Saturday, July 30th, 2011

Today Elizabeth and I are celebrating our 3 week anniversary! It's still kind of crazy to think that we are married finally!  Being the good husband that I am, I picked out 3 white roses for Elizabeth because she had white roses in her bridal bouquet.

Then to help celebrate, we decided to go out for Gino's East deep dish pizza last night.  Because we will hopefully be moving back to Iowa soon, this will likely be one of the last times that we are able to enjoy authentic Chicago-style pizza (at least as Illinois residents that is).  Basically it was on our Chicago "bucket list" to enjoy some deep dish pizza one more time...

The pizza menu at the Gino's East location in Barrington, IL.

This place was built in a very fun way.  There were different types of alcohol bottles that were embedded into the walls (whiskey bottles, wine bottles, even the small 1-ounce bottles).

There was also colorful artwork at each table.

After a long wait, our pizza is finally here!!  We ordered a "Meaty Legend" because that is what the Man vs. food guy ordered when he went to Gino's East in the Chicago episode.

A large "Meaty Legend" loaded with pepperoni, sausage, bacon, Canadian bacon, and lots of cheese & sauce.

Another great thing about ordering a large pizza is having lots of leftovers...

As you can see, there was a LOT of cheese!

One slice hardly fits on the plate!

Tuesday, July 26th, 2011

Wow, with so many big changes in our life recently it's nice to be getting back into the normal swing of things.  So today was just an ordinary day... woke up and went to work until 7:00 tonight.  Nothing much that stands out about today... EXCEPT THAT ELIZABETH BOUGHT A CAR!!

Hmm, I wonder who is driving into the parking lot for the first time with that fancy 2006 Toyota Camry...

OMG that's Elizabeth!! 

Let's see, wedding on July 9th, honeymoon to Cancun July 13th - 20th, buying a car July 26th.  What else will happen this month??

Thursday, July 21st, 2011

Wow, a LOT has happened in the last couple of weeks since my last post!  I won't even try to mention it all... maybe just a summary will do.

On July 9th, I became a happily married man to Elizabeth Salton in Ames, IA.  We had an amazing wedding and a very fun reception with around 175 of our friends & family.  The reception was in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union. 

Walking down the aisle as man & wife!

 

Attack of the confetti outside of the church.

The Salton family picture at the reception.

Ok, that's only the tip of the iceburg as far as wedding photos go.  You can check out my aunt LaVonne's pictures on smugmug if you want just "a few" more. 

Following the wedding, Elizabeth and I spent a wonderful week (from Wednesday the 13th to Wednesday the 20th) down in Cancun, Mexico for our honeymoon!  This included visiting the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza, parasailing, horseback riding, zip-lining, and lots of swimming & relaxing at the Moon Palace resort.  We also had two special dinners (a concierge & a honeymoon dinner), sang karaoke, and went to a hypnotist show. 

Elizabeth sending a few postcards to family.

Our hot tub in the hotel room!

The view of the Caribbean Sea from our balcony.

Elizabeth singing karaoke.

The Temple of Kukulkan at Chichen Itza.

The great ball court at Chichen Itza.

No big deal.

Elizabeth pretending to be one of the pillars outside of the Temple of the Warrior.

I had a lot of fun seeing one of the new seven wonders of the world.

Back at the hotel, here is Felix making us a round of flaming "Mexican Flags".

Here I am above the jungle treetops just before we start our zip-lining!

Hard to tell, but this is Elizabeth as she zip-lined UPSIDE DOWN.  What a baller.

After zip-lining, we enjoyed an hour of horseback riding.  This is Elizabeth on top of her horse, "Wizard".  

Me and my horse "Cartridge".

This is Elizabeth all dolled-up before we head out to our concierge dinner.

Looking good at dinner.

A view of our pool at the Moon Palace.

Here we WAY up in the air as we parasail above our resort.

That's our tiny little boat way off in the distance.

A view of the moon palace resort from above.

Here is a closer look from above.

Wow our honeymoon was so much fun!  In all we took about 300-some pictures and a few videos while were on our trip, so the ones in this blog are just the start.  Later on we plan to order our own picture book on shutterfly.  Now sadly, we are back to reality and will be at work tomorrow :(  How depressing!  At least we still have the rest of the afternoon to ourselves... we plan to go see the final Harry Potter movie here soon!!  Adios amigos!!

Monday, July 4th, 2011

Happy 4th of July everyone!  ONLY 5 DAYS UNTIL OUR WEDDING!!

Our weekend started out to be a very sad one as we drove to Waukon, IA and attended the funeral of Elizabeth's grandmother, Laurayne A. Easley.  I only had the pleasure to meet her once, but it sounds like she was an amazing woman.  She was a teacher for well over 40 years, and her marriage to Donald Easley was a few weeks shy of lasting 69 years.  It's pretty amazing to have such a long marriage.  If Elizabeth & myself can make it to our mid-90's we'll be close to that!

For the rest of the weekend we tried to have some fun around Palatine in efforts to cheer up.  Yesterday we went to a carnival and enjoyed some good food, listened to live music, rode a few carnival rides, and later in the evening sat and watched the fireworks show.  Here are a few pictures just in case you don't believe me:

Elizabeth enjoying some freshly grilled sweet corn.

The corn was dipped into a vat of melted butter.  Mmm!

These kids must have been in middle school, but they were playing some RHCP songs pretty well.

Elizabeth going down a kiddie slide!

Ferris wheel.

We bought wrist bands to go on unlimited rides. 

On the ferris wheel.

While riding the ferris wheel, here is the view of the roller coaster that just goes in a circle.  We managed to survive that one as well.

Looking down at the festival below.

Enjoying a cold beverage before the firework show begins.

Ok, it's kind of hard to capture a 20-minute firework display with a few pictures.  There were some very nice fireworks that looked like smiley-faces, but I wasn't able to get a picture of any of them.  It was definitely fun to watch though.

So far today we've gone to the mall to pick up some things for Cancun and some gifts for the groomsmen in the wedding.  For lunch we made Jucy Lucy's (hamburgers with cheese on the inside), and they turned out amazing.  I may never grill a regular hamburger patty again. 

I'm looking forward to seeing all of our friends & family back in Iowa here in a few days.  Can't wait!!!