Quasny Wedding

I finally got all of our pictures posted from the last couple of weeks. The pictures of Jackson waddling around as a penguin are in the 12-18 months album, and the pictures from my cousin, John's, wedding are in the Rainwater Wedding Album.

After my cousin's wedding in Arkansas, Ross and I made our way to St. Lucia for another wedding. We spent several days relaxing on the beach before our friends, Todd and Heather, got hitched! They let me and another friend, Kathy, document the event, so there are lots of pics in the album. Here are my favorites from the day of the big event.

The morning of the wedding, Kathy and Ryan and Ross and I took a short hike to Fort Rodney.

Then the girls got together for a little relaxation, fun, and pedicures. Here are Heather and her mom enjoying their pedis.

The guys spent their morning relaxing in their own way, but we managed to catch a glimpse of them at lunch.

After lunch the girls got busy getting ready for the big event!

Here comes the bride.

Getting hitched!

The happily married couple at their reception.

A couple of posed shots.

A walk on the beach before wrecking the dress...

Skipping away to change for dinner.

The whole group after dinner.

It was a beautiful wedding and a great week! We can't thank Ross' mom enough for watching Jackson so we could be a part of these events. She had her hands full with a sick, teething baby and a broken down car. Fortunately, everyone is doing better this week!

Travel Tip - SideStep

Today, I was looking at flights for a business trip and I thought I would share my favorite travel site: SideStep.com. It searches multiple travel sites to help you find the best deal, but it is really the interface that makes me like it so much. I've never used another site that lets you adjust so many preferences (layover time, layover airport, etc) but it also shows you the effect of your preference on price before you make it and updates your results in real time. You, also, can get results for nearby airports and flexible dates. I think you may need to register for some of the features, but it is worth it.

St. Lucia - Day 7

We both had to pinch ourselves as we awoke the last morning to the breeze blowing in and opening our eyes to the beautiful Pitons without having to get out of bed. We ordered breakfast in the room and enjoyed the infinity pool and sun deck as long as we could before leaving. The pictures below give you an idea of what the rest of the Jade Mountain part of the resort looks like. It's actually still having the finishing touches put on it. We both feel like we were completely spoiled on this trip. There was beauty everywhere we looked in the landscape, as well as the people. We certainly hope to go back some day. The last picture is our last glance at the Pitons from our amazing room before heading to the airport and home to a "welcome treat".

When we arrived home a little after midnight, we quickly discovered that our air conditioning was not working...welcome home! As we looked around a little more, we also discovered that our stereo receiver, Nintendo Wii, cable box, cable modem, router, and doorbell were also not working. A storm a few days earlier apparently took out a lot (but not all) of our electronics. It was strange because some things on the same surge protectors were fried while others weren't.

We were actually able to recover a couple of things like the cable box by "rebooting" our house. We literally turned off every breaker to the house and watched the meter stop spinning. Unfortunately, it didn't fix the air conditioner, so we pulled out the box fan and opened most of the windows in our house. We slept really well that night since we were used to no air conditioning in St. Lucia, but we were glad to get it fixed the next day.

Since then we have either ordered or replaced everything else. We came in just under our deductible, so insurance didn't cover anything, which I guess is good. Even our "welcome home treat", couldn't dampen our spirits after such a wonderful experience though. It's been hard to go back to work and adjust to our normal lives again, but we must! There's now a shuttle docked to the ISS, and our co-workers would appreciate our help. ;-)

St. Lucia - Day 6

Day 6 we had an early breakfast and met another honeymooning couple for a 45 minute ride to the Enbas Saut Rainforest. This was by far our "hardest" hike, and we only hiked about 2 miles. The part that made it hard was that we had to go down ~1200 steps on our way into the rainforest and up ~1300 steps on our way back out. It was awesome! A family from another resort joined us for the hike. Here's a pic of our group getting started.

The trees by themselves were incredible. The fig trees like to literally suck the life out of other trees. You can see the one below wrapped its roots around another tree and lived off of it until the original tree died. Then there are trees with flying-buttress type roots that help them stand. None of the trees have deep roots, so this is their way of surviving.

The highlight of the hike was the Enbas Saut Falls. There were 2 falls with a pool at the base of each. The water from the first, smaller fall ran into a pool and created the next fall. Both pools were big enough to swim in, but we opted to watch the others and climb around a little.

On the way back up there was a bench marking every 1/4 mile. One of the little girls in our group had to be carried by our guide for a while because it was so steep and strenuous. Of course, we loved every minute of it. There were all kinds of beautiful (and some unusual) flowers and fruits on the way back up. We even saw a cinnamon tree, which was a new thing for us!

If you ever go to St. Lucia and do this hike, which we recommend, be prepared to sweat and take some water and bug spray with you...there were a lot of mosquitos!

When we got back to Anse Chastanet, we were greeted by one of the managers who had apparently been looking for us all morning. To our delight he invited us to spend our last night at Jade Mountain (the resort within Anse Chastanet). We were very excited because we had heard wonderful things about Jade Mountain, so we quickly packed our bags and were moved to our new room; although, I don't really think it qualifies as a "room".

When you walk in the door, you are immediately looking out at the Caribbean Sea and the Pitons because there are only 3 walls in the room! The next thing that catches your eye aside from the size of the room is the infinity pool at the edge of the room reflecting the view of the Pitons like a piece of glass. There were two sitting areas, a 4-poster, king sized bed, a large open bathroom with a "tub for 2" and a shower without walls, a full dining table that would easily seat 6-8 people, a mini fridge, and a sun deck with 2 chaise loungers.

The only thing that's missing is a kitchen. However, you can order room service for no extra charge, so really there's no reason to leave your room! As a matter of fact, the only reason we did was for dinner that night because we had already made reservations at the Indian/Caribbean Restaurant, Apsara. We both like Indian food, but it was even better fused with a Caribbean touch! We couldn't have asked for a better ending to an incredible day!

St. Lucia - Day 5

We met our guide, Meno, at the Beach Bar the morning of our 5th day, which also happened to be St. Lucia's Emancipation Day. From there we hopped in a boat and made our way to another local beach where our hike to the Malgretoute Waterfall began. We walked past several homes, restaurants, etc. as we made our way from the beach and up the mountain to get to the waterfall. There were a lot of local people out and about because it was a holiday, but we were especially pleased to find locals at the waterfall too. It made us feel like we weren't just at a tourist destination.

The Malgretoute Waterfall is a warm waterfall. Water from natural mountain springs joins water from the volcano springs to produce a beautiful warm waterfall. Pools have been built at the base of the falls for people to relax in. There is also a hot waterfall at the same location, which comes directly from the volcanic spring. Unfortunately, there was sulfur blocking the flow the day we were there, so we didn't get to experience it. The warm waterfall was good enough for us though! Standing directly under it, you get a nice, warm massage.

We noticed that the plants in this area of the island were much larger than those near the shore and produced more crops and flowers. Here's a picture of a banana tree and some of the flowers we saw on our hike.

While waiting for the boat to pick us up at the beach, we watched the locals enjoying their holiday. It just so happened that one of the hotel staff members was roasting hand picked cashews from her property on the beach that day. I didn't know that cashews had to be roasted. Apparently, the oil in the pod will make your lips and tongue swell if it is not burned away. She was very sweet and let us each have one. It was delicious, and probably a once in a life time experience for us!

A Rastafarian approached us with a lobster for sale not long after having our fresh roasted cashew. Of course, there was nothing we could do with it, but it ended up being cooked over the fire with the cashews, and I'm sure made a wonderful dinner for someone.

On our way back to Anse Chastanet, Meno took us by a bat "disco" as he liked to call it. It was raining by this point, so we didn't get a good picture. There were a lot of bats in the crack of a cliff flying around. Meno likes to call it a disco because he figures there's no way they're sleeping in there.

The rest of the day was spent on the beach reading books and eating good food...