Costa Rican Honeymoon- Day 2

We awoke bright and early on Day 2, ready to explore our resort more. 
Breakfast each morning was a buffet with traditional breakfast items(omelets, bacon, pancakes, fruit, cereal, etc), but also some Costa Rican foods (gallo pinto, pumpkin with honey, plantains, and tamales).  They also had fresh juices each morning- my favorite was the watermelon juice, so refreshing!

We started our activities with a bike tour around our resort.  We met another couple on their honeymoon, and we saw them at several activities throughout the week.  We joked that the guys were on the same honeymoon, as the girl's name was also Lauren! 

Will and I headed to the pool for some relaxation in the sun!  We also decided that 11:00 was the appropriate drinking hour, and hit the bar, trying several different drinks, some from the menu, some we just pointed to what someone else was drinking.  My favorite was the Pura Vida, a mix of orange juice, pineapple juice, Costa Rican vodka, and a splash of grenadine, I had too many of those to count!  Another favorite was a Costa Rican Tropical...no clue what was in it, but it was blue, yellow, and green and tasted amazing! 

After lunch, we went for another walk on the beach, had a splash fight/sand kicking fight in the ocean, laughed as we tried not to get swept away in the waves. 

We headed back to the room for a nap, then got ready for dinner.   We had a late reservation for dinner (9:15...that's what we got for waiting so long to make reservations), so we headed to the bar to watch the Spurs game. Many other guests joined us at the bar to watch the game, while the bar tenders and resort employees paid attention to the Costa Rican soccer game that was on the second TV. We had to head to dinner before the game was over, but we were able to catch the end of it.   The resort had several different restaurants to choose from each night, and all of them were delicious! 

After dinner, there was a "Circus Show", with an acrobatic girl, and two jugglers.  While it was entertaining, it wasn't my idea of a "circus".    After the show, we headed back to our room.  The nice thing about our resort was that bars closed between 10:30 and 11, so you got to head to your room early each night! 

Wedding Video!

Our wedding day was beyond perfect!  If something went wrong, it was either too little to matter, or it was not missed anyway!  Even though my grandfather couldn't attend the wedding due to health issues, we were able to Skype him in (thank you technology!), and he got to see the whole thing! 

My day started early, with hair appointments at 7:30 am!  Thankfully, Greer and Amanda brought Chic-fil-a, fruit, and champagne/orange juice to keep our sugar levels up!

After hair, we headed to the chapel to get ready!  Will and I decided not to see each other before the wedding, so most of the group pictures had to wait until after the ceremony so we wouldn't accidentally run into each other.   

My CRHP sisters came in around 11:15 for a prayer before the ceremony.  It was so beautiful to have them all there supporting me and praying for me! 

The ceremony was perfect, Marty, our minister, totally captured our personalities, and we even made Ann cry during her reading!  The ceremony seemed to go by so quickly, I had to ask someone later how long it lasted! 

Our reception was beautiful, and everyone said the food was amazing!  We didn't get a chance to eat at the reception, but our caterers packed us a to-go bag with food, cake, cheese and crackers, and fruit!  It was perfect since we were starved when we arrived at the hotel! 

Later that evening, our friends joined us at a favorite new restaurant, Brewed, in Fort Worth.  We spent the evening laughing and drinking and just enjoying each other!  It was the perfect evening to a perfect night! 

I am continually amazed by the work our photographer, Sharon Ellman, does.  She has photographed a couple of friends weddings, so I knew she was good, but I am continually amazed each time I look at the pictures she took at our wedding!  We even went to the canals at Las Colinas to take pictures with just me and Will after the ceremony!  She has the most creative energy and even humored us with our attempt to stage our own pics!  She is simply amazing and worth 10x more than we paid her!  I am so happy she was recommended to us, and the pictures from the day were really important to me!  She even created a video of the highlights of our day!  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do! 


Wedding Video

Costa Rican Honeymoon- Day 1

On Monday, June 17th, Will and I woke up at 3:00 am to head to the airport and start our honeymoon!  After a delayed boarding call at DFW (how can anyone be delayed at 5:15 in the morning?!?), we boarded our plane and set for Miami, then on to Costa Rica! 

Arrival in Costa Rica was chaos, people everywhere, jostling to get in line to hand someone your passport (my first passport stamp, thank you very much), trying to find baggage claim, and going through their version of customs.  Costa Rican customs went down like this- get in line, put your bags on a conveyor belt that went through an x-ray machine, and pick them up on the other side.  I never saw anyone actually looking at the x-ray screens...

After finding our transportation, we set out for an hour ride to our resort.  Our driver was nice, but spoke very little English, and Will and I don't speak Spanish.  He did know a few words of English and tried to point things out as we drove along a very bumpy road (sugarcane was one English word he had down). 

We arrived at our hotel and found out we were upgraded to a beach front villa!  The hotel said it was because we were on our honeymoon, I think it was because several villas were getting new roofs, so those weren't being used.  Anyway, our room wasn't ready yet, so we walked around our resort and had a snack before we were given our room keys and a ride to our room.  I unpacked while Will crashed on the couch in our living room.  We called and made dinner reservations, went to a sushi making class where Will learned how to make a salmon roll, and went for a walk on the beach (my first time in the Pacific Ocean)! 

Over dinner, Will and I decided that even though our hotel was offering free Wi-Fi, we would keep our phones locked up in the safe and disconnect this week.  This was one of the best decisions of the week, and it made me laugh at all the people we saw on their phones all week.   

We went to bed early, as we had been up for almost 20 hours at this point.  We laughed as we flipped through the TV channels filled with some of our favorite shows with Spanish subtitles or dubbed over in Spanish.  The TV didn't stay on for long though, as both of our eyes were drooping within a few moments of crawling under the covers. 

Stay tuned for Day 2!

Why I'm annoyed with facebook

I will be the first to admit, I probably troll facebook more than I should, but most of the time, I just lurk, I don't post much anymore.  There are a few personal reasons for this (such as I don't feel the need to share every detail of my life with everyone on Facebook), but honestly, we are pretty boring and don't have much to share anyway, haha. 

There have been a few things happening on facebook lately that have annoyed me, in no particular order. 
- Sharing recipes on facebook.  Come one people, if you want recipes, go to Pinterest. 
- The "ads" that are coming up in my news feed.  All of these "sponsered links" need to go. 
- The buy/sell/trade groups.  There is already a spot for that people, Craigslist!
- The "share" button.  I think this may be my biggest complaint.  While I have used the "share" button, I share pictures.  People are getting a little too share happy.  People are sharing "news" stories without actually reading the full story, or without checking to see if the story is real or even current!  With all of the "news" sites floating around, anyone can be a reporter now.  People are sharing stories that are simply not true and getting others worked up.  This is ridiculous.  Get your news from whatever your prefered news source is, but make sure that the story is credible. 

What happened to the facebook where everyone shared fun statuses and fun wedding pictures/vacation pictures/baby pictures?  Can we bring that facebook back?

My Best Friend's Wedding

Since Sarah and I met in 6th grade, we have been great friends!  We've had our road bumps, but we've always made it through and been there for each other.  Even though we haven't lived in the same city for 12 years, we remain close. 

 

Like the silly high school girls we were, we promised each other that even though we were going to be hundreds of miles away, we would stay close in college and be bridesmaids in each others weddings.  Little did we know, we would be fufilling those promises within two months of each other! 

 

 

 

I am so lucky to have gotten to stand right next to Sarah on her wedding day.  Sarah's motto for the day was "there's no crying in baseball" and I managed to make it through the ceremony without tears.  I had a moment when she handed me her bouquet, but I quickly locked it up! 

 

 

Sarah and Medlock's wedding was absoutely breathtaking.  Everything went so smoothly and flawlessly!  Sarah was an absoutely beautiful bride, and Med was so handsome in his seersucker suit!  The weather was perfect (the ceremony was outdoors), everyone stuck to the schedule, the ceremony represented Sarah and Medlock very well, I honestly don't think anything could have made it any better!

 

 

 

I have been so blessed by having Sarah and her family in my life.  Her parents were like my second parents growing up; I think I was over at her house as much as I was at my own house.  We have so many memories together and inside jokes to laugh about, and I wouldn't trade that for anything!  I can't wait until we get to do it all over again in two months!

 

 

Congradulations Sarah and Medlock!  I wish you both all the happiness in the world! 

 

 



 





Cinnamon Creek Ranch

Quite awhile back (like before Christmas), I found a Groupon for a 4 hour archery session at a local archery range.  I figured this was right up Will's alley, so I purchased it for him as a birthday gift (I had already finished his Christmas shopping).  I figured he would want to call up one of his buddies and head out one day, so I was a little surprised when he wanted me to tag along! 

It was a perfect day to be outside! The temp was 65, and a little wind kept us cool while outside. 

When we arrived, they handed us bows, a few arrows and sent us to the indoor short range to practice a bit.  Then we headed to the longer indoor range (targets were further away), then finally outside to the "zoo".  Trails were carved out and they had 30-40 animal targets to shoot at.  We had a blast!

 

Even though we had 4 hours, we only lasted about 3.  Archery was much harder on our arms than we thought! 

Our Forever Home

Several people have been asking to see pictures of our forever home, especially since we moved in and changed things.  I wanted to wait until we had everything done, and that meant having everything moved out of the townhouse.  While it was on the market, the townhouse still had some furniture, so it could be staged.  Now that the townhouse offically sold, we officially moved everything out and in the forever house!  I'm finally ready to show pictures!

This is the before/after of the eat-in kitchen, the very large eat-in kitchen! We took down the awful valences (that were hung up on tree branches, literal tree branches- first thing to go), had the wallpaper taken down, textured the walls and painted the kitchen.  Really opens it up! We also moved the light fixture to the formal dining.

 

More kitchen views:

 

Family room, all we did here was put a fresh coat of paint on the walls

 

 

Formal dining, a fresh coat of paint and changed light fixture.

 

Formal living, we are using this as an "office" for the time being, as the "office" room upstairs will be the nursery when we have kids.

 

Master bedroom, new paint! I absoutely love this color!

 

 



(I promise we make the bed, but CC decides to unmake it when she wants to burrow under the covers.)

Master bath, we haven't done anything yet, but I eventually I want the wall paper to come down!

I didn't clean off the counter before I took the picture!

 

Second living room (upstairs) got a new paint color.

 

 

 

Guest bedroom #1, no change.

 

 

Guest bedroom #2, new paint.

 

Full bath #1 upstairs, the wallpaper coming down is my summer project!

 

There are two more rooms and one more full bath upstairs.  The room directly at the top of the stairs will be the nursery eventually.  The other is actually a finished attic space, that will be a playroom/craft room.  It has sloped ceilings, so it may not bed a bedroom, unless one of the kids really wants it down the road. 

There is also a half bath downstairs, just off the laundry room (but I don't like pictures with toilets in them).

 

We have an amazing backyard with lots of rooms for dogs to run and play, and plenty of squirrels for them to bark at.  I love our neighborhood and our neighbors have been great so far! 

 

I honestly don't think I could have dreamed up a better house.  While there are surface things that I want changed due to my tastes, the house is perfect.  We have tons of attic space for storage, and more than enough rooms.  I absoutely love cooking in my new kitchen and have amazing counter/prep space, and more cabinet space than I can fill up right now (but I'm working on that). 

 

We are so happy to call this our forever home!