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!