Forever!!!

I know it's been forever since I've posted about what's going on in our lives, so this is my promise to get back on the blog circuit and update our blog - just not today. :-) There is so much to update on with Baby Carter, so as soon as I have the energy to sit at the computer for a time when I'm not working, I'll try to get up to speed on everything that's been going on with us since we came home from Hawaii. But we're happy, we're healthy, baby Carter is growing strong (I'm at 20 weeks 3 days today) and we're so excited to be parents. I'll post ultrasound pictures and belly pictures to get up to speed on everything some time this weekend (I hope). All the love, and until then - Krista

Final Week of the Honeymoon

I know it's been well over a week since my last blog, and I apologize for the complete drop-off in blogging the details about the honeymoon, while still on the honeymoon. We had been having such a great time doing a whole lot of nothing for a week that we realized we were running out of time to see the sights and be active! So we filled our days pretty full with things to do from sun up until sun down, and by the end of the night, the last thing I wanted to do when we got back to our rooms was pick up the computer and blog. Sorry! I was just soo exhausted! And since we were rushing out of the room every morning, I didn't have time in the morning. I kinda knew that once I decided to blog every day about the honeymoon, that blogging EVERY day would get difficult, but I was determined to do my best and stay current. I made it one week, which I think is still pretty good!

So, now that we're home, we're rested, we're used to the time change again (kind of) and we have our Wiley Bear back with us, life is good, and I can finish out the blog and let everyone know what we did our final week in Hawaii. Instead of doing a post for every day, I'm just going to run all of the days here together in one final post. So I'll try to keep everything as smooth as possible, but I said "try" so don't kill me if it is confusing. :-)

So, Friday was our 8th day, I believe, and Mike hadn't golfed yet. He was itching to golf, and I was itching to get my nails done. So we hung out by the pool in the morning and had some lunch, and Mike headed off to golf 18 holes while I had some "me" time. I stayed by the pool for a few hours and finished reading another book, "The Associate" by John Grisham. Great book, I'd recommend it for any Grisham lovers. I've now read I think all of his novels, except maybe one? A few days back I had finished reading "Belly Laughs" by Jenny McCarthy, which was a book given to me by my great friend Danyelle, because it's all about pregnancy but in a funny way. Jenny McCarthy does not hold anything back, and it's a funny read for any new mommy-to-be. Anyway, back to Friday....

So I finished up my Grisham book out by the pool, and by this time, I gotta say, I'm loving my tan! Poor Mike was already peeling but had been able to hold onto some of his color, but he was still loading up on the sunscreen so he didn't turn lobster.

After the afternoon by the pool I headed out for a pedi/mani down the street at the Lahaina Cannery Mall. When I was in Maui three years ago, just a few months before I met my dear husband, actually, I found this nail shop and decided I'd go back this time around. As I'm typing this, I'm sitting here thinking to myself, wow, I can't believe, to this day, that I actually paid $45 for a pedicure. BUT, I just reminded myself, because I somehow forgot, that I actually got a manicure that day too! So, I guess $45 for a pedi/mani isn't such a raw deal after all. I probably would've paid around $40 in Irvine, so I guess it's not that much more expensive.

After my "me" time, Mike finished up golfing at the same time so we decided to freshen up and head out for dinner. While we had been staying at the Westin, the first half of the trip, we had noticed that they had an Italian restaurant we wanted to try out. We decided to head back to that Italian restaurant called Pulehu Grill and go for some Italian, since we were both Cancelleri's now and I fully embrace the Italian culture and its food!

Can I just say - the BEST garlic bread EVER! Wow, words can't even describe how much I love bread, and then to have such wonderful, tasty, yummy, warm, buttery garlic bread! Aaahhh! My mouth is just watering thinking about it now. We had such a yummy dinner, we are so glad we went back and Pulehu Grill did not disappoint!

Since we were back at the hotel we had gotten married at, we decided to walk down to our wedding spot and check it out just one last time. It was, of course, still windy as ever! If you go to Maui and don't want the wind, don't stay up by the Westin. If you are north of the black lava jutout point, which I think is where the Sheraton is located, it is sooo windy there! If you go south of that point, where we stayed the second half of our trip, down by Whaler's Village, no wind at all! It's amazing the difference!

Here's a picture of us at our wedding spot, standing in the spot we said our vows :-)

Okay, so we've never taken a picture of ourselves kissing, I promise. And this is probably the last time we'll do it. We smashed our noses together, it was awkward. We won't be putting ourselves in front of the camera again while trying to take our own picture - but it was fun just this once! (by the way, notice the lovely connect-the-dots zits on my cheek? Thanks pregnancy acne....that looks REAL GREAT in pictures!)

Me at the wedding spot....

This is the boardwalk I walked down to meet Mike. Right where the little right sign is on the right, is there you turn to the left and that's where Mike was waiting for me.

And of course, Mike had to show how athletic he was and how he's still 'got it' by climbing up a tree...he climbed up further than this, but the picture I took wasn't all that great....ask him how he got down :-)

So the next day was Saturday. Our busiest and longest day yet! But today marked one of the coolest days in history! We woke up and headed out nice & early (yep, we had to leave at 9 AM, yuck!). We got some breakfast and headed to the airport. Why were you going to the airport, you might ask? Well, because next to the airport is the heliport! And we were taking our helicopter ride!!! I was so excited to see Maui from above! But, I knew it would be a rough ride for me what with the queasiness and everything, but I actually did okay, and only felt like throwing up like twice. And since I didn't throw up, the it was a success! We had a lot of fun. So worth the money!!

We got shafted and had to sit in the back row with another couple while the tiny, little, 20 something couple that probably weighed only 200 pounds BOTH, together, when dripping wet, got to ride shotgun right next to the pilot. Not fair...however, we still had a great view of everything. The pilot was really awesome about doing 360 turns in the helicopter so everyone, from every seat in the helicopter, could see everything. Like if we came to a waterfall head on, he would still turn the helicopter all the way around so those of us in the back could see and get photos. He was a great pilot and explained a lot of the history about what we were seeing.

We opted for the 45-minute flight from Maui to Molokai (which is the closest neighboring island to the north side of Maui). We didn't know at the time, but apparently we were very lucky to see what we did, and to be able to get as close as we did to the waterfalls and some of the mountains, because there happened to be no clouds during our flight. The clouds are usually really thick over the mountains that are located in the middle of Maui so the pilot can't take people in to see much of anything, a lot of the times, but we were lucky enough to get right up next to the mountain and see everything up close with perfect weather!

This is a shot of Lahaina from above. The football field you see in the lower right corner of the picture was Lahaina's High School football field.

This is the coast off of Molokai. The water there is gorgeous! There's a huge sandbar off the coast, which is why you get the lighter shade of water, but if I had to describe it to you the way the pilot did, I'd be sitting here all day trying to remember what he said and trying to put it eloquently like he did. And that just ain't gonna happen :-)

This is one of those shots we were lucky to get. This valley is sometimes so covered thick with clouds and fog that you can't go near it, but we were lucky enough to get a clear shot the whole way through.

Coast of Molokai, the other side of the island, opposite of the sand bar side. The pilot, I think, he said this is the only steep cliff like this in Hawaii. Out of all of the islands, this is the cliff that's the highest and it just went straight down, at least I think I remember him saying that :-)

After our trip, the pilot is doing the shakabra (spelling?) outside the window. I was so queasy at this point, I just wanted to go pee and then sit down! But such a great time!!

My belly just looks fat and wrinkled here, not pregnant.

So, after our helicopter ride, since we were at the total opposite side of the island that we were staying on, we figured since we were already an hour into the drive to Hana, we might as well do the road to Hana drive the same day. Otherwise, there was going to be no other day we wanted to drive over to this side and do the long trek. Mike had done the road to Hana and didn't think it was all that great, but since I hadn't done it, for some reason we thought that is was just something that we just HAD to do. Boy, were we wrong!

For those of you who have been through the Provo canyon, up past Sundance resort, it's like driving on that road, for 2 1/2 hours, with just a few more trees and a little bit more green here and there. But it's windy, it's narrow, it's down to one lane at times, and it's BORING!!

And then, after the long ass drive, pardon my language kiddies, we get to Hana Bay and this is it! It's like 100 yards of beach with nothing but a bunch of locals barbecuing with their families and playing in the water. This is what we just drove almost three hours to see? I didn't realize that you drive to Hana to experience the ROAD, I thought we were driving to Hana to experience HANA. My mistake.

But, since we're here, we may as well make the best of it, right? Let's get something to eat and enjoy ourselves. So, we go to this little cafe that's right there by the beach and of course, they only accept cash, and we only have credit cards. We had used all our cash at this point and hadn't gone to the ATM left. Mike managed to scrounge together four bucks so I got a snow cone and with that we figured it was time to head back to town in time at least for dinner, and poor Mike would have to wait a few more hours to eat. And maybe I shouldn't have used the four bucks for a snow cone and should've gotten something with a little bit more substance? On the drive up though, we both had loaded up on Chex Mix and Sprite, so I wasn't in the mood for much food. I did want a hot dog though, but our four bucks could've bought about 3/4 of a hot dog. (Come to find out, I forgot that I had a $20 in my wallet from earlier in the week, so we both could've gotten lunch!)

So we headed our long trek down the 'fabulous and wonderful road to Hana'! Except it was now 'the freaking long ass road that we have to wind back down just to get to some real food, and didn't we just see all of this like an hour ago?' road.....

We also said, I guess we should take some pictures while were here, right? I guess we should capture this moment forever?! So, while Mike pulled over so I could pee, for about the 16th time that day, I took this picture of him in the car. By the way, I wouldn't recommend a three hour road when you're 13 weeks pregnant. Here's why. You have to pee like every 25 minutes. And it's not a tiny little tinkle tinkle. No, you have to pee like there's no tomorrow or you will wet yourself and the whole seat you're sitting on! And you have to keep drinking water, because you have to stay hydrated, so you just keep peeing, and it's a vicious cycle (at the end of the night we counted how many times I had peed that day, since we had to pull over at least four times for me, and from the time I woke up until the time I went to bed we counted like 17 - 18 times I had peed. Count how many times you pee in a day and tell me if it's anywhere NEAR 17 - 18? If so, you drink a looooot of water!)

Oh look it's a waterfall...I guess we should take a picture of it. Let's pull over and take a picture.....(can you sense the excitement in our voices at this point in time?)

The happy couple, getting the hell out of Hana!

So, we finally made it down the road, finally made it off the road, and were finally able to get something to eat. We stopped at the famous Mama's Fishhouse because everyone was raving about it, and Mike's dad had told us it was an amazing place to go with great food and we should go there if we could. Since we were driving right by it, we stopped for dinner. Poor Mike was starving at this point, we had eaten all of our Chex Mix and he just wanted some real food (I hadn't discovered the $20 in my wallet just yet). So into Mama's Fishhouse we went.

The restaurant itself is really cool, it's set up on a beach that's in this little tiny cove, and you have to walk down stairs just to get to the restaurant. There are no windows in the restaurant so you get a nice breeze coming in from the ocean (which also means you get the flies and gnats that want to eat your food), but what we forgot to ask about Mama's Fishhouse before we got there is what they served to eat? Oh, it's JUST fish you tell us? Oh, that's IT? What if we're not real, big fish eaters? And we're about two hours past the time we should've eaten?

Let's just say it was a huge disappointment after a long and tiring day. Mike and I decided to share the salmon, since it was the only fish on the menu I'd really ever heard of or tasted before in my life, and we figured it was safe. Mama's Fishhouse is great for those of you who love fresh fish. For those of ou who don't, stick to what you do know and avoid it.

We did stop outside for a self portrait of ourselves at dinner, becuase that's our tradition. So here's our nightly dinner picture.

On to Sunday!! Sunday was a whole bunch of nothing, really. We decided to head out early to Front Street and get some breakfast and we pretty much spent the whole day on Front Street in Lahaina. We found ourselves at Lahaina Pizza Company for lunch (we found ourselves there because I told Mike we were going there because I deserved a damn good piece of pizza at this point in time) so we settled in for lunch right when the Laker game was starting. Nice timing. We always seem to find ourselves in front of a TV when the Lakers are going to play! We finished up our pizza and decided to call it a day and head back to the hotel to watch the rest of the game. Yeah, we were calling it a day at 2 PM. I was exhausted and the pizza wasn't sitting well with me, which sucks because pizza is my favorite, but oddly enough the pizza didn't set well with Mike either. We both got tummy aches and felt sick so we gladly went back to the room to lie down and watch the game. I fell asleep somewhere in between the 2nd quarter and half time and woke up at the end of the game. Oops, missed the whole thing. But I was tired!!!

At this point, Mike was getting stir crazy and wanted to leave the room and my head was pounding, so I didn't feel like going anywhere. Mike went for a walk down to the beach and decided he'd walk a couple of miles while he was at it. After I thought someone had kidnapped my husband, he finally came back to the room and said he had a surprise for me. We headed off to the boardwalk and headed out for a stroll. Well, it wasn't really a stroll, it was a loooong walk to somewhere I didn't know, but he told me it'd be worth it. We passed like 15 hotels and a couple of restaurants on the way, so I knew we weren't going somewhere to eat, where could we be going? But he didn't want to tell me, he just wanted me to see for myself.

We finally came to a hotel and Mike stopped and said there it is! And right in front of me, the greatest thing I'd seen all week, was a hammock! I know, you're wondering, what? Who cares about a hammock?! Well, I care about a hammock! I told him the one thing I wanted to do while we were in Hawaii, well, one of the many things I wanted to do, was lie in a hammock with my honey and rock back and forth and listen to the ocean. But there were no hammocks to be found! But somehow my man found a hammock like a mile down from our hotel. It was the best!!! We rocked in the hammock and talked about our week, our future, our kids, our Wiley Bear and how much we missed him, and just enjoyed relaxing. It was awesome, I loved every minute of it!

Here's our picture for the night, of us in the hammock. (I promise I had clothes on).

After the hammock we decided it was time for dinner, we hadn't eaten in hours, so we walked back up to Whaler's Village and got some food. I loved the hammock! I miss the hammock right now! I want one for our backyard! I'll just have to get a CD with ocean waves crashing and then I can rock back and forth in my hammock and it'll be like we're in Maui all over again. Thank you for the hammock babe!!!

Monday was the next day. Our honeymoon was in the last few days of its life and everything was coming to an end. It was sad, but we were ready to come home and sleep in our own bed. Hotel beds suck! Monday we decided to spend the day out on the beach, instead of at the pool, since we hadn't really touched the sand much since we'd been there. We rented a little cabana/lounge chair thing that had two cushy lounge chairs and a cover over the top if you wanted to give yourselves a break from the sun, and it was right on the beach. We spent our whole day there in the sun, we did go in the ocean a few times, but I absolutely hate salt water and the one time it got in my mouth and I had to taste it, I was done with the ocean.

After a long day at the beach we headed into our rooms to get ready for our big dinner plans. Tonight was the night we cashed in our wedding gift from Mike's dad and step-mom and we went on our dinner cruise! (Thank you again Dan and Anita!) The cruise ship left at 5 from one of the slips in Lahaina and we were out there until the sun went down. We got paired up with a couple that was on their honeymoon from Chicago and they were a really nice couple. It's weird to have dinner with people, across the table from each other, when you don't know one another. Good thing they were cool people!

While we were on the dinner cruise we saw a rainbow. That means good luck! I was like, sweet, that means I'm not going to throw up and the ship isn't going to crash. Tonight will be a good night!

I got to wear my new dress that I picked up from White House Black Market the week before we left for Hawaii. I knew I'd be cold later so I wanted something with sleeves, but it was a little warm there for the first hour while the sun was still up!

The cruise was great, the dinner was really good, and we had a good time. The ship went all the way up to the north point of Lahaina and then back down. We had some people take our picture when the sun was going down behind us, but it didn't turn out well. You can't take a picture with the sun setting directly behind you. It just won't work.

While the boat was getting ready to dock and we were ending the night we snapped this picture of us on the side of the boat and this quickly has become one of my all-time favorite pictures of Mike. He didn't shave at all while we were in Hawaii and I LOVE his stubble growing in. And he has such a great smile, he looks sexy and adorable in this picture and I love it!!

The next day was Tuesday, and it was just a day of not doing a whole lot of anything. We headed out for a drive down the highway and I started to see brown smoke. I said to Mike, we've seen those kinds of clouds before, that's a fire. Sure enough, as we drove further down the highway, we ended up driving right into a fire that was on the very mountain we just flew over a couple of days previously in the helicopter. I took more pictures than this, but this is the first initial picture I took when I saw the brown clouds.

Luckily there wasn't too much damage done, and the fire grew quite a bit that day, but with the help of volunteer helicopters and an endless supply of water next to the island, they were able to put out the fire that night.

We didn't really do a whole lot for the next day and a half but just rest up and get ready for our time home. I wasn't feeling very good at all, and was really exhausted most of the day, so I did a lot of lying around and taking naps. Mike stayed busy with books and the laptop. Our honeymoon was coming to an end and maybe my body was just saying no, stay here!! At least that's what my mind was telling me!

Here's a picture I took of the view from our hotel room. We had a great view, even though it was a not so great room at all. We will still, forever and always, remember the Kaanapali Beach Hotel! Although we'll definitely remember the Westin a lot more fondly!

That's it folks, signing off on this way too long blog and that's our honeymoon all wrapped up! Thank you for reading and enjoying our blog, there will obviously be more to come! I'll post the wedding photos when we get them from the photographer, and stay tuned for baby updates! We have LOTS of those to post here as well!

With love, The Cancelleri's

Wedding Pictures

We were lucky enough to get some pictures emailed to us today from Scott & Shannon! They made it back home and thank you Scott, for taking the time to download these photos so quickly and for getting them over to us! We absolutely love the pictures you took and are so grateful for you being there and for taking these for us! Your camera is awesome and I'm so glad we had your pictures from another point of view, on top of the pictures we'll get from the photographer. Thank you again for taking these for us and for getting them over to us, they're wonderful and mean the world to us! That's why we love you guys!

This first picture is my all-time most favorite picture that we've seen so far. It's such a great angle with such a perfect background of the ocean. Love it!!! So of course, it's first on the blog for all to see now!


As for the rest of the pictures, sorry they are somewhat out of order. The way they got uploaded was kind of backwards, but it's too much of a pain to try to reorder them and drag them to their correct spots, so they'll have to just stay the way they are.

Honeymoon Day 8 (June 3, 2010)

Well, we've been in Hawaii for a week, and I can proudly say, my tan is coming along nicely! That is what I love about being here. It only takes a few hours in the sun to get nice and brown! That is, if you tan nicely and not burn. Sorry hubby.

I'm going to make this post shorter than the one from Day 7, yesterday, because the whole morning was the exact same as yesterday. Headache, needing to get work done, and all. Exactly the same. So we'll just skip to lunch.

We got ourselves out of the hotel room for lunch down on Front Street in Lahaina. We went to a place that's been making Mike's mouth water for days, Cheeseburger in Paradise. Mike snapped this picture of me when we were making our way to the restaurant. It was taken on Front Street.

We got seated in Cheeseburger in Paradise in a great spot upstairs, so we could look out to the ocean, next to an open window with a nice breeze. We ordered the best onion rings we've ever had, and Mike got a cheeseburger with a fried egg on it, his favorite, and I got fried shrimp. I've loved fried shrimp since I was a little girl and hadn't had it in so long, but I felt like I was betraying the restaurant by not ordering a cheeseburger! I had one a couple of days ago though, and that was enough for me.

Here's a picture of Mike doing what he does best - checking his BlackBerry. He claims he got on his BlackBerry because I was on my iPhone, but my memory isn't always the greatest, so I can't say if that was true or not, but I swear he picked up his phone first. :-) But for the sake of this argument, I'll say that I picked up my phone first. But I wasn't on my phone for nearly as long as he was on his! Haha, so there, we're even.

I wonder if people that work in restaurants get tired of people asking them to take their picture? Oh well, what else are you supposed to do when there are only two of you and you want both of you in the picture? You have to ask the people working in the restaurant to lend a hand!

So after Cheeseburger in Paradise, we walked Front Street for a little bit, ended up booking our Helicopter Flight that we're going to do Saturday morning (which we are both so dang excited about!) and then headed back to the hotel for - wait for it...wait for it.....what do you think we headed back to the room for?

Get your minds out of the gutter. We headed back for the Lakers/Celtics game of course! Game 1 of the NBA Finals! You think Mike would miss that? No way!! While the game was on, we actually heard, from down at the beach, three blows on a large shell that give a loud, hollow blowing sound, that's hard to explain, really, but when you hear those three blows then you know somebody is getting married. It's what our officiant does and it's customary here in Hawaii. Somebody was getting married down by the beach and we both said, they, that's the wedding sound!

After the game was over we went down to the pool for an early evening dip in the pool. Let me rephrase that, we headed to the pool so Mike could take a dip in the pool. I don't do well with pools unless it's 90 degrees outside and I've been roasting for at least an hour, then maybe I'll be desperate enough to jump in the pool. But not at 6:30 at night. It was funny because there were three other people in the pool besides Mike. And they were about 6, 8 and 10 years old. I joked with him that he is just one of the kids, getting in a little bit of last minute pool time before bed time, just like the little kids! At times like this, this is when having our own kids will come in very handy!

We finished out the night by sitting on our porch, listening to the Hawaiian music playing downstairs and reading together. I'm halfway through my John Grisham book, The Associate, and Mike's reading some geeky tech book on the Kindle. At least I think it's geeky, it keeps him intrigued though. Something about the generation of kids and how into technology and the internet they are.

Funny story here, after we finished reading, I started blogging about our activities and Mike headed downstairs to the pool area to get some food and to get some change. He came back upstairs just now, as I'm finishing this post, and said that the music I'm up here listening to right now (our patio door is open again so we can hear the live music downstairs in the patio area), the guy singing right now, is actually our officiant from the wedding! I remember my parents saying that the locals in Hawaii, just to survive, usually have many different jobs and they work A LOT. Well, that rings true for the man that performed our ceremony. The other day when we went to the Hula Grill for a few drinks, he was singing there too! Now he's singing at our hotel. That's so crazy. But I give him props for being a hard worker, even though he'll never read this, I think that's great he's keeping busy with doing what he loves. He just sang Over The Rainbow and it was beautiful!

So, until tomorrow, or my next post, Aloha!!! And Good Night!

Love, Mike & Krista

Honeymoon Day 7 (June 2, 2010)

Day 7 started just like every other morning for me. 7:30 came, I rolled over but could NOT lift my head off the pillow. Yep, the throbbing headache was back. I don't get it, am I sleeping wrong on my pillows or something? Why is it that I get a great night's sleep and wake up wishing my head were detached from my body? I couldn't will myself to get out of bed for a few hours, I just needed to slowly wake up and digest the morning. We lazily had some cereal and milled around the room for a little bit with the TV on, which helps me wake up, but I couldn't even get up to brush my teeth. You know it's bad when you could care less about brushing your teeth. I did manage to get some food into my stomach though so I could take a few Tylenol and try to ease the pain. I also had to get a little bit of work done on the computer, so I figured I would just power through and then lie back down. After an hour I thought my head was literally going to explode, so I finished up what I had to do for work and it was Mike's turn for computer time. Luckily he had some stuff he had to take care of as well, so I was able to lie down for a couple more hours and just laid there with my eyes closed.

I know what you're all thinking. Wow, that sucks, that's no way to spend a vacation. Yeah, I'm thinking the same thing. And some days, when you feel like crap, don't you just wish you were in the comfort of your own bed, in your own home? And man do I miss Wiley Bear. Mike is missing him big time too. I miss him at the foot of the bed, or laying up on my pillow with me. He always seems to know when I'm not feeling well and is extra cuddly, which always makes me feel better. But, since he's not here, the person forced to make me feel better is my newly betrothed. And he does a great job. But after a few hours of lying in bed, there's a point in time where you just gotta power through and go enjoy Hawaii! I managed a shower which always seems to make me feel better, and we headed out to the pool for the afternoon.

Well, I'm good in the sun. In fact, I love the sun. I seem to overheat more quickly than I used to, and since I don't like jumping in the pool to cool off, this can be a problem. But, my lovely husband, who is never in the sun EVER, doesn't do so well. We lather him up with so much sunscreen every 30 minutes just to protect his precious skin, but there always seems to be a little sliver of skin that we miss. After a couple of hours out by the pool, me lathering up with suntan lotion, he with sunscreen, we needed a break from the sun and needed some lunch. We headed to the room for a break.

As soon as we got in the room and let our eyes adjust from being out in the sun, Mike's normally whitish/pinkish legs turned out to be lobster red! How did we miss the tops of your knees and the tops of your feet with the sunscreen!? Man, was it bad, too. He's actually been able to avoid any bad burns until today. But he's a trooper and I was ready for a few more hours in the sun, so he headed back out with me, after we of course, lathered him up again for about the fifth time that day, with sunscreen. As we sat down, the heat hit Mike's burns and he said, "Oh yeah, this hurts. Not good." Mike spent the rest of the time down at the pool with his legs & feet under a towel. Good thing I brought our after-sun aloe vera with us from Irvine! The whole bottle is almost gone. Poor guy. I just hope his feet have recovered enough to slip on shoes for his Friday afternoon golf! (I did try to get a picture of Mike's legs, but he wouldn't let me take a picture. I don't know if he didn't want to remember the burn, or be embarrassed by others seeing the pictures, or a little bit of both, but I couldn't get him to give in!)

We decided dinner would be on-site, at our hotel, at the restuarant downstairs called "Tiki Terrace". They have a live hula show and Hawaiian singers, so we opted to stay close to home and not drive anywhere. The food was okay, but man, the service was so slow! I think it's just how things go in Hawaii. They expect people to get to their tables and want to just sit and listen to the music for 30 minutes without eating. Well not these two people! We were dying for water, Coke, bread, anything! And none of it was coming. I thought Mike was going to punch out the waiter when he finally came around, but I reminded him that we're in a much more relaxed environment now on vacation, let's not hit anyone just yet! Maybe tomorrow....

We finished up dinner and headed to our room for the night, and remembered, crap, we didn't take our nightly dinner picture at dinner! So, forgive the picture, but I had to hold the camera myself. And I'm definitely not good at positioning the camera!

Until the next post, with love, Mike & Krista

Honeymoon Day 6 (June 1, 2010)

Day 6 started when I groggily woke up at 7 AM and cursed what time it was. I swear I do this every morning now. I roll over praying to see the number 8 first, and then curse when it says a 6 or 7! But we had promised to meet Scott & Shannon at 7:30 so they could give us their leftover food from their trip as they were heading to the airport, and back to the OC. Sad... :-( Our buddies were leaving, but we were going to officially start the honeymoon! I woke up and could NOT shake a splitting headache though. This has definitely become a morning ritual, which I don't get, but I have read that through 12 - 14 weeks of pregnancy a lot of women suffer from the worst of the worst headaches. This last week they've been a lot more than I'm normally used to, because those of you that have known me for my entire life know that I've had headaches for almost that entire life. They've been pretty tolerable but some mornings, recently, I really just can't shake them.

So, to the point of what I was talking about before, I stayed in bed and Mike met Scott & Shannon to get their food & say goodbye. I pretty much stayed in bed and woke up slowly for the next hour or so, but some work had come up from the day before, that I needed to take care of, so I willed myself to get up finally and go to the Business Center. Also, we were checking out of the Westin (bummer!) and moving to our new hotel, so we had to pack up and get our stuff out. It was sad to leave the Westin. Our $400/night hotel room was NICE! But, since we wanted to stay for two weeks, we knew we needed to splurge for a few days and then move to a more reasonably priced hotel. So, I finished up the work stuff I needed to do and then headed to the new hotel down the street, the Kaanapali Beach Hotel.

I gotta say, the hotel isn't the worst I've ever seen, but it's definitely not the Westin! However, we are at a MUCH better location on the beach (right next to Whaler's Village, a fun shopping center) and the grounds at the hotel are really cool. Plus, we now have a full 100% ocean view! Which is great! As I'm typing this out right now, we have our sliding door open, it's 80 degrees outside still, and we can hear the Hawaiian band outside playing (which, frankly, I'm kind of getting sick of. Is that mean?).

So, we checked into our hotel and then we pretty much did NOTHING. My headache was still full force and I wasn't in the mood for the sun, and Mike wasn't real excited for the sun either, as he never is, so we bummed in the hotel room and watched TV. Like ALL DAY. But it was great. It was something we would NEVER do at home and having Mike's full attention is hard to get at home as well, so it was nice to just lay on the bed, watch TV, laugh, talk, and just enjoy being husband & wife for our first day!

After a couple of hours of doing nothing, we did get out of the room for a little bit and walked one hotel over to Whaler's Village, where's there's this cool outdoor restaurant called "Hula Grill". We sat at the bar and Mike had a few drinks while I drank some really nasty Sierra Mist. I swear no restaurants here have Sprite! It was good to be out of the room for a few hours though, and feel the warm air. It was only a couple of hours though and I was ready to lie down again, so we headed back to watch a little TV in our air conditioned room for a little bit.

We finally decided we need to replenish some groceries so we willed ourselves out the door to the grocery store and then picked up some Roundtable Pizza. We ended the night with a full stomach and indigestion! Great relaxing day!

So we grabbed the camera and took our nightly, traditional dinner picture. We had fun with these pictures since we had to hold the camera ourselves.




Not the beautiful bride I was yesterday, huh! Poor Mike, he has to wake up to that every morning for the rest of our lives! :-)

Signing off, much love from Mike & Krista, The Cancelleri's

Honeymoon Day 5 - The Big WEDDING Day! May 31, 2010

Monday - the BEST DAY EVER! Started off the day early, but not too early! We both slept until after 7, which was great! We had breakfast in our room like we normally do, those Honey Combs really hit the spot! And then it was time for our Couples Massage. Oh, what a great way to start off the day! We had an awesome and relaxing 60-minute massage courtesy of the guys from Mike's office (thank you so much Chuck, Justin, Jesse & Adam!). That was such a great surprise for us and we thought the perfect day to use it would be our Wedding Day, to start off the day right. It was relaxing and just what we needed!

After our massage we decided to get some last-minute sun and fun out at the pool. And I had promised Mike I would go down the water slide, and I keep my promises! It was fun, but really slow! I can see how a 6 year old would like it, but not a 31 year old. It still brought a little smile to my face though! And of course, today I had to keep with the "white" wedding theme and I wore my white bikini at the pool. I thought it was only fitting, seeing as how I was a bride today. :-)

We headed back to the room to freshen up and Mike ran to the store for some last-minute flowers for my hair. My hair stylist and make-up artist showed up at my room at 2:30 to begin the preparations. This was so fun for me, I LOVE getting my make-up and hair done professionally! And I NEVER would've been able to do what they had done! So when they got there, Mike came back with the flowers and then headed over to Scott & Shannon's hotel room to hang out with the boys, while Shannon came over to help me, and Mike couldn't see me get ready!

The ladies did an amazing job and my hair and make-up was exactly how I had pictured it! I was so happy with what they did, and they were the nicest and sweetest girls. We talked about pregnancy and having babies and they told me about themselves. Sam, the girl on the right, is originally from Huntington Beach and she was born in Hoag Hospital, where I'll be delivering our little one in December! That was cool that she was an Orange County girl, it was just like she got me more and understood more what I was looking for with my make-up. And that's important!

So we got done early on hair & make-up and Shannon and I watched Real Housewives of New Jersey to kill time. They were supposed to be done around 5 but got done at 4, so we had a ton of time to kill before the ceremony at 6! I had to sit straight up though, so I wouldn't mess up my hair, so I just sat in bed and watched TV.

My wedding planner showed up with my bouquet at 6 and we finished up with some final lipstick touch-ups, put on my pearls, and we were ready to go meet Mike! I cannot thank Shannon enough for being there for me on my special day. Having Scott & Shannon there really turned out to be such a blessing and so wonderful. Just to have someone there to help you do something you normally would be able to do yourself, but is pretty difficult in a dress that you're trying not to mess up, was great to have someone there to help me (you know, go potty!) Haha, seriously Shannon, you are one amazing woman and our friendship has hit a whole new level! I love ya!!

The ceremony was absolutely wonderful. I can't even explain the feelings I had during the ceremony. When we were saying our vows it hit me, and I had to choke back the tears. It was like, here we are, we're doing this, we are husband and wife, and this is HUGE! This will be the hugest thing we do, until the baby is born of course. But I just wanted to remember every single thing about our vows and the ceremony. I wish we had pictures to share right now, but we didn't have any pictures taken with our camera, so the pictures of the ceremony will be posted later. Scott & Shannon were taking pictures on their camera the whole time and got some great shots, and once we get the photos from the wedding photographer, we can show those off as well.

The officiant that did the ceremony was awesome. The wedding planner told us that he never does the same ceremony twice. Whatever he says that day comes from the heart and comes from him at the time, he doesn't ever use the same lines. So that was special, and it at least made us feel special. He talked about the calm of the ocean but the high winds and the symbolism of the two throughout life as a married couple. It was a great comparison and gave us a whole new meaning to the ocean, and now when we look at the ocean we'll think of our wedding vows.

He even said a special Hawaiian prayer at the end of the ceremony. He had asked ahead of time if it was okay to do that and Mike told him to go ahead with what he felt, and it was a beautiful prayer. It made me think of my family and it almost felt like they were there with us then, so I appreciated that as well. Then he blew this big shell to symbolize the joining of our lives, and we exchanged rings. It was absolutely magical and perfect! The wind was soooo blowing hard though, but luckily the girls sprayed my hair so well, my hair wasn't going anywhere! My sash seemed to blow itself out of a bow though, but Shannon quickly rescued me there and fixed it. We took some photos on the beach with the photographer and then headed out to dinner!

Dinner was great! We went to a place called Merriman's in Kapalua Bay. I had some amazing chicken that Scott and I actually shared. We laughed about that, because the day before Shannon and Mike had shared a lunch plate, and then at our wedding dinner Scott and I were sharing chicken? We were like, isn't that backwards? But Scott and I wanted chicken and Mike and Shannon had fish (yuck for me!) so it all worked out great.

We then cut into our cute little cake that we had decided just two days before the wedding to order and have at the restaurant. It was a good idea, I loved having that for dessert.

I must have had way too much cake because when we got back to the room, I took one final glance in the mirror before I took off my dress for the last time, and I couldnt' believe the baby bulge! I'm not supposed to look like this for two more months, I thought! But I think it's adorable, if I do say so myself. So happy for the next part of our journey in life together. Little Baby Fetus had a good dinner too!

And that was the end to our perfect day! We looked at each other at the end of the night and said, "Well, we did it. It's done, and we're married!" Told each other how much we loved each other and said "Let the honeymoon begin!" We've got 9 more days in paradise and we expect to LIVE IT UP!!

XO from Mike & Krista Cancelleri