Its a Hero

BF

eat { lobster } , drink { rootbeer } , and be married!

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Wow wow wow! Thank you for the outpouring of love and support to our elopement news! It was a whirlwind of a weekend!

Thursday Chad and I packed up the car, dropped off the pups and hit the road!

We decided to take our time to get to Portland. The drive is a total of 13 hours from Akron to Portland, so we drove 8 hours and stopped for the night in Albany, New York. We woke up bright and early Friday and finished the drive to Maine.

We stopped in Ogunquit, Maine to get our marriage license:

we were kinda excited. 🙂

Finished our drive to the Inn By The Sea in Cape Elizabeth {about 10 minutes outside of Downtown Portland}. We stayed at this exact hotel on our trip to Portland in 2009 and LOVED it.

fireplace view from our comfy bed.

After settling in, we went to a place called Gilbert’s Chowder House in Old Port for a lobster dinner:

chad and his lobsters.

my amazing gelato canolli

Saturday morning we woke up and split a yummy blueberry pancake and bacon breakfast; and followed it up with a couples massage. Post-massage, we finished getting ready for our big day!

The weather for the ceremony was fantastic. The whole week prior we were watching stalking the weather channel and they were forecasting 40 degrees and rain, rain, rain. But it turned out to be absolutely beautiful.

We ate our wedding dinner at the Lobster Shack at Two Lights. This little shack has the most yummy lobster rolls ever. And everyone who was there thought it was hilarious that we were so decked out at this super casual restaurant.

at the lobster shack!

chad + lobster roll dinner

my delicious lobster roll

I have some official shots from our photographer, but those belong in a separate post!

aaaaand I’m back.

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This break was WAY harder than I expected.
Mostly because it was a break full of keeping secrets from the blogosphere.

So I figure I’ll ease my way into revealing the secrets.

First secret? This one:

We’re engaged!

♥ wedding pictures ♥

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I cannot believe it’s already November! And I cannot believe it has almost been a MONTH since my BFF got married. 

Craziness. Absolute craziness.

And I realized two — scratch that — three things as I flipped my calendar to a new month yesterday.

1. I was all “yeah I’m going to blog this month,” and then I didn’t. 
2. I stopped my cruise wrap-up after just one post. Oops. More pictures to come!
3. I never even posted a single picture from BFFs beautiful, amazing, spectacular wedding!

So what better way to start the month off than with some pictures? In no particular order {also known as, “I’m too lazy to put them in order”}.

{that would be smooching the bride on the right}

{post-ceremony}

{bridesmaids pre-ceremony; post-hairdo}

{BFFs since high school}

{Bridesmaids}

{our only picture together from the night!}


cruise part 1: cruising and cozumel!

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Don’t say I didn’t warn you that this is a lot of pictures! I’ve decided to break this up into a few parts.

But let’s start at the beginning.

We flew into Tampa on Saturday the 24th of September. It was an exhausting day of travel. When we got to our hotel, we expected to go find some local eats. But, instead, we ordered Papa Johns because it was the only place that would deliver and we didn’t feel like moving from our comfy king-size bed! 🙂

On Sunday, we took a bus to Tampa Port Authority. Luckily, we got there early; which meant we were able to get on our ship nice and early!

We met a lovely couple who became our cruise BFFs for the entire trip! We spent the first day walking around the ship, checking out our awesome balcony room {upgraded a few weeks prior to the trip — SO grateful we did!}, and meeting new people on the top deck as we made our 2-hour trip out of Tampa Bay!

We had an fun {and yummy dinner} with our new BFFs, Tommy and David, and then decided to get some sleep! I’ve gotta say; we slept incredibly well!

Monday was our first at-sea day; so we did some exploring and sun-bathing; and met up with David and Tommy again.

Tuesday we were at port in Cozumel. We got off the ship early and met a non-English speaking cab driver to take us to a non-Carnival booked excursion. {… yep, I decided to book my own excursion; which means find our own transportation!}

Here’s what you need to know about our trip to Nachi Cocom private beach:


1. You will take a cab with a guy who will drive 70MPH and almost hit a gazillion people;
2. The driver will drop you off {after a terrifying 15-minute drive} at a Jurassic Park-like entrance and will say something in Spanglish that sounds like “15 minutes” and laugh.
3. You will stand there, stranded, alone, hoping that someone will show up and not murder you.
4. Turns out they are on central time and not on ship time {eastern}. Super.


But when they open, it’s paradise:

{what a view! Cozumel, Mexico.}
{Swimming in the beautiful, clear waters of Mexico!}
{Corona and Pina Colada!}
{our little bit of paradise in Cozumel}

{Post-Cozumel beach glow!}


The next day, Tuesday, we were in Belize. We didn’t have anything planned at this port, but decided to get off the boat anyways. It was a mistake. Belize was creepy. That is all.

Tomorrow = Isla Roatan, Honduras! This means monkeys and zip lining!

his first flight.

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So things have been busy around the itsahero world lately. Like, crazy busy. Besides getting a new roof and doing other various home improvement projects, there have been some super fun things going on as well!

Instead of playing catch-up in one super long post, I decided to break this up. So first things first…

Last year the BF bought a Groupon to do an introductory flight lesson from U-Vary Aire in Mansfield, Ohio {about an hour and 20 minutes from our house}. He called to schedule it about 4 months ago, and the first date they could get him in was about 3 weeks ago. Which is just crazy. 

When we went, he was like a kid on Christmas morning! And it was so fun to watch. I even sat in the plane for a minute and thought, “this doesn’t seem so scary after all.” And then I got out and planted my feet firmly on the ground! Ha!

He spent about 20-25 minutes up in the air, and flew it {mostly} himself! He had so much fun that I almost wish I had purchased the Groupon! {Key word is almost…}

Maybe someday. But for now, I’m lucky to get on a commercial flight, let alone one of these!

monday mantra.

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This week will be a 4-day work week for me. I’m excited to be spending my Monday off in Pittsburgh with the BF. 
I believe that sometimes you need someone to remind you to breathe. And this is why I go to yoga. 🙂
{image}
I’m addicted to yoga!
I wish for a less stressful week than last week. It was a pretty intense work week last week. By Thursday I was exhausted. I don’t know if I can handle that again! Fingers crossed…
I’m happy for every moment I have to spend with those I love. Life is short and you shouldn’t wait to embrace the moment until you’re reminded of this!
Soundtrack/Mantra for the week: “We use our bodies to into the poses, but really we use the poses to get into our bodies.” — one of my favorite yoga teachers, Terri Bahr, at a yoga class at Cleveland Yoga last night. Such amazing wisdom for yoga and for life.