Honeymoon - wrapping up with the classic self portraits

Here's the situation: You're on your honeymoon and you want pictures of both you and your new husband. You could ask a stranger every time, or there is always the good old standby of the self portrait. Take the camera, stick your arm out as far as you can, try to guess what is centered and give it a whirl. You guys know what I'm talking about!

Here are all our best self-portrait shots! Get ready for a lot of close ups of Matt and I!

Our last picture of the night of our wedding. SO HAPPY!

Flight from Spokane to Nashville - Sunday after the weding....tired!

Flight from Knoxville to Cancun - Honeymoon here we come!!

First day at the beach

Loving our honeymoon suite and comfy robes!

Do we look tanner yet? Another beach shot.

Beach front candelight dinner. So romantic!

Our one and only trip off the resort to Tulum

Enjoying dinner. Here we actually do look tanner.

Soaking up our last day at the beach.

And to wrap up, a very mushy honeymoon self-portrait.

Honeymoon - Towel designs

I love towel oragami - it's so fun to come back to your hotel room to find out what the towels will be that day. The resort offered a class several days a week. We had every intention of going but since we rarely knew what time it was, we never made it on time to learn all the ins and outs of making fun towel objects. Sigh....maybe next time!

This cute lil' guy was definitely my favorite. I tried to snuggle him up but then his head fell off. It was tramatic!

And since you're getting glimpses into our room, I'll show you a few more pictures that show off our lovely Swim-Up Jacuzzi Suite. I loved sitting outside our room in the lounge chairs that rested in about 6 inches of water. If I got warm while reading, I just plunked my toes in and hollered to Israel to ask for a cold, refreshing margarita!

Looking out our sliding glass door to the pool and 4 lounge chairs - two in the water and two out.

Cheers to our jacuzzi tub!

The pool right outside our door.

Picture taken in the pool looking towards our room.

Lounge chairs, books and frozen drinks - this was how we spent most afternoons.

Honeymoon - And we drank (part 3)

From my first two honeymoon posts, you've probably gathered that Matt and I did our fair share of drinking. We often started the day out with mimosas with breakfast and continued drinking throughout the day, enjoyed wine with dinner and hit up the bar afterwards. Ahhhh, have I mentioned how great the all-inclusive package was for us?

This is another picture heavy blog, but I figured I had the pictures to prove all the drinks we enjoyed, so why not share?

The picture below is the Swim-Up Bar that was right by our room. You can see the lounge chairs outside our room in the right hand side of the picture. It was a pretty hoping place. We got to meet lots of fun people here. One couple was from the tri-cities in Washington and shared our same wedding date. There were quite a few British people at the resort - we learned that there are quite a few direct flights to Cancun so it's a fairly easy destination for them. (A total side note: I'm fairly certain that the British folks were the reason there were so many topless women at the beach....there were lots of older women who never wore a bathing suit top and no, it wasn't pretty....hopefully Matt will blog about one woman in particular who we saw a lot of and even nicknamed - but never once spoke to.)
Here is Matt with our favorite bartender, Israel. He was the bartender at the Swim Up Bar featured in the picture above. We tipped him very well because his service was exceptional. He climbed over plans and our neighbor's porch to bring us our drinks so we didn't even have to swim up to the Swim Up Bar if we didn't want to.

The main bar had swings surrounding the entire bar.

Don't worry, we drank plenty of water too!

Waitresses also brought drinks out to our beachside lounge chairs.

This was my favorite drink - The Bahama Mama.

Honeymoon aka Food Indulgences (part 2)

What did we do at our resort? Well you already saw that we relaxed a lot. In between relaxing, we ate. A lot. One of the perks of an all-inclusive is that your meals are included so you feel completely justified in eating out for breakfast, lunch and dinner and answering "Yes" every time a waiter asked if you would care for dessert. I'm happy to say I only gained 4 pounds - which is really hard to believe after I ate and drank so much only to lay pool- and beach-side. And no surprise - it came off as soon as I came home and started eating resonably.

So here is a little photo tour of the restaurants we enjoyed at the El Dorado Seaside suites.

The Mexican Restuarant - I'm blanking on the name...

See that ray of dips? It was three types of yummy salsa and their fresh guacemole. Notice how very few chips remain...it was very good!

Klay Talay

Yep - Matt's drinking wine and a mai tai. This was not uncommon...yet another perk of an all-inclusive, you're justified in ordering lots and lots of drinks!

Hmmm, everything sounds so good. What should we get? How about two types of sushi rolls, spring rolls and two entrees. And yes, we'll be ordering dessert too. See why I'm surprised I only gained 4 pounds?!

Yummy sushi!

Candlelight Dinner on the Beach

Our honeymoon package came with a complimentary candlelight dinner on the beach. It was so much fun! We ate dinner right around sunset and enjoyed a nice 2.5 hour dinner with lobster bisque, cheese fondue and dessert.

I have no idea what this dessert was but it was really good. And yep, those are empty shot glasses that were once filled with tequila. Since we met over a shot of tequila, we felt it was necessary to do a little toast and share a shot during our fancy dinner.

The International Restaurant

The food at the International Resturant was just okay. These pictures are from lunch one day, and yes, we indulged in dessert because we were on vacation and you can justify dessert with every meal. Look how cute (and happy) Matt looks with his margarita and chocolate-y goodness!

Mia Casa

On our last night we went to the Italian restuarant, Mia Casa. This was our second time to this restaurant - we don't have a picture of our first experience...partly because there was some major wine spillage on our part and we didn't really want to document with a photo! Both times we ate at Mia Casa, we ordered spaghetti. Such a simple dish, but they did it so well that neither one of us cared to try anything else! And this picture of course shows us eating dessert because that's how we roll.

One thing we noticed and really enjoyed about the restaurants were the portion sizes. We were served reasonable servings which left room for dessert and I didn't really walk away from any meal feeling uncomfortably full. The meals were served very leisurely. We sipped on drinks - often red wine and enjoyed wonderful company without being in a rush to get somewhere or feeling rushed that the restaurant wanted our table to seat the next guests. Though to be completely honest, my stomach was definitely not happy with me by the time we left - I was ready to detox a little and get back to my normal eating habits which don't include dessert with every meal (sad, but true).

Honeymoon -aka- Total Relaxation (part 1)

Matt and I honeymooned, as you may already know, at an all-inclusive, adults-only, beach resort in the Mayan Riveria called the El Dorado Seaside Suites. Many people before us have said it, and we'll be telling any engaged couples we come across: "Do an all-inclusive honeymoon, it is SO worth it. You will never regret it!"

We were so exhausted after the wedding and all of the traveling -- we left Spokane at 8 am on Sunday after the wedding, arrived in Nashville at 5 pm, drove back to Knoxville and got home at 9 pm. We left the very next morning at 9 am and arrived in Cancun around 4 pm and got to our resort around 7 pm. We were SO ready to relax. And relax we did! Here are some photos to show off the wonderful, very low-key resort we stayed in.

Here's the beach:

Here's how the beach looked from my point of view at the main bar (cleary with wine on hand).

Matt's view of the beach from a lounge chair.

Matt loves me thiiiiis much:

These beds were everywhere. For several of the days there, Matt and I claimed a bed like this on the beach in the morning and pulled up two lounge chairs too, so we had our choice of sun or shade. Then we relaxed there until it was time to trade a beach bed for the bed in our room for a mid-day siesta. See? Total relaxation!

A cute well.

A little random cabana right around the corner from our room (and one of the bars as you can see from Matt's double-fisting action).

The boardwalk. Matt is pondering life...or maybe he was just impersonating the seagulls from Finding Nemo and yelling "Mine, mine, mine, mine!" at the seagulls and chasing them away...you guess which one was true.

A random statue - check how green and lush everything on the grounds looks!

Of course there were also pools, bars and restaurants around the resort. I'll be sharing more photos of the pool outside our room, the bar outside our room, the main bar and our favorite restaurants in some of my next posts. Stay tuned!

A last HOORAH!

I love that a wedding becomes so much more than one event. I'm always a fan of an excuse to hang out with all my girls. On Thursday we had my bachelorette party. My bridesmaids did such a great job of planning a day that I would love - and they kept all the details a secret so I was surprised all day long. I'll let the pictures do the talking...the only thing I don't have pictures of is the pole dancing (which is probably a good thing because we were all pretty awkward - with the exception of Kate who totally rocked it).

Brenna's car was decked out the bachelorette decor - balloons, streamers and a window sign.

Our first stop was Green Bluff which is perfect because I love Green Bluff! It a loop of farms on the outskirts of town and and just oozes the beauty of fall. I love to just soak up the crisp fall air and pretty landscape. Plus, Brenna and I went several years in a row when I lived in Pullman and we have such fond memories of those trips.

One of my favorite features is the pumpkin launcher. It wasn't open when we were there but you can picture how cool it is when a pumpkin flies through the air.

Then we went to an Italian restaurant for lunch - one that Megan introduced me to in college. The food was good, the company was great and the dessert was not good - which saved us a few calories. We didn't have ribbons at my bridal shower so the girls brought ribbon to make one before the rehearsal. I ended up forgetting it for the rehearsal - but not because I didn't love it, just because I was hectic and forgetful.

We went to dinner at Twigs.

Got drinks at a new bar in town where I was presented with a check list of things like "Get a piggyback ride from a stranger" and "Ask someone to marry you." And yes, I completed these tasks - I'm too competitive not to!

Then it was off to the piano bar where we were the center of attention. It was very fun. The picture below is the point where I was serenaded to "You lost that loving feeling." The bar provided the hat and boa and some kind stranger loaned me her aviators and I clearly had fun rocking it!

And a lovely last shot of the blog...my statue of liberty impersonation.

I was quite the impersonator by the end of the night (read: after I drank a lot). Someone has a picture of my Michael Jackson impersonation that is probably quite embarrassing. If I get my hands on it I promise to share it with you!

It was such a fun day and I hope we can do it again without having to wait for someone to get married! Thanks to my girlfriends for putting together such a fabulous "last hoorah!"