Simply Sarah's Adventures

Christmas Vacation- Cruise

Antigua 3:00 PM

Two posts in the same month, unheard of for me!

Mat and I decided since our anniversary is so close to Christmas we are going to leave for Christmas every year. Our 1st anniversary we were in Seattle, WA, for our 2nd we stayed in a hotel in SB because we were spending all our money on med school applications. But for our 3rd we booked another cruise, this totals 3 cruises in 3 years of marriage. Depending on scheduling and such we want to try and do a cruise at least once a year, #GOALS.

It was like 11 o'clock at night on some random Sunday when we were talking over Christmas/Anniversary plans and I said well I found a cruise that looks pretty good. That night maybe 20 minutes later we paid and were booked. The cruise originally had 5 stops of places we hadn't been before. But because of the hurricanes, they had to replan our itinerary a little bit. No big deal for the 2 of us; we were just happy we would be going to the sun and getting away.

Mat knew he would be busy studying any of the extra time he had so he was very meticulous about his time management before and after we left for vacation. A 9-day cruise was just what we needed to remind us that we are a united front and that we can face anything the next three years throws at us.

First, we flew from our little international airport to ATL, then from there to FLL, Lyft from FLL to the Miami Cruise Terminal. Our first time using Lyft and let me tell you I'm so happy Mat speaks Spanish because our Lyft driver didn't know ANY English. We got on the boat and carried our own luggage on because it was way quicker to just get to the room put our stuff away and then go EAT! I ate so much Mongolian Wok and Tandoor, I was so happy. We lounged and walked around the boat. We just took a deep breath and got into vacation mode.

The first night we were flipping through the channels and saw on the news the power outage in Atlanta airport, our connection missed the outage by 45 minutes!!! I can't imagine how we would have dealt with that but we were both so shocked and happy we did not get caught there.

FIRST STOP: Nassau, Bahamas December 18th, 2017

We hiked up the Queens Staircase to this fort.

The water tower was this huge structure, I thought it was a lookout at first but nope.

Throwback recreation photo to 3 years ago for our Honeymoon.

On the Queens Staircase

SEA DAYS:

Formal dinner with the hottest date out there.

Our matching PJ's for Christmas,
everyone loved when we would walk around at night together.

It got super windy up here every day, poor placement for Putt-putt.

SECOND STOP: Antigua, West Indies December 21st, 2017

We roamed around the city by ourselves and found this empty church.

We went ziplining in Antigua and it was so beautiful.

He wanted to hold the monkeys so badly!

THIRD STOP: St. Kitts, West Indies December 22nd, 2017

St. Kitts in the background

We got a taxi to this beach, our boat is behind that mountain.

YAY! Sun and dirty sandy feet.

Mat just roamed around the beach and swam while I read.

FOURTH STOP: San Juan, Puerto Rico December 23rd, 2017 Happy 3 years anniversary to us!

Puerto Rico!

We loved this city and the buildings.

Mat got me roses and a cake for our anniversary

Formal Dinner Night!

FIFTH STOP: Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos December 24th, 2017

We want to come back and live here someday.

The water was so clear and beautiful.

Right in front of us was a row of beach houses, so dreamy!

Merry Christmas!

Pro-Tip: Always bring a thermos and water bottle with you on a cruise.
No leaks and keeps ice all day when you are out in the sun!

When we got back to port we took a tour of the Everglades and then flew home!

My goal is to live at least a year someplace where it doesn't snow at all. But for now we came back home and it was negative 18 degrees that night. Its kind of lightened up a little but I want spring to come so I can work outside!

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Never Expected; Always Appreciated

Antigua 8:00 AM

We were told when we were engaged to never use Always and Never statements because this can be damaging to a person when they hear; you are always busy or you never pick up your dirty underwear. But in the case of Never Expected; Always Appreciated, the two words fit perfectly and definitely don't offend.

I made us lunches for the whole week and I felt so accomplished because this is a unicorn, very very rare. I felt incredibly great that I had done this. Mat was so happy and he said these words, "This is so awesome babe, I want you to know that this is never expected but always appreciated." Do you know how wonderful it is to hear he doesn't expect things like that from me but when I do them he will always appreciate them? He says this every so often when I do the unexpected for him. It makes me blush writing about it and it gives me butterflies. Speaking of butterflies here's Mat with a butterfly, he's just the cutest.

Mat, the man I do it all for and the man who does it all.

I do not know what I would possibly do without him. I like to think I'm a strong independent person who can do anything and everything, which is true, I can. But I can only do it because I have him by my side. It's an interesting concept and I wish it all made more sense on paper but hear me out. Mat is my crutch, I lean on him when I need support and feel like I can no longer support myself and when I need him he is there. Without him beside me, being my constant reminder that I can do anything, I probably wouldn't feel like doing anything. But I do it all for him. Recently he was told he was putting school as his top priority and that he was wrong in doing so. This angered me beyond words because it really hurt him and I haven't really said much about the subject cause there is no point in arguing with it when we both knew it was blasphemy.

I am Mat's top priority, how do I know that?

Because he somehow still manages to put away the dishes when he's got an exam the next day. Because he doesn't complain when I put a frozen pizza in the oven for dinner or bring home Subway. Because he remembers to switch the laundry over when I've forgotten. Because he spends his extra seconds cleaning the drain in the shower (disgusting). Because every day this winter he's spent 5 minutes scraping the snow off my car and starting it up when its zero degrees outside when he could be studying. Because he spends countless hours studying and reviewing and asking questions and listening to lectures I know I'm his top priority because of this.

He shows me he loves me when he helps me fall asleep. He shows me he loves me by studying so hard. He shows me he loves me by the words he uses. He shows me he loves me by appreciating everything I do. He shows me he loves me by showing up and standing right beside me.

He's the best to me and I'm lucky he's all mine.

Mat is busy, crazy busy with school, but every spare second he has he spends it loving me and taking care of himself mentally and physically. Which is funny to think he even has enough time to do all he does with the amount of time he spends studying. But without him taking care of his own physical and mental health he wouldn't be able to thrive as much as he does. We, together, worked so hard to get Mat into medical school, even just getting accepted is incredibly competitive and stressful. Since he is now in school you bet your bottom dollar that he is going to work his butt off to get the best scores and to have a solid understanding of the material. And he is doing a freaking awesome job! He is going to prove to those that accepted him that he was a good choice. He's gonna score a perfect on one of his finals because he studied so dang hard (true story he did). We aren't going to put someone else's expectations of him before his own goals. He worked hard to get into medical school and he's going to prove that he can succeed.

So when someone feels like questioning Mat's priorities and saying he needs to readjust them; they are out of line. Don't come after him like he's not doing everything he can right now. We both are. We are taking care of what we need to at this time in our lives. We are working hard and enjoying our life together so that later on when we have the time and money we have a solid relationship and foundation that we get to enjoy our time together even more. Guess what, we are kind of exhausted and have no energy to argue with you about his priorities. Also its none of your business. When you love a person, you work hard together to accomplish each other's goals. And that is exactly what we're doing. So if you have something to say about it, keep it to yourselves. We aren't surviving, we are thriving. The two of us are happy, that's not to say everything is perfect, because I hate that word and because it is so very far from perfect. But we are happy and kind to others and that's all that truly matters. Mat putting school and studying as his top priority does mean he is putting me as his top priority. If I don't have a problem with it, neither should you.

And here we are enjoying the free time we had during Christmas on our cruise, Grand Turk!

Mat, thank you for everything, my life would be incomplete if I didn't have you. You are the most selfless caring person I know. What you do is never expected but always appreciated. I love you.

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Home Renovations

Almond 5:00 PM

HELLO THERE!

We closed on our home and are finally at a point that we can go home and not have a to-do list of projects, we hit this point back in August but man these months are flying by. Our most recent feat was getting the 4 large trees cut down out of our backyard. We hired a guy he cut them down and we saved money by not having him pick up after. We spent about 150 dollars on renting a chipper and had 4 lovely helpers (family) that spent 3 hours chipping all the limbs and branches. For the large logs, I just posted pictures on Craigslist and a guy came and picked them all up! No back breaking work for me and someone else got free wood. The backyard looks amazing now and I can't wait for Spring so I can plant my garden and redo the landscaping. I'm hoping to get a fence and till up all the grass and reseed. It's going to be so much different in just a year of owning it! We have done so much to this house and I'm so proud of it, all the money and sweat equity was so worth it and now we have such a beautiful home.

Many thanks go to my loving parents who spent hours and hours and long nights and all weekends helping us with it. And to Daniel, broseph it would have been terrible without your help and jokes. Props to my love for putting in hours and hours doing manual labor for me to get just what I wanted. I'm amazed we all were able to put up with each other throughout this whole project and work together so well.

I'm proud to say we only hired out select things because of a restraint on time and energy left.

Following are some before, during, and afters!