Life's A Beach

Day 1: Life's A Beach

The day started bright and early at 6:35am. We enjoyed a beautiful sunrise just a couple minute walk from the hotel! The sunrise was really wonderful. Taking in the moment and listening to the waves was absolutely peaceful.

Breakfast was complimentary at the hotel. They had a big spread and a variety. I was really excited for the waffle maker. Brian had a bagel and some eggs with ham and cheese. I also had the eggs. Their orange juice tasted really weird. Probably wont get that again. After relaxing a bit and letting our stomachs settle we headed over to Publix to get some sunblock (since ours was too large to bring on a carry-on) and picked up some snacks and drinks for the hotel room. When we got back we got into our swimsuits and heading to the beach! The section by the hotel was not packed at all compared to other parts looking down the shore. It was not super hot out and only a few clouds. Perfect beach day. The water felt cold at first on our feet but it warmed up quickly. It was fun getting hit by the waves. A piece of seaweed brushed my ankle and scared me so bad. I thought it was a fish or something else. The salt water tasted to gross. After a couple hours on the beach we decided to go to lunch.

Lunch was an IHOP visit just down the road. Nothing fancy, each of us got a bowl of soup, sandwich and fries. Then we went next door to a surf shop to get a boogie board and some postcards for Tamarah :) We figured since it was either $6 an hour or $16 a day to rent one, we would rather spend $10 and buy one. Afterwards we went back to the room and waited for our stomachs to settle again. Ended up taking a short nap. After waking up refreshed we got back into our swimsuits and headed back to the beach with our new boogie board. 

 When we made it down to the beach there was even less people than the morning. It was just past high tide so as we walked into the water we seemed to step on all the shells we saw this morning. We didn't have to walk out that far to have it up to our waists. We took turns on the boogie board. It was so much fun!! Trying to ride the waves too a little bit to get used to but we caught a few good ones and only scraped our knees a couple times on the sand. A storm was approaching so we headed inside to change and find a place for dinner.

We went to A New York Pizza House. It was a seat yourself kind of place, we found a table by the window and waited for the waitress. We ordered some garlic knots and a 16" pepperoni and sausage pizza. The garlic knots were nothing to rave about. They could have been a lot better. The pizza was good. We took the left overs for the room to eat later on. Our waitress seemed friendly. 

As we were eating guess what we saw outside the window? ...... A RAINBOW! For the second night in a row! It was awesome and went all the way across the sky. We missed the sunset because we were waiting dinner. But seeing the rainbow to end the night was perfect. After dinner we came back to the room and just relaxed for the rest of the night. It was a perfect beach day to start off the honeymoon! 

Day 0: Arrival in Cocoa Beach, FL.

Arrival Day: The Flight

There was a lot to think about going into how we wanted to travel. We could take one giant suitcase and pay 25 bucks to stow it away underneath a Delta Airlines plane or spend 0 dollars splitting up into our two tiny suitcases to take on the plane with us. The extra hassle of carrying all the extra stuff was not a big deal and we even got them to take our suitcases from us on our first flight because it was a small plane to get to Cincinnati, OH. 

The picture above is from our first layover in Cincinnati, OH. The airport was quite beautiful and very spacious. We both were quite impressed with its quality. I texted with my cousin Taylor while there and I'm happy that she's no Jenna Curtis.

Tamarah got a lot bolder during this flight (by sitting next to the window) and took tons of cool pictures (which will be posted online when we get back to DC). This flight was roughly two hours and wasn't that bad at all, the time almost flew by as Tamarah and I played some games on her iPad.

The Ground Travel

We've been to Orlando airport before, we spent some time with Tamarah's relatives and flew back to DC. We were fully expecting to see our beloved Portal for some easy travel ...

...but we weren't so lucky this time around so we decided that renting a car was the next best thing.

The Hertz guy tried talking to me into getting a convertible and spend and extra 150, but I was having none of that and demanded the original vehicle I had arranged many times. Instead they gave me a "upgrade" for free to a Dark Blue 2012 Nissan Sentra. This wasn't a bad deal and the 2012 version is quite nice. After a decent walk and a few checkpoints, we were off down the road towards Cocoa Beach.

The radar didn't look that great as we were landing, but thankfully the drive into Cocoa Beach was quite nice and I was very happy to see speed limits at 70MPH. There was one toll road and a switch over to a parallel road and before we could say our ABC's backwards we were arriving at our hotel.

It was starting to get late at this point and we really wanted to catch the sunset and see what kind of view we had from our room so I was hoping the hotel concierge would be a fast experience. The family in front of us seemed to care no less about having a line of three people behind them as they continued to barrage the poor worker with seemingly pointless questions they could have figured out on their own most likely. Thankfully we made it to our room just in time to catch this awesome sunset.

After this great view (not even from our room) we were quite hungry and headed out to find a place to eat.

 Brano's Italian Grill was our choice and we were quite pleased with the place. The ambiance was very wine colored with the grapes and the whites colored on the walls. The lighting was perfect for an italian place and our meals were absolutely amazing. Tamarah got a great chicken fresca and I got my favorite a chicken marsala with pasta. The marsala sauce was amazing and Tamarah was gung-ho about her cheese sauce, especially with her potatoes.

We got back and were both quite exhausted by the travel and meal and we got to bed around 11ish.