Welcome Back Tiger

Yes, we are golf fans.

Big golf fans - who have been waiting for Tiger to start playing again. He's the guy we enjoy watching, cheer for, and get excited about.

And he's back.

I never was a golf person until I went to Bay Hill (Arnold Palmer Invitational) a couple of years ago and got to watch the guys play. I think it's amazing - fun to watch and you can drink beer.

Then we started watching most of the Invitationals because I didn't have cable in my old apartment and they show a lot of golf. Remember, I live in Florida.

And then of course Jake started watching intently (I think it's the white ball against the dark green background), and he was given his middle name: Tiger. Side note: When he's bad, he is Jacob Tiger.

And it is all going to start again.

We started cheering last night when Tiger won - it's fun to realize they are in our city, just about thirty minutes away. Watching the same sunset, enjoying the beautiful day. And everyone is excited about golf again.

Hurray!

Fast Forward - Honeymoon, Part II

So after we got better situated (got our bathing suits on and sunscreen), we headed out to Paradise Island. Took a water boat/taxi thing - pack in like sardines - to the island. Got there and tried to find our way to the beach. This was pretty tricky considering the place is surrounded by water.

But we found it. Oh yeah! Atlantis Beach here we come.

The Port of Call.

The beach. With stupid clouds.



Darin in our spot.

It was very beautiful - the water was turquoise. Very different than Florida beaches. We watched the people jet ski and swim (still too cold for us because the sun wasn't out 100%). Then the clouds came in and we got a little sprinkle of rain. Decided it would be better to go on the boat...

Atlantis. On the trip back to the boat.

Finally got back to the boat (we didn't get lost at least - just a semi long trip back), and I took pictures of the boat. Or was it ship?

Boat.



And we had a drink. It was fruity.

Enjoyed some sunshine and then it was time for dinner. Hurray for dinner.

Unfortunately we decided to go snorkeling the next day at Coco Cay and it rained all day long. We were stuck in the boat, running up and down the stairs, and eating too much food. Went to the shows (the night before was Boogie Wonderland - fantastic and the one that night was a juggler).

Bed Bunny.

We got back to our room and found this little fella. So cute.

***

Next day was Key West. We have been to Key West. It was a LONG ass drive to get there - much better traveling there on the boat. We basically did nothing really - walked around the city and then sat in the sunshine.

From deck.

Sorry it seemed kind of boring - but I think that was the whole 'vacation' idea. Everything about the Key West day was relaxing. Good times. And SPF4 - so I'd get a little color...

***

That night was our last night for dinner and activities (we'd be in Miami tomorrow morning to head home). It was sad.

Good times were had at dinner that night.

Eating - do we look chubbier around the face?

Dessert. I got two desserts each night. And main meals. And appetizers too.
Oops.



Our table! So much fun.

Our Waiters - Rosario and Johnny.
Sounds so stupid, but they made us feel so special.

Two night in a row, the guys (waiters/assistant waiters/cooks) sang for us. It was funny. I think we had a semi-special bond with our Head Waiter, Rosario, because we ordered the Indian vegetarian meal each night (we LOVE Indian food) and he was from India. I guess we were uncommon... strange because most people I know here love Indian food as well. We just put out a good vibe, I think.

We went to another fun musical thing (like Boogie Wonderland, but with 80s music - Sign, Sealed, Delivered).

Side note:
The dancing at these things was super good. But the male dancers were super gay. And had very sweaty hair. And were very skinny (but in a good way. sexy skinny.). And we got to see them twice. Once again, fantastic. Later in the evening we went to see the comedian. Fun.ny. :)

Everyone went out of their way to be nice to us and talk to us. It was strange actually - no grumpy employees were to be seen. (They might punish them in the galley or something. Ha ha.)

And that's it.

Go on a cruise. We will be going again soon - if you want to join us, please do! The more the merrier.

Fast Forward - Honeymoon, Part 1

Well, it's official! Darin and I are married - how crazy is that?! Sorry it has taken awhile to get some pictures/information up here. I'm working on it.

Have decided to go backwards - honeymoon to rehearsal dinner. Enjoy!

***

We went on a Royal Caribbean International Cruise to the Bahamas. I had never been on a cruise before and this was Darin's second. I highly recommend them - it was tons of fun and the food was just amazing. (I realize now I don't have any pictures of food - how unlike me!) On Monday morning, we drove down to Miami and hopped on the cruise. It was a little confusing - truth be told. But exciting nonetheless.

We were in room 2140 - last floor, but we had a port hole. Super cool.

Here was Darin in our room. It was a little smushed - you should have seen the bathroom...

Tiny room.

Outside pool area. Very cold water.

Boat sign: Majesty of the Seas

We were in our room when we realized the boat was moving. We couldn't feel it moving - could see from our port hole that Miami was leaving us. Yikes. Ran upstairs to take some pictures; it was a beautiful Florida day. Fantastic.

South Beach, I think.



New Mrs. and Mr.



Windy!

That night we went to our reserved dinner - 6 pm, and met the great people whom we would be sharing dinner with the next couple of nights. Now this might be strange to some people, but Darin and I really enjoyed talking to new people. There were four others: Kelly and Laurie, college students from UMass, and Diana and Elvin/Edwin (don't really remember his name) from Ft. Lauderdale. They were all very nice and young. I felt old, but it didn't matter - we had a blast all the same.

That night instead of going to the comedy show, we crashed. We. Were. Tired. And coming down from a post-wedding high. It felt good to just relax after a great meal.

***

Next morning we were in Nassau, Bahamas. How about that?! We got up at like 7:30 am (I know, what were we thinking?) and headed outside to explore Nassau and not get kidnapped.

Found this sign. How awesome? Will incorporate it into the blog somehow... just need some time.

Me.

Beautiful bougainvillea.

We walked around and saw like 5 churches. At least. Strange.

Church.

Guess who?
It's Chris C.

At church 2 - or angel. It was pretty.

We were walking around and needed to find Darin a Diet Coke - for his fix. Went into this scary convince store. Then went into some shops, but decided against stupid knickknacks and went back on the boat to change. Then we headed to Paradise Island to see Atlantis. So cool.

More to come.

"By the time I recognize this moment, this moment will be gone"

Thank you John Mayer for an excellent quote - was listening to Heavier Things in the car this morning (my book on tape ended, just in time) and really felt this line.

This week (pre-Wedding week) will go by super fast. Today has already been like a snap.

Snap.

Too quick. Did I get everything I needed to get done today (no, but the day is not yet over), did I work on work (this is my current goal at work, sounds stupid but I am a huge multitasker and sometimes I can't control myself)? Am I going to lose my mind or will things be fine?

The question still remains.

My folks are coming into town today - they are currently in the air (I think - or I hope actually). Friends are coming in the rest of the week. My family, people I haven't seen in one year... five years. We are truly blessed to have so many people coming to see us.

It's just crazy.

I wish we could do like a week get-together and ALL of the people I want to be here would be here. Those I haven't talked to for ages, but remember stories/times like they were yesterday. Especially college friends. I have three coming - but I wish it were more. I have grad school friends coming too - many more than college. Our friends here in Orlando are the biggest group. How would I love to just have a week long get together - getting to remember those fun times we have had together over the years, but now only remember.

And I wish I could have every one of my new, old, crazy, silly, strange friends get along. I know they won't 'become friends', but have a good time together regardless of having 'me' or 'Darin' in common.

And to just share the life I have now with the life I used to have before in those other cities.

But I'm excited to get just a teeny tiny bit of that. It will be perfect just the same.

Hope you are excited for us and the thousands of pictures to come.

"But I will bend the light pretending, that it somehow lingered on."

- John Mayer, "Clarity"

Mellow Mushroom Menagerie

Bridal Shower Number 2 took place a couple of Saturdays ago. Good times. As always. I usually write about good times because I'm a good times type of gal. What can I say?

I'll share some pictures of course. I must mention that some that were taken of me were awful. Truly truly bad. Damn arms at weird angles. Thus no picture of me with my beer. I know, it's a shame - just know I drank one.

Anupama, Raji, and Hedvika.

The group!
(L to R) Michelle, Cathy, Del, Kucku, Anu, Raji, and Hedvika

Anyways, my friend Kucku got some of the people I used to work with together and we ate pizza and drank good beer at the Mellow Mushroom. This restaurant was one of my old haunts in Clemson - one of the few restaurants there, actually. And they have two in Orlando. Sweet. Great pizza/calzones and microbeer. I had the great white beer. Cute cute!

I wanted a nice simple lunch and that was what we got! Thanks guys so much for the great time and new recipes for my cookbook. Though some of them were scary, I'm excited to see what I can get Darin to try!

SPCA Dog Walk: Valentines Day Galore

Valentine's Day was very special for us this year - we decided to just enjoy ourselves with other activities other than spending a lot of money on dinner. We do this unintentionally all of the time anyways, so...

Plus it was Darin and my fourth anniversary. Yikes. Glad to be getting married because we get to start back at zero. I think we were both kind of scared with the whole four years thing. That's a long time... not thinking about it. Moving on.

****

In the morning:

So last year we took Jake, the monster, to the walk with our friends Tammie and Joe, and their dogs Skippy (a skipperke) and Chianti (an Italian greyhound). Joe's sister and brother-in-law came too (they're from Chicago and I can't remember their names for the life of me.)

Joe used to work with Darin and me over at my previous job. He's a great guy and a blast to talk to! It's also nice to share old work gossip with him... Tammie works at Disney's Animal Kingdom and invited us to join their "pack". It's all about fundraising for the SPCA - good cause and fun times.

This year, Russell and Maggie, and his daughter-in-law, Diana and Piper, came along too.

Initially, we started around the same area to get a "pack" pictures. While I tried not to let Jake attack other dogs or get into fights, other normal dogs got to meet some friends and sniff.

Maggie with giant Great Dane. Yowza!
Now Maggie is a BIG dog. Oh dear!



Jake with his gentle lead.



Lady (Jake's cousin) being the good sociable dog that she is.
Also searching for squirrels.



Ms. Maggie Moe.

We then walked together as a group and walked around Lake Eola, which was right near downtown Orlando. It's always a wonderful place to go. And it was a beautiful day to walk a dog or thousands of dogs, for the matter.

Lady vs. Black Swan.

Darin, Russell, Joe's Family

Skippy. I love him.

Russell and Diana, with Maggie (+ drool) and Piper



Me. Sporting the red sunglasses.
Don't worry, I got rid of those...



The buddies.

After the walk around the lake, we all just chatted and talked about nothing. Good times. For some reason, it just happened to be totally exhausting! I think that we do a lot of moving around and worrying about dogs, etc. and that just sucked the energy out of us. Even the dogs!

Ended up going for lunch with the dogs. They were so thirsty!

Sucking down water.

Fun morning - can't wait for next year! And our "pack" raised the most money by far! Go us!

***

That evening, Darin and I went to see the ever so exciting UCF vs. Tulsa basketball game! Darin graduated from UCF and I from Tulsa. (Go TU) And I thought it would be fun/silly to go to a game. And it was our first time in the new arena.

Turned out to be a fantastic game! And though Tulsa lost WTF, it was exciting and we cheered and ate popcorn. Better than watching tv or a movie, hands down. A great way to end the day.

And that's it! We'll remember this one! Love you D.

Housewarming and Smores

A couple of Saturdays ago, my coworker Brian invited a whole bunch of us over for a Housewarming Party and Wine Celebration.

Count us in!

We were also excited about going to test some wine that we had found to see if others liked it - we were wine searching for the wedding. We were not ashamed by this because we really weren't wine drinkers - though we've had a lot of wine in the past weeks so we might be drifting that way...

Brian and his wife, Amanda, life in College Park - which is a fantastic area here in Orlando with wonderful cute little houses that are old and have tons of character. They bought a house awhile ago (like 8 months maybe) and fixed it up completely. It was so cute and just done really well! Too bad I didn't take any pictures. Honestly!

Anyways, we got there and drank some wine. Oh, and they have a fire pit outside in their backyard so we had s'mores. So good. Made me want to do s'mores for our 'wedding cake' instead of strawberry shortcake. Drool.

Fire!



Inderpal, Luis, and Riyaz
(They are on my 'team' at work!)

Robert and Jamie.
(I work with Robert, but they're both from Oklahoma and we talk about random
Oklahoma stuff all the time - like Taco Bueno.)

Vaughn and Nancy
(Vaughn is a Senior Scientist. He also really likes red wine.)

Riyaz and his wife, Nidhi
(It's this the cutest picture!)



Gabby (in hat), Don (my boss), and Emily (my contact lens buddy)



Don was anti-pictures. He's kind of like that.

Oh beautiful fire, make my s'more golden brown.

Us. Darin's lips are chapped; thus, no normal smile.

Ahh HA!

That's it. And we found our red wine - Marques de Caceres Rioja Crianza - num num.