Page 116/365 : Grand Canyon & Hooters

Another looooooong daaaaaaaaayyy todaaaaaayyyyyy!

Early start and headed straight over to New York, New York to get the bus to the main terminal. There we had a pastry breakfast before heading off on our way.

Our first stop was at the Hoover Dam. We got to get out and head onto the new bypass bridge over the dam. The view was amazing.

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We then jumped back on the coach and after another couple of random stops we were at the Canyon West Rim. Elle was crapping herself because it was time for the West Rim Skywalk…basically a glass floor 4,000ft above the bottom of the canyon. But she really surprised me and went straight out onto it without a problem. I was dead proud!

We had some official photos taken which we have bought but they’re on a USB stick so we’ll get then uploaded ASAP. The annoying thing about the Skywalk is that you can’t take any cameras or bags onto it. Boooo!

We had a few photos from the edge of the canyon where there was literally NO barrier so you had to be VERY careful. I have a bit of a fear of being on the edge of cliffs as it is….never mind one that’s 4,000ft high!!!! But we did get some quality photos from the two points we visited.

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Then we went for lunch at the Ranch. Now, this photo didn’t do the dinner justice but it was lovely :

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BBQ Ribs, mash and ranch beans. Mmmmmmmm!

The Ranch was an old Cowboy setup with horse rides, quick draw contests, archery etc. it was pretty cool.

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Soon it was time to head back.

We got back to the MGM about quarter past 7 so it had been a very long day. We got ready and headed out to the best restaurant chain in the world…….HOOTERS!

Mmmmmm. I love breasts and thighs….and any other edible parts of a chicken….!

We over indulged…again! Elle was sharing pitchers with me, we ordered two starters, two mains and two sides….we were never gonna eat it all.

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I think Elle has fallen in love with fried pickles too! Haha.

And then it was bedtime. Listened to the end of the Dodgers game which they won. Can’t wait for Monday when we see them play live at Dodger Stadium.

Tomorrow…….we get married again…with Elvis!

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Page 115/365 : Vegas Day 2

Firstly an apology for last night’s blog and how I wasn’t firing on all cylinders, falling asleep whilst writing and not putting my best efforts in….lets hope today is better.

Had a good night’s sleep. Got up and about fairly early and headed to Denny’s for breakfast. Wow! I ha a Philly Cheesesteak Omlette!

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Then we headed across to New York, New York and had a look around there before nipping over the road to the Excalibur and The Luxor.

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After the brief sightseeing tour we went back to the MGM and headed to the pool. It was lovely to relax by the pool and float around the Lazy River for a while. Elle caught the sun for sure. I tried my best but I am still looking like the Milky Bar Kid!!!

Tonight’s tea was at Hard Rock Cafe. I have to officially say that my eyes are bigger than my belly. I thought I could share this with Elle…

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Before tackling this on my own…

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But I was wrong and only ended up eating half the burger!

I did have about a gallon of Root Beer though so all is good.

Feeling knackered though now. Overeating + heat = tired!

Tomorrow we’ve got a very early start to head over to the West Rim of the Canyon so it’s an early night here.

Oh, and on Facebook it looks like our Laura and Lawlor are hooking up. Hehe. Brother from another mother marrying a sister from the same mother. How funny would the name Laura Lawlor be if that were true? They should hook up if only for that name!!!!

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Page 114/365 – Vegas Day 1

What a day!

Up at half 5 UK time this morning for the coach to the airport from Bewleys Hotel. For checked in and just waited around until our 9:40 flight.

Dead smooth flight for 90% of it.

And then we were there. Las Vegas baby. I think Elle was overwhelmed by it all.

We went to Bubba Gump’s Shrimp Company and I had this :

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Vegas is amazing but we are literally dead on our feet now after being up over 24 hours.

We managed to look around Caesars and the Forum Shops as well as take in three different songs on the Bellagio Fountains, one of which was from the top of the Eiffel Tower at Paris.

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Booked Friday’s jaunt to the Grand Canyon too. Can’t wait.

Gonna be a nice relaxing one tomorrow. Don’t think my feet will take anything else!

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Page 113/365 : Running around & Upgrade #1

Woke up earlyish in Yellowtop, ready for the day ahead. After realising yesterday that we had never had our Car Hire voucher and the new E-Ticket for the holiday being emailed to work, we had a bit of running around to do.

Headed back to Leeds. Picked up tablets from the Doctors for my inflamed chest, went to Boots at Crown Point to cash in the prescription, picked up some batteries for my camera at Poundland (£1 per pack ya know), went up to My Work to pick up the e-tickets, went to Elle’s Mum’s work to drop off the laptop, went to my Mum’s to say Hi, then went to Toby Carvery where I had this :

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Then it was finally time to head over to Manchester to the Bewleys Hotel at the airport. We got there and found out that because we were on Honeymoon we were given a complimentary Upgrade to a Junior Suite. We have absolutely no idea how they knew we were on Honeymoon…but we weren’t going to say no.

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We just spent the rest of the day chilling out in the room. Watched loads of TV and we will be about to test the Bewleys Hotel WiFi when we log into Sky Go to watch this week’s The Following.

Ordered this from Room Service too…why the hell not :

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We have transfers booked tomorrow for Half 6 to the airport. Can’t wait now….24 hours and we’ll be in Vegas Baby!

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Page 112/365 : Quacks n Tubs

Got up fairly early this morning and headed for a walk around the lake at Yellowtop, which was nice and refreshing.

Then we spent some time feeding the ducks…although only two came, who we named Ken & Deirdre! Even the carp were bobbing up for the bread…some of them were even jumping out of the water to get at it.

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Headed into Beverley for a bit of shopping and to pay some cash into our accounts before coming back for tea at Ye Olde Red Lion pub

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Mmmmm….

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Then it was time to go back and chill in the hot tub. The idea was that we would be able to watch the Meteor Shower but it was too cloudy. Boooooo

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Page 111/365 : Minimoon

For up early-ish. Went down for breakfast with a sore head but the brekkie sorted me right out.

Spent lots of time saying bye to people and hanging out with family.

Then it was time to head off across to Holme On Spalding Moor to the Yellowtop Country Park to start our Mini-Moon. It’s a lovely little park with cabins surrounding a lake. We’d been here before for my 30th birthday so knew what to expect. There is a large Hot Tub out the back and a lovely bedroom and living room area. It’s gonna be nice chilling out here for a couple of days before heading over to the States.

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We opened up all our Cards and Gifts and Dollars and loved it. We are really thankful to everyone who go us something for our big day. Thank you to everyone who contributed to the Honeymoon fund from the Wife and I.

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Page 110/365 : Mr & Mrs Woollin

What an absolutely fantastic and amazing day.

I am writing this a day late for obvious reasons…I had to recover from a stunning 24 hours.

Got up bright and early in Leeds at the hotel. Lawlor, Crooksy and I took our time to get suited and booted. Around 11 we were ready to head off to Gomersal Park Hotel for our wedding.

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Dave Brining took us up to the hotel. There I met up with everyone before the ceremony was ready to start. We all went into the room and I have to say I was getting little nervous at this point…but then “Marry Me” by Train kicked in, and in walked all the bridesmaids and Megan as flower girl before my beautiful bride. I welled up…I cried! I was so happy.

The ceremony was great, despite the registrar calling me Richard at one point and me signing my name in the wrong box on the Marriage Certificate!!!

Then we went back outside for tonnes of photos that seemed to go on forever but it was all good. Then it was time to head back in and to start the afternoon tea. The room was stunning. We had a lovely tea before it was speech time. John gave a really nice speech with a good mix of humour and touching sentiments. Then it was my time…

I loved telling my speech. I decided to tell some funny stories and have some touching moments in there too. I carried my Grandad’s wedding ring with me, which made me break down when I mentioned it, and I managed to get plenty of Leeds United references in there, even managing a rendition of Marching On Together slightly altered for Elle. I then presented her with this :

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Then we had Lawlor and Crooksy tell some brilliantly bad stories about my embarrassing and messy times over the years…!

Then we had a bit of a wait before the amazing night do.

The Sweetie bar was demolished in record time, the photobooth had a constant stream of people queuing for it to have wacky photos taken, the BBQ everyone loved, The Fund were immense getting everyone up dancing, the Magician was stunning and a huge talking point, and then we had the first dance…ah the first dance…and you know me, I cannot do anything normally…so take a look at this and see what you think…just stick with it as something happens around 2:50 into it :

Everything about the day was amazing. My new wife looked stunning and I hope everyone had a brilliant time, they seemed to do, so if they did it was a job well done. Elle planned most of everything so she deserves all the credit.

Thank you to absolutely everyone who made it possible and everyone who enjoyed our day with us. We love you all x

Now it’s onto the Honeymoon after the Mini-Moon! Stay tuned…

Mr & Mrs Woollin

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Page 109/365 : Out Of Office ON!

Wedding eve is here.

Work really dragged today but I got everything tied up for the finish. Emma had sorted these out for us :

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And they made me dress up like this :

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Once work was over, went up to the venue to move thinks about and see Elle. Then it was off to Leeds to the Roomzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz apartment we had booked for the night.

We got ready and then headed down to Fazenda for tea. I was a little apprehensive that all the boys would love it but everyone did. It was brilliant.

My dad didn’t come because he’d been poorly and had to stay in bed after feeling dizzy earlier. Hopefully he’ll be OK for tomorrow.

Came back to the apartment and did Elle’s ESTA online. It went straight through! Yay!!!!!!

And that’s it. Off to bed and tomorrow the BIIIIIIIIIG day!

Oh, and yesterday I forgot to mention the other present I or from Work. It was a photo frame and Mel and Caroline from the office had done themselves up as Bride & Groom and put the photo in the frame. It was really funny. Not sure if I am allowed to change the picture or keep them on my desk though…..!

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Page 108/365 : Fiancées’ last night

Well this is it now. Tonight is the last night Elle and I will spend together as Fiancee’s. tomorrow, Elle will be staying at the venue, ready for the wedding day, and I will be staying in Leeds City Centre and will be travelling up on the morning.

At lunchtime I bombed down to Carl Stuart in Ossett to change my waistcoat after my fat belly couldn’t get into it yesterday. They moved me up one size and all was well.

Back in work in the afternoon they all presented me with my wedding dollar dollar. Bagged a cool $90 to take to America with me. I joked that it would be going in my pocket and going on Black in the casino as soon as I get there…but it’ll go into the pot with the rest and get spent on Burgers, ribs, wings, chicken, crab, Chinese…etc…etc…

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Tonight went over to the Days Inn to take Crooksy his suit. Hung out there for an hour or so before heading back home and finishing up the packing etc for the Honeymoon/Minimoon/Leeds stopover. In actual fact, Elle did most all of it…bless her.

So that’s it…tomorrow night’s blog will be a mixture of nerves and excitement as the biggest day ever in my life arrives……yep….Leeds are playing Birmingham it’s my wedding day on Saturday!

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Page 107/365 : Ooh, Suits You Sir!

Elle finished work up today until May 13th! Can’t be bad.

She went and picked up her wedding dress before picking up all the suits for the boys too.

I tried mine on after work and I just need to sort out a slightly bigger waistcoat as it was a bit too snug around the gut.

Went over to Elle’s Dad’s. His suit fit him fine.

Dropped into Louise & Rich’s and all was fine there too.

My Dad’s though, was very odd indeed. His neck size was bigger than mine but the shirt came absolutely nowhere near fitting him around the belly. I was all very strange. He’s going to swing in tomorrow and get his sorted. I am gonna nip down at lunch tomorrow and hopefully get mine sorted out. It should all be fine in the end.

This morning we watched the end of the Padres @ Dodgers game from Jackie Robinson Day. It didn’t end too well, but still better than the result from the match last night wen the Padres annihilated them. I get the feeling that watching The Dodgers could be very akin to watching Leeds United…plenty of heartache to come!

Caught up on Raw too.

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