Week One

I wrote this on the plane ride back to the states, I’m just late in posting it.

Liz & I were married exactly one week ago today. And man, what a week its been! The ceremony, from our perspective, was fantastic. If anything went wrong, our family & friends did a great job handling it because neither of us knew about it. We both enjoyed the service, and it was really fun to have so many of our loved ones with us on that special day. Thanks to everyone that came, and a special thanks to our friends and family that participated for helping to make the event awesome. One of the groomsmen had pledged to get a prank in sometime during the day, which was the source of much consternation, but even that was fun. He was waiting for us in the back seat of our car when we left for the hotel.

As soon as we left the reception, we quickly headed to a car wash then on to our hotel. We had to be up for a 7a flight the next morning, so we weren’t up late at all. It was painful to get up so early, but we managed. Our travel on Sunday went flawlessly. Our flight to Aruba even left early, so we got to our hotel a little before we expected. We pretty much went straight to sleep and were out for more than 12 hours.

Monday when we woke up we walked across the line of hotels to a breakfast buffet. The food was great and at that point we were both famished so we each made a couple of trips through the line. Then we found a taxi to take us into town. We walked around the market shops for a minute then went to a grocery store for some basic supplies. ALL of the food in Aruba was fantastic, but our cheapest meal was $50 so we kept coffee, cereal, sandwich supplies and snacks in our hotel room. When we got back to the hotel we put on our swimsuits and hit the pool. It was pretty fun to have a huge pool right outside, and we took great advantage of this througout the week. That night we got dressed up and went to the Argentine steak house El Gaucho. Man, it was just awesome. We both had tenderloin filets and could barely walk ourselves out.

Tuesday morning we slept in again then lounged around the pool and beach by our hotel. Just after lunch we went out on a guided snorkeling trip in the biggest catamaran that either of us has ever seen, the hulls are about 25 feet apart and the boat is about 80 feet long. The captain motored us out for about 5 minutes then raised the sails and we were off. I was surprised by our speed under sail, it was really fun. Our first stop was at the Antilla shipwreck. The ocean here is less than 60 feet deep, and the Antilla is no small craft, so its easy for snorkelers to get up close. The mast of the ship is less than 10 feet below the surface, and the bow is only about 20 feet down. Some of the more adventurous divers held their breath and went down for a closer look, I chose to stay at the surface. But, it was cool to see the ship, and all of the fish hovering around. Everyone got back on board the catamaran and we went to another spot that was even more shallow, and there were literally hundreds of species of fish. Our guide told us to find Nemo. We all laughed then jumped in. After a good while we all got back on board then sailed for about an hour while drinking rum and taking in the experience. Liz and I agreed that we want a catamaran some day. Once back on shore we cleaned up then walked to the beach for dinner at Hadicurari. We both had fish and man was it good.

Wednesday we woke up early, ate breakfast in our room then walked to the car rental desk and got a Jeep. Our hotel is along hotel row on the south west side of the island, and we wanted to experience more of Aruba. We loaded up towels, sunblock and sandiches then drove to the southern tip of the island for Baby Beach. It took us about an hour to get from one side of the island to the other, and the drive was pretty fun. Baby beach was pretty awesome, its protected from waves and the water is bright blue, its beautiful. We stayed for about half an hour then drove north along the coast to see what we could. The coastline is beautiful and we were having a great time when all of a sudden we saw a sign that said we were in the middle of a live artillery range, we got out of there as fast as we could! We then found our way to Arikok National Park and got directions to Natural Pool. We were told that this was only accessible by 4×4, and they were right. The roads are steep, twisty, have large rocks and ruts, and are not clearly marked. Liz will tell you that I made my own path but I only drove where I saw tire tracks. We would not have made it without 4×4 low. One Jeep stopped us to ask for directions and warn us that they had damaged a tire/rim on the road in front of us. This was hands down my favorite part of the trip. Natural pool is a small pool of water surrounded by several large black boulders that protect it from crashing waves. Its amazingly beautiful. With each crashing wave comes a spray of salt water and white steams of water running down the rocks. There are several small black crabs crawling around the boulders, and the water is crystal clear. Next we drove further south and stopped at Fontein Cave, it was also beautiful. Indian artwork that’s hundreds of years old and interesting formations. By this point it was near the end of the day and we were tiring so we didn’t stay long. We drove back to the hotel, and along the way stopped at a beach side bar for burgers and beer.

Thursday we got a late start. Once we were moving we drove to the northern tip of the island to see California Lighthouse, then drove around the remote beaches on that side of the island for a while. We spent quite a bit of time just watching waves crash onto rocks on the beach, its just amazing to sit and watch. We went back to the hotel for an afternoon in the pool, sipping on drinks. It was a really relaxing day. That night we drove to the eastern end of the island for a beach side dinner at the Flying Fishbone. We opted for the chef’s choice, and it was phenomenal! The appetizer was a crab salad garnished with calamari. The main dish was a red snapper filet served over mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables, with a large crab claw on top and several mussels on the rim. This was served with 3 sauces, a spicy red sauce, a saffron creme sauce and a light pesto sauce. Fantastic! We were shocked when dessert included a champagne mousse, a fudge brownie, a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a cookie! We were stuffed, and this was quite a bill, but our feet were in the sand and we were facing the sunset the entire time. It was worth it. When we got back to the hotel we jumped back in the pool.

Friday morning we woke and went straight to one of the secluded beaches on the north side that we had discovered on Thursday. We played in the water for a couple of hours. The water is as clear as drinking water and bright blue. There were several pelicans feeding on fish nearby, so we swam over by them to discover that there were literally hundreds of thousands of fish swimming in a large school. While we were near the fish would alternatively use us as a shield from the birds and flee from us as though we were a threat. It was pretty fun to interact with them. We then headed over to the northern shore of the island, which is much more remote, and saw a large stone structure which had been used to melt gold from a nearby (now dormant) gold mine. We drove along the beach for quite a while, and didn’t see any people all afternoon. The shore is covered with volcanic rock, with a few small beaches interspersed. Every once in a while a large wave would crash and send a plume of salt spray 50 or 60 feet in the air. It was surreal, we felt like we were on another planet. We stopped at the now collapsed natural bridge, and saw several crabs playing in the wet rocks. Then we went inland a few miles and stopped at the Ayo rock formations. This looked like it was a professionally run park at one point, but we were the only ones in the whole park. It was really beautiful and a little creepy to be there by ourselves. We went back to our hotel to clean up and then went to dinner at Wacky Wahoos, which served us a couple of huge fish filets. We ended the week by driving to downtown Oranjestad and walked along the pier and through a few of the shops. It was beautiful.

The entire week was just fantastic. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE in Aruba is friendly. The resort is beautiful and the food is also great, but the best thing we did was rent a Jeep and explore the island for ourselves. Being on the back side of the island, having an entire coastline (literally as far as you could see) to ourselves was pretty amazing. Don’t be surprised if we buy a house in Aruba, that’s all I’m saying.

Aruba

Wedding planning is coming together at a nice clip. So far we have the church & reception hall booked, Liz has ordered her dress (though I don’t have any idea what she picked), and… our honeymoon has been booked. Liz’s uncle & aunt, Larry & Marilyn, called a couple of weeks ago and left a message for Liz saying to call them back. When she did, they said that they’d like for their wedding gift to us to be a week in Aruba, if we wanted it. She was like, um, YEAH!

Larry & Marilyn have a time share condo in Aruba, and have used it for family vacations for a number of years. It’s apparently quite the swanky pad, a number of family members have visited in years past and have commented on how nice it is. This year, rather than take a vacation themselves, they’ve given it to us as our wedding gift. We hadn’t yet decided where to go for our honeymoon. We had discussed a number of places, but none of the places on our list were as exotic or fancy as Aruba! We’re both floored, their generosity is humbling.

We’re both so excited to be coming together. Partially because we’ve been in love for a long time, and have wanted for this time to arrive, and partially because now the rest of the world is catching up with what the two of us have known for a long time, that we’re together. The word ‘girlfriend’ has been an inadequate descriptor for our relationship for a while. Its pretty fun for our friends and family to be celebrating our coming together with us.

Launched

I’m so excited to be “launching” this website! I bought this domain several years ago, anticipating that the day would come when it would be needed. Last weekend I spent time getting everything on the site working, and making sure that it looked the way that I wanted it to look. Then Liz and I wrote Our Story so that it could be posted. It was really fun to think back through our relationship and write about it, and read what Liz had to say about our proposal. Then I picked pictures to show in our Gallery, and made sure that it worked properly. And, once again it was great to look through pictures from the last several years and remember points along the path of our relationship together.

This walk through my relationship with Liz has been awesome, makes me wonder why I don’t take time to remember the things I love more often. But it’ll be a while before I have time to do it again, because now we have a wedding to plan for! We’ve intentionally chosen a shorter engagement period (we’ve already waited 4+ years, why wait any longer?), so the next few months will be busy as we work to make the ceremony just the way we want it.

I hope you enjoy the website. It was really fun to put together, on a number of levels. I’m sure that in the coming years we’ll have more pictures and stories to share with you.