Virginia

I recently returned from my last vacay of the summer:(  The frowny face is not for the vacation but for it being the last.  I went to Charlottesville (which will be referred to as Cvill from now on) to visit my sister, Hilary.  She and boyfriend, Corry, just moved into a really cool loft-it's actually a real loft not a fake one.  We spent to week visiting wineries and eating a lot.  There is a lot of beautiful wine country in VA about 30 minutes outside of Cville.  See for yourself.

This Summer

This summer has been really awesome.  Start it all off with a trip to Greece-it can't get better than that!  (Check out the cute photo of Tony and me in Paros.)  Last summer sucked-I did get married which was awesome but I wasn't working and had a teaching contract but wasn't getting paid b/c I hadn't started yet; blah blah blah.  I was bored and too broke to do anything about it.  Anyways this summer I'm rich-just kidding-but I have stayed a perfect balance of productive and relaxed.  

My biggest goal this summer was to revamp all of our photo albums and scrapbooks and to create a wedding album.  I have successfully accomplished this goal and all of our photos and memories are preserved and beautifully displayed in albums-check.  I also had  a goal to do some gardening and I got a huge pot and planted some herbs that are growing too fast for us to eat-check.  I have taken some great vacations other than Greece such as Disney World and I am going to VA to visit Hilary next week and my house is immaculately clean-check, check.  

The only thing left that I want to do is to cover the window on our front door with some type of cloudy screen thing-it has a name but I'm not sure what it is.  Oh yeah-Tony and I also put new super organized shelving in our closet and I reorganized all of my jewelry into trays in my wardrobe.  Wow-I've been super-productive this summer.  It hasn't been all work though-I've had my share of tv watching and laying out by the pool.

I've always had aspirations of making my own cleaners at home and I have started doing that as well.  It is actually way cheaper than buying them at the store and if you've read my previous posts you know I love non-toxic, eco-friendly cleaning solutions.  The one I use the most is an all purpose bathroom or kitchen cleaner.  It is the easiest, cheapest thing you can imagine; equal parts water to vinager.  I got a gigantic bottle of vinager at Target for about 2 dollars and free water from the tap and put them in an old spray bottle from my store bought cleaning solution that ran out.  It works better on mirrors than anything I've ever used and keeps my shower clean longer.  It does smell like vinager so don't use it right before you have guests over but the smell goes away in a few hours.

Another that I've used is a fabric whitener.  I didn't want to buy bleach b/c anything that smells like it will burn my nose hairs probably isn't that good for me and honestly I'm pretty sure I would ruin stuff with it.  I found a recipe used for whitening fabrics that consists of soaking said fabrics in a solution of 1 tablespoon salt and 1/4 cup baking soda.  These are all things that we have at home anyways and nothing toxic or damaging about that.  I soaked my white towels for an hour and it worked pretty good.  The only thing I will change is that I may soak them in hot water next time instead of cold.

Tubing

On Saturday a big group of us went tubing for my friend Lacy's birthday.  Lacy is from Louisiana and we met through my friend Casey when we went to Jazz Fest in New Orleans (I don't want to leave Danielle out who went on the trip as well:).  Anyways, we all had a great time and have been friends ever since.  Lacy's family even came up from Louisiana to celebrate her birthday; and they really know how to party.  Her dad, Ted, is full of hilarious sayings and left me laughing about "can sandwiches" all day.

The company we went with was Up the River Outfitters on GA 20 (www.uptheriveroutfitters.com) and it only costs $12 per person which is really cheap for a whole day of fun.  It is an all day event though-we got there at about 11:30 am and tailgated for a while waiting for tubes.  By the time we got back to our cars at the end of the day it was 5:30pm but there is nothing more relaxing than floating very slowly in a tube with your friends and a cooler full of beer. 

Honeymoon in Mexico

Tony and I decided to go to Mexico on our honeymoon.  As a Spanish teacher I have made it a goal to go to at least one Spanish-speaking country each year and I had never been to our closest neighbor to the south, Mexico.  Tony didn't want to be "typical" and go to the Yucatan (I did) so we went to Puerto Vallarta on the west coast.  The city is pretty cool; it is situated on the Bay of Banderas and no matter where you are on the beach you can see the circular shape of the coastline as it curves around the bay.  It is also quite mountainous and slopes rather quickly from coastline to steep mountains.  The downside is that PV is a port of call for many cruise ships meaning that the locals are used to making money off of dumb American tourists and you get hassled quite a bit when in town.

Tony and I stayed at two different hotels while in PV.  This was not the original plan.  Originally we booked a beautiful, exotic, hotel off the beaten path.  When Mr. "atypical" arrived to an influx of breeding crabs and no air conditioning, the "typical" hotel that we both thought to be boring and lame was suddenly the object of our envy.  So we relocated.

Please enjoy these pictures of the crabs (we had to have proof so nobody would think we were exaggerating and not as cool as we think we are) and of the rest of our romantic and relaxing vacay. 

The Newlywed Life

Well, I am now a newlywed.  My husband, Tony, and I have been together for almost seven years and we just got married in June.  The best part is that everything is pretty much the exact same as it was before we got married.  We have lived together for a year now so the adjustment period when I wondered what I was getting myself into has already passed. 

The wedding was really quite awesome.  Before being engaged myself I had been a part of a few weddings and because it wasn't my wedding I really didn't understand what all the hype was about.  I didn't think it was worth all the stress, planning, and money and I had plans for a small, casual wedding.  It did remain pretty small and I didn't go overboard with the budget but I did get a lot more in to the planning than I thought I would.  I actually had fun; so much so that as Tony and I wasted away on the beach in Mexico for our honeymoon I found myself depressed that it was over and already asking Tony when we could do it all over again and renew our vows.  His response was typical: "Can we at least make it home from the honeymoon first?"

Here are a few pictures of our special day.