Kansas Reception

Dan and I got back late last night from our weekend trip to Kansas for our final wedding related celebration.  Oh, and on a side note:  today is our 1 month anniversary!  Woohoo!  Small victories!!!

Terri Mom (that's what I call Dan's mom) and her sisters, Aunt Judy and Aunt Kandi, as well as Dan's cousins Kourtney and Kaleigh and Uncle Willy and Grandma Wilson all pulled together to throw Dan and I a Kansas reception for friends, family, and neighbors who adore Dan and were, apparently, curious to meet me.  It was fantastic. 

The reception was at the church that Dan went to growing-up and man  was I envious of the building.  It had a massive gymnasium and huge kitchen - so helpful for hosting events and putting on ministry activities.  Wish Crossroads had a place like that...sigh. 

Anyways, when Dan and I got there several hours before the reception to help with prepping stuff we walked into the place fully decorated.  It was amazing.  Kaleigh and Kourtney had done all the creating and displaying and it all matched the wedding colors so perfectly.  The table runners were so perfect and just so happened to be in the closet at the church.  Serendipity!  They reused all the decorations Mandy made from the wedding including the felt poms and mason jar votives.  Super cute.

There were two huge sheet cakes, homemade chicken salad and ham salad sandwiches on cute little croissant rolls, enough to feed 5,000, relish trays, chips and dip, meatballs and cocktail weenies (oh my yum), and delicious Midwestern punch with scoops of sherbert for added color, flavor, and flare. 

Here is Dan in his nice dress clothes stirring the cocktail weenies and meatballs in a crock-pot the size of Rhode Island.  He needed a bib. 

Terri Mom, Judy, Kandi, Kaleigh, Kourtney, and Willy all worked so hard to make such a special day for us and we are grateful.  There was a great turnout of guests even though our event was competing with the Pioneer Harvest Fiesta down the road (I begged Dan about a dozen times if we could go some time that weekend.  I will never in my life have the opportunity to see a harvest fiesta of the pioneer variety...boo).

Anyways, Dan and I stood by the entry for the full two hours of the reception, a constant stream of loving people so overjoyed to see Dan and to meet me.  I only remember a full handful of their names but that's ok because I don't need to know their names to tell that they cared deeply for Dan and for our future together.   Our hearts smiled. 

Photos below - courtesy of Aunt Judy 

Free Willy!

Guys, Cape May was amazing.  We were so blessed with the weather.  I got my desperate fill of summer sunnies and a nice tan glow.  Dan and I had a blast and it was just a really great time to rejuvenate and get excited and re-energized for married life and work ahead.

On our last day we managed to wake up early and get to the beach for a breakfast picnic.  The sun was just up and there were not many people out yet.  We stopped and got morning beverages (ice coffee for me and a smoothie for Dan) and some yummy cinnamon rolls and sticky buns.  We took our blanket to the beach and sat together enjoying life.

I snagged a bag of beach sand to put in a jar back home.  Some future craft and a keepsake to commemorate our visit.

All was well except for the crazy birds nearly got away with our breakfast when they assumed we wanted to share.  Scram! 

We headed back to the B&B to pack things up and say goodbye.  Our last adventure in Cape May was to go on a two hour dolphin and whale watch boat before we headed out of town.  We had a few minutes to kill before then so we drove over to the lighthouse again to show Rocky Pants since we forgot about him the day before.  He was happy. 

The dolphin watch was really quite fun.  There was all kinds of cool information about dolphins like did you know that dolphins sleep by turning off half of their brain at a time? Don't believe me?  Click here.   There was a lot of information about the history of the area too.

So I was sort of hoping we were going to see the dolphins up close but we had to give them credit for not swimming up next to a giant boat but that is the reason why the photos are so tiny.  We could see them swimming around us but they were still pretty far away.  The tiny black dots in the photos are the dolphins.

You might be totally unimpressed and would rather go to Sea World and pet the nose of a dolphin (which is pretty cool, I won't lie) but one of the things they mentioned on the boat was the dolphins we saw are in their natural habitat, enjoying life as they were intended to.  A dolphin in the wild can live up to 40 years versus a dolphin in captivity living approximately 5 years.  So think about that.  Free Willy!! Yes, I realize Willy was a whale but the idea is the same.

Here's a little video

And then the boat docked and with that our time in Cape May ended.  We were so sad to leave and wanted to stay forever but life moves on and our duties called us back to Brooklyn.

Holy Tickets Batman!

So our second day in Cape May got started a little later than we had hoped due to accidentally sleeping in a bit.  Once we woke up we threw on our suits and ran out to the beach.  This time we found a calm spot in the water and weren't bashed by the waves quite as much.  After a little dip we got ready for the day and headed into town to book a spot on one of the trolly tours.

We decided to do the tour that highlighted the mansions in the town which was scheduled for 3ish so we had time for something before that.  Dan looked-up on his phone how far the lighthouse was and it seemed like our Brooklyn legs could walk the distance so we headed out of town on-foot.  Well, the phone was wrong...the distance to the lighthouse was a good three miles along a road with no sidewalk.  It was humid and hot.  There was some squabbling and complaining but we made it to the lighthouse and walked the 100 some odd steps to the top to see the view.

The old man at the lighthouse told us we should walk back to town along the beach since it was likely shorter and certainly a better view.  So we did, and it was a much more pleasant journey.

Before our trolly tour we grabbed some DQ because when you live in a city that has not embraced the beauty of Dairy Queen, one must take advantage of every sighting.  Look at this one painted all dainty to fit in with the other tourist shops on the main street.

I ordered us a Mr. Misty Freeze, grape...the poor kid working the counter was so confused.  Apparently that is not a menu item anymore so I had to explain to him what is was so he could cobble it together.  We were so hot and tired from the walk that it didn't matter, anything tasted good. 

The trolly tour was really cute because this old couple ran the show.  The guy drove and the old lady told the stories.  The tour went along the street closest to the water and then weaved through a part of town where the most wealthy residents live.  The Victorian mansions were massive and unbelievably beautiful.  She told lots of history tid-bits which I didn't retain.   

After the tour Dan and I wandered over to an old arcade our friends had told us about.  Since we were visiting the town after the season was over (post Labor Day) there wasn't much of a crowd.  We literally had the entire arcade to ourselves.  Most of the games were only 50 cents so $20 between the two of us went really far.

Dan played a Batman game that was similar to wack-a-mole only with batman characters.  The machine would shout out "HOLY TICKETS BATMAN!" every 10 seconds or so.  We had a blast.  My favorite was the skee-ball. Of course, Dan liked the basketball.

Then we did one of those photo booth where you get two strips of photos with four images.  I really like how it turned out.  Everything looks better in black and white.  

After the arcade we went back to the B&B for a rest and then we got all dressed up for our fancy dinner reservation.  We went to a fancy place called The Blue Pig Tavern in the most grand hotel in town.  Dan wore a tie and I wore a tiny black dress and we felt grown-up and sophisticated.  Dan had some sort of white fish (can't remember the name) and I had crab cakes.  Then we went to the candy store for dessert...because we're still really just kids. 

Cape May, the first day

Earlier this summer Dan and I decided we would go to Cape May for our travel part of our homey-moon.  Dan did all the planning on this and not only did he do a great job but it took a lot of stress off of me.

Early on Wednesday morning we took the subway into the city and then the New Jersey train to Newark where Dan had rented a car.  Of course, we stopped at a real mall on the way and did a little bit of shopping and got some Chick-fil-a.  Rocky Pants joined us, naturally.  

We got to Cape May and checked-in at our quaint little bed and breakfast called Kings Cottage.  We had some good friends that had spent a week in Cape May earlier in the summer so they gave us all kinds of great tips on what to do and see. They recommended the B&B and it was lovely.  Our room had an enclosed porch and a balcony that overlooked the ocean. Since the beach was only a half a block away from the B&B we had to stop there first.

We were so incredibly blessed with the weather.  It was perfect beach weather with endless sunnies and heat that kissed our summer deprived souls.  The beach sand was smooth and soft (not like grubby Coney Island) and the water was like a swimming pool.  We jumped in and immediately got smashed by powerful waves.  They were crazy strong and could push you fully several feet into the shallow sand.  I'm not gonna lie, I felt like I almost lost my bathing suit a few times.  Fortunately and unfortunately, Dan's sunglasses were the only casualty. 

We only stayed at the beach for a bit because we were eager to explore the town.  The main street was for pedestrians only and was lined with darling shops and restaurants.  We poked around in the stores and were totally enchanted with a little shop with lots of Swedish and Scandinavian goodies.  We picked-up some souvenirs there!

We decided to go to dinner at a little fish shop and shared crab brushetta and lobster mac&cheese.  So good.  Man I want some more.

We walked around after dinner and ended up at the beach again around sunset.  The light was so beautiful and it was the perfect summer evening, even though it was early September.  I was just so happy the weather came through for us.  The three days we spent in Cape May totally made up for the mild summer overall. 

We felt like we were being eaten alive by mosquitoes on the beach so we headed away from the water and played some miniature golf at the little place near the beach.  Dan actually got a hole in one on the last hole and won a free game.

Then we finished the night with ice cream on the little balcony porch off of our room.  Sleeping the first night was hard since we had the A/C on the wrong setting and the bed was rickety but that was okay because everything else was wonderful. 

Homey-moon

Dan and I got back to NYC the evening after the wedding.  We opted not to do the traditional exotic vacation for a honeymoon and chose instead to stay closer to home.  So we called it a homey-moon!

After everything we'd crammed into August, we were exhausted so we spent the first two days of our homey-moon unpacking and getting acquainted with the apartment as our new "together" home.  See the apartment tour here.

The homey-moon gave us the perfect opportunity to get the summer we wanted packed into one week. Way back at the beginning of June we put together a summer bucket list with a few things we wanted to do during the sunshine months.  Well, we didn't get far at all on those goals due to all the wedding planning and apartment moving.  We literally had two things checked-off at the end of August.  So, we gave ourselves an extension and permission to edit the list in order to accomplish things. 

We were really fortunate to have fantastic weather for our homey-moon week - all the summer weather we never had.   On Labor Day we went to Brooklyn Bridge Park and had a mini picnic under the shade of a tree.  We ate crunchers, played Frisbee, and just relaxed.  Knocked that one off the list.

The following day our initial plan was to go to the Bronx Zoo but we got a late start and weren't really thrilled about how long the subway ride would be and how it would cut into the visiting time.  So we edited our plans and decided to go to Prospect Park in Brooklyn instead.  

We rented bikes from a cute little shop and rode around the park several times.  It was HOT and there was a big hill but overall it was nice.  The heat kept away any crowds and at times if felt like we were the only ones there.  

After our ride we went to the Prospect Park Zoo.

Now, if I were judging zoos there would be no comparison between the Bronx Zoo and the Prospect Park "zoo."  The Bronx is a real zoo...it has elephants and giraffes.  I would not consider Prospect  a real zoo.  It was super small and had all small animals and an entire exhibit for barn animals.  Yes...cows and sheep.  Not a zoo.  But it was cute and quaint and if it weren't for the seal exhibit I wouldn't have liked it much at all.  I needed me some elephants.

After the zoo and lunch at Wendy's we headed home to rest.  Heat is exhausting but we weren't complaining  because it was the summer weather we had missed so desperately and the opportunity to do summer things even though it was the beginning of September.

That night we did laundry and started getting things packed for our trip to Cape May the next day!!