Honeymoon Day 11: Destination #6 to my mom's house

On Thursday morning (Christmas!!!) we woke up early so we could get checked out and go to mass. The hotel had a full hot breakfast, so went and ate some of that before finishing up our packing and checking out. We intended on going to the 10am mass at Notre Dame, but we ended up not making it. We could not for the life of us figure out how to get ONTO campus. I spent a summer doing research there, but I parked in student parking and just walked everywhere on campus. I didn't know where visitor parking was and since it's a gated campus, it's a little difficult figuring out where you can get it. We drove around the entire campus and took at least 1 road that ended in a closed gate before we found an entrance with a person who could let us in. By the time we got parked, mass was more than halfway over :(. The doors to the Basilica were all closed and I wasn't sure which ones went to the back and which to the sides on the front and I didn't want to be 'that person' who comes at the end of mass. So we decided to walk around campus instead. I showed Troy all the places I remembered from living there and then we went back to the car to warm up. It was FREEZING.

That was the end of our honeymoon! We drove back to Muskegon to spend Christmas with my mom. We had a ton of fun, but I think we're both pretty excited to get home and see Pudge (our cat). It will be another week until we get to do that though; we're spending a few days with my family, going up to Traverse City to be with Troy's family for a couple days, and then going to spend New Year's Eve with friends in Port Sanilac. Whew! I'll have been gone for at least 3 weeks by the time I get to go home again. I'm sure we'll have a good time with family though!

Honeymoon Day 10: Destination #5 to #6

Yesterday morning, we had to be dressed, had breakfast and checked out by 10:30am. We've been pretty lazy in the morning, so we were running a little behind. We ordered room service for breakfast so that we could finish getting packed and such. Holy cow, room service breakfast was way better than going to the restaurant! I ordered the exact same thing for the same price, but we got an extra fruit plate and a little plate with 4 separate jams in nice glass containers. After we got checked out, we went across the street from the hotel and had a couple's massage. For someone who has never been to a spa in my life, I sure was pampered on my honeymoon! I liked the spa better at Boyne, but I liked the massage better in Milwaukee. After our massage, we had lunch at Cousin's (a sub shop) before going back to the hotel to get our car and luggage (we left our luggage with valet).

Did you figure out where we were going next? I had a pretty tough time, but you might recognize when Troy said "Play like a Champion" and if you listen really closely, when it sounded like he said "I wish" he actually said "I rish". We were going to South Bend, IN, home of the University of Notre Dame (we're both big Notre Dame fans). So we left Milwaukee to head south. We got stuck in traffic in Chicago, but we finally made it to South Bend. Our hotel was very close to campus. This was probably the cheapest hotel cost-wise, but actually one of the nicer ones! There wasn't a jacuzzi or fireplace, but we had a big bedroom and also a big living room area with a table and everything.

After we got checked in, we drove around to find someplace to eat. We stopped at TGI Friday's; we barely got in there because they were closing early since it was Christmas Eve. After dinner we just went back and relaxed in the hotel all evening. We watched the Notre Dame bowl game (yay, they won!!!). We planned on going to Midnight Mass on campus, but it was really cold and we were both really tired and didn't want to stay up that late, so we decided to go in the morning instead.

Here's the clue I got from Troy when we arrived in South Bend. It's the last clue of the honeymoon! http://tr.im/26w3.

Honeymoon Day 9: Destination #5

For the most part, yesterday was another pretty lazy day. I slept in pretty late this time, while Troy woke up and kept on reading his book about shipwrecks. We got up and went to breakfast at the hotel and looked through brochures for things to do. The weather was really crappy outside; it was snowing like crazy, so we didn't really want to walk very far. While our hotel is downtown, it seems there isn't much near here except for restaurants. We tried to schedule another couples massage, but they only had 1 massage therapist working, so we got that scheduled for Wednesday morning instead. We called the Miller Brewing Company, but their tours were cancelled due to the weather. So, we decided to order room service for lunch (neither of us had ever ordered room service before, so we thought it would be fun, lol) and rented a movie through our tv. We watched Pineapple Express; granted the movie is about drug dealers and has a lot of killing in it, but it is absolutely hilarious. The dialogue is just amazing. Hilarious.

By the time the movie was over, it was just about time to get ready for dinner. We had reservations at the Caberet Restaurant at The Rep, which was where we were going to see The Christmas Carol. It was still snowing a lot, so I wore long underwear under my dress pants, lol. So we walked down to the restaurant and had a delicious dinner. It turns out, the restaurant is actually a theater too, so a lot of people were showing up for the theater at the restaurant. After that, we left and went to The Pabst Theater, where The Christmas Carol was playing. It was really good. Much better than the NMU production. There was lots of fun music too :)

After the play, we walked back to the hotel and had drinks at the bar. The special was 1/2 price bottle of wine with a gourmet cheese plate. I don't really like cheese very much, so Troy ate that while I munched on crackers. We watched the Wisconsin vs Texas basketball game; we figured we should cheer for Wisconsin since we are in the state. It was a very exciting game, but Texas won. After that we headed back to our room and went to bed.

This morning I got my next clue. Can you figure out where we're going: http://tr.im/26w5?

Honeymoon Day 8: Destination #4 to #5

If you watched the video in the previous clue, you saw that we were going to the Door County Maritime Museum. Troy sponsored them for part of the day, so we got our names on their board and we got a personal tour (with our own docent, which is apparently a fancy name for 'tour guide') in the tugboat they restored. So, after having breakfast and checking out(which was HUGE and AMAZING; seriously, you have to go to this place, it's fantastic), we headed to the museum. We met up with Bob, our tour guide at the tugboat. The tour was really cool. Apparently they spent 5.5 years restoring this tug and just opened up to the public in August. Bob actually worked on the tug for 20-some years when he was younger. He knew everything about it and told us a lot of stories about working on it. Troy could probably give more information about it, but it was really neat.

After the tug tour, we walked through the rest of the museum. My favorite part was the exhibit about the huge storm in November 1913 that sank a ton of ships in the Great Lakes. Troy and I scuba dive and one of the ships our friend John took us to, the Regina, sunk in this storm. They had a ton of things from the Regina on display. It was really neat learning so much about the history of this storm.

After that, we had lunch at a local pizza place before heading to our next destination. Before we left for the maritime museum, Troy had given me my next clue: http://tr.im/26w0. We were going to Milwaukee! My friend Rosie made this clue, she grew up in Milwaukee. The place she described that I needed to take Troy to was Kopp's. It's this FANTASTIC burger and custard place on the north side of Milwaukee. When I was in college, every time we drove through Milwaukee we would stop at Kopp's; Rosie introduced me to it. Their cheeseburgers are HUGE and amazing. And the custard is just wonderful, way better than Culver's.

After Kopp's, we headed to our hotel: Hotel Metro. It's in downtown Milwaukee. We pulled up to the hotel and asked about parking, but apparently they do valet. Neither of us have ever had valet before, and I was quite hesitant for Troy to hand over the keys: we have 2 Wii fits in our car!!!!!!!!!!! I'm sure they're safe though :) We checked in and went to our room, which is fantastic. It has a fireplace and jacuzzi :) Unfortunately, the fireplace went out not long after Troy turned it on, so they were going to move us, but weren't able to find another room. They fixed it once, but then it went out again. We decided we didn't want to move, so they took $20 off our room each night. We went to the bar and had some dinner (we'd only shared 1 cheeseburger and some custard at Kopp's, so we were both a little hungry) and drinks. Margaritas were on special, so I got a Melonrita; it was delicious.

After that we just went up to our room and Troy gave me my 'arrived at my destination' clue: http://tr.im/26w1. Included in the envelope were tickets for The Christmas Carol on Tuesday night. We're staying in Milwaukee until Wednesday morning, when we'll head to our final destination. After watching the clue, we both read a little bit before going to sleep. Another pretty relaxing day!

Honeymoon Day 7: Destination #3 to #4

On Sunday, we woke up early so we could meet my friend Paulie for breakfast at the hotel at 8:30am. It had snowed a ton overnight, so everything was beautiful and white. We had a great time talking with Paulie and then we got all packed up so we could hit the road. Did you figure out where we were going? Sturgeon Bay, WI in Door County. So we left Marquette and drove through some pretty bad blowing snow. The drive wasn't so bad except between Marquette and Escanaba. We couldn't see a thing at times, which also wasn't so bad except when the car in front of us decided it would be a good idea to slam on their brakes and pull off the road. Fortunately, we were able to stop in time.

When we got into Sturgeon Bay, we stopped at Target to use the restroom and give our legs a break from sitting for so long. While we were walking around the store, we thought we'd glance just to see if maybe they had a Wii fit. They did!!!!! Two of them!!!!! So we got one for ourselves and picked one up for my friend Dusti too. So exciting! After that we headed into town and checked into the bed and breakfast we were staying in: Inn at Cedar Crossing. After we got there Troy gave me my 'arrived at my destination clue'. Troy made this video and he tried to be all artsy with it, lol. You can see it at http://tr.im/26vz.

The bed and breakfast was right downtown, so we walked around to see the shops. Unfortunately, it was already 4pm, so everything but a bookstore and Hallmark store were already closed. It was still really cold and snowy, so we just went back to the bed and breakfast for dinner. After dinner, we watched 2 movies up in our room: Breakup and Night at the Museum. Both were pretty funny; nothing super fantastic, but I enjoyed them. We had a jacuzzi in our room, so we relaxed in that during part of the 2nd movie. Troy liked this one better because he actually fit in it, but I didn't like it as much because it was so big that I was too short to brace myself in it. I kept slipping down into the water, lol.

The bed and breakfast was fantastic. They make popcorn for the guests every night at 7pm. I saw them making it as we were coming in from dinner and was really excited because I love air popped popcorn, so the lady made us our own huge bowl. Seriously, if you're even in Door County, we really recommend this place, they were so wonderful.

Honeymoon Day 6: Destination #3

Today was another pretty relaxing day. I realized that when I lived in Marquette, I didn't really do anything...I just hung out with friends, lol. So I had a hard time thinking of things we should do. We woke up early (well, for us, 8:30am) and ate breakfast at the hotel (it was included in the package Troy booked). Then we got all bundled up and walked around downtown Marquette, going in the shops. Troy bought a book about shipwrecks (he's obsessed now that we dive them with John). Then we met my physics professor for lunch at the Vierling. We chatted with him for about an hour, then came back to our hotel and relaxed for a few hours. We met up with our friend Matt H. for dinner at Border Grill and chit chatted with him for about an hour. Then we went to the hockey game! They were playing Michigan Tech. They lost 1-0 and they deserved to lose, they didn't play very well. Oh well, I guess they're having a rough year, they're 2-10 now :(. I got to see Leela while I was at the game, she was a physics major with me. Now we're just relaxing in our room. There's a Winter Storm Warming from 1am Sunday-7am Monday...not good considering we're traveling tomorrow. It seems they're going to get a TON of snow, like 5-10 inches by Monday morning. We're meeting our friend Paulie for breakfast and then leaving asap, hoping we beat the worst of the storm.

I just got another clue about where we're going tomorrow. I figured it out pretty quickly, can you tell where we're heading? http://tr.im/26w6

Honeymoon Day 5: Destination #2 to #3

Troy slept in big time this morning! Or I just woke up early :) I had showered and was ready to go by the time he woke up! We were getting all our stuff packed to leave when the power went out at the hotel. It wasn't too big of a deal, but I was just about to go blow dry my hair when it went out; and it is awfully cold up here to go outside with wet hair! However, on my way to the bathroom I found another clue in there! It had been there for awhile before the power went out, so I was pretty bummed I didn't have the internet to watch the clue when I did find it. However, Troy has a t-mobile G1, so he had access to youtube, although it was pretty dang slow getting to it. I was finally able to watch the clue on his phone. My friend Dusti made this clue; she used her camera, so she could only take 15 second clips, so it's a little hard to catch it all! Here's the url: http://tr.im/26w9.

I guessed pretty quickly that we were heading to Marquette, MI!! I lived there for 5 years when I was in college at Northern Michigan University. I even guessed what hotel we were staying in; the Landmark Inn, one of the nicest hotels in Marquette. I've never even been inside this hotel, let alone stayed here. So we finished packing our stuff up and on our way out to drop off our suitcases we saw a freighter pull into the Locks. We quickly grabbed the rest of our stuff and checked out so we could watch it go through the Locks. It takes awhile and it was rather cold, thankfully they have viewing towers that block most of the wind. By the time the freighter finally went through, my legs were FREEZING. So we went into an Irish Pub across from the hotel for hot chocolate and lunch.

We finally hit the road and drove to Marquette. It was a relatively uneventful drive. We stopped in Christmas, MI just because I had driven by it a gazillion times on my way to school, but never stopped. We got a cute little Christmas ornament (the only souvenir of our honeymoon so far!). As we got closer to Marquette, it started snowing pretty badly and a semi tried driving us into oncoming traffic, but we made it safely. We checked into the Landmark and found out that our room was on the top floor!! Unfortunately, it doesn't look over Lake Superior, but we do have a cute view looking up Front St. The hotel is beautiful! Troy booked a Bed and Breakfast Package, so we get 2 breakfasts and a dinner included in our stay. So tonight we had dinner at Caper's, one of the restaurants here. It was amazingly delicious, my favorite meal of our honeymoon so far (although Troy still liked one of our meals at Boyne better). We didn't realize it, but even our dessert was included...we would have each gotten our own dessert if we had known that!

Now we're just relaxing in our room for the rest of the evening and watching Friday night stand-up on Comedy Central. I called Dr. Donovan, my adviser and physics professor from when I went to NMU, and we are meeting up with him for lunch tomorrow.

Also, here was my clue for figuring out where we were going: http://tr.im/26vy. Included with the clue were hockey tickets to the NMU game tomorrow night :) Troy made this clue because Dusti never sent him one, but after he made this he found 2 that she made on youtube, so we think maybe one of these were supposed to be the clue. Here's the url to those if you'd like to check them out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHsspcHaqKQ&feature=channel_page and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTOGRPr2Bcs&feature=channel_page.

Honeymoon Day 4: Destination #1 to #2

If you didn't figure it out from the video clue, I couldn't either. Boats?! Dan, that did not help me narrow it down much! Troy told me that there was a reason he picked every person to do their specific clue, so I guessed Dan's family's cabin up north and Troy said I was getting warmer! So I finally figured it out: Sault Ste. Marie, MI!

So we left this morning after lunch at Pierson's at Boyne Mtn. A half hour later we stopped for gas in Petoskey, when I realized I left my purse at lunch :(. Good thing we noticed before we got all the way up to the Soo! So we had to drive back and get it. It added an hour to our trip, but it could have been worse. It was only about 2 hours (not taking into account the extra time to get my purse) to get to Sault Ste. Marie. It was the first time I've been to the U.P. since February 2006; driving over the bridge reminded me of allll the drives up to Marquette for school :) I just love it up here so much!

We got to our hotel, it's the closest one to the Soo Locks that is open this time of year. Unfortunatley, most of the cool stuff is closed for the season. We did go for a walk down by the Locks; Troy had never been here before, so I'm glad he got to see them! Then we walked through a couple shops and Troy got me an adorable Vera Bradley purse with a pattern that has owls on it! It's so cute!! Hopefully I don't lose this one.

After we got back to our room we got dressed up for dinner, they have a nice restaurant called Freighters at the hotel. You have a view of the Locks from the restaurant. Troy told me I should bring my new purse to dinner, so when I opened it to move stuff into it from my old purse I found another clue!! Our friend Dan is hilarious, this was his video for when we reached our destination: http://tr.im/26vx.

We had a delicious dinner at Freighters and now we're just relaxing in our room watching tv! We're only staying here for one night, so tomorrow we're heading somewhere else, but I haven't gotten the clue for that yet!

Honeymoon Day 3: Destination #1

Today was WONDERFULLY relaxing. We started the morning with a couples massage at the Spa Solace here at Boyne. I've never been to a spa before...it was fantastic! The women's locker room has everything you could possibly need: styling products, hair brushes, hair dryers and curlers, etc, mouthwash, lotion, nail polish remover (which I definitely used...my french tips were chipping like crazy), and so much more. I got my own locker with a soft robe and some sandals to wear. The locker room also had a huge hot tub and sauna. After I got my robe on, we went to the relaxation room to wait for our massage to start. They had tea, coffee, water, fruit, etc. It smelled wonderful everywhere at the spa. Then the ladies came and took us for our 50 minute massage. I've never had a massage before, so I really didn't know what to expect. It was very nice though. Incredibly relaxing. After the massage they gave us some strawberries and we went back to the relaxation room.

We had access to the spa all day, so we changed into our swimsuits and went swimming in the indoor/outdoor pool and outdoor hot tub. Mind you, there is snow EVERYWHERE right now, but we were still sitting in the outdoor hot tub! It was pretty neat relaxing in the hot tub, watching the skiers, with snowflakes falling on our head. I was getting pretty hungry, so eventually we went back to our locker rooms, got changed, and went to lunch. After lunch we went to see the indoor water park at the hotel. We thought about going there from 4-8pm (it's cheaper for a half day and we didn't think we would use it enough to go for a whole day), but after we got back to the room Troy fell asleep for 2 hours, lol. We were both still pretty relaxed from the morning. I spent the time reading a book that I brought.

It's been quite the lazy day. After Troy woke up, we had dinner and have just been watching tv and relaxing in bed all night. We relaxed in the jacuzzi tub again...I could totally handle having one of those at our house :). Then tonight, I was given another clue for our next destination!! Our friend Dan (who was the best man in our wedding and also how we met each other) gave me my next clue. See if you can figure it out! http://tr.im/26wa.

Honeymoon Day 2: Destination #1

On Tuesday we slept in and it was wonderful. We got breakfast at the restaurant and then got dressed for skiing. My snow pants didn't fit very well and Troy didn't have any at all. So we went to the ski shop to look for some new ones. Unfortunately, the only pants they carried in short were not in my size. And I wasn't willing to pay a ton of money for snow pants that didn't really fit well. So we decided to scrap skiing for the day and go up to Boyne City to deposit the money we got for the wedding. While there, we walked around their cute little town, got some chocolates at Kilwins, and had lunch at Thick-N-Juicy, a burger place. Since our room had wine glasses and a wine opener, we stopped a store and got a bottle of wine and a bottle of mead. I didn't know this, but apparently mead was traditionally drank on the honeymoon...I don't know all the details (wikipedia it), but we had some last night and it was not fantastic. I think I had one sip. Maybe it was just a bad brand, I don't know, but neither of us liked it at all.

After that, we drove up to Petoskey and went to M.C. Sports to look for snowpants. I found some that fit, though they were still pretty long on me (darn being so short!). They were relatively cheap (and on sale!), so I decided to buy them anyways, just in case we end up needing snowpants for any other fun things.

After that, we drove back to Boyne Mountain and just relaxed in our room all evening. We watched a movie (Terminator 2...I played on the computer while Troy watched it, lol) and went to dinner at the pizza place here. Just a lazy, relaxing day! It was wonderful!

Honeymoon Day 1: Destination #1

Not long after I got my first clue explaining the honeymoon, I went in the bathroom to brush my hair. When I came out, there was another clue on my computer! Inside the envelope was another url: http://tr.im/26wb. I was allowed to watch the first half with this clue and the 2nd half was the clue I got after we received our destination. The video was made by my good friend John and his wife Kelly. Troy got my friends to give me video clues!!!! John and Kelly were also the musicians for our wedding (and they were AMAZING!!!). Based on the clues in the video, I was able to figure out that we were going to a ski resort in Michigan with a triple chair lift. Unfortunately, there are a lot of ski resorts with triple chair lifts, so I just went down a list until Troy told me I was right :)

So we were off to Boyne Mountain!!! Troy also kept telling me that I had to figure out how to get there. I thought that seemed silly, he must know how to get there. He kept emphasizing it though because after we got into the car to take off, he had a gps that his boss let him borrow for our road trip! We left Muskegon on Monday morning and Troy drove to Boyne Falls in quite the snowstorm. When we were driving through the resort, it was blowing so much, we kept thinking we were driving by flat land, we couldn't see the mountain at all! We made it to the resort, checked in and went to our room.

We've heard from a ton of people how amazing Boyne is, so we were pretty disappointed when we got to our room in the Edelweiss building. It was terrible, but it sure wasn't what we were expecting, especially not for the price. The heater was ridiculously loud, there was a group of 4 LOUD college guys next door that we could hear their every word...it just didn't seem that great. Like a motel, almost. Considering the room cost more than what we had just paid in Muskegon for a very, very nice room, we were pretty disappointed. So Troy went to the front desk and said, we're on our honeymoon and that room isn't quite what we were expecting. The guy immediately gave us a bunch of options and showed us a fantastic room in the Mountain Grand Resort building for only $50 more. This room had a jacuzzi tub, fireplace, huge widescreen tv. FANTASTIC! Above our expectations! This room was more like what we were expecting in the first room, only without jacuzzi and fireplace. We didn't find out until today why it was only $50 more...he had only quoted us for 2 nights, when our initial reservation was for 3. We talked to them this morning about this when we saw our checkout info under our door, and it seems they may give us the 3rd night for free since it was his fault that he quoted us wrong...we probably would have gone with a more middle of the road room if we had known it was actually going to be more than $200 more than our original room. We'll find out for sure tomorrow.

So we moved all our stuff, ate dinner at one of the restaurants, and relaxed in our jacuzzi that night. Despite the disappointing start to the day, it ended fantastic. So unless you're a poor college student who plans on skiing a lot and not relaxing in your room at all, we definitely do not recommend the Edelweiss building at Boyne Mountain. Not so great...I'll share pictures later.

Honeymoon Description

Many people were asking about our honeymoon, so we thought maybe we should update this so that people can see what we're up to and where we're going. As many of you know, Troy planned our honeymoon on his own as a surprise for me. What I didn't know until the day after the wedding was that he planned it as a bit of a treasure hunt! When I got out of the shower the day after the wedding, there was an envelope labeled 1 in the bathroom. Inside the envelope was a url that took me to a youtube video. The url I was given was: http://tr.im/26vv if you'd like to see it yourself.

Basically, he planned it somewhat Amazing Race style. I will be given clues and have to figure out our destination! So much fun! The clue said that I would get another clue later that day.

Wedding Countdown: 11 days left!

Wow, it's been awhile since I've posted! We've been very busy with wedding stuff! Things are coming along though! We decided to use words that started with snow instead of table numbers. We thought it was pretty fun!

In other news, we found out this week that our kitty is sick. She has had diarrhea on and off since September. The vet thought she just had a stomach bug or had gotten into something. She had also thrown up a few times, but we thought she either ate too fast or it was a hairball. When she got diarrhea AGAIN last week, the vet decided to do some bloodwork on her. Apparently she was underweight as well (but her poofy fur hides it so well!) It turns out that she has a hyperactive thyroid, so she will likely be on medication for the rest of her life. I actually have 2 friends who have had thyroid problems, so while I'm sure there are differences between human and feline thyroid problems, at least I had some idea about it already! Once we get her dosage right, the thyroid problem shouldn't cause her any major health problems. The biggest problem for Troy and I is that it makes weekend trips a little more difficult. We used to just be able to leave out a big bowl of food and water and she would be fine. Now that she needs a pill every day, we'll for sure have to get pet sitters anytime we leave. Fortunately, our friend John has 3 cats and has had to give them medication before, so he was kind enough to watch her when we left for Thanksgiving. He will also be cat/house-sitting while we are gone on our honeymoon.

The picture below is of me attempting to give Pudge an antibiotic. Excuse the poor quality, it was taken with Troy's phone. The vet put her on the antibiotic before we got the thyroid diagnosis. I don't really know how to give cats liquid medication, so I tried to just put a little in her mouth in the hopes that she would lick it up. Instead she managed to push it out with her tongue so that all the medicine frothed up so she looked like she was foaming at the mouth. She looked hilarious, but it was very frustrating! I was trying to hold her mouth closed so she swallowed it, but I was failing miserably. I felt so mean; it's a good thing cats have short memories because she was still cuddling with me later. John taught me a better method of giving it to her, so now we've got it all worked out. Fortunately, her thyroid medication is a pill, which is much easier to give her. The tricky part is catching her...she's starting to know when we're trying to get her for medicine...