cruisin' along

That's right! For the honeymoon, we headed on a seven day cruise around the Caribbean.
besides the happy honeymooners, Daddy, Starri, Manda and Michael were also along for the ride.

We left Miami Saturday, and cruised all night to our first stop at Half Moon Cay, an island in the Bahamas that the cruise line owned, so it was just the cruisers on the beach.

One of the only pictures of Shan pre-sunburn

Yes. Shan did proceed to get one of the worlds worst sunburns on this beach. But before that, we did have a great time swimming and hanging out on the beach before getting back on the boat to float over to St. Thomas. (Luckily, we had a sea day in between, so Shan could sort of recover from is 12th degree burns).

Maegan's Bay Beach, one of the top 10 most beautiful beaches in the world

(check out that awesomely splotchy sunburn that Shan is sporting)

St. Thomas was another hang out on the beach day, and a little shopping before boating on over to San Juan, Puerto Rico. We did a lot more site seeing in PR than the other locations, mostly because there wasn't a swimmable beach there, but also because there were these great old forts there that used to encircle all of San Juan. Shan loved checking out all of the old structures, and look out towers.

Shan and I at the fort

View from the lookout tower

That brings us to my favorite, and least favorite part of the trip all rolled into one.


Grand Turk. I have wanted to see Turks and Caicos pretty much since I came out of the womb, so I was SO excited to see it for reals. We had arranged to go on an excursion at T&C that included a catamaran ride, to snorkel at a reef for an hour,
before getting back on the "party boat" which included drinks (and, unfortunately, drunken dancing...)


and a little beach time on a private beach,


before taking us back to the main beach...where I proceeded to not hold down all that rum punch I'm seen slamming in a few of the previous pictures. While I was paying for not eating enough to counteract the alcohol consumption, my new hubby was out scouting some real estate for us (I wish!)
Before he dragged (because I couldn't walk) me back to the boat, so that we could finish up our trip and wind up back in MIA.

Check out Shan's AWESOME leg burns

(yes, they still look like that almost a month later)

Overall, we had a great time. We did learn that we're not necessarily cruise people, as we enjoyed being on the beach more than boat activities. We didn't really partake of any of the awesomeness on the boat, except for the karaoke most nights. We do plan to try to return to T&C for our 5 year anniversary, where I can hopefully actually enjoy it, not in a drunken stupor.

I'll end with this; because it just seems fitting:

Yes, this is probably the MOST pictures Shan and I have ever had taken together, with the exception of our wedding.

Thanks to Starri Nation for the pictures!

she's baaack!

Okay. I'm back. and on a real computer.
There have been a TON of changes in the life and times of me and mine...which most of you already know about, but for anyone out there that doesn't or anyone who stumbles upon me on the interweb (hi!) I'll fill you in...

volume one: the wedding
Most of you know we got married here. Shan and I left on Wednesday for a leisurely drive down to Asheville. Thursday we got up and had a great last day before the wedding hub-bub began just to ourselves. We went on a tour of the Biltmore, since Shan had never seen it before. We also had a wonderful lunch at the Bistro, before checking out the wine cellar where the ceremony was actually being held.

Friday, family started rolling into town, and it was time for a rehearsal-less (we didn't actually rehearse anything) rehearsal dinner at Luella's.

The whole pre-wedding party, getting ready to chow down on some BBQ!

The only thing Shannon asked for in the whole wedding process was to have BBQ for the rehearsal...so we went to this great little whole in the wall, and ate til there was literally NO MORE ROOM, before Shan and I went our separate ways for the night before tradition.
My part of the party (Crys, Daddy, and Starri) headed back to the Inn at Biltmore for some post dinner drinks with Arrie, before crashing for the night.

The day of, Crys and I got up to go have our herr did before the rest of the family arrived and the getting ready proceeded.

(and now for a stream of pictures...)

My favorite picture of the wedding party!

The wedding itself was perfect. Exactly what we wanted it to be, with just immediate family (with the exception of Shan's sister, who we really missed :( )
We had the ceremony and the reception in the same room, the Champagne Cellar. Which to get into, you had to walk down this beautiful tunnel

and into the room that we had decorated with what felt like hundreds of candles (thanks Crys, Manda and Arrie!!)

After the ceremony, our guests were given a tour of the winery and a wine tasting, while the room was flipped for our reception. (which was just a cocktail hour and dinner--and of course cake) The dinner was amazing--seriously some of the most delicious. food. ever.


All in all, it was an uneventful event. We had a wonderful time, with wonderful people and wouldn't have changed a thing about it.

Pictures by Starri Nation, and Sara Wise
flowers by Amanda Jewel

In progress

I do believe that our Internet will be hooked up tomorrow and then I'll be free to blog from a real computer instead of from a iPhone. There will be pictures! And details of the wedding and honeymoon and house! Thanks for your patience and stay tuned...