The Last of the Pictures

I've finally gotten around to posting the last of our Hawaii pictures. We'll have to get back someday to take some more. It was such a fun trip, and I recommend it to everybody! I would say that everybody should come visit us when we move there, but I don't know if there will be room in the 500 sq foot studio that we'll be able to buy for the price of our current house... :-)

Cathy and Steph reminisce about grad school.
Steph gave this flower to Cathy- it smelled wonderful! Cathy kept it and pressed in in one of her books. You can still kind of smell it.
Steph boggles at the idea that we're even considering going home, having seen Hawaii!
Kirk models the gorgeous leis that Steph gave us before she left. They smelled wonderful!

Friday Part II: The Backwards Edition!

It's the backwards edition! We're starting at the end of the day and ending at the beginning.

The bride rocks out to Karaoke at the Karaoke Hut! We had a private room complete with disco ball!

Kirk even got into the action!




Such an activity required liquid courage! Here's Cory, Jill, and Lisa.

Kirk and Cathy at Karaoke. They're totally awake.


Cathy's salad at the rehearsal dinner- after she had eaten as much as she could without exploding.


Out of order REMIX! The spam sushi lovingly made and delivered to karaoke by the bride's mother.

Kirk and one of his library buddies at the rehearsal dinner.
One of the appetizers at the rehearsal dinner. It's sashimi, or raw strips of seafood. It was pretty good, but a bite was enough.
Cathy's GINORMOUS dinner salad. Gordon Biersch is on top of the bucket 'o salad idea. Her hand is there for reference to the size. It was really good.

Cathy models...something...at the Botanical gardens.

A pineapple!

Really pretty flowers!

Look out!
Here's the cannonballs. Cathy thought they were coconuts and got really confused. The tour guide said that a falling cannonball could kill a person, and if they did not die, they'd wish they were dead because they smell so bad.

These were everywhere.

This is a tulip tree. The flowers look a lot like tulips.

Another shot of the tulip tree.

After the botanical garden, we realized that we'd walked awfully far and decided to go back by bus. We got to see a bit of Honolulu (and its traffic) this way. We checked when we got back to the hotel- we'd walked 4.9 miles. I'm glad we decided to take the bus back.

We're still having a great time. It's hard to believe that is is nearly over. :(

Up next: The Sunset Dinner Cruise, the wedding, and the North Shore!

We made it!

...wow, what a long flight! It was nearly two hours from Wichita to Houston and eight hours from Houston to Honolulu. The flight was pretty uneventful. We were amused at the meal we were served- microwaved pizza served in a bag. In . A. Bag. Plus iceberg lettuce and a cookie. Later we were given a snack- a turkey sandwich and baby carrots. Gas Station and Whole Foods Market on same flight! But we made it here just fine. We got in around 2 (Hawaii time) and have been running ever since.

Sarah the Wonder Dog knew something was up- hopefully she forgives us.



It smells like heavenly flowers here. We stepped outside the airport and were just stunned with how wonderful it smelled. Mmmmm. It is worth the trip for the beauty and smell alone.


We took a quick nap once we got in. Our hotel is pretty nice! We have a balcony with a decent view. We already are regretting renting a car for the whole week. Everything is near our hotel, and we could have rented a car for a day trip or two rather than the whole week and been fine. Live and learn!

Here's the view from our balcony.

Since we came all the way out here, we had to try the most authentic Hawaii cuisine the first night....

Tony Roma's, of course!

...well, maybe not exactly 'authentic Hawaiian cuisine', but we did eat there. It was the first place we saw and hey, we were tired and hungry. The baked potato soup was as good as ever.

After we ate, we took a walk to the beach. It's a very short walk from our hotel, and we walk through a very pretty park.

Kirk stalks the wild gorilla, careful not to be noticed.

The ocean is very peaceful. Cathy is communing with it here...feel the calm blue ocean...*soothing waves*
Kirk blends in!
We did not build this, but let's pretend we did.

I wish we could get these things to grow in our yard.
And these birds of paradise!



We stayed long enough to watch the sunset, then back to our hotel. We can't wait until tomorrow- there's so much to do!

Our hotel at night.

We'll update again tomorrow!