Maui and Kauai

Sorry for holding out on y'all. I have heard your cries for more photos... and I have been stymied due to technical difficulties... I have virtually no photos of my own from the ceremony (I have shared the ones I have had access to). I tried burning cds and dvds from my mom; that has resulted in error messages. I'm frustrated, too.

Ok, but I figured, since I do a lot of things backwards in my life, I can do these backwards too. So here are some select photos from our trip to paradise.

We got married on this date:


My sister, Sooz, rules, and rented the awesomest house on the ocean in the Wailea/Makena area of Maui (southwestern side). This was the view out the bedroom window in the morning:


Here is one of our best men, one of our best girls, and me, right after the ceremony, just hangin' loose:


And here is my daddy and me, after the ceremony. We were waiting for our lunches to show up. This photo makes my heart bigger. Just look at the look on his face! Isn't he handsome?


(There will be better recapping than this in the future, I promise).

Before the ceremony, we drove to the town of Paia. It's really one of my favorite places in the whole world. I feel like I could live there, only I don't surf and it's a surfer town. But the shops! And the atmosphere! William spotted Don Nelson, the Golden State Warriors coach.I had no idea who he was or that the Golden State Warriors was even a pro team.:

While there, we stopped at this overlook where you can watch the surfers catch the waves. We took a ton of photos, but this was apparently William's favorite:


This was often the scene when we were yawning, full from seared ahi tuna, and full of sun:

It looked a lot like this the night of our ceremony, when we flew from Maui to Kauai, our honeymoon spot.

While in Kauai, we saw a lot of these (and yes we have a T-shirt we want to make):


Sometimes they were looking for a lift:


Mobile little fellows.

Our second day on the island, we took a helicopter ride. I was afraid I'd be anxious since I hate flying, but I found that I loved being in a helicopter. I felt safer in that than a big ol' airplane. William and I dug our headphones.


Once we got in the heli, we saw some amazing sights: the rainest point int he world (400 inches a year!), Mt. Wai 'ale 'ale, the Na Pali coast, waterfalls upon waterfalls upon waterfalls, mountains green with plant life, and a hideaway home for the people who own most of the land on Kauai. This was a typical view:


Seriously, it was enough to bring a tear to my eye. I know my jaw was hanging open the whole time. I have never done anything like that before, and never seen world with that view, besides in coffee table books. I was living a coffee table book!

Also the second day we were there, we spotted this tree. Later, we asked our groundskeeper what it was (we explained where we had seen it on the road). We were totally in love with the tree... and he said it's called The Wedding Tree! How appropriate! I wish I could have one of these at home.



And another one for good measure, because come on. That is a stunner of a tree. We just caught the final blooms...a couple days later, it was all leaves. Just one of a couple things that felt especially made for us.



Yes, that's me under the tree.

We drove up to the north shore, home of gorgeous beaches, multi-million-dollar abodes, expensive gas and food, and, also, a slice of pure heaven.

We checked out Hideaways beach, which you have to descend several flights of concrete stairs to get to. There we found this landscape:



The beach was soft, coarse sand, so it brushed off super easily (my fave!), and there were tons of false kamani trees (not fake, FYI, it's the name), which have tons of shade (this girl needs shade) and gnarly roots which are perfect for putting your beach bag against as a pillow.)There will be more photos to come of it.

We also saw the lighthouse, which is the furthest point north in Hawaiian islands.


We also did a hike, which I was NOT prepared for. It was hard, strenuous, slow going. I was seriously hurting. And crabby. The guidebook did not mention the difficulty of it, while it had three paragraphs on how difficult it ws to get to Hideaways beach (not hard at all). We didn't have enough water and it was hot. Anyway. All of the photos pretty much show me pissed, although there were a couple high points--ha, ha, HIGH points?--including a view of Bali Hai.


This was when I was feeling somewhat accomplished (little did I know how much was yet to come):

This was later:


And even later:


On the south side, where we were staying, we saw Spouting Horn, a beach/park with this neat little explosion/attraction:


And we got to spot a very endangered species, the monk seal. Talk about cute!


William took a lot of photos:


I mostly goofed around:


Then one night we checked out the sunset on the South side:


It was romantic, but William hates lip gloss:


I love this man:


More to come! Sooner hopefully rather than later. Try to get those ceremony photos tomorrow.