Our Honeymoon

The fact that we got to go to Turks and Caicos for our honeymoon was nothing short of miraculous!  James' dad traveled a lot for work before retiring so he still had tons of frequent flyer miles saved up.  He told us we could go wherever we wanted to go with the miles he had left.  One night we sat down to see what our options were, and Turks and Caicos came up as one of the cheapest options.  It was cheaper than going to Oregon or somewhere on the east coast.  It helped that we were headed that way during the middle of hurricane season!Turks and Caicos it was!  His parents were so generous with our honeymoon!  I'm so blessed to have the best in-laws ever!  It was quite the process to actually get there.  Our first leg took us to LA where we stayed the night.  It turns out W was quite the conversation starter!  It always led to people finding out we were on our honeymoon which led to a few perks.  Our hotel in LA gave us our biggest honeymoon perk. 

One our flight to LA...just in the nick of time!

They bumped us up to an executive suite for free!  Look at how enormous this room is!  Poor James was in so much pain and so exhausted once we got there!  It didn't keep us from having a nice dinner before catching some Z's.  Another perk they gave us was a $50 voucher to their super nice restaurant.  We had the most amazing dinner!  James still talks about his steak and asparagus to this day, and I had braised beef short rib lasagna with the best sauce ever known to mankind.  Thank you Sheraton at LAX!

After a few hours of sleep we were up bright and early to catch a 5am flight to Miami.

So so sleepy!

After like a 6 hour layover in Miami, we were finally on our way to Turks and Caicos!  I have to mention here that James introduced me to Cuban food at the airport in Miami.  My life was changed forever!  Ropa Vieja and tostones...my mouth waters just thinking about it!  That might just make an appearance later in this post on our layover in Miami on the way back!  We arrived in Turks around 9pm on Sunday.  It was dark so we couldn't see anything.  We were so excited for the morning so we could see where we were!  This was the view from our window the next morning!

We couldn't wait to get our toes out in the sand.  We headed out to the water before breakfast!

It truly was paradise!  It almost seems like a dream now that we are back home.  Were really in that beautiful place?!

So it is the only honeymoon that I've ever been on and ever will go on, but I believe it was perfect.  We had no commitments and no where to ever be.  We took naps every day.  We played in the water.  We did all the fun activities our resort had to offer (kayaking, sailing, zumba, snorkeling, etc).  We ate lots of food (white chocolate bread being our greatest find...we never left the restaurant without a piece of that...at every since meal).  We got free drinks at the bar (bora bora was the greatest find).  We wandered into town a couple of times and did some shopping.  It really was heaven!  And they had a little clinic there that we could go to every other day so James could get his finger looked at and dressings changed.

Relaxing on the beach!

Shopping in town.

James' parents gave him a waterproof camera for his birthday.  We made good use of that!  So fun!

W!!  He kept it up completely out of the water the first several days.

One night we made reservations at the fancier restaurant at the resort.  It was my first time trying scallops.  Not bad if they are downed in butter!

I wanted to see the sunrise once while we were there, so we got up way early and sat out on the dock.  It was so peaceful and beautiful!

We got this picture blown up and canvased and framed for our souvenir.

We had to pull in some reinforcement to keep W dry for snorkeling.  Worked like a charm!

This was my first time snorkeling and it really blew my mind.  How bizarre there is a whole world down there!

We stayed at an all-inclusive resort so everything we did was free (well, not free, but you know what I mean!).  The one excursion we paid extra for was this sunset sail.  It was so awesome!  And we met some great people!

After the sunset sail, we headed to Da Conch Shack.  Ryan had done some research for us and found that this was the best place to eat on the whole island.  He and Kara gave us cash for our wedding present to go there for dinner one night.  It was delicious!  Right on the sand overlooking the ocean!  We should have researched it ahead of time too.  We would have gone during the day so we could actually see the ocean!

Conch fritters, conch ceviche, fish tacos...all so yummy!

On our last day there, we just relaxed on the beach and played in the water and then got packed up to leave.

The view from the airplane back to Miami.  It was such a relaxing and fine!  We didn't want to leave!

As promised...the ropa vieja and tostones...

We had a much tighter layover in Miami on the way back.  So happy we could squeeze in one more visit to La Carreta!

From Miami, we flew to Dallas where we stayed the night.  We got up early Sunday morning to head to the airport.  Best news ever...there was a Salt Lick at the Dallas Airport!  We finished our honeymoon off right with some breakfast burritos Salt Lick style!  I think James' life was changed forever!

We got home around 12:30pm on Sunday, quickly dropped off all our stuff and headed to James' parents house to get him some church clothes (he hadn't moved any of his clothes over to our house yet), and then we headed to a 1:30pm sacrament meeting in Lehi.  We were so sad that it was over, but we were happy to be home and ready to start life together! 

P.S.  How many times did you spot W?

W

The first 24 hours of our marriage turned out to be a lot more eventful than we intended it to be!  Saturday morning, we got up, ate breakfast, and headed straight to the car wash to get the car cleaned from the reception decorating. Then we headed to our apartment to ditch all our wedding attire and finish packing for the honeymoon.  Our flight as at 6:10pm that evening.  James' brother and sister-in-law had made us an awesome picnic basket full of food for our first day as husband and wife.  We munched on that food all day.  Our first order of business when we got home was to finish packing so we were all set to go to the airport.  For those who know me well, you know that running late gives me the biggest ulcer, so I wanted everything ready and no last minute scurrying!
We got everything packed and then had a few hours before we needed to leave, so we opened all our wedding presents and cards.  It was so fun!  Just like Christmas! Our plan was to leave at 4pm so we would have plenty of time to park and take the shuttle to the airport.  At about 3:40pm, we decided to make some sandwiches before we headed out the door.  In our food basket was a delicious baguette and some deli meats and cheeses.  James made me a sandwich and then started to make one for himself.  He was using a brand new Wusthof bread knife to cut the baguette.  I still vividly can hear him say, "Oh shoot!  I'm going to need a band-aid, love."  He came over to the sink holding his left index finger to run it under the water and whole tip of his finger flapped off hanging on by just a little bit of skin on the top.  And then we both realized that we needed to head straight to the hospital.  My first two thoughts were...there is 0% chance we are leaving for our honeymoon today and my honey is hurt!  It was not good!  Let the endless sequence of miracles begin...

3:50pm (we were supposed to be leaving for the airport in 10 minutes don't forget!) - We headed to the hospital which is luckily about 5 miles away from our house.
4:00pm - Arrived at the ER and it seemed like they were almost waiting for us. The ER was dead, and we were taken back to a room immediately.  We explained our whole story and became the talk of the hospital.  Newlyweds on their way to their honeymoon with a little detour to the ER on the way.  When went back to have the stitches removed after our honeymoon all the nurses and doctors had heard about us.  Haha!  So glad we could keep everyone entertained!
4:10pm - A doctor arrived to look at James' finger and thought he could get us out the door quick enough to make our flight.
4:50pm - A lot of pain and 6 stitches later, we leave the hospital with a prescription for pain meds and anti-biotic.  There was no pharmacy at the hospital so I called a Walgreens that I knew is on the way to the airport and tried to fill it over the phone but they wouldn't pre-fill new prescriptions.  So I explained our situation again and they said to bring it there and they would help us as quickly as possible.
5:05pm - Arrived at Walgreens.  James went to fill the prescriptions and I went to stock up on band-aids, a thermometer, Neosporin, etc.
5:15pm - Left Walgreens and finally headed to the airport.  James called American Airlines on the way to explain our situation and that we were trying to still make the flight but it was going to be close.  The lady was so nice and told us that our best bet was to get to the airport ASAP because there wasn't another easy way to get us to our destination.
5:30pm - Arrived at the economy parking lot at the airport.  I decided to head straight to the back of the parking lot near the last shuttle stop.  We parked and as we were grabbing our bags out of the trunk, the shuttle arrived.  It could not have been more perfect timing!
5:38pm - Arrived at the American Airlines ticket counter with 2 minutes to spare.  They knew we were coming but had to close the flight 30 minute prior to the flight.
5:50pm - Arrived at our gate long enough to take the picture below, send it to our family, and get on the plane.  I had been keeping Kara up to date on everything because they were staying at our house and were going to find a crime scene when they got there.  They needed some warning about the disaster in the kitchen!

So we named James' injury "Wusthof" ("W" for short) after the knife that caused it.  My poor honey!  He told me later that he was in so much pain, but he was so calm through the whole thing.  He didn't let on at all all the misery he was in.  He didn't want me to worry.  The following picture is a little graphic.  It was taken about a week after we got home from our honeymoon.

Who lives less than 5 miles from a hospital?
Who has never had to wait a single minute in the ER?
Who has ever had a prescription filled in like 5 minutes?
Who has ever timed the airport parking shuttle perfectly?
Who has ever gotten to the airport 2 minutes before it closed and still made the flight?

James had no insurance before our wedding, so we were thinking we would have pay for everything out of pocket.  After getting our bills, that would have been over $3000.  Goodbye all wedding present money and then some!  Come to find out, James was covered by my insurance as of the day of our wedding.  It has ended up costing about $300. It has been seriously miracle after miracle after miracle.  W proved to be a little difficult going to a tropical beach destination for our honeymoon.  James couldn't get it wet.  That made showers and beach time interesting, but we made it work.  Now you can play the game of how many times W appears in our honeymoon pictures.  Next stop...Turks and Caicos!