Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Honeymoon

    We went to Costa Rica on our honeymoon and had an amazing time!!  We decided to use a honeymoon registry, because we already have a lot of stuff for our home, and more importantly because we love travel!  So THANK YOU to all of our family and friends who contributed to our honeymoon, we had a wonderful time!

    While in Costa Rica we stayed at the Westin Playa Conchal, it's a beautiful resort with a wonderful staff, a great golf course, spacious beach, and plenty of pools.  The day we arrived we explored the resort and took a walk on the beach to watch the sunset.  Tuesday morning we slept in and got breakfast then played golf. The course gave some amazing views of the pacific, we had so much fun!  After golf we and further explored the huge resort and discovered we could book a trip to Nicaragua, we jumped on the opportunity.  Wednesday we went into Tamarindo, a nearby surfing/fishing town, and took surfing lessons.  I had never surfed before, and was a bit nervous.  We went to Witches Rock, because Charles had spent a week there two years earlier and loved it.  My instructor was awesome and I was able to get up and ride several waves (proof below).  Wednesday evening we had dinner at one of the resorts many restaurants, yum! 

    Nicaragua!  Thursday we woke up at 4:30 a.m. to meet our tour bus in the lobby by 5:00 a.m. to head to Nicaragua, what an adventure.  We saw so much of the countryside and got some great stories out of the trip!  We experienced border crossing in Central America (a disastrous affair where 50 or so 18 wheelers sometimes sit for 2-3 days before being allowed to cross).  We took a boat ride on Lake Nicaragua where we saw the homes and hotels that are built on the 365 islands formed by volcanoes within the lake.  We had lunch in an old colonial hotel and walked through the colonial city of Granada.  Then we visited an active volcano and went to Santa Catarina, a small town on the edge of a lake in a cratered volcano.  After a long and rather treacherous bus ride, dodging cattle in the road and road blocks set up to catch illegal immigrants, we finally made it back to the resort for a late very late dinner.  We were pretty exhausted after that trip and I was feeling a little under the weather (I think I swallowed a bit too much ocean water while surfing), so we decided we needed to cancel our zip lining trip set for the next morning at 7:00 a.m. 

    I was pretty disappointed that we cancelled the trip, but I wasn't feeling very well, and was quite content to relax by the pool.  Saturday we scheduled our much anticipated massages at the hotel spa - amazing.  The spa was beautiful and quiet and the massage was one of the best I've ever had.  After our treatments we were allowed to hang out at the spa for the afternoon, so we took advantage and soaked in the hot tub and used the saunas.  I loved it!  We spent the rest of our honeymoon just hanging out and enjoying Costa Rica.      

Here are some of our favorite photos from our trip.
First morning in Costa Rica, we were so tired and hungry!

Playing golf, it was hazy because of brush fires in the mountains.

Surfing at Witches Rock in Tamarindo

The lesson begins...
I think this is after I fell off, but eventually I succeeded!

See - surfing!

Beautiful sunset in Tamarindo
Boat ride on Lake Nicaragua.

A home built on one of the 365 islands in Lake Nicaragua.
Charles with our tour guide, Harry, in Granada, Nicaragua.

I really loved this teal door.
This is an art and music school for children in Granada - beautiful building.

On the steps of a church with the cathedral and volcanoes behind us.
Masaya Volcano, Nicaragua

Santa Catarina, Nicaragua
Charles painting by the pool, with a friend.

I wasn't feeling very well on Friday...
Beautiful sunset on Playa Conchal

Catching the sunset from the lobby
Our last honeymoon sunset.

Celebrating St. Patrick's day, which was also the 5 year anniversary of the day we met.  





Monday, May 7, 2012

a little backwards

I know I just posted about the wedding, but since I didn't post for so many months I have a little back tracking to do...

My dear friend Tracy took some engagement pictures for us, and they are wonderful!  It was so great to take engagement pictures with a good friend.  Her husband Matt came along and after taking a few pics we went and had drinks at Hotel Zaza and then went to dinner - much better than your traditional photo shoot.

 We started at the area across the street from our condo, every weekend we see photographers out there having photo shoots, so we decided we couldn't pass it up. Unfortunately, since we often make fun of our neighborhood photo studio, these pictures included a lot of goofy poses and funny faces. 



  










We got engaged at the MFAH, so we wanted to take a few engagement pictures there as well.  We took pictures in the sculpture garden and then inside the museum and even did a little engagement re-enactment for posterity's sake.  Here are the results:






Thank you Tracy!  We love them all!  Beautiful work. 






Sunday, May 6, 2012

Married life is good.

I have started multiple blog posts since my last post in November (where did the time go!?), but none of them ever materialized on the blog.  Apparently I am not very good at blogging and wedding planning at the same time.

But, the wedding was amazing (of course I'm biased)!  We had a wonderful day, and despite the weather providing a little concern, everything turned out perfect.  Our photographer, Mark Sobhani, wrote a blog post on the wedding, which you can see here.  Mark did a beautiful job photographing our wedding and we LOVE all of the pictures from the day. Here are a few favorites:
The Ceremony
The Getaway Car - Thanks Tanner!

The first dance
Is it raining?





Dancing

Dancing...

More dancing

We did a lot of dancing.

The end, what a perfect day!
If you want to see the rest of the wedding photos, you can see the entire gallery here

Thank you to all of our family and friends who helped make our wedding weekend so special!