More of Hawaii than I wanted to see

Let's talk about naked shall we? Specifically naked people I didn't want to see. Specifically naked people I did not want to see in Hawaii. Because I encountered way too many naked people on our trip.

First there was the red sand beach. The red sand beach was amazingly beautiful. The rich reds of the sand and the cliffs and the bright blues of the water. See how beautiful it is:

We had to hike along a sea cliff to get to red sand beach. The hike was pretty and that picture was taken just before we turned the corner to the red sand beach. When we did turn the corner we were startled, not by the brilliance of the colors, but by the naked man sunbathing on the beach! On conversation went something like this:

Andi: Ben! There's a naked man down there!

Ben: (Double take) Are you sure it's a man? (We were still pretty high up from the beach)

Andi: Yes it's a man. He has no boobs.

Ben: Well, do you want to go back?

Andi: No, I don't want to go back. I am not letting a naked man ruin my red sand beach.

So we went on down to the beach where the atmosphere was understandably tense. People weren't really talking. There was a wide area of empty beach around the naked man. No one was swimming I wanted a picture of the beautiful beach but not the naked man, so I made Ben stand in such way that he blocked the naked man. While I was positioning Ben, I noticed the topless woman off to the side. What is going on?! There was way too much nakedness! It ruined red sand beach for us. Now when we look at this picture of the beautiful red beach here is what we are thinking:

(Click to enlarge)

As soon as it started raining most of us took it as an excuse to leave the revealing beach and head to more modest views.

Which is when we ran into our next bought of too much skin. We headed to a waterfall down the road. There was one spot left to pull off the road and Ben had to back into it. As he was backing in I looked over to see a man standing between me and his car with a towel wrapped around his waist changing clothes! This would have been fine if I didn't see him drying between his butt cheeks! Or if I didn't have to stand near him to tell Ben how close he was to backing into the tree. Butt, whatever! At least he had a towel.

We walked over to the waterfall and it's was very lovely. Here's a picture of me being silly in front of it:


Looking back, that's an appropriate expression since once we walked closer to the falls we saw a large man swimming in the pool. A man that we aren't sure was clothed. There was just a whole lot of peach in that water. We had learned our lesson and left. We didn't want to be around to see if he was wearing clothes.

Jet Lag

It's 2:00 am and I can't sleep. It's 9:00 pm in Hawaii so I should be at least a little sleepy but I have been up for the last 2 hours. Today's 8 am meeting at work is going to suck.

We went snorkeling while we were in Hawaii. That was one thing that Ben and I both wanted to do on our honeymoon. We went about 5 times.


I was surprised at how easy it was to snorkel. I am not a very confident swimmer but I had no problems. Plus, I looked so hot in the snorkel gear, I just had to keep up appearances.


Ben and I were very cautious snorkelers. We don't really know the ocean that well and we didn't think drowning on our honeymoon would make for a happy story. So we stuck close to shore and swam in short burst. We still saw some crazy cool fish, a sea turtle and a reef shark. Well Ben saw the shark. He didn't tell me about it until we got out of the water because of how I reacted when I saw the turtle. I got so excited about it and was so worried that Ben was going to miss it that my body went into convulsions and I ripped the snorkel tube right out of Ben's mouth trying to get his attention. Ben thought for sure that there was a shark about to attack us, but no, the sea turtle was just swimming away.

We didn't get any pictures of the turtle or the shark because we took all our pictures the first two times we went out. We took the pictures of any fish we saw, not knowing that the cool fish were yet to come. So instead of iridescent fish and brightly stripped fish, we have pictures of fish like this:
Boring gray fish. But, whatever.

We didn't get eaten by a shark, I didn't drown Ben, and we got some fun pictures of each other. You can't ask for more.

Home Again

We're back! We had a wonderful time in Hawaii, the hurricane didn't affect our plans one bit! We had great weather and a lot of adventures. I plan on writing about parts our trip later on. Some of the most interesting parts of the trip came from the people we met during it. Here a couple of the highlights:

• The man checking out another woman while bike riding behind his wife. He suddenly remembered that he was newly married and jerked his head around and fingered his wedding band.
  
• The honeymooning couple who got in a heated argument because he obviously didn't know how to take a picture of the waterfall and needed her detailed guidance. That one hit a little too close to home for Ben and I.
  
• The woman bitterly complaining about how she just couldn't get a good steak on Kauai like she can in Chicago. Maybe because we are, I don't know, in the middle of the pacific and you really should try the fish instead. It's amazing.
  
• The man explaining to us that we had taken his family's helicopter spaces and they had to take the less preferred copter. I might have felt bad if he had booked his flight 2 weeks in advance like we had instead of just the day before... but I'm just heartless.
• The naked man sunbathing on the beach. The atmosphere was, needless to say, tense and we didn't stay long.

We had a blast and work will be hard to go back to tomorrow!

2 months - An open Letter to my Husband

Ben,

We have been married for 2 months now. 2 whole months! And we haven't killed each other! I'm good mostly because you let me steal the covers while I sleep. Thanks.

Tomorrow we leave for our honeymoon. We aren't sure how far we will get, what with the hurricanes and the earthquakes and the locusts that are invading Hawaii, but we are going to get on a plane and leave this place. We both need a break. Who knows were we will end up, but I'm excited to go with you. We've never traveled together, so this should be interesting. If I get cranky - just throw some apple juice and graham crackers at my face and let me calm down.

We got to celebrate our marriage with everyone this past weekend. You have taught me a lot of things; the most important being that dancing is just being willing to make a fool of yourself. I saw a new side of you this weekend on that dance floor. You are a crazy man! But oh so much fun. I am glad you got to do the worm (does anyone have a picture of that?) and got others to join you in the worm competition. I think everyone had fun celebrating with us at the reception.

I am glad that you continue to date me even after we are married. Like that time you took me out to McDonald's for breakfast stole my heart all over again. I feel very valued and loved. Thank you.

I wish I could write more, but I need to go shove some juice boxes in your suitcase, just in case.

I love you,

Your Wife

What the crap?

A hurricane in Hawaii? How often does that happen?

Probably as often as Ben and I honeymoon there. We are supposed to leave Wednesday.

Sigh......

The Mississippi Squirrel Revival

Sometimes I'm not so good with the putting the words together and them coming out right

So that one post? Where I said some weddings were lame? Yeah. That one.

Poor choice of wording on my part. I was tired, cranky, stressed, blah, excuses, blah, blah. I shouldn't have said that and I'm sorry. When I said lame, I think I was thinking of that one wedding I went to when I was 8 where I didn't know anyone and was forced to sit on a hard pew. Yes. That wedding was lame to my 8 year old mind.

But most weddings I have been to have been at least entertaining.

Dancing at Andy and Allison's wedding.
TPing Nick and Beth's car.
Catching up with friends at Emily and Brian's wedding.
Convincing people not to eat the wedding cake before Aubrey and Chris got there.

Good weddings and not lame at all.

Moving on...

So this weekend was my Grandma's 80th birthday party. AND WE DIDN'T BRING OUR CAMERA! I know. I suck as a blogger.

We all gathered at Meadow Lake Resort which is less resort-like and more state park campground-like. I am sure the place was in it's hey-day in the 1960's before water parks were really big. It has a small "lake" that houses many water activities that I think were outlawed in the 1990's but are pretty darn fun! It has metal water slides, tug of war platforms and diving platforms. Oh and mud and rocks! It was pretty fun swimming there. I think what made it enjoyable was the slight element of danger. Like at any moment the lifeguard was going to blow the whistle and tell us to stop having fun and just sit in the water already! But he didn't. He just kept flirting with the pretty blonde girl!

It was nice to see my family and catch up as well. The theme for this party was a Luau. (Well actually the theme was a Lu-wow because my Grandma's name is Lu, but that seemed like too much to explain so I just typed Luau but here I am explaining it anyways...) Somehow they got my Grandma to wear a grass skirt, coconuts and do the limbo. I know! The camera already!

We all cooked out, played games and just talked. It was a good time and a nice break from wedding planning. I look forward to partying with them all next weekend too!

Edited: My mom sent me this pictures of the "lake". Doesn't that look like fun?

Thoughts on marriage

Our wedding celebration is in one week. One week! There are programs to print, gifts to buy and seating arrangements to make! So much to do!

I am understanding the importance of weddings now. I used think that, yeah, marriages are important, but do I really have to get dressed up and come watch you say your vows and give you a gift? What a drag. I've been to weddings that were very lame. Beautiful but lame. So there really isn't much incentive for going, except to maybe see friends but we can do that without the gift buying. Now I understand why weddings are so important for the couple. Why they want people there to celebrate with them. Why people SHOULD be there to celebrate with them.

I mean they are committing their lives to each other for LIFE. That's a pretty huge commitment. This is the one time where they will make a commitment and all of their family and friends should be there to support and encourage them. It's important to the couple that they are there.

I realized this when a lot of people let us know that they couldn't come to our wedding celebration. It was kind of hard not to take some of the regrets personally; to not think, "My wedding is less important than _____________?" Some people couldn't make travel arrangements and some weren't even in the country, but others, just didn't even try. And it may be very selfish of me, but it bothered me. So now I know. When I get a wedding invitation, I should feel honored. They want me to celebrate the beginning of their marriage with them. I shouldn't see it as an obligation; the event is not about me, it's about them! I should try my best to attend their wedding and encourage them. I certainly shouldn't blow it off; they took the time to invite me and I should take the time to try and attend.