Your Opinion

   I am taking a poll about my blog. Your response will help me know if I need to change anything.
The questions are: Are the photos to large? And, does it take to long to load onto your computer?
Please let me know what you're experiencing on the viewing end.  Thank you!

Our Christmas Festivities

Our Christmas tree in all of it's glory.

(More correctly known as "A Charlie Brown Christmas Tree.")

On the eve of Christmas Eve, we just couldn't help ourselves and opened one of our stocking stuffers: The very last package of Tim Tams from our

Our Wedding - Dec. 6

Our Wedding Trip - Day 4

   Day 4 - Thursday - the new day for our wedding! We weren't getting married until 3pm, so we decided to enjoy some of the extra-curricular activities that the resort offered. First we got ourselves signed up for the morning snorkeling trip. While waiting for that time to roll around, I decided to take a spin on water-skis out on the ocean! It was the perfect morning for it!

Unfortunately, people are not allowed to ride in the boat, so Jason had to stay on the beach.

Our Wedding Trip - Day 3

   On Wednesday, the day we were originally supposed to get married, we instead got to wonder around and relax on the beach.

He didn't like that I wouldn't let him wear his sunglasses for the photo.

Something I can't comprehend about my husband: he blinks in every photo because the flash hurts his eyes and wears sunglasses because the sun is to

Our Wedding Trip - Day 2

   After spending the first day of our Jamaica trip in Golden, CO, we finally got our flight out of Denver at midnight, Monday night. We flew non-stop to Miami, Florida, where we arrived about 5:30am. We tried sleeping on the floor in the airport, but it was pretty uncomfortable. I think we flew out of Miami about 7am and got into Jamaica around 8:30 Tuesday morning. We were both tired and in need of a shower.
   We checked in with the Sandals office at the airport in Jamaica and then waited for our ride to the resort. When the bus (more like mini-van) driver picked us up and found out which resort we were going to, he said, "Oh! You could've just run across the runway. It's literally right over there. But I wouldn't recommend crossing the runway!" After the 5 minute ride out of the airport and around the runway, we were at the Sandals Montego Bay Resort. And the runway is very literally right behind the resort! At first, planes roaring past all day was a little annoying, but you kind of got used to it and didn't notice it after a day or so. And they didn't roar past at night, so that was nice. Anyways, let me get back to my story.
   We were driven straight to the resort, the weather was lovely, and someone was there to greet us with moist towels and a glass of water. There was a person there to take our luggage, a person to take us to reception to check in, and another person to take us to a little reception room to get our wedding book of information. It was about 10:00am Tuesday morning at this time and the first thing the guy in the reception room says is, "Can I get you anything to drink from the bar?" I think I said something about it being a little early and he replied, "This is Jamaica at a Sandals resort, mon! There is no such thing as time!"

Welcome to Sandals Resort, Montego Bay, Jamaica!!!

It was at this point in our trip that Jason found out that he had a new favorite drink for the week: rum punch.

Our Wedding Trip - Day 1

   Jason and I were leaving for Jamaica for our wedding and honeymoon on a Monday morning. Our flight was supposed to leave at 7:50am. The night before, we were discussing what time we needed to leave, what time to get up, and what we needed to make sure and take. (Passports, wedding rings, wedding dress, and suit were among the most important things on the list!) It was about 10:00pm that night when we were discussing these things. Jason was in the midst of packing and I was in the midst of repairing the tile in the bathtub. We both agreed that we needed to get to the airport about an hour to an hour and a half before our flight. Thus, we agreed to leave about 5:30-6:00am. So I set my alarm for 5:00am, planning for that to give me enough time to put the finishing touches on the grout and get myself ready to go, and then I went to bed.
   My alarm woke me up at 5:00am as it was supposed to. I go and finish the grouting, finish a few dishes in the kitchen, and go to get myself ready. That is when I look at the clock and see that it is 5:52am. I run out to the living room where Jason was fast asleep on the couch and tell him to wake up, it's almost 6! He jumps up and tears around getting ready and takes all the luggage out to the car. I lock up the house and off we go, leaving our place about 6:15am. That is when reality set in. The reality that it takes a minimum of 2 hours to get to the airport. Both of us have made the drive many times, but for some reason, neither one of us realized our miscalculation the night before. So needless to say, we booked it down the road.
   Even though we made record time, our time of arrival at the airport was exactly 7:50am. We went to the check-in counter and were told the

Touring Mt. Gambier

In the last post, Welcome to South Australia, we had just made it to the top of a hill to check out this castle.

I think it cost us each a gold coin to see the inside and hear about it's history.

Welcome to South Australia!

This post is going back in time a little bit to continue the Australian Holiday of Linden, Jul, and myself back in January 2012. (The post preceding this one is The Next Few Days.) In the last post about our holiday, we were finishing up our coastal drive in Victoria and heading North-West into South Australia.

We arrived in Mt. Gambier and stayed in this cute little cabin at the Blue Lake Holiday Park.

Celebrating the End of 25 Years as a Spinster

The Saturday before Jason and I left for our wedding trip, my friend Brittany hosted a bachelorette party for me.

 The theme was pink... 

...chocolate....

Our First House - The Bedrooms

I will continue the tour of our first house with the bedrooms. We have two bedrooms, neither of which are overly big.
The first one you will see is the "Master Bedroom."

These are the "before I painted" photos. This room was a bright blue color that was a little to overwhelming.

Our First House - The Kitchen

This little rental house was our first house when we got married.
The kitchen is small. And it was kind of dirty (mainly the cupboards) when I moved in.

Almost all the cupboard doors looked like this.

An Afternoon At the Woo

(Which is pronounced "voo" and comes from the name, Vedauwoo.)
Jason and I took one of our few Sunday afternoons together and went out and hiked Turtle Rock Trail out at Vedauwoo.

The Woo is well known for lots of rock climbing. We found some possible good crack climbs along the way.

Also While In Virginia...

I took some other photos while I was there for my shower. Mostly of people. Little people.

This was right before Miriam was getting ready to take her little people, Susannah and Sylvia, home after the shower.

A Tropical Shower

In mid-October, I went back home to Virginia to attend a bridal shower that my sisters hosted for me. It was a tropical themed shower.

It was by far the most beautiful and elegant shower I have ever attended!!

Miss Rachel made this delicious looking towel cake.

Jul and L. did such a lovely job on the table decorations!

Peewee, Sally, Rachel, Miriam, and Katie all helped put together this delicious buffet of food!

Miss Rachel made these delicious cookies! (The "W" signifies my last name to be.)

Thanks to all of my sisters, the decorations and food for the Tropical Shower were beautiful as well as delicious!!! There were also other people there besides myself to enjoy this lovely event:

Some good friends and former co-workers, Aunt Ruthie, Joy, and Brenda.

My paternal Grandma and Great-Aunt Kathleen.

Two of my neices, Hannah and Marie.

My neice, Susannah, and my sister, Katie.

The youngest attendees were my neices Sylvia and Rachel.

Thanks to everyone there, I got some great gifts, however not all of them will be shown nor mentioned for modesty's sake.

L. made this lovely card basket for me to use at my receptions.

My family all got together and gave me a high-quality, stainless steel cooking set.

This would be the when the un-pictured gifts were opened.
My poor nephew, Sam, was just there to enjoy the food and blow out the candles at the end of the party, but I do believe he was scarred for life.

Hannah is signing my wedding scrapbook that my future mother-in-law gave to me.

My sister, L., came up to help with, and attend, the party. That was a surprise to me, as she did not tell anyone that she was coming.

At the end of an evening which set me well on the way to being a married woman.

The Recent Times

This post is about life in the more recent past. This past August, Jason and I drove to Missouri for his sister's wedding.

Jason did a superb job at ushering.

 

He also looked quite dashing that day, too!

The Next Few Days

One of the days that we were in Apollo Bay, we took a day trip to Maits Rest Rainforest, which is part of the Great Otway National Park.

Jul loved the huge ferns that grow there.

A Real Holiday

After spending two weeks in Merimbula, I took the 7 hour bus ride down the coast to Melbourne, Victoria. There, I met my sister, Jul, and her husband, Linden, who had just flown for 20+ hours from the States. We were taking a 3-week holiday and touring the southern part of Oz.

Here we are at Anglesea, our first stop after leaving the Melbourne airport. We stopped and stocked up on groceries for the first leg of our trip.

Our route took us on the Great Ocean Road which was built by the soldiers returning from World War I. It is also a memorial to the soldiers that did

My Merimbula

 

 There is a river flowing from Merimbula Lake to the ocean, separating the town of Merimbula from the actual coast. This view from the bridge (looking east) shows all of the boats floating in water. At low tide, however, all of those boats are sitting on a bed of sand, looking like they ran aground. (Sadly, I can't find a picture of that!)

The First Try...The First of the Year

I rang in the New Year at this little, tiny coastal town called Merimbula, which is located on the South-East Coast of Australia.

My Blogging Intent

      Why am I starting a blog? First of all, to share all the photos of my travels with my dear siblings. Secondly, I don't like how Facebook has become and do not wish to share my photos that way. So I have decided to give blogging a try. In a perfect world, I would go back and start with the photos from when I first started traveling and gallivanting about, or "sowing my wild oats" as some would call it. (Which I recently found out that not everyone, namely my fiance, knows what that means.) That way my photos would be in chronological order. But, since I don't live in a perfect world  yet, I am going to try to start my photo posts from this year. And hopefully, I will be able to sporadically add my older photos in, thus not being in any kind of timeline. Which is sad. Unless someone can tell me another way to put them in chronological order.

       I am still figuring this whole thing out of how to edit and compose and customize a blog. Also how to get my pictures into the right size so that they don't take up the entire computer screen and then some. So it will probably be a slow process, but if you want to see my photos, I hope you will bear with me. One more thing, if you have any suggestions from the viewers perspective, please let me know. Thanks!