Today started the first day of our journey to Hawaii! Up at 5:30 AM and at LAX Airport by 7:45, we were ready for the big flight! However, our plane wasn't. 30 minutes before we were supposed to get on the flight the announcer came on and said that our plane wasn't equipped to travel to Hawaii and we'd have to wait for another plane, but that they'd find one for us somewhere at LAX. There goes leaving on time for our honeymoon! Luckily we were only one hour behind and were in the air by 10 AM. I did okay on the flight, but I gotta say, it sucked. The movie came on shortly after we hit our 30,000 feet destination so that took up two hours that seemed to go by pretty quickly, but we were seated in the bulk head (which was great for leg room) but not good for movie viewing. It was like sitting front row in the movie theater. After having my head cocked up at a 45 degree angle for two hours, the headache kicked in. Mix that with the fact that we were seated right next to the fresh coffee pot that was brewing (which made me want to throw up!) my head was spinning. We bought a little cheese & cracker plate but that didn't suffice. I had to get a Pepsi and sip that with some Tylenol and that didn't help either. I tried to lay my head down and close my eyes, and did that for about an hour and a half while Mike read through his magazines, but the headache wouldn't go away. Finally, after eating through 3/4 of a Pringles container, I figured the salt and the 700 calories weren't going to help either, but I did try half of a hydrocodone, which my doctor did say is okay, but that seemed to then just kick in the nausea! As soon as we landed, you can say I was pretty much done. I tried to keep myself from throwing up while we got the rental car and got on our way. (Stopped at a Carl's Jr and refueled with some chicken strips. Started to feel much better after that!)
By now it's about 2 PM and we've headed towards the hotel. Here's a picture of the drive to our hotel, taken from the highway right before Lahaina (we're staying just north of downtown Lahaina in Kaanapali). This seemed to be the only spot that was luscious with green trees on the drive, so I took advantage of the view and snapped a picture. 
So, we made it to the hotel, and as we were checking in, I was sitting in the rental car and out of the corner of my eye something was flying right towards my head. I turned because it freaked me out, and it was little Kayden! Scott and Shannon had just happened to come down to the lobby to see if we were there yet, and it was perfect timing! It was so great to see them and see familiar faces! And what better place to vacation with your besties than in Maui! So we got everything up to the room, and of course unpacked everything immediately (Mike wouldn't do it any other way!) and met up with the Cross's down at the pool. Our hotel room actually overlooks some of the ocean and mostly the kiddie pool, so it's pretty cool that we're right there at the pool where we can see them and know when they're down there to meet them! Yeah, I don't know if they enjoy us crashing their vacation as much as we enjoy vacationing with them! But by the end of the week, I'm sure they'll be glad to be on their own again!
After a few hours at the pool and just checking out the hotel (and of course caught the end of the Laker game - AMAZING! Although, Artest, you almost screwed it up man. Way to redeem yourself), we decided to ready ourselves for some dinner and have our first Maui meal out under the sunset. We ended up at Leilani's in Whaler's Village and had a great dinner. We took a few pictures while we were waiting for our dinner table to be ready for us. It was awesome weather, not too hot, not too humid, and not cold or breezy at all! I'm always cold, so of course I was worried about that, but it was all in all a great dinner!
The happy couple four days before the wedding! And yes, that little bump you see in my belly, it's officially growing! This picture was taken yesterday, Thursday, so on that day I was 11 weeks 5 days pregnant. And the belly doesn't seem to be going away after meals anymore, it's just getting bigger. And I love it! (For those of you that might be reading this for the first time and just finding out now that I'm pregant - surprise! We haven't really told anyone but our family and some close friends that we see all the time, so how could we not tell them. But now we are making it public knowledge, especially since tomorrow I am offically into my second trimester, a lot of the first trimester worries and scares are behind us. Not ALL of the scares, but percentage wise, we just made it through the scary part.)
We snapped this picture walking into Whaler's Village in Lahaina (I think it's in Lahaina). It's a really cool outdoor shopping center with a few restaurants and most importantly, there's a Louis Vuitton. I told Mike, what a great gift for your bride! A new Louis! He wasn't going for it though, not surprising. And since I won't trade Wiley Bear for a new Louis Vuitton, I guess there's no negotiating this one! The honeymoon alone is a great bride's gift!
Me and Shannon. We took a picture with Kayden, but it came out dark and you can't really see. You can tell she's already been here for five days and has a tan while my tan is just beginning, but it'll get there!
So, after dinner we said goodnight to the Cross family and headed to the grocery store to stock up on food for a few days. By this time of the day, I was exhausted and sooo ready for bed. But we had to get some food for the next day. So we headed down to Safeway and found what we needed, and as we're checking out, this drunk (sooo drunk) guy decided to stand next to us in line like he knew us. He was babbling something under his breath about his dad and waiting for him, this guy was like 40, but he was looking for his dad, and he had two grocery bags in his hands - empty grocery bags. He's standing probably two feet away from me and the smell of whiskey is making me gag, and literally want to throw up in my mouth. I think I must have had the most panicked look on my face because the lady in front of us in line grabbed her two kids up from standing next to her and put them in the car and kind of scooted away. I slowly started walking around Mike to stand on the other side of him and to get as far away from that guy as possible. I didn't know what he was going to do! You never know with a drunk guy! So we found another checkout line that was open and scooted away. The best part of the night was when I told the cashier that there was a drunk guy walking around disturbing customers, and he's like, "Oh, the guy that's dressed in all white? Yeah, he's fine." I was like, "Oh, he comes here often then, huh? This is normal? Well, okay then!" Like the fact that the drunk dude is there all the time makes that okay?! Whatever.
Headed back to the hotel and unpacked our groceries, but since we couldn't find a parking spot, we had to just park in front of the elevator and Mike went down to move the car and find a parking spot. Twenty minutes later I was like, um, what the hell happened to him? He should be back by now? So I called Mike's cell phone and he's like, I can't get the trunk, to shut, so the top won't go back up on the car without the trunk shut, and I don't know what to do. (Stupid Chrysler Sebring convertible). He didn't want to leave the car out with the top down because Hawaii is famous for its rain, especially in the middle of the night, and the last thing we needed was to have the car get damaged and pay an arm and a leg for it. Luckily he found an undercover parking spot at the building next to ours and 45 minutes later Mike made it back to the room, I said good night after I knew he was safe and I was out. Man, I was so exhausted! It was after 1 AM California time at this time, and we'd been up since 5:30. Long day but we're here and so worth it! Until tomorrow folks...that was our Thursday!
Love, Mike & Krista
After hanging at the pool for a few hours we got a call from Scott & Shannon, now checked in next door to us at their new hotel, to see if we wanted to hang with Kayden for a while so they could snorkel. Of course we took them up on it, especially because they were ready for some much needed alone time, just the two of them. A week with the little guy and no break I'm sure can get exhausting. So we headed over there to hang with Kayden on the beach. Mike was in heaven. Digging around in the sand, playing in the water, getting splashed, these are the joys of being a Daddy. And he's so ready to be a Daddy!
Mike let Kayden start to pile on the sand. Kayden was so giddy about it, he thought it was the coolest thing ever. It was hilarious when Kayden then took a pail of sand and dumped it on his own head! It was like he thought to himself, if he's getting sand dumped on him, I guess so should I!
I was snapping away pictures of Mike & Kayden and looked down and thought, WOW, my belly is huge! It looks so much bigger than it really is when you're looking down UPON it. All I can see is this roundness that I've never seen before. I LOVE IT though! Since I don't feel pregnant (just really sick all the time) it's so cool to finally see my body taking the shape of a pregnant girl! Here's a funny shot of my round belly - this is what I'm looking at all day long while trying to soak up the sun!
After our beach fun, we went to Duke's which is located at the back of the property (hotel) where Scott & Shannon are now staying. It's much smaller than the other Duke's I've been to, but it's Duke's alright! And of course, we had to get our traditional dinner picture for the evening!
Well, tomorrow is the big day (Monday), so the posts from our fifth day here will be some wedding shots. Until then, love, hugs & kisses from Mike & Krista! XO
So after we had our morning walk and breakfast, we headed out to our marriage license appointment. Yep, it's official! We got our marriage license and we're all set! Here's a picture of Mike signing his life away!
Scott snapped this photo in between poses. It's just us in so many ways. With love, until the next day, Mike & Krista
