Jeff and Emily's Engagement

 

When Jeff texted me to tell me that he was planning to propose to Emily in the near future, I was ecstatic!  When I realized I was working that weekend, I wanted to die that I wouldn't be there for the surprise and excitement.  I started asking around at work if someone could switch me days, and luckily, a great nurse was willing!

Since I was only going to be in town for 36 hours, I had to be very nonchalant to Emily about the quick trip.  I used Trevor's drill weekend as an excuse to fly home and then drive back to Lubbock with him the following day. 

My parents were in Chicago for a weekend trip, so Emily picked me up from the airport at 9 am Sunday morning, and we headed to Starbucks to kill time before church at 11:15.  What happens at coffee shops?  You have great, meaningful conversations about what's on your heart.  Well what else is on Emily's heart than getting engaged soon?!?  That is all she talked about.  I nodded my head, told her "just be patient, it will happen in perfect timing", without a single smirk or grin ever crossing my face.  Hardest thing ever.

Jeff lives in Nashville, and had flown to Austin for the weekend, but Emily had no idea he was home.  He planned to surprise her at Cheesecake Factory that night, so my parents played the "we are starving and our plane is late so let's meet at Cheesecake Factory at 5:30."  It was perfect!  Emily didn't think a thing about it. After church, Emily talked to Jeff a few times on the phone and each time she hung up she would say, "He's lying to me!"  She had picked up on the beep of "his" car when he was "running errands" and she knew that was not the beep his car made.  What a sneak!  He had also lied about his fall break being the weekend after, and Emily figured that one out, too.

5 o'clock rolled around and Emily and I left our parents house in Georgetown to make it on time.  I somehow got Emily to freshen up her makeup, and even put on some eyeliner, which she doesn't normally wear.  I wanted to throw up the entire drive.  Emily was driving like a maniac down I-35 and I was so nervous! We made it, parked in the parking garage, and made our way to the entrance of the restaurant.  I made sure Emily was in front of me, and she opened the door, and Jeff was standing there with a bouquet of roses.  Emily froze, and later I found out that she said, "I hate you!" Haha! They had a date there alone, and we met Jeff's parents for dinner at another restaurant.

Celebrating at Monument Cafe in Georgetown for breakfast the next morning

Jeff took Emily to the capitol after dinner, and brought her to a bench with rose petals all around it.  They talked for a few minutes, and Jeff finally got down on one knee and asked Emily to be his wife!  So sweet!  He even hired a photographer, Jessica Scott, who will also be shooting their wedding day.  You can read her blog post about the proposal here:
 http://www.jessicachristinephotography.com/blog/2012/10/16/jeffemily-the-proposal/

The soon to be Newman's are planning a June 15, 2013 wedding! We love you Jeff, welcome to the family!

St Lucia

 Get ready for a super long/detailed/picture heavy post :)

My parents gave me one of the best gifts I have ever received for graduation- my choice of a dream vacation for me and Trevor! Amazing! My dream honeymoon/vacation has ALWAYS been St Lucia. So where did we take a trip? None other than the dreamy island of St Lucia. Vieux Fort, St Lucia to be exact.

We decided to wait until mid September to take our trip. I started my job in June, and Trevor had a month long drill during August, so September worked out perfectly.  It was great because after all the graduation and new job "glowiness" had faded away, a vacation was the perfect way to recharge.

We drove to Dallas on a Friday and spent the night with our friends Greg and Lauren who were awesome and took us to the airport Saturday morning at 3:30 am!  Our flight departed at 5:45 and we were off! We switched planes in Miami, then our next stop was St Lucia!

We arrived about 1 that afternoon, and got on a bus to get to the resort.  The resort was literally 3 minutes away from the airport, score!  When we got off the bus at our resort, there was a man serving some delicious "red punch", and they handed out cool washcloths for refreshment.  It was a dream from the moment we arrived!  We ate a late lunch at the casual buffet, went swimming in the lazy river with drinks in hand, then snoozed on the beach.  We went back to our room and passed out for the next 2 and a half hours... I guess the trip had caught up with us! When we woke up, we participated in "Pirate Night", a theme dinner on the pavilion.  We ate wonderful food and had live entertainment right in front of us!  We even participated in a conga line- I hesitated, but my "go big or go home" husband insisted we get our dance on ;)

Day 2:
Trevor got up early to go work out at in the resort gym, this is the only workout he did the entire trip, to my surprise.  We ate at the breakfast buffet, drank coffee and relaxed in the lobby area, and looked into excursions for the week.  We spent time at the pool, got ourselves some drinks at the swim-up bar, tanned, and I did a lot of reading on my nook.  Lunch was poolside that day and it was delicious. They also had fresh coconuts they would slice open and stick a straw in so you could drink the coconut milk!  We were so excited until we actually tasted it... not a sweet as you would think.  Later that afternoon we headed back to take showers and nap before our first fancy dinner at Calabash, the Caribbean restaurant!

Day 3:  September 10th was Trevor's 23rd birthday! He woke me up saying "Wake up, wake up! It's my birthday! We ate breakfast and headed to the pool early that morning.  We stayed until lunch time, then ate and took naps.  Do you see a trend, here? :)

That afternoon we took a taxi into town to buy some razors for Trevor. What an eye opening ride that was.  We saw very poor families on the streets, dogs and horses just roaming around the streets, and people trying to sell things.  It made us feel so guilty for being treated like royalty at the resort and we never even knew what kinds of things went on in the St Lucian people's lives.  Sad.  I have never even been out of the country before this trip, so that was a first for me.

We headed back to the resort to get ready for the Manager's Reception on the upper deck at sunset.  They handed out door prizes and had appetizers for us to much on.  We didn't win anything but it sure was fun! This was the only sunset we saw the entire trip because we were always inside showering and getting ready for dinner at that time.

We had a fancy dinner that night at Silk, the Asian restaurant. This was my favorite dinner.  The food was so so good. Trevor's dessert that night was banana egg rolls with caramel sauce and coconut ice cream. Yum!

Day 4: We went on an excursion this day!  We got a private tour to the city of Souffiere, which was about 45 minutes away.  We toured the Volcano and sulfur springs, Botanical gardens, the Pitons, and were able to ask lots and lots of questions about the culture and more.  When we got back to the resort, we went to the pool and stayed ALL day long.  We didn't leave until 5:30 that evening.  So relaxing and wonderful.

That night it was theme dinner again and it was "Western Night". Believe it or not, there were other Texans in the house! Love! There was a St Lucian western band called the Ellen Stone band, and they sang so many crowd favorites: George Straight, Willie Nelson, and Garth Brooks were the best.  We got up on stage to participate in a line dance and basically embarrassed ourselves. Ha!

Day 5:
We were up early in hopes to be able to book a zipline adventure for that afternoon. We wanted to live it up on our last full day! It didn't work out, so we settle for a couples massage at the spa :)

Our massage was an hour long, and so so worth it.  Trevor's masseuse was named Shakira, haha!
The rest of the day was spent napping and swimming in the pool, just soaking up the St Lucian sun for the last few hours before we would have to say goodbye :(

Last day:
We woke up at 5:45 am to get up to watch the sunrise...best decision ever. It was glorious.

After breakfast we headed back to the room to pack up and shower for the ride home.  Long story short, our plane to Miami was 1.5 hours late to St Lucia, causing us to miss our connecting flight to Dallas.  We were stuck in Miami for another night, but had a comfortable king sized bed to sleep in and comped dinner/breakfast.  We didn't go to sleep that night until 11:30 and woke up the next morning at 4 to be ready for the shuttle to the airport.  We made it back to Dallas, though and that is all that matters! We are so glad the travel hiccups happened on the way home instead of the way there.  The whole trip was totally worth the trouble, though!
 

We will never ever forget this special trip and hope there are lots more in the future! St Lucia, we will be back :)