Honeymoon!!!

Sunday, October 17th

When the alarm went of at 3:30 am the Sunday after our wedding...neither Brad nor I wanted to get up.
I had barely any sleep under my belt from the days before and we were so exhausted from the excitement of the wedding and reception...it was hard to get up....even though we knew where we were headed...

St. Lucia!

We drug our butts out of bed, got ready for our 6:00 am flight (I wore black capri pants and a black zip up hoodie with "Mrs Homan" on the back), figured out what needed to go with us and what could stay in his car and we headed out the door with it still being dark outside. Luckily, we had planned ahead enough that we had packed over night bags with what we needed to get ready with and had left our big travel bags in Brad's car so all we had to take out was what we had taken into the hotel room the night before.

We stayed at the Peabody, and thankfully they have valet...so we gave the guy our valet ticket and waited in the cool October morning air for our car to come around the corner. We were tired, hungry and cold....but we were married and on our way to our honeymoon...so it wasnt all bad!

We threw our toiletries and other things into our travel bags when the car got there and we were on our way to the airport. We parked in the short term parking because the Verdells were coming to get the car later that day and park it at our apartments for us. We really appreciated them doing that!

Grabbed our bags and headed to the check in desk. Of course the self-service kiosk could not find our information (it NEVER does) so we headed to the desk manned with a real person. They found our stuff, checked us in, weighed our bags (Brad's was overweight) and sent us on our way. The beauty of being military is that they don't charge you if your bag is overweight...so we didn't have to pay...PTL!

We were super early and hungry. We went through security and headed immediately to the Burger King in the airport to eat our first breakfast as a married couple. How romantic! Then the waiting game began. Waited for our first flight (I took a few pictures). I kept saying "I love you husband" or "Hold my hand husband". I was awake and so excited to finally be married...Brad was not fully awake therefore was incapable of showing the same level of excitement!

Look how tired he was!

Our first flight was from Little Rock to Chicago...where we walked straight from the first plane to the gate in Chicago and they started to board our second flight. PTL for not having a lay over, but I was STARVING and had no time to get any food. Thankfully on our 4 hour flight from Chicago to Puerto Rico they offered food service....except you had to pay for it. (What ever happened to the days of free peanuts or Biscoff cookies?)  I probably spent 10 dollars on a sandwich that Brad and I split because we were both hungry at that point but couldn't see the purpose of spending a ton of money on airplane food. OH! and they no longer accept cash...only credit cards....so they swiped my card on the airplane. Ridiculous!

Four hours after taking off in Chicago...we landed in Puerto Rico. We had a 6 hour lay over here. I would've much rather been stuck in Chicago for 6 hours. We walked the whole airport probably 3 times. We ate as soon as we landed at a mexican type restaurant that served no cheese dip, but had burgers and fries. Whatever, we were hungry. Then as we walked the airport, we noticed that each restaurant we passed had a different name, but the same exact menu. LOL...it was hysterical. The mexican restaurant had jose's burger and fries while the sports bar had All Star burger and fries. Too funny.

Hello Puerto Rico!!!

6 hours, a glass of wine, a fruity drink or two, and a few beers later it was time to board the plane and head to St. Lucia. Mind you, our flight was at 7 pm...we had been up since 3:30 am...we were exhausted, but still so excited! We had eaten dinner in the PR airport because we didn't know how to access food when we got to Sandals. The plane we boarded was a prop plane...AKA puddle jumper. I was too tired to care, so was Brad.

There were 8 other couples that were honeymooners as well. Oddly enough, we never saw any of them the rest of the trip. St. Lucia is only 27 miles long...but I guess they all went to other resorts...who knows?!?!

We were given the customs card to fill out. Brad got to claim me because we are family now! I know that sounds silly, but when you have been married for 24 hours, it is the little things that count! The flight was two hours. I can't sleep on planes (another reason why this travel day was rough on me) but Brad sleeps anywhere. So I read his book while he would take little snoozes. We were both so ready to be off of planes and know we didnt have to get on one for another week...

It was dark when we took off (and of course when we landed) so I didnt get to take any pictures of us flying into St. Lucia (and we didnt get a window seat when flying out...so no in flight pictures for this newlywed). I did, however take a picture of the airport we landed in...so thankful we DIDNT have a layover here!

When we landed in St. Lucia, we walked down the stairs of the plane, down the walkway that is to the right of this picture and into a tiny room where we immediately met customs. That went quickly, we grabbed our bags, met with customs again and then were on our way out the door and to meet our shuttle. A man met us, put our bags on a flatbed looking thing, rolled them about 20 feet over to where our Sandals person was, unloaded them, and then rudely told us he works for tips. Okay buddy, here is 2 dollars. You took our stuff 20 feet...MAYBE!

The Sandals representative had our bags loaded into a Sandals taxi and sent us on our way to our resort! THE REGENCY!!  The taxi ride was 15 minutes long. I was so tired, I have no idea if anyone else rode with us. I dont think they did. As soon as we arrived to our resort, they unloaded our bags and we walked into the front door.

This was intimidating because everyone else was tan and dressed for dinner and we were in sweats and jeans and had been up for 18 hours. A random man motioned toward us to follow him...but he was dressed like a butler and had some kind of tray in his hand...so we ignored him and walked to the front desk. While we were standing there, he came back around the corner, told us to follow him and walked off. So we followed.

We ended up in a room where they officially check you in, swipe your credit card and get you set up with all the important information and send you off to your room! We were starving, but too exhausted to care. They put us on a shuttle to our room...when we got there, they told us where to go while they brought our bags up. SO WONDERFUL. We got in our room, unpacked our bags, turned on the tv and went to bed.

Side note: our resort was beautiful, but very hilly. They had shuttles that would take you everywhere, but the shuttle the first night was the last one we took. We decided we were going to walk everywhere...which ended up being a great choice. My legs got stronger and we ended up only gaining 5 pounds each by the end of the trip, considering we ate 2 dinners every night and ordered one of every desert on the menu!

We slept so great and woke up Monday morning feeling so refreshed and ready to relax, drink, eat and be married!!!

We didnt have anything planned for Monday. They were offering an orientation Monday at 10 am. We decided to go. We figured, what the heck. So we got up, ate an amazing breakfast (Brad had his first mimosa ever) and headed to the orientation. I am really glad we did it. They took us around the resort, showed us where all the things we needed to know about were and even let a tour guide come in and tell us about a tour he offered.

It was called "Joe Knows St. Lucia" and it sounded awesome. We ended up doing the tour, so I dont want to give away all the fun details right now. It was a great experience and I am so glad we got to see St. Lucia like we did.

After orientation, we headed back to our room to put on swim suits and go swim/lay out. We got a place by the pool right next to the waterfall. It was loud, but so pretty. We laid there for a few minutes and then decided to get in the pool. As soon as we did, we headed to the swim-up bar. (Best invention ever)

It had two  bartenders and a list of drinks that they offered. There were probably 30-40 drinks up there and they knew what each one had in it. Pink Lady, No Pressure, BBC, Dirty Banana....names I have never even heard of...but now love them!!!

After a little bit of drinking and swimming (which I am pretty sure is frowned upon) we decided that the main pool we were in was a little bit too busy for us and we were hungry. So we grabbed Brad's bag and headed to the pizza place to grab a quick lunch. It started to rain on us (it was outdoors, with a few umbrellas, but it overlooked the ocean, so it was perfect to us). The table next to us had an umbrella, but we didnt. They let us scooch our table next to ours and share their umbrella. Since we had nothing else to do than huddle under an umbrella, I started talking to them. They were from Jersey. It was their honeymoon and they were both late in life honeymooners like Brad and I. (I will be 28 next week). It was fun to meet them and nice to know someone besides ourselves.

It stopped raining, their food came, but they had to hurry and eat it because they were going on a tour. They ate and said goodbye and we promised to meet up later. Our pizzas came (thankfully after the rain passed) and they were alright. Nothing fabulous.

A couple we had met that morning had told us about another pool that not many people go to because there is not a bar up there. We picked up our stuff and headed there! There was NO ONE at that pool, so we jumped in. We swam, took some pictures, got in the hot tub, swam some more. Then it started to RAIN!!! (It rained every day in St. Lucia...but there is no such thing as rain there, they call it Liquid Sunshine).

I realized we had NO towels either because we had left our on our previous chairs at the other pool. I ran down to the other pool, grabbed our slightly wet towels and headed back up to where my husband was. The rain stopped, we swam a little bit more, and then decided to go take a nap and get ready for dinner!!!.

There were 9 restaurants at our resort. We managed to eat at every single one of them! LOL. On this particular evening (Monday) we ate at a place called Neptunes. It was right next to the pizza place, except it had a roof! The view was spectacular as it looked over the ocean. They specialized in seafood.

I had a seafood lovers thing and Brad had tilapia or mahi mahi....when it was time for desert I simply said "I want to try one of everything"....and that is what I got! Brad and I took a bite out of each one just so we could try it! When I ordered it, a girl behind me said "You can do that here?"...so of course I turned around and struck up a conversation with them! There names are Jenna and Cullan and they were newlyweds too!

Wandering around the first night

After dinner we wandered around a little bit and found ourselves in the piano bar. We grabbed two seats and when we looked across the bar, there sat Jenna and Cullan. We made some room, moved some chairs over, and got to hang out with them some more. Later in the night, the couple we had met at lunch showed up too...so the 6 of us hung out. It was fun.

At the Piano Bar

Around 1 the piano bar turned into a night club...with a DJ. We left. The DJ was too loud and we were getting tired. (Wow, we sound old!). Besides, the next day we had a tour planned with the Joe Knows crew and we wanted to be well rested for that!!!