Jamaican Honeymoon

After the wedding Carson and I had no idea where we were going on our honeymoon. My dad had set the whole thing up and barely told anyone. We did know that we were spending the night at the JW Marriot Resort where we had our breakfast and reception earlier that day. We walked in to this...

...it was seriously the nicest hotel I had ever seen. It even had three bathrooms! On the bed was an envelope from my dad telling us that the next day we would be flying out to the Couples Negril resort in Negril, Jamaica!

We spent most of the day relaxing and then we were driven to the airport where we first flew to Charlotte, North Carolina and then Montego Bay, Jamaica. Since Negril is a 90 minute drive from Montego Bay, my dad arranged for us to fly in an air taxi instead. Carson, who doesn't really like flying anyway, was a little scared when he saw the name of the airline (TinAir), but even more scared when he saw our plane...

I love flying so I was supper excited. I sat up front in the co-pilots position and Carson sat in the back with all our luggage. 

Yeah...he was more than a little nervous. To make things worse for Carson and better for me, after getting into the air, the pilot told me to fly the plane. He didn't even have his hands on the controls!

The pilot taught me how to go up and down, showed me what some of the gauges on the dashboard meant, and just told me where to go and I took us there. It was awesome...and just hours before I was telling Carson I wanted to learn to fly an airplane. Carson distracted himself from the terror by taking pictures of Jamaica from the sky.

We finally made it to the resort and found our way to our room. It was a spacious room with two private balconies, a mini-bar stocked with non-alcoholic drinks (they must have thought we were crazy when we asked not to have free alcohol in our mini-bar), and a hammock. 

Every day there was a different towel sculpture on our bed which is what is on the bed in case you were wondering. 

Our resort had tons to do but it was also a nice place to just relax. 

To Carson's delight between the four restaurants and three bars he could always get food or at least a pina colada. 

We were both fans of the bar - especially this one that was right on the beach. Everything was virgin of course!

This one was Carson's favorite because he could be in the pool and still order drinks. 

Carson ate this same meal at least once and most often twice a day - jerk chicken and fries with a side of wings. And some sort of tropical drink of course. 

Carson in the hammock on our balcony. I think it looks like he is in a cocoon or something. 

The view from our room. The weather was perfect the entire time we were there. It was warm but not too hot and the sun was always shining. 

As part of the honeymoon package at the resort we had a couples massage in this hut...right on the beach. It was so nice to relax and be pampered, especially after we had been so busy and stressed. Here we didn't have to worry about a thing. 

The beach was one of our favorite spots to relax. There were hammocks in some of the trees big enough for two people. We loved swinging in them and listening to the water. 

This restaurant was really nice and required reservations. The decor was really unique and we got to eat some things we had never tried before. It was also fun to sit on an couch and eat a formal dinner, not just leftovers or something.

We intermixed all of the relaxing with fun activities. One morning we took a shopping trip out into the city. We bought a lot of really cool things to decorate our apartment with and we made a friend. 

He wasn't really musically talented, but like almost everyone in Jamaica, he was super friendly. 

We also did some snorkeling where we got to see a lot of starfish.

It turns out that it is pretty hard to take pictures of someone else while you are both snorkeling. So, this is what you get. 

The highlight of the trip for both of us was going scuba diving. We took a little class with another couple, passed with flying colors, and then headed out to the ocean.

The water was really choppy so it was pretty scary to jump in, but it was way calm under the surface. 

During this trip we saw a ton of lion fish. In this picture our instructor is pulling one out with his flipper because they are poisonous to touch. 

Apparently Carson only felt like taking pictures of me from the back that day...

We also did a little jet skiing. We negotiated a deal with a nice Jamaican not affiliated with the resort and got to ride around for an hour. This was a little sketchy...especially after he told us that if it starts beeping its okay, just to let him know. I was a little afraid we were going to get stranded in the ocean but it ended up being a lot of fun. Carson and I took turns driving us around the bay where our resort was.

Even though Carson didn't get to make a gingerbread house this Christmas (a Flake family tradition) he did get to enjoy this one, probably the biggest I have ever seen. 

Our trip was short because we wanted to be home in time for Christmas, but it was a blast. Thanks dad for letting us have this opportunity!