Chocolate Chip Cookies and the Honeymoon

Apparently after you are married it is required you start a blog. So we're married. We are back from the honeymoon in Dominican Republic and the reception in Kansas and now real day to day life begins. I'm proud to announce that Ronnie is making my favorite chocolate chip/oatmeal cookies that my mom makes. I like a man that makes me cookies. :) Since he is doing that, I get the pleasure of starting this lovely blog...

The wedding and all the events went great. We have great support from all our friends and family so things went smoothly. The DR was an adventure. We arrived in the Santiago airport and stayed our first night there. The next day we traveled to the north to the Villa Nadine in Punta Rucia were we stayed for the next four nights. Lets just say it was rustic. The "village" had around 300 people and we were staying in the nicest place by far. Everyone lived in little hut type homes and didn't have a/c or running water and rarely had electricity. The Villa Nadine was very nice and open. There were no windows or a/c. It was sort of like camping in style. We had the most beautiful view of the ocean and of the cows that would be herded down the street everyday. While we were there we kept ourselves busy with snokerling, seeing mangroves and manatees, visiting other towns, horseback riding, and visiting historic places where Christopher Columbus landed. So about the horseback riding...I was a little wary of riding a horse and now I know I had every right to be. This was my first time actually riding a horse by myself. Of course I have been on horses at birthday parties or at my Uncle Matt's place when I was younger but I was never on them for long and someone was always holding the reins. So we started our way through Punta Rucia on these horses with our german guide, who didn't speak much spanish or english (which no one spoke english there so that wasn't unusual). In the "guide's" or the "man with the horses" words, my horse was the Beetle and Ronnie's horse was the Ford Mustang. Which my horse was probably the laziest horse ever and he was spooked by everything. He was really spooked when we passed this black stallion and the beetle started jumpin' around and bucking up and neighing and I was scared and got off the horse. Then they wanted me to get back on! Yeah right...I have a hard time putting my life in the hands of a wild beast. So after a few minutes after we passed the stallion, I got back on the horse. I was nervous the whole time we were riding and didn't want anyone to come near me because I thought it would freak out. So after riding, for what seemed like forever, we stopped for a drink and then rode along the beach. Ronnie decided it would be fun to give his horse a little excercise and they galloped away. His horse tripped and they about went toppling over...which was scary to watch. But the horse pulled itself together and then went on trotting. We finally arrived back at the Villa, where my horse was spooked by a gust of wind and I tried to calmly pat its neck and tell him to stop freaking out. So bless all of you that can ride horses...because I'M DONE!! We left Punta Rucia and traveled south to the other end of the island called Boca Chica, just east of Santa Domingo. It was quite the opposite of Punta Rucia. We just happened to arrive on their Father's Day weekend. Our hotel was right on the beach but we couldn't quite get on the beach because of the crowds. TONS of dominicans everywhere. We just relaxed and went to church on Sunday and then Monday we actually got on the beach and spent the whole day there! Needless to say we were burnt by the end of the day and Ronnie ended up with a pair of fake Raybans and buying a $5 coconut...(even tho we were sitting right under a palm tree). Tuesday we left and visited the LDS temple and made our way back to Santiago to catch our plane. We were sad to leave but excited too...I really wanted some American food and fruit (which they have NO fruit there). The places we stayed were not touristy and we probably only saw a couple Americans and maybe a couple more Europeans the whole time we were there. Over all it was an amazing trip and we are glad that we were lucky enough to go.