Jamaica 2012- day 3

Sunday we went on our first excursion in Jamaica to Mystic Mountain where got to ride a chair lift through the rainforest, take a bobsled ride, zip line, and enjoy a water slide and pool.

 Heading out for our first day of adventure in Jamaica.

 Mystic Mountain was a beautiful rainforest.

 When we arrived, we took a fifteen minute chair lift ride up to the top of the mountain.

 The views on the chair lift were amazing.

 Jamaican bobsled ride.  These were individual bobsleds, so we went separately.

 At the end of my bobsled ride.  Bobsledding was our favorite thing at Mystic Mountain.  You got to control how fast you went, so of course JW and I never used the brakes until the end.  Joey lost his hat (which someone later found and returned to him).

 Getting our gear on

Zip lining was a lot of fun.  It wasn't nearly as extreme as the zip lining we did on our honeymoon, but the scenery was amazing.

I took the camera and videoed one of my zip lines. Enjoy! :)

 There was a look-out spot at the top of Mystic Mountain we climbed up.  The views were breathtaking. 

 Mystic Mountain had a small hummingbird garden that was really neat.

 JW found a little lizard friend while I was snapping pictures of the humingbirds.

The sun was out in full force and we were pretty hot after a morning of activity.  There was a water slide and infinity pool we got to enjoy before heading back to the resort.

 I think I captured the perfect shot of JW. :)

Infinity pool with a gorgeous view.

 Leaving Mystic Mountain after a fun day

 When we got back to the resort we found a quiet spot on the beach.  We were both laying down reading when this little crab scurrying across the sand caught my eye.  We sat up and spotted several of them darting in and out of holes.  Pretty cool!

 Our little crab friend

 We had dinner on night three at the French restaurant at the resort, Maxime's, and Joey tried escargot and duck.  He liked both. :)  I stuck with lamb chops.

Jamaica 2012- days 1 & 2

Well like I mentioned in the previous post, day 1 of our vacation was pretty much spent napping and reading on the beach or by the pool.  We had dinner at the Italian restaurant at the resort and called it an early night.  I think we were both asleep by 9:30.

 We sort of made it a tradition to take a picture on our balcony each night before dinner. 

Here we are at dinner on night one.  The humidity did not do much to help my hair. :)

On day 2 we woke up feeling rested, had breakfast, and walked around the resort a little more.  The water was beautiful!  We also planned and reserved our excursions for the week with the resort staff.

By mid-morning we hit the beach.

 We had a guide from the resort take us out on a sailboat ride.  The lady we asked to take our picture before we left got a little artsy and took it on a diagonal... oh well!  Going out on the sailboat was a lot of fun.

Then, in the afternoon we did a little exploring out on the rocks.  We didn't find much but some snails and a few little fish.

We cleaned up and had dinner at the main terrace restaurant buffet on day two.

Jamaica 2012- the trip there

JW and I had a great time in Jamaica!  Not such a great time getting there and back, but we'll get to that...  I am stuck at home in bed with pneumonia, so it's a good time to get caught up on blog posts.  I started coughing the last day or so of vacation and then started having fever when we got home.  It got worse over the next few days and I saw a doctor yesterday who took chest x-rays and said I had pneumonia... no fun!  I am now on an antibiotic and cough medicine, so hopefully I will start feeling better soon.

Anyways, back to the blog about Jamaica.  We left Houston on Thursday, August 9th.  After dropping our kids dogs off with our parents (Dakota went to Momma Hance's and Harley went to my parents'), my mom drove us to the airport.

Getting ready to be out of town is a lot of work, so we felt good once we checked our bags and made it through security.  We had lunch at Chili's near our terminal and were excited to be on vacation.  Our flight left Houston at 11:40 a.m. and with one stop in Miami, we were scheduled to be in Jamaica by 7:30 that night.  Only, that's not what happened...  We made it to Miami fine, had time to grab a quick sandwich to eat for dinner on the plane, and boarded our flight.  But, then we sat on the runway for an hour.  The captain reported that in the pre-flight check by the engineers, hydraulic fluid had been found leaking from the landing gear.  We were thankful they found the problem before we needed the landing gear and waited as they figured out what they were going to do.  Finally, they told us we were getting off the plane and the problem would be fixed in 2-3 hours.  Go have dinner they encouraged us, and we'll be off in no time.  Only after JW and I got back to the gate after another airport meal no one was there except the gate staff who told us the flight had been cancelled.  We were to head to another gate where they would re-book our flight for in the morning and give us vouchers for meals and a hotel.  Apparently a few other flights had been canceled as well and we were one of the last to the re-booking line where only one attendant was helping hundreds of the unhappy people.

Long story short, after 2 hours of waiting in line, we will never fly American Airlines again!  We finally made it to the counter which now had 3 people working, to be given a dinner voucher, at midnight after we had already eaten, a voucher for what we would find to be a terribly dumpy hotel, a breakfast voucher, and our boarding pass for our flight to Jamaica at 6 a.m. the next morning.  By then, we had called our resort in Jamaica and let them know we wouldn't be checking in until tomorrow and they were happy to extend our stay until the following Friday, allowing us the full seven nights we had purchased.  The airline was unable to reschedule our flight for the following Friday at that time because their flights were all booked.  They put us on a waiting list with instructions that we would have to call and check throughout the week to see if we could move our returning flight.  So, now at midnight on the first night of our vacation we were off to find the shuttle to our hotel without our checked bags that contain toiletries and fresh clothes for a few hours of sleep since we had to be back at the airport by 4:00 a.m. the next morning.

I have never in my life been to a more disgusting hotel...  the room numbers were pieces of paper taped on the doors.  We were so tired though.  After updating our parents and calling the airline one last time, our heads finally hit the pillow after 1 a.m.  We woke up the next morning at 3:30, brushed our teeth with one of our complimentary toothbrushes- the other one was dirty, and caught the shuttle back to the airport.

 Happy to leave this dump behind us.

I was more than ready to use my breakfast voucher for my morning tea after we went through security, only the restaurants weren't open yet!  We finally found one coffee bar at the other end of the airport and spent every bit of both our dinner vouchers from the night before and breakfast ones, just so the airline would have to spend that money.  We left with fruit, water bottles, and juice to spare. :)  We boarded our flight and landed in Jamaica before 7 a.m. their time, finally!

We went through customs, and had to find transportation to our hotel, since the transportation we had arranged for was not there by the time we landed.  We arrived at our resort, checked in, had a wonderful breakfast, took a much needed shower, and headed to the beach.  Our first day was filled with a lot of napping and relaxing.  We were very thankful to finally be there!  Here are a few pictures of our room and  the resort.

 Ocean view from our balcony

 Picture of our second floor balcony

 Our resort was large and spread out like a village, so it was a little difficult to capture in a picture, but we loved it.

This is the front of our building.  Our room was on the far left on the second floor.

Don't worry.  The vacation definitely gets better from here! :)

3 Years

Today, JW and I celebrate 3 years of being husband and wife.  We are in a good place.  JW is done with law school and the bar, we have settled in Houston close to family, I have started a new job and JW will be starting his at the beginning of next month, and we have found a new church that we love and are excited to get more involved in.  We feel so blessed.

We feel blessed to have a best friend in each other, to love each other more now than we did three years ago on the day we got married, and blessed to be at a somewhat "settled" time in our lives.  God has provided and taught us much.  We love doing life together and look forward to many years to come and the journey. 

Speaking of journeys... tomorrow we leave for vacation!  Three years to the day after we got on a plane for Puerto Vallarta for our honeymoon, we are headed to Jamaica to celebrate our 3rd anniversary, law school being over, and the upcoming career JW has as an attorney.  We are beyond excited.  So, I'm off to do laundry, pack, run errands, and all the other fun stuff that needs to be done before we leave!  See you in a little over a week!

Added:  Houston's is one of our favorite restaurants, and we hadn't been there since we moved back.  That's where we went for our anniversary dinner.  Yum!

The Bar Exam is Over!

Last Thursday afternoon, JW left Baylor Law School with the Bar Exam behind him.  The three day test he studied for for months and the last thing in his way before becoming a practicing attorney is complete.  JW feels good about how he did, but won't get his results until November.  

Needless to say, I am extremely proud, and we are thrilled to be on the other side of the bar.  JW had not gotten a hair cut in months and had a bit of a 'fro' going.  So, when he got back home to Houston on Thursday night, we gave him a buzz.  JW figured since he has about a month before he starts working, if ever there was a time to get rid of his hair just for fun, this is it. 

JW's locks before

The final product- Joey with a buzz

Look at all that hair.  Looks like a girl's curly locks. :)

Friday, I took off work and we spent the day relaxing together.  I was in Florida the whole week before for work, and then with JW in Waco the following week, we were due some quality time together.  We spent most of the day on the couch in our jammies and then went to Studio Movie grill for the first time to see The Dark Knight Rises. :)  Who doesn't love a good vedge day?

Then, on Saturday, JW's new law firm had organized a family fun day at Moody Gardens in Galveston.  It was a lot of fun to meet some of the attorney's JW will be working with and their families.  And, it had been years since either of us had been to Moody Gardens, so we had a good time.

Our monkey friend in the rain forest pyramid

This picture is of me and JW nice and sweaty in the humid rain forest pyramid.  We also visited the Aquarium pyramid just in time to watch the seals get fed and JW's favorite, penguins.  It was a fun day and life is happy around here post-bar exam.  We get to go visit friends in Dallas this weekend, and then our Jamaica vacation is just around the corner!  We can't wait!

July 4th Weekend

I have only blogged once in the month of July, and it's almost over.  I am definitely behind...  This month has flown by!  I am getting more into the swing of things at work and JW has been consumed with studying for the bar exam.  It is this week!  He drove up to Waco on Monday, and the test started on Tuesday.  He is comfortable with the portions he took Tuesday and today, but prayers please for one last day tomorrow.  Thursday is the day full of essays and the most challenging day.  Please pray for perseverance and wisdom for Joey to finish strong.  We can't wait for this week to be over!  It will be nice to have the bar exam behind us! 

So, I"m going to have to take you back to July 4th to get caught up.  My office was closed that week Wednesday through Friday, so I had a nice long weekend.  We have gotten mostly settled on the inside of our house, but the outside of our house needed a little love.  We had coupons to a home improvement store and a local nursery was having a 70% off sale, so JW came shopping with me for some gardening tools, soil, and plants.  The flower beds I re-did had not had plants in them for awhile, so they needed a lot of work.  I wish I would have taken before pictures, but didn't think about it, so you only get to see the finished product.

Here's the front bed under our big tree.  It makes me happy every time I drive up to see a little bit of color in front of our house.  I am hoping mexican heather and yellow and pink black-eyed susans will grow and spread out a little to fill up that flower bed.

We have two beds against the house on either side of our deck in the back.  They are in the shade all day, so we wanted mainly ground cover there.  Here's how they turned out.  It's hard to keep the dogs out of these, so hopefully they will do okay.

These are my favorite.  I had two matching pots that I spray painted black to go on the back deck.  I planted a fox tail fern, white diamond flowers, and potato ivy in each one.  I really enjoy looking at them since you can see our deck from the living room through the large windows we have.

The container I used to have for this stand rusted out, so I got a new plastic one and painted it black as well.  It has more white diamond flowers, potato ivy, and pentas that add a bright pop of color.  This one has really filled out since I first took this picture and looks great.

Working on the yard took a good day and a half and was a lot of work, but I am really glad we did it.  It looks great and just the few small things we did make a big difference.

Wednesday for the 4th, we went over to my parents' house during the day for grilling and swimming.  Late in the afternoon it threatened to rain, so we headed back to our house to feed the dogs and shower.  Then, we headed over to Momma Hance's house for her annual 4th of July party.

JW, me, Momma Hance, Nana, and Poppa

My parents and Hunter came over too.  We ate lots of all-American food, played Pictionary, and watched the fireworks by the pool.  It was a great day spending time with family, and was easy since we live in the same city now.