Thursday, May 29, 2008

Vacation---Part 1



I'm going to be breaking up our vacation under various "Parts" and work on one section per day over the next couple of days. So, here goes Part 1:

Friday, May 23rd....


Jay and I got the 8am ferry out of Port Jefferson, NY to Bridgeport, CT sans Jason (Jason joined us the next day in CT). From Bridgeport, we headed up to Hanscom Air Force Base (where we also gassed up the car at $3.89 a gallon....wooo hoooo!!!!), just outside of Boston. We went to the BX (where we got some souvenir gifts and 2 sets of ABU's and 1 pair of boots for Jay) and over to the commissary. I really started to feel nauseous while we were there, enough to not even touch my lunch. Before we left Hanscom, we called the hotel to see if our room was ready a bit early and luckily it was. Off to the Courtyard Marriott we went....

There were on and off rain showers, but by the time we reached the Marriott, the weather had cleared up. We checked in and Jay brought our bags up while I rested for about an hour. Around 3-ish we both started getting ready and were out the door by 3:30 for the Church Service. The wedding was absolutely beautiful; we ended up sitting with Amy, Tom, Sara and Andy. We got a little lost going from the Church to the reception (at White Cliffs) but then again, so did several others. Gotta love MapQuest directions!! LOL

Anyways, so off to the reception....We arrived there shortly before A, T, S and A got there. We sat together for the cocktail hour (fresh fruits, cheese and crackers and an open bar---yay!!) and then headed off to our table (15) with the group. After the introductions were made, meals went into full force.

The Food---Starting off was a glass of fruit salad (yummy yummy! Sorry, have to put a little Wiggles in there!). As soon as you were done with that, out came the dinner salad. Again, nothing short of yummy...it was a big salad! For the toast, there was no champagne.....there were glasses filled with a pinkish liquid. From the scent of it, Jay figured it was a cranberry blush wine. So yummy and sweet! Dinner was a choice of roast beef, chicken or pasta primavera. Jay and I both had chosen the Roast Beef and what a great choice that was! Wow, 3 very big cuts of roast beef that was so succulent!!! Sides were green beans almondine (green beans had a nice crunch, while the almonds were cooked to the point of no crunch---absolutely the best way ever to have that side dish!!!) and a generous helping of rice pilaf. After Matt and Jenny cut the cake, dessert was brought out (cake was later served, but by that time, most of us were way too full from the dinner and dessert). A hot whole apple with raisins covered in puff pastry and glazed with caramel and a big scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side. WOW, is all I can say.

We ended up doing some dancing together and with Amy and Sarah. Watching my husband dance to 80s Madonna was.......very interesting, to say the least! LOL Matt and Jenny were nothing short of happy and the entire wedding from start to finish was just wonderful!

We had a lot of fun at the wedding but ended up heading back to the hotel a bit early, as we had planned on maybe getting a quick drink down at the bar and heading to bed. Of course, when we showed up, Andy yelled down to us from their room for us to stay up for a bit. We went upstairs to change and watch tv, and a few minutes later, Andy was knocking on our door. We went down to the lobby to see about having a couple of drinks, but the bar closed at 11pm (it was about 11:30pm when we went down). We ended up staying up and watching the Red Sox game on tv in the lobby and chilling out with Andy. Sometime before 1am, Matt, Jenny and everyone else started coming in. Jenny and Matt hung out with us for a bit and we ended up back upstairs around 1:30am (wake up call was coming at 7am!).

All in all, we had a great time with everybody. Unfortunately our time with Amy, Tom, Sara and Andy was short but it was still great seeing them....