The Honeymoon

First Step Into a Larger World
After a night of greeting guests, cutting cake, worrying things will go right, and dancing, it was time to make our way out the church doors. We were bid farewell by a barrage of bubbles and a car that looked like a French whore house had decorated. My niece Addison looked upset that we were married and riding away. Maybe because it wasn’t the coach Cinderella had, or maybe just because she was going through a sulking pouty stage that she does. Whatever the reason, we knew we were happy, and that we were married. I turned to Amy and said, “it just doesn’t seem like WE’RE married does it!? Funny to be the people this is all for and be the one behind the wheel of the decorated car.” However, it wasn’t so funny when we had to go home just to change clothes to run it through the car wash AND scrub it with the squeegee brush at the gas station.

Anniversary Inn
Once all the tape, shaving cream, window writing, and of course condoms were off, we had our bags gathered and we were off to the Anniversary Inn by Trolley Square. We giggled at all the excited couples that pulled in the same time as us with decorated cars. I couldn’t help but wonder if they were too impatient to get the crap off of their cars that would ruin the paint just for a night alone. I had my mind on the surprise rose petals I had for Amy waiting in our room. After the nice girl that complemented Amy’s nice hair weave at the desk took our breakfast and snack order. it was off to our room. I booked the Rose Garden themed room since the Egyptian one was taken; it was to our laughing surprise that there was no elevator to our room. We winded up stairway after narrow corridor after tiny stairway. I couldn’t help but wonder how in the heck they got furniture up there!

We had a lovely time. Champagne glasses with kisses in them, sparkling cider, and a fragrant rose room. The shower was a waterfall and a tub big enough for two. We had cheesecake in our own mini fridge and little bottled waters. Here is a funny thing that happened that we had happen all through the trip. I suppose it is a funny psychological Mormon thing. We kept thinking that a family member would barge in; we thought that it was strange to be on vacation by ourselves.

Departure
It still seems weird to be in a hotel room ourselves watching Fried Green Tomatoes writing this. Today we decided to get a vacation from the vacation, but I’ll get to that at the end. We enjoyed falling asleep together our first night as a married couple and having chips and salsa together. We woke up to a delicious breakfast of egg and ham croissants, a large cinnamon roll, and our choice of 2 drinks. I had orange juice and milk, Amy apple and orange juice of course. It was cute how the staff would merely knock and drop things off just knowing that they didn’t want to get near seeing who or what was in those rooms. We left all smiles and curious as to what the rest of our honeymoon beheld.

We then went to the apartment to meet the Erwin family for a ride to the airport. After Michael kindly checked that we locked our place twice and turned off lights, 5 of us crammed into Mark and Tara’s little Malibu. It must have been a 100 degree day as we all sped off for that airport. As much we all love spending time, we were all glad to get to our stop. We all talked of last minute things, movies, and funny marriage stories on the way there. We hugged goodbye (or in Amy’s case rubbed Tara’s pregnant belly) and departed.

Interesting Flights
We had a 3PM flight out of Salt Lake to Chicago. It could have been better since we got split up, but we both had 2 iPods and a laptop between us loaded with movies, so we weren’t complaining. Don’t you just love the 21^st century?

Amy and I HATE the Chicago airport. This time we were sent to a smaller one, not the main one that we really hate. But our experience there was as expected. We were greeted by a rude and impatient staff at the McDonald’s run by the windy cities finest: angry employees that can’t get the order right for the angry customers. I made the mistake of landing on the conversation topic of Barack Obama and how much I despise him being in his hometown. We were given very dirty looks, especially from a lot of those surrounding us that were in fact black.

After FINALLY getting our food we ran to make it on our flight. This flight was a little more interesting. It was loaded with loud and rowdy 14 year old girls going to a softball camp in Orlando. Their coach was a big fat guy that licked his lips and eyed our McDonald’s bags as if they contained gold nuggets. He looked uncanny to a film teacher I had in College who played the smoking Lab Rat on TV. When everyone was boarding they were furious not sitting next to their parties. In fact, the last seat was next to the fat coach and some other guy shouted, “I bet you that would happen! You owe me 10 bucks!” The whole flight was laughing including the lady sitting next to him. The captain then got mad at the passengers (mostly the girls) for not sitting down and being too rowdy and people did not look happy, except for Amy and me because we got to sit together this flight and had delicious McDonalds. To my surprise Amy didn’t pass out before take off like usual and held my hand. We started up a movie and before we knew it we were there.

Wishful for the Smooth Vacation...;)
Everything went fine until we lost the rental car information.

To get the rental car I sat waiting while Amy went around to each place trying to figure it out. I was stuck watching the bags and had to badly use the restroom. I decided I was going to take the journey across the baggage claim with 3 bags and a wedding dress to get to that bathroom. Determined, I made it there after dropping the bags several times with nice strangers helping me. Being angry, it was to my relief that Amy found the car. We had our pick of either Kia Spectra, Kia Spectra, or…you guessed it, Kia Spectra. At least there were different colors. Blue, silver, and black were the picks so we took a blue. Keys were in the door and we thought this was bizarre until we drove away only to find a little booth you check out at to leave the airport. We had all the ID so that went smooth. I was interested though as to what else would go wrong on the trip; I suppose the sick part of me thrives on it because it makes things more memorable ha-ha. We called the hotel for directions and started on our way. Florida had toll booths that cost a dollar and we both agreed that was lame. However, I do like the scenery and the reflectors in the road, which makes it for a nicer journey than Utah. We made it without any problems which made me want to nominate Amy as the driver for the rest of the trip tee hee.

Classic Hotel Greeter
We came to the front desk to greet the hotel desk guy who was a hilarious black guy with more bling than Mr. T. There was never a dull moment in the conversation. He referred to Salt Lake as, “the pit of hell” being that it is surrounded by mountains. He agreed it had no nightlife especially being that he was from New York, a city that never sleeps. He was a bigger fellow and went on about how hungry he was, how he was the man and some other guy there with big muscles thought he was. It’s funny how the people you meet really make for a trip to remember.

Luxury and Broken Glass
We went inside to find a luxurious room with a complete kitchen, washer and dryer, large bathroom, bedroom with king-size bed, Big screen, patio, and a Jacuzzi. It was all very luxurious. After our next night asleep, I was awoken by a loud sound from a dead sleep. (I don’t remember saying this) but I apparently turned to Amy and drowsily said, “Did you just hear an explosion?” She turned back and just as drowsily said, “Oh it was just a shampoo bottle falling in the shower or the ice maker or something.” I said, “Oh…ok” and we both rolled back to bed. To our surprise and what was luckily laughter was a broken sliding glass window. (I don’t have a picture because I think the hotel wanted us not to have it as some evidence of their fault or some legal reason.) It was a large hole in the window with glass all over floor. We had a nice Hispanic maintenance guy shuttle us to a new room. Through small talk and moving we were situated on the second floor. We concluded that when the staff mowed the lawns that morning something must have flown up and hit the window from the mower. We spent the morning tangled with all this stuff, so we had to skip our plans of visiting Coco Beach that day. The hotel knew this so they kindly gave us a letter of apology and a 25$ gift card to Chili’s that we promptly used that night. We tipped the waiter well because he was over the top and since we figured it was a free meal.

Wal, Mart, and Beyond
We then tried to find an out of the way Wal-Mart but were unable to find it. We instead went to the main one near the resort and we were in shock. It was 3x bigger than any we had ever seen and about 10x more crowded. All the chicken was gone so I took a picture and laughed as I saw it in all the black people’s carts. Not to sound racist or anything, but c’mon, they love chicken! We could barely find things for breakfast or it was the last bag of powdered donuts or a hidden carton of orange juice. Also, the milk came in really weird containers and people looked puzzled when we asked why they don’t have Dr. Pepper or Mr. Pibb. Apparently they don’t have that in Orlando because we couldn’t find it anywhere. That or a redbox.

Magic is in the Hats
The next day we awoke in our new room and we went to the Magic Kingdom. It was fun beyond our wildest dreams in our average boring lives. I chuckled at the accents of the New Yorker family that was on the monorail as I gaped at all the enormous hotels on Disney location. When we got into the park, Amy immediately went ecstatic we she caught sight of Mary Poppins and waited in a long line. While she was in line I told her I was going to go to the bathroom and really snuck off and bought bride and groom Mickey hats. I did take a photo of her and Mary Poppins when I got back but I didn’t save it unfortunately because I didn’t know how to work the camera that well on my new phone. (L sorry Amy!) I joked that day that those hats were the best 30$ I ever spent. Why? We immediately were invited to dance in the celebration parade and sang, “Shook our tail feathers,” and high fived all the guys on stilts and characters. We felt like it was for us and so special. We saw a neat theater that featured old timey cartoon shorts from Walt’s early work. We saw steamboat Willie and one about some trees that was really clever. Being an animation major that I am I thought that that was a lot of fun when most people thought that it would be really boring. We then had the time of our lives with the fast pass system. Every kiosk we went to the staff gave us passes to go on the ride right then and there and gave us a warm congrats. One nice lady by the name of Eva even went to the trouble to see us personally on the splash mountain ride. At the end she even had a goodie bag with a picture of us on the ride and a card that said congrats. I am seriously going to have to call Disneyworld and tell them to give that lady a raise. We did all the rides that we wanted to no sweat and had a smile on our face as we watched the magnificent fireworks show and lights parade show. All the characters spotted our hats just as most did throughout the day to give us our congrats. Cinderella blew a kiss with her prince from the coach, Ariel held a hand to her heart, and I’ll never forget Peter Pan when he came up and said, “Congratulations! You grew up!”

Epic Epcott
The next day we awoke tired yet still determined to accomplish yet another park at Disney. This time we went to Epcott and had a blast! We have discovered that around the 2-4 PM window in Orlando it usually rains. We didn’t mind because it cooled down from the hot humidity and felt nice. Plus, it really only rained for an hour. I was agape at the big ball structure that I had dreamed of seeing since I was a kid. We then got a park guide to help us navigate the day. Of course, he suggested the most expensive restaurants in the place to go to. The coolest rides there I must say was the fast track that was like a driving simulator, honey I shrunk the audience was fun, and soaring over California Amy really liked. I had done it in California and was disappointed with it since it wasn’t a soar over Florida. Doesn’t anyone else find that odd? We then went to all the little shops and laughed at all the strange candies. I loved all the trolls that were in the Norwegian shop. We tried some Norwegian chocolate that a cute little blonde Norwegian girl suggests we try and it was very heavy to hold, delicious, and rich. A lot of outdoor shows had to be cancelled due to the rain, but we were still happy. We went and saw all the different countries and avoided Canada with the Martin Short video. We had dinner at a very eloquent Italian restaurant in the Italy portion. It was very authentic and an experience I won’t forget. We topped the night in each other’s arms watching the cool fireworks show. What was different about it is they made it seem like someone blew out all the lights and then lit up the park with fireworks they launched off of boats from the lake. Then they had a giant globe with a light show on the continents that split open and launched fireworks. I love how Disney goes all out in their parks. I can’t ever imagine Lagoon being that amazing. They would charge 5 extra dollars a head just to pout out some confetti.

Time Share Shystery, Universal Studios Awaits
The next day was interesting. We had a free breakfast with the time share people. A nice lady from New York took us personally in her car. This is a funny side note, we saw a car wreck right into another car as we were about to leave the parking lot. I don’t think they left a note either. The breakfast was awesome and Amy even thought the orange juice was hand squeezed. She then took us to view a model room upgrade from ours, took us around to look at some of the places the time shares we, “could own” would cover. The only difference is that they had HD TVs instead of standard and that they had granite countertops, big deal! Then she sat us in a conference room where there were 100s of other deals going on. We went over a stupid survey of our travelling plans in our future and blew through it. It was rounding near 1PM and I was getting ancey to get to Universal Studios because time was a wastin’. So just as we think we’re done, they bring in the closer. This guy was a pit-bull if I have ever seen one. He threw numbers at us, slashed prices, tried to keep us on track after 5 solid NO answers. There was a point in the transaction where he’s like, “can’t you put 200$ down, pay 20$ a month?” I said, “No, I can’t.” He looked at Amy and me baffled and said to Amy, “what’s your income?” She replied, “about 5k a year why?” He said, “Hey that’s plenty, plus you got the combined income.” I said, “no, N-O.” So he said, “ok, the offer is goin’ off the table can you live with that?” I said, “Sure can!” He and the lady stormed off without another word seeming angry. She looked like she was in tears. I thought, “What a joke.” When we got to Universal around 2PM we were frustrated the time share people really were time taker people. We bought express passes to hop right on all the rides and that was a great choice. Otherwise, the lines were about 1 hour of a wait or more. We did all that we wanted to at Islands of Adventure. I was so excited about the Spider-Man ride!! The Hulk was cool how it blasts you up the track unexpectedly and flies you around the coaster. The twin dragons was funny because Amy turns to me and goes, “there’s the Orlando temple Calvin! AHHHHHhhhhhh!” That, and there was a black lady screaming bloody murder the whole ride. We did a bunch of water rides including Jurassic Park and got soaked. When we came out of a Poseidon show I saw the cutest little squirrel run along the handrail and come right up to me. I took its picture and it scurried off. It was very bizarre. We then got these cool 20$ meal deals that was really cool because we could eat all the food we wanted in the park all day, so we got some grub. We then did Universal. I like the Simpson’s ride and the Twister ride just because Bill Paxton makes me chuckle. Amy really loved the Mummy ride and the gift shop. There were these cool Egyptian shirts that made her wish she hadn’t already bought a green Universal graphic tee at another gift shop, oh well! We then topped off the day once again with fireworks and they had 5 synchronized shows with orbs all over the river projecting classic movie clips. It was quite spectacular.

Take a Breather to Lose Breath At Medieval Times
The next morning was Friday and we were theme parked out. We joked we needed a vacation from the vacation. We were thinking about going to Blizzard Beach Water Park that day but then decided sleeping in was a funner choice. I loved it, I felt as if all that wedding planning and theme park walking wore off in a nice long sleepy session. We then packed our things and went to dinner at Medieval Times. Guilty as charged, I thought this was the funnest thing on the whole honeymoon. I loved shouting out our black and white knight. We contemplated getting this honeymoon package where they spotlight us and knight us with a sword, give us a photo, and let us drink from golden goblets but I decided not to spend the money (a first on this trip.) I made up for it though by catching a rose that our knight threw out and giving it to Amy. It was a pretty chivalrous moment; I felt like the guy that wins his girl a big bear at the crooked carnival games at the fair. We then were offered cheesy 8$ photos of us with our heads photo shopped onto some knight and queen. I thought who would buy these? Some Asian guy in front of me made a pathetic attempt at taking pictures of the pictures on his camera phone. I guffawed at that. The show was cool, they had live horses doing stunts, sword fights, jousting, ring jousting, and of course lots of shouting. My voice was hoarse from the night. After the rowdiness was over we went to check out some medieval torture devices but they were closed. All in all it was a fun night.

Back in Bama'
The next morning we both flew out to Birmingham on an uncomfortable flight in the very front both of us wedged between a big fat guy that hung over the arm rests. Luckily it was a short flight. We then got to see Amy’s grinning parents and went to explore the town one last time. We looked at all of Amy’s old schools, placed she hung out, stadiums she played in the marching band in, and softball fields and parks she and her family would play. We then took a short nap at the hotel after we checked in and went to her friend Malia Sossa’s for an open house. Although there weren’t many guests, it couldn’t have mattered because we had a good time socializing with guests and to my surprise finding it’s a small world with the name game. The food was good, and I had a fun time chasing their kids around the house.

Hard Goodbyes
The next morning we went to Amy’s old Hoover Oak Mountain ward. We had fun seeing her old friends and peers as we shook hands. It was a fun day to be there because they were announcing a new bishop and having pot luck after. With teary eyes from Jo, and the usual quick good-bye from Dennis they took off to the airport after sacrament.

Never a Dull Flight
Amy and I stayed for the remainder with her good friends the Nichols. They offered to have us over to look at some old photos and socialize and take us to the airport. It was sure sweet of them, plus I got to ride in a PT cruiser for my very first time. We then took a connecting flight from Birmingham to Chicago; luckily we sat together so we could pass out on each other. We awoke and landed, isn’t it great when that happens? Then we boarded yet again after scarfing down some McDonald’s and flew home. The end of the flight was fun because we turned on our call lights and sang happy Birthday to the flight attendant and a little girl on the plane. The pilot also embarrassed one attractive attendant pointing out she used to be a backup dancer in the 80’s for MC Hammer concerts and to give her congrats as she comes down the aisle.

Home and Still Married :)
The trip was a riot, and couldn’t have been a more fun way to kick off the marriage. To our surprise we still came home in love and couldn’t wait to spend more time together. My parents dropped us off talking about the trip the whole way home. All the anxieties of being home from a vacation came pouring in when we opened that apartment door. But, at least we got to cap off the night opening all our gifts!