Honeymoon, Sunday - Tuesday

So I'm finally blogging about the honeymoon! We had such a good time. Chad is a really good planner, and so the honeymoon was planned very well and everything went smoothly. I was consistently amazed and continue to be amazed by how wonderful it was. We got over a week of what I had been wanting for months and months--time to spend together, just Chad and me. And then on top of that, we were in a breathtakingly beautiful place and we did a lot of really fun things.

At the time I thought I did a pretty good job of recording where we went and what we saw, but as I look through the pictures now, there seems to be a lot of pictures of US and not quite as many pictures of HAWAII. :) But I figure that's okay, because it shows what we were focused on: each other! :) Which I figure isn't such a bad thing. I know I am very, very spoiled to be able to have gone to Maui and Oahu for my honeymoon--but even more than that, I am spoiled to have such a selfless husband as Chad.

Okay, so after our luncheon on Saturday Chad took me to a beautiful bed and breakfast in Midway. Our room was the "Mount Timpanogos" room and had an awesome view of the back of Mt. Timpanogos. It was super, super nice. Here's a picture of us in the back yard of the bed and breakfast:

And here's a picture of me on the deck attached to our room, with the view of the mountain in the back. We weren't talented enough to take a picture of ourselves with the mountain also in the background, so that's why Chad's not in the picture.

We had to leave earlier than when breakfast was served, so we could catch our flight to Maui, and so we asked them if we could eat our breakfast early. After we asked them they acted as though nothing would be cooked by then and it would just be granola bars and yogurt or something, but it turned out to be a super good breakfast with toast, eggs, ham, fruit, etc.! I wonder what the normal breakfast is like then!

After our delicious breakfast we drove home, where Karen met us to pick us up and drive us to the airport. We are so grateful for Karen, she always drives everyone to the airport. The flight to Maui went well. We read and watched the shows and just chatted, and it went by pretty fast. When we were walking through the airport to baggage claim, a lady walking by us asked us if we were on our honeymoon, and we said yes, and she said, "You can tell!" After we laughed a little sheepishly, she said, "Oh, but it's a good thing. It gives the world hope." :)

When we were walking toward the baggage claim, there was a Hawaiin lady there to call our names and give us our leis of real flowers (see below, I'm not sure what they are called). They were so pretty! I felt so special and important.

And then Chad surprised me with a convertible at the rent-a-car place! It was a Chrysler Sebring. It was so fun to have the top down and be able to look all around at the beautiful surroundings. And we were blessed with such great weather! The weather forecasts said it was going to rain all week, but it only rained once, and so we almost always had the top down whenever we drove anywhere. Needless to say, I never straightened my hair! It went really curly there--more pictures to come. Also, we got the same kind of car in Oahu, but it was dark blue instead of light blue. We didn't take a picture of either of them with their tops down, but here is our first convertible with its top on:

We then drove back to the hotel, which was right on the beach, walked on the beach by our hotel, went to dinner at a really yummy Thai restaurant, and then went to Wal Mart to get some groceries for our trip. By that evening we were really tired and went to bed very early. We went to bed early and woke up early all week!

I didn't take any pictures on Monday, but here's what we did: We got up early and drove to a hike at the southern tip of the island. The drive was really pretty, by all these super ritzy resorts which we later walked to several times. The hike was on this newly formed lava on the rim of La Parouse Bay. The views there were amazing, with the white water crashing against the black lava at several places, and the green green hills of the volcano in the background were such a pretty contrast to the black lava. When I realized I forgot my camera, I said, "Audra's going to kill me for not bringing my camera here!" :)

We snorkeled in a few places off the trail, and we got to see some really cool fish. My first snorkeling! It was so fun, Chad is such an awesome teacher. The last place we snorkeled on this hike is known as "The Acquarium," and that's what it felt like! We saw all sorts of different kinds of fish there.

Later that day we also went to one of those places that sells tickets and we scheduled a helicopter ride for Wednesday and a boat ride for Friday, which we got for a lot less money because we agreed to go to one of those timeshare pitches.

On Tuesday we went on a walk on the beach in the morning and then drove up to western Maui where the timeshare pitch was. It was in a SUPER nice resort on a SUPER nice beach and it was really fun to be there and get a tour, even though it was a little awkward to go there as uninterested as we were and yet try to seem somewhat interested. Luckily the person assigned to sell us the timeshare was quite eager to get off work and told us right away that we probably don't have enough money in our budget to invest in a timeshare like this, and so why don't we walk quickly through the hotel so we can both go home. Haha! It was perfect. Plus, we got a free lunch out of it!

After that we went to Lahaina, an old whaling town that is now super touristy with a boardwalk and shops everywhere and people walking along the streets. Very fun. In the middle of the town there is this old banyan tree that is HUGE--its branches go down into the earth as root-looking-things. You can see how wide it is, because the branches I am standing next to come from the trunk behind me. Super cool.

And of course when we got home we went on a walk along the beach, because that's what we did almost every night. So, so pretty. I'll post pictures of the beach and of our resort in my next blog on the honeymoon. I'll probably do two more blogs on the honeymoon--one covering Wednesday and Thursday, and one covering Friday through Sunday. I hope I won't bore you all to tears, but if I do, just stop reading! :) Love you all!