After our incredible Honeymoon we got home and began to sort through everything and set up house! We worked really hard and had so much fun. I love our little place, it really is such a wonderful home. And the area is amazing too!
We were only home a week before I joined Brad on his business trip to Grand Cayman (that's in the Caribbean for anyone that, like me, was wondering). We went with Miles Ahead to put on the Do Something festival in the Cayman Islands! It was an amazing trip, though I wasn't sure if I was supposed to go at first.
You see, the Tuesday before we were supposed to leave I went up to see Mom, gather up some more stuff from my old room, and to get my passport. Well, I got my passport, but it was EXPIRED! How I could renew my passport in less than a week?? That Friday Brad and I drove up to LA long before sunrise and went to the main passport office in the Federal Building. There we waited, and waited, and waited. But... thank the LORD, we got it! I left with a shiny new passport! So amazing. We made a stop at the Santa Monica Pier on the way home and commemorated our victory with a photobooth session. :)
So that Monday we flew out with Miles and the rest of the team! The Cayman Islands were a really neat experience.
The people were so sweet and so excited to have us there. Our group came a little later than the rest of the team. There had been volunteers there serving in schools, hospitals, and the prison for two weeks prior to our arrival. Since Brad is Miles' assistant I followed along with them to interviews, tv spots, and run throughs of the event... pretty interesting stuff!
After two days, though, I began to feel a little like a third (or sixth) wheel and decided to limit the events to which I would tag along - though Brad insisted that he wanted me at everything - haha. It was nice to just relax at the hotel though, the water was amazing and it was pleasantly warm and humid so I just kicked back and embroidered a sweater. What? You don't embroider on vacations?
The Event was Friday and Saturday and I was on the Sustainability Team which meant that it was my job to walk around with a spiffy new iPad and collect as many names, email addresses, and phone numbers from the crowd as possible! It was pretty fun!
The girl in this picture was part of our team - some of my pictures are "stolen" from the website since I didn't carry a camera the whole time...
I especially loved getting the chance to do some kiddie face painting... kids an art. Perfect combo. :)
The actual event was incredible. The music was amazing, Miles' message was really powerful and a lot of people came to know the Lord.
On Saturday morning we had a opportunity to join a group on a trip to "Sting Ray City". It's a sand bar out in the ocean that has a huge population of sting rays and we got to hang out with them! Now I'm talking about Sting Rays, not Manta Rays. These guys had barbs! These guys KILLED Steve Irwin! Yikes! They were swimming all around us! Then, one of the guides had me hold out my arms and he directed one of the sting rays over to me - I was HOLDING it!
Just when you think that's crazy enough he told me to KISS it! What?! Haha! It was amazing! I was totally hanging out with this wild animal! Brad was SO excited. He loved it! He found one without a tail named "Frisbee" and decided they would be best friends. ;-)
We had the next day free so Brad and I took out a catamaran and he taught me how to sail! It was really fun! I was nervous at first but I caught on and Brad was able to hang out on the boat and dip his feet in the water while I sailed. At first I figured he was being generous letting me take the helm for so long... then I realized he didn't WANT to sail! He wanted to relax so he taught me how to do the hard labor! Sheesh! Haha! Oh, and then he got a little rowdy and flipped us over. But no worries, he flipped us back. Oh man... we've been laughing a lot.
Later we met up with Miles, his daughter Kellie, his brother-in-law Mike, and Chad the security guy to do some snorkeling - that was fun. Miles brought bread so all the fish went nuts and crowded around us!
Brad, Chad, and Mike decided to film their own underwater nature videos and Brad ended up getting his head stuck in a reef... which was pretty hilarious, except for the fact that he really did gash his head, poor guy. We were a little concerned about the blood drawing sharks but all's well that ends well!
I even got to play with a parrot!
We headed home the next day and I was wiped out! Luckily we were able to rest on Tuesday and get some chores done before we both started work the next day.
Yep, you heard right! I started work! I am now an employee of Anthropologie! So I am now working most days and for a long time we did not have internet at home... but I am resourceful and figured out an inexpensive fix to that problem...
So you now know why it has been awhile since my last post. I hope you can forgive me. I will try to make up for it and bring you lots of good updates from now on!
Love you guys!!
Julie
Can I leave a nerdy interior design comment? Yes? Okay, here it goes.
ReplyDeleteYOU GOT THE ARMED EAMES MOLDED CHAIR WITH WOODEN LEGS! I LOVE the crown molding and the floors too. Loving the legs on the couch and your adorable coffee table.
House tour please!
Employee discount at Anthropologie...oy I have a feeling you're going to milk that =).
Fun adventures! Fun photos! Thanks for the update. Someday when you're old and cuter than ever, you'll tell your grandkids about the exciting things you did...won't that be fun?
ReplyDeleteI still love that you just get to hang out with Miles. He came and spoke at APU when I was there and the student body basically wanted to crucify him for speaking truth... made me sad, but it also really made me like/ respect him.
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