Aloha Friday: 10 Year Anniversary

Aloha! It's Friday!

This past February, Scott and I celebrated 10 years of marriage. The years have gone by so fast and have been filled with so many adventures. And yet, I remember that special day (02-02-02) and the 10-day honeymoon to Maui very, very well.



Old Lahaina Luau, Lahaina, Maui

The weeks leading up to our wedding were exciting. Beyond the wedding planning, bachelorette trip to Disneyland, and the stress of having to find a NEW wedding gown and dress for my mom just days before the wedding (that's another post for another time), my beloved Raiders were in the play-offs.

Superbowl was February 3 that year, the day after our wedding, the day we were leaving for Maui. My heart is pounding in my chest, just remembering the excitement and nervousness I felt. What was I going to do if the Raiders went to the Superbowl and I was stuck on a plane high above the ocean? I know you're laughing, but this was really a serious concern for me, and for Scott. I'd never missed a Raider game whether it was on TV or we were at the game, and now I might miss the biggest game of the year. So we made this plan: buy NFL Aloha shirts and drive as fast as possible to the nearest sports bar as soon as we landed in Maui.

But, then stupid Tom Brady, the referees and that ridiculous "tuck rule" booted my Raiders out of the AFC championship and I no longer had to worry about missing the biggest game of my life. (side note: the Raiders went to the Big Game in 2003, and my mom and I got to go!)

Anyway, back to the wedding and honeymoon. After our last dance to the "Hawaiian Wedding Song", we began our honeymoon. When we arrived at our condo the next afternoon, my heart fell. I'd stayed here before. In 1988 with my family. And while we were on that trip, my grandpa had died. It wasn't a memory I wanted ro relive on my honeymoon, but guess what? I did. A few days later, I got sick with bronchitis. And somewhere along there, our house in California sold and we would have to move out within 12 days of our return. My parents emailed us photos of houses they looked at for us and to view them, we went to the weirdo neighbors in the condo next door. They were an older couple, both professors of some sort, and both wore coke-bottle black-rimmed glasses. I don't think Mrs. Weirdo had bought a new outfit since 1965

But we had fun, too! We spent a night in Hana in this quaint bed-and-breakfast with floors made from coconut wood. The "town" itself was closed because of a funeral. That was so weird to us big-cty Californians. Now, having lived in North Dakota, it makes sense to us. Little towns are just that way whether on the prairie or on the islands. Then we did the unthinkable. We took our rental car and drove around the "forbidden" side of the island where the roads are really, really bad. Technically we violated our rental car agreement, but if you dont' tell, I won't either.

We did a lot of snorkeling and even snorkeled off Molokini, a volcanic crater just off the island. We swam with turtles and heard whales calling each other on that snorkel trip.

We went on these lava field hikes to snorkel along the under-water lava reefs and swim in the olivine pools.

 And we had side-by-side massages oceanside.



Oh, those were the days...