a few hours to Sonoma. I'm notorious for getting car sick so I was a little nervous about all the driving with the winding roads along the coast but with all of the beauty to look at I didn't have any problems. The whole drive was filled with beautiful beaches, mountains and bright blue skies to die for so the long car ride was wonderful. Long car rides with Peter has always been one of my favorite things to do. Our road trips are always filled with great music (Justin Timberlake / Mumford & Sons / Band of Skulls are some of my favorites from this trip) and I spend a lot of the time laughing at how silly Peter is. He really is one of the funniest people I know and I'm really thankful that we have the same sense of humor! It makes everything a lot more fun... even if a lot of his jokes are from TVshows and movies I've never seen before, he always takes the time to explain them to me. 

^^^ if you look closely you can see San Francisco behind the mountains! 

^^^ Mt. Tamalpais was so gorgeous! 

^^^ thank God for self timers! 

^^^ we were rebels and ignored the locked fence! 

^^^ thankful for nice people that offered to take our picture!

A little bit of SanFran...

Everyone told me that I would love San Francisco and I was almost positive they were right but I never thought I would fall so hard. We only had one full day in this beautiful city but it was probably my favorite part of the whole trip. I’m really happy we decided to start the trip in San Francisco and it was a lot of fun to pack in all the spots we visited and enjoy the eclectic style of restaurants and bars around our hotel at night. The weather was perfect! Sunny days with a crisp cool breeze and chilly nights intended for hand holding and light sweaters. So, yes… I am a fan of San Fran which only meant we had to come back to the city a day early before we flew back home. It just felt right to end our trip in the same place we started it.  

^^^ beautiful room which I fell in love with. 

It was the perfect way to start the trip in the city!

^^^ our first meal and possibly our favorite since we found a cute little Thai place a couple blocks down from our hotel.

^^^ looking all touristy and stuff...

^^^ this picture does not do this hill justice. It was a beast.

^^^ I may have jumped and giggled in these beautiful yellow leaves.

^^^ delicious panini in Little Italy!

^^^ we took the ferry ride over to the beautiful, Sausalito.

something great.

{picture taken by one of my "new" cousins //

edit by me using Over & A Beautiful Mess app}

During the end of the wedding planning process I would get this exciting, crazy feeling of anticipation in the pit of my stomach at a meeting or while completing something that needed to be done for the wedding day. I couldn't help it. I never worried about it because it wasn't a bad feeling... it was just a feeling of excitement that I couldn't contain. It was like my heart was so full of love and happiness that it couldn't contain the emotions so it would just flood over into other areas. Butterflies in my stomach, shaking hands, feeling the urge to jump up and down {like that time during our ceremony when Peter was about to kiss me... yes, i jumped up and down in my weding dress in front of everyone, I couldn't help it} or trying to conceal the smile across my face and looking like a complete weirdo... all of those things happened quite frequently and I welcomed them. I knew they were good. I knew those feelings were right. A good anticipation for something you've always wanted is a wonderful thing. 

As I woke up the morning of the wedding I had all those feelings. Heck, as I was trying to fall asleep the night before I had all those feelings. Knowing that when I fell asleep on my wedding night I would be with my husband made me want to run up and down the hall screaming "Woooooo-Hoooooooooooo!!!!". It's so exciting to start this new season of life enjoying new adventures and experiences with such an amazing person. Sitting here thinking about how all my future days will begin and end with him makes me beyond thankful. It makes my eyes well up with tears and my heart pound so loud I can almost hear it in my ears.

As I sit here & really think about it I can't help but pray. Pray to try my best to live out that quote every day. When I wake up I want to anticipate something great. Not something big every day but something great. I pray that our life together will be a happy one. Not perfect but that it will be filled with goodness. I pray to always strive to become a better wife for Peter and never grow tired of loving him and that he will lead our home toward God's will. I pray that our marriage will be working for the Kingdom and not for our selfish, worldly needs so that when people look at our relationship they will see Christ at the center of it. I pray that He will place people in our lives that will pour His goodness into our marriage and our life. I pray for our future family and that their hearts will grow to know the greatest love imaginable. And I pray for our safety in this life ahead and that all of the great blessings we receive will always be accepted and acknowledged as a gift from our great Lord above because He is the greatest blessing of all.

So that is my little "jump back into the blog world" kind of post as a wife. It's been a pretty sweet life of wifey-hood so far and you can bet I have some little posts ahead about our time in California. It really was amazing and I'm so happy I married my best friend. It does make this wife thing a lot more fun, that's for sure! And I'll stop saying wife now... sorry, I'm excited about it. ;-)

It has been 4 days....

It's really strange because it seems like it has been a lot longer. I feel like I'm in a blurred state right now where everything is happy and perfect. My new husband is with me all the time and calls me things like babe and sweetie. We are exploring Northern California together and I pretty much fell in love with San Francisco. Our plans are changing thanks to Yosemite being closed but its not putting a damper on our trip because we are typically "go with the flow" kind of people. 

We just arrived in Sonoma a couple hours ago and as I'm sitting on the big king size, super comfy bed typing away I hear Peter's electric shaver in the bathroom as he cleans up his face a bit. Its the little things like this moment that make me happy the most so far. Knowing that I will hear that buzzing noise for a very long time because he is my husband now. Call it cheesy if you want but I'm a fan of cheese. 

Off to happy hour and dinner... I could definitely get used to this. Only one week left of honeymooning!