Wedding Wednesday!

Long Awaited Honeymoon Blog

I have other things I want to blog about, but I can put that off for another post.

I've put off this one for too long now.

So...the big honeymoon!

On Saturday (way back at the beginning of October) Chris and I drove down to Galveston, Texas. Our ship didn't sail until Sunday, so we had to kill some time once we finished our 8 hour drive from Norman.

We first found the car lot where we were going to leave the car. It had barbed wire and razor wire, so I wasn't too worried about anyone hopping the fence to get in, and there were quite a few cars parked there. I also believe they had 24 hour security.

After that, we parked and walked along the beach. When we were ready to get some shut eye, we found a WalMart and designated its parking lot as the place where we were going to sleep that night. It wasn't the best sleep I'd ever had, and I wasn't entirely comfortable (both in sleeping in a parking lot, and because I was in the front seat of a car instead of a comfy bed) but it was manageable and there was a WalMart security guy driving around all night which put me at ease.

When we woke up, we drove around and saw a bunch of houses on stilts. It was so weird, but it made sense. If there were to be a flood, the houses would be fine from the water.

We boarded the ship at around 10 or 11, and holy wow was it big! There was a water slide on the top deck (no, we didn't go on it) as well as like 3 swimming pools and 4-6 hot tubs. There were 2 large buffets, a pizza place, a deli, 4 restaurants, a casino, a large stage, and so so SO much more. The level with the casino also had some gift shops, but they didn't really sell trinkets, instead they had large bottles of hard liquor, cases of 10 cartons of cigarettes, diamonds, tanzenite, Rolex watches, and a lot of other expensive stuff. Not your typical gift shop.

The first two days were spent at sea. I took Dramamine and slept a lot, which kinda sucked, but we still had fun. There was a comedy club called The Punchliner and Chris and I made almost every show for the first two nights. There were two kid-friendly shows, and three adults only shows.

By far, our favorite comedian was Mutzie. He was absolutely hilarious, and all he did for his entire 45 minutes was interact with the crowd. Even in his adult shows, he didn't use any profanity, and even the adult content wasn't too outrageously adult. More-so rated PG-13 than R. He was incredibly kind and you could really tell that he cared about his fans. I really hope he comes around soon. I'd love to get to see a show of his again.

Every night, housekeeping left us little towel animals on our bed with the next day's schedule and some dinner mints. Chris and I took a free class on towel animals, and now we can make an elephant, a dog, a frog, and a brontosaurus.

Speaking of dinner, we had an assigned restaurant, table, waiter and assigned dinner guests. Our tablemates were really awesome (also on their honeymoon) but unfortunately, they only came to dinner twice the whole week. See, you could choose to eat at your assigned time, or go to one of the buffets, or order something from 24 hour room service. Chris and I went to dinner every night before the comedy club or show.

The first place we stopped at was Jamaica. Let me just say, it wasn't what I was expecting as far as the scenery, but it was everything I had imagined as far as people offering up "the good stuff". Chris and I got offered drugs about 5 times total, and it was ridiculous!

We didn't have an excursion booked for Jamaica, so we figured we'd just walk around and see the sights. We asked one of the Carnival employees what he suggested we do, and his answer surprised us. He told us, we shouldn't leave the port on our own, but that we should take the shuttle to the designated tourist spots, which included a shopping center, the beach, Margaritaville, and a craft market.

Chris and I stopped first at the beach. It was $5 a person to get in, and $5 to rent an umbrella or chairs, but since it was so hot and I was afraid of burning, we scraped up an extra $5 for the umbrella rental and just used our towels to sit on. The water was incredibly beautiful! If the beaches in San Diego looked like they did in Jamaica, I would most definitely have been a beach girl.

The water was crystal clear, and even if you picked up a handful of sand and dropped it, you could watch the individual grains fall back to the bottom. So outrageously beautiful!

We saw a stingray (I swam the other way) and some fish swimming around with us. It was cool being able to actually SEE in the water rather than just stepping and crossing my finger that no creepy-swimmys were under my feet.

After the beach, we thought we'd stop at the craft market, but one swing around the little area and we were right back on the shuttle to the ship. The people were very pushy, and I felt really uncomfortable.

The second stop was in the Cayman Islands. There, we had a dolphin encounter and a turtle farm visit. we took a little bus to the turtle farm and got to walk around and look at turtles ranging from little babies to like 600lb giants! I don't think I've ever gotten so close to a turtle before, and they were actually kinda cute!

Right across the street was the dolphin encounter, and it was amazing! We got on some live jackets and split in to groups to go to our dolphin pools. We had quite a few people in our group, so we had some standing about waist deep on a stand in the water while the other held on to the wall on the other side of the pool.

The dolphin we got to meet was Alma. The dolphin encounter place saved most of their dolphins, and Alma was no exception. She had gotten too close to a boat's propeller and her tail got cut up.

We got to shake hands, get kisses, play with a ball, and do a lot of tricks with Alma, and it was so cool! I had tons of dolphin novelties when I was younger, and though I had lived in San Diego for 20 years, I never had a real dolphin encounter. I pet one at Sea World once, but I never got to do much more than that. It made the little kid inside me squeal.

Needless to say, we had an absolute blast!

The third stop was Cozumel. As soon as we got off the ship, we had to walk through a super long gift shop in order to get anywhere. It was crazy, but nearly the whole gift shop had inexpensive hard liquor. 2 large bottles of Crown Royal,  Jose Cuervo, and a lot more for $22. Now, I'm not a drinker, but that seems pretty cheap to me. What was even more crazy, is they were giving out samples! "Here, take a shot on us!" WHAT?!?!? People were taking pictures of the price tags and taking samples. It was nuts.

Anyhow, Chris and I booked an ATV ride through the jungle and to see some Mayan ruins. Well, it rained for 3-4 days prior to our arrival it rained and rained and rained. So we got a little bit muddy.

It was a lot of fun on the ATV ride, but I think that's mostly because Chris and I were the first two riders behind our guide. At the beginning, they told us to separate in to those who had experience riding ATVs and those who didn't. Chris and I had experience, so up to the front we went!

The only reason I know that the middle/back was no fun, is because Mr. Chris broke the axle on his quad and got sent to the back for a little while. He asked to come back up to be with his wife again (that still sounds weird...I'm a wife...) and they let him once we stopped again. Luckily the people that ran the tour weren't mad at Chris. A pin came out, and they said it's not the first time it's happened and wont be the last.

Our last day was also at sea, and I was ready to get back on land. The water was very rocky, and I had to take a Dramamine as well as Bonine to keep from feeling incredibly sick.

When we finally got back to Texas, we got off the ship pretty quickly and smoothly. We had to go through customs, and when we claimed $10 each worth of souvenirs, the customs lady laughed a little and said "Big spenders aren't you?". A lot of people were bringing back alcohol, jewelry, cigarettes, and a lot of other stuff from the ports or ship gift shops.

It rained and rained and rained the whole drive home. We made it home safe and sound though, and while we had a lot of fun on the cruise, I like my feet on stable ground.

Wedding Wednesday!

Broken Bone Woes

And the honeymoon blog is delayed yet again.

Man oh man have I been busy this past week.

Chris got in to an accident at work and broke his arm.

I was on my way home from my weekly Zumba class with Chelsea when Chris called me. He said "I'm being serious, I need you to come pick me up. I had an accident at work and I need to go to the hospital to get x-rays done."

I would have freaked out a lot worse than I did, but Chris sounded so calm, which kept me from losing it.

Apparently, while he was riding his bike in the parking lot, a car pulled out in front of him. Well, his front brake worked a little too well, and my poor hubby went flying over the handlebars. The fall ended up breaking a bone in his right elbow, and bruised up his left hand pretty badly where he caught himself. Thank goodness he was wearing his helmet, because he said when he hit the ground, his head hit too and he heard his helmet crack!

One of his co-workers was following behind him and was able to call the accident in, and Chris was taken care of by the on-staff EMS.

I got there as soon as I could and they released him to me, so I could take him to the HealthPlex in Norman. We went in to the ER, and it was the weirdest thing. I kept expecting it to be like in House or something, where nurses and doctors and medics are running around, and there are people in pain everywhere...but there were two other people sitting calmly and patiently in the waiting area with us after we signed in. I'd never been to an ER before, but it definitely wasn't what I was expecting.

I felt so helpless, and still sometimes do. Every so often, Chris would get what he described as a muscle spasm in his broken arm, and he would be in so much pain. I couldn't hold his left hand to let him squeeze, because his palm was bruised up too badly, and I was afraid to hug him because he was cradling his broken arm across his chest. All I could do was sit there and hold him to me lightly, or rub his back.

When it was time to get the x-rays, the doctors tried straightening out his arm, and Chris said he was on the verge of tears it hurt so badly. He said it was the most God awful pain he'd ever felt, and it made me want to cry. They got Chris' arm put up in a fancy splint, but it was up to us to make a follow up appointment with an Orthopedic specialist to get an actual cast put on. Back at home, Chris ended up sleeping on the couch with his arm propped up on pillows instead of coming to bed. We didn't get to sleep until 12:30 or so, and then at 5:30am when the pain medicine they gave him wore off, we were awake again. We hadn't filled his prescription yet because we didn't have the information from Riverwind to get the pain killers paid for. We did manage to get his pain relieved though, and he made it until we were able to fill his prescription.

After that ordeal, Chris tried calling people all day long to get information on the specialist he was supposed to see and how Riverwind was going to pay for it all. Luckily, since it was a work related accident, workman's comp is going to take care of all the bills. The trouble though seems to be to get in touch with anyone. Everyone kept transfering Chris to someone else, or they wouldn't be in their office.

Well today, he was able to get ahold of someone to make an appointment for Monday to get the cast put on.

I've been doing my best to make sure Chris is as comfortable as possible, and while I don't mind it one bit, it's been quite tiresome. Yesterday I was exhausted, because the night before I had only for like 5 hours of sleep, and even then, I kept waking up all night.

After filing Chris's prescription and bringing him his pain killers, I got home at about 6 or 6:30 and decided to take a nap.

I didn't wake up until 9, and I could have easily gone back to sleep and stayed in bed until 7am this morning for work. I got up though and made dinner when Chris got home, then was back in bed at midnight.

I would sleep in tomorrow, but Chelsea and I are going up to a barn sale in Shawnee, held by the marvelous Photographer Faith.

Maybe next time I'll get to talk honeymoon...

And since things were a bit chaotic with Chris breaking his arm and all...here's a picture for Wedding Wednesday!

Oh where oh where has my money gone. Oh where oh where could it be?

I know I still owe everyone a blog about the honeymoon with pictures and all, but I haven't felt in the blogging mood lately.
Money has been tight now that Chris and I are feeling the effects of our taking time off work for the honeymoon and wedding finally.
I know we'll make it through, but we still owe money to people that helped have helped us out, and though they are friends and family, I don't want to take advantage of that.

I know things could be worse off, and I know we're not that bad off financially...but I've never lived on my own before and I've never had to pay bills. My paycheck will cover the rent, and not much else. I might have $50 left over to last me for two weeks, which will probably end up in my gas tank.
Plus, I got sent home from work today because we ran out of photo paper, and since I'm a printer, I had nothing to do. Not going to feel good come next Monday when I get paid now.

I know that worrying isn't going to do me any good, especially when we will be able to get by...but I can't help it. Sometimes, it's hard not to worry about things...especially when Christmas is coming up, and I wanted to be able to get presents this year since I couldn't last year.

Why must weddings be so financially draining? The wedding is over, and I still have no money!

Wedding Wednesday!

My return as Mrs. Figueroa!

Oh my gosh, I can't believe it's already been so long since I've last written!

So much has happened, and I know I'm going to miss some stuff that I really wanted to talk about, but that's how it goes I guess.

I'll be sure to cover all the major things though, like, for instance, the apartment and wedding!

Let's start with the apartment.

Chris and I have (just about) all of our stuff moved in, and the apartment is now a disaster! It's incredibly messy due to all of our stuff everywhere that has yet to receive a proper home. Poor stuff.

Plus, we just got back from our honeymoon (which I will also talk about!) and so we have dirty clothes everywhere that have yet to be washed, and suit cases that have yet to be unpacked.

Our apartment is no longer empty though, and with a million thanks to everyone that helped Chris and I get everything we needed to start off, here is a virtual tour of the 800 sq. ft. apartment that is, the Figueroa Apartment...

 

Obviously it doesn't look like this anymore...but since it's far too messy to give you a new, updated picture, you get this.

This is the view from the front door. Hello living room!

 

Thanks to my mom and Lee, we also have this awesome futon couch! It's super comfy and can lie flat to make a bed. (Kendy, this means you have no excuse for not staying over and visiting me!)
 

Turn around, and we have the TV! Another contribution from Mom and Lee! The entertainment stand thing, however, is thanks to my sister-in-law and her hubby. I like it a lot, and the TV is tons better than the old one Chris had before. 

 

Next up, we enter the kitchen! It also has much more in it now thanks to everyone's generous contributions. It's a great little kitchen for the two of us!

 

On our first night together at the apartment, I made lasagna and garlic bread and served it in our new glasses (given to us by Momma) and we ate at our newly assembled dining room set (thanks to the family and friends that came to my bridal shower). I love the dining room table and chairs. they are the taller kind instead of your standard chair, and I love taller chairs and tables. Plus, they look so nice!

I think we may get some seat cushions though in the future sometime, but they are great as is!

 If you go around the corner and turn to your left, you'll see the bedroom. Very nice size, I was afraid it'd be a lot smaller. It also has a walk in closet! Though...it's rectangular and skinny, so not a very cozy walk in closet, but still! The bed was given to us also by Chelsea and Kalen, and I love it! Super comfy, and the bed frame looks very nice.

 

Now, turn around and go down the hall and you'll find the bathroom! Towels and shower curtain were courtesy of Lee, and I like them a lot.  I also put together that thingy that goes over the toilet all by my lonesome! The only thing that sucks, is that the towel rod there won't let you push it back against the wall, so you have to do a superman reach to get the toilet paper.

There's the tour of the apartment! What do ya think? Not too bad I think.

So next is a little bit about the wedding.

I have to say, I'm glad it happened, but I am SO glad that it is over with! It was very stressful at times, and very time consuming, as well as financially, emotionally and mentally draining!

It went by far too fast for my liking, but I think that's what people always say about their weddings...you hardly remember any of it.

Thanks to Faith though, I have some amazing pictures to look back on and cherish what memories I do have!

So right after the wedding, Chris and I ran off to the Bricktown Hotel for the night instead of rushing off to our honeymoon like most couples do.

We had reserved the King Suite thing at the hotel for the night and we thought it'd be like $200, but we figured...hey...you only have a wedding night once right? (I know I know...that's not true all the time...), but the room was closer to $300! We went ahead and paid for it, and I'd say it was a tad pricey still, but still very awesome!

Luckily it came with a big, super awesome hot tub (in the living room), two flat screen TVs, towels folded like swans and seashells, a Hershey's chocolate Symphony bar, a bottle of some fancy chmancy champagne (that did NOT taste good at ALL!), a gigantic comfortable bed, a mini fridge, a microwave, and free useage of the hotel's shuttle VIP shuttle service.

It was pretty awesome.

Chris and I ordered some food from the Spaghetti Warehouse for our first meal as a married couple, and when Chris went down to the front desk to ask if the shuttle driver could take him to pick the food up, she said the driver would go and get it for us! So he did! He went and picked up our food for us and Chris just paid him for it. It was awesome!

 Well...I have some wifely duties to go attend to (making dinner...mostly because I'm starving!) so I'll be off now.

I will write up a few blog posts in the next few days about the honeymoon, and I think I'm going to steal Jeanette's idea of "Wordless Wednesday", but instead will have "Wedding Wednesday" where I will post a wedding or bridal picture for a while!

Until then...See ya!

Love you all!

I haven't forgotten about my blog!

I promise I haven't forgotten about you all. We're all settled in to our apartment, but we don't have internet access. I have a lot I want to share with you all, but you're just going to have to hold on for a little longer!

Until I get the change to write, here is a teaser photo from the wedding!

All coming together now!

I heard from one of my readers (Hi Grandma Esther!) that I've been slacking in my blog writing, so I figured I'd best give you all the latest on what's been going on!

I can hardly believe the wedding is only 3 weeks away.

3 weeks! That hardly leaves any time to do anything!

Chris and I got our rings in though, and I absolutely love them! I think they're so beautiful and really unique. I wont be wearing my engagement ring on my left hand with the wedding band since they don't match at all,  but I'll probably switch it over to my right with my promise ring if I keep wearing it.

Chris' and my rings match perfectly and I'm extremely happy with them!

I wish I could wear it now, but I have to wait until the wedding. Darn!

The rings are made by Edward Mirell. They're both made out of gray titanium, and both have blue anodized grooves running though them. Mine has a princess cut, blue sapphire set in it diagonally, but it's set in to the band instead of a traditional set. I think it looks super pretty, and it's blue! Plus, sapphire is the stone for September!

The picture doesn't do them justice! At all!

Thanks to Jeanette, I got a few more decorations today that I think are going to look great! We went to Ross to get her grandbaby (and my future niece) Aryanna a dress for when she starts kindergarten. I was checking out some of the things in the home, bed and bath section and found some cute diamond candle stands in three different heights as well as a little picture stand that spells out "LOVE". It's pink, but we can paint it another color (probably white).

I bought the candle stands (though I think we'll put confetti or some other little trinket in them instead of candles) and Jeanette was sweet enough to get the picture stand.

Jeanette also picked up a Chef Basket and a paper towel holder for Chris and me to use when we move out.

I've seen the Chef Basket on TV and in WalMart and I think they're just the coolest little contraptions, and they had one at Ross, so Jeanette bought up for me! I'm pretty excited to give it a try, and since I love pasta, I'm sure I'll be using the heck out of it.

As some of you may or may not know, I also got myself a job as a Photographer and Lab Tech at one of the local studios. The photography is mostly school yearbook pictures and sports pictures, but they also can be booked to do parties and weddings and whatnot.

For the first two or three weeks I've been only a photographer, and while it wasn't exactly what I wanted to do, I was still happy with it (even though the hours are very early. We typically leave the studio at 6am and since I live 45 minutes away, I usually wake up close to 4am to get ready). Well yesterday since my shoot got canceled, so they brought me in to do printing and told me they want to start using me in the lab more. That's great news to me, because I'm hoping that if I do well in the lab, I will eventually be able to do more designing of the borders they use on party pictures and whatnot. Right now I'll probably just keep editing brightness and contrast on the pictures and slapping the pre-made borders on, then printing, but I really hope to move up in the months to come!

(Like my awesome uniform shirt? They look nice, but black sucks in the summer when you're outside shooting sports pictures all day!)

The biggest and most exciting news, is that today Chris and I turned in all the paperwork we need to get an apartment and we move in a week from today! (Chris' 25th birthday actually...)

I'll be moving in first, then Chris will move in after the wedding.

The apartments are pretty nice. Ours is a one bedroom on the bottom floor with 800 square feet of space. What's even better, is that is we decide to upgrade to a two bedroom later on (we like the idea of having a spare room for an office/music room) when we are better off financially, we can do so without breaking our lease.

Things are starting to all come together, and while we might be a little tight on money the first couple of months, I'm confident that once I really get going at work and we get settled in, we'll be doing well.

Three Murders and a Wedding

The wedding planning is coming along! I suppose with only 40 days to go until the big day though, things had better be coming along!
Chris' aunt spent a couple nights at the house with us, and she helped out a lot by making my bouquets and boutonnieres. I'm so glad, because I'm not talented in floral arrangements at all.

Also, we ordered my wedding ring, and I am so excited! I wish I didn't have to wait to wear it, because it is just so beautiful!

Let's see...we also mailed out all but maybe 8 of our invitations and are already getting quite a few back.

Today, Chris and I put our cake stand on reserve, and the other day, our aisle runner came in the mail!

Yesterday, I went with Chris' mom and sisters to David's Bridal for my dress fitting. It was weird getting back in to the dress! I can't believe I own a wedding dress!

Anyhow, there is still plenty more to do, and I should really probably be getting it done instead of writing on my blog or reading as much as I have been...but I guess I just hand to do everything the hard way!

Thanks to Chris' morbid interest in the Girl Scout murders of Oklahoma some 30 years ago, I read Someone Cry for the Children, and now I'm interested in the case too!

Basically, three very young girl scouts were killed at Camp Scott, and the man that they tried for the murders was set free, only to die shortly after. The book was written by two brothers that worked hard on the case for all three years, from beginning to end, and takes the side of Gene Leroy Hart being completely guilty.

Well, another book is coming out in about a month called Tent Number Eight by Gloyd McCoy,  and it takes the side that Mr. Hart should have never been put on trial for the murders.

Now, I think that is a load of baloney. I think that after reading Someone Cry for the Children, Mr. Hart was 100% guilty. I am interested to read Tent Number Eight though to see how on earth anyone could see his as being innocent.

Don't take my word for it though! Check it out for yourself and come to your own conclusions!

Gloyd McCoy will be at the Ardmore Public Library on August 17th, 2011 to answer questions, talk about the book and sign autographs.

I'd love to go, but I may have to work.

If anyone else has read the books or knows about the Girl Scout murders, I'd love to hear your opinions and input on the innocence or guilt of Gene Leroy Hart as well as an explanation as to why you believe what you do.