Category: honeymoon

Hi!

I’ve had about a zillion emails in the last day (singular) telling me that we should be back and asking where all of the photos were. 🙂 Yee!

We ARE back, the wedding WAS happy and perfect, and the honeymoon WAS idyllic. So, yay. 🙂 I’ve back tracked back and filled in much of the last three weeks, and then I’ll continue to write as we upload photos and think of new things to say. 🙂

I’m so happy to be back in Seattle. Kevin went to the grocery store today, and the climes are getting summery, and it’s just lovely. I love being here. Can’t wait to post more. Yay!

added on Saturday the 16th:
P.S. I’ve gotten a swarm of emails from people who think my blog is broken because they keep getting batches of posts at a time in their RSS feeder.

It’s not broken, I’m just deficient. 🙂 So many people post every day, and spoil the rest of us. I seem to save up posts over many days, and then post in batches. (It reminds me of when we had to write journals for whatever subject in high school. I’d procrastinate and procrastinate, and then spend an entire weekend writing a quarter’s worth the day before they were due.) Some things don’t change. Sorry that I don’t seem to get with the program, but I’m not in the mood to write every day (especially after writing all day at work), and so this seems to work better. 🙂

To those who DO post daily, thank you! I click and read through — it’s my lunchtime treat.

Woohoo! And, we’re here! They gave us both leis (Me: orchids; Kevin: nuts) when we arrived. Here’s Kevin in his:

For the first five days of the honeymoon, we stayed at the Fairmont Kea Lani in Wailea on Maui. It was the first resort experience for both of us. Mad fun, despite the price. The sun rises a bit before six, and sets slightly after seven, so we actually kept 7 am – 8 pm hours for most of the trip. This was a major change for me, but it kept seeming like everything we wanted to do happened early in the day. We did yoga overlooking the bay on the first day, and then snorkeled all of the remaining mornings. The fish were amazing. So much bigger than we expect given our aquarium-trade view of things, and watching the fish school was incredible. We saw three days’ worth of green turtles, which was a delight. They are so purposeful and elegant. Several approached us, which verged on the creepy to me — they’re big! I was also deeply amused by their behaviour at the surface. They come up for a few minutes — Kevin’s theory was to re-oxygenate. While they’re up, they hang at the surface, with their heads down and looking around. It reminded me so much of our posture while snorkeling that it was hard to believe that they weren’t imitating/mocking us. 🙂 (“Kick, kick, look, look…. nah! The view’s better down there.”) When they dove down, which many people have compared to flying, they were so stately until they reached a rock or the sand. Those shells and flippers really aren’t so manuverable. But it was interesting to see a *turtle*, of all things, being so expressive. The first one we saw was being hounded by other ignorant/enthusiastic snorkelers (which is a. illegal and b. rude and terrible). He swam to the two of us to surface (we kicked back away — a large thing to be coming right at you!) and then marveled at him as he continued to regard us, then flapped away along the reef. The face was amazing. On the third day, several turtles with many more options, and no antagonism from roudy humans, continued to approach us as they surfaced. Back on the beach, someone said that they’d been watching a turtle approach them, just stayed put, and the turtle came and gave a little head-butt to their mask before finding better things to do… (is anyone else reminded, yet again, of Finding Nemo?)

On our second snorkeling day, we saw three large (25-35 ish) schools of me-sized silver fish. They weren’t sharks, but I was still deeply freaked. Given how closely they schooled, I was afraid that they would be the feeder fish for something truly enormous. Kevin said that their mouths weren’t big enough for harm, but I felt like their fins and mere presence was sinister. Back on shore, assorted guides suggested that they might be jacks (too round), or ava/bonefish (too small). Just from pictures, I’m wondering if they might be tarpon? I’ll continue to investigate…

And since this is a photo-lite post, here’s a picture of me knitting out on a lanai during sunset on the Big Island. Yay, vacation. 🙂

… both in the comments, in person, and by email. You’re all an amazing resource.

As an addendum to the last post, I’m sorry for the slow responses to your comments. I managed to randomly sprain my right wrist last weekend, and since then everything (brushing my teeth, lifting glasses of water or tea, driving, writing, reading, and predictably, typing) has been a challenge. Some coworkers scared me into thinking that I had RSI (repetitive stress injury — common forms of this are carpal tunnel, “tennis elbow” and assorted versions of tendinitis). I went to the doctor, who confirmed it was a sprain. I’ve never been so excited to have a one-to-four week injury. RSI would be plausible, giving my 7-11 hours a day on the computer and that knitting habit. It would also be wildly career- and life-limiting. About a third of the people I work with have permanent nervous injuries that prevent them from typing, gardening, using knives for dinner prep or forks for eating, driving, etc. I’m always pretty neurotic about ergonomics and taking frequent breaks, but this has been a good reminder to be vigilant.

That said, in the interest of healing, I’ve been typing and writing as little as possible. A friend lent me the Hawaii guidebook that she used for her honeymoon. I’ve been soaking it up, but it’s hard not to make lists of cool things as I read. Instead, I bought some of those little tabs (I love office supplies) and have been merrily sticking them.

Yellow is “things to do”, red is “things to avoid” (samples are rain, cold, and shark-infested waters), blue is maps, and green is interesting information (did you know that Mauna Loa, the biggest mountain on the Big Island, is 100 times the volume of Mount Rainier? Crazy!). I’ll summarize them in written form once I have my writing hand back. It’s a pity that I’m so right handed — my coordination on my left side is embarrassingly limited.

It’s seeming like we’re narrowing things down to Maui and the Big Island. A volcano is too cool not to visit, and the Maui snorkeling seems exciting. This site was a find. Oahu sounds so nice, but I suspect that we’d be frustrated by the crowds, traffic, and homogenization. Kauai looks beautiful, but very remote and not quite touristy enough, if that makes sense. I have a fear of showing up somewhere where they expect you to prepare food and entertain yourself — while that’s ideal at home, it’s not quite what I’m going for on this trip. Any disagreements?