The Woodhouse Experience: Honeymoon Heaven

As can be expected, Honeymoon plans were being made at the same time as the wedding was taking shape. Geoff and I had a few conversations about what we thought would be nice for the week that followed our wedding day. I mentioned my 'dream honeymoon' was always to visit Niagara Falls. Geoff thought it would be a great place to visit and suggested we do so in a few years and even gave the scenario of dropping off the kids at Mom and Dad Nelson's in Pittsburgh to enjoy a weekend getaway alone. How that can already sound refreshing and wonderful when one doesn't even know what it's like to have children is mind boggling to me, but just let me tell you, it did!

I was totally content with Geoff's future plan. He then talked about the idea of visiting friends and family that would not be able to make it to the wedding and bring the celebration to them. That sounded great to me, so Geoff got busy contacting his friends (and practically his second family) the Taylor's in Indianapolis, his Uncle Bill and Aunt Chris in Kansas, and Nana in St. Joe. We also decided to head over to Utah so Geoff could meet my Grandparents there as well as some Aunts and Uncles.

Geoff took care of all the details: the rental car, the hotels, the routes--everything! On the evening of a bridal shower my dear friends Nila and Meranda Peterson held, Geoff sat down with Karen Ballard who works in the Hotel Industry and started making reservations. Mom and I were visiting with people there, but anytime we came into the room where Geoff and Karen were working, they'd FREAK out and make me leave. I was so confused, Geoff and I discussed what we were going to do, so what was the big deal? But, I thought it would be best to be polite and honor their wishes and got out.

The next time Geoff and I were together he excitedly told me the plans he made--we were getting married on a Saturday and then we'd leave early Sunday morning to be with the Taylors by that Sunday evening. I admit, when I heard we were leaving the very next morning with no time to sleep in, I was a little disappointed and even questioned Geoff's reasoning on leaving so quickly after our wedding day. To make it worse, I even whined to Karen and Meranda about his plan and asked why they didn't intervene when Geoff planned things so early the day after we got married. They just shrugged their shoulders, said they tried, and offered very little pity. Oh well, at least we're getting married, right? I decided to be helpful and looked up church meetinghouses along our route to see where we could stop (depending what time we left) and forwarded the information to Geoff.

Our wonderful wedding day came and went too quickly. When Geoff and I got to the hotel, my planning side kicked in and I started rattling off a 'to do' list. We needed to return his tux, pack for the next day, figure out what time we were going to leave so we could make sure we knew what church building we'd be stopping at...I kept going on and on and on about what needed to get done. As I was rambling off my game plan, I didn't take too much notice of the disinterest Geoff showed or accept the fact that Geoff was just not worried about a word I was saying. I was in mid-sentence when Geoff calmly picked up an envelope and pulled out some papers. "We're not going to Indianapolis tomorrow," he said. "Yes we are, you booked the hotels, we need to stay on schedule," I thought. By this time the papers revealed our first hotel reservation...in New York? "We're going to Niagara Falls first." Geoff couldn't stop smiling and I absolutely LOST IT. "Are you kidding me? How long have you had this planned? Are we really going? Is this for real? How did you do this?" I was jumbling everything together, so I doubt much of anything made sense that was coming out of my mouth, but that didn't seem to matter to Geoff...he just continued to smile, enjoying the fact that once again he completely surprised his overwhelmed and elated wife.

So there was no rushed morning-after-the-wedding travels. We got up the next day without an alarm, packed everything up and hit the road at our convenience. We stopped for Sacrament meeting and looked like investigators because we didn't get there with enough time to change. So needless to say, we were approached by quite a few members after the meeting to welcome us. Once we told them we were members...who just got married yesterday...the conversations quickly turned from 'are you investigating' to 'that is SO extremely exciting'! The members were so friendly it took us quite a while to get back on the road...but eventually we did and we enjoyed the Pennsylvania 'highways' which consisted of hair-pin, blind turns and speed limits that ranged from 25 to 55 m.p.h. That evening we got to the hotel in Buffalo, New York which was the fanciest hotel I had ever stayed in. Geoff really went above and beyond with the arrangements he made.

The next morning we enjoyed not being in any type of rush as we walked around the parks and sites of beautiful Niagara Falls. Needless to say, I was in heaven. As we were driving towards the Falls, Geoff told me his INITIAL plan was that he was going to have me drive on Sunday thinking the entire time Geoff was navigating us to the Taylor's...but then all of a sudden I would see something like this:

But because I was too high-strung on our wedding night, he knew he had to tell me right then and there.

So enough ramblings, here are some pics of our amazing, perfect day:

We, of course had to experience the Maid of the Mist

The sun came out when we were on the ship and we got to enjoy a lovely rainbow in the falls.

And since Geoff didn't think we got wet enough from that adventure, we also climbed along side of the American Falls. How amazing it was to experience the power of the Falls, the mist alone was pelting us as if it was a major thunderstorm. It was incredible.