Honeymoon....wish we were still there!

Hi Everyone,

Sorry I've been a bit of a delinquent blogger. I am obviously new to the blog world and haven't gotten into my blog groove yet....wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that I have about 100 more thank you cards to write and I feel like I've been working 24/7 since getting back. Anyway, boo hoo, poor me....alright, on to the good stuff.

So, I finally wanted to post some of our honeymoon pics (G-rated only...haha, just kidding!) so that everyone can see how AMAZINGLY beautiful Hawaii was. We had such a wonderful time and have decided that we need to make it at least a semi-annual trip, if not more. I think part of the reason it was so great was because Hawaiians are about as extreme polar opposite to New Yorkers as you can get (duh, right?). Everyone is so laid back and easygoing, no stressing out or worrying about being late....kind of a culture shock for the two of us :).

We left California on Sunday evening (1 Day Married...woohoo!) and made it through the airport security without a hitch, which, if any of you have ever traveled with me, can definitely understand how relieved I was. The flight to Maui was unexpectedly LONG! I guess both Matt and I were kind of picturing a map of the US where Hawaii is in the bottom left-hand corner, super-imposed onto the open ocean of the Pacific, but very close to California....um, yeah, not quite. What I assumed would be a 3 maybe 3 1/2 hour flight ended up being about 5 hours and 45 minutes. Now, it's not that I'm not used to long flights....in the month prior I flew 5 1/2 hours to California from New York and 8 hours from New York to Italy, it's just that when you are expecting to be stuck in the middle seat of a completely full airplane for only 3 hours, over 5 can seem like an eternity! We did get to witness the most beautiful sunset via plane ever, which definitely put us in the vacation mood.

The airport we flew in to was about a 45 minute drive from the hotel, so we got our rental car and set out. By the time we got to the hotel, checked in and put our stuff in the room it was about 9:45 and we were famished. We went downstairs to go check out the hotel restaurant and were stopped by the front desk people asking us where we were going at this time of night. "At this time of night?? I'm usually still rehearsing and Matt's at work! It's EARLY!" Unfortunately, not early for Hawaiians. The restaurant closes at 10, but since no one was there, they closed at 9:30. WHAT!!! We need food! We ended up spending our first night in Hawaii walking to a 24 hour grocery store (after the front desk people exhausted all other ideas of any restaurants being open at this ridiculously late hour) and buying sushi and other snacks. That night we opted out of setting an alarm and ended up waking up the next morning 15 minutes before breakfast was over. We were not doing so hot on the food front thus far. No problem, though, we threw on our swimsuits, ran downstairs and made it right in the nic of time. We spent the whole day hanging out by the pool, drinking some fabulous frozen drinks (Lava Flow - I strongly recommend it!) and planning out the rest of our week with the concierge. We also got to see another amazing sunset as well as the lighting of the tiki torches around the resort.

The next day (Tuesday) we had made plans to go snorkeling from Lahaina Harbor. We had to get up super early and be down at the harbor to get ready to go out on the boat. The boat was one of those small pontoon speed boats and there were only about 15 people on board including the awesome female captain and first mate. We started out and everything was going great! The water was the most beautiful blue and we even found a school of about 100 dolphins that surrounded our boat. As we were sitting out in the middle of the ocean taking pictures of all the dolphins, I started getting that all too familiar feeling in my stomach....had I really forgotten that I have the most terrible motion sickness of anyone I know!!??!! I immediately had to sit down and tried to focus and find my chi, anything to not get sick on the boat. We finally started moving again and I was starting to feel a little better, or so I thought. All of a sudden I lurched foward and was hanging my head off the side of the boat, not, of course, before asking if it was ok for the dolphins if I got sick in the ocean. My wonderful new husband decided to take the opportunity to get the camera, he knew I would want to document this experience. :) We finally stopped at our first snorkeling site and I was assured that once I got into the water I would feel much better.  On hearing that, I threw on my mask, snorkel and fins and jumped right in.  About 10 minutes in, we were a few hundred feet from the boat looking at all of the beautiful coral and trying to scope out some sea life, when I couldn't hold it in any longer and "fed the fish." It was quite an experience, let me tell you!  At least we had plenty of fish to look at after that!  Once I got back on the boat, I decided it would probably be best if I just lay down and rest for the next few hours that we would be out on the open ocean. As far as I know, Matt had a fabulous time the rest of the trip and was able to see a bunch of really cool stuff. 

The rest of the week was far more uneventful and wonderfully relaxing.  We got to experience our first Hula Show (at the Lahaina Canary Mall of all places), our first Luau (I even got up onstage and learned a hula dance!), an amazing dance show called Ulalena, lei making, tons of eating, sleeping, swimming and sunning!!!  All in all, it was a fantastic honeymoon with my favorite person ever!!!