day eight

a few weeks after our memphis trip, jett and i had another weekend getaway waiting for us.

edward sharpe and the magnetic zeros are a very special band to us. when we walked back down the aisle as man and wife for the first time, "home" was playing in the background. the lyrics are just perfect for us and can be found throughout our home. this is an example of such. my sister had a plate handcrafted with these lyrics on it so that i could hang it in our home and always tie together our happiest memories.

i cried like someone had killed my puppy when i opened this

we got our first opportunity to see edward sharpe at wakarusa eariler in the summer. we had such a special time as a couple at that show that we felt even more bonded to the band. so, of all the bands on my list, i decided we had to hunt them down and see them again. we found a show on a saturday night in kansas city, mo. that's about a seven hour drive from where we live and is 100% doable. so we purchased our tickets and had our next concert on the tour list.

the seven hour drive was long, but we always have so much fun on our road trips. it was just the two of us and an open, unfamiliar road to a city we'd never been. we cranked up the speakers in the ol' jeepster and took turns choosing our favorite music. driver plays DJ in my book, unless i'm the passenger. then passenger plays DJ because we don't want to be unsafe now, do we? just kidding. i shared(ish) and we listened to a mix of bluegrass, dubstep, roots rock, and lots of indie bullshit, as it is so affectionately named around here.

i am excited for the open road! jett is undecided.

we arrived into town just a few hours before the concert. it gave us just enough time to find our hotel room and get directions to where we were headed. this is the troubling part of booking a trip in a city you're not familiar with. i looked for a nice hotel within walking distance of the venue. it was only a one mile walk, which was FANTASTIC! what i didn't know was that it was a mile where homeless people both lived and picketed/shouted about nonsense. so that was cool.

once we got past the homeless community, we could see kansas city a little bit better. now HERE is a city i can't wait to explore again. i feel like we just barely dipped our toes in the city. i can't wait to go back and get a better feel for it. we walked through the crossroads art district to our location: crossroads kc. what is cool about this venue is that it is somehow connected to pipeline ticketing, wakarusa, harvestfest, etc. that have been responsible for quite a bit of my musical entertainment. i knew i was in good hands in this place.

crossroads is an open air venue that is directly in the middle of the crossroads district. it looked like a building was missing so they decided to fence it and through a stage in it and bam! you've got your venue. it was also lined with port-a-potties so i was having some wakarusa flashbacks. we had some beer and pizza from grinders, which is a pizza restaurant that is accessible from the venue. they were full inside, but they had a cool outdoor window so we could get our pizza and chaw on it at a picnic table.

fun fact: record low temperatures of forty degrees were reached that night in kansas city, missouri.

so we made our way into the crowd to warm up and listen to the opening band: clap your hands say yeah. i was pretty excited to see them because i loved them in my early college days. THEY SUCKED. seriously, they were so bad. so so bad. all of their songs were just whiny and they literally had the stage lights off because they were trying to be all mysterious and hipster. they failed.

between acts, there was about an hour (too long). so we decided to stay in our spot because we were pretty close to the stage. we started chatting with the people around us, because that what a ricks would do, and making some friends. then, we met the teeny girl in stripes. the teeny girl in stripes was about four feet eleven inches tall, so we stood directly behind her. that was a mistake. teeny girl in stripes was quite drunk and was getting progressively drunker. teeny girl in stripes had a lot of beer. teeny girl in stripes has a teeny little bladder. she moaned and groaned for about thirty minutes about how far away the port-a-potties were (25 feet) and stated that they were just "too gross" for her to use. then, teeny girl in stripes DUG A HOLE IN THE DIRT AND SQUATTED DOWN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OPEN AIR VENUE AND PEED ON THE GROUND. and then she kicked dirt back over it, much like our cat but with a little less grace. we were completely stunned. i was at a music festival with 100,000 hippies on drugs and saw no one pee in the dirt. we quickly shifted far right to avoid standing in teeny girl's pee, but i saw her squat down no fewer than three times that night. too far, teeny girl. too far.

the concert itself was way more amazing than expected. we saw them just a few months before, so we were expecting not to be quite as blown away in the middle of an unknown city on a freezing october night. jade was wearing just about every piece of clothing she had on tour so she could stay warm. took her about forty five minutes to start moving. we were fortunate enough to get them on the last show of that particular us tour, so they were on fire. those wonderful dozen or so hippies sang and danced and played their hearts out for us. and they absolutely killed it. they played an hour and a half later than they were supposed to because they just couldn't stop playing. i won't go on because you had to be there. here's a video that shows how precious jade and alex are together. i die.

the next day we decided to explore the city a little bit before we headed back home. we got up and walked over to legoland (which was too expensive to enjoy... so we hit the gift shop) and around a little shopping mall in the area. then we jumped in the jeepster and headed to check out the boulevard brewery, who makes some of our favorite beers (sippin' on a single-wide IPA as i type). we, unfortunately, were unable to tour the brewery because they apparently book up like seven weeks in advance. who knew? but again, we hit the gift shop and got the coolest coozies of all time so the universe remains at peace.

here i am being excited about being in the presence of such marvelous beer

i can't wait to return to the city someday and a) actually see the inside of the brewery and b) explore the rest of the city. the downtown (i keep wanting to type downton instead...) area seemed really neat and there were a couple of monuments and other things that we wanted to visit. but alas, we took on the seven hour drive back to real life. i guess that's what happens when you travel nonstop and can't take any more vacation time...

get geared up for the longest post of all time tomorrow. xo.

day seven

...i sincerely hope you guys aren't getting tired of these posts. i am a little bit, but they're almost over. we have made it too far to give up now!

day seven remembers our short little road trip to memphis back in september. we had (surprise!) a concert to attend with (surprise!) kelley and her friend alex. since the show was on beale, we decided we might as well make it an overnight stay and have some fun in memphis. since it's so close, i don't think i have really explored the city much. there is a very large portion of the city better left alone, but there are still a few things i'd like to go back and do.

we drove up (over?) on friday afternoon, pleasantly surprised by the traffic we did not encounter. kelley and alex met us at silky o' sullivans where we ate fried seafood and drank a "world famous" diver bucket outside on the patio amongst the diving goats (yes, actual goats). what's a diver bucket, you ask? no one really knows the exact ingredients - which really doesn't seem safe now that i think about it - but it is assumed to contain lots o' liquor and beer and juice and maybe sherbet? god, i love the south. it will also kick your ass just a little bit, so bring a crew for back up if you want to try it out.

notice the large bucket of alcohol as our centerpiece

fast forward to us walking (stumbling a bit) over to the new daisy theater to see the alabama shakes play. y'all, i don't play for that team, but if i did, it would be for brittany howard (or emma watson. or jennifer lawrence. or natalie portman. or rachel bilson. okay, let's not do this.) that girl is going to rip her vocal chords apart one of these days and it is going to be SO TOTALLY WORTH IT. the venue was pretty tiny (which i love) and really sweaty (which is okay) and a bit smelly (not as cool), so we got to stand pretty close to the stage to see her jam.

do you think she'll like me back?

aaaaand here's a video of her singing my favorite song of theirs right now. we just straight up fell in love with the band. remember the festival i mentioned that we are attending late this summer with kelley? guess who's headlining.

so we said farewell to the girls that night and jett and i toughed it out in memphis (didn't get stabbed! yay!) for the night. we woke up the next day and decided to hit up rendezvous for lunch since it is so popular. i didn't love it the first time i went, but my taste buds are more refined now. or something like that. we were one of the few people there when we went because we went so early, and our waiter was so great! he suggested that we try the dry rub ribs and some of the local beer. think it was called ghost river? both were quite delicious and he brought us some red beans and rice for free, which makes for the best tasting food. we so enjoyed our trip and i am thinking i know what the fuss is about!

here i am with all my memphis goodies

we said farewell and met up with my friend bobby for a quick beer and to watch the hogs lose at his favorite local gastropub called... local gastropub. then we decided we would hit the zoo before we headed home. we ended up basically moving into the zoo because we had SO MUCH FUN and we are children so it's exactly our speed. we saw the penguins and the polar bears and the snakes and zomg the pandas.

zomg, panda

we realized that maybe we weren't acting our age when we asked a mother of three to turn her attention from her own children, who were waiting to see the polar bear observation bubble, to take our photograph instead.

but it turned out so cute so there

so we said, hey. maybe it's time for us to go. so we rounded up our hopes and dreams and kicked rocks all the way to the front of the park. BUT HOLD UP. is that a camel? that's a camel. does that say camel rides? that says camel rides. honey, get your wallet. it's only $500 a ride (okay, not quite, but comparable). we then had to convince not one but three consecutive employees that yes, we were serious. we want to ride the camel.

here we are on a camel, duh

some poor, pimply-faced* high school boy had to lead us around a little dirt track while the most overworked and likely underpaid camel had to tote us along. it was really a beautiful moment. we stepped back onto the platform, the camel breathed a sigh of relief, and then we got to pet him and another pimply-faced* kid took pictures.

jett insists the camel was named carl

we finally made it back out of the zoo and to our car. alas! the tire was flat. we put on the spare tire without fighting and, without fighting, decided that we would try to find a new tire before we left memphis. we did all of this without fighting.** we ended up finding a firestone that stayed open late for us so we could get back home safely without having to stay another night. also, it was in the ghetto and we were very scared.

another day, another adventure!

*i had more pimples than either of the aforementioned high school boys.

**we were fighting.

day six

almost running behind here on day six!

today i shall write about our adventure to the beach. jett's family took a vacation down to florida this past summer and invited us to join them. we, of course, had no time off work left. so we decided hey! we will just take that thursday (and friday for jett since he's non-dental/non-awesome) and drive down for the weekend! we decided to leave on wednesday night and drive through the night, spend thursday, friday and saturday there, and return home on sunday.

remember how easy it was taking a road trip overnight when you were a kid? you'd all pile in the car and dad would drive you to your destination in what seemed like no time at all. way cooler than having to wake up early and hit the road! you know why it was so easy? because you, little one, were asleep.

this was one of the first moments that i came to terms with the fact that i'm not quite as invincible as i once was (rather, once believed i was). twenty year old mallory would have been able to drive from 8:00pm to 7:00am with no real problem. maybe a one hour catnap and back to normal! twenty four year old mallory needs more sleep than that, friends.

here we are, taking off for the beach! oh my! so exciting! it doesn't even matter that i am halfway through a long workweek and i woke up at six this morning. beach time, baby!

aaaaaaaaaaaaaand eleven hours later, after several hours of blaring electronica music to stay awake and  of asking "where the f**k is florida and why is it so far away?" (sorry for the implied language, just trying to be realistic).

we were fortunate enough to stay at the most BEAUTIFUL beach house in watercolor. whatever turmoil we went through to actually get to florida was completely worth it. the house was the closest that you can legally be to the beach... and i am alright with that. plus we are married now so we got our own room instead of having to sleep on separate couches or something lame.

view from the balcony

day one consisted entirely of laying on the beach under an umbrella for me. jett insisted on spending the entire day "snorkeling" by the sand bar. as a girl, i don't get it. my job is to be on the beach, MAYBE to get a tan, and definitely to read a book (abraham lincoln: vampire hunter to be exact). not for snorting salt water up your nose. but whatevs, he brought me treasures from the deep.

hard at work

day two was spent riding bikes to and around seaside (which, oddly enough, is a huge fear of mine). we spent a good chunk of the day reading and overbuying books at sun dog and listening to records upstairs at central square records. we had overpriced hotdogs and delicious snowcones out of airstream trailers in the square. we were wildly out of place, but we had a blast nonetheless.

one of the best parts about the beach in my eyes is the lack of adventure. we spend so much time playing as hard as humanly possible that it was really nice to lay back and have a lazy (albeit 640 miles away from home) weekend. we spent our third day doing just that: sunning and reading. snorkeling and sunburning. snacking and napping. blissful.

the happiest

beautiful sunset

we ate some delicious food, we rested, we laughed with the family (i have the best in-laws ever), we watched pride and prejudice. we dominated you, beach. alas, the time to drive home arrived and we reluctantly left the family and headed back to real life. it was a fun little getaway and we are hoping to get back this summer.

bye, beach!

laid back post for a laid back adventure. building up for a big adventure in the next few days...

day five

day five: coldplay

it has come to my attention that by "memories" i obviously meant "trips" because we are quite mobile as a couple. we both have a strong desire to travel and are trying our hardest to take as many fun trips and weekend getaways as we can afford (and some we can't quite afford...) also, most of those trips involve concerts because it's an easy way to make a plan and not try to put the trip off when it comes around. making time for each other is important!

okay, this really will be a short post this time.

a few weeks after we returned from wakarusa, we took a trip to dallas to see coldplay. earlier that year, when the tickets went on sale, my dear friend kelley invited me to see coldplay with her. we decided that we would just get the most expensive tickets available (we were newly employed graduates) and see where that got us. we also decided that we would bring jett since he was my new husband and whatnot. so, when the day arrived that the tickets went on sale, we scrambled online and ended up with mediocre seats, but hey! seats nonetheless!

kelley, jett, and i drove to dallas on one saturday morning, so excited to see such a large production. i had seen coldplay once before but it was a bit of a drab experience, so i was ready to see them in all their glory. it was quite the stark difference from dancing in a field with a bunch of hippies just a few weeks before. poor jett followed kelley and i around urban outfitters that afternoon before we settled into our hotel room and got all ready to go. (disclaimer: photos are crappy because i took them with my iphone. sorry not sorry.)

isn't he seriously the cutest?

we took a taxi to the american airlines center, watched robyn open the show (WHICH WAS AMAZING), and patiently waited for coldplay to come on stage.

good ol' robyn just dancin' on her own

for those of you that didn't get a chance to see coldplay on this tour, they handed out these wristbands when you walked in the door and didn't tell you anything about them. they had a twitter hashtag on them so i just assumed it was some promo deal.

see? wristbands.

right as the lights when down, letting us know the time was nigh, they instructed us to make sure our wristbands were on. then, as coldplay took to the stage and started playing, everyone's wristband lit up in different colors all the way around the stadium and flashed to the beat of the music. it was the coolest. thing. i. have. ever. seen. needless to say, there was a lot of screaming and subsequent dancing involved. this video is really nauseating because i can't ever stop dancing long enough to get a decent video, but here's a little idea of how the wristbands worked if you're interested.

if you have never been to a big concert before, i seriously encourage you to save up and find a band that's worth it for you. the production value of these concerts is just unparalleled and there is no way you can get a taste of it without being in the middle of it. here is another video (i know this is boring) of "lovers in japan" and the fun effects that went along with that one. 

like i said, there's just no way to explain this one to you, but it still stands as one of my favorite memories. plus, it started the concert trio that is kelley + the ricks family and we will strike again late this summer (gentlemen of the road, anyone?).

post-concert sweatiness

worn out, y'all

sorry for the boring post. if you don't like it, quit reading my blog!

another one tomorrow, of course.

day four

day four: wakarusa

i would say this was one of our most memorable experiences to date. there's not a lot that can be said about wakarusa except music music music. 

while most of our friends made it up to the mountain on wednesday, we couldn't take the time off work so we waited until after we got off on thursday to make the trek up to ozark. we took about a two hour detour (don't type "mulberry mountain" into google maps if you are looking for mulberry mountain, fyi) and finally parked the car at about 10:30. we got a camping pass for west woods, which is about a fifteen minute trek to the main stage. the rest of our friends were camping right next to the main stage, so they were kind enough to take our tent and cases of water for us. they set our tent up for us to stake out our spot until we could get up there to join the fun. all we had to do was hike the fifteen minutes with our packs and bam! we'd be there.

see! this is all we had to carry! isn't that easy?

1. it was not a fifteen minute trek.

2. i am not a hiker.

3. my pack was heavier than i thought.

4. it was pitch black.

5. i trip a lot.

6. it was almost 11:00pm and i had cleaned teeth for eight hours that day.

7. there are a lot of hippies there.

8. they smell funny.

9. the main camping area is enormous.

10. there is no cell phone reception on mulberry mountain.

if you have not been to a festival before, there is no way to prepare yourself for the first time you see it lit up at night. it was the coolest, craziest thing i had ever seen before and i think there's a pretty good chance i might have enjoyed it if i weren't practically weeping at that point. (i'm a pansy. there. i said it.) we stumbled through the field, looking for our campsite with nothing but a disjointed text containing location clues such as "take a right at the port-a-potties after the big curve" and "look for the big bus" like we weren't in the land of portable toilets and hippie vans. we walked and walked and walked, passing down shakedown street and through plenty of happy strangers' homes. and then, we came upon it: our giant green bus covered in LED globe lights and some inflatable critter (i forget the species). 'twas home sweet home.

a lot easier to identify during the day

we dropped off our belongings, said hello to our friends, and made our way down to mainstage to dance to pretty lights. the rest of the weekend was pretty much exactly that: making our way to one stage or another to see a show. there were five stages that were almost constantly playing shows, from noon to five or six in the morning: mainstage, revival tent, backwoods, satellite, and outpost tent.

satellite stage

they were just spread out enough to make you walk about 5,927 miles each day, which was perfect for us (we lost a collective nine pounds that weekend...). the entire area is about 650 acres, so there was plenty of roaming and exploring to do when you weren't watching a show.

aerial shot taken by a helicopter during waka (sadly, photo cred not mine)

the weather was absolutely beautiful for the most part. the days were warm but the nights cooled off significantly. there were some afternoon rains that were unpleasant at first but ending up providing some pretty good napping weather (you don't get a lot of sleep out there). oh, and there was the whole we-have-to-shut-the-stages-down-take-cover-run-for-your-lives tornado warning bit, but we obviously survived that.

sunny day

the best part was that we saw some incredible bands that weekend. daytime shows were always fun, but it was the nights at waka that were really spectacular. not only were the best shows slotted at night, but the place just transformed into a sort of wonderland. i have tried to describe it to people, and i don't think it's as cool if you weren't there. i won't gab on about it, but here's a quick video i took just to survey the surroundings. you will see flame dancers, hula hoopers, lots of glowsticks, a ferris wheel, and mainstage. (not pictured: dirty hippies, patchouli)

i am about out of things to say about this one, so i think i will shower you with pictures instead. it's ironic that i chose the word shower here, because there was none of that going on at waka. you know how much you love someone when you sleep with them in a two-man tent for four days in the hot june sun without choking them out. just sayin'.

aren't we so outdoorsy here on day two?

the headband makes an appearance

the headband returns

chinese lanterns

oooo! ahhhh!

the headband has gone from accessory to necessity

so there you have it: adventure number four. still stands out as number one in my mind. can't wait to hit the mountain again this year!

day three

continuing with the chronological theme here, we are moving on with memorable adventure number three: our camping trip to the buffalo.

just a few weeks after we were married, we decided to take a camping trip to the buffalo. we took a trip to ozark outdoor supply to purchase a new tent and a sleeping bag for me. i do not think something so light should cost so much money, by the way. that's another post.

as a rule, we get away whenever we can. so it was really nice to have something to plan and look forward to after our wedding and honeymoon extravaganza. since i did so much planning for those two and since jett has a lot of experience with camping and general outdoorsy shenanigans, i decided to let him plan this one. one saturday morning, we packed the escape full and were ready to go!

headlamp at the ready

we drove straight to ponca so we could get on the water as early as possible. we rented our canoe at lost valley and they had the neatest convenience store there. it was just a really neat community. there were a few locals in the shop and they were complaining about the tourists that just blow through the place. it made me decide right then and there that i will never be that person, in any case. i will always try my hardest to adapt to my surroundings and appreciate the differences. it is a good lesson i learned that will be applicable throughout my traveling experiences. anyway, we rented our canoe and had them shuttle our car to kyle's landing.

we got all of our gear out of the canoe that we would need for the float. we were car camping that night so we didn't need much. just some clothes, our cooler full of lunch and pbr, and our camelbaks (which are NOT waterproof, we learned). we climbed into our canoe at ponca and pushed off into the river.

this was my very first time to float the buffalo (any river, really), so i was really nervous. jett spent the week before the trip telling me about each of his float trips he had been on and how he had never flipped a canoe on a single one them. he explained how it was a really calm route and we wouldn't even have to do much paddling. relieved, i settled into the front of the boat and yelled paddling directions at jett like the river was mine.

queen of the buffalo

i shit you not when i say that three minutes into the float, we come across a sharp turn. we can hear some people yelling on the other side of it. i get a little panicky (don't worry, still wearing my lifejacket like i'm on a titanic lifeboat), but jett reassures me that we will be just fi-- BAM! SCRAAAAAAPE. we are stuck on a rock. we start to spin. the boat is taking on water. we stand there, helpless, reacting in every way you are not supposed to react. we do not try to dislodge the boat. i stand there like a cartoon character waving a flag on his sinking ship. the canoe sinks. i think i am going to drown (it was waist deep, maybe) and start to panic. we drag the canoe to the bank and i notice that my bag is the only thing left in the bottom of it. i looked downstream to see a large group of people laughing at us, but kindly scooping our belongings out of the water as they came shooting down the rapids.

humbled, humiliated, and pretty pissy, i sat on the bank and went through my bag, taking inventory of the things that were now soaked and ruined. jett walked downstream and collected our belongings as the committee of the buffalo river tried to wrap their pretentious little minds around the fact that we had not adequately prepared by strapping everything down into the boat in a dry bag (lesson officially learned). i stood on the bank holding my camera, doing my best to get it back to life and failing. just as i began to throw myself a pity party about how this was the WORST TRIP EVER and NOTHING COULD BE ANY WORSE THAN WHAT JUST HAPPENED, jett looks over at me blankly. he is holding his empty left hand up, that newlywed finger as ringless as it can be.

after a few minutes of cursing and frantic searching, we met back on the shore. we looked at each other and then just lost it. we started laughing so hard. we looked like drowned rats and almost all of our stuff was ruined. camera, half of our lunch, shiny new wedding ring lost. things had certainly not gone as planned. but you know what? there's life. so we hopped up, loaded up the canoe, and took off back down the river. we ended up having one of the best days of our lives so far.

we made it down the river all the way to kyle's landing. when we got out and back to our car that had been so kindly shuttled (for a nominal fee), we realized that everyone else and their seven children were also planning on spending the night at kyle's. it sounded like disney world all over again. so we packed our stuff in the car and decided to head out to find a new spot to camp.

we found the first gas station to grab some fresh water and some crispitos (because what is life really without crispitos?), drove to several other campsites that were already full, and drove out to the hilary jones wildlife museum out on highway 7. the ranger there led us to erbie and told us it was usually a pretty quiet campground. she also said "it's a gravel road but just keep going and you'll find it." it should start the video at 1:24 if you feel so inclined to watch it (and you should).

anyway. we made to erbie alive, set up camp, and relaxed in the eno until we were ready to cook dinner. let's remember the part of the post where i mentioned that jett planned this trip. that means i also let him plan dinner. let's also remember that jett was a scout at philmont, which is a boy scout ranch in new mexico. let's just say that jett's idea of "goulash" or whatever with summer sausage and half cooked rice was not as good as he remembered it being. so we ate a bag of gardetto's and added to the laughter of the day.

ready harry potter in the hammock. that'll do.

as a girl that grew up "camping" in a pop-up camper in the middle of a campground, i was a little weary of sleeping on the ground in a remote location such as half-abandoned erbie. but nothing takes away the fear of camping like waking up outside. your back feels oddly aligned and everything is ever so slightly damp. you can hear the sound of the trees waking up. and all of a sudden, it all seems worth it. until you remember that you look like this.

you can almost smell us in this photo

after stretching around and stalling, we packed up our little home. and headed back toward the land of food and showering with a few more memories and one fewer wedding band. just another day in the life of a ricks.

home sweet home

another adventure tomorrow!

day two

the honeymoon

this is another obvious one of my favorite adventures with jett. i literally still have dreams about our honeymoon and we can't wait to return for our five year anniversary. while choosing the appropriate location, we had a lot to consider. for instance, we are adults now. we needed to choose a vacation spot that we would appreciate now that we were grown up and mature. another thing to consider was that this was our first vacation as a married couple. this vacation could very well set the tone for the rest of our marriage. we needed to go somewhere feasible, affordable, logical, and peaceful for the best results in the long run.

just kidding, we went to disney world.

one of the fun parts about getting married in the morning was that we went from the reception immediately to the airport. we pit-stopped for a wardrobe change at my uncle's apartment downtown (apparently wearing your wedding dress on an airplane is frowned upon or TRUST ME i would have done it) and my brother-in-law nick and sister megan dropped us off at the airport right after. we told everyone within a 500-foot radius that we were the newest newlyweds they'd ever seen. we hopped on our plane and giggled all the way through our flights until we finally landed in orlando at about 10:00pm. one long, chatty cab drive later and we pulled up to our hotel. they gave us our "happily ever after..." newlywed buttons to wear for the week, which prompted everyone to say "congratulations!" every time you got close to them. then they upgraded us to a suite once i had discovered that they didn't reserve a king bed room like we'd paid for (okay sure, i cried a litle bit, but who wouldn't after that day?). details of the rest of the evening are to be assumed and not blogged about.

on the plane

after about six hours of sleep, we got up and headed for our first morning at magic kingdom. let me stop here to clue you guys in on the amount of planning i put into this trip. the wedding planning was a cake walk compared to my disney planning. i literally analyzed graphs and read countless articles and blogs about the best days to go to which parks, which restaurants to fight for and which ones to avoid, how to cheat the fastpass system, which rides to hit at what times... the list goes on and i am realizing that i am not sounding very cool right now so i am going to move past this. like i was saying, we started our trip with breakfast at the crystal palace in the magic kingdom. the coolest part about this was that the restaurant opened an hour before the park, so we got to walk right up to the castle and get pictures before anyone else was in the park.

in front of cinderella's castle in an empty park

the whole first day was just your perfect first day of any trip, much less a disney honeymoon. we rode all the best rides. we had lunch in cinderella's castle (which i was flipping out about like all the other six year olds there). and we really just enjoyed hanging out as husband and wife. we had my favorite dinner that night at narcoosee's: calamari, lobster and filet mignon, creme brulee, and a bottle of red wine. we even had a personalized menu for us that night!

so happy for jeff and mallory!

we returned to the magic kingdom after dinner because they were open until two o'clock in the morning for on-site guests. so we got to ride a lot of fun rides with no wait! my favorites from magic kingdom were definitely the haunted mansion, space mountain, and our nighttime jungle cruise because we were the only two people on the entire boat. it was neat to see the whole park lit up for the nighttime. it was especially neat to be in the magic kingdom without one hundred thousand snotty-nosed kids!

day two was spent at our favorite park: epcot. what was literally the most boring place alive as a child turned into some of our favorite memories of the whole trip. the different food available at this park in the different "countries" was so fun for us! plus we were mildly drunk the entire time we were in epcot because they had beer from every country and HOW does one turn that down? simply by refusing to pay eight dollars for a beer, you say? nonsense! we had lunch in mexico (delicioso!) and dinner in germany (not so impressive).

outside one of our favorite restaurants, san angel inn, in mexico

we really had an amazing time exploring all the different countries. we did about half of the countries this day and saved the rest for our second day in epcot because we were returning again later in the week. and i think it's safe to say that i was really only in epcot for one reason that day...

nailed it

day three was spent in hollywood studios, which has all the best roller coasters. and that's what honeymoons are really all about. we rode tower of terror and rock n' roller coaster more times than one should. this is where we learned something important about each other: jett loves to enjoy something and move on from it. i will do something so many times in a row that a cast member (a disney park employee. get with the lingo, y'all.) would have to come pry my fingers off of the lap bar and escort me directly out of the park. i am pleased to announce it never came to that. my favorites of this park included toy story mania, tower of terror, and rock n' roller coaster. also, we saw the beauty and the beast musical that i saw when i was six years old. it is one of my most vivid memories of visiting disney as a child and everything was EXACTLY how i remembered it!

the best part of the trip for jett was this day: star tours. y'all, i have never seen so much unadulterated glee coming from a grown man. he took over half of our trip photos in the queue. i think he was skipping at some point. i don't know. he was about to vomit because he was so excited (i was about to vomit because of those damn 3D glasses. who are they trying to kid with those?).

cruisin' through endor

we spent day four cheating on disney. we couldn't help ourselves. we hopped into a car and went to visit the wizarding world of harry potter. we went here for my college graduation trip back in may 2011 (noticing an adulthood theme here?) and just adored it. seeing something like that come to life was honestly magical. i won't get stuck on this one for too long because i could go on for DAYS AND DAYS about hp. the best part of this day was that we spent the majority of it getting drunk at hog's head pub on their signature brew. that just is cooler than anything i can wrap my teeny little mind around.

please respect the spell limits

after cheating on disney, we sneaked back to our room, showered the filth off, and got ready for our dinner at the california grill. this was definitely our favorite night of the trip. i think it may still be jett's favorite night of all time. we got reservations for around the time the magic kingdom fireworks were going off so that we could enjoy them from the balcony of the restaurant while they piped the music in. i'm not saying it was better than standing in the park with kids sneezing into your open mouth, but i had wine so, you do the math.

isn't my hub so cute?

this was jett's favorite meal by far. and lemme tell you, it was delightful. he had a rare bison steak with truffle macaroni and cheese and asparagus. if you ever want to see him excited, just say the words "california grill" and watch him come alive. they treated us so well here. we had our own little table in a quiet corner, our own bottle of wine, and a special dessert just for us.

the chocolate did not taste as good as it looks...

day five was spent going back to epcot. we saw the second half of the countries this day and ate at the coral reef, which was a beautiful restaurant in the middle of an aquarium in the finding nemo area. the food was good and the view was even better. we were on a "dining plan" for the week, which means we had pre-paid meals that we just had to spend before the end of the week. we could each get an appetizer, an entree, and a dessert without having to pay at the restaurant, so it really was a treat! this was day one of the HGTV flower and garden festival. overnight, they had transformed the park with beautiful flowers and gardens and sculptures of disney characters. it was really unbelievable. disney does everything so huge!

beauty and the beast

okay guys, you've almost made it through this entire post. i don't have too much to say about our final day in disney because i was so sick. we spent it in animal kingdom and i think disney really hit it with this park. it was so amazing! the attention to detail and just the design of the entire park knocked us off of our feet. we did a lot of amazing things here. our favorites included the lion king musical, the safari, expedition everest, which is the best roller coaster disney has to offer in my opinion (as sick as i was, i still managed to ride this like six times that day), and our favorite show, the finding nemo musical. it spent most of the day raining off and on, so we just took it easy by strolling around the park and enjoying our last day of vacation. we were both so extremely exhausted at this point, so it was nice to take it kinda easy for a day. we ended the day with a nice meal at jiko, which was fun because it was one of the restaurants that megan and nick went to on their honeymoon. we will have to go back sometime when i can actually taste the food...

sick, soaked, and sad to leave

going home was a sad slap back into reality. we wore our newlywed buttons all week long and got special newlywed treatment because of it. i put my button on as we headed to the airport to remind myself that even though my trip was over, i was still a new wife! the button set the security detector off and a large black woman told me to take the button off or she would have to confiscate it immediately, at which point the button stabbed me and made me bleed. welcome to reality.

if you made it to the end of this post, i am most impressed. i know it was long but it was fun to go back through the memories! i think this trip completely represented us as a couple: we are kids who like to have fun. it's taking all of my willpower not to plan a trip back right this second...

i'll add another (shorter) memory tomorrow!