Julie's Wedding - The Outakes

Okay, and now to round out your Herndon wedding tour, I bring to you all the things that didn't fit into the other two posts.  So basically this will be a montage of the well-mannered and sharply-dressed people you have seen in the previous posts behaving slightly less well-mannered and looking much more scantily clad in most cases.  Sound exciting?  It was.

What did we do with our in-between events time, you may be asking?  Oh, you know.  We admired the scenery.

It's like a postcard.  Only it was real life.

Mmmm... reminds me of Galveston.  Right?!

This is what the beach looks like from a boat.

This is what a beach looks like from a different angle on a boat.

We lounged at the pool or by the beach.

This is the adult pool where my family could be found 95% of the time.  Also a group of drunken cougars from Tennessee could be found here about 95% of the time.  No correlation.

Sunscreen in one hand & beer in the other.  Double-fisting island style.

I have no doubt that Aunt Jean was imparting priceless wisdom upon these kids.

We wandered around the resort aimlessly trying to find one another.

... and we looked good doing it?

Seriously.  We wandered around a lot.

We ate a lot.

Perhaps this heading should also mention that we drank a lot.

I couldn't drink a lot.  I requested decaf coffee.  I did not realize it would be a DIY situation but it was.  Apparently no one has requested that since 1971 because I am fairly certain this tub they brought me was hanging around since then.

Mom & Dad having a wild night out.

John & Aunt Jean getting their grub on.

More evidence that my Dad's goal was to stand on every possible surface of the resort to take group photographs.  Also, a bunch of hotties.

My Mom's stellar friends, the Luchts & Mrs. Howarth.

It looks like Brendan is trying to discipline these children.  Good luck, sir.

We tried to babysit our husbands.

Small flotation belt?  Not enough support for this "man" (see below).  Essentially styrofoam, unstructually-sound horse?  Sure- game on.

Pesos make $100 look like a lot more.

A few of the men in the family, both my Mom's side and Dad's side, were brave enough to do a deep-sea fishing excursion.  Of the crew a fair number had done it before and a fair number hadn't.  Two newbies experienced vom sessions and probably won't become seasoned deep-sea fishing veterans as a result.  However, the group did manage to catch a really big marlin.  So I think the vast majority would chalk the excursion up as a W.

View of the beach from the boat.

Deadliest catch has nothing on this motley crew.

And then, my friends, we decided to take an excursion.  Jen, Shawna & I decided on day 1 while our other halves were golfing to go look into what adventures we could sign up for.  Apparently if you are with child there's only one excursion deemed safe enough for you.  Luckily said excursion was one we were considering in the first place, so I don't think that Shawna & Jen are too angry with me.  The excursion that we settled on defaulted to was one where you go out on a boat, snorkel for a bit, swim with stingrays and sharks and then end your trip with a cool down in the water complete with a "floating bar."  We thought surely the boys would be amiable to this and asked them to meet us in the excursion office to book our tickets as golf wrapped up.  

The three of them wandered in and immediately Austin and Ryan turned into terrified school girls.  Austin kept asking us if we had heard what happened to Steve Irwin.  Ryan peppered the lady with questions about the sting rays and sharks including, but not limited to, "do the sharks have teeth," and "have you removed the sting rays' wieners?"  Brendan was definitely husband of the hour.

As the excursion lady laughed and Shawna and I questioned our life choices to date, eventually the men somehow came around.  Probably because Jen kept telling them they needed to get their lady bits in check and come "protect Amy and her unborn child."  So we paid the lady and promised to arrive at 8 am on Friday morning.

At 8 am on Friday morning, we all met at the agreed upon location and Austin had already bailed.  Stingrays/sharks - 1, Excursioners- 0.  Undeterred, the 5 of us set out on this excursion amped up to see some wildlife.  Ryan had his party hat on which I can only assume is the one thing that kept him calm.  

Things went swimmingly (see what I did there?) until we all hit the water to snorkel.  I have snorkeled before, but somehow each time my anxiety when I hit the water ratchets up just a bit higher.  I eventually mellowed out, caught up with Jen, Brendan and Shawna only to realize that Ryan was not around.  We all seemed to realize this at the same time.  So we turned around to locate him and spotted him, several yards behind the whole group, snorkel gear on head yelling, "I HATE the ocean.  This is miserable.  Where are the sharks?  Tell them to take me now."  This moment answered the long-standing question of where Emery inherited her flair for the dramatic from.  He went on to spew off borderline incoherent statements about how the life-jacket belt "was made for people like Shawna," and "wasn't ready for a 200 pound MAN."  (This is my real life guys.)

Luckily he managed to dig down deep within his soul and propel himself along to catch up with the rest of us- including his pregnant wife.  It's a real survival story, I tell you.  Once in the area with the stingrays and sharks he found himself outraged that the stingers were not removed and that they were definitely "real sharks."  He also refused to touch the stingray claiming that it "looked like a dinosaur."

Despite Ryan's Mariah Carey-esque moments, we all made it back to the boat un-maimed.  Thankfully then we all got to relax and enjoy something much more his highness' speed- drinking and hanging out in the water.  All in all, it was actually an awesome excursion and I'm glad that we did it.  Mad props to Shawna and Jen for being the instigators.  Also, don't believe Ryan when he tries to tell you his survival tales from Punta Cana.  

Nothing scares off wild-life like a little pre-snorkel flexing.

3/4ths of the Martin fam.

Take another one Brendan- take another one!

My fellow stingray survivalists.

Snorkel gear: making people look hot since... whenever it was invented.

The girls.

Jendan.  The one true man who adventured with us.

The official excursion photographer loved Shawna.  He took about 50 pictures of her.

Our devilishly handsome crew sporting some JT-esque dance moves.

The gang meets a dinosaur.

Last, but certainly not least, I would be remiss if I didn't fill you in on what Miss Emery was doing while her parents were galavanting about in paradise, wouldn't I?  Emery was originally supposed to go with us and due to a mosquito virus we found out about last minute, she stayed home with a combination of Aunt Melanie, Uncle Jonathan, Jakey & Avery and her Grandma & Pawpaw Martin.  As luck would have it, while we were gone she also came down with a respiratory infection and an ear infection.  Aunt Melanie was a superstar and took her to the pediatrician and managed to ignore the looks she was getting for having a 15 month old and nearly 5 month old.  We are eternally grateful to all parties for taking such good care of baby girl so that we didn't have any added stress.  It was comforting to know she was in such good hands, even though we missed this little love bug terribly.  You guys are the BEST!

We skyped with our confused Princess.

Aunt Melanie, are you SUUUURE my parents have to come back?  Your house is way more fun.

Sooooomewhere out theeeeeere.

Getting her spa treatment on at Grandma & Pawpaw's.

Hard to say whether we were more relaxed or she was during this vacation.

Just having a deep conversation with Lola & Grandma.