From the Holidays to the Hell of our Apartment

So we managed to live through Christmas. With limited time to do our shopping and prepare to visit my family, we somehow purchased the gifts we needed and got them all to the car to make the trip. 


Now maybe some of you might be wondering why I am not going crazy talking about "our first Christmas together" as a married couple. But in all honesty, we didn't go out of our way to make it super special or anything. Omid spent Christmas with my family last year, which was extremely exciting because it was his first Christmas ever. I had a blast picking a present out for him and buying stuff to fill his stocking and introducing him to all of our Christmas traditions. But this year, Christmas just seemed to sneak up on us and wasn't nearly as exciting amidst all of the craziness of the last month of our lives. Omid and I agreed to not get each other gifts (he tried to trick me and buy one anyways, but it was an epic fail. serves him right). So in conclusion, Christmas was delightful, as it always is. A true vacation for me - I got to sleep in, eat infinite amounts of food and holiday treats, and spending time with some of the funniest and lovable peeps I know. But it couldn't last forever - I had to come back and face real life. 


And if I thought my life was a mess when I left, it was a natural disaster when I returned. Take piles of wedding gifts and other piles of old stuff that needs to be thrown out/donated and add Christmas gifts - you have what seems to be an apartment from the show Hoarders.  And if my words aren't convincing enough, I have included pictures (despite how embarrassing they are) to truly depict the horrificness of the situation.

Yes, Omid, it is quite terrifying

This use to be the corner the wedding gifts were neatly stacked in. 

This use to be the dining area. (yes, those are my thank you notes)

I know what you are thinking - "Geez, Brittany. How could you let it come to this?" Excellent question. Two simple words: GRAD SCHOOL. It's my excuse for everything now. Its my excuse for being tired, being moody, being stressed, not working out anymore, not cleaning, not cooking, not unpacking wedding gifts, not writing thank you notes, etc. The list goes on. There are some people in my program what work full time, go to school, have kids, have pets, cook, and do a thousand other things. Well power to those people, but I'm not one of them. Grad school plus getting married was enough to wipe me out - and the rest went to hell. So there you have it - my sorry excuse. But it's not too late. Alas, I have until Jan. 17th until classes start again. And things WILL GET DONE. These things include:

• Changing my name (getting a new social security card, drivers license and passport) 
• Writing thank you notes (So far I've done 12 - I think a faster pace might be needed)
• Unpacking the rest of the wedding gifts and finding space for them (easier said then done)
• Completely reorganizing the kitchen so that everything fits (we'll see about that one)
• Donate all the stuff that I don't need anymore (the pile in the dining area)

I should have made way more progress in the last three days than writing 12 thank you cards and doing a few loads of laundry. However, I was too busy being overwhelmed and watching a Law and Order: SVU marathon. But the time has come. The procrastinating ENDS NOW. And what I have come to realize is that my actions don't just affect me anymore. My unwillingness to accomplish anything makes my poor husband crazy. Its not fair to him that we live like this - especially because he is so willing to help with anything. Its not that he won't do anything - its that I get CRAZY when he does things without me. "Why did you put the bowls there?" "No, don't hang that picture, I am still deciding where I want it." "No, I think we should do the thank you's together." You see, I have some control issues. And I want to be part of all decision making when organizing our apartment. So if I'm not willing to do anything, Omid can't either. But Omid has an abundance of something that I barely have at all - Patience. And he's given me all that he can. He has reminded me that we are a TEAM. And we will get this done - together. So as a TEAM, we are tackling this place one step at a time. And hopefully, soon, it will really start feeling like our home.

Honeymoon in the Dominican Republic

After much thought, and the encouragement of others, I have decided to jump on the blog bandwagon. The topic of this blog will be my marriage and all of the adventures that come along with it. I can't guarantee how exciting my posts will be. I'm sure some more so than others. Having only being married 3 weeks, not a lot has happened. Mainly because I was busy trying to finish my first semester of graduate school in the first 2 weeks. And then, finally, it was time to go on our honeymoon. Which brings me to the topic of my first blog post: our wonderful trip to gorgeous Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. 


The time leading up to the trip was absolute madness. I had a group paper due the same day we were leaving and we visited with family and friends the night before we left (when we were suppose to be packing). But somehow we pulled it off. With only 2 hours of sleep, we woke up at 3:30am to catch our 7am flight. With a 3 hour flight to Charlotte and a 4 hour flight to the DR, the day actually wasn't that bad. I slept through the entire first flight and half of the second. When we arrived, we were greeted by beautiful sunshine and live music. 


We hopped on a bus and arrived at our all inclusive resort: The Majestic Colonial . The place was beautiful. We were led to our room, where we were greeted with a cute banner on our door.

Our first night was pretty chill. We unpacked and explored a bit, and then grabbed dinner at the buffet. After a very long day of traveling, we called at a night pretty early.


Day 2: The goal of the day was to make plans for the rest of our week. We set up 3 different excursions through the hotel. We also used this free day to go to the beach. It seemed that we came to the DR at the perfect time. The resort didn't seem crowded at all and neither did the beach. Later that afternoon, we went on our first excursion: horseback riding on the beach at sunset. 

Horseback riding was awesome, but may I recommend that you don't do it as one of your first activities. My butt was sore for the rest of the trip, and all of the bumpy rides to the rest of the excursions did not help. 

Day 3: This day was an early day because we were leaving for our zip-lining excursion at 8:20am. I had been zip-lining in Costa Rica before, but this was still just as amazing and Omid was really excited. The views were breathtaking. It was a LONG drive to get to the zip-lining place (and believe me, I felt every bump). Most of the drive was on dirt paths surrounded by rain forest and native people's homes. 

On the way to the zip-lining place

View from the top of one of the platforms

Zip-lining was quite tiring, so we took naps and did some relaxing when we got back. That night, we went to the fancy restaurant of the resort, Le Gourmet, and had dinner. The food was alright but dressing up was fun. 

go-karting to the beach!

Day 4: Our morning started out with breakfast being brought to our room. It was something special the resort offered us for being on our honeymoon. The excursion for the day was something they called "Boogie Adventure." To us, it looked like go-karts on steroids. This was probably the craziest thing we did. It was extremely unorganized and I feared for my life most of the time. But it was a total blast. The idea of the "adventure" was that you would drive through muddy roads and we would make stops at the beach and a cave where we could go cave swimming. What they didn't tell us is that for half of the drive you would be driving on main roads where people in cars would be swerving around you and your go-kart could break down at any time in the middle of the road. Once we got to the cave though, it was totally worth it. It was quite the experience but Omid and I had fun with it. 

People venturing into the cave for swimming

That night for dinner we went to the "Japanese" restaurant. We got to have a Hibachi dinner where the chef cooked at your table. This was my favorite meal while we were there. The fried rice was surprisingly delicious.

After dinner that night, we went to a free show that the resort put on. It was called "Cirque de Majestic" and featured some very talented people doing all sorts of acrobatics and really cool aerial ribbon dancing. 

Day 5: It being our last full day in the DR, we set this day aside for relaxing. We had a late breakfast, went to the beach, and went to the Spa on the resort for massages. I guess I had never had a "real" massage where they made you take off all your clothes and they rubbed you down with sick amounts of oil. While I found it very relaxing, Omid found it a little violating. He swears the lady enjoyed rubbing his rear end a little too much. 

Our last dinner on our honeymoon was our "Romantic Dinner," at the seafood restaurant on the beach, compliments of the resort. We sat in a romantic corner on the balcony and enjoyed a very windy night. 

Our delicious desserts for the evening

Day 6: Our last day in the Dominican. It was definitely hard to leave such a beautiful place with amazing weather, but real life was calling. Our flight left pretty late, and this time the trip seemed much longer. We got in at midnight and everything seemed to be just as we left it: A complete mess. 

Overall, the trip was amazing. I would recommend it to anyone, couples and families. Our resort was very kid friendly (there are also several resorts that advertise themselves as adult-only) but extremely romantic as well. We saw four weddings while we were there. Our trip was also very budget-friendly. It was everything we could hope for in a honeymoon. Now that I am back at home, all of my responsibilities are screaming at me to get them done. But they will have to wait a little longer. We have to get through Christmas first.