We're taking a trip....a big trip!

A few months back I had never seen reference to the letters R-T-W, in the past month or so they have been included in almost every google search I run.  What do they stand for you might wonder? RTW? Round- The-World, as in trip around the world.

So......we're doing it, the flights are booked, the route is planned, we're going - RTW!!  I really can't believe it, I've been keeping it quiet (on the blog at least) until now, which has been really hard, because I'm so excited.  

This is not a new idea, Charles and I first started day dreaming about doing a "big" trip a while back, but it seemed like some far off dream.  As the wedding came closer we started talking more about this idea of taking some time off to travel before we had children.  And so, one day in April we decided we were going to go for it, and my exposure to those three little letters began.  Since then I have become slightly consumed by packing lists, train bookings, unknown uses for duct tape, steri-pens, backpacks, and numerous other things I had no idea I would ever know existed.

Where are we going, you might be wondering?  Believe me when I say it was not a quick or easy process narrowing down or route, but after much consideration, here is what we ended up with.

We are starting out with a road trip through the U.S. and Canada (mainly hitting National Parks - Yellowstone, Glacier, Banff, Olympic, Redwoods).  Starting in Houston via the Rockies and the Pacific Northwest and ending in Los Angeles for a wedding.  Here are a few of the cities we plan to stop in for a few nights:

• Colorado Springs, CO
• Denver, CO
• Jackson Hole, WY
• West Yellowstone, MT
• Somewhere in Montana near Glacier, MT
• Banff, AB, Canada
• Kamloops, AB, Canada
• Vancouver, BC, Canada
• Seattle, WA
• Salem, OR
• Takilma, OR
• Somewhere near the Redwoods in CA
• Fort Bragg, CA
• Santa Cruz, CA
• Los Angeles, CA

Next we're heading to New Zealand and renting a campervan, which is basically a mini-RV, to explore the country on wheels.  It will be the end of winter there so we are hoping for fewer crowds and some cool weather, which sounds heavenly to us at the moment since we're in the middle of a Texas summer.  On our way back to the states we're stopping over in Fiji to celebrate Charles' birthday for a few days.

Then we'll drive back to Houston before heading to New Orleans for a wedding that we just couldn't miss.  After the wedding we'll be back in Houston for a few days to re-pack for the longest portion of our trip.  We depart on October 10th and will be hitting the following countries:

Italy
Hungary
Poland
Czech Republic
Turkey
Israel
Jordan
India
Maldives
Sri Lanka
Thailand
Cambodia
Vietnam
South Korea

If you are interested in meeting up with us along the way, we would love to have friends or family join us for part of the adventure!  Also, if you have been to any of these places we are going, we will happily accept tips of what to see and do while we are traveling.  For anyone interested in following our journey on the web, I'm planning to blog along the way!  I've set it up so you can be emailed when I update the blog - just enter your email address on the right.  We're so excited!

Thoughts...

Lately life has seemed a little overwhelming, but in a good way. Time is flying by and big decisions are being made (more on this to come), and sometimes it all seems too much. I am so excited by the future that our life holds and the adventures we have before us, I just need to remember to breathe deeply and smile and move past the stress, maybe with a big glass of wine. I guess this is kind of a silly entry, but I felt the need to say what I was thinking. So, if anyone is actually reading these words I write...sorry for the banality of this post.

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.

 

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. 

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! 

Fall trip

A few weeks ago we went to visit friends in Atlanta and go to a friend's wedding in Highlands, North Carolina.  The fall leaves were gorgeous, as was the wedding.  The whole weekend was great!  Friday night we caught up with Andy, Charles' friend from Rhodes, and then Saturday morning we got in some visiting with Caroline and their three kids.  Saturday afternoon we headed up to Highlands for the wedding - the fall leaves were incredible!  Charles' parents were there and it was nice to have a weekend to spend time with them.  Charles also got the chance to catch up with Stephen and the rest of the Pate family.  Sunday we squeezed in a visit with our friends Brooks and Missy and a little more play time with Andy and Caroline's three kiddos.  Overall it was a great trip!  Here are a few of my favorite pics from the weekend:

 At the wedding

 Enjoying fall!

busy, busy

Where does the time go?  I have been very busy the past few weeks with lots of stuff other than wedding planning it seems.  Since my last post I/we have:

• We celebrated Charles' birthday with some yummy food and Abita Andygator at BRC.  We love BRC, especially the brunch, but had not been for dinner in quite a while.  Charles wanted to go there for his birthday dinner and we were excited to see they had expanded their gastropub menu.  Probably the top highlight of the evening was that they had the Abita Andygator on tap - Charles was very excited!
• Spent the first fall-like weekend in Houston entirely outdoors we visited the Bayou Bend Collection (part of the MFAH) for the first time, we took Lola for a walk on the bayou along Allen Parkway, we spent the afternoon at Boheme, a neighborhood bar, and Charles worked on some painting.  We took lots of pictures, but haven't downloaded them yet.  I'll add them later.   
• I had dinner with Vicky and Ellie and bought some awesome silver glitter paper to make my table numbers.  We had dinner at Ruggles Green in City Centre and then walked over to this new store that just opened called Paper Source.  I got some great ideas for wedding invitations as well while we were wandering around.  Also, if you are in need of funny and original birthday or thank you cards this is the place to go, such a cool store!
• We went to San Antonio for my 10 year college reunion and some wedding planning.  We had a great evening on Friday night watching Trinity mens soccer (they were playing Rhodes).  I'm not going to discuss the results of the game, but let's just say it was painful for Charles to watch.  Afterwards I was introduced to Andy, Charles' college soccer coach and one of Charles' former teammates, Tanner.   Following the game Tanner took us to Beethoven for Octoberfest, it was awesome!  I never expected to walk into this in a neighborhood in South San Antonio.  Saturday we took care of a meeting with the florist and DJ and squeezed in brunch at Panchitos (best tortillas ever!).  After the wedding stuff was out of the way we wandered around Trinity campus and I exclaimed how different everything looked since I went there 10 years before.  It was fun to go back and walk around and re-live old memories.  Saturday night was the Gamma Chi Delta (my sorority) 50th anniversary party, it was fun catching up with old friends.  Sunday we just hung out in and around down town San Antonio and checked out a few rehearsal dinner spots.  We have settled on Acenar, I am excited and think it will be fun for everyone to enjoy Mexican food on the riverwalk.  We wrapped up the weekend with a trip to the Alamo, where Charles did another lovely painting. Again, we have lots of pics, but they are all still on the camera.  I'll post some later! 
• I went to Austin to meet my wonderful friend Andrea's baby and to celebrate my amazing friend Michelle's baby that is on the way. 

So, as you can see I don't have much wedding news to report other than nailing down a few more vendors.  But, I have recruited some friends and family to help me with the flowers, so hopefully I will have more to report on that DIY project soon. 

Oh, I also bought my veil.  I bought it online, so we shall see if it works, when it comes, but I'm hoping it will be what I wanted.  I of course bought it on sale (I simply cannot resist a good sale).  So, this takes one DIY project off of my list.  Of course, now I have 3 yards of ivory tulle that I need to find some use for!  Any ideas?