The Honeymoon

I absolutely love Sheila Gregoire and her blog To Love, Honor and Vacuum so when I saw she was talking honeymoons today, well I was all over that.

Ian and I honeymooned in the Dominican Republic after a year and a half of planning our perfect wedding. I had never been there before but he had, and loved it and assured me that I would as well. I would have gone to Timbuktu as long as I was with him.

Our week there was a comedy of "errors". First of all, our room had two double beds rather than the queen we had requested. We pushed them together, but it wasn't the same. I managed to fall between them and was trapped.

Our toilet broke on our first day and Ian had to fix it himself.

We had no hot water and had to run the taps for a long time before the water became lukewarm. No leisurely showers a deux for us.

Sorry for that visual, folks.

The weather was incredibly hot so we'd turn on the air conditioning before heading out for a bit, only to find out that housekeeping would come in and turn it off.

The water was unsafe to drink, so every morning there would be a pitcher of "clean" water outside of our door. Being that I trusted no one and was so afraid I was going to get Montezuma's Revenge, I wouldn't touch the pitcher of water at all and brushed my teeth with bottled water only.

Ian let me fall asleep in the sun and didn't come back for me in five minutes like be promised. It was 45 minutes later and I was a lobster by then.

It didn't matter so much that we had double beds that night, let me tell you.

I was so unbelievably sore that if I could have tolerated a four hour flight home I would have left that day.

No one spoke English. Ian picked up Spanish very quickly but I was incredibly stubborn a little slower to learn. After a few failed attempts at making myself understood, I just sat back and let Ian do the talking. No one spoke to me at all. Once they discovered Ian was a magician it was All About Ian. Many of them had never seen magic before so they would be mesmerized and called him Mago or Maho.

What's that? What did they call me? Nothing! I was invisible.

Whenever they saw him coming they would pull out chairs for him or get him coffee.

What did they do for me? Nothing. I was invisible, remember? Keep up, please.

On our very last day there all of the staff gathered around our table to get pictures taken with All About Mago Ian and I was pushed so far away from the table that I ended up eating breakfast with another couple from Sweden.

They didn't speak English either.

There was so much I loved about that trip though. First and foremost, that feeling of being newly married, feeling like we had a secret no one else could possibly understand. I loved saying "my husband" even though no one other than him knew what the heck I was saying.

We would dance along the pathways from our villa to dinner each night, and we made up our own dance that we've since taught our kids. Whenever we've hit rough patches in our time together, it's always the memory of dancing along the path that I return to.

The resort had a huge pool that had a gradual entry like the beach and a swim up bar. But the smaller pool that was tucked away was where we spent most of our time. We were the only ones that ever used it.

Well, until the day the two attractive and topless sunbathers came along and that was the end of that.

That's right, Momma didn't raise no fool.

I enjoyed that trip but I wasn't ready for it. I was so young and still hyped up after the wedding and the year and half of planning for it, and I was so homesick.

Ian wanted to take us to Jamaica for our tenth wedding anniversary. I said sure but wanted to bring Sam and Julie. He wanted it to be a romantic time away and it wouldn't be romantic with the children there. I said it wasn't going to be romantic without them there either because I'd be crying every day from missing them.

He bought a big screen tv instead.

I'm thinking Jamaica for our 15th anniversary... maybe renew our vows on the beach.

And yes, our children will be there.

;-)