Our Suite...

After such a horrendous two days of traveling, I had really started to worry about our suite. Remember when I posted this picture of what the website showed our room to look like?

Well, that’s just a website. And a staged room at best. What if our room really wasn’t that nice? What if I hated it? We were supposed to be there for five nights...and those five nights would be longer and longer if we hated our room. So imagine how worried I am by the time that trek across the whole resort to get to Building 7, which housed our room...room 7369. We walk into a small, but nicely decorated lobby and make our way to the elevators. After getting our bags and us inside what had to be the world’s smallest elevator, my fears kicked it up another notch.

We followed the signs marking the hallway along until we find out door. After getting inside and finding the light switch, I was feeling a little bit better...this is what we saw:Our own entry hallway with another door closing off the room...starting off right, but what’s behind door #1? Would you like to see? OK, I’ll show you...since you’ve been so patient with me and my lack of pictures up to this point in our trip...Yep, that’s our living room. And THIS was our closet alone...it's honestly bigger than our master bathroom at our house...well, nearly.

And when you look to the left, what do you see? Our bedroom area...Looking a little further to the left (also on the raised portion of the room) you see this...Now, truth be told, the tour could have stopped right then and there for me. A roman style, Jacuzzi soaking tub, with marble pedestals that opens from the bathroom into the bedroom? I’m in heaven...But B wanted to explore some more into the bathroom. You’ll see our bathroom...and our walk-in shower...Along with our double vanities...So what do you think so far? Nice, huh? We thought so. And like I said, you could have just stopped with the two-person tub and I would have been fine. But being the giddy-with-relief travelers that we are, we stepped out on our balcony to check out the views.

Unfortunately, by the time that I thought to snap pictures of our view, it was too dark for them to come out. (Because someone didn’t think to switch the mode to night!) But the views were awesome, and I have more pics in another post of the views from our room alone. Here's the only one that semi-turned out:As I’m busy taking pictures right and left, B wanders off to the far left on our balcony and says “Hey babe. Where do these stairs go?” Ummm, excuse me? Stairs? Oh you mean, those stairs...Making our way to the top...And yes, that's just one of the beers that we found in our fully stocked bar, located in the main entry way. I forgot to take a picture, but it had four full-sized liquor bottles on dispensers for our drinking pleasures, as well as a small fridge stocked with bottled water, Dos Equis and Pepsi. The front desk informed us that all would be replenished every two days. Nice!

But anyway, back to the stairs. We trekked all the way up top and found our own little private paradise. Would you like to see?It’s ok to be jealous or to hate on me a little bit, I don’t mind...because I spent nearly a week having not only my own private Jacuzzi on the balcony like the booking agent said, but my own private ROOFTOP Jacuzzi!!! Yeah, buddy. We were in heaven.

After we finished jumping up and down with our excitement, I hurried back downstairs and proceeded to take all those wonderful pictures before we messed up the room. (See? I tried to think about your guys!) And that’s why it was too dark for the view pics to turn out...but that fun quickly wore off, and our tummies were grumbling. We stored a few quick things away and then headed back to the main part of the resort to grab a quick bite to eat before we both fell over in exhaustion. It had been a long day, but over dinner we both discussed how SO worth it the trip had been!

Up next...a peek at our views. And the very few pictures that we took during the rest of our honeymoon...

Featured Wedding – Kate and Chris 2nd

Man, I knew that this bride looked familiar, but I couldn't figure it out right away. You might remember her too...I posted here with their engagement shoot! Silly me for not remembering!

Well, Christina with Christina Carroll Photography brings us not only their cute E-session, but their gorgeous wedding. This one looks truly magnificent! Here's what Christina had to say about their wedding:

"I was really excited to finally photograph Kate & Chris’s wedding at Hamilton Twelve. I knew from their engagement session and bridal session that the wedding was going to be beautiful and I was right! Thank you Kate & Chris for being such an awesome couple to work with…you make my job easy!"

Enjoy the eye candy...I love this picture of the two of them...
And you KNOW that I loved her choice in colors!

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Congratulations to Kate and Chris! If you haven't already, be sure to click over to Christina's blog to see the rest of the images from this wedding - they're amazing!

Gifts for the Girls!

I know, I know. I’m SUCH a tease! I wrote here and here about the guys’ gifts...but kept the girls’ gifts under lock and key. That’s because all three of them read my blog almost daily and I really wanted their gifts to be a big surprise to them. In the end, MOH knew about part of the gifts, and the others had sneaking suspicions about other parts of the gifts...but no one but me had the “bigger picture” and I loved keeping this as a surprise for them!

I knew all along that I wanted their gifts to be something special that I had made. You might have noticed that I tend to be anal-retentive and obsessive-compulsive at times about the details, but that really just makes me a better crafter. So I set my task to thinking up what I could make for these special ladies.

Here’s some pics from Maid Momma of the total package. I’ll show off the gifts first and then talk about some of the details, ok?

Didn’t she made it all look so pretty? She did a GREAT job taking those shots. The one bad thing? You almost can’t see the tote bag that I made them...hers was made in a deep, dark denim and it blends totally with her dark wooden dining room table (where I know that she took these!). So here are some pictures from Maid Britney of her bag that you can see better. Do you like them? Oh yeah...well, don’t forget to sign up at my etsy store...you just might find bags like that there, hint, hint!

So back to my post...I knew that I wanted to make them something, and I had bought this bag a long time ago that I loved. It was the perfect size – not too big, not too small and it carried everything wedding-related around for almost a year for me. It was great. Knowing my girls like I do, I know that they’re bag people. Two of them have a new bag of some type almost every time that I see them, so this was the perfect solution. I would take my favorite bag, make a pattern loosely based on it, and make them all bags.

But since I wanted their bags to compliment who they are and their own personalities, each bag was different. Maid Momma got a snazzy dark denim with a happy yellow flower lining...Maid Britney got the beautiful brown/blue/gold floral with a pop of color in the blue satin lining...and MOH got her personal favorite black and white toile with a POP of hot pink satin patterned lining. Sorry, it’s the only one that I don’t have a picture of...but here’s a shot of the fabric used to make it.

The totes have multiple pockets on the outside...and then I put in a zipper pocket on the inside of the lining. Each outer pocket is also lined with the inner lining, so there are pops of color everywhere you look. I loved each and every one of them.

But the fun didn’t stop there. I also made them personalize note cards. I asked each of them for their favorite color, and then found a Photoshop brush online and designed cards for all of them. I put them with envelopes and tied them off with pretty ribbon left over from various other projects.

Then just because I love bath stuff, I also asked them for their two favorite scents from Bath & Body Works. I got each of them some combination of bubble bath, shower gel and/or body lotion. I also gifted each of them with the earrings and necklace to wear at the wedding. Since they had each picked a different LBD to wear as their dress, we decided that matching shoes and jewelry would tie them all back in together nicely. MOH helped me pick out the jewelry the week before the wedding, so she knew about that one, but oh well. She didn’t know about the rest! LOL.

So that’s it. That was my big surprise for my Maids. I think that they were all VERY happy with my selections for each of them, and looking back, I’m thrilled that they each got something that I worked so hard on. It was the perfect gift for these girls who worked SO hard to help make our day spectacular!

Awards and Honors

Girls, I am truly flattered. To be honored with blog award just makes my heart burst with pride, and all I can say is Thank you, Thank you, and Thank you! I received two awards while I was out on my honeymoon, and I apologize that it’s taken me a little bit to catch up and pass these along.
First up, Mireya with Pearls and Such honored me with the Sugar Doll Award. Her blog is fabulous...if you don’t already follow her, click on over and check her out!

The rules are as follows: Post this award on my blog, write ten interesting facts about myself and then pass it along to ten other bloggers. I’m going to offer up a BIG apology and cheat here. I did interesting facts about myself for another award or two...so click here to read them. Yeah, I’m being lazy, but I’m trying to catch up and get on to the honeymoon pics!

I also noticed that this award made the rounds right before I left, so I’m not going to pass it along. Everyone that I would have nominated was already nominated by others...keep up the great job girls!

And then I was blessed with this award... Thanks to Katie from Random Reflections of a Perfectionist for awarding me the Over the Top blog award! If you aren’t already familiar with Katie, you need to check her out too!
For this award, I am to answer the following questions with one-word answers, and then pass the award on to six deserving bloggers. I’m not really good with one-word answers…LOL!...so we’ll see how I do!

1. Where is your cell phone? Right beside me!
2. Your hair? Curly
3. Your mother? Friend
4. Your father?
5. Your favorite food? Mexican
6. Your dream last night? Odd
7. Your favorite drink? Pina Colada
8. Your dream/goal? Self-employment
9. What room are you in? Office
10. Your hobby? Sewing
11. Your fear? Needles
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? At home
13. Where were you last night? Bathtub
14. Something you aren’t? Fake
15. Muffins? Chocolate Chip
16. Wish list item? Too many…
17. Where did you grow up? Athens, TX
18. Last thing you did? Read
19. What are you wearing? Clothes
20. Your TV? Re-runs
21. Your pets? Dogs
22. Your friends? THE BEST
23. Your life? Content
24. Your mood? Ehhhh
25. Missing someone? Yes
26. Vehicle? Need a new one!
27. Something you’re not wearing? Dress
28. Your favorite store? Target
29. Your favorite color? Purple
30. When was the last time you laughed? Within ten minutes
31. Last time you cried? Yesterday
32. Your best friend? Many
33. One place that I go over and over? JoAnn’s!
34. One person who emails me regularly? Crystal
35. Favorite place to eat? Taco Cabana

Once again, I’m going to bow out on passing this along. Seems like both the Sugar Doll award and the Over the Top Award made the rounds on our group!

Thanks girls for honoring me…and I promise to respond sooner and pass them along the next time!

A Rough Start Continues...

So even though I woke up with optimistic thoughts about our luggage that did in fact come true...the next leg of our trip was extremely tiresome. And it really shouldn’t have been...

We were scheduled to leave LAX around 11:30am Saturday morning and arrive in wonderful Los Cabos, Mexico at the local time of 2:45pm. I picked this flight for two reasons: 1) it was direct, meaning no layovers anywhere and 2) because it would get us there in time to enjoy most of the day. And with that thought...things started to go wrong.

*Side note: I'm going to tell this whole long story kinda quickly, using short and choppy sentences. I hope that's ok with you all!

Yes, our luggage made it. But it was FIVE terminals away from where we needed to be...no problem. Rent a SmartCart and you get there in no time (especially if you’re not the one doing the pushing!).

Find the right terminal. Enter said terminal at the entrance that all the signs point to – not the first entrance that you saw. Be immediately surrounded by foreigners speaking about 30 different languages at the top of their lungs. Find nice airport attendant. Get directed by said attendant back to the first entrance that your husband tried to go in first (1/4 mile backwards) but you wouldn’t let him go in because the signs said to keep going. Locate the Mexicana counters along one wall. Wait “patiently” in line while spouse mutters encouraging words about vacation beer just to realize after 10 minutes that you’re actually at the counter for Group Sales.
Turn around and find right counter. Wait in line another 5 minutes. Hear more comments about vacation beer. Check-in using passports for the first time. Haul luggage to the luggage line to get it x-rayed and checking in. Say good-bye to luggage, crossing all fingers and toes that it gets reconnected with you in Cabo. Leave front terminal area in search of bar since the vacation beer comments are at a loud volume level by now.

Enter airport bar and have a toast. Meet people sitting around you from both Canada and Australia and chit chat with them until it’s time for you to board your flight. Trek back to your gate just to see the plane pulling AWAY from the terminal.

Have small heart attack.

Recover from heart attack when a desk clerk informs you that your flight was moved to a different gate 30 minutes earlier. Race around LAX to the right gate, luckily located within the same terminal. Glance at cell phone for time since neither one of you wears a watch. Twenty minutes to go.

Stand around in line. There is no plane, and no walkway thingy. Realize that you’ll be bused out to your plane somewhere in LAX. Glance at your phone again. Hear comments about locating another vacation beer. Squash such comments with a look.

Glance at time again. Listen to announcements, struggling to hear the ones made in English so you know that you’re in the right place. Watch time move past your departure time. Go to restroom as vacation beer catches up to you. Wonder again about the time.

Finally glimpse a bus pulling in. Miraculously score a seat on said bus since you’re one of the first people on the bus. Take a long ride out to a walkway station. Realize that the doors that you’re standing by are entrance only doors, and get crushed trying to get out of said bus. Walk up long walkway ramp to the top of the walkway that is next to an airplane.

Glance at cell phone for time again. 30 minutes late. Make small talk with people around you in line, with each person glancing at the time every minute or so. Put on your sweater as it’s chilly in the walkway station. Wait another 5 minutes and notice that your feet are starting to hurt. Look at time again, cursing the fact that only 2 minutes have passed.

Eventually get loaded onto the plane (45 minutes late). Put on seatbelt and settle in. Listen to the steward announce that there’s a problem with the tires and the plane is grounded. Turn phone power back on so you still have a watch...think to yourself that maybe it would have been smart to wear a watch just this once. Settle in with your book. And your iPod. Try to ignore the time passing slowly.

Finally, the plane pushes back from “terminal” and taxies onto the runway (an hour and a half late). Customs forms are passed out immediately, and you dig out your ONE pen that is in your purse. Taking charge of the forms, you and the nice lady next to you struggle through all of the insanely ridiculously vague questions. Settle back in with your book. Wait for lunch. Eat said lunch in less than 5 minutes, since it’s now 2 hours past lunchtime.

Arrive at airport in desperate need of a bathroom. Force yourself to hold it a little longer while you go through customs, find your luggage (YEA!) and press the red light/green light button to finish customs. Find the first restroom that you see and take turns watching the luggage while the other person uses the facilities. The person that didn’t luck out and go first does the little potty dance while waiting - that would be me. Exit the airport and immediately get swamped with salesmen.

Accidentally mistake one of the salesmen for your bus driver and get roped into a timeshare presentation the next day for some free activities while on your honeymoon. Since the man offered us a margarita for the bus drive to our resort, we accepted and took long drinks. Which immediately nearly flew out of my mouth as it was the most disgusting margarita I’d ever tasted. It wasn’t lemon-lime, but grapefruit-orange juice. Not good.

Find the right bus driver this time. Meet the group that we’re sharing the bus with and get loaded into bus. Enjoy a few relaxing miles of Mexico scenery and pleasant conversation with the bus driver. While trying to go through a toll station, hear a loud pop and lots of Mexican curses. Look up and notice that the arm of the toll road has crashed into the windshield of our bus. Wait politely while the bus driver and the toll officials haggle in a foreign language at lightening speeds over whose fault the accident is.

Finally pass through the toll just to pull over to the side of the road and wait for another bus. Turns out our bus has to stay and file the paperwork since the toll authority was accepting responsibility for the accident. Nice for him...not so nice for us as we’re the ones waiting. Again.

Arrive at our hotel finally...FOUR hours later than you were supposed to be there. Exhausted. Hot. Tired. Dirty. In the same clothes that you wore the previous day. Luckily for us, the check-in process was quick and simple and before we finished there were beverages were served. We sipped the ice cold drinks and started walking through the resort to find our room. It was nearly sunset, and a whole day had been spent trying to get here...and it was only supposed to take half a day.

It can’t get any worse, right? Since I said that the first night, I didn’t even allow that though to enter my head this time...and wouldn’t you know? The power of positive thinking finally paid off! Next up...our rooms and the views.

A "Bad" Start to a GREAT Trip...

With a post title like that, you KNOW that this is gonna be a good one, right?!?!

In order to maximize our trip length and cost savings (as I had a free ticket on Southwest), we flew Southwest into LAX on a Friday night, landing late in LA after a brief layover in Houston. We were then scheduled on our honeymoon (which was booked through Expedia) to leave the next morning around lunchtime for Cabo out of LAX. Then, when coming back, we would fly back into LAX from Cabo (once again through the Expedia trip) and then pick up a rental car, drive to San Clemente/Mission Viejo for the wedding weekend and then fly home from Austin out of Orange County airport or John Wayne Airport through Southwest.

It really does sound like we went around our elbow to scratch our rears…but it wasn’t all that crazy. And the obsessive-compulsive-type A personality that I am, I had each leg of the trip printed out the confirmations, maps and directions to everywhere that we would need to go. And don’t you know that each leg of the trip had it’s own envelope, carefully labeled and packed in order of needed for use? Yes, it did!

But even as hard as I tried to think of everything that we would need beforehand, you can’t plan for everything, right? Right.

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We stopped in both the Austin airport and the Houston airport for a frothy honeymoon kick-off beverage of the alcoholic variety…just to start things off on the right foot! LOL. But when we got to LAX…things started to go wrong. First off, let me just say that finding your way around that airport is next to impossible. Avoid it like the plague if you can!

When we finally managed to find the baggage claim area, and then found the correct carousel that was unloading the arriving luggage on, we were exhausted. Happy to be there. But tired…and a little hungry since 8pm California time is really 10pm Texas time. After taking FOREVER to start unloading the luggage…we waited patiently for our bags to arrive. Now, my suitcase is bright red…you would think easily recognizable. Would anyone happen to know how many bright red suitcases go through LAX? A lot. B probably picked up three wrong ones…and then the carousel stopped turning.

Without my red bag. And without B’s navy blue Adidas duffel.

Nice.

We go to the nearest baggage employee – but he was NOT helpful at all. He was rude and impolite. I was even annoyed with him, and let me tell you, that takes a lot! I thought that it was kind of lucky that there were 4 or 5 other passengers from our flight that were also missing their bags. The unhelpful LAX employee directed us to the baggage claim office for Southwest to make a claim for our bags. The good news? We were first in line. The bad news? Our bags didn’t make the right connection in Houston and had been routed to Oakland. This is what we looked like...

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Silly me, I’m standing there thinking that Oakland isn’t that far…yeah. Unfortunately, since it was 8:30 or later by this time, the last shuttle from Oakland to LA had already left and there was no chance for our bags to make it to LA that evening. I’m ok with that. Not really, but what can you do? It’s not the guy in front of me who lost my bags…he’s just trying his best to get them to me. B? He didn’t handle the news as well…to say the least.

After explaining politely (I really tried to be nice) to the gentleman our situation with leaving the next morning for our flight to Cabo for our honeymoon (can’t say that often, so you might as well use it, right?), he was most helpful. The best case scenario was that our luggage would be there when we got to the airport in the morning. The worst case scenario was that our bags would have to be shuttled down to Cabo after us…which is when B left the office.

Not a great start, huh? Yeah, not so much.

Then we call the hotel for the free shuttle service, just to have to wait nearly half an hour for them to arrive. Once they get there, they totally bypass “Hotel Row” where we thought the hotel was, and went down a long lonely-looking ghetto-like street. And for the record, the Holiday Inn Express at the LAX Airport is THE WORST Holiday Inn Express that I’ve ever stayed in. Crappy rooms, crappy neighborhood and no fridge in the room to keep the drinks that we’d grabbed cold. Nice.

After making the best of the evening and ordering a pizza in…we watched some TV and then took a shower in some of our clothes in order to clean them. One really bad night of sleep later…one alright complimentary breakfast buffet…and a ride back to the airport in the shuttle that only runs on the hour…and we arrived back at the terminal for Southwest.

The best news? In fact, the ONLY news that could redeem this portion of the trip? A Southwest Agent from baggage called right as we were pulling in to let us know that our bags had arrived and were in their office. YEAH!!! We were happy campers.

Not so happy once we realized that the terminal that Mexicana flies out of was like 2 miles away…but whatever. We had our bags…and our tickets and passports…and we were on our way!
It couldn’t get any worse, right? Well…stayed tuned to here about our next leg of the trip…

Featured Wedding - Crystal and Scott - 1st

I'm sorry, but you'll have to accept this GOR-GE-OUS wedding as a peace offering. Getting back into the swing of things at work...and at home...has just been overwhelming. I've got pictures to upload, posts to write...and I'm still waiting on our pro pics. So I don't have much motivation to start off stuff, is what I'm trying to say.

But even though Christina of Christina Carroll Photography hasn't gotten our pictures to us yet, she's working hard because while we were gone she posted a TON of other events...so surely she's working her way towards ours. Here's what Christina had to say about Crystal and Scott:

"When I first met Crystal I just loved her and I knew her & Scott’s wedding would be beautiful. I was right! It was certainly a beautiful day. There was so much emotion and love in this group. Her family even brought the doors of her grandfather’s church so she could walk through them in her entrance down the aisle. What a great idea. After a few emotional speeches this group really knew how to party!"

It's just too pretty...

I especially am in LOVE with her shoes...

I love the fall colors...and the Longhorn groom's cake!

They look like they're off in their own little world...

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Click on over to Christina's blog here to check out the rest of the shots from this beautiful Austin wedding. Just too pretty...and I promise (wink, wink) that I'll be back tomorrow with a "real" post about the honeymoon! Pinky swear!