The Honeymoon!

Most of you know that we went to Cabo San Lucas for our honeymoon. What you may not know is that this honeymoon almost didn't happen. I was so preoccupied by wedding details that I completely forgot my passport and didn't realize it until the night before the wedding. Talk about the worst mistake a bride can make. Well, almost. But in any case, I was freaking out. Luckily, my friend Jesse Bushnell happened to be in Utah and was flying back just in time to make it to the reception. The 2nd happiest moment of that day was when she walked into the party.

Anyway, our honeymoon started out a little rough. Not terribly bad considering both of us were still on cloud nine from being married. But still, not how you would hope your honeymoon would begin.

It all started out when we were sitting at the airport waiting for our flight. I got online to transfer the money from all the wonderful gifts we received via Traveler's Joy. (Those of you who aren't familiar with this site - it allowed us to register for things to do on our honeymoon and people could buy us activities instead of toasters and blenders.) Basically the site transfers any money that was purchased for the gifts into your PayPal account and you can use it to purchase those activities when you arrive at your destination.

As I was going through the transfer process I read a bit of fine print that I didn't see before. Apparently it takes about 5-7 business days for the funds to actually be available. And after they're in PayPal, it's another few days for the funds to be transferred into your bank account. I believe my exact thoughts were, "Oh, crap." Joe and I had both pretty much spent every penny we had on making the wedding possible. We only had about $300 to our name for everything that week....food, activities, tips, etc. Not exactly how we pictured our honeymoon to be. BUT we didn't let it get to us. We decided to pick two activities and be pretty frugal with our food money and still have a good time.

But that wasn't the last of our rough start. When we landed at the airport in Cabo, there were all these people trying to get our attention as we walked out of customs. I, for one, hate to be haggled at....if that's even using the term properly, but I think you know what I mean. I won't give someone the time of day if they are yelling and pushing me to look at whatever they're selling, no matter how badly I want it. Oh, but not Joe...he has tougher skin than me :) One of the men yelling caught Joe's attention. So, we proceeded to be sold the idea that if we went to a timeshare meeting at the resort the following day we would not only get a free ride to and from the resort, but we would also get a free activity of our choice and a discount card for any of the other activities we wanted to participate in. (I promise, story time is ending and the pictures are coming soon). SO, trying to be a supportive brand new wife I let Joe agree to the deal. Need I remind you that pushy people trying to sell me something makes my skin crawl....so a timeshare meeting sounded a bit like hell. But they had a free breakfast for us, and I like food quite a bit, so I told myself I would survive.

Now, I should probably also mention that what I envisioned was us going to a group sales pitch and then leaving after it was over. Two hours tops, I think. Wrong. So, so wrong. Turns out it's a one-on-one sales presentation and breakfast is a lot less enjoyable when you know the person really doesn't care about you and just wants to make the sale. We had also been upfront with the pushy airport man that we weren't interested in buying a timeshare, we just wanted the free stuff. And that's pretty much what we said to pushy breakfast sales man. But he proceeded to keep us for four hours....walking around the resort, telling us how it would help our kids some day and blah blah blah. He tried every angle.

Towards the end we went to their timeshare office where other people were getting pressured by their sales people and the guy basically tells us that we can afford it, even though we think we can't. He asks us to name a price and we said we would pay $100 a month, but that we honestly didn't have any money at the moment. Oh, it just irks me how he thought he knew our financials better than we knew ourselves. He finally brought the price down to $200 a month, but that was with a $20,000 down payment. I almost started laughing out loud in his face and walked out. But after four hours I wanted my free activity and discount card, dang it! So then we finally get him to realize that it's not going to happen and he said he'd be right back. Then comes over even pushier young sales buck/manager. He didn't keep us for too long and then we were finally free....or so we thought. They bid us farewell and told us to go speak to this other guy for our free activity card. Turns out he was just another salesman trying one last shot at us. This is where my Irish temper started to come out. I mean....really....it was SO frustrating. So in the nicest way possible, which probably wasn't so nice, I stopped the guy dead in his sales pitch tracks and told him to shove off and that it wasn't going to happen. My frustration was evident as I explained that we had been honest from the get go, and that we had sat through an entire morning of nonsense on the first day of our honeymoon and I wanted no more of it. Thankfully he shut up and sent us to the office that would give us our discount card.

I thought it was over...I really did. So naive of me. After they gave us our free activity they tried to sell us on an even bigger discount card if we sat through another timeshare pitch at another hotel. I wanted to spit in their faces. But thankfully Joe is more tactful than I am, and when I gave him the look that said, "Please, you cannot put me through another one of these," he told them no. And then we walked away. PHEW. One of the worst experiences of my life. Even if I was interested, I would have never bought a timeshare from them because of the way they conducted the business.

ANYWAY.......after that point we proceeded to have a GREAT honeymoon. When we checked in we saw that we had a little kitchenette. Complete with real dishes, a stove, microwave, sink and fridge. We also saw that there was a Walmart super close to the hotel and people were always bringing in groceries. So we took this awesome little bus with a driver who looked like he was 12 to the Walmart and got ourselves way too much food.

I found microwave popcorn ( I am addicted).

Joe found bread that he remembered loving from his mission (he served in Mexico).

And then we had a great rest of the day out by the pool. And that is how most of rest of the honeymoon went. Pool time, sun, beach, virgin Pina Coladas, hot tubs, etc.

Joe did get sick one day and we spent the entire day in the hotel room watching movies on TV. I ran out to get him some medicine at the resort's little market, but other than that, it was TV. Which was actually really nice and relaxing.

Here are a few other highlights of the trip:

We each got Henna tatoos on our shoulders, "Mr" & "Mrs". Cheesy, I know, when else can you be super cheesy in public besides your honeymoon? We had to take advantage of that while we could.

Our view from the beach in front of our hotel. Pretty rad:

 I made friends with about 15 little birds (no joke) one lunch and felt like Snow White. I resisted the urge to break out in song. Joe now calls me the 'Bird Whisperer'.....I'm still not quite sure if I should take that as a compliment. (Look close, a few birds are in the shot).

Classic pool shot. And yes, that is a pirate ship in our pool. It was actually a really cool restaurant/bar that had a hot tub in it and everything.

The free activity we chose from the awful timeshare pitch was a dinner and dance cruise. It would have been awesome except for a few things:

A) It was freezing cold and windy, for which we were not prepared. 

B) Joe got sick and barely could eat his food.

C) There was one really drunk, loud woman who was a bit past her party days. Not a good combination.

But, all in all, we would do it again. Only next time we'll bring Dramamine, a jacket and ear plugs.

We had lunch one day at this awesome restaurant that was literally in the sand about 100 feet up from the ocean water. The service was great and we were the only people there, which was so nice. 

There was a bit of this goin' on occasionally:

One night we went on this amazing horseback riding trip. The guide picked us up after it was dark, at about 8pm and then we were able to walk/run the horses a long way down the beach, sometimes even in the water. When we got to the end, he let the horses rest while he did some cool tricks for us. It was so awesome.

One of the activities we were stoked to do was Parasailing. I've wanted to do this since I was a little girl. We went out at our scheduled time and it was too windy for them to let us go. So we re-scheduled. This time we were able to get on the boat and watched 5 other people go before they told us that it was too windy. SO sad. But next time, we'll go for sure! This was when we found out it wasn't going to happen:

We got ice cream cones one day at this ice cream shop the resort had. The ice cream was a little freezer burned, but on a hot day, we didn't care.

One of the other things we got to do was Jet Skiing out in the ocean. That was a blast. Joe let me drive most of the time since they were a bit too slow for him. But then I let him take us out to the famous Arch and do some small tricks.

Another fun adventure was taking a glass bottom boat out to Lover's Beach. Seeing all those fish made me not very willing to touch the water...ever. So when we saw this cool cave as we were boating in the only way to get there besides swimming was to rock climb. Pretty cool, but Joe had to help me in a few spots. 

On our last night we got dressed up and headed over to one of the resort's restaurants. They made a killer pizza and we had a romantic sunset and candlelight dinner. It was the perfect ending to our honeymoon.

The beginning

Please forgive this first blog as I have no idea what I am doing...

Thank you in advance. :)

So, Laura and I decided that the best way to start our blog was with, yep, you guessed it, our marriage. Here is my sad attempt at documenting a truly amazing day. (Luckily we had an incredibly talented photographer and friend named Lindsey Boice taking pictures, so no matter how bad I mess this up, at least you can go to the link below and see for yourself how the day unfolded through pics).

PS: I will just give you the Reader's Digest version here since I might have ADD and can't be bothered with documenting every little detail. However, I will say that this was the best day of my life and I am happy to share it with you. :)

So here we go: Ms. Laura Kelly and I were wed on April 17th, 2010 in the Los Angeles LDS Temple. We arrived in the city a few days prior to get ready, have the bachelor and bachelorette parties, etc., etc., and that was all a blast. Our families were both so great to come down and support us (as neither one of them is from the area) and many of our friends were able to join us as well.

The actual wedding day began early for Laura and the ladies at 6am to get all beautified and such.

 The boys didn't have it quite so hard. We woke up around 9am and eventually made our way over to the Temple after a few pictures.

I met Laura in the temple right before we were to be wed (we kept the tradition of not seeing each other the day or morning before the actual ceremony). She looked incredible and I felt like a lucky man to not give you the cheesy version. And then, about an hour later...

We were married!

Our family and friends greeted us for the first time as a married couple as we came out of the Temple. This is a pic of everyone who came to support that afternoon in case you were wondering. We have lots of cool shots of this but I just can't be bothered to upload them all. Like I said, check out the link for more pics.

Our cool siblings.

The Parentals.

Laura's sisters welcoming me to the family. :)

I love Laura's face with this one.

We are cool.

I look kinda silly in this one but my wife looks pretty hot in the one below in my humble opinion.

This is one of my favorites.

Some more cheesy fun.

Finding Laura's wedding ring was actually kinda cool. I had a "connection" in Salt Lake who took me to what is called the Diamond District--where the jewelers select their stones and the general public is not allowed. I got to look through a magnifying glass and choose the stone (luckily I had done my homework). Then the lady called down a jeweler and we designed the ring together based on some pictures I had gotten from Laura's sister. Oh and I like my ring because it's made from Tungsten which is supposedly super hard to break and impossible to scratch--which is probably a good thing if I ever get in a gang fight or something. :)

I could continue posting pics we took outside the temple because Lindsey seriously took a ton of great ones. But, I am starting to feel that ADD kick in so let's get to the reception after I leave you with a nice picture of this twirl/spin/thing.

Okay, so here we are at the reception. All of Laura's planning and hard work--along with all the help of family and friends made for a great evening with chocolate fountains, sparkling cider toasts, dancing, sparklers, good food and good times.

Robin started the evening out with the first toast. I think she actually threatened my life if I ever was mean to Laura. I believed her. Haha, but seriously, she is a good sister and I look forward to continue earning cool points from her and never making her little sis angry--except when I beat her at Wii or something. :)

Then Jimbo (Jim) told everyone I was a good guy--or at least in my head that's what I thought he said. He was kind enough not to mention the time we got in a fight over a can of spaghetti sauce.

And then to wrap up the toasts, the one and only person I know by the name of "Dutchess" re-told the story of when Laura told "D" about our first kiss and the first words out of her mouth were: "Don't you screw this up, Laura!" Haha. That cracked me up and I can officially say that I'm glad she didn't screw it up either--or I didn't for that matter. :)

Then we cut a mean rug--well sorta. Note to engaged people: DON'T pick a really long song. It just gets awkward to dance in front of everyone for more than a minute or two--unless of course you're a professional dancer--which I am not. Poor Laura, who is of course an amazing dancer, just had to put up with me but I did agree to dance lessons someday.

Danced the traditional.

Ate some cake. I couldn't resist getting Laura just a little even though we had previously agreed not to--hence the look on her face.

Threw some flowers.

We also got a chance to catch up with everyone but I am not going to put pictures of that on here. I will say that it was so great to feel loved by so many people and we really appreciated seeing them all. We did this cool photobooth with props and I am excited to look back at everyone who made it and laugh at their pictures.

And then it was time to go. We said our goodbyes and got ready to make our grand exit. And, I must admit, it feels pretty cool to be running under a tunnel of sparklers with the love of your life. If you get the chance I suggest you try it.

Anyway, thanks for putting up with this attempt at a blog post of mine. I wish I could've done the day some justice but this will have to suffice for now. Our next post is going to be done by Laura about our honeymoon so I'm sure it will be a much better read. You can look forward to that. :)

Here is the link I was telling you about if you want to see more pics:

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