Wedding Day / Honeymoon to Costa Rica!

I'm sure everyone is waiting to hear my thoughts on the race from this past weekend in Cedar Point, but as I've eluded to many times before on this medium, life is about more than triathlon.  So with that being said - a package came in the mail today that will allow me to FINALLY be able to finish of this post that I've had in draft mode since about June (or July - let's be honest)

Let's take the way back machine Mr Peabody to this past December shortly after I proposed.  After looking at several local venues during the evenings after work, Ms. Keep Moving Forward (soon to be Mrs.!) and I were discussing the fact that it seemed really silly to drop so much money on a single day.  And contrary to popular belief, neither of us really like to be the center of attention. So jokingly, Kim mentioned that there was still time for us to elope and we began scribbling names down on a cocktail napkin and by the end of the night we had a plan to have the wedding over Memorial Day weekend in Naples, Florida surrounded by only our close friends and immediate family.  (we did that so everyone didn't have to take an extra day of vacation on our account)

Sunset on the beach our first night of the honeymoon

But fast forward a few months into February and we had tossed around a few ideas for a honeymoon, but nothing really stuck out.  See, we've been really lucky and fortunate to have traveled as much as we have in these recent years.  Last year we went to Hawaii, we've traveled to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico on a top performer award trip for Kim's work where we got waited on hand and foot.  So we really didn't have any place that our hearts were set on.  Until Kim went to the National Sales meeting for her job and found out that she had won ANOTHER trip by being a top sales performer company wide.  Additionally at the same conference, she was named the MVP of the Northeast region for her division!!! Crazy day.  I got the text and subsequent call and I honestly thought she was joking, but it was to be in early June of 2012 and was in Costa Rica! How cool...

We got the email that we were staying at a place that neither of us would ever DREAM of staying as it was a Four Seasons resort and it was just the perfect storm of being days after our wedding.  A work-paid honeymoon, jackpot!  This is the resort that we stayed in and as you can see it was really posh.  But I digress, I'm getting ahead of myself.  I'll chat more about the honeymoon in a bit. 

Awards gala in Costa Rica

There is a really crazy story that happened with the wedding day.  I had planned on an 18-20 mile run with my buddy Tim (you'll recognize him again from the hilarious comments on many of my posts) in the morning prior to the ceremony and Kim had planned on getting her nails done with her maid of honor.  Tim and I had a BRUTALLY hot run and we got a little lost, ended up walking for a potion of the run and basically ran out of water and bonked real hard out in the middle of no where (but that's another story...) and we got back to the hotel and I went up to the room to start getting ready for the ceremony. 

This is a few days later...

I got to the room, picked up my phone and listened to a frantic voice mail from my bride to be in which there were tears and sobs saying that she was going to Urgent Care and getting stitches.  I kind of freaked out...called her phone immediately and her maid of honor, Tiffany picked up and confirmed that Kim was fine and just getting 5 stitches put into her hand.  She apparently had a freak out of her own as soon as she entered the premise of Urgent care and told the lady at the front desk, "I'm getting MARRIED today" and the front desk lady took pity on her and pulled her right back to a room.

You can see the band-aid on Kim's hand from the stitches

This little elephant is more well traveled than most people I know!

 

Turns out Kim was going to test the color of the paint prior to going to get her nails done the morning of our wedding and was in the elevator of the hotel and trying to open up a bottle of nail polish that hadn't been opened in a few months and was stuck.  The cap was so cemented on there, that in trying to open the bottle, she cracked it and basically broke it in two, cutting her hand.  Not a god way to start your wedding day when you have to wear a white dress!  Kim and Tiffany tried to get the bleeding to stop themselves, but it was too much and decided to go to Urgent Care.

Us and our wedding party of 2....told you it was a small wedding

Gotta have a little fun!

Well, it all worked out and as I say there were, "blood, sweat and tears" on our wedding day, but what else can you do other than just roll with it?  And that's exactly what we did.  We had some laughs in there as well and the ceremony was beautiful, Kim looked absolutely stunning and I beamed as soon as she walked in.  Our reception was amazingly fun - the singers actually got people up and dancing prior to dinner even being served!  It was a hoot and we were surrounded by the people we love most; family and friends.  Looking back I wouldn't have wanted to change anything. 

My best man, Josh, gave a great toast that even involved a bottle of Strawberry Kiwi Snapple from our Carriage House days and welcomed Kim into "our family".

Kim's dad, Randster gave a heart-warming speech which also had a few good jokes in it too.  Someone captured it via YouTube and it can be found HERE.  We had a slide at the hotel that everyone was staying at and honestly it was a weekend celebration by the pool.  My nephews even thought the entire pool party that the hotel was for us and asked me, "Uncle, is this all for you?!" to which I replied, "sure..." :o) Let them think it was! Hehe.

On our way to Costa Rica...newlyweds!

But we left for Costa Rica and got there a day prior to this "work" awards trip starting, which was nice to enjoy and get a lay of the land prior to everyone else arriving. The people that were organizing it knew it was our honeymoon and when we checked in, advised us that we had been upgraded to a private villa up the hill.  It was amazing.  We got preferential treatment all week long,  had little gifts delivered to our room, got called out and had to stand up in front of everyone (directors, managers, etc) at the awards gala and we were known as the "honeymoon couple" all week long.  It was pretty cool.

Waiting to head on the next zip line (there were 11 in total) there was one over 1/4 mile long!

Kim didn't get any pics of me because she didn't want to drop the camera

Horseback riding to the base of the volcano

The main thing that is fantastic with these award trips is that you get to do an excursion each day that is picked up by the company.  When we went to Cabo a few years ago, we crammed SO much in that it was like you needed a vacation from your vacation when you returned home.  Our thoughts were to keep it simple, find one thing that looked fun and have the rest of the days to ourselves.  We chose a hacienda borinqen which involved a horseback ride around the countryside, zip lining through the lush canopy and then a visit to the thermal hot springs at the active volcano.  Such cool memories and we got a massage one other day, but with Kim's new stitches, our water sports activities were curtailed and we got to lay by the pool drinking beers instead (how awful!...haha)

Mud baths at the thermal springs

Part of our daily morning hike

We had our own little private hut up the road that you got driven to by a little golf cart.  But the thing was that the hills were so steep that often when getting driven up, they ran out of steam and stopped in the middle of the path!  The drivers then had to call another cart to come and get you, which was funny becuase we could've just walked. Kim also made the executive call to sign us up for spin classes every morning and they had some crazy intense instructors.  Each morning we also would do a little hike up and over the ridge from one side of the island to another. Fun stuff, but BOY were we drenched in sweat afterwards!

Our private villa up the hill

Fun surprises left in our room, along with wine

I'll leave you all with some more pictures of our the wildlife that we saw, scenery shots and pics from the gala, but I feel extremely lucky.  I'm married to an amazing woman and we've already experienced so much, I'm so excited to see what the future has in store for us, but am perfectly fine with letting it unfold as it should.  No need to rush it, we have all of our lives together to make more memories.  

This bird would come on our balcony every morning and steal our sugar packets for our coffee and fly away! Ballsy little punk...

These large lizards would just walk around the grounds...

We finally saw monkeys!

I hope you all enjoyed reading this as much as we enjoyed experiencing it.  Cheers.