September 30, 2011

Lately I’ve seen a few people talk about how they met their boyfriends/husbands and I thought I’d get in the game. Most recently I read Two Martini's post about meeting her husband on OkCupid so I wanted to share my story – although it’s not as hilarious as hers (so go read hers!)

All my dates came from meeting someone online. Okay, no, that’s a lie. I once dated a waiter but that was short lived – maybe 2 dates. I used all the dating sites, including OkCupid (actually, I think that was my second favorite of the dating sites).

I met my husband on Craigslist. Yes, you read that right. Craigslist. The site that people are afraid of, that is thought of as a place that people meet murderers or rapists. The place people joke about when they buy something off of it. But it worked for me and I was never afraid.

I know many people don’t know that you could even meet people off of CL (that’s the short version) but you can. There is a personals area where you can either post an ad looking for a date or you can reply to others ads. There is plenty of spam posts and you will surely receive a lot if you post, but they are pretty obvious so it isn’t a big deal.

I had done the replying to posts however I found that for me it was easier to post and have people reply to me. Sometime in the summer of 2010 I posted and got a reply from a guy who seemed pretty neat. I replied to him inquiring about where he lived and a picture. He replied that he lived in Compton and with his picture. I didn’t reply back to him.

Apparently this guy turns out to be my husband. I don’t remember this and I don’t have any of the e-mails saved and he hasn’t shown me proof, but I suppose I’ll believe him. He says that I didn’t reply because of the picture he posted, I tell him that I’m sure that it was because of him living in Compton. Not only a bad neighborhood, but probably 40 minutes away from where I lived.

That's Thomas in the background. This was our first date. 

Fast forward a year and I get another reply to another post. We start talking. He seems familiar and I ask him if we had met before (sometimes that happens in the online dating world) and he tells me no. LIAR! He replies with a picture and that he lives in a neighborhood only a few minutes (7 to be exact) from me. I reply back proving that it wasn’t his picture but where he lived that turned me off the first time.

Our first Christmas (a few days before) together. 

Our first 4th of July together (2012)

Our first camping trip 8/2012.

Thomas accompanied me to my 10 year HS reunion.

I'm sure you can figure this one out.

We texted back and for the for a few weeks before we had our first date, which was 3 years ago today – the day before my birthday!

Honeymoon: Trip To Argentina (Part 2)

Our second day in Iguazu was spent doing a bit of walking around in the morning to el Hito. This is the corner of Argentina where it meets the river and you can see Paraguay and Brazil. 

Hito: Three Borders

Thomas is standing in Argentina, to the right where you see the roof is Brazil and behind him is Paraguay.

The following pictures are of the Iguazu Falls from the Brazilian side. 

These are Coati's. They sort of look like ant eaters. They are all over these areas of Argentina and Brazil. While they are wild, they come up to you looking for food. This one was climbing up to look in my bag (no food). Thomas got scared and so he scared the animal away. I think they are cute!

As you can see by the water on the camera it was very wet! It was also very humid there - at least for us who come from a very low humidity area (SoCal).

This is Devil's Throat. 

After we got back from Brazil we did some touristy shopping in town. On the way back to the hotel Thomas was followed by some dogs. 

The hotel we stayed in.

We were in Iguazu from Monday night until Thursday morning. This is leaving EARLY on Thursday morning.

Honeymoon Trip to Argentina

I know, I know! I have one more wedding post to go! I'm missing my pictures from the reception so I've been lagging on writing that post. In the meantime, here is a honeymoon post in its place!

Let's be honest here, you don't want to read about everything during my honeymoon trip and I don't want to write about it all. But we all love pictures, right? So let's recap the trip via all the pictures we took! 

This is us at LAX getting ready to leave on May 16th.

We don't look as excited 4 hours later looking toward a 10 hour flight to Argentina. 

Dallas, TX.

This is our first night in Argentina. We went to dine at a restaurant near the hotel. Thomas was surprised when someone had to unlock the door to the restaurant to let us in and then lock it after we went inside. 

This was the view from our hotel room in La Plata, Argentina (the city my family lives in). This is Plaza San Martin. My siblings used to play around the statue in the middle of the plaza. There are these types of plaza's every few blocks in La Plata.

This is the Cathedral in La Plata. It's just a couple of blocks away from where my aunt lived. It's in front of Plaza Moreno. It's a gorgeous church. You can take an elevator to the top of the tower. Unfortunately we didn't have a chance to do it during this trip. 

The woes of having strangers take your picture.

This is us posing with Manuelita, a well known character in Argentina. This is La Republica de los Ninos. An amusement type park in La Plata. Walt Disney visited this park before opening Disneyland and based some of Disneyland on what he saw here. For those of you who have been to Disneyland do these pictures look familiar:

Do we look like cousins?

All the pictures above except the first two were from our second day in Argentina. After visiting the cathedral and the amusement park with my cousin Paula and her boyfriend (I just found out that she is pregnant! Yay!) they did us the favor of driving us by the house my dad grew up in:

Compared to the other homes around this one - this one has been kept up very nicely which makes me happy. When I went to Argentina in 2008 with my dad we got to go in. My grandpa built the closets that are still in use in the house. 

On Monday we headed off to Iguazu Falls in northern Argentina in the Misiones Province. Iguazu Falls (or Las Cataratas de Iguazu) are amazing waterfalls that are bigger and wider than Niagara Falls. They've just been declared one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World.

I took a lot of pictures at airports. This is us heading to Iguazu.

Thank goodness for panoramic setting on my phone!

We got to take a boat into the falls and get completely soaked. It was one of the funnest things I've ever done. I hope I can do it again some day.

This place is called Garganta del Diablo - Devil's Throat.

Next time I'll post about our second day in Iguazu was actually going into Brazil. to see the falls from that side.