The wonderful world of fish

When the Man an activity center you went through if you wanted to do anything outside the resort. It was pretty cool because they set the whole thing up for you including travel. There was a fee of course but everything was charged to your room.

If you stuck to the activities offered by the Sandals Resort then you didn't actually need to bring any cash with you which we thought was pretty cool. We wish we had known ahead of time, but we know for next time.


We decided to sign up for a deep sea fishing trip and a bamboo raft trip down the Martha Brea River on Saturday and Sunday for the paid activities. Along with the paid activities there were a few free ones that Sandals offered right there on the resort. We fully took advantage of these on Friday and I wish we had done so earlier in the week.

Sandals offered a glass bottom boat tour for free. The glass bottom boat was small and you really couldn't see anything through the bottom but the captain of the trip was a riot. He made the trip hilarious. The made us wear those ugly orange life vests the whole way too. we all looked super hot.

Not satisfied with the glass bottom boat tour, we decided to try snorkeling. Snorkeling was where it was at! I hadn't snorkeled since I was a little kid in my pool, so it was my first real time doing it. Took me a little while to get used to the feel of breathing out of the tube, but it was so worth it. We went to a spot called the "cave" and although there were lots of jellyfish that kept coming near me, it was fabulous. I can't even begin to explain all of the life down there on the ocean floor. I felt like I was swimming right along with the fishes and the jellyfish. I noticed the jellyfish had a light purple design on them instead of being completely clear and I thought that made them really pretty too.

We signed up for three more snorkeling adventures later in the day because it was so cool. Each time we went out we got lucky enough to go to a different spot! The last spot we went to the "reef" was the most colorful. There were schools brightly colored fish swimming below me and along side me. It was amazing.

We had bought a cheap underwater camera and took lots of pictures but the ones that came out came out cloudy and did not capture the amazing sights we saw down there. It was quite disappointing to get the film back and not have any of the pictures portray what we had seen!

I would snorkel again and again. It's such a fun and free activity that I suggest everyone take advantage of it whenever they can!

Did you try something on your honeymoon you wish you'd tried earlier?

Shop till you drop

After the Man spent a whole day in bed, I was ready to get out there and explore a little of Jamaica. We had set up a shopping trip through Sandals. They drove us to the site and stayed there while we shopped around inside. It was a little strange having someone wait for us to shop, but since we were the only ones signed up for that time slot, it wasn't too awkward.

The driver brought us to the little strip mall that I suppose was built for tourists. All sorts of Jamaican memorabilia stocked the stores. Most of the stores carried the usual t-shirts, hats and other clothing with Jamaica sprawled across the front. I purchased one shirt that said Jamaica on it, call me predictable but I wanted a physical reminder of our time there. We then searched for some different kinds of gifts for our families.



We found these hand crafted bamboo wind chimes that struck me as beautiful. So we bought several as gifts for our families. They seemed to encompass the true spirit of the Jamaican crafters. We also found a photo album made completely from bamboo leaves and plants which we thought was so extraordinary that we bought it for ourselves.

After we were done with the Americanized "mall" we headed on over to the craft show. The craft show in Jamaica is very different than anything I've ever been to in America. The show was in "true" Jamaica. All sorts of little work huts were set up in the square. Each hut was someone Else's craft "studio" and it had tons of the most amazing hand crafted wood carvings. The artists were in their studio's trying to sell you everything. I was completely overwhelmed. I hate when people come up to me in stores to try to help me or sell me things and that was what was happening here. We bought a few things from one of the studio's and then the artist forced to to go to his son's studio next door. I did find this really cool cat figuring he had carved that made me think of MOH and I bargained with him to give it to me for the price I wanted. He didn't want to and I felt guilty for trying to talk him down knowing that he was probably living in a little shack up the road, but we were running out of shopping money and I wanted it. Rather than lose a sale we came to an agreement in the middle. We did not check out any other studio's after that. Everyone wanted to sell you something and I was feeling completely smothered.

Shopping in the craft fair was different than I was used to but it also exposed me to the culture of Jamaica which is what I wanted all along. We left with some great gifts and some amazing hand crafted carved figurines and wall plaques.

Jamaican me....sick

So there we were in the middle of a tropical paradise. We had already had a fabulous dinner on the beach and a couples massage that the man set up for us. The man had taken a course in scuba diving while I patiently awaited him to rejoin me at the beach because I wasn't allowed to go. After the man returned from scuba diving it began storming out, well actually it started storming while he was still out there, but it was still storming when he came back to me. After meeting him at the pick up spot we went back to our room to watch. You see, in Jamaica it rained every day for an hour or so and then the sun came out and it was beautiful again. You would never know it had rained.

We spent the rest of the day doing things together on the beach and in the pool--relaxing mostly, something I really needed after the year of wedding planning I had done.

The man told me all about the beautiful creatures he saw scuba diving and admitted that he would do it all over again, but since it was our honeymoon he limited it to just that one time. Smart move hunny. We enjoyed the rest of the day together but after dinner the man started to not feel well.

He was burning up. The next day he was full on sick all day. He felt like crap and was burning up. He blamed it on the water they so blatantly keep filling up at the table. The man felt horrible so it was no surprise that he didn't want to do anything. at. all. I'm not going to lie- I was bored and slightly annoyed that he didn't want to do anything since I had wasted the whole day before waiting for him to get done scuba diving. But then I remembered my manners. He was not faking. He was sick and you can't help when you get sick.

while the man slept in bed all day trying to recover from his mysterious illness I stuck it out by the pool for most of the day. They had fun things going on there like couples treasure hunts (which I so wanted to do but I was minus a partner), dance off's, fun music, and finally the pool volleyball that I loved.

I kept sneaking back to the room to check on my little sick man and I felt bad for him that he was having such a bad reaction to.... something.

He thought it was the water and stopped drinking it and stopped drinking drinks with ice or made from ice. I luckily was able to tolerate the water and didn't get sick at all! Thank goodness because I need ice. I need my drinks to be cold. really cold. I put ice in my chilled water at home to make it colder. And Jamaica had this amazing frozen drink called the "hummingbird" that I was not willing to give up no matter what. Best drink, ever! I don't know what was in it, but oh my god was it good!

I'll tell you what else was good. The soup. Seriously, when hear the word Jamaica, soup would never have came to mind but I had several kinds when I was there and they were all fabulous. I'm not even kidding. My all time favorite was the lemongrass coconut. Yes, I remember the name of it almost a whole year later- that's how good it was. I have a love for all things coconut anyway, but this was something else. There was a carrot cinnamon soup that was a close second. I have looked for some recipes since I got home but sadly I have not been able to replicate the soups I had there.

The man survived the day and night and the next day he was feeling a lot better.

Did you run into any complications on your honeymoon?

I've been a bad bad girl

In case you haven't noticed, I fell off the blogging bandwagon for the last six months or so. I just stopped logging in and recapping, and for those of you following my story I am sorry to have disappeared so abruptly. I will get back to my recaps soon, but sadly I no longer have pictures because our computer crashed AGAIN and we lost everything on it-again. You would think I would have learned due to the loss of wedding documents and information several months earlier, but no, I had to go and think that it wouldn't happen again and that I didn't need to back anything up. Luckily there weren't that many pictures I haven't shared already because my camera died pretty early into the trip. I thought I had packed an extra battery pack that was charged, however, it was dead too. But that is for a different post.

What has caused my long term absenteeism? Well, I would love to tell you life has been perfect since that day we said, "I do," but I think you all know by now that nothing is perfect and the course doesn't often run smooth.

Don't take it the wrong way--Married life has been wonderful. The man and I are in love and doing great. But life-life has been challenging since before I last left you.


Shortly after the honeymoon, and by shortly I mean 3 days after we returned from the honeymoon and came home to a house filled with: wedding clutter, wedding gifts,wedding attire, vacation laundry and absolute chaos; we did something stupid. We drove an hour away to "look" at German Shepherd puppies. The man convinced me to go and I should have known that looking at puppies would lead to a lifetime commitment I wasn't so sure I was quite ready to make, but I went there believing we were only looking. Little did I know we would see the cutest little puppy ever. She was full of spunk, playful with her own personality and she came right up to me and licked my leg. I fell in love with her face. The man fell in love with her willingness to bite all the other puppies.
And that was all it took. Remmi was leaving with us and was to become the newest member of our family!
I quickly found out that puppies are cute for a reason. If they weren't cute, no one would put up with them. Life after puppy ("LAP") certainly changed. The man started working longer days away from home which meant puppy watching was left up to me. LAP was not a fun time for me. Having the added stress of a new puppy, going back to my dreaded job after such an amazing vacation and the mounting chaos that was piled in our house and a feeling of no time to do anything, I began having panic attacks.

If you've never had a panic attack, it is not a fun time at all. I had had anxiety before, but never in my life felt anything like this. It kind of feels like you are having a heart attack and all the while you are convinced you are dying. I found out later that I had bursitis in my shoulder, which was causing me to have pain and numbness radiating down my left arm. Which in turn was raising my blood pressure and causing my heart to race and bringing on the panic attack. After the first one and spending hours in the ER convinced I was having a heart malfunction, I knew what they were and what they felt like, but they = not so much fun.

Not to worry, my mom went to my house and rescued our newly adopted puppy for the night that I was in ER. Puppy returned to me addicted to stealing my socks. I blame my mother.

LAP then became very routine. Go to work, come home, deal with puppy biting me with her needle like teeth all night and play with puppy all night because all she wanted to do was play. I couldn't stop anywhere after work because I had to go home and let her out of her crate, I couldn't meet up with my friends for coffee because she was waiting for me to get home. I couldn't even cook dinner because she was attacking me wanting to play. My life now revolved around the little life that we decided to adopt. I kept reminding myself how cute she was and somehow that got my through the puppy stage.

She's a pretty good dog now. We have trained her to do a lot of things and she's super smart so she picks up on things really quickly. She has brought some joy into my life---

--except the day I came home to find she had ate my coach umbrella..... but I have since forgiven her for that.

Have you added any new members to your family after tying the knot?

Telling the Truth Hurts

Ever since the Man moved from his hometown to mine I remembered him going on and on about how he wants to go scuba diving. We talked about going in Jamaica before we even stepped on the plane. We were looking forward to it a lot. The second day we were there we went and signed up to do it the following day.

They had us fill out a questionnaire and told us to be truthful on it. The man went through and marked no's on every question, while I had one yes. One. I used to have asthma when I was a kid. It was mostly animal induced from the pet hair in the house from our cat and two dogs which I was highly allergic to. BUT since I marked a yes, they told me I couldn't go!

I was told I couldn't go unless I got a note from my doctor telling them I was physically fit enough to go. They told me I could have it faxed over. I called my doctors office to see if they could fax a note over, but they were closed for the week on Vacation.

I decided it wasn't meant to be for me for some reason and told the Man that he should still go! He was hesitant since it was our honeymoon, but I knew it was something he was dying to do and the prices were pretty good in Jamaica.

So he decided to go and he had an amazing time. He was gone for half the day, but the smile on his face afterwards was totally worth it. He told me he didn't think I would have liked it because I have slight anxiety and he thought it def would have caused an attack, so I'm glad I didn't go.
The Man had a great time, saw a lot of cool fish and would suggest it to everyone.

A man of many surprises

After our afternoon tryst in the pool playing Volleyball, we headed back to the room for some showering action before heading off to dinner. The Man suggested that we dress up, so I got out a dress and he put on his only dress shirt he brought, the Hawaiian one. What I didn't know was that the Man had set up a surprise dinner on the beach for us weeks ago. After we had gotten ready, the Man suggested making ourselves a drink from our fully stocked bar/fridge before heading off to dinner. Soon after we made a drink there was a knock on the door.


We were met by our server for the evening and she asked us to follow her. Of course, at this point I had begun to figure out he had a little surprise up his sleeve. We were brought to a very pretty table set up on the beach with an excellent view of the sunset.

(Photos taken by our server)

They even drew a heart in the sand and filled it with rose petals. It was romantic.

Our server got our meal choices for the evening and took off to have them prepared. While we were waiting Sandals staff decided to take our pictures which we were then allowed to buy before leaving sandals (they charge you an arm and a leg, but then again they are there documenting your honeymoon so who wouldn't want the pictures?) Please excuse my fluffy hair, as I did not have my hair straightener and it was beyond humid there!

They had us pose and somehow I thought the pictures would come out better than they did, but then again I am not very photogenic and we did get some cute ones!



The server came back and sold us a bottle of wine which was the same exact bottle of wine they restock our fridge with in our room for FREE everyday. It was not good wine either. I was a little annoyed that they charged us for it and wished I had just gone back to the room and grabbed our bottle! But it was my fault for wanting wine, I should have known better. Other than that, the dinner on the beach was great. I won't bore you with the details but the food was delicious, the sunset was amazing and the sand flies were biting!

Yes, I said sand flies. There were no mosquito's there, but they had something worse. Sand Flies! Those things are viscous!

Anyone else encounter something different on their honeymoon?

The thing about rooms

The thing about rooms is that if you aren't happy you have to switch rooms to make it better. We had to switch rooms 4 times. 4 times! The first room smelled of paint, so they moved us upstairs. The second room wasn't a walk out terrace room (which is what we paid for), the third room smelled of paint again (they did recognize their mistake and moved us one more time). After the 4th move, I was FINALLY able to unpack my clothes and hang them up so they didn't wrinkle more than they already were! Besides the whole room smelling like paint and musical rooms debacle, Sandals was fabulous.

After we finally settled into our room we went down to the beach to relax finally. The weather was warm, sunny, and humid. The water was warm like bath water and clear-very clear and very turquoise. So pretty!

Soon after we went in to try the water out we heard bunches of people talking about the jellyfish. Which in turn freaked me out. One of the couples started saying there was one right there- and I got curious. I wanted to see what it looked like so i could avoid them. Well people, they are clear and very hard to see and while I was inspecting the one that everyone was looking at another one happened to brush up upon my leg. It did not feel good at all. I was in pain and wanted out of the water.

The man didn't think I could have gotten stung because he didn't see anything in the water and he was right there and did not get stung, but I did. I had the huge red line on my leg to prove it. The jellyfish sting left a large red welt and once that went down a red line stayed for weeks. The pain eventually went away and I think I got brushed up against and not fully stung, but oh how even that hurt.

Of course, my first time in the Caribbean ocean and I have to go and get stung by a jellyfish!

After the jellyfish incident, I didn't want to go back in the ocean for the rest of the day, so we headed over to one of the pools to relax and ended up doing something we hadn't done in years



We joined some other couples and played a little pool volleyball! That's us on the left. I had so much fun.

Then the man made me get out of the pool and told me he had a surprise for me.... I was intrigued. It had been quite the day already and we headed off to go and shower up and get ready for the surprise.

And here is the rest of it.