Viva Mexico

The Monday after we started our trip, we found ourselves in beautiful Mexico. Mexico was the only stop we made without having previously scheduled activities. We got off the ship and wandered around the lovely tourist area. We ventured out of the tourist area for a couple minutes, but after seeing how run down the place looked, we quickly moved back to the well kept and groomed area.

We shopped and wandered around. Rain was falling gently for a third of the time we were in beautiful Mexico.

Our ship, the Carnival Freedom on the left with her sister ship, the Carnival Liberty on the right. We sailed pretty close to the Liberty on the way to Mexico. They left the same day as us, but out of Miami and their cruise was not as cool nor as long.

They layout of the shops. There were shops in buildings, and in the middle of the sidewalks, there were carts.

Viva Mexico

Both of the stars in this photo have sass.

We only stayed in Mexico for about four hours before boarding the ship again. We did eat in a little restaurant where they served the best guacamole I have ever had.

Our married lives pre cruise

For our honeymoon, my honey and myself took a cruise to Mexico, Costa Rica, and Panama.

Gorgeous gorgeous.

Here is how we got to that point:

We were married on June 2, 2011 at 3:40 pm. Last wedding of the day in the Salt Lake Temple. (Once I have the wedding day pictures, there will be a big, glorious post about the wedding day.) After the ceremony, we took a few more pictures and then were done. My lovely sister-in-law helped me out of my dress and took the dress as well as the diamond ring with her to keep in a safe place. (I did not feel 100% comfortable with taking the ring to the countries we were headed to.) I bid goodbye to my family and waited for my new husband.

After a quick dinner at the Nauvoo Cafe in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building (I burned my tongue on the soup), we skipped off the the Hilton for the first night. (We did not literally skip, but we did walk there.)

As we discovered at this wonderfully posh hotel, the nicer the hotel is, the less likely they are to have a complimentary breakfast in the morning. I convinced my new husband that we could skip the $14 a head breakfast buffet and find something to eat in the airport.

We took a shuttle to the airport so that we did not have to pay to have a car sit there for almost two weeks. After having my first pat down at the airport, Wolf and I ate Cinnibuns and bagels. Our first flight was from Salt Lake to Detroit. Boring. No turbulence at all.

(This is where I insert the fact that I adore flying. I love it so much that if I can have a layover instead of taking a direct flight, I will choose to do so because then I get to be on more planes! Turbulence is one of my favorite things ever.)

The Detroit airport has an interesting layout. There are two terminals; both as straight as a stick. One of them is a mile long and has an ExpressTram that goes from one end to the other in just three minutes. Wolf and I had a pretty long layover there and had a fun time racing around the airport to check out the largest planes. At one point, we decided to hop over to the other terminals by going through a tunnel. I'll let Wikipedia explain this part:

"This walkway, known as the Light Tunnel, features an elaborate multi-colored light show behind sculpted glass panels extending the entire length of the walkway, as well several moving walkways. The light patterns are synchronized with an original musical score composed byVictor Alexeeff, which runs for nearly a half hour before repeating. This installation, one of the first large scale uses of color changing LED lighting in the United States, was produced by Mills James Productions with glasswork by Foxfire Glass Works of Pontiac, Michigan. The display won multiple lighting design awards including the prestigious Guth Award of Merit. For passengers who are prone to medical conditions such as seizures, there are buttons at each end of the tunnel that will suspend the light show for five minutes so they can pass through with no adverse affects."

It was crazy. After our three hour layover, we hopped on a plane headed to Ft. Lauderdale. That was an incredible flight. almost half of the flight is over the Atlantic Ocean and we could spot cruise ships as well as islands. For about half an hour of this flight, we flew right next to a lightning storm. It was one the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Lightning at eye level. Some of it was visible to us, but we occasionally saw some that would strike in the clouds and the clouds would light up. (Oh yeah, we also had some sweet turbulence.)

After safely landing in Ft. Laud, we took a van to our hotel (less classy, but this one did have a breakfast the next morning) to crash for the night.

Our wedding

As of right now, I only have these two pictures of the wed (or at least the reception). I know the husby took more pictures than this before anyone came, but I do not know where he has placed them.

Picture one:

This is what the room looked like. ten tables, seven chairs each. White table cloth, green table runner, mirror, and flower arrangement. The lovely Vicki Garbutt did the flower arrangements. They were gorgeous. Over in the back, you can see the hanging parasols which highlighted where we put the cake. Over in the back left, you can see Brother Garbutt. He's cool too. A few people thought he was my dad because he was here helping his wife prior to the beginning of the reception. I was flattered that they thought he was my father.

Picture two: The only reason why this picture exists is to showcase me, in my dress, eating a chick fillet sandwich. Wolf thought it was funny. You can see the lovely florist behind me arranging flowers. Also visible in the picture is one of the strands of bunting as well as the ice cream topping table.

Hopefully I will find the rest of the pictures and post them soon.

How it all began part I

Hello.

My name is Laura. (If you are reading this, you probably know who I am, but I will not judge. I blog hop frequently.) You can call me Lois. Everyone from school calls me that. You can also call me Lu or Louie or Lauren. Many people think my name is Lauren when I introduce myself to them. I do not like making them feel embarrassed so I rarely correct people when they think my name is something other than it is. In fact, my mother-in-law thought that my name was Lauren for several months before I met her son.

That's right. I knew my mother-in-law before I knew my husband. How many people can say that?

You see, it all began just over a year ago. I work at a kiosk in the local mall and my mother-in-law works at the customer service desk. I worked most mornings as did she so we often greeted each other with a friendly remark. After a few weeks after that came introductions. Finally, we passed over the awkward small talk phase (I hate small talk) and into random tidbit phase.

We discovered that we both love California and San Diego. We learned one week that Cathy and her family were headed to San Diego the weekend before I had a trip planned there. Hers was for a family vacation. Mine was to visit my boyfriend at the time.

A couple months later, we were apparently close enough for her to ask me if I was planning on marrying "San Diego" boy. I informed her that the two of us had broken up a month after my trip out there, so I was not planning on marrying him. She gave her condolences and said some of the usual things people say when they find out that a break up has happened.

A couple weeks after that, she was walking by one evening that I was closing with her husband and oldest son. I knew her husband as he works as a floor manager at the local mall and I had seen her son dozens of times, but had never spoken or even had a "familial nod" with him. Cathy bid me a good night and her husband gave a "familial nod" and then they were gone.

Fast forward to the next morning.

I was opening the cart as Cathy scurried up.

"What would you think about going out with my son?"

"Uh, sure."

(In my post-breakup state, I was a dating machine. I went out with as many guys that would ask me. This averaged out to be between 2 and 4 times a week. What was adding one more guy to the list?)

Cathy continued on to telling me random facts about her eldest son (and for some reason, his two sisters). Every time she would see me in the next couple of days, she would come up and start talking about her son again. Amusing things. Things he liked. Things he did not like. Finally one day, I saw her walking up with her son. She introduced him and told us about the things we had in common and after a semi-painful conversation, the two left and I was left chuckling to myself.

He was shy. I was being set up with a shy guy. I had never gone out with someone that was less talkative than I was (on a regular basis).

For the next few weeks, Wolf (that's his name), would drop by for a minute or two on a semi-regular basis. We would have interesting conversations and then he would leave and I would chuckle again. Finally, after several weeks of almost awkward conversations, he asked for my number. I gave it to him. He called.

He called me on a Monday evening an hour before I was headed to a hip-hop class. I was in the middle of cooking dinner and I managed to finish cooking my dinner, eat it, and get dressed for hip-hop during my first phone conversation I had with him. The more the two of us talked, the less I said and the more he babbled. He asked me out for that Friday night. Dinner at my favorite Indian restaurant and a movie after.

How did the date go?

What movie did we see?

How late did he arrive for the date?

Stay tuned for part II

It all started in a yellow house with a blue door

The origin of the name of this blog?

My best friend and I were married almost three weeks ago. On the days leading up to our wedding, we started moving into our first place of residence--an adorable basement apartment in a yellow house with a blue door. I want this family blog to be an updated meandering of words describing the wonderful occurrences of my new family. However, no matter where we are eventually led in life, I also wanted a reminder of where we began.