Honeymoon: Day 6, Michael and Amanda's wedding!

Day 6 of our honeymoon was Michael and Amanda's BIG day! 

Let me start off a bit with Michael and Amanda...

Michael is Jordan's cousin (or 2nd cousin.) Their Abuelita's (grandmothers) are sisters. 

Michael grew up in Miami, Florida whereas Jordan grew up around Boston, Massachusetts, yet they remained very close.

Michael’s little sister, Bianca danced with Amanda’s little sister, Melissa. They were BFFs and they always wanted to be sisters, so they came up with a scheme to get their older brother and sister together so they could be sisters. One day when they were hanging out at Bianca’s house, Melissa had Amanda pick her up and hence introducing the two… and so it began! That was 10 years ago.

A couple years ago, Jordan and I went on a trip to Florida for a vacation and to spend sometime with his family, this was my first time meeting them. We stayed with Michael and Amanda and their two dogs. They were so inviting and fabulous! All of Jordan’s family members down in Miami were like instant friends and family, they all welcome you with a hug and a kiss and invite you a long for everything.

I was, and still am, somewhat jealous and completely inspired by Amanda. She is gorgeous, super positive, and when I first met her she had just started working as a personal trainer. The jealously part comes in where she was out of the blue asked to become a trainer, whereas I up in Boston was certified and couldn’t find a job to save my life! Overall, her attitude is just amazing. Where other people would complain and whine she counts her blessings, which is always something I strive to do, but often come up short.

Amanda being an amazing yogi

After Jordan and I got engaged, Michael was like "now the pressure is really on!" since his cousin of the same age was getting married the family started giving him more pressure (But um, really... after 10 years I think the pressure was really already there.) 

Amanda's mother, who passed away 2 years ago, was Mexican, so they decided to have their wedding in Mexico in Playa del Carmen. 

The wedding was beautiful, and the location was amazing, but I will say the planning and communication left a bit to be desired. Especially since I was like the crazy wedding scheduler with everything for about 3 days surrounding the wedding broken down into roughly 15 minute intervals, so being there and having NO IDEA what was going on was a bit nerve racking. For instance, the meeting place described on Day 5 had not been decided until day 4 of our Mexico trip so I could not really plan or prepare.

Parents of the groom and my in-laws pre-wedding

Jordan was a groomsman in the wedding, and even he had no idea what time the actual wedding was at. We were told that a shuttle bus was leaving their hotel at 4:30 and another at 5:00 pm. We both managed to get on the 4:30 shuttle, which was good, because the 5:00 one never came and people had to find taxis and did not entirely know where they were going. 

The wedding took place at Xcaret, the ceremony was at St Francis of Assisi chapel, which was an open chapel without walls on top of a hill at Xcaret, which had a gorgeous view of the park. Getting there was a bit of a challenge, especially for older relatives and girls in high heals as it was a rocky, steep journey up to the chapel. 

The ceremony was beautiful, they did the traditional Mexican lasso ceremony where both Amanda and Michael's grandmothers roped a lasso around them to signify thier coming together as one. The lasso had been threaded with flowers from Amanda's mothers wedding dress which was a very special touch. Michael and Amanda had written their own vows, which was terrible in the sense that I cried the whole time. I always find the personal vows to be so beautiful and heart wrenching. They were a combination of sentimental, loving and funny. 

Lasso Ceremony

For the wedding reception, we walked across the park to "La Isla" Restaurant. Along the route were men dressed in traditional Mayan attire with face paint and blowing through conch shells as may have occured during Mayan celebrations. 

La Isla restaurant is set in a natural cave that involves walking down a spiral path down into the cave, which is surrounded by waterfalls and has an impressive fire in the middle. We were greeted by ornately garbed waiters who provided guests with cucumber or mango margaritas with a chili pepper rim (which was unexpected but delicious!). 

The whole restaurant set up was surreal. They had a harp player suspended over the cave, the roof was an intricate thatched spiral roof, lights were reflected off of the water and the caves crevices. 

Speeches were given by the father of the bride, best man (Michael's older brother Alex), maid of honor (Amanda's little sister Melissa) and a few other friends. Most of the speeches were in Spanish so I understood about a quarter of them. Amanda's sisters was given in English, in which she described how she and Bianca had wanted to be sisters, and about how their mother couldn't be there, it was a very touching speech which clearly lead to water works. 

Alex, the best man, toasting his brother

Melissa, the Maid of Honor, promising that she would not make today all about her, as she likes to do

Amanda laughing at a speech 

First Dance as newly weds! 

The reception went on with much dancing and tequila!   The food was also gorgeous and delicious of course, including an entree of surf and turf and some crazy looking desserts 

Honeymoon: Day 5 Beach bums

After our first 3 days of non-stop exploring we were ready for a well deserved beach/ pool day. 

We had a very strenuous day of getting a tan, swimming, ordering drinks by the pool and eating by the water.  

We started the morning by the beach, but as aforementioned the water was not really safe to go into there since there were reefs along the beach, so we moved up to the pool area. We did some reading (I was reading the Rules of the Bone fyi.) 

The service there was amazing. They came by to inform us when happy hour was and take our orders. We tried an array of fruity drinks and coronas. We were about to leave to go get lunch when they informed us they could serve us right there! So we stayed. Life was so tough.

After a day of lounging we set off to meet up with Jordan's family who was also in Playa del Carmen for his cousins wedding. Everyone else was staying at the Riu Grand Mayan Riviera Maya, which despite almost having an identical name to the resort we were staying at, was actually about a 30 minute taxi drive across town. 

Further confusion ensued when we were dropped off at the Riu Grand Mayan Riviera Maya Mexico, which apparently is a DIFFERENT hotel a couple miles away from our intended location. All of the Riu's were all inclusive resorts so we couldn't even get to front desk to figure out were we were. We had heated conversations with security guards at the entrance of of about 4 other Riu Grand Mayan resorts before finally finding the right one! It also did not help that the restaurant within the resort we were looking for was called the "La taquilla restaurante" so when we were trying to ask for directions (in our not-so-good Spanish) we kept being pointed in the direction of liquor stores instead. 

We finally found Jordan's family, but we still had to eat separately because they would not let us into the resort since we were not staying there, even though Michael, Jordan's cousin (the groom-to-be) had us on all of the lists, had paid for us and they took copies of our passports. 

We did get to spend some time with the family for a few hours at a bar afterwards but it was a frustrating chain of events to say the least! 

Random dancing at the bar on stage with the niños

Here is my Sister-in-Law Alya and her BF Ian 

This was Michael, the Groom's, dapper rehearsal dinner attire.

Groom's Abuelo and Abuela (now somehow my great Tio and  Tia  In laws I guess!) 

One of the groomsmen chilling on the beach 

Grooms Brother, Alex, Sister Bianca and Michael 

Honeymoon: Day 1

This is (as usual) an extremely delayed post. It is dedicated to Jessica as I promised her back in February that I would give her the low down on my honeymoon, and I seem to have kept putting it off. I have verbally told a lot of people about it so I started to lose my zeal about talking about it! So finally not that it is April, I am getting to putting it down in words.

As a precursor, I got married in September but we decided to postpone our honeymoon.

1. We had no money after the wedding.
2. It was too hard to take off time from work for the wedding and the honeymoon at the same time/ too stressful to plan both events at once.
3. Jordan’s cousin Michael was getting married in February in Mexico and we could no afford to take two trips so we lumped them together!
4. Apparently September is hurricane season in a lot of the areas we wanted to go so it may not have been the best time.

I am very happy with our delayed honeymoon. It was especially nice to get away from the New England winter in February whereas we would not have appreciated the weather as much had we gone in September (though it was gorgeous regardless!)

Jordan and I departed Sunday morning, February 17th and flew out of Logan airport at 6:40 am, with a lay over in Houston Texas.  This was my first time in Texas! Though it was not terribly eventful as it was only an hour or so long lay over.

It was very confusing regarding to time changed because we went back to hours from Boston to Texas, and then went forward one when flying into Mexico for a total of only 1 hour behind, but by the end of the plane rides I had no idea what was going on. My ears popped a lot but overall the flight went well.

We arrived in Cancun Mexico around 2 pm local time. A fellow American at the baggage claim gave the advice to walk fast and don’t stop for anything in the entrance of the airport because everyone would try to sell you something and you would never get out! So we kept on walking, and boy was that good advice because everyone was on us like a fly on honey!

I had arranged for a shuttle from the airport to our hotel so we scrambled through tons of tourists, cabs, and shuttles in order to find the right one. There were a lot of people in blue shirts and khaki pants that we were told to look out for from the shuttle company! Our hotel was ~30 minutes away from the airport.  My father has a time share so for our wedding gift he gave us a week of his time share and he organized our hotel stay which was great. We stayed at the “Grand MayanRivieria Maya” in Playa del Carmen. The resort was great. It was huge and had a lot of character. It also boasted the second largest pool in the world. It also had a beach right on the ocean, but despite nice sand it was also all reefy and dangerous so we did not spend much time there. 

view from the beach

 

Pool Bar 

Part of the second largest pool in the world

The hotel also had some cool wild life include flamingos, crocidiles, stray cats, tons of lizards and iguanas and even a lemur! 

 

Baby Crocodile

Our room was excessively large, it was a “suite” and probably more square feet than our house. We had a kitchenette, living room, bathroom and bedroom with a Jacuzzi bathtub in the bedroom. We also had a little patio and a “spa” aka a wading pool. 

Our enormous bed

 

Our living room

Once we got set up we took a walk around the resort, took some pictures, had dinner by the pool and went to bed early after a long day of traveling.

Jordan strolling along the resort

I insisted on having a Pina Colada the first day even though I was freezing, but it was delicious.

New Years “resolutions”

I admit – I started writing this post before new years and somehow never finished.

I realize the last time I blogged about “New Years” was the start of 2010! Reading it, I am really happy I wrote that post. It was a great summary of a year as well as my goals for the coming year. Looking back at my post nearest to New Years this year, I realize I was really depressed and remember not wanting to blog because everything I started to write came out negative and whiny. But I think either way it is important to regroup, recap and reinvest myself in life and thinking about what I want.

A look back at 2012

Work Stuff:

• Started working at Newton Wellesley as a Clinical Inpatient Dietitian
• Did Maternity leave at Massachusetts General Hospital as a Research Dietitian.
• Got offered and accepted a permanent job at MGH as a Research dietitian.
• Got my very own NIH research protocols! (Up to 9 now!)

Personal Stuff:

• I was a Bridesmaid in my good friend Melissa’s wedding (the first wedding I have been in since I was a flower girl around age 5!) 

• Melissa got pregnant- making her my first friend close friend MY age to becoming a mom! (I have lots of friends with kids, but they all seem older and it still seemed out of the realm of possibility even though I guess I am getting to be a real live adult now.)

• Got married myself to one of my best friends.

• Got a new name!
• Maintained my optimism for the most part.
• Made it through most major holidays without my typical self destructive melt downs.
• Despite being a lot further away from most of my friends – I think I managed to maintain a lot of good friendships- though there is always room for improvement and love seeing everyone!

Physical:

• Tried hot yoga (and hated it!)
• Tried crossfit (and loved it!)
• Ran my first 5K (Zombie Run for Our Lives) 
• Did the 10,000 push up challenge (100 push ups every day for 100 days before the wedding.)
• Did lots of other yoga
• Started working out with my hubby :) 

Looking back on my 2010 “resolutions”

· Learn how to accept a compliment – I have definitely gotten better at this.

· Work on being healthy, mentally and physically. – Still working on it. While I may have more adipose tissue, and I am not sure about my cholesterol etc, I would say I definitely feel better, and I am treating myself a lot better than I used to.

· Live in the moment, but make decisions that I will be comfortable with and proud of looking back.  – So far so good. If anything I may have found I do better when I plan a bit more!

· Continue to work on financial stability, while paying off undergrad loans.  -  I still feel like I have no money- but I did successfully graduate grad school with no debt, and I only have <$1000 left on my undergrad loans. I do now have a car payment, however, but little by little, chipping away!

· Prioritize. And make sure I am living accordingly. – An ongoing battle!

Goals for 2013:

·         Be happy

·         Be healthy (physically and mentally)

·         Be financially responsible

o       Finish paying off my school loans  

o       Pay off at least 1/3 of my car loan

o       Continue saving for the future/ an emergency

·         Keep learning

o       Listen to NPR or the news at least every work day.

·         Try new things (maybe do 1 new thing a month?? Hmm I will have to think more about this!)

I have taken so many counseling classes that I know my goals should be specific and manageable, but for now, I am going to leave it at that!

What are your thoughts on resolutions and the New Year? 

Wedding Photobooth

One of my only wedding requirements was that I wanted a photobooth, because nothing says a fun, happy wedding like funny hat and a fake mustache.

I had debated for a long time, perusing Pinterest for a food guest book idea. I liked the fingerprint tree or balloon ideas, but at the same time it did seem like the best way to remember the people who came since to be honest, I probably wouldn’t be able to identify people by their finger prints!

I also considered doing the writing on a Jenga set because I was trying to have all of the fun lawn games etc. (Which despite having a giant Jenga and other various lawn games, no one played any of them at the wedding).

I also liked the idea of using a calendar and having people sign on their birthday so then I would have documentation of everyone's birthday I was supposed to remember.

The traditional guest book was considered, but dismissed. People are already writing cards, No need to make them re-write the same sentiments and then (if they are like me) sign their name in an illegible manner so I have no idea who the note is from anyway.

My mother-in-law was VERY upset I was not doing a traditional guest book. She was like, but how are you going to get everyones addresses and phone numbers!? Of the weddings I have been to I have NEVER written my address/ phone number or any other contact information in the guestbook. If I was supposed to, I am sorry, I failed and was completely ignorant to this practice. Furthermore, if I had wanted to collect this data it would have been a lot more useful BEFORE the wedding and before I sent out invitations to everyone at their addresses. Also, to everyone that keeps telling me how great it will be to get everyones addresses for the invitations nce this will be used for the “Holiday Card list” – I do not send out holiday cards. Maybe I would send out an Ecard- but christmas cards are really just a waste of paper in my opinion. Cards in general are a nice thought, but really I read them, maybe leave them up for a week because I feel obligated, and then recycle them. Save your 41 cents. Just send me an email.

In the end, I decided a picture says a thousand words and to just use the photobooth as a "Guestbook" 

In order to encourage everyone to get their pictures taken I made a note in the wedding programs to make sure they visited the booth. 

Photobooth:
I looked in to renting a photobooth, especially when there were groupon type of deals for some of them, nonetheless, they were at least $1000 to rent. Considering the fat that Jordan is a ‘photographer/ videographer’ with lots of camera equipment and has various coworkers I figured we could harass for a favor – I decided we could make it work on our own.
I put myself in charge of acquiring the props. I looked online at Etsy which had quite the selection, but the cost was a bit much.

Again, thank goodness for Pinterest and google! Check out my "wedding: photobooth" pinterest page for specifics! 

I found a bunch of free templates to use, some of the best being from Oh Happy Day blog and Get Creative Juice blog  

 I am very sorry but I do not know where I  got these from! If anyone recognizes them please let me know so I can give them credit... 

My supply list included:

• Black foam core board from craft store (This was more expensive than I thought it would be ~$6 I discovered after the fact that Dollar Tree sells foam core for $1 for a smaller sheet, but only comes in white so it would have stuck out more.)

• Hot glue gun and glue (I already had the gun, so I just picked up some sticks for ~$1 at Walmart --I KNOW I shouldn't support Walmart, but that is another story entirely.)

• 12” wooden dowels (also from Walmart about $1/ pack of 10, I bought 3 packs).

• Printer

• Sticky felt (My sisters company moved offices and was going to throw away a ton of craft supplies, she rescued it and gave it to some of her teacher friends and myself.)

To put them together: 
1. Print out your props on a printer. 
2. If the print was already colored (Like the Oh Happy Day ones) just glue them right on to the foam board. If not, you can cut out colored paper or in my case stick felt into the shape and then glue onto the foam board with a spray adhesive. 
3. Using an exacto-knife on a cutting board, trace the shape to cut through the foam board. 
4. Using a glue gun, attach the wooden dowel to the side of the prop and wait until it dries. 

I printed out a photobooth sign and framed it in a dollar store frame. 

I rounded out my props I made with random things I had around the house from old halloween and dance constumes such as Bunny Ears, Giant glasses and a biker hat. 

For the booth itself we just used a black back drop and a bench in our garage and some of our photographers (we had Jordan's Uncle and a few of his friends doing out photography) use their cameras and lighting equipment. 

Everyone seemed to have a fun time and the pictures came out great for the most part! 

Some people found their own props to use as well 

 And some people did not even use props! 

There is my very handsome daddy and his girlfriend Valerie 

Even Jordan's 80 year old great aunt and uncle joined in!