Thursday, August 6, 2009

Show Us Your Honeymoon!

Ok, like I said in my last post... Kelly's Korner Blog is having a Show Us Your Reception and Honeymoon party... I have a gazillion pictures... so I broke it up into two posts. ;) While I am "breaking rules"... I will share a few pictures of our "Trash the Dress" shoot... the day after our wedding. In case you don't know what the heck a "trash the dress" shoot is... It is just a fun shoot after your wedding... to get some creative and artsy type pictures. You can be as daring as you want... and I'd like to say we were pretty daring... just wait!









YES!! WE WENT INTO THE BRAZOS RIVER!!

You only get to live life once...
and I don't plan on wearing my dress again...
(however, it DID clean up perfectly at the dry cleaners)





The face of terror. Yes. We DID THIS.




Which gave me the courage to do this! (photographer's idea... I don't normal climb into a river and whip around my hair. ha!)



And... then I turned into a river monster. ;)



Those are all we have... our photographer's memory card got corrupted and he could not save any of the others. :( Onto the honeymoon!!

We went to St. Croix, Virgin Islands for our honeymoon. We waited two weeks after our wedding to leave on our honeymoon... We didn't live together before we were married... and Jon had been temporarily stationed in Florida for training during our engagement (meanwhile, I was still living back in California)... So the day after our wedding... we both were moving to Texas (where we are currently stationed).

Back to the story. You would think that planning a trip to the Virgin Islands In late October would be nice, right? We checked the weather before we left Texas... everything looked good. We land in St. Croix and it was raining. I've been to tropical islands... a little shower now and then is no big deal. We get to our hotel and they just happen to have the Weather Channel on... and a hurricane had rapidly developed and was heading our way. Lovely.

California girl here. I do earthquakes. I don't do tornadoes (hello, Texas)... and I certainly don't do hurricanes in a ground level, ocean facing room... 30 yards from the water. It hit Day 2 of our honeymoon... Cat 3, direct hit to St. Croix... with the hotel just telling us to wait it out in our room. No electricity, phone, radio, tv, internet, cell phone... no way of knowing any information regarding when it would be there... what to do if our hut of a room blew away...it was pretty scary. It hit in the middle of the night... and we woke up to this:







Downed trees everywhere...downed power lines... the island was a mess. No fatalities though... so that was really a blessing! Our room's screened porch blew down but that was the extent to our building damage.



We had no power for a few days...no internet the entire time we were there...and were told not to leave the hotel (for safety purposes... with live wires everywhere...and also to stay out of the way for repairs). No problem. It was sunny. :)





























We stayed at the hotel (which was very secluded... no other hotels for miles and miles)...for the first half of the week. The restaurant was closed due to lack of power... and they only had a bar open with appetizers to choose from. After day 4 of eating bar food day and night... you begin to lose your mind. We ventured out into town and found this....

I have never been so happy to see those golden arches in my entire life!!



Some sunsets:










We ventured out to see if there was ANYTHING to do at night. We kept seeing signs for this Casino... so we thought there might be some touristy things to do there.



Nope. It was a one room casino. We got the heck out of there. haha

Toward the end of the week... the power lines were almost all cleaned up on the main roads... so we went to town.







And we visited some old Dutch sugar farm windmill ruins...















And visiting the spot where Columbus landed...





And here is a St. Croix sunrise...



Driving back to the airport...and looking forward to coming back home. :)

For more honeymoons... check out Kelly's Korner blog!


12 comments:

Eve said...

Oh my gosh... what an idea! I LOVE those 'Trash the Dress' photos! Fantastic! I would have trashed my dress in a heartbeat had my photographer thought of it... oh wait, I didn't have a photographer. ;)

That looks like a fantastic honeymoon location and a lot of fun!

Jen S. said...

Melissa...
Love your pictures :) What a beautiful bride...you are so pretty! The idea of going in the water with your clothes on was so cool...I would've never thought of that.
I can't believe how the weather was on your honeymoon. So glad you guys stayed safe. Sounds like you still enjoyed yourselves, even with the scary weather. Again, I really enjoyed all of the awesome pictures.
~Jen

The Pink Owl said...

Love the "Trash The Dress" pictures! They are amazing and creative!

the girl in the red shoes said...

I am in love with your trash the dress photos! And your honeymoon was beautiful!

Tara G. said...

Um, that was VERY daring! But what fun memories!! Glad you were able to salvage the trip!!

Sarah @ Preaching In Pumps said...

I LOVE the trash the dress photo shoot!! I wanted to jump into my parents pool, but I totally chickened out!! Other than the hurricane :) the honeymoon looks beautiful - I love your dress in those last couple of pictures!!

Teresa @ Grammy Girlfriend said...

Absolutley gorgeous pictures....so glad to find your blog ...will be reading often.....I love your blog design...

The Jansen 5 said...

I absoultly love the river pics!!!! That was so creative. I would have totally done the same thing. You only wear the dress once so why not soak in the river!!! hahaha...loved all your pics....your beautiful.

BECKY said...

Hi Gal!! Your honeymoon and wedding pics are so great!! I had hubby sit next to me and showed them all to him and he loved them, too. The ones in the lake are priceless. Love your sense of fun and adventure! So much more fun than just the same old traditional stuff!!

We live in FL and have for almost 30 years and never had a hurricane come straight for us until we went on vacation in north Florida! We had to evacuate because we were on a barrier island. It veered to the west just enough to not get us, but we thought that was so crazy!! Glad you were still able to make the best of it!!

Have a joyful weekend!!
HUGS,
Becky

Its So Very Cheri said...

Beautiful photos. My cousin did photos of her kids all dressed up in fancy clothes in water-they were adorable.

Sorry-I've been out of commission -- terribly sick for over a week-- but do you want to know how I cut my grocery bill in half? go to Cut your grocery bills now plus I have a give a way and a new Mr Linky party starting tomorrow but Mr Linky will be up by 8 p.m. tonight

Cheri
Its So Very Cheri

Wife of Rob said...

How precious! I have never seen the "trash the dress" photos before...and yours are so cute, but still so beautiful! Glad I stumbled over your blog over at Lynette's link up post!

Blessings to you,
Jen

Wife of Rob said...

...and ps....I would love for you to "Bee My Guest" on Tuesday...I'm having guest authors each Tuesday in August...fabulous women of the Lord. There will also be some great giveaways! I would love to have you over on Tuesday! All of the info is here:

http://pairofbartletts.typepad.com/a-pair-of-bartletts/2009/08/bee-aware.html

More Blessings,
Jen

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