July 29th to August 2nd 2012 ~ Honeymoon in St. Lucia

July 29th to August 2nd Honeymoon in the Caribbean, St. Lucia!!

We finally got to honeymoon in July and it was totally worth the wait, it was relaxing and really was a vacation with my new husband! We were going to go to California and stay in Del Mar at aunt Catherine's condo for a couple of nights then stay a night at Hotel Del Coronado and a night in Los Angeles and see a Dodgers MLB game but a week and a half before our planned honeymoon Lucas surprised me!! He surprised me first by telling me that his work schedule changed, originally the honeymoon was going to be July 26th through July 31st, and I was like oh no we wont be able to stay at aunt Catherine's that week and I wasn't sure if our honeymoon was going to be fun. From there I canceled the room reservation for Hotel Del Coronado and we talked it out. The surprise I actually liked was him saying we could go to Hawaii or St. Lucia in the Caribbean.  So we checked flights and it was decided we would go to St. Lucia because the flights were open. Which I owe us being able to go to the Caribbean to Sam, thank you for the buddy passes  Sam!! It made our honeymoon possible!

July 28th and 29th ~ Our flight to St. Lucia

We left for the airport Saturday July 28th around 10pm for our flight to New York. From New York we would connect to St. Lucia. It was a long flight but we had the Olympics to watch on our own individual TV screens and from New York to St. Lucia we had free movies. 

On the ride from Las Vegas to New York we were a row away from Flava Flav and boy was he entertaining!! Before we even took off, no kidding, he whipped Fried chicken and started eating it! After fried chicken he opened his Coca Cola, which exploded in the isle and he nudged his buddy and was like "watch this" and he drank his Coca Cola bottle and water bottle at the same time, it was quite entertaining!

Once at the JFK airport in New York Lucas and I ate delicious hot breakfast, an egg Mcmuffin but way better and fresher, and got some free Dunkin' Donuts donut holes and then were on our way to St. Lucia!! We landed in St. Lucia around 1 pm and then took a 45 minute taxi ride to Soufriere, which is a town on the west coast of St. Lucia and was were we stayed . The taxi ride involved winding roads up and down mountains and riding through small little towns. By the end of the taxi ride I have to admit I was a little car sick, mostly from the fact that the taxi driver was driving so slow on winding roads and partly because it was a rip-off ($70 American dollars, which on the taxi ride back to the airport it was only $40 American)

The town of Soufriere, St. Lucia

We finally arrived at La Haut, a bed and breakfast that used to be a Plantation, and it was beautiful! It was a quaint little bed and breakfast that had the most amazing views! We had a little kitchen in our room and a bug net over our bed (a life-saver!) and we had a balcony with an amazing view!! We also got fresh fruit in our room daily and so when we arrived we ate some of the local fruit from the comfort of our hotel room, out looking the view on our balcony. The fruit was a green fruit with black bumps all over it and it was called Sour-Sop. It was a weird fruit but tasted really good, it tasted like a nectarine but had a pineapple/coconut feeling to it because it had a white pulp that you would suck on and chew on order to get the juice. The only down side to the hotel was that we didn't have AC, we only had a little ceiling fan that wasn't even over the bed but luckily it was no where even close to as hot as Vegas! Which after being hot the first night we moved the bed so it was under the fan and got a little personal fan the third night and then we were actually cold!

 

The sour-sop fruit!

 After we scoped out the place we went immediately to the infinity pool that overlooked the Piton Mountains. I would have to say that the best view of the entire trip was from that pool!! It was just so relaxing to be in the pool and then it felt like paradise to be able to look up and see such an amazing view! The pool actually belonged to the owner of the resort and he just allowed guests to come use his pool 8am to 5pm. At first it was kind of weird because we were just wondering around his huge house trying to figure out how to get to the pool in the backyard but we figured out.

 Oh and on the little walk down to the owners infinity pool there were donkeys, cows and a bird coup! 

After a relaxing swim in an amazing pool we decided to go to the hotels restaurant to get something to eat...but man did we leave that restaurant quickly!! $18 fries...no thank you!! We just barely missed the free shuttle down the hill to the town and Cindy, the front desk lady, said it was only a 15 minute walk down the mountain so we decided to just walk into town. We soon found that Cindy doesn't have a very good sense of time because it was a 35 to 45 minute walk down the mountain, not so much a hill, into town but it was a beautiful walk so we didn't mind that much. We were just starving by the time we got into town. We got down the hill and there was a huge "Beach Bash" with 300 plus locals on the beach and loud music and good local food being sold everywhere. It felt like an outdoor club because there was a fee to get into a walled off place on the beach where there was a ton of people dancing and alcohol and fried chicken and other food was being sold outside of the "club" walls. It was really fun to watch and get some cheap fried chicken and johnnycakes from some locals that were just frying them up on a grill but man did Lucas and I feel out of place. You would think that their would be other white people there considering we passed 10 other hotels on the way down the mountain and the beach bash was only 1 minute away from the hummingbird resort but no, we were the only white people...and they were all staring at us.

The beach bash, you can't really see because it was dark but there is a tan fence and then on the other side there are lights and music and like 300 locals dancing and partying it up!

We were outside watching the beach bash from afar but then it started to rain so we went inside the Hummingbird resort to finish our Fried Chicken and Johnnycakes.

July 30th ~ Hiking the Gros Piton

We woke up bright and early and took the free shuttle from the hotel down to town at 7:30. We ate at a local restaurant that was good prices and good food (we ended up eating most of our meals there). My stomach was kind of hurting so I only got a grilled cheese sandwich and Lucas got an egg and meat sandwich. Since my stomach was hurting we were debating on whether we should still do the steep hike up the Gros Piton mountain today but we decided to still do the hike. The lady that owned the restaurant was really nice and her husband was a taxi driver, Brian. They were a really nice couple and Brian gave us the best deal we could find for driving us to the Gros Piton mountain for hiking. 

For the hike there was an entrance fee of $20 each US but it included a guide that hiked with us the whole way, which at first we thought was unneeded but it was actually extremely needed! Which Lucas knows how to travel and he is really smart so it would have been a ton more expensive if we didn't ride to town and find a taxi in town and go to the hike that way. If we would have booked a "tour" through the hotel (which included the taxi ride to and from the hike, the entrance fee, lunch and the tour guide) it would have been $120 US for both of us but since we went the streets route it was only $80 for both of us (which included the taxi ride to and from the hike, the entrance fee, and the tour guide)!! I am so grateful for Lucas :) Anyway, the hike was actually really steep and hard, people told us it was steep but they never mentioned how hard it was! They even had railings on parts of the hike because of how steep it was, and the railings became our best friends near the top of the mountain where it was the steepest! It was 2 hours up and 2 hours back and it was up hill the whole way up! It was helpful to have our tour guide Damascus though, he kept us moving and told us the history behind the mountain and St. Lucia. It was crazy though because Damascus was in kacky pants, a button up shirt and didn't even break a sweat or even drink any water for that matter and Lucas and I were sweaty the whole time and drank a lot of water. But then again Damascus did mention how its his job 6 days a week and he sometimes climbs the mountain twice a day!! The Gros Pitan is only 771m high or about half a mile high but the trail up the mountain was switch backs so I would guess the hike was around 2 miles long. 

 The entrance to the hike.

 Some Volcanic rock that formed a cave that the Plantation slaves would hide under when fled to the mountain to become a free people. 

 

One of the look out points that the Plantation Slaves used to watch for British ships when the French aided them in gaining their Freedom from slavery. August 1st is when the Plantation Slaves became free to work when they wanted and were actually paid for their Labors. They celebrate Emancipation August 1st and its a country holiday, everything was closed until noon. St. Lucia only gained Independence from Britain 30 years ago!

 Another look out point!

This is how steep the second half of the hike was!!

 A video of the top of the Mountain. We Made it!!

The top!!

 

Lucas, me and our tour guide Damascus :)

The Gros Pinton mountain...ya we hiked that!!

After finishing the hike we were exhausted but it was well worth the view from the top and the beautiful views along the way! After finishing the hike it rained for 20 minutes and we were just happy it didn't start to rain while we were still on the hike!! Once back in town we went grocery shopping for breakfast food and we thought it would be fun to make peanut butter and honey sandwiches but man was their honey expensive!! It was 8 dollars for a little, about 10 ounce, thing of peanut butter! So we settled for muffins and vanilla wafers. We ate dinner at Brian's place again because it was good food and affordable. After dinner we decided to go back to the hotel and swim. The owners pool was closed since it was after 5 so we swam in the hotels pool, a good view still but not as good. But when Lucas was warming up to the water the hotel dog Prince came up and ran off with his flip flop!! It was hilarious but horrible!! We chased him around the hotel and finally down to the owners house where he dropped the flip flop. There were mango's randomly along the road to the owners house so I picked one up to bride the mutt but luckily we were able to get the flip flop back finally without wasting the mango. After chasing the dog we finally went swimming. In the pool we did this cool trick where I stand up on Lucas's shoulders and then he launches me and I do a front flip, it was fun but the second time I landed right on my back and got the wind knocked out of me. After all the activities of the day we had a good nights rest and slept like babies. Play

July 31st ~ The Beach and Snorkeling 

We were able to sleep in a little today. I woke up and did my quiz for Medical Terminology class (I actually had to do a quiz every morning but forgot to mention it) and we ate the breakfast we bought at the grocery store then took the 10 am shuttle to the beach!! Lucas and I brought goggles and so we went snorkeling in the Caribbean and it was so pretty! I wish I could have somehow gotten pictures of the coral with the pretty bright fishes. It was kind of hard to stay in one spot and look at the fish though because there was a little bit of a current, so it was tiring but really fun.

After snorkeling we had really good Steak burgers with a plate that we piled high (because it wasn't buffet style) with potatoes, steamed vegetables, salad and rice. 

After eating we went on a little hike in the rainforest that was off of the beach. It was a beautiful little trail that lead us to some old Sugar Plantation ruins. The ruins were actually really beautiful because they were made of large bricks and had all sorts of plants growing out of them.

Around 3:45 the shuttle picked us up from the beach and we headed back to the hotel for the infinity pool before taking the shuttle down to town at 6pm for Dinner at Brian's restaurant again. 

August 1st ~ Volcano and Waterfall

The city of Soufriere was closed untill noon today because of celebrating Emancipation but luckily we had breakfast food from the grocery store and we found a taxi driver. On the way to the Sulfur Volcano we stopped at a look out point that had a really good view of Soufriere, it was so pretty!

At the Volcano we got a tour guide and she gave us some interesting information about the Volcano. The Sulfur Volcanoes smelled like rotten eggs and its a actually a good thing. The warning signs for if the Volcano is going to erupt is that the volcano will stop smelling like sulfur or rotten eggs and the trees around the volcano will die because of the hot lava coming to the surface of the earth. It erupted last in the 1970's and when it erupted is was like St. Helen and just got ashes everywhere. The volcano is supposed to erupt in the next 10 years and when it does erupt its supposed to be like an atomic bomb and destroy everything, good thing they have some warning signs!

 These are hot springs that are heated by the volcano and boy are they hot!!

After the Volcano we went to a Boutanical garden that surrounded a waterfall. The garden had lots of tropical, colorful flowers and plants and it truly felt like a rainforest. They also had Bamboo trees and they grow 6 inches a day...yes 6 inches a day, it is because of the high concentration of sulfur in the soil because of the nearby sulfur volcano.

A little chinese water garden with huge goldfish in the pond behind Lucas.

The Bamboo that grows 6 inches a day.

The "Sexy Pink" flower.

After all of our adventures with seeing the volcano and the waterfall we headed back to La Haut for our complementary drink from the hotel at the restaurant at the hotel. The name of the drink was tamarind, and it was juices from a root that they had growing on the plantation and it was actually really good! I don't know how to explain how it tasted though. We went to town again for dinner and we were really in the mood for chicken again, considering chicken is the food they eat all the time, and so we found a Chinese restaurant in town (surprisingly) and it was really really good, way better than panda express! Which today was the last full day in paradise but it was a nice honeymoon and I felt like we were able to do all of the fun things that were available on the island. 

August 2nd ~ Heading Home

It was sad to leave St. Lucia and all of the beautiful green mountains everywhere but we had a nice honeymoon but I was ready to get out of the humidity and was ready to stop getting eaten alive each night by mosquitoes while I was sleeping. It was fun though because we were able to get a picture with the airplane before we left St. Lucia because it was a small walk on airplane!!

 Us at the St. Lucia airport waiting to board.

June 27th 2012 ~ KA!

On June 27th 2012 We went to the show KA at the MGM!!

 Mom and Dad treated Diana, Anna, Lucas and Me to the show. It was very nice of them and it was such a fun night!! The show involved a lot of acrobatics and fighting with acrobatics. There was actually a story-line to the show. The story-line involved the journey of twins that are Prince and Princess that are separated at a young age and their fight to reunite. My top two favorite parts of the show was one where there was a "romantic" scene between the twin sister and a man she runs into. In the scene its crazy because they are doing all these acrobatic stunts in the air. In one part he is holding himself up, who knows how many feet in the air, with one arm by a rope and he is holding her up by just the tops of his feet...yes she was laying straight and he was holding her up by just the tops of his feet! The second scene I liked is hard to explain but there were two circles that were attached  and they were spinning clockwise, as if there was a clock but at the end of each hand there were circles . Anyway, there were people on top of the circles running and while they were running on these moving circles they would jump rope and do back flips and all this crazy stuff. 

June 2nd 2012 ~ MOVE IN!!

       On Saturday June 2nd, Lucas and I were able to move into our new apartment! It was a busy day but it was exciting moving everything in and it made the fact that I was getting married soon and going to be moving in with Lucas much more realistic. Everyone came to help us move in, Luc, Jac, Anna, mom, Lucas and Sally. It was nice to have so much help. There was a little bit of a problem when we went to move in though...they lost track of the key to our apartment door after Maintenance had changed the locks. In order to keep moving and not have all of our strong men just sit and wait we moved everything up into the stairwell outside of our apartment and had to wait and hope maintenance would find the key or figure something out. They ended up finding a drill and putting a drill through the lock on the door in order to get it open. We finally got into our apartment after waiting for probably 30 minutes and started moving everything in. It was nice because we had a good amount of furniture from family and friends that we were able to move in. A bed from uncle Jared, Bed frames from Sally, a coffee table, entertainment center and end table from Aunt Maria, a long table from mom and couches from a garage sale from a lady in my parents home ward. We are so loved and blessed!

May 15th 2012 ~ Wranglers Game

On May 15, 2012 Lucas, Carrie and Jeff Giles, Jordan and Sam and I went to a Wranglers Hockey game together at the New Orleans Arena. It was the first hockey game I had ever went to and I had wanted to go for a while so it was really fun being able to go with some fun people. Lucas had to explain some of the rules to me but he was really sweet and seemed to actually have fun explaining the rules to me. It was a game full of cheering fans, chants and excitement and the Wranglers ended up loosing to the Florida Everblades which wasn't very good but the crowd was still fun and loud. It was a fun night full of cheering, chanting and watching other people yell at the ref and it ended in some yummy Wendy's food!

This is what the Arena looked like with all the players on it and these are the fun people I got to watch the game with :)

 

Lucas, my Fiance at the time and me just enjoying each other and enjoying the game :)

Our ticket to the Wranglers Game!

May 5th 2012 ~ Beatles Love

On May 5th, 2012 Lucas got free tickets from work to the Beatles Love show on the strip!! Thanks to Lucas's job we were able to get tickets! I had wanted to see the Beatles Love show ever since my older siblings went and saw it without me haha and so I was very excited to go see it with my husband to be!!

The show was different then I expected, I thought it was going to be 4 guys dressed up as the Beatles singing their songs but instead it was recordings of the actual Beatles songs and acts that went with each song. At times I wondered how certain acts went with certain songs but I didn't care because the acrobatic acts were amazing and they had some cool stunts with guys rollerblading!! Overall it was a fun night with my man with good entertainment and fun memories!

June 8, 2012 ~ Grooms Dinner and Bachelorette Party (Round 2)

     The grooms dinner was the night before the wedding, Jun 8th, at the wigwam chapel in the Relief Society Room and it was really nice. Sally did a wonderful job with cute decorations, good food and fun activities. It was amazingly good pulled pork burritos, café Rio style, with a salsa bar, fun lemonade in mason jars with stripped straws and blackberries for decoration, chocolate covered strawberries, brownies cut in the shape of hearts with white chocolate drizzled over them, little chocolate cups with fruit in them and bunt cake!! We wanted it to be cute, small and more intimate so we had only Lucas’s immediate family and only my immediate family and my grandparents. I am glad we kept it small because the toasts were sensitive and meaningful, with the shedding of some tears, and we were able to play a fun game and some knock-out. Oh and Sally surprised Lucas and I with fun shirts so Lucas got a black shirt that had Groom written in white and I got a white shirt that had Bride written in black, it was so fun to be matching and was perfect for our bachelor/bachelorette parties right after the grooms dinner.

We started off going around the table and saying some interesting things about ourselves. Lucas started it off saying that an interesting thing about himself is that he has gone without sneezing for 4 months straight and that the only reason he broke that record is because one night he woke up in the middle of the night to a sneeze! That was hard to beat because that was pretty interesting so I mentioned how I had never had an ingrown toenail and that a couple of months ago it was brought to my attention, by Lucas, that I pronounce the word pronunciation wrong. From there everyone went around the table and said something interesting, then it was food time!! While we were eating a toast was first given by Sam, Lucas’s groomsman. Then a toast was given by Diana, my maid of honor. It was really sweet that Diana gave a toast for me and she listed off some of the qualities she thought I have that would make me a good wife. Then a toast was given by Sally and my dad. Then we wrapped up the toasts with one from Lucas and I.

After the toasts finished up we had some of the delicious dessert and then it was game time!! For the game Sally had Lucas and I sit in chairs with our backs facing each other so we couldn’t see one another but we were also blindfolded just in case. Then she had us trade shoes, so I had my shoe in one hand and Lucas’s shoe in the other hand. She read off some questions and whoever we felt matched the questions the best we raised that shoe. For example, who has the best fashion sense? Lucas and I both raised my shoe and we got that one correct. Sally gave Luc and Jac squirt guns and they squirted us with water on the questions we got wrong. It was a really fun game and it was funny to see what we agreed on and what we didn’t. I thought it was funny because one of the questions we didn’t agree on was who instigated the first kiss…I thought it was an easy question because Lucas instigated it but apparently he thought I did.

 

The one request Lucas had with the grooms dinner was that we could play knock out or some type of active game. So, after dessert and getting squirt with water, we all went into the gym and played Knock out!! After knock out, while we were all cleaning up, Dad decided to make a little wager with everyone. We all got one shot at half court. If they made it, they would win $500. Everyone shot, and missed. Upon hearing about this wager, I ran to the room where Lucas was cleaning up, grabbed his arm and ran him to the gym to attempt a shot. Lucas, unaware of the amount of money on the line, stepped up to half court mark ,shot it, and nailed it! 500 dollars richer baby!

The grooms dinner was everything I wanted it to be and it was fun!! Since we did the grooms dinner the night before the wedding and since the night was still young Lucas had his bachelor party and I had my bachelorette party (round 2) with all of the friends that were in town for the wedding. Lucas and the boys (my brothers, Erik Bonn and Sam) all went to go bowling and all the girls (Aubrey Makanoa, Taralyn, Liz, Kat, Hayley, Chelsea, Dalein, Anna and Diana) went to see a chick flick, "The Lucky One" with Zac Efron in it! It was a total chick flick that is for sure and it was so fun seeing it all of my girl best friends…but of course all I could think about was Lucas and how I got to marry him in almost 12 hours!!

June 1, 2012 ~ Marriage License!!

 I knew I was going to be getting married in a week but getting the marriage license really made everything seem more realistic. It was so fun getting the license. Luckily there wasn’t a long line but man was it a reality check, that I do live in Vegas!! When we were in line, which made me feel super young because I was clearly 10 years younger or more than everyone in the line, there were 2 or three couples in wedding cloths. Then after we got our license we came out of the marriage bureau doors and down the steps and were greeted by many people, asking if we had picked a wedding chapel to be married in yet. They must be getting business by being there because there was a number of them. It was an exciting event and it made me even more excited to get married in the temple and to get married to Lucas.