Valentine's Day has a new name

From here on out, for the rest of our lives - Valentine's Day no longer exists in our home. :-)

It will be called Jamaica Day!!!

The first Saturday that we were home after our honeymoon just happened to be Valentine's Day. We were both so down that we were back home and we were missing our honeymoon locale.

So we decided to start our very first FAMILY TRADITION!!!




We made some 'fake' jerk chicken. There was a jerk chicken hut on the beach at our hotel that would open every day for lunch. We ate lunch there every day of the week except for the last day, I think. It was soooo good!

We made a chicken in the crockpot at home and bought some Jerk Sauce.


We got the Jamaican-Style Jerk Marinade and Cooking Sauce from Culinary Circle at Jewel. It was pretty good - a little spicy, but it brought back the memories...ha!



It was oh-so-good!

In the past, I've made chicken breasts and whatnot in the crockpot - NEVER had I tried a whole chicken. It was awesome - skin just falling off the bone, so moist, just so good! It cooked on high for about 4 hours and was completely done - I recommend it!





At our buffet in Jamaica, two nights while we were there they made these awesome sliced apples. They dipped them in a batter of some sort, fried them up and then rolled them around in cinnamon and sugar. Oh my gawsh...I looked for them EVERY SINGLE NIGHT! The last night they even did pineapple and other fruits in there. I was hesitant at first, but the pineapple was very good!

I attempted to remake these at home, you know, to make it feel like we were in Jamaica...come on now...!


They would have been better if I let them cook a bit longer... The batter towards the inside on some of them wasn't cooked and the apples weren't as tender as they could have been. I guess practice makes perfect! :-)




And we couldn't have called it Jamaica Day without some Pina Coladas...

We even got to use our our new blender from the Bridal Shower!!!




Mmmmm....


Ryan and I were talking and I said we can include our kids in on our new family tradition. He seems to think that they will think we're crazy. I say that they should cherish it. We'll explain to them that we came home from the wonderful memories of our honeymoon, starting our new life out together as husband and wife. That we missed our honeymoon and Valentine's Day was the next "holiday" and we decided to make it our own.

p.s. My husband may or may not have put his swimming shorts on during our Jamaica Day...

Our Honeymoon in Jamaica!

I have to first apologize to you all for this post.

IT IS very long!!!

And I don't disappoint with pictures either!

We set out on the Monday after our wedding to head to Negril, Jamaica. It was the best trip of our lives! The first DAY of travel wasn't all too thrilling, but we made do. We left for the airport at 3:45 in the morning and didn't arrive to our hotel until 7:00 at night. I love layovers...


It was so beautiful at the hotel. Everything was open air. The lobby was huge and wide open.



It was marble everywhere.



There was a bar on the beach - our honeymoon drink of choice? Pina Coladas!!! Yummmm....especially on a hot day.

The first full day in Jamaica was really warm. All days after that were warm but windy, which was welcomed. If you were in the sun with no wind for a minute your skin would start to get hot.



We saw at least a wedding a day, in different locations. It was kind of neat, having just experienced OUR wedding to see the other weddings happening.



I happened upon this shell that I just thought was pretty and picked it up. Little did I know that there was a hermit crab hiding inside of it!


There were various sand bars that were called Fish Sanctuaries. We saw a sea slug, what I thought was a puffer fish, a starfish, a baracuda, a crab and various other fish. We attempted to get snorkling gear, but the winds were too strong so they weren't renting them out.


This was a daily view. Our routine consisted of the following: wake up, go to the buffet for breakfast, head back to the room and get our swim suits on, go to the beach and lay out for a bit, head to the pool for a dip and a visit to the pool bar, go back to the beach for some afternoon relaxation and reading, back to the room for an afternoon nap, shower up and get ready, head to the buffet for dinner, head back to the room for a bit, back out to the nightly show they had on the main stage (so much fun!), wander around the resort and back to the room for bed.

The next day...we did it all over again. It was a routine that I could really get used to...














This is one of the places where weddings were held. So pretty! There was even a steal drum band playing at one. It was a small band and only consisted of a few people, but it sounded so pretty and perfect for the location.


The husband and wife on their honeymoon! :-)



A beautiful sunset!


This is ONE of the two pools they had. They were never really crowded at all! No matter where we were at the hotel - on the beach, at the pool, at a bar or at the show - there was always somewhere to sit. It was pretty full, but it never felt crowded.

Oh and by the way, we stayed at the Riu Negril Club Hotel.

This pool had a bar in it and there were multiple 'bar tables and benches' in the pool. So fun!!!


The buildings were all this color. At first I thought it was weird, but I think it went with the place. The buildings were even all open air. We saw a lizard walking down the hallway one night and I saw something crawling behind the fire extinguisher. I'm not one for 'creatures' living all around me, but we were right by jungle and it was all open. I couldn't have been happier being there with my man though, so it didn't bother me...much!


The 'bell boys' were so funny...they would pull the luggage carts around on bikes occasionally.



Our room number...we will never forget you! ha!



My husband (ha! love to say that!) burnt his scalp so we got to spend some money at the 'gift shop' and he got the cool black hat!

Two nights during the week they had local vendors come in and sell their stuff in the lobby. I thought we should get something to remember our honeymoon by so we got the carved palm tree in the picture above. It had Jamaica carved in the bottom part of it. I thought that would be a cute thing to have on display somewhere throughout the rest of our lives.

I also got the cute necklace. The pendant is made out of coconut shell. I have yet to wear it though...

The partial week back at work after we got home was horrible! I was so depressed to be back at work...I was hoping we could just live in resorts for the rest of our lives! ha!

All in all, our wedding, our honeymoon - by far the best time of my life so far. It was perfect and heavenly to describe it correctly.

I hope you enjoyed all the beautiful pictures...looking back at these, I wish we were still there!

I did the chop

I chopped my hair off!!! I can't believe it took this long for me to get this up here...I did it nearly three weeks ago!

My good friend Jenny did it for me and I have to say...I just LOVE IT!

It's already longer than this - at least it feels like it to me!


I still have that "Jamaica Glow" to me in these pictures...I feel as if it's slowly fading...

Dinner with the girls

Me and the girls met for our bi-monthly dinner at Bill's Pizza tonight.

Of course, cute little Audrey was there, she is sooo adorable and does this little smile! Too cute!


Dawn is in Nursing School so we all got to have our blood pressure taken!!!



Jessica (in brown and my maid of honor) is getting married this coming June! We can't wait!!!


And Katie, here in the black...she should hopefully be getting hitched sometime soon as well, yes?! Maybe we'll all be going on a little trip over Thanksgiving... Something to look forward to... :-)

Our Wedding: before pictures

After we were all done getting ready, the flowers arrived...I LOVED how they all turned out. I hadn't really seen any pictures of what they would look like. I just told them what I wanted and how much we wanted to spend and they were AWESOME!

We used Debbie's Floral in Mundelein, and I thank them SO much for how perfect they all were!

I LOVED my bouquet to death! It was so adorable and pretty!

The photographer arrived (Essence in Schaumburg) and I have to say, our photographer, Travis was so cool. He was very laid back but so easy to get along with. We had some pretty old high school music blasting at the apartment while he was there and he was even singing along! Too funny! They were great though and very helpful.

At the end of the night, Travis came up to us and said that he had a really good time, thanked us and said that we were so easy to work with. I would recommend them in a second to anyone who asked!

Of course, all of these details that I'm telling you of, I don't have any pictures of them - so you all will have to wait until we get the photographer pictures back...so sorry!

It was fun hanging out and getting ready. Whenever I needed a real smile for the camera, I would have my friend Katie say something, she always knows how to make me laugh!

Our Wedding: getting ready

First off, I do have to say sorry to you all, you know...if this is boring you, but this is basically the closest thing I have to a journal at this point and I have plans of printing out my blog yearly to keep at a journal...

As I was about to say... :-)

I was up by 6:30am on the morning of the wedding, tossing and turning. Ryan slept over at his brothers house and the girls and my mom came over once they had their hair done. A few of us did our hair at the apartment though.

I was LUCKY enough to have the best girl in the world do my hair! It turned out beautifully and I just loved it - so classic and simple. Of course, it was JENNY that did it!

We hung out, had some yogurt, the photographer came over and took a whole lot of pictures. My face hurt so bad those first pictures!

I did my own makeup for the wedding, so it was nice that I really didn't have to run around to be anywhere. Very relaxing.

And still yet, I was as calm as a cucumber!

Our Wedding: the rehearsal

Friday night, the 30th of January, we had our rehearsal and dinner. It was quite fun - yet kind of chaotic...

I was as cool as a cucumber though. Ava and Colin were just so dang cute together the entire weekend.

We had the rehearsal at St. Andrew's Church in Mundelein and then went over to Kaiser's Pizza for some dinner.

My good friend Jenny came home with me and we hung out for awhile and then went to bed to get some beauty sleep :-)

I slept pretty well over night, it was just all so surreal that the wedding was actually here.

I have to say, I am quite shocked at how calm I was. I didn't expect to be flipping out, but I thought that naturally a few small nerves would come. Of course, I had no doubt in my mind that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with my (then) future husband.

Little did I know that THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE was just under 24 hours away...

Stay tuned...there will be more chapters coming soon!

Words to Live By

I was cleaning out my saved folders on my work computer and came across this quote that I had saved and tucked away.

Love yourself now
Put others needs before your wants
Be a little better every day

I don't know why but it really touches me. And it puts things into perspective. I especially like the, 'be a little better every day' part. You don't have to change instantly and no one is perfect. We just need to try to be better just a bit each day.

Don't worry, I haven't completely dropped out of the blog world. I am, however, trying to simplify my life. Not that it is complicated - I just always feel (in my head) that I need to be doing something and I make lists and lists and it makes me crazy. So I'm trying to just relax and take is easy.

I have plenty of pictures to post and I wanted to start from the beginning.

Since this is the beginning of our NEW blog, I wanted to start from where we began as a new family.

Hopefully some time this weekend I'll start getting those up!

Hope you all have a great WEEKEND and a HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

We decided to turn our first Valentine's Day as husband and wife (and all the future V Days from here on out for that matter) into Jamaica Day! We're making jerk chicken and sipping pina coladas (things we did every day of our honeymoon). Not to mention, we don't really celebrate the Hallmark Holiday... :-)

I think it will be a great day, a great memory and a new tradition for OUR NEW FAMILY!

Our new Family Blog

WELCOME!!!

Well, I've gone and done it...

We have a NEW blog!

Blabber and Blunder is done now and we're moving on to a new chapter in our life.

Our Marriage!!!

As of today, I am officially Bella McIntyre!

It's so weird, I had to remember to sign at the DMV and at the Social Security office. Something that I'll definitely have to get used to!

It's all so exciting though and yet still the same.

I am looking forward to our new little family (no babies just yet though)!

So, for all of you reading, this is where you can follow our new life and see what we do (very boring, I assure you)!