Well, I apologize for the length of absence but in returning from the honeymoon, getting back into the swing of things, getting Lauren moved into the house, getting familiar with what has happened at work and beginning “Laurenising” the house I have found minimal time to do anything. So this will be one hell of a recap. First let me thank everyone who came to the wedding and being part of the celebration, I hope everyone had a good time because like Doug said in his speech the groom doesn’t remember a damn thing of that day. I do remember laughing through the ceremony and wishing that I had more time to talk to everyone at the reception, so I apologize if we seemed short in conversation but we had a ton of people to talk to. Ok, so after the reception we head to the hotel for the honeymoon suite that cost 600 bucks. The place is decked out and champagne and tuxedo strawberries from godivas await our arrival, sweet! My parents dropped of my truck and my mom made mention of the cake crumb that I was supposed to get from earlier (if you saw the cake cutting you know what I am talking about), so yeah that was funny. The suite was very nice except for the brick hard bed and feather soft pillows, not a good combination in any term. Your body is rigid and your neck is at a 45 trying to get some form of support from the lack of pillow. Due to the bed we woke up early and headed back to her parents house to meet up with both immediate families to open gifts and recap the night. We headed for Columbia around noon to drop off all the stuff that was left for the wifey to move to the house and to pick up my vacation luggage. We then continued to Charlotte where we met up with Wha, Poot and Skippy for dinner. Had some great Mexican and talked about the happenings of the previous night as well as the potential match of Skippy and my cousin in NYC. After that we went to the hotel that hotels.com gave a 2 or 3 star rating. Their star ratings must be relative to how many crimes had been commited in or around the hotel as this was definitely the SHITTIEST hotel I have ever stayed in, so yeah I got that going for me, I found the shittiest hotel in Charlotte. The bedsheets actually had what looked like blood stains on one edge of the bed, the dead bolt was removed and the remaining guts of it were duct taped over, and the shower and bathroom, being very euro style, were one large tile debacle. Finally got to sleep and woke up at 2:30 due to Laurens anxiety to go on the honeymoon. We get to the airport around 5:30 for the 7 AM flight and somehow her boss, his wife and kids are there waiting for their flight to the Bahamas (this was not the first coincidence of airport meetings as you will later find out). We hang out with them for a while and then head for our connecting flight in Miami to St. Lucia. The flights went well and we ended up in St. Lucia around 1. Took the hour long ride through the island to the resort via a BMW sedan and a nice driver who basically told us the whole history and everything we could have paid 20 bucks for in a tour. I tipped him 5 bucks at the resort for the efforts. Upon arrival to the ALL INCLUSIVE resort you have to give them a credit card just in case you end up doing something that is extra such as massages, tours, excursions etc…. ALL INCLUSIVE MY ROYAL ASS. So I dish out the visa and we head to our butlered room, meet the butler and head out for drinks and food. I will skip the whole stay and make it brief. Monday was Lauren nap day, she slept most of the day while I explored the resort. Tuesday we ate breakfast at the beachside pavilion and had an awesome carb loaded breakfast. We followed that with laying out at the pool and beginning what we later found out to be part of the 80 pounds of bananas a day consumption by the bars in daquiris. We then went in for a couples massage that I was guilted into. Luckily after what I would call a mauling Lauren agreed that my massages were better than what we paid for so we wouldn’t be doing that ever again. Seriously that massage was painful and not the least bit relaxing, my left calf was cramped the rest of the stay. Later that evening we find out that my Visa has been declined after they tried to charge the massages on it. See I put a big purchase on it in April and then put the honeymoon suite on it. As Visa didn’t send me a bill I thought nothing of it. Irony: The bill was definitely in my mailbox when we returned. So I dished out my bank Visa which I had no clue what was in that part of my account so we were limited to spending what we had in pocket, luckily we took out a rather large amount of money for shopping and anything else that came along. For note, credit was fine the rest of the trip. On Wednesday we went on a morning shopping excursion where we went to a local wood carving place, a local clothing dye shop and the market. Bartered with a bunch of locals for market goods and came back to the resort to repeat the pool lounging/daiquiri consumption then to dinner with some newly acquired friends at one of the other resorts. Thursday was all pool/daquiris and eating followed by dinner at the Japanese steakhouse then evening entertainment. Friday was same thing with a visit to the third resort for lunch and hanging out on their beach then returning for dinner at the French restaurant with the previously mentioned friends. The service sucked at the restaurant but the food was decent and it was air conditioned. I mention the air conditioning as the island was in the final days of nice weather and heading to the rainy season which placed the day weather in 85 to 90 degrees with 200% humidity. I was sweating like I had a faucet on me, it was ridiculous and when the guys had to wear pants, closed toed shoes and collared shirts to dinner it was a sight to see all of them chugging water and sweating profusely while their newly acquired wives sat in their dainty sun dresses and chatted it up. Saturday was the bitch, a 6 oclock flight set the tone for everything. Per resort regulations you had to be ready to go 2 hours before your flight so we were up at 3:30 to go out at 4. They somehow forgot about us and I had to run across the resort to get one of the shuttles to go back and pick up our luggage and my wife. We sat in the airport which was an open lobby for 2 hours before leaving through the only gate and flying in a prop plane from the 70’s down the only runway to San Juan Puerto Rico. Here enters the other chance running into as in Puerto Rico we had a 4 hour layover. As I was trying to get some power napping in, Lauren mentions that a guy walking through the aiport looks a lot like one of my groomsmen Andy. I take little notice but give a peek to see how similar, and sure enough it is him and his whole family who I knew were planning to take a cruise from Puerto Rico the week after our wedding. So I run up behind him and take the gigantic bag he was toting and ask if he misses the days when Doug and I did all the heavy work for his family. He was talking to his wife on his cell phone and stared at me for about a minute before stopping as his jaw hit the floor in wondering why the hell I was in PR. His family turned back and we chatted a little and I got to see his son who was not able to attend the wedding, which I enjoyed as I hadn’t seen him in about a year or so. So from San Juan we flew to Dallas and then to Charlotte and then had to drive home. Overall the return home from waking up to getting to the house was a 20 hour ordeal, needless to say I was pissed and crashed hard that night. Overall the honeymoon was a great escape but did not meet my expectations to what I was thinking of a Sandals resort, I guess if my credit card had survived it might have been a little more interesting but we could have lounged by a pool and drank for a lot less. Now we are home and Lauren is retro fitting the house to her liking as well as working in the yard. I planted my tomato plants and mowed the lawn as well as spent a crap load of money on groceries that we supposedly needed, whatever I was doing fine with my fruit and whole wheat diet, now she comes in and I have ice cream and pasta tempting me every day! So everything is good, posting should resume in due time. Oh yeah I tried to see Star Wars today but it was a mommy club matinee which meant that the lights would be up and there would be babies and kids all over the place…..NO THANK YOU! So I will try again tomorrow so I can join the conversations at work, in the meantime my DVD collection of Star Wars is being circulated at work so the cycle can be completed for some. That is all…….

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 25th, 2005 at 7:59 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.