Honeymoooooon!

Today's post marks the final wedding recap post. I know, some of you are crying. Others of you (dudes) are probably clapping or something, but it's whatever. I couldn't just end the recaps with wedding pictures--you need to see the actual end of the wedding experience--our honeymoon.

Around 4-5 months before the wedding, we decided on honeymooning at Sandals Royal Caribbean in Montego Bay, Jamaica. We hesitated to tell people we were going to Jamaica a lot of the time, because most people would say something like "oh my gee it's so dangerous aren't you scared you're going to get killed?" or "DRUGS!" which really sets a lovely honeymoon vibe. But no, we had researched the trip beforehand, and we had decided not to leave the resort, which reduced the chance of us getting killed/robbed/drugged by...a lot. This was mostly because we just wanted to laze around, and I've been to places like Jamaica enough times to know that leaving the resort/cruise ship isn't usually super worth it. 

Sandals resorts are absolutely beautiful. We chose Sandals because 1) it's an adults only resort and 2) it's all inclusive. There are multiple Sandals locations, but we chose this particular one because they had the best room (right on the beach) for the best price. It was also a "stay at 1, play at 3" resort, which meant that we could take a bus whenever we wanted to either of the other 2 Sandals resorts nearby to enjoy their pools, restaurants, etc. It was pretty convenient, and we did that a few times.

While on our journey, we had a few adventures, the most notable of which happened at the very beginning of the trip. We were supposed to arrive at the Lubbock airport at 5:00 a.m., and being that it was the day after our wedding, we were exhausted. We got up, had everything ready, and my parents picked us up to take us to the airport. As we walked up to the American Airlines desk, the guy sitting there kind of called out to us "Hey, you know your flight's cancelled, right?" (foreshadowing). 

Now, I had never seen this person before in my life. He hadn't looked at our travel documents, so he should have had no idea who we were. So I immediately assumed he was joking. Sometimes airport personnel do that. So I was immediately like "Haha. Yeah. Cool joke. Whatever." and handed him our tickets/passports. Then it got more serious as he repeated that our flight was cancelled. Like three times. Then finally, I figured out that he might not be kidding. I demanded to know, one final time, if he was serious. He said yes, that the crew didn't show up. Immediately, I cry. I tell him it's our honeymoon and this can't possibly happen. This is probably a worst case honeymoon scenario (maybe that's me being dramatic, but it felt awful). After all our careful wedding planning, everything had gone perfectly--only to end up crashing and burning at the best part! 

It turned out that Thomas had gone to school with the guy (Chris), and that's how he recognized us before seeing our documents. He felt really bad about what happened, but couldn't do anything about it. He told us that if we could make it to Dallas by 12:30, we would be able to make it to Jamaica that day. Our original flight was supposed to leave Dallas at 10:30 and get to Jamaica at 1:30, so we would be losing roughly half a day (best case scenario) if we made it to Dallas by 12:30. If we didn't make it to Dallas by 12:30, we would lose over one whole day since there weren't any other flights leaving for Jamaica until the next day:[ 

We decided to leave for Dallas ASAP...which meant that my parents had to drive us! It was super nice of them and it wasn't as bad as you'd think (for us that is. They drove 12 hours back to back because they didn't have changes of clothes or anything). We got to Dallas, had an hour or so before our 12:30 flight, got to Miami, had a 3-4 hour layover, took the 3.5 hour flight to Jamaica, took 2 hours to get through customs, and FINALLY  got to our resort at 12:30 a.m. (11 hours after we were supposed to). It ended up being ok though, because we met our honeymoon friends Josh & Kristen on the trip, and they had experienced the same thing.

On with the pictures!

The view from our first floor porch.

Me hanging out on said porch.

Breakfast the first morning. We ate at this delicious buffet every day.

Our super nice waiter volunteered to take a picture of us.

Our resort had a private island with a pool, restaurant, and beach. This is on the boat out to that little island.

This was actually taken on a nude beach. But we weren't nude, I promise (full disclosure--I wouldn't lie to you) and no one else was there. Not too exciting.

Sandals offers fun little classes and things throughout the day to pass the time (for those of you who aren't satisfied to read a book all day long). After a fruit carving class, Thomas asked if he could have the apple. He immediately ate it, right in front of the carver! Totally embarrassing.

Look at this cute tiny ice cream cone!

  Adventure #2: The resort had 5 peacocks that lived on site, so we learned a lot about peacocks over the course of a week. For one thing, they sound like a woman being murdered when they call to each other. Also, they're really territorial. This peacock wandered up onto our porch one day while we were eating. Thomas fed it a french fry (foreshadowing).

Next thing you know, I'm hiding in the room because the peacock is getting aggressive and stealing fries. Thomas stands up (physically and metaphorically) to the peacock, and that beast ended up attacking him. See the lesion on his right knee. Peacocks are crazy.

This was the view of the island from right outside our porch.

This restaurant was an English pub style place. The bartenders were funny, and they played lots of pop music (meaning that I loved it).

This was what I did most of the time. Love me some Kindle.

 Some days we got seated by the balcony for breakfast. You could see the island from the restaurant.

This was one of the fancy outdoor restaurants. My favorite thing about it was the little kitties that hung out there. They were super cute and sweet, so I fed them under the table.

Sunset on the beach.

This crab lived right outside our porch in the bushes. His name was Herman. We heard him rustling around at night, so we finally stuck our camera down in his crab hole (crab hole?) and snagged this photo.

Ahh. Wish we were back there!

We loved the pool at our resort a lot, but we spent some time at the beach too.

My pro sand writing skills. 

I love swim up bars. They're my favorite. This was also our favorite drink, the Miami Vice. It's half pina colada, half strawberry daiquiri. Yes please.

This was also taken at the English pub on a different night, but at the exact same corner table.

One day we had breakfast on our patio. They sent extra milk.

This was at another resort, Sandals Montego Bay. So pretty!

We loved their beach. We even got a spot under a nice shady tree.

While swimming in the water around the pier, we saw like 5 weddings over the course of an hour.

This was one of the best restaurants we ate at, also at Sandals Montego Bay. We had dinner there and it was perfect timing for the sunset.

I actually asked the waiter if we could go outside and take this picture before we ordered. He obviously said yes.

It took me so long to get this picture, and I look like an amputee. But I tried.

Thomas and Josh swimming.

 We were so happy that we ran into Josh & Kristen before dinner while we were all dressed up, and that we found someone to take our picture!

This was the day we left--the gazebo was right outside our room.

 Thomas really did take this picture of the peacock, and shockingly didn't get attacked. Looks totally professional.

Our honeymoon was perfect, and we so wish we were back there now! Hopefully someday.

-T, K, J, & C