Driving Home in My Automobile...

Hehe. For those of you who know my 1996 Ford Taurus, you won't be too shocked to hear this story. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Taurus and all its glory... be thankful.

*This is not my Taurus, but rather a stock photo. Mine is much dirtier and covered in bumper stickers.

Thursday night I had class. Our instructor let us out about an hour early. I had carpooled with two of my co-workers so I dropped them off where they needed to be and got back on the freeway (highway for all you East Coasters). I maybe drove a mile when my car started making a HORRIBLE sound. At first I thought it was the exhaust, so I pulled over to investigate. I shut the car off and turned it on again. No sound. I started to pull forward a little bit, clunk, clunk. Ugh oh. I have a flat. No worries. I have AAA!

I call AAA. They tell me I am a priority because I am on the freeway (highway) at almost 9:30pm sitting in the dark. About a half hour goes by and noone shows up so I call them back. Ya, the first truck they were going to send is busy. Their simple jump start turned into a tow meaning it will be a 40 minute wait. By now I've already waited 40 minutes! Would I like them to find another truck? Hmm, yes, let's do that. Would I like them to call Highway Patrol? Hmm, no. Wait. Considering that I am a young woman sitting by herself in a dead car on the side of the freeway (highway) surrounded by woods and no street lights... yes, let's call them.

Do they ever show up?

No.

Finally, "Grandpa's Towing" shows up. Thank God. Of course, by now I am standing in the woods by the side of the road because my battery is dead and since my hazards don't work I was really a sitting duck for all the semis driving by at 60 MPH. The driver goes to work on fixing the flat. At this point I wasn't even sure if there was a spare, but I figured there must have been because why would my parents have ever taken it out and not replaced it? He gets the spare on and... its flat. Big shock.

He says he can fix, he'll just have to jumpstart the car first. Remember, dead battery. He jumpstarts it and then goes to work pumping air in the spare. Heh, at this point I remember that I'm riding Elvis already (no gas) so I ask the guy if I shut the car off again will it start back up. He tells me to not shut the car off until I'm parked in my driveway.

I have never in my life pumped gas with the engine still running. I really felt like I was tempting fate to start my car on fire!

In the end, I left class at 8:45pm. Rather than get home in 30-45 mins. like I should have, I got home at 11:30pm!

Is the flat fixed? Well, it completely BLEW OUT. Gone. Of the rim. The wonderful Taurus now has 4 wonderful new tires, a new battery and its going in for a front end alignment on Thursday. I will never listen to my mom again tell me "No car needs a front end alignment."

Day Two of Our Honeymoon

On Sunday, we mostly just relaxed at the hotel. We went in the different pools and the beach it owns. Our hotel had 3 pools, 2 of which were by the beach and were infinity pools. They all had swim up bars too. We tried lots of different drinks. Matt's favorite ended up being a Miami Vice which was some sort of frozen drink.That night we ventured downtown because the map we had spoke of a Sunday festival. When we got there they had different bands playing in the town square. Do you think I could get Matt to stop and listen to any of them? No, of course not. He was like the energizer bunny and just had to keep going.We did make it to the World's Smallest Hard Rock for a drink.

I can tell I was in a lot of pain from my sinuses here.

This was outside some restaurant.

Last drink of the night. This was a nice small restaurant that had a patio on the water. Unfortunately, Margaritaville was next door and it kinda ruined the romance.

I almost forgot!We started off the night by getting a drink at the sports bar at the hotel. Well, everyone at our hotel was from one of 4 states: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa or Michigan. It drove us nuts! This one lady from Minnesota wouldn't leave me alone. Matt went to the bar to get us a drink and she kept flirting with me and trying to put her arm around me, with her husband sitting right there going "Leave her alone!" It was fantastic. Not. I kept mouthing to Matt to "Help me." But he was clueless. He ended up doing shots at the bar with someone. The crazy lady kept wanting to take our pictures. Here are the results:

The rest of the time that we saw her there Matt would refer to her as my Minnesota girlfriend. She said she had 3 kids at home and she looked like she was barely 25! Of course, she also said she was married for 13 years. I don't know. I was glad we got out of there when we did.

Our Honeymoon!

Let's start with some background information...

Matt and I were married on Saturday, July 28, 2007 in Las Vegas. I was a bridesmaid in my bridesmaid's wedding on Saturday, August 11, 2007 in Virginia. Then we closed on our condo in Everett, Washington on Thursday, November 1, 2007. Matt turned 26 on February 7, 2008 and I turned 30 on February 25, 2008.These were all factors in why we decided to take our honeymoon from February 23-March 1, 2008 and not directly after our wedding. I am glad we waited because I think we were able to relax and enjoy it more. Now time to get to the story!

We flew to Mexico on a red eye Friday night, February 22. I had had a full day of parent-teacher confrences and dealing with our Hyundai dealership so I was pretty beat. Of course, that set me up for a wonderful sinus infection that plagued our entire trip. Its ok now, I am finally on antibiotics!Our flight was uneventful which is exactly how I like them! When we got off the plane in Cozumel it was HOT. We had an interesting walk on the tarmac to the terminal. We saw their guards with their machine guns. Lovely. I was smart and packed a pair of shorts and a tshirt in my carryon so I got changed while Matt waited for our luggage. Then we jumped in our taxi and we were off to the Park Royal Hotel.


Check in was a big process. It was Saturday so lots of people were trying to check in and out. Our room wasn't ready when we got there at noon so they took our luggage, gave us our all-inclusive bracelets and told us to come back at 3pm. We wondered around for a bit and our room ended up not being ready until 4pm. We were beat by then and just wanted to sleep since we'd been up for over 24 hours! Here are some pictures from the exploration of the area by our hotel.

This was really great for my yet undiagnosed sinus infection:

We saw this on our walk along the beach. It was for a beach bar.

When we finally got our room we crashed for a little then got cleaned up for dinner at the Italian Restaurant that the hotel runs. It was alright. Not the greatest Italian I've ever had. We checked out some of the hotel's nightlife and then went to bed. We were beat!

More to come....