11 April 2008
Grandma Karen marries Chris
the flowers were super fun for Jen and I to choose since our weddings were so many years ago. They were simple but bright and fun. Only two attendants stood up with our mom. Her friend Tracy and Chris's friend Jerry. Jen's daughter KK was the flower girl and our fourth son Asher was the ringbearer. The theme was a western one and the party was in Jen's big backyard which she recently landscaped with a breathtaking pool. There were just under 30 folks there to celebrate (most flew in from chicago) and it was a lovely afternoon ceremony in front of a gorgeous neighborhood fountain.
Matt and I left the next day for the company paid reward trip to Kona, Hawaii where we stayed at a Fairmont Hotel on the Ocean and ate yummy food and shared cocktails with friends who were at last year's Miami South Beach company trip and with whom Matt often speaks but rarely see in person since we all live in different states. We had a nice long tour of the island and amazing nights of Hula entertainment and lots of relaxing breezy fun. We otherwise had a slow agenda and just enjoyed time together while the kids stayed with grandma and our dear friend CC. We were voluntarily bumped for a 800 dollar Hawaiin airline credit so the last photo with a red boa and athletic wear and puffy eyes has no other excuse...lol... thanks for looking!
before departure, sleepy though we were:
we were on a very very big plane!
landing in honolulu
and on a much smaller plane landing in Kona:
The Kona Airport is all outdoors and while waiting for luggage this is the pretty view we had:
Someone had used the white lava rocks the way many folks in Hawai'i do to write a message to someone...this time it was a message to matt's company with their corporate logo on our bus route to the hotel
Our hotel, the Fairmont Orchid was breathtaking.... open air through the lobbies and the lounges and with amazing waterfalls and koi ponds and oceanfront places to relax. there were also sea turtles (Honu) basking in the sun and our receptions were mostly outdoors in the breeze. Our simple but nice hotel room had a private balcony with an ocean view too :)
our balcony
some views of the hotel grounds
On our bus tour of the HUMONGOUS Big Island we saw the smoking volcano (ready to erupt any day) and a really cool cave-like lava tube...we also visited a macadamia candy factory (where we sampled and did not take photos) and an orchid factory where we took photos of a one-of-a-kind 20k orchid (ugly one too...lol). we were shocked to learn on the tour from our native driver that most people ont he Big Island travel 3-4 hrs EACH WAY to work EACH DAY!! eek. there is a huge contrast between the worker homes and the million dollar mainlander touristy condos.
when we returned from the long tour we had a simple dinner on the beach at sunset and took some more silly self portraits:
the last night's reception included leather clad electric violin players and lots of lava flow cocktails. we only took a few photos of matt's coworkers and a couple from shanghai who were really nice to talk to. It was late evening so none of the pics are GREAT.
The 20 hours we spent at the airports and on planes was an interesting experience. we met a lot of really fun and really crabby folks and we were at once really fun and really crabby. None of the older folks would talk to us while I wore the red feather boa so I eventually put it away. Can you tell we were exhausted?
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