Honeymoon

😀As most of you can probably tell, I have very recently begun blogging again regularly. 

As I was going back through the posts I have written, I noticed one that I never posted. 

Our honeymoon!! 

 

And of course, who wouldn't want to hear about that, right?  :) 

 

So here it goes, though more than a year late. 

 

 

 

When we left our wedding in Dan's pickup truck, we drove back to the church where we had left Dan's car and switched over into that.  It made more sense to drive to Virginia in a car than in a truck. 

 

I had no clue where we would be spending the night, since Dan had took it upon himself to plan that all out secretively. 

 

We pulled into a long winding driveway in Lancaster, which went straight up a hill.  Almost at the top, we could see what looked like a mansion!  It was definitely a mansion, but was also an awesome bed and breakfast. 

 

Dan took this picture as we were cresting the hill and I had my first sighting of the Hurst House. 

 

 

 

The Hurst House was a truly beautiful place to stay!  We only stayed for that one night and then left early the next morning. 

This picture was taken at breakfast the following morning. 

 

 

Dan had planned everything out down to a T.  There was a gorgeous bouquet of roses waiting for me, as well as three different types of junk food snacks (he knows me so well!). 

 

At the Hurst House, we had our own private balcony, overlooking their beautiful lake. 

 

 

After we left the bed and breakfast, we actually went to church in Lancaster county at a Baptist church.  I've always thought it'd be odd to attend church the day after you get married, but something wouldn't have felt right if we had missed church.  We were both glad that we went.  It was a very nice church. 

 

We made the drive down to Shenandoah Crossings in Virginia where we were going to spend the week.  It took us about four hours or so to get there.  We were staying at the Bluegreen Vacation spot which was a sort of resort with cabins and yurts and campground.

 

We had this cabin all to ourselves.  It had four bedrooms and two bathrooms.  It was HUGE!

 

 

It was a neat place.  And because we were there in April, not many other people were around.  It was a historic area, so we went to see Thomas Jeffersons's Monticello home as well as James Madison's home.  We were planning to go on lots of hikes, but it rained almost every day that week. 

 

We were able to sneak in this short walk one day between rain storms. 

 

On the second day at the resort, we went to this required lecture about what Bluegreen Vacations was and all of the vacation spots we could go to. 

We really didn't want to sign up for a timeshare with them or invest into vacations with them.  We were given a deal at Bass Pro, which was why we signed up for it. 

 

Anyway, so we sat through the lecture and then had a tour of the resort and three different salespeople tried to get us to sign up, but we stayed firm and did not purchase anything or sign any contracts. 

Four hours later, we were free to enjoy the rest of our honeymoon.  Please don't think I am being rude when I say this (because our honeymoon was truly AMAZING), but those four hours were the worst part of our vacation. 

 

 We felt very pressured into making a decision to buy their vacation sampler package.  Despite our insisting that we rarely go on vacation and that when we DO, we certainly wouldn't spend thousands on a vacation, the salespeople were quite relentless. 

 

The best part about this sales pitch time was that there was a popcorn machine.  So I enjoyed that. 

 

After we finally got back to our cabin, we saw a horse and buggy and wanted to go for a ride. 

 

Our driver was the nicest elderly man.  He talked to us the whole trip. 

 

 

When our buggy ride was over, we explored the resort.  There was a historic house on it, and we looked at that for a little while.  We just peeked in the windows, since it was closed.  

 

The week flew by!  On our last day there, Dan and I played checkers.  They had this large checkers board and checker pieces on the sidewalk.  I beat Dan, which is why he is pouting in this photo.  :)

 

 

That was the end of our fabulous week!  One day, we hope to go back to that same resort for a vacation.  It really was a very nice spot!