Olive

K and I have 2 cats, Chewy (Bad Kitty), and Olive.

Olive had a hard beginning to her life.  At a few months old, she was initially adopted out to a moron person who decided that they couldn't be bothered with taking her to the vet for an upper respiratory infection.   Her right eye became extremely infected.  The person brought her back to the shelter and said "there's something wrong with this cat, I want a new one."

Needless to say, they didn't get a new cat.  The veterinarian had to remove her right eye, due to the severity of the infection.

Olive, 2008

The shelter put her up for adoption, and my cat obsessed husband (I created a monster) saw her online and decided we HAD to adopt her.  "Who else is going to adopt a little kitten with one eye?"

So, adopt her we did!  She is one of the sweetest animals I've ever known.  A little flighty, but I'd be flighty too, if I only had one eye.

K named her Olive, because her one eye is bright green... like an olive.

All of our animals are shelter rescues.  It makes us feel good to save a life!

Have you ever adopted an animal from a shelter or rescue league?

Honeymooners Part 3: We Had Adventures

So, we knew we really wanted to do something while we were in Mexico.  Some kind of excursion.  I really wanted to go swim with the dolphins, but that mess was like $200 a person.  Yeah, we passed on that one.  Instead, we booked an excursion with Aventuras Mayas with an Apple Vacations rep at the resort.  We decided on the Mayan Adventure Snorkeling Tour. 

"Live a wonderful jungle and ocean experience, discover in one day three extraordinary ecosystems of the Mayan world. Surprise yourself with Mexico´s biodiversity and join us in the snorkeling tour that will change your way of feeling nature.

We will dive into the turquoise waters of the Mexican Caribbean surrounded by exotic marine life; explore an underground river in the middle of the jungle, and discover the mystical wonders of the Mayan sinkholes (cenotes)"

Sounds innocent enough, right?  We both agreed we could handle that.  I seriously fail at swimming, but I figured it wasn't really going to be deep water swimming.  I guess when I heard "snorkeling tour" I pictured something along the lines of this:

Imagine my pure horror when our tour guide decides to tell us, once we're ALREADY en route on a bus, that this trip is very physically demanding, and requires SEVERAL MILES of swimming.

Source

I mean, I knew I would have to get in the water.  I'm fine with pools!  I love pools!  But several miles of swimming?  In the OCEAN?!  I thought we were going to be in a shallow "snorkeling" pond or something.  I'm dumb.

Fortunately for me, our guide was prepared with not only snorkeling masks, but flippers and life vests.  Thank you, guide-man!  My panic subsided.  I was ready to do this!

 

The snorkeling was definitely tiring, but really rewarding!  We honestly did go out in the middle of the ocean.  It was a really cool experience.

Next up, we were off to snorkeling in the caves.

Picture courtesy Aventuras Mayas

The ocean water was really warm.  It's Mexico, so yeah.  These freshwater caves however... were FREEZING cold.  Take-your-breath-away cold. After trying to slowly creep in, we just jumped in together.  It's the only way.

The caves were beautiful.  I pretended that the bats flying overhead weren't real. 

I've honestly never seen such clear water in nature before!

Our last adventure for the day was at a deep freshwater pool.

See that rope going across the water?  It's a zip-line.  I always wanted to zip-line!  I was really nervous though, because you zip-lined from a large drop off right into the water.  I did it anyway, because when would I ever get to do that again?  K wasn't scared.  He went first.

Ok, then me.  Awkward flail.

That wrapped up our excursion.  A few days later, it was time to say goodbye to our honeymoon.  I was tan, K was burned (poor guy), and though we were sad to leave... we wanted to get back home and see everyone.

Little did we know, it wouldn't be that easy to get back home.  Long story short, our American Airlines flight was delayed (due to mechanical problems) for four hours.  I hate Cancun airport now.  I paid $7 for a Gatorade. I'm not letting that go anytime soon.

I'm also not a fan of American Airlines.  Especially their gate agent, who acted as though my question "Are we going to miss our connecting flight?  Do we need to rebook a later flight from DFW to PIT?" was the stupidest thing she'd heard all day.  *eyeroll* "No. You'll make it."

We were supposed to have a five hour layover in Dallas, so we still had a chance to catch our connecting flight... or so the gate agent claimed.  Five hours down to one hour... but I forgot about customs.

After waiting 20 minutes for our bags to arrive, we booked it through customs, and rechecked our bags.  20 minutes to go.  We RAN to the little gate shuttle train.  Our gate was pretty much the last stop.  Of course.  WHY is DFW so HUGE?!  My dad told me that DFW is on a land mass that is bigger than Manhattan.  I tend to believe him.

The people on the shuttle were cheering us on "You can make it, run like hell!" When those doors opened, we ran.  Fast.

We were the last people on the plane to PIT.  They closed the gate after we went through.  We literally made it by a minute.  Ok, gate agent.  You were right. 

Honeymoon accomplished, and we were on our way home!  Then, I ate Mexican Frosted Flakes I took from the resort.  The end.

Did you have any intentional or unintentional adventures on your honeymoon or vacation?

Honeymooners Part 2: Foooood!

Honeymoons are awesome.  If you're at an all-inclusive beach location, you just drink, eat and relax.  It's so nice to not have to worry about paying for anything.  Gratuity is included in the price of the package, but we always tipped extra for food.  It just doesn't feel right to leave the kind, hard working servers nothing after a nice dinner. 

Since everything was included, we ate a TON. 

Our favorite place was the seafood restaurant.

With a view like this, how can you possibly go wrong?

We had white fish ceviche and marinated mussels and shrimp as appetizers.  I don't think I had a chance to take pictures of our dinners; we were starving.  Trust me, they were delish.

Our second favorite place to eat was the beach side lunch restaurant. 

K enjoyed the Greek salad as an appetizer....

while I devoured a cheeseburger and Corona in paradise.

We also enjoyed the Japanese restaurant.

 

I love Pad Thai.

How about some sushi, too?  I'm lucky I remembered to take a picture.  We LOVE sushi.

Our last evening at the resort, we had Italian.  I also had a shiny face.

The deserts were lovely.  I have no idea what this is.  However, it was delicious.

So all things considered, between food and beverages, we definitely got our money's worth.  I mean, we honestly took advantage of every available meal.   I also may or may not have taken advantage of the 24-hour room service at 3 AM  (I wanted a pineapple pizza, OK?!).

We also got dinner and a show one night, compliments of this gentleman.

He decided to take his shirt off in the "nightclub" and run around the bar.  Yowza. 

Oh, and since I promised, here's us with a monkey.

I spared you from seeing me in a bikini (thank me later).  However, K and I are holding hands, and the monkey is standing on them.  How cute!  This picture cost $15.  Not cute.

We went on an excursion, too. Snorkeling in the middle of the ocean (hint: I can't swim well), cave swimming and zip-lining (hint: heights and I aren't BFF).  More on that, next time!

Honeymooners Part 1: Paradise Found. Har, Har.

Well, no more wedding recaps, but I can now entertain you with a million pictures from our honeymoon!  Yay!  It's your lucky day.  I'm going to split this up so you don't fall asleep halfway through.  K?  K.

We decided to spend a week at an all-inclusive resort in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico.  We picked Secrets Capri.

I can't even LOOK at that website without feeling this huge sense of sadness. I miss this place so much!  It was, in a word, amazing.

An uneventful flight followed by a quick stop through customs, and we were ready to begin our adventure!  We booked our honeymoon through a local Apple Vacations rep, and had arranged for a private transfer to our resort. Good choice on our part, as we really didn't want to wait while other people were dropped off.

While we were waiting for the car, we indulged in $8 Coronas at a bar by the car pickup area (it's Cancun airport, what do you expect?). When the car arrived, we asked our driver if we could bring them along for the ride.  He looked at us like we were insane and said "You're on vacation in Mexico.  Do whatever you want!"  Well, OK then sir.

We were checked in quickly, and a nice resort representative showed us all around. 

They even decorated our door!

The resort staff fixed up our room to make it honeymoon worthy.

Our room was gigantic.  I wish I took more pictures.  It had a huge bathroom with a sunken tub (that we didn't use), a separate toilet area, glass shower and double sink.  The bedroom area had a king sized bed (mattress was a little firm for my liking), with a sitting area and balcony with a limited ocean view.

We poked around, and then set off for dinner.  It was pretty late (like 9:30), so we were kind of limited on things to do the first night.  We were freaking exhausted anyway, so that was fine with us. We passed out and were up bright and early for our first full day of adventures!

First thing I did was check out the view from our balcony.  Oh man.  Mexico takes my breath away.

We headed out to breakfast.  Every. Single. Morning we ate at the breakfast buffet.  I despise and loathe anything with the word "buffet" in it, but I'll tell you what, this hotel's food was to die for!  I had a mimosa with breakfast every morning.  I miss those mornings.

Next up, the GIANT resort pool.  This was our routine every single morning:  Grab floats at the pool.

Read Sookie Stackhouse novels in the pool on the floats.

 Put books down, sit at swim up bar, and let Juan make us the most excellent frozen mixed drinks.

Iceberg = Corona with frozen margarita mix on top to keep it cool.  Amazeballs.  He also made me a special strawberry champagne cocktail (or 5), that may, or may not, have put me on my ass in the middle of the afternoon.  Just sayin'.  He drew hearts on top of it with chocolate syrup.  I love Juan.

Around 12, we'd mosey over to the beach and lay out by the ocean.  Servers cater to your every whim while you lounge, and they'll bring you whatever you'd like for lunch.  We'd order from them, or grab something from the guy grilling lunch on the beach.

After hours of relaxation, we would usually rinse off, and spend the rest of the afternoon in the pool at the swim up bar.  They play bingo at the bar at 5:00.  I love bingo.

We ate at a different restaurant every night.  Check back for a TON of food pictures, you've been warned.  Oh, and I met a monkey.  A real live monkey.  He sat on our shoulders and crossed his legs.  See, now you HAVE to read my next post.  More tomorrow!

I lied.

So remember how I said I wanted to get this point and shoot camera, due to my lack of photography knowledge and overall clumsiness?

Ok, well that didn't happen.

Instead, we got a DSLR.  The Canon EOS Rebel T1i.  It's pathetic how much I love this thing.  I had the strong urge to hug it last night.  I resisted.  Yes, I am weird.

I'm ready to learn. I want to learn!  Oh, and I bought a 4 year protection plan for it.  No need to worry about my clumsiness, unless I completely submerge this thing in water, or light it on fire.  I'm assuming those occurrences are unlikely to happen.  Especially the latter.

I'm learning, albeit really slowly.  Jenna at That Wife posted some really helpful DSLR tutorials, which have helped me to at least understand what the heck aperture, ISO and shutter speed are.

I took this picture today, after playing around with the shutter speed and aperture for awhile:

It's a little dark, but I just love his face.  He was sick of being my model.  I need to find something inanimate to shoot; something that doesn't swat at the lens.

I leave for Europe in less than two weeks (!) and I'm really excited to hopefully take some nice pictures.  I will be blogging that whole week, so check back for all of that.  I bet I'll have some interesting things to show and tell.  Namely, my awesome plane seat that apparently turns into a bed.

Now, back to enjoying Fall.  The first real Fall weekend we've had here!

PS: Steelers are 3-0!  I smell Super Bowl already ;)