Fall Visits

In August Steve and I headed down to Dallas to have a little reunion with his college friends. They had planned the weekend while in San Diego earlier this year. We stayed at the Jones' house and had a blast playing at the pool, boating, exploring the area a bit, and catching up.

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In September my parents came to visit us here in Lubbock! We had planned a lot of outdoor activities since the weather was finally cooling off, but it ended up pouring rain almost the entire weekend. There was tons of flooding (more on that later)! We found things to do inside instead and were so glad they came!!!

At a park near our house - the one evening it didn't rain!

We had lunch at the oldest restaurant in Lubbock - Gardski's

CALLING INTO A RADIO SHOW!

This is Steve:

So on my way home from school the radio station I usually listen to plays this stupid game where you can win things.  You have to name things that are or could be in your car and match them to what he is thinking.  When I am listening I USUALLY am able to guess what they are.  I've tried calling in before but I have never gotten through (I've tried calling radio stations several times throughout my life and have never gotten through.  It is quite frustrating...).  Anyways, today when I was listening I was pretty dang sure I knew what he was talking about so I thought I would try and call in.  The first time I called it was busy, as per usual, so I hung up and tried again.  This repeated 4-5 times, then all of a sudden I heard a voice on the other end.  I figured that if I got through I would be connected with a phone answerer person and not the actual DJ (I figured they would screen my call or get my info or something).  Anyways, it was the actual DJ on the line and he was ready for me to "play the game".  As I mentioned I wasn't expecting it to be him so when I realized what was going on I was a little startled.  You can tell in the clip when I said something like, "I'm calling in for the radio thing..."  How embarrassing...  Not to mention my voice sounds REALLY weird.  I think I sound like a hick.

Since the call wasn't live, I pulled over to see if I could record it with my phone when it actually aired.  The clip is below:

I WON!!!!!!  It was crazy.  Im still in shock that I actually got through and that I won.  Things like this never happen to me.  I have the worst luck ever.  Typically, with my luck I would have ended up having to pay the radio staion or something because I got through...  But instead I won tickets to the haunted house here in Lubbock!  I actually wanted to go to it with Kellie but we decided not to because tickets are $25 each.  

FREE DATE NIGHT(minus the ice cream we will probably get afterwords)!!!!!

Oh, and the best part is I got a shout out to my Broncos and at the same time diss the cowboys!!!

And Kellie said you can't do  blog post without at least one picture.  She said to put one of the haunted house or something.  I figured this would be much more enjoying for those who might read this:

!!!!!!!!

San Diego

We took a trip to San Diego at the beginning of June to attend one of Steve's good friend's wedding! It was a lot of fun and we got a lot more checked off on our "to see/do" list than we thought we would.

We got in Wednesday evening and after taking a shuttle to an extremely ghetto car rental pick up place/car, we made it to the hotel. We explored the gas lamp district that evening, which was only a few blocks from our hotel, and then stocked up on some groceries for the weekend.

On Thursday morning we headed to Balboa Park - which is a super amazing place! I loved it so much! Hopefully one day we'll have time to go back and get to go through some of the many museums they have there. Matt and Jeff met us there and after an obligatory stop at In n' Out we went to Sea World! Sea World was giving some free passes/buddy passes to all the law enforcement workers, so Jeff got us in for free (because of all the wildfires he'd been "fighting").

I didn't remember much about Sea World from the time I'd been there as a kid, so it was fun to experience it. We went and saw a show called Sea Lions Live and at the beginning of the show a little otter ran out and waved it's little paw at the audience. I thought Steve was going to pass out he was so excited! It was a fun show, except for the heat!

 We also got to ride some gondolas over the bay, a rotating tower thing, and see all the other sea life.

That night we got some food and took it to the beach to eat. It was so cold, but really pretty!

Before heading back to the hotel for the night we drove up to Mt. Soledad which had an incredible view!

Friday we went to Seaport Village, which had tons of cute little stores and street vendors. We walked along the pier until we came across a restaurant that was built out above the ocean! We had some yummy seafood there with a fun view of the harbor. About two minutes after we left the restaurant a huge aircraft carrier came sailing into the harbor - if we had stayed in the restaurant just a bit longer it would have passed right by the window where we were sitting! :/ We stood and watched it for a while since it was neat to see such a big ship maneuver through a smaller space. 

Yummy calamari!

As we walked to our car we saw a ticket on the windshield and started to panic. I knew I had put enough money in the meter when we left, so I couldn't figure out what it would be for. Turns out our rental car had expired registration! I guess that's to be expected when renting from a ghetto car agency. Luckily, the car rental company paid for the ticket without a fight!

The registration expired in April and we were there in June

We then drove across the highest bridge ever to Coronado Island. As you drive over the bridge you can see all the aircraft carriers at the naval base, which was pretty spectacular. The island itself had way more residential area than we thought it would, but we found our way to the beach! 

 

Proof we got in the ocean:

That evening we met up with the Clines, Matt, and the soon-to-be Porters and had dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. Outside of the little shopping area where we ate was a carousel that everyone decided was a good idea to ride. It looked like it went super fast when we were watching it, but it turns out it went a normal speed once we were actually riding. Disappointing...

Saturday was wedding day!!! It was only slightly dampened by the fact that Steve had gotten really sick during the night and thrown up while I slept like a baby through it all! But by morning he was feeling okay. This was the first wedding that Steve and I had attended together since getting married ourselves, so it was fun for us to relate a little more to Jeff and Rachel's day.

Tyler, Jeff, Steve, and Matt were all great friends through college

We had some time in between the ceremony and the reception, so we headed back to the hotel so Steve could nap. While he was sleeping I walked up to Balboa Park again, which was a lot busier on Saturday! There were a ton of people there exploring, setting up booths, or performing.

The reception was fun. They had it catered by a local place that had really yummy tacos - Jeff had been talking them up the whole week and they didn't disappoint! We were exhausted from the day, but had so much fun!

Sunday morning we met up with Matt and explored and ate lunch in Old Town. We then headed to Children's Pool in La Jolla to see some seals and sea lions. It's pretty funny because a sea wall was put up to make it the ideal spot for children to swim, but it turns out that's ideal for seals and sea lions too, so they've kind of taken over the beach there. Activists have roped off the beach trying to keep people away, but it's still open to the public, so we saw a few people just walk right under the ropes and set up camp on the beach! We were happy to watch the animals from afar for this visit though.

We hit up Jamba Juice after the Children's Pool since we don't have one in (or anywhere around) Lubbock :( and relaxed for the afternoon. Later that evening Steve and I headed over to Little Italy and had dinner. We then walked down and spent some time by the ocean and saw some pirate ships! 

We flew home early Monday morning and true to Steve's luck with travel we got in later than expected due to delayed flights. But we made it back! It was such a great trip and we will definitely head back as soon as we can! 

Wedding and Honeymoon

We wanted to write a few quick things down that we remember from our wedding day:
-We LOVED our sealer and having so many of our friends and families there!
-Steve keeps reminding me how I crushed his hand right before the ceremony. He thought I was having second thoughts or something, but I was really just overwhelmed by how many people were in the room!
-As we were driving to the reception (in full wedding attire) a car passed us. The man driving the car was clapping and cheering and then the lady next to him started doing that as well...it was a funny/awkward moment.
- Steve had given me a lecture every day for about two weeks leading up to the wedding about how mad he was going to be if I got cake on his face. I was so nervous about getting cake on his face when the time came, I basically shoved it halfway down his throat and choked him!
-Everybody was right, despite how much Steve insisted he would, we did not eat at the reception. Instead, we stopped at Wendy's on our way up to Salt Lake.

We are SO grateful for everyone coming to Utah and helping us with all things wedding. The day flew by, but all the hard work and love was definitely noticed making it such a special day for us!

And then we flew to Cancun!!! I should have known things would not go smoothly while traveling - I'm married to Steve after all. ;) We got to the airport and saw our flight was delayed for two hours, but that was still enough time to make our connecting flight in Houston. Every time we checked the departure time our flight got bumped back a little more until we were going to be cutting it really close. During this waiting time we ran into the Warrens leaving as well as Randy and TJ. Both of their flights ended up leaving before ours since our flight was so delayed. Finally we boarded. Then they came on the speaker and said the emergency exit doors didn't have the right pressure, they should take 5-10 minutes to check. 15 minutes later they came on and told us it would be another 2-3 hours until we took off while they fixed the doors...we would definitely miss our connection. So we got off the plane and tried to figure things out. Making a very long story a little shorter, we got to Houston, they told us our plane hadn't left yet, we ran through the airport, found out our plane had taken off about 20 minutes before we got there, so we stood in line at customer service for about an hour.

We got our meal comped in the airport and then directions to get to a hotel for the night. We couldn't get our checked luggage though. We were determined to use every last penny of our meal money, so we bought SO much food! We had $0.60 left and the girl at the register gave us a $0.70 cookie for it! We were pretty intense.

 The shuttle from our hotel to the airport in the morning didn't have enough seats, so I ended up on Steve's lap for about 20 minutes so we didn't have to wait for the next shuttle and risk missing our flight. Now here's the awesome part: the lady at customer service upgraded our seats on the flight to Cancun to first class!!! Steve had asked her if she could since this was a horrific start to our honeymoon and she said if Steve showed her a picture from the wedding, she'd upgrade us. Thank heavens for smart phones! It was amazing! We got hot towels, and warm scones, and drinks in glass cups, and free TV! The only thing I regret is not using the bathroom. I know it would have been the normal gross airplane bathroom, but the fact that they announce at the beginning that it's only for first class passengers makes it feel so exclusive!  So despite downing around seven glasses of juice, the flight was only about an hour and the first class bathroom remains a mystery.

First Class Tickets!!!

It was a little confusing finding the shuttle to our hotel, but we made it! We stayed at the Sun Palace. Our room got a little messed up since we were supposed to check in the previous day. We got stuck with an annex room to one that some strangers were staying in...it was weird. BUT it was still very nice with a balcony with a hot tub and everything (Steve was upset since the hot tub was originally supposed to be in the room instead of on the balcony). However, we loved it!!! The views from our room:

The gorgeous sunset from our balcony!

Our balcony is the top small one on the right.

The workers would leave towel animals when they cleaned our room if we tipped:

There was a somewhat traumatic experience of finding a cockroach in our room one evening when we walked in, but it was quickly trapped under a cup and then taken by the cleaning crew (although the cockroach was big enough it probably just walked away with the cup...). We were way too flustered to remember to get a picture! ;)

Every time we would eat or practically talk to any of the workers, they would hand me a flower! I saved as many as I could!

We had been so excited with wedding festivities and so busy, we really hadn't had too much time to pack. It turns out we forgot A LOT of pretty essential items such as sunscreen and my sunglasses. When we went to buy some at the hotel, the sunglasses were around $50 and a bottle of sunscreen was $35 (normal size, like what you'd buy at Walmart for $8)!! $35?! We said no thank you and headed across the street to this dinky convenience store. It had way more normal priced items and we came away happy with both sunglasses and sunscreen! As a bonus the gas station also had Kinder Eggs for a treat!

Despite the sunscreen, we still got burned. One evening after being on the beach all day we decided to get in the hot tub. We were trying to take a picture and so Steve set up the timer on the camera and went to jump in. The hot water didn't feel so great on his sunburn and he jumped right back out, making one of my favorite pics from the trip! We eventually got a better shot.

One day the hotel brought a mini cake up to our room! We discovered it was the best chocolate cake ever and ordered a slice of it pretty much every night...

The hotel had a beach, three pools, and six restaurants, so we basically didn't leave for the entire week! We tried to go to different restaurants each night, but Steve quickly fell in love with one called "The Steak" and it was all over! :)

We weren't drinking, I swear...

We had a "special" dinner one night that the hotel organized since we were on our honeymoon. It was out on a balcony that had a really pretty view of the ocean. Unfortunately it was insanely windy that evening and everything was blowing everywhere. Our salads blew off our plates before we got them in our mouths! We also downed two bottle of Martinelli's and they sent us back to our room with a third. Pretty sure we looked like drunkards!

The beach was absolutely incredible! Such clear, blue water. Our favorite activity was to just walk along the beach and spot all the fish we could see in the clear water! It was just beautiful!

Our hotel

 We would go down to the beach every day. Once we decided it had been a while and we needed a break from the sun, we'd head back to our room to discover that we'd only been gone for about 45 minutes! This happened several times. We decided some beach toys were seriously needed to keep our attention span on the beach a bit longer!

  Our last night at the hotel there was a cool fire show on the beach:

We were sad to head home, but there was one more nice surprise from the airline customer service lady: she had upgraded us to economy plus on our flights back. Hello extra 5"!

                                   

                                        These signs were in the Cancun airport. No idea what they meant!

 Lyndsay picked us up from the airport and we spent a quick evening and morning with the Detros. We then headed to my parents house to pack the last of my stuff into our car and then off to Lubbock! More on that later. Also, I promise all our posts will not be nearly this long!