Y’all, we did it! We finally went on our honeymoon…5 years later. I’m sure other military spouses can attest to the fact that it’s hard to take vacations when your spouse has what seems like a 24/7 job.

*Some of the pictures throughout this blog post were taken by my talented husband!*

When the husband and I got married (the first time), I was teaching and he was gearing up for a potential career in the Marine Corps. By our second wedding, he already had orders to report to Pensacola, FL for flight school, so a honeymoon was a bit out of the question. I don’t think I need to tell you how busy flight students and pilots are, so we obviously haven’t been able to take a honeymoon until now!

Since the husband just came home from deployment and had some leave, we decided it would be the perfect time to drop Hudson off with the grandparents and head to the Grand Teton National Park.

This place is beyond special to me, and is actually my favorite place! 5 years ago, we got engaged there! Though we saw the same landscape, we saw it through a different lens (if you will), since the last time we went was in summer. This time we had to trek through (at times) knee deep snow to make it to the spot where the husband proposed. It was so worth it though for those breathtaking views and sweet memories.

While we were at “our spot”, we set up the tripod and camera (like we did last time) to take some fun pictures. We also finally got around to saying our own vows to one another. We didn’t do our own during the ceremony because we wanted it to be private and intimate. We had planned to do them shortly after the wedding, but then we moved and life happened. It was so special for us to be able to do them in our spot though, so it was also worth the wait.

The trek to our spot happened on the last night we were there (what a way to end our honeymoon!), so I’ll back track a little bit. The first night we got to WY, we just got settled in and walked downtown to get some pizza. On Saturday, we “slept in” (as much as you can when your internal alarm clock is set for 6:45), had breakfast at the lodge where we were staying (we usually camp, but it was WAY too cold for that), and headed out for a hike.

I’ll be honest, I was nervous about being warm enough on our hikes, but the husband did a great job of picking out our cold weather gear (necessary when you’ve been living in the south for the past few years). If you know me, you know I’m not exactly made for cold weather, so I was surprised I stayed warm for almost the entire trip (we will forget about the 45 minutes I couldn’t feel my feet and the husband had to fireman carry me for a minute or two so I could gain some feeling back- thank goodness that’s part of his PT)!

The second day of our trip, I lounged around and took it easy before getting ready and heading in to town for some coffee. The husband decided to get up early to go on a hike that lasted a lot longer than he originally planned. When he got back, we spent the afternoon driving around the park for pictures (some of which was during a blizzard that was gorgeous)! We even got to see some wildlife, though not a lot.

As mentioned above, our last day there was spent at the place where we got engaged! After we made it back to the truck, we decided to check out a few more spots for pictures. We had plans to photograph the sunrise the morning we were set to leave, but the weather didn’t cooperate, so we headed downtown for a little shopping before heading out (and got Hudson the cutest moose slippers)!

Though it took us awhile to finally get around to going on our honeymoon, is was more than worth the wait! Spending a lot of one-on-one time with the husband and experiencing the views in the Grand Tetons was exactly what I needed! See you again in 5 years, Grand Tetons! 😉