ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY TRIP | CRUISE 2016

A month later and I am finally sharing about our vacation back in November. We went on a cruise to Mexico the week after Thanksgiving and it was the best! I loved being able to get away with Matthew and having tons of one on one time without the distractions of everyday life/work. I decided not to take my camera and to just use our iPhones to take pictures. It was our first cruise so I wanted to feel everything out before I brought my nice camera. I will definitely be taking my nice camera on our next cruise!

We celebrated Thanksgiving and then the following Monday drove down to Mobile, Alabama to our port. It was about a 6 hour drive, which isn't bad at all and gave us plenty of time that day since our ship wasn't leaving until 5. We stopped for lunch at Ruby Tuesday's about an hour away from Mobile and then continued on until we were there. As soon as we got on the ship our room was ready so we went there and our luggage was already there waiting for us. We checked out our room and then quickly checked out the whole ship. One of the many things that made me extremely happy on this trip is that they decorated the ship for Christmas!! There were small Christmas trees with different themes and beautiful garland everywhere. They also played Christmas music the whole trip and it was perfect!

There was putt putt on the top deck 

Tuesday we were at sea all day, Wednesday we were in Cozumel, Thursday we were in Yucatan, and Friday we were at sea all day on the way back to Mobile. We were off the ship by around 8:30 Saturday morning and hit the road to go home and pick up Reagan! We loved the cruise and had a great time together, but we missed our sweet puppy something fierce. Reagan stayed with Matthew's parents while we were gone and they took great care of her and she loved spending the week with them! We didn't do any excursions, just because all we wanted to do on this trip was relax and take it easy. After the year we have had, that is literally all we wanted to do. And relax is what we did! We took at least one nap everyday, if not more. It was the best week and we felt completely refreshed and recharged once the week was over. Cruise's kinda force your to rest and relax...you are at sea for a couple of days and really there is only so much you can do on a ship, so whether your relaxing by the pools, up on one of the decks, in your room, our inside the ship somewhere on the comfy chairs your are bound to rest and relax. 

Our first stop was Cozumel! We got off the ship and did some shopping and then relaxed by the water until it was time to get back on the ship.

The water was so blue in Cozumel, it was beautiful!!

They were putting this tree together in Cozumel while we were there, I'm sad we didn't get to see it at night all lit up!

Thursday we were in Yucatan! Yucatan wasn't as pretty as Cozumel, and there weren't a lot of shops at the port so we really didn't stay off the boat terribly long, but it was still fun to explore the area!

 We laid out/napped and I read for a few hours

The warmest December 1st I've ever experienced and I loved it!!

We had a formal night and it was fun to get dressed up!

We went to a few shows and the comedy show just about every night, and we played bingo lol.

The Love & Marriage was the funniest show!!

Spent most evenings watching the sun go down 

Ate so, so much delicious food! And tried so many new things. The two crazy things we tried were Escargot and Alligator, and I am happy to report that I liked them both! Matthew didn't try the Escargot but liked the alligator lol. We also ordered room service some!

So pretty!!

My love!

We had a new towel animal waiting on us every night and I loved it. They actually had a towel folding class to teach you how to fold them like these animals but we accidentally slept through it and missed it!

One thing I didn't know about cruises...is that it is so WINDY. All the time!! There were a few times where they had the top deck completely closed off because it was too windy to be up there. 

Of course we had to get our girl something while we were on our trip...

 Unfortunately it was a little snug but she still looked adorable in it!!

We had the best time and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves! A huge thank you to Matthew's parents for keeping our favorite girly and taking such great care of her!!

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ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY TRIP | CRUISE 2016

WE'RE BACK!

I don't have much time to share everything today, so I am just dropping in to leave a few updates. bullet point style!

- We had a great Thanksgiving with each other and our families. I still can't believe Thanksgiving has already come and gone. Sad it went by so quickly!

- We went on our anniversary cruise and had the best time! It was so good to get away just the two of us, but goodness, we missed our sweet puppy so much!!

- We decorated for Christmas before we left and we are both so glad we did that! It was so nice to come home and enjoy them and not have to worry about pulling boxes out and getting started on decorating.

- I think we have both decided that taking the week after Thanksgiving off was one of the best ideas we have ever made....7 business days off, paid, and a total of 11 days AWAY from the office (6 of those without access to our work email!!!!) See what I mean, best idea ever.

- We have decided we need a gym membership and juicer for Christmas because Thanksgiving meals and then an all inclusive cruise....SO. MUCH. FOOD. #thankgoodnessforstretchypants

- I'll be sharing my Christmas cards soon! I was able to get some addressed and out before we left for our trip and I only have a few left.

- We bought a 12ft Christmas tree!!!! I'll share the story on that soon, but we are loving it!

Hopefully over the next couple of weeks I'll be able to recap our Thanksgiving, our cruise, our Christmas cards, our Christmas decorations, and some other fun Christmas related posts!

Here is one picture I took while we were in Cozumel...

definitely wishing this was my view again today! ;)

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving with your families! I can't wait to catch up on all of your blogs from over the past two weeks.

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WE'RE BACK!

HONEYMOON

I am finally getting around to sharing about our honeymoon with y'all! I uploaded the pictures the other day so here they are!

We left the morning after our wedding bright and early. We stopped at McDonald's on the way to the airport for a quick breakfast. Can I just say living so close to the airport has its perks? Hello extra sleeping time :) We had both packed before our wedding day which helped tremendously! Also, don't you love my luggage set?! There is another small rolling piece to the set.  Matthew picked it out himself! 

 I haven't been on a plane since I was 10 and was a little nervous at first, but loved it! This was both of our first time out of the country. So glad we could check that off together!!

 Our first glimpse of MEXICO :)

The view from our room

Sadly the beaches were covered in seaweed. As in no one was in the water, we never got to get in either but we did enjoy plenty of pool time and lounging on the beach. Everyone was at the pools (there were four total on our resort) so we practically had the whole beach to ourselves! And, they still came down to the beach and took our drink orders. Hello unlimited glasses of coke!

All four pools were beautiful and huge

There was a theater on our resort and they had shows every night!

The show, Grease

I ended up getting a selfie stick, as much as I hate them and laugh when I see people using them. I just knew I didn't want to have to stop and ask people to make our pictures and I wanted good pictures, you only honeymoon once y'all!

Matthew surprised me and booked two excursions while we were there. He told me the night of our rehearsal dinner, and we were PUMPED! He spaced them out perfectly, Tuesday we went and toured Tulum, one of the oldest Mayan Cities, and Thursday we went and rode ATV's though one of the jungles and then went cave exploring. We both agreed that we enjoyed the ATV's and cave exploring the most!

Tulum was very interesting and there was a lot to see! It was extremely hot and really crowded but we had a good time! It's not like we get to see all of that stuff everyday so it was worth it!

These little big guys were EVERYWHERE in Tulum and they weren't afraid to come right up to you. There were even some on our resort but they weren't as friendly, thank goodness!

We weren't allowed to take our camera or phone on the ATV rides or in the caves but they did make pictures of us that we were able to purchase. I did snap this one on our way out though! I will have to do a whole new post about our excursion on Thursday, It was SO much fun!

The food their was different, but there was always plenty. I'm almost positive I had bread and guacamole with every meal. The wedding diet was officially over and I could eat ALL the bread I wanted to that week, HA!!

One of our favorite restaurants was the Italian restaurant. Hello delicious bread and pasta!! I only got the lasagna there but Matthew ordered the ravioli one night and I tried a bite, it was good, too!

On Saturday night, our last night, they had a ton of vendors come in and set up on the resort. It was like a little market that you could go through and buy stuff at. Some people don't leave the resort so we both thought that was pretty cool. This man made magnets. He hand painted most of it, only using a fine brush to do the really small details. He was so talented and did a ton of magnets. We ended up getting two! He put "Honeymoon 2015" on one of them for us! I stood there and watched him make a couple of more because it was just so neat. Matthew got a really nice leather wallet and he picked out THE prettiest necklace and earring set for me! He is so good at picking jewelry out ;)

One of our favorite things to do, I think we did this every night, was to walk down to the beach right after dinner and just lay on the chairs talking, listening to the waves roll in and have our toes in the sand (at least my toes were in the sand, Matthew isn't a big fan of sand lol) We would sit there for at least two hours just talking. We talked about everything, from the wedding, to creating a budget, to where we want to go on our next vacation, to where we see ourselves in 5+ years. It was probably one of the greatest memories I have of our honeymoon, and there were a lot! No one was really down there so we again, had the whole beach to ourselves. A few nights we stayed out there so long it was time for the resort workers to put the chairs up for the night, which was our cue to leave!

Although I can't say we will go back to Mexico or that resort we had the best time together. Whoever thought of the idea of a honeymoon is probably one of my favorite people. Spending the whole week with your new husband, not knowing a single soul around you, limited wifi access, and not having anywhere to be or on a certain schedule was THE absolute best thing the week right after we were married. I'll admit it was a little strange going to work the following Monday and not being with Matthew almost every single minute of the day lol.

My heart is so, so full and I am still on cloud 9!

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HONEYMOON