Niki's Neverending Adventure

Hello! Happy Saturday! Hope y’all are having a fabulous weekend! I just finished watching the US World Cup game, sniff sniff. Wish they could have pulled the win off! But anyway, I promised y’all a Honeymoon recap so here it is!!

We had a fabulous time on our Honeymoon! I could go on and on about if but for y’alls sake I will mostly keep it to pictures :)

First place we headed was to San Francisco! We had a little snafu  with our plane out of Florida, apparently they overbooked it by 15 people! Nothing a little crying on my part couldn’t fix! Haha, totally serious by the way :) After 2 flights, we were finally in California!! We stayed at the Hyatt Regency in San Fran and it was awesome! We were on the 15th floor and had an awesome view of the bay!!

Those were both taken from our balcony!!

We did lots of fun things in San Fran! First up, we explored Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf!

Look what we found on Pier 39!! The famous Sea Lions! There was the cutest baby one too!

We also went to the Aquarium at Fisherman’s Wharf!

Then off to Ghirardelli Square!

We also took a freezing cold boat ride under the Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz.

They told some of the coolest stories about Alcatraz! Can’t believe some of the people who were locked up there!!

We ate TONS of seafood while we were there and everything was so good! I loved how the majority of the restaurants were on the water!!

Then, after a few days, we were off to Napa Valley!! On our way to Napa, we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge…

And then went to Muir Woods!!

We both LOVED seeing the giant Redwoods and hiking all around!! It was so beautiful there! Here are some pics we got:

After our adventure at Muir Woods, we made it to Napa and check into our hotel, The Napa Valley Lodge. It was super nice too! We both loved it, plus we had a balcony that overlooked the vineyards!

 

The next day, it was time to hit up the wineries!!

This was at V. Sattui, after we did our wine tasting and we had a picnic on the lawn.

We also visited Beringer and had a really awesome tour there!

In the underground caves at Beringer.

We went to Sterling Winery and had to ride up to the winery in a gondola! So fun!!

Beautiful views from Sterling!!

I think our absolute favorite winery and tour was at Castello di Amorosa. It was a castle!!

They even had sheep outside the castle! We learned so much on this tour!!

But, I think our VERY favorite thing was the HOT AIR BALLOON RIDE!!!

The views were incredible!!

Two balloons kissing :)

We love, love, loved the hot air balloon ride! If you ever have a chance to do it anywhere, I highly recommend it!!

Our 3 days in Napa went by so fast!! I needed like a month there! They told us there were over 200 wineries just in Napa! We did bring home a lot of wine so we have little pieces of Napa with us!!

I am so happy we decided to Honeymoon in these 2 cities! We had an awesome time and memories to last forever! Hope y’all enjoyed!!

Where did you go on your Honeymoon or where would you like to go?

Have a fabulous rest of the weekend friends!!

Posted in: on Saturday, June 26, 2010 at at 5:48 PM 4 comments    

Hey friends! Hope you have been enjoying the Wedding recaps!! If you haven’t already, check out Wedding Festivities Part 1 and Part 2!! I promise to recap the honeymoon soon! But today, I have a bunch of randomness to share!!

First up… I received some Nature’s Pride hamburger/deli buns to review through the Foodbuzz Tastemakers Program! I stuck 2 packs in the freezer so they wouldn’t go bad, and we tried out this pack :

Nature’s Pride Country White Buns. I gave the hubby a choice and he wanted to try these first. He is a true white bread lover!! I will say though, the ingredient list on these white buns is wonderful! No HFCS or anything else I can’t pronounce!! We used these buns for all kind of things, such as for sandwiches, turkey burgers, and garlic bread. We both give these a thumbs up for taste!

Here’s one of the turkey sandwiches I made! Yummy!! I always find buns to be a bit high in calories, as this one was. It was 200 calories for 1 bun, and I usually prefer to just eat half a sandwich. But, hubby loves big sandwiches so he really enjoyed these! We are looking forward to trying out the deli rolls and whole wheat buns! I will let y’all know what we think!!

Onto another topic… we have done tons of “house” shopping with the wedding money we got! One of my favorite purchases and the thing I was most excited to get was this:

Cuisinart Griddler!!! I saw this on IGE a while back and knew we had to have one!! It is a grill, griddle, and Panini press all in one! How perfect, right?!?

One side of the plates is grill and the other side is griddle, so all you have to do to switch them is flip them around! Easy as pie!

And it also lays out flat like this! So if you had to grill (or griddle) lots of things, it works out perfectly!!

I used this for the first time 2 nights ago to make Turkey Burgers!! They turned out so yummy with perfect looking grill marks!! This is nice for us because we don’t currently own a gas grill (this will be changing very soon)!! So, I highly suggest investing in the Cuisinart Griddler if it’s something you are looking for!

Onto another topic…. I told you there was a lot of randomness to this post!! Have y’all checked out Jennifer’s new ETSY store?!? She makes awesome hand painted signs and frames and all the proceeds are going help her and her hubby adopt!! I just ordered one from her! Get on it guys!! And Lauren is hosting a giveaway for one of Jennifer’s signs on her blog, so go over and enter!

Ok, last topic… The World Cup!! So, most of you know I really like soccer. I have played basically my whole life! And I am really loving everyone in the sports world being into soccer! It seems like normally, soccer just kinda gets brushed to the backburner, but everyone seems to be into the World Cup! Maybe it’s because USA is doing well?!? Anyway, I have not been able to catch any of the games live! The first 2 were on our trip to and from our Honeymoon, and this week’s game was during an appointment I had. So finally, tomorrow, I will be able to catch the USA playing live! I recorded the last game and I’m so glad I did! What a great end, right?!? Anyone else watching the World Cup?

Well, I think that’s enough for today! Hope y’all have a fabulous Friday! I have a wedding shower to go to for my friend Jennifer tonight! Can’t wait!

Posted in: on Friday, June 25, 2010 at at 9:24 AM 4 comments    

Hey friends!! Make sure and check out my prior post: Wedding Festivities Part 1  before moving on :)

On to the actual wedding!! My bridesmaids and I met at The Santa Rosa Beach Club around lunch time to start getting our hair done and getting ready. The room that they normally use had a broken AC so we ended up going over to The Golf Club and using a room there. No worries though, everything was great!! They made us a fabulous lunch to eat while we got ready!!

All my bridesmaids, me, and my mom!!

My photographer was with us the entire time also and I can’t wait to see all the pictures he took! He was fabulous! If anyone needs a photographer in the Destin area, his name is Grady Carpenter.

Anyway, after we finished getting our hair done, we moved back over to The Beach Club and it was about time to start!! I wasn’t too nervous until right before I had to walk down this hug flight of stairs in front of everyone… ALL BY MYSELF!! I could just see myself tripping and rolling down those steps! But I managed :)

Coming down those scary steps!!

Coming down to meet my dad!

My dad giving me a kiss on the cheek before we start down the aisle :)

Me and Dad :)

Getting hitched!

Beautiful beach view

 

We’re married!!! Husband and Wife!

Ok I know this is picture overload so I will let the pictures speak for themselves :)

I hope y’all liked all the pictures!! These were all taken by friends and family! My professional photographer pictures aren’t ready yet but I will be sure to share them with y’all once I get them!!

Our wedding day was perfect! The food was great, the cake was amazing, and there was tons of dancing and laughing! It couldn’t have been better in any way!!

We are loving being newlyweds!!

Posted in: on Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at at 3:27 PM 8 comments    

Hey friends! Long time no blog, right?!? I feel like my life has been a whirlwind with the wedding and all, and I just haven’t had time to blog at all! I am hoping to be better about it now that I’m getting settled back into real life.

I’m going to break the wedding festivities and honeymoon into a couple posts because there are so many pictures!! So for this post, we will do all the pre-wedding festivities!!

We got to Santa Rosa Beach, FL the Sunday before the wedding. I had never been to that part of Florida before, and it was gorgeous! We normally stay in San Destin, which is about 10-15 minutes east of Santa Rosa, but has a totally different feel! More of a small beach town, no high rise hotels, mainly houses and condos so it wasn’t so “touristy”. I really liked that. Plus, the beaches were gorgeous! No oil anywhere!!

I spent the first couple days just relaxing and working on my tan! I worked so hard not to get burned and did a great job of it! No red on my skin!!

 

I love being on the beach! It was definitely hot though! At one point, we all had our chairs in the water to let the waves come up on us!

Both sets of my grandparents arrived on Tuesday and Wednesday. My mom, Nana, and I went and got out nail and toenails done on Wednesday afternoon. It was fun, but my fingernails were already chipping by the wedding. That didn’t make me very happy!!

Wednesday night was my Bachelorette party! My parents rented us a limo for the night, it’s definitely a good thing they did!!

Inside the limo.

Me! So excited for my Bachelorette Party!!

Katie doing her make-up in the limo!

We started out on a Dolphin Cruise. It was fun, the water was really rough and poor Katie started getting sea sick :(

Luckily, Jaime had her daughters seas sick bands that Katie could wear! They seemed to help!! We only saw 1 dolphin though.

View from the Dolphin Cruise.

Another view from the Dolphin Cruise.

After the cruise we went and ate at a restaurant on the water. I honestly can’t recall the name of the place! It was good though and so nice to sit on the deck overlooking the water!!

Katie and Maryl at dinner.

After dinner, we headed to Rum Runners, a dueling piano bar in Baytowne Wharf, and that’s when things start to get fuzzy! Haha :)

Jaime and Maryl at Rum Runners.

Katie and I at Rum Runners. Notice the devil horn veil I had to sport the whole night! About this time, everyone decided it would be fun to buy me tequila shots. Definitely fun at the time, not fun after. Just use your imagination :) My brother, his friend Vincent, and my cousin Jesse ended up at Rum Runners too so of course they joined in on the Bachelorette celebration. I think they were the main culprits of the tequila shots!! At one point, some random table bought me a shot and had me go onstage and take it! Again, very fun at the time! LOL.

This was the stage I ended up on TWICE! Once to take the shot and a second time I ended up sitting on top of the piano while these piano guys serenaded me. Apparently, it was a very raunchy song that had my brother cringing! Haha, don’t really recall that!!

My brother and I. Haha :) Needless to say, we all ended up going home in the limo. I’m sure the limo driver thought we were bringing some random guys home. Haha.

The next day, Thursday, was my trial hair appointment and our rehearsal / rehearsal dinner. I felt so bad that morning until it was time to get my hair done that afternoon. Luckily the nausea went away by the rehearsal dinner!!

Jennifer and I at the Rehearsal.

Sadly, I did not take any pictures at the Rehearsal Dinner! I was too busy enjoying it :) It was at a restaurant called Stinky’s Fishcamp and it was fabulous!! I think everyone had a GREAT time!!

And I will leave y’all with that for now! Up next….THE WEDDING!!!

Posted in: on Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at at 12:00 PM 6 comments