honeymoon part 1: the keys!

Sunday, September 13, 2015



It's here! Honeymoon picture time! When Richard and I got married last year, we were wayyy to busy to jet off on a honeymoon right afterwards (I mean, it was Kitten Month after all!). We were very comfortable waiting until 2015 and making a trip into a "honeymoon finally! + one year anniversary" extravaganza. Annnnd, it was a blaaast!

The first part of our trip was spent in the Florida Keys. We flew into Miami and drove down to a cute little "adults only" place in Key Largo (which I can't recommend enough - the service and scenery were equally spectacular) and we spent a few days adventuring our butts off. This was not a restful vacation - this was a "get up and MOVE!" vacation!

Here are some pictures of our time in the Keys. I also bought a waterproof disposable camera, but that sucker is taking FOREVERRR to get developed, so I'd rather just get the ball rolling than wait any longer. ;P

Arriving at the Miami airport...

Just a view from our hotel! There aren't any natural beaches in the Keys (all man-made) so we were fortunate enough to have this little chunk of beach right outside our room.

Went to go get snackies - because luxurious travel is all about preppy health food. ;P

After all our traveling/unloading we at dinner at Sundowner's, which was a perfect start to our honeymoon food coma! The views were to.die.for and the food was simply unbelievable. Everything was a win!

This is the remains of the best lobster bisque I've ever had in my entire life. It was worth remembering by this weird photo. ;) 

Followed by a kale caeser salad with Mahi. UM.

The view during dinner. RIDICULOUS. After dinner, we put on our swimsuits and swam in the ocean by the pier behind our hotel. We swam in the ocean every night when we got home. It was magical. :D

The next day was jam-packed with fun things for us to do. Swim with dolphins! Parasailing! Massages! More yummy food! We had an early breakfast at this cute little "jernt" where I ate my weight in biscuits. #noregrets

We wrote some postcards to the kittens while waiting for our food to arrive. :D



The decor was kind of hilarious... as was the constant stream of terrible 80s music played the entire time. ;P




We went to this great place on the ocean side to do a "natural swim" with dolphins - this means we would just swim along side them during their "morning warmups" instead of a swim session that involved lots of tricks and structured-interactive play. I'm SUPER happy we did because... we were the only people signed up that morning! Just me, Richard and 8 adorable dolphins. It was incredible. I don't really have any pictures because, you know, water! (I took some with my disposable camera, but we'll see how they turned out! Not really expecting much, to be honest...) But we had such an amazing time. Dolphins are like doggies of the sea! They were so sweet and playful - the supervisors gave us balls and boards to play with to get them to interact with us and they were ADORABLE. At first we were scared of bumping into them while swimming, but they are obviously wayyy too good at what they do! So that meant we'd get an entire dolphin right in our face while swimming and then POOF! they were gone again! When we left, we saw a huge class of 30+ people getting ready for a "structured" swim, and Richard and I kept saying how grateful we were to swim the way we did. It was just such a beautiful way to start the day!






After swimming with the dolphins, we went parasailing! Oh man, this was sooo much fun. The crew was so great and good-humored and we had a decent amount of time up the in the air. We even got to FaceTime Meghan! (We got alot of "you suck!" the entire trip, which only indicated we were vacationing extreeemly right ;P)


Some videos!







After all that activity, we stopped to get massaaages! It was kinda perfect, because we were exhausted from all our hustlin' and bustlin' the past 2 days. I'm so happy we made time for it, but we were pretty much noodles heading into dinner. ;P

For dinner, we were devastated by The Island Grill. DEVASTATED. We had a fried tuna roll and POTATO CHIP FONDUE. That shit was RIDICULOUS. It took me a few days to get over it, but I still don't think I'll really truly ever get over it...

UGHHH.


Another beautiful view while we ate!

The next morning was another bright and early day that began with a fishing trip for Richard. And we didn't even have to drive anywhere! Our hotel just booked a trip for us and a boat drove up right to the pier behind our room. I'm not really into fishing, but that was pretty dope. ;)




This kind of fishing was completely different than what Richard is used to, so there wasn't alot of catching, but our guide made it a really good time. 


But there was a big one! :D

We got back from fishing in time for lunch and had a little lighter fair. After that potato chip fondue, I was really happy to see this veggie plate. ;) It was perfect!





More views from our beautiful hotel. We were so tired the rest of the day, just lounging at our hotel - we barely made it for dinner! But I'm so happy we did - we went to this darling little sushi place (which thankfully allowed my veggie-binge to continue... wait until you see my cute little veggie sushi "nigiri!"). 






We sat 'up top' on these hilarious boat seats. I felt like I was in some indie 90's movie. ;P

We were able to sleep in a liiittle bit the final morning of our stay and we needed it! We were sooo pooped... but it all the best ways! Before we left the Keys, we made sure to stop by the Blonde Giraffe for the best key lime pie ever. (You have to have key lime pie while in the Keys, duh!) And thankfully, my TripAdvisor obsession steered us to the absolutely most perfect place... that had more than key lime pie, too! We left with taffy and cookies, and oh - they were all so amazing!

While getting souvenirs for our little dumplings, I saw this adorable t-shirt and I was so sad they didn't have it in the girls' size! But hey, that's what pictures are for. :D

Awesome things in Key Largo NOT pictured...
- Getting my first tarot card reading (pretty interesting, I gotta say! ;))
- Richard going through THREE pairs of sunglasses, hahahaha
- Buying $2 pool noodles to make our evening ocean swims that much more awesome
- Frizz! So much hair frizz! ;P
- Wearing our swimsuits essentially the entire time -- gotta love the cultural norms!

The Keys were such a great way to kick-off our honeymoon. Up next... South Beach! :D


the rest of summer, according to my iphone...

It all happened in the flash!

3 little dumplins, all in a row...

Totoro cookies, courtesy of Emmy and Sadie. ;)

A sweet vist from Elle one beautiful evening!

The moment in time Meghan's room was really clean/tidy. :P

Driving to Fort Worth to see Hilary & Baby Isa, in celebration of Hope's birthday. :) 

Bahama Bucks + fundraising planning with Janine.

Celebrating our 1st wedding anniversary at Marcus Cafe. <3 (Which was followed by watching the Dirk documentary, because we're so sexy!)

And an anniversary rose from my honey.

Candy souvenirs from Mary's baby shower! Candy!

A living room full of kids.

And a living room with sleepy kids. ;) (I can't help myself...)

Rose popsicles!

Many doctor's doctor's appointments with Sadie for her precious skin. :/


Screens on screens on screens! Followed by...

A long-overdue trip to the park on an unseasonably cool afternoon... 

Happy hour at Alamo Drafthouse. :)

Charlie (the robot) "playing" with one of our Disney World toys...

FaceTime on the first day of school!

Short hair, don't care. :)

And a (grown-up!) Labor Day pool party, with all of our favorites...






violet chachki with ceej!

Saturday, September 5, 2015


So this took a while to get on the blog! ;) It's a bit of an understatement to say that I (and Meghan!) are really into drag and RuPaul's Drag Race. We. Love. It. LOOOVE. 

This summer, good ole Instagram informed me that the incredible Violet Chachki (!) would be coming to Dallas (!!) with Alyssa Edwards (!!!). A little too good of a deal for me to pass up! I texted CJ furiously to see if he would be down, and next thing I knew we were at Brick with friends (like Kent!)! ;D

The show was fantaaastic, and CJ and I fell in love with a performer we'd never seen before, Toni Andrews. That. chick. was. awesome. (See a video of her dancing to Madonna below - GIRL CAN GET IT.) Meghan was consistently annoyed as I texted her pictures and videos the whole night (girl was so close to being able to go, but wasn't 18 just yet!) - but what are good step-mother's for? ;)


MY GIRLS.


A couple of videos below. The first one is a compilation of all the videos I took throughout the evening (snippets big and little), followed by Violet's beautiful grande finale and an INCREDIBLE dance by Toni Andrews. FUN FUN FUN. :D