The Elks Get Some Sun- Part 2

Last week I told you all about where we stayed during our Costa Rican honeymoon. But there is so much more to our trip! You see, even though we stayed at a beautiful place and could have easily spent our entire week enjoying our view, Mr Elk and I are not good at laying around and doing nothing in the sun. Mr Elk burns like its his business, and I just get hot and bored! Costa Rica was so awesome for us because we could sit around at the pool or on the beach when we wanted, but if we were getting antsy there was SO.MUCH.TO.DO! It was almost ridiculous all the possible things to do and places to see, and everything we did was AWESOME! To start, we got things rolling the day after we arrived and signed up for the Nauyaca Waterfall horseback riding tour- a tour on horseback that takes you to beautiful waterfalls (a theme for our honeymoon!), and feeds you a delicious homemade breakfast and lunch along the way!.

Mr Elk's first time on a horse!

The breakfast and lunch area with two scarlet macaws

Me jumping off a waterfall!

Our second excursion is a Costa Rican must do- zip lining!  We chose to travel about 30 minutes to a newer, higher speed zipline than the one closer to our hotel.  The company running the zipline is called Osa Mountain Adventures.  It was such a blast!

It would have been worth the drive just for the amazing views up on the mountain, but zipping through the trees above rivers and overlooking the mountains was simply amazing! Our third major outing was an all day tour to one of Costa Rica's many national parks- Corcovado. We took a boat down the river, through the Mangrove forest and out into the ocean until we reached our destination. Once there, we took a nature walk and experienced so much of the wildlife that Costa Rica is inhabited with.

Mr Elk enjoying the breeze 

the mangrove forest 

 a fake looking ficus tree from our nature walk 

Our tour guide was super knowledgeable- we saw 3 of the 4 species of monkey that inhabit Corcovado, as well as a crocodile, dolphins, 2 wild scarlet macaws and even a Jesus Christ lizard!

 And for our final excursion I had been saving up something really special. After seeing Mrs Cinnamon Bun discuss her canyoning excursion during her Costa Rican honeymoon, I knew Mr Elk and I had to try it too! I didn't mean to put it off till the end of our trip, but I'm pretty glad I did! Rappelling down waterfalls is a pretty cool experience, but when you aren't used to holding rope without squeezing it to death, you are pretty much guaranteed to get some rope burn. My hands were not so happy with me for the days that followed our tour with Costa Canyoning, but who cares when I got to do something as cool as this: Overall Mr Elk and I seem to agree that this was pretty much the best vacation we have ever been on. And looking back at all the things we did, its really no wonder!

 Did you do anything adventurous on your honeymoon? Did any body parts suffer?

The Elks Get Some Sun- Part 1

I know I'm not the first bee to go to Costa Rica on their honeymoon, but hive, now I truly understand why- it is AMAZING.  Mr Elk and I had such a great time, and I am so excited to share our adventure with all of you.

 The elks enjoying the beach at sunset

We arrived in Costa Rica about 2 days after our wedding, and almost immediately found ourselves driving down a coastal rode, wind blowing in our hair.  The drive was beautiful, and after 3 hours we had finally arrived at our desination: Tiki Villas Rainforest Lodge.  Now hive, I should probably mention that we had been told we would need a vehicle with four wheel drive, and boy were they not joking!  The road leading up to Tiki Villas isn't long, but it is steep and very much not paved!  The first few times I was sort of  SCARED OUT OF MY MIND, but it was so worth it!

One of the villas 

 So you'd think after arriving in paradise, we would be in heaven right? WRONG! As we entered our villa I saw in my peripheral vision a giant bug flying near my head and almost immediately  felt a sharp pain on my scalp- I had been stung by a bee mere seconds after arriving!! It wasn't the greatest start to our honeymoon, but if its the worst thing that happened, we were doing pretty well!

There are 5 villas on the property of Tiki Villas, which means at most there are only 10 guests.  When we arrived, though, we were the only two people there (thanks to coming mid week during the low season!), and it felt pretty nice having the whole place to ourselves (it filled up pretty quickly in the following days, though).

Every morning we awoke to the sounds of birds, waves and howler monkeys.  We then moseyed on  up to the common area for breakfast.  The breakfast, which was included in our room rate, was awesome!  To start we were greeted with a plate of fresh (and delicious) fruit while we made our decision about what else we would be eating (as if the fruit wasn't enough!).


Our choices: Eggs with bacon, pancakes, a third thing I honestly can't remember because I never ate, and a tradtional Costa Rican breakfast of rice with beans with sour cream, fried plaintains, eggs and avocado (it was gigantic!) Needless to say, we were stuffed most of the days following those breakfasts and typically chose not to eat a very large lunch (if we had room for anything!).  After breakfast we either headed out to explore Costa Rica (which I will be telling you all about soon enough!), or if we were tired and didn't want to do anything we occasionally sat by the pool reading and relaxing. 


 And after a long day of exploring (or sitting out in the sun), we retreated back to our villa for some wine on our balcony. Sigh....can we go back now? Did your honeymoon start off rocky? Did it turn out all right?

Gifting the Men

Picking gifts for groomsmen is TOUGH- especially when you have a picky groom!  We always knew that half of our groomsmen gift would be a tie for each guy to wear, so that was easy.  I picked those up from Men's Wearhouse- and with them already on sale plus a 50% off coupon, they came to be about 10 bucks each! Major score!

Unfortunately, the second part of this gift hunt wasn't so easy.  Mr Elk wasn't really a fan of the conventional groomsmen gifts available, mainly because he didn't deem them practical (the only exception being personalized beer mugs, which he had already been gifted by his brother at his brother's wedding.  Of course a beer obsessed guy would want to give everyone that!).  Mr Elk has always been more of a fan of gifts that can actually get use rather than cutesy, potentially more meaningful gifts, so we got to work.    After days of thinking and searching, my brain was really hurting.  But finally, we had an idea that he approved of- a multi-tool!  After all the things I suggested were shot down, I was so glad there was ANY idea Mr Elk approved of, so I immediately had him order these up just happy to be done!

Oh, did I mention we decided on these like 2 weeks before the wedding? Yea...whoops!

 Did you wait a while before making an important decision regarding the wedding? Did it work out for you?

Gifting My Maids

Deciding on gifts for my bridesmaids was a difficult decision.  While I found lots of jewelry I really liked, I was worried the tastes of 7 girls wouldn't allow for me to get one piece and have every girl actually enjoy it.  The more I thought about it, the more I wanted something everyone could use and would enjoy individually.  And that is when I stumbled upon AO3 designs- creators of customizable clutches!

via Ao3 Designs blog 

 I love them and love that each girl could have her own personality shine through! But there are SO may options! I didn't want to flat out tell my maids what their gift would be and allow them to choose, so instead I narrowed down the options to only chevron patterns and made a cute little powerpoint presentation:


And I must say, my girls made some adorable clutches!

 I packed them away, and made a little baggie to accompany the clutches:

 I filled this with hair ties, a nail file, lip gloss, bobby pins, tootsie rolls, and mints! I thought it added a cute little touch.  And best of all my girls seemed to love their gifts!!

 How did you decide on bridesmaids gifts?  Did you go a matching route or did you individualize?

Last Minute Favors

Hive, I never really wanted to give out favors.  But as the wedding quickly approached, I realized I had like 200 photosharing cards with our pooch's adorable face on them, with nowhere to put them!  I wanted to make sure our guests were enticed to actually take these cards (and share their photos!), so I decided to attach them to a sweet goodbye treat.

Enter DIY chocolate lollipops in the shape of a paw print! Hive, I am not joking when I say these were SO EASY to make.  Once you have the proper equipment (chocolate wafers to melt, mold, lollipop sticks, a bottle to melt chocolate in) it is simply a matter of microwaving the chocolate until it melts, squeezing it into the mold, and refrigerating for 10 minutes!  I was so impressed with how smoothly the whole operation went. 

Here are the finished products, with photosharing card attached:

Once they were all wrapped with their cards attached, I realized I wanted them displayed in a cute way so as guests exited the party, they would see them and grab one! I bought a basket, Styrofoam, and some mossy stuff from Michaels. I cut the styrofoam down to the size of the basket, put it in the basket, and covered the styrofoam with the moss. Here is a closeup of the basket with the moss, and you can see some Styrofoam poking through: 

 

Once everything was in place, I poked the lollipop sticks into the styrofoam so they would stand up straight. I tried to keep them all in a straight line, but there were so many lollipops it sort of just turned into a jumbled up mess! 

 

After all the lollipops were in, I realized that nothing around this said "thanks for coming", it just appeared like some strange dog related paraphernalia! So I used some leftover styrofoam to make a sign. I covered the back and sides in nice paper, and printed a little note of thanks on the front. It says "Thank You! Goodnight, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite!". I bought a small dowel from home depot (for .69) and used that to attach my new thank you sign to the basket: 

sorry for crappy Iphone photo!

While I loved my adorable little favors, and was glad that our pooch could be a part of our wedding (even in a small way), I do have to admit something.  A LOT of these were taken at the wedding- I'd guess about 75% were gone.  Despite this, only ONE person has posted their photos to our photosharing site- and that is one of my bridesmaids (who did it just to make me feel better).  Major FAIL.  :( Well, I thought they were cute...

Did you do favors?  Were they a little bit unconventional?

And I'm Back!

Hive, I had the most amazing wedding day and our honeymoon wasn't too shabby! But before I tell you all about it, I have to catch you up on a few details.  The week leading up to the wedding was a bit hectic (what with moving to a different state and all...), so while I completed a few last minute tasks I didn't get a chance to share them all with you. But now is my chance while I wait it out for the pro photos to get in!  So without further ado, lets talk about out of town bags!

A llllooooonggg time ago I told you all about my cheaptotes.com OOT bags, on which I printed our college's old mascot URbee (photoshopped to look like a cupid).  Well the week before the wedding I printed out some pamphlets to be included in the bags, as well as some cute door hangers.  I wanted these to feel light hearted and not formal in any way.

Here's the front:


In the middle I included the cute story of Mr Elk and I that I had created with a number of fonts a while ago. I also included some information about brunch the day after the wedding as well as the shuttle we hired to take guests to and from the venue.

And on the back I included some info about the mascot URbee.
We punched holes in the corners of the pamphlets and attached them to the door hangers I had printed and cut out: Lastly, we tied the papers to the bags, and stuffed the bags with lots of goodies, and voila! OOT bags complete:

These suckers were mighty heavy, and they were no fun bringing them to the hotel, but I'd like to think our guests appreciated them!

What last minute projects did you/will you tackle?  Did they work out well?