As the relentless march of time advances, another Monday at work has come and gone for the whole of us. As I sit in my state of blogger idleness (idle bloggerness?) I assure you that what I lack in contribution to the blog I make up for in something else. Then I see all that my wife does AND still finds away to leave her delicate footprint on the sands at the edge of the blogosphere and, frankly, I just have yet to discern what that something else that I do is.
In which stilled danandpreethi blog waters shall I dabble my toes? Perhaps I'll start in relation to my lovely wife's post of earlier this morning.
Why do I love Mondays? Well, mostly because its the freshest day of the week - after the weekend's activities and spiritual renewal, there's always a little bit more spring to be sprung in the step. Again, we can return to our daily labors and have until the weekend to complete those tasks, rather than the Friday afternoon crunch I often feel. That's not to say, of course, that I would in any way prefer Monday to a weekend.
Earlier in my growing up days, I became quite familiar with the monster that ended the summer. Every time we began to return to Salt Lake City on our summer family 10,000 mile road-trips, a sinking feeling entered my stomach and swallowed my esophagus with the epiphany that the sun was beginning to set on that summer. And so it was, summer after summer. But with each sinking, there was hope and vivid imaginings of where the road would take us the following summer, indeed, a whole school year of dreaming.
So may it ever be with Mondays - mellowed by the acceptance of another weekend passed, but vibrant with the hope of another weekend to come (and that, with a beautiful wife), indeed, with every man's dreams on board.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Mondays
Every Sunday night, I get this awful feeling in the pit of my stomach because the next day is Monday. I admit it - I just don't like Mondays. Possible reasons include:
- I get really sad after a weekend of spending every second with Dan that I can't do that anymore, and have to wait a whole 5 days until I can again.
- I don't get to sleep in.
- I like my job, but I think holidays are still probably better.
- Traffic is always unpredictable on Mondays, and there seem to be more cops out.
I actually really dislike this about myself. I really WANT to like Mondays. Mostly because I don't want them to feel sad and unloved. Perhaps I just need to remember that I'm seriously so blessed. So, here's a list of things I love about Mondays:
- The mail comes! To this day, that little kid part of me that gets excited to get the mail -even though I know the most exciting thing will probably be that I'm pre-approved for the Kansas Homeowner's Mortgage credit card - gets a little sad when I involuntarily reach for my mailbox key while walking in on Sundays.
- Give me an F! Give me an H! Give me an E!
- I don't have to worry about Monday coming - it's already here.
- I get to listen to my John Adams book on CD.
- I can buy avocados if I want (and why wouldn't I?).
- I can go to lunch with my awesome co-workers.
- I can look around my cube at my fax from my future self, pictures, and penguin of death/pig of happiness cards.
In other news, this was our first really relaxing weekend since probably before we got engaged. No traveling, no visitors, no organizing our apartment (all of which we love, especially the organizing - hurrah for alphebetized spices!)...it was glorious. On Friday, we went to the Mann and had a picnic with the Babbels, Dan's wonderful mission presidents who happen to live in the area and were going the same night we were. They played the glorious Pictures at an Exhibition, which was truly phenomenal - oh, the brass and percussion at the end! The harmonies! The clarity of tone! If that weren't enough, the spectacular Leila Josefowicz performed one of my very favorite violin pieces, the Mendelssohn violin concerto. Very nearly flawless.
We slept in on Saturday and then got up and made a ridiculously awesome brunch (pancakes with berries/walnuts, cheesy hash browns, zucchini/basil frittata, vanilla/pear/berry muffins...I should really just start a sidebar of all our cooking adventures). We sat around and napped for a while (I never could nap before we got married, ever, but it seems like we catnap all the time now) and then decided we'd use our free movie tickets!
Sidenote: several weeks ago, we were at our local Superfresh (which I typically avoid at all costs in favor of Reading Terminal and TJ's, but sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures) and they were having a General Mills sale where if you bought $35 worth of GMI products, you'd get 2 free movie tickets. I didn't even consider it at first, thinking to myself, "There is no way we could possibly buy $35 worth of General Mills products, and even if we could, there is no way I am keeping $35 worth of General Mills products in our big-for-the-city-but-still-small kitchen." Dan, however, got all excited and thought we should definitely do it. Now though I work for The General, I'm kind of picky about which products of ours I'll actually put into my body. When we realized that we already had about $15 worth of Yoplait (I literally only eat one flavor of yogurts in all the world of yogurt - Yoplait Original Red Raspberry - not Light, which tastes like aspartame -, with occasional exceptions made for Yoplait Original Cherry. I've finally come to terms with the fact that I'm weird about food.) which was on sale for $0.50 compared to its everyday retail of $1.09, we decided maybe we should just go for it. So we stocked up on Honey Nut/Multigrain Cheerios. With a couple boxes of Trix thrown in for Dan.
Anyway, I digress. The movie tickets. So we decided to see our very first IMAX by way of The Alps. Some of the camera work was truly spectacular, and it was even cooler to feel surrounded by these majestic mountains. While it made me even more terrified of doing something like that, Dan felt some of the lure. Umm...
After that, we put our feet in the water of Logan Square with all the little kids. We absolutely adore community things like that, where everyone is just together and happy and nice. It was so relaxing. We went home and changed and went to dinner at La Croix in honor of our upcoming 2-month anniversary, as our wonderful Lizzy had given us a gift card there for our wedding gift. She wanted to give us an "experience" rather than a "thing," and experience it was! The service was stately, and they gave us little petit fours at the end with to-go muffins and made a little Tiffany-box cake in honor of the occasion (they asked if there was one when we made the reservation).
Sunday, Dan was sustained as Elders' Quorum 1st Counselor, and I was sustained as seminary teacher. In addition to my Primary chorister calling. Whoo boy. This will be awesome, but boy will it be work. For those unaware, in our church, we each have certain "callings," or responsibilities to which we attend. For Dan, that means being one of two "counselors" to the president of the Elders' Quorum, the men's group (counterpart to the Relief Society, the women's group). As for me, I've been teaching the children (the Primary) music, and come September, will be teaching daily religion classes to the youth. Early religion classes. As in at 6:30 every weekday morning, they will come to our home and we (clearly if I'm getting up that early, so is Dan :) and he's sweet enough to want to help) will attempt to teach them about the gospel. Yikes. But cool. Now I just need to inform my manager that I might need to leave a little early to make my new bedtime of 4:30pm.
Oh, and I chopped my hair off.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
What's the difference between an elephant and a blueberry?
A few weeks ago, on a glorious half-day Friday, we went fruit picking at Weaver’s Orchard Farm. It was beyond perfect – it was the end of strawberry season, right in the middle of raspberry/cherry season, and the first day of blueberry season! So, needless to say, we picked all of them. And gorged ourselves along the way. It was just so relaxing to be out in Middle-of-Nowhere, PA (that could easily be a real name in Lancaster, cousin to Intercourse and Bird-in-Hand) picking and eating fruit. Plus, they had an adorable little market at which we bought other yummy things like raw honey and homemade fudge and herb plants.
Anyway, $40 worth of fruit later, including almost 5 pounds of blueberries, we decided to not purchase their pies and make one of our own! So last week, after being tempted to make many other desserts in the Williams-Sonoma Bride & Groom Cookbook (namely, the Blueberry Fool), I ventured into my first fruit pie-making experience. It was delicious! Warm and crumbly and oh-so-blueberry-ish. Mmm.
We’ve been pretty into cooking lately; in the last week, we’ve made that, yummy orange and dried cherry scones, a delicious balsamic & basil bruschetta, a wonderful sweet & spicy vegetable meal over brown rice, and mascarpone-stuffed figs. Cooking together slash for two people is way better than for one.
Speaking of cooking, we had our housewarming party this past Saturday! It was so fun and we had lots of people come by. It was great to just relax with many friends, and it was SO fun to have my parents come up. Mutual love between them and our friends ensued. Many thanks to them for helping us finish things up at the last minute. Menu items included several tarts (chocolate, lime, fruit), cheesecake, fondue, fruit (some of which was arranged quite spectacularly, if I do say so myself, thanks to inspiration from our cruise J), spinach artichoke dip, apple/blue cheese/walnut stuffed mushrooms, deviled eggs, homemade pizza bites…and, a clear winner of the evening, chocolate balls.
Long story short, I was making the tarte au chocolat and was ever-so-slightly cocky about it because it was so easy the last time I made it and turned out unbelievably. So I’m waiting for it to bake and it just ISN’T. So I finally decide to take it out after it had been in 20 minutes longer than it was supposed to be. As I pulled it out, though, it completely collapsed in on itself. It was a disaster. And I almost cried. Except Dan was super sweet to me. Anyway, it just sat there looking all forlorn and destroyed for several hours (with Dan all the while telling me he would eat it) when it finally occurs to me that we should just make little balls out of it to dip in the fondue. Not even kidding, that’s the only thing on which I got complimented all night. If only they knew.
PS - Answer: They're both blue, except for the elephant.
PPS - I didn't come up with it.
PPPS - Though I may or may not have giggled out loud at it. In my cube.
Anyway, $40 worth of fruit later, including almost 5 pounds of blueberries, we decided to not purchase their pies and make one of our own! So last week, after being tempted to make many other desserts in the Williams-Sonoma Bride & Groom Cookbook (namely, the Blueberry Fool), I ventured into my first fruit pie-making experience. It was delicious! Warm and crumbly and oh-so-blueberry-ish. Mmm.
We’ve been pretty into cooking lately; in the last week, we’ve made that, yummy orange and dried cherry scones, a delicious balsamic & basil bruschetta, a wonderful sweet & spicy vegetable meal over brown rice, and mascarpone-stuffed figs. Cooking together slash for two people is way better than for one.
Speaking of cooking, we had our housewarming party this past Saturday! It was so fun and we had lots of people come by. It was great to just relax with many friends, and it was SO fun to have my parents come up. Mutual love between them and our friends ensued. Many thanks to them for helping us finish things up at the last minute. Menu items included several tarts (chocolate, lime, fruit), cheesecake, fondue, fruit (some of which was arranged quite spectacularly, if I do say so myself, thanks to inspiration from our cruise J), spinach artichoke dip, apple/blue cheese/walnut stuffed mushrooms, deviled eggs, homemade pizza bites…and, a clear winner of the evening, chocolate balls.
Long story short, I was making the tarte au chocolat and was ever-so-slightly cocky about it because it was so easy the last time I made it and turned out unbelievably. So I’m waiting for it to bake and it just ISN’T. So I finally decide to take it out after it had been in 20 minutes longer than it was supposed to be. As I pulled it out, though, it completely collapsed in on itself. It was a disaster. And I almost cried. Except Dan was super sweet to me. Anyway, it just sat there looking all forlorn and destroyed for several hours (with Dan all the while telling me he would eat it) when it finally occurs to me that we should just make little balls out of it to dip in the fondue. Not even kidding, that’s the only thing on which I got complimented all night. If only they knew.
PS - Answer: They're both blue, except for the elephant.
PPS - I didn't come up with it.
PPPS - Though I may or may not have giggled out loud at it. In my cube.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Come Again Another Day
On Sunday, we decided it would be fun to take a little stroll down to Penn’s Landing. We both absolutely adore wandering through Old City and Society Hill, and it was the perfect lazy afternoon for a walk. We walked past all the cute old townhomes, speed-walk-raced a horse carriage up Lombard, and said hello to the church where Joseph Smith preached.
So here we are on a quiet Sabbath, just wandering around (still in our respective skirts/dress pants, mind you) when all of a sudden, I feel a raindrop. We ignore it, thinking it would just sprinkle a little. And then they sky opened. Without notice, it just started pouring. So our umbrella-less selves quickly ducked under a tree, and when that didn’t really do anything, we huddled under a teeny Old City awning…well, it’s more of a 6-inch overhang than an awning.
So here we are, hugging this random wall, when (how this was even possible, I don’t know) it starts to rain EVEN harder. So we climb up on the steps to stand directly in front of the door to sneak a couple extra inches of coverage. We’re just chatting while watching the rain when all of a sudden, the door flies open behind us. We turn abruptly to find a nice, middle-aged woman framed in the opening. We hastily (and flustered-ly, in my case) explain how we were just trying to take refuge from the downpour, did she mind if strangers just invaded her doorstep and passed the time there? Luckily, she was nice enough to not mind, and we turned back to the wetness.
Since it was raining so unbelievably hard, it couldn’t possibly last very long, right? Um, yeah. About that. Forty-five minutes later, we were STILL on this random woman’s doorstep. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for running about in a drizzle, especially when clothed in pajamas and/or my ladybug galoshes. But when in a skirt and dressy shoes and when it is pouring buckets upon buckets of water, yeah, not so much. So Dan finally suggests that maybe we should just ask if we could possibly borrow an umbrella. I laugh this off, thinking it absurd. But when the rain seriously didn’t even slow down, I figured, hey, why not?
So yeah. We knocked on a random woman’s door to ask to borrow an umbrella. The best part was that she actually asked us to hold on while she went to check (she didn’t actually live there – she was visiting her son), and came back with her son, her husbands, and not one, but TWO umbrellas in tow. They were seriously the nicest people – they asked if we wanted to come in to dry off, told us to keep the umbrellas as long as we needed, and told us we should come over some time, as he had just moved to the neighborhood from Brooklyn Heights. Clearly we will be taking them some sort of sweet treat in honor of their newfound status of Nicest People on the Planet.
And then we came home to find a hole in our guest room ceiling with water gushing through. Yay, rain!
So here we are on a quiet Sabbath, just wandering around (still in our respective skirts/dress pants, mind you) when all of a sudden, I feel a raindrop. We ignore it, thinking it would just sprinkle a little. And then they sky opened. Without notice, it just started pouring. So our umbrella-less selves quickly ducked under a tree, and when that didn’t really do anything, we huddled under a teeny Old City awning…well, it’s more of a 6-inch overhang than an awning.
So here we are, hugging this random wall, when (how this was even possible, I don’t know) it starts to rain EVEN harder. So we climb up on the steps to stand directly in front of the door to sneak a couple extra inches of coverage. We’re just chatting while watching the rain when all of a sudden, the door flies open behind us. We turn abruptly to find a nice, middle-aged woman framed in the opening. We hastily (and flustered-ly, in my case) explain how we were just trying to take refuge from the downpour, did she mind if strangers just invaded her doorstep and passed the time there? Luckily, she was nice enough to not mind, and we turned back to the wetness.
Since it was raining so unbelievably hard, it couldn’t possibly last very long, right? Um, yeah. About that. Forty-five minutes later, we were STILL on this random woman’s doorstep. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for running about in a drizzle, especially when clothed in pajamas and/or my ladybug galoshes. But when in a skirt and dressy shoes and when it is pouring buckets upon buckets of water, yeah, not so much. So Dan finally suggests that maybe we should just ask if we could possibly borrow an umbrella. I laugh this off, thinking it absurd. But when the rain seriously didn’t even slow down, I figured, hey, why not?
So yeah. We knocked on a random woman’s door to ask to borrow an umbrella. The best part was that she actually asked us to hold on while she went to check (she didn’t actually live there – she was visiting her son), and came back with her son, her husbands, and not one, but TWO umbrellas in tow. They were seriously the nicest people – they asked if we wanted to come in to dry off, told us to keep the umbrellas as long as we needed, and told us we should come over some time, as he had just moved to the neighborhood from Brooklyn Heights. Clearly we will be taking them some sort of sweet treat in honor of their newfound status of Nicest People on the Planet.
And then we came home to find a hole in our guest room ceiling with water gushing through. Yay, rain!
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Fourth
The only thing better than a 3-day weekend? A 3-and-a-half day weekend. :) Since the 4th was on a Friday this year, we got our summer half-day Friday on Thursday and it was glorious. It all started with me morphing into Super Errand Girl and, I am not even kidding, in 4 hours going to Wal*Mart, the bank, Macy*s, Williams-Sonoma, Linens 'N Things, Target, and Bed, Bath & Beyond. Now I know 4 hours is a long time to be shopping, but that's SEVEN places, people. The best part was that we actually made money off of it - I won an award at work for which I received $100 (deposited at the bank), and I spent a grand total of about $29 (about $3 not including Wal*Mart...you still think I'm making this up) since we had wedding gift cards at each of these places and we wanted to use them up in getting all our new house-y things for our open house next weekend. So a huge thank you to all who were kind enough to gift us something in honor of our nuptials. :)
When I got back to the city (finally), I met Dan, Nastya, and Lee at Reading Terminal where we bought approximately 7/8 of the produce place and several types of cheeses for the weekend festivities. That night, we went to Vetri for dinner. Vetri is widely lauded as the best Italian restaurant on the east coast, if not the entire country. Sooo we decided to check it out. OH MAN. Yeah, the portions were miniscule, but the FOOD. Oh, the food. It was magnificent. It was actually less pricey than I expected (~$20 for a pasta entree), so if we had each gotten two entrees, which would have been plenty sufficient, it would've been more along the lines of what I expected in terms of price. So anyway, the spinach gnocchi literally melted into a light, fluffy ball of goodness in my mouth, and the almond tortellini and eggplant ravioli were both wonderful, as was the golden onion crepe with truffle sauce. Whoo boy.
After dinner, we got some Capogiro and wandered over to Independence Mall, where the Philly Pops were performing patriotic music in front of Independence Hall. A Tommy J look-a-like read the Declaration, and the band played the tunes to each division of the services (veterans were asked to stand). Perfect 4th-eve activity.
The next day, we slept in, had Liz & co. drop by to say hi, and went to eat at Sabrina's Cafe, one of our favorite places in the city. Delightful. We went back over to Independence Hall and did a little tour with our wonderful guide, Larry, but sadly missed the giant block of cheese (I'm skeptical about it being donated for food...it was sitting outside the whole time...) and then went home and rested for a bit. Dan & I went over to the Art Museum to meet up with Liz & her friends for John Legend and awesome fireworks behind (and in front of!) the museum. Spectacular, despite the occasional rain.
Saturday was filled with cooking (I made apple scones and a zucchini/asparagus/basil frittata for brunch) and grilling (burgers/veggie burgers, corn, portabellos, other veggie skewers, and the hottest jalapeno poppers on the planet, with caprese salad, good cheese, homemade guacamole, etc.). Let's just say we created our first true feast. Thank heavens Nastya & Lee were there to help out. We went over and watched Fireworks and heard Boyz II Men (whoo!) in the rain that night. We were soaked.
Sunday deserves its own post, and this is getting really long. And the lengthiness is directly correlating to how badly written it is.
When I got back to the city (finally), I met Dan, Nastya, and Lee at Reading Terminal where we bought approximately 7/8 of the produce place and several types of cheeses for the weekend festivities. That night, we went to Vetri for dinner. Vetri is widely lauded as the best Italian restaurant on the east coast, if not the entire country. Sooo we decided to check it out. OH MAN. Yeah, the portions were miniscule, but the FOOD. Oh, the food. It was magnificent. It was actually less pricey than I expected (~$20 for a pasta entree), so if we had each gotten two entrees, which would have been plenty sufficient, it would've been more along the lines of what I expected in terms of price. So anyway, the spinach gnocchi literally melted into a light, fluffy ball of goodness in my mouth, and the almond tortellini and eggplant ravioli were both wonderful, as was the golden onion crepe with truffle sauce. Whoo boy.
After dinner, we got some Capogiro and wandered over to Independence Mall, where the Philly Pops were performing patriotic music in front of Independence Hall. A Tommy J look-a-like read the Declaration, and the band played the tunes to each division of the services (veterans were asked to stand). Perfect 4th-eve activity.
The next day, we slept in, had Liz & co. drop by to say hi, and went to eat at Sabrina's Cafe, one of our favorite places in the city. Delightful. We went back over to Independence Hall and did a little tour with our wonderful guide, Larry, but sadly missed the giant block of cheese (I'm skeptical about it being donated for food...it was sitting outside the whole time...) and then went home and rested for a bit. Dan & I went over to the Art Museum to meet up with Liz & her friends for John Legend and awesome fireworks behind (and in front of!) the museum. Spectacular, despite the occasional rain.
Saturday was filled with cooking (I made apple scones and a zucchini/asparagus/basil frittata for brunch) and grilling (burgers/veggie burgers, corn, portabellos, other veggie skewers, and the hottest jalapeno poppers on the planet, with caprese salad, good cheese, homemade guacamole, etc.). Let's just say we created our first true feast. Thank heavens Nastya & Lee were there to help out. We went over and watched Fireworks and heard Boyz II Men (whoo!) in the rain that night. We were soaked.
Sunday deserves its own post, and this is getting really long. And the lengthiness is directly correlating to how badly written it is.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Mann Center
Back in May, I got an email announcing that the Mann Center was giving away tickets to most all of their Philadelphia Orchestra concerts over the summer. Happy day! Needless to say, I immediately obtained the maximum of 4 tickets to every single one that was available. So we now have a summer full of fun and free concerts!
Last night was the first of our 2008 outdoor musical adventures. One of my favorite things about the Mann is that it's outside and you can bring a picnic and relax and if you wanted to just fall asleep while listening to beautiful music, it would be okay. I never really got offended when people fell asleep in my orchestra concerts (namely, my mom :)) because I figured if the music were bad, it wouldn't lull them into a sweet slumber. Anyway, so last night, we went with our dear friends Jen & Audrey in celebration of Jen's second-to-last night in Philadelphia. We took salads and drinks and fruit and it was delightful.
As the season opener, it was an incredibly diverse program, but it came together in a unique and wonderful way. First up (after the national anthem, obviously...which is actually one of my very favorite part of Mann Center concerts) was Copland's Appalachian Spring. Glory of glories. Oh my. I love Copland in general - he's probably my favorite composer - but listening to the outstanding Philly Orchestra performing him on a simply stunning evening was breathtaking. I actually looked up at the perfectly dusky clouds and commented to Dan that if those clouds were to have music, that would be it. Wow.
Next was the phenomenal Yo-Yo Ma playing Saint-Saens' first cello concerto. I'd never heard him perform before, and boy was it incredible. His tone and control and precision were all flawless.
After intermission was Musorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain and Stravinsky's Firebird suite. Both have fond memories, as Dan & I studied the first in our History of the Symphony class years ago (cue Fantasia), and the Orchestra played the latter in a concert to which I took my parents.
Anyway, this post is probably really boring to read but I pretty much adore the Mann/the Philly Orchestra/music in general so clearly I had to detail it out.
Last night was the first of our 2008 outdoor musical adventures. One of my favorite things about the Mann is that it's outside and you can bring a picnic and relax and if you wanted to just fall asleep while listening to beautiful music, it would be okay. I never really got offended when people fell asleep in my orchestra concerts (namely, my mom :)) because I figured if the music were bad, it wouldn't lull them into a sweet slumber. Anyway, so last night, we went with our dear friends Jen & Audrey in celebration of Jen's second-to-last night in Philadelphia. We took salads and drinks and fruit and it was delightful.
As the season opener, it was an incredibly diverse program, but it came together in a unique and wonderful way. First up (after the national anthem, obviously...which is actually one of my very favorite part of Mann Center concerts) was Copland's Appalachian Spring. Glory of glories. Oh my. I love Copland in general - he's probably my favorite composer - but listening to the outstanding Philly Orchestra performing him on a simply stunning evening was breathtaking. I actually looked up at the perfectly dusky clouds and commented to Dan that if those clouds were to have music, that would be it. Wow.
Next was the phenomenal Yo-Yo Ma playing Saint-Saens' first cello concerto. I'd never heard him perform before, and boy was it incredible. His tone and control and precision were all flawless.
After intermission was Musorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain and Stravinsky's Firebird suite. Both have fond memories, as Dan & I studied the first in our History of the Symphony class years ago (cue Fantasia), and the Orchestra played the latter in a concert to which I took my parents.
Anyway, this post is probably really boring to read but I pretty much adore the Mann/the Philly Orchestra/music in general so clearly I had to detail it out.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Really Back
For all 2.4 readers of this blog (and probably even fewer who are still checking after this long hiatus), we've returned! The last month has been an absolute whirlwind. I don't think I have the time energy, or procrastination skill (that tells you something about how dense this time really was) to detail everything that happened, but I'll try to do a brief recap before swinging back into normal posting.
The wedding was absolutely perfect. We could not have asked for more. The ceremonies went beautifully, the reception was tons of fun, and the details were exactly how we imagined them. Best of all, we were able to celebrate with the vast majority of those we love most. A HUGE thank you to all those who helped make our special day way beyond what we ever expected (including family, friends, bridesmaids, groomsmen, incredible photographers, DJs, caterers, servers, cake makers, hair do-ers, and oh my! so many others). You can expect an actual written thank you soon. I promise we will get around to it.
We spent a grand total of about 6 ours in our hotel room that night, after arriving at about 1am and needing to leave promptly on the 7am shuttle to the Dulles airport to catch our flight to Puerto Rico. Incredibly, I felt more rested than I remembered in a long time that morning, having nothing else to PLAN. Wow. That's a great feeling. We bummed around Old San Juan that day, enjoying a little snooze on a old ledge overlooking the beautiful Caribbean waters. We explored some before boarding our cruise ship (the Carnival Destiny) that evening to set sail for St. Thomas, Dominica, Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua, and St. Kitts. Highlights include:
The wedding was absolutely perfect. We could not have asked for more. The ceremonies went beautifully, the reception was tons of fun, and the details were exactly how we imagined them. Best of all, we were able to celebrate with the vast majority of those we love most. A HUGE thank you to all those who helped make our special day way beyond what we ever expected (including family, friends, bridesmaids, groomsmen, incredible photographers, DJs, caterers, servers, cake makers, hair do-ers, and oh my! so many others). You can expect an actual written thank you soon. I promise we will get around to it.
We spent a grand total of about 6 ours in our hotel room that night, after arriving at about 1am and needing to leave promptly on the 7am shuttle to the Dulles airport to catch our flight to Puerto Rico. Incredibly, I felt more rested than I remembered in a long time that morning, having nothing else to PLAN. Wow. That's a great feeling. We bummed around Old San Juan that day, enjoying a little snooze on a old ledge overlooking the beautiful Caribbean waters. We explored some before boarding our cruise ship (the Carnival Destiny) that evening to set sail for St. Thomas, Dominica, Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua, and St. Kitts. Highlights include:
- Sleeping! I took a preemptive Dramamine the first night for fear that I'd get seasick (I did the last time my family took a cruise, and was fine after taking Dramamine). We fell asleep around 11pm that night and finally raised our heads from our pillows at 11:30am Monday morning. We went to eat something out on the deck and, made even more drowsy by the warm sunshine, I literally could not even walk down to our cabin. So we stretched out on some deck chairs until 3pm, at which point we (I) finally woke up and decided we'd better at least take a peek at St. Thomas. We had to be back on board at 4:30pm, so we came back and took a nap from 5-8pm (walking off the ship really takes it out of you!). We went and ate dinner and fell asleep again by 10:30pm. Mmm. Though I'm pretty sure the drowsiness would've worn off after a day, I decided to forego the medication after that since we were really only sailing at night, anyway (there was a port every day).
- Winning the Love and Marriage Game aboard the ship! Announcer slash Cruise Director Lenny asked for the newest wedded couple and the oldest, along with one in between. When one couple with our same date volunteered, we kept our mouths shut. But then another couple spoke up that they'd gotten hitched the same day, so he started asking for times. We chimed in and conveniently used the latter of our two ceremonies to get called up on stage along with the couples of 52 (Santa & Mrs. Claus...not kidding, there was some joke about this and they just played it out the rest of the cruise) and 40 years. And...we won! Actually, we dominated. Lenny said that he couldn't remember the last time newlyweds won the game. We were presented with a fake gold cruise ship statue and champagne, which we traded in for sparkling cider and drank up on the Lido Deck under the stars. Entertaining moments included my response to the question of favorite honeymoon memory (snorkeling with baracudas in St. Lucia). Lenny made fun of me. Then read Dan's answer (the same).
- The aforementioned snorkeling with baracudas. We swam over to the side of this cove and I got nervous about the old abandoned logs and planks in the water (what if something's hiding in there? what if they're slimy?). I didn't really pay attention to the long silver things floating next to me, merely thinking they were unusually cool. Dan later pointed out that they were baracudas. I'm glad I didn't know that there.
- Scootering around Antigua. Dan had been wanting to rent a scooter the entire trip, so we finally managed it in our second to last port ($20 for almost 2 hours...we were top-notch negotiators everywhere). We took it to the beach, up some beautiful overlooks, and through random residential and rather run-down (hello unintentional alliteration!) communities. Though I got scared every time we pushed above 25...kilometers...Dan maneuvered the bike like a pro.
- Snorkeling with sea turtles in Barbados! $10 for the two of us. Bigsweetsupercute turtles. Awesome. Enough said.
- Eating way more amazing food than is humanly fathomable. Really, if you've never been on a cruise, it's difficult to even describe the degree to which we gorged ourselves. And it was all. so. good. Wow. Favorites included chilled strawberry and cucumber soups, mushroom caps, mango cardamom cheesecake, guava jelly, hash browns, molten chocolate cake, nicely arranged fruit, and oh my so much else.
- Juggling. Comedy. Magic. Dancing. All were included in the nightly shows on board.
- TOWEL ANIMALS!!!
- Being together 24/7. Married life is unequivocally the best.
So that was the cruise. It was the greatest. And the perfect honeymoon - SO relaxing. We didn't even have to decide where to eat for each meal! We sepnt another night in San Juan when we got back, which was great. We just went to the beach and walked around - so nice! And we stayed in an adorable little non-chain hotel that was right by the beach - highly recommended. It was so lovely and peaceful and the people were so nice, and the amenities top notch.
We returned that Monday (the 2nd) to DC, where my dad graciously picked us up from the airport, and where we spent that evening with my wonderful family. We drove back up to Philly on Tuesday, stopping along the way to buy some beautiful furniture, including a bedroom set and a dining table. We were thinking we'd make do with some Ikea stuff for a while, but then decided we wanted something a little nicer as a married couple. It's so pretty!!
The weeks after that have also been hectic - the following weekend, we flew to Salt Lake to spend time with Dan's incredible family and celebrate with a reception there on my birthday, during which Dan pampered me to no end. The week/weekend after was spent frantically organizing and attending the sealing/reception of the awesome Steve & Mickie, who looked absolutely stunning! What an awesome couple. They were both so smiley and ridiculously happy both days, which was so great to witness. Since we were in the neighborhood (sort of), we decided to spend the weekend in Niagara Falls since I'd never been. We were chauffeured and toured about by our wonderful and gracious friend and hostess Mar, and had a delightful time hiking about. Then a couple of days later, I went to Minneapolis for work.
Whew.
The end. Of our traveling. For a while, at least. So now we're just trying to get officially and totally settled. Our furniture is built and arranged (thanks, honey!). Most things are organized, except for gifts we still have to buy with our gift cards. Couch arrived today (yay!). We'll keep you posted. Thanks for reading!
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