The Honeymoon

Before too much time elapses we thought we should probably write down about our honeymoon and the events leading up to it.

The week before our honeymoon we found that we both were exposed to whooping cough through Jeremy's sister's kids who picked it up from some kids during a play date. As long as we weren't showing any symptoms we were ok, however if we did catch it, we would have to be quarantined for 72 hours. Since we were getting married in a week this was not a good risk. Jeremy checked with his work's physician who said not to worry about it, but I called my dad to ask him what he thought. He told us we should be on antibiotics just in case and prescribed some to us. With no insurance this is was not pleasant news especially when the pharmacist asked me whether or not I wanted the prescription due to the cost without insurance and then told me the total. Ouch! As a consequence to the exposure I contracted an very awful and painful eye infection. I managed to suffer through it the whole entire day until I could endure it no longer and asked Jeremy for a blessing. I was able to deal with it until I could come home that Monday and be seen by my optomitrist who told me that the bacteria was eating my eye and prescribed some eyedrops to kill it but it also meant throwing out all my eye makeup and not wearing any until the wedding.

It was great seeing everyone. Rachel and Jonathan and posse came up all the way from Texas. I can only imagine it was a rough flight with 3 little ones. Matthew was complaining that his ears hurt and with good reason too, the poor little guy somehow got an ear infection but grandpa came to the rescue again.

Jeremy missed his flight Friday evening and didn't call leaving his bride panicking that he maybe changed his mind, something happened to him, etc. He called late that evening after I was a frazzled wreck from worry and explained what happened. Saturday was wonderful! The weather was perfect. It was overcast but didn't rain a drop while we took pictures. I was a little late due to my hair and makeup taking a little longer than expected but my mom flew us in her car in record timing. That night Jeremy and I couldn't find our hotel. We were staying at the Marriott by the airport. Apparently there are 3 by the airport and vary as to how nice they are. The first Marriott was super fancy, but not ours and they directed us to the one down the street which was a basic motel. We were told they didn't have our reservations there but were willing to book us a room at the same price we had paid earlier. Jeremy couldn't pull up our reservation to check it with the clerk. Apparently we were booked at the courtyard but the different Marriots don't sync their records so we had no idea until after we had checked into our room. The one he had reserved was supposed to be really nice with a jaccuzi in the bathroom and other really nice ammenities. As we both were exhausted and starving we didn't really care at that point. We ordered a pizza and Jeremy returned the rental car.

The next morning we missed our early morning flight and were planning on catching the next one which still gave us plenty of time to catch our cruise. We checked our bags in 2 hours early and hung out at the airport. When we got to Orange County, Jeremy's bags hadn't. We couldn't find anyone at the lost baggage center for the airline and were instructed to go to the ticket counter. Jeremy waited by the lost baggage counter with my bags and I ran up to the second floor to speak with a rep at the ticket counter. The first rep was definitely not in the mood to help us and if we took her instructions we would have missed our cruise. Another agent overheard our conversation and volunteered to help us. She gave us another bag, travel vouchers for both and a spending budget for clothes and neccessities until his bag could be located. The only clothes he had were the ones he was wearing and his suit. We had to buy laundry detergent to wash his only pair of underwear and clothes and a few other essentials and then left for the boat. Luckily it was later found and was flown to our first port stop. Where it went we still don't know.

We had a balcony room which was wonderful. We were well fed and pampered all along the way and enjoyed the creative towel folding that we would discover every night after dinner by our room service staff for our floor. We stopped at Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan, and Puerto Vaerta. Our first stop in Cabo we went whale watching and stalked a momma whale and her calf for about an hour before heading back to shore. We checked out a few of the shops and wandered the city until we had to head back. Our next stop we went on a tour out in the back country. We saw brickmaking, pottery making, woodworking, and stopped in a villiage for lunch where and American professor and an artist were trying to help the locals and carry on the vision of another former professor in helping the local turn their economic status around. The people were very friendly and sweet, and were not pushing their wares but even in once case a lady tried to give us a wood carving. We knew they were still struggling and even though she didn't ask for or expect payment we gave her what we later figured out to be the equivalent of $10 US for her wood carving, (they were selling them in the streets for $3, but we didn't have change). Our last stop was Puerto Vaerta and by far my favorite. It was a more developed city and was a lot more of a comfortable environment because the locals weren't trying to kan the tourists by inflating prices and not negotiating to a reasonable or fair price. We did a little shopping and played on the beach for a bit. Then it was back on the ship. That night I got sick. It was also the night we ran into 7-10 ft swells which lasted the remainder of our trip making for a very rocky night. Friday I was even worse and couldn't get out of bed. Jeremy was so sweet to me and wouldn't leave my side even though I was really boring company. After missing dinner I decided I really wanted to get out of our cabin and get some mint tea to see if it would help. I didn't want to get dressed and was wearing my pink monkey pajamas my mom made for me. Jeremy didn't want me to feel out of place so he changed into his yellow monkey pajamas and off we went. It was the ship's formal night so Jeremy said we would go in our best monkeys. Saturday I started to feel a little better and really wanted to check out the deck and enjoy the sunshine so we went up to the sun deck and we took turns reading Harry Potter. We reached LA Sunday morning and my friend Erin came and picked us up. We got to spend a few hours at her house chatting with her and her twin brothers before catching our flight home. Her brothers made us swedish pancakes for breakfast. Our flight home was uneventful but expensive as we found out that Delta now charges $15 for the first checked bag and another $25 for each additional bag. We didn't anticipate this cost as Jeremy had flown Delta the night before our wedding and wasn't charged for checking his bag. It wasn't worth the argument but it was disappointing. We enjoyed our trip but it was great to finally be home and officially start our lives together.