As promised, I am blogging from Hawaii since I don't think I will be able to fit all of the pics I take over the course of this week into one entry, so make sure you keep checking back this week.
The travel day was no bueno. As anticipated, I hated the flying bit but kept the whining to a low roar since Erik was in the best mood ever and I just had to keep my eye on the prize. We slept at Ryan and Larry's Friday night and Ryan drove us to the airport at 6am Saturday morning. It started off smoothly and we curb side checked in. We went through security and went straight to the gate. We had at least a half hour before boarding so we decided to get some coffee and we were just sitting their chit chatting. We were on what we call the "ghetto" side of Bradley airport (American Airlines). Not that American is ghetto just the side where they board is. It was gross. Anywho, Erik decided to take a pit stop in the men's room and I am just sitting there and all of a sudden they page our names over the intercom to report to the gate immediately. I ran INTO the men's room to yell for Erik and we run to the gate and they rushed us down the ramp. The plane already pulled away from the gate so we boarded the plane from outside. We had NO clue what was going on, but apparently somehow we missed the entire boarding although we were sitting there the entire time and b/c our luggage was on the plane and we checked in, they knew we were there, thank God. The flight attendant gave us attitude which infuriated me and Erik put a stop to it right away and asked her to leave us alone. So funny. That flight was horrific, one of those tiny planes (2 seats, aisle, 1 seat) and we sat in the very last row right outside the bathroom where every time someone went in they got locked in and the flight attendant had to unlock it with a pen. Very bizarre. Our flight landed in Chicago and we literally RAN from one end of the airport to the very opposite end of the airport and once again, we were the last to board and they were waiting for us as we ran up out of breath they said "Oh, you must be the Spiegels". What? That was not our fault though, we landed and boarded immediately, no bathroom break at all. That flight to LA wasn't so bad and I got some really cool pics of LA from the plane (the first few pics posted here), not a packed flight, bigger plane and Erik and I had all 3 seats to ourselves so we could spread out. We landed in LA and our next flight to HI was delayed 45 minutes, so that just added on to our total 5 hour layover. That was oh so much fun. That flight to HI was the worst I think. It was a packed flight, not one empty seat and poor Erik sat in the middle smooshed between me and some other girl. There were 4 screaming children on the flight that didn't take a break from the crying for even one second. 3 other people coming to the wedding were on that flight as well so they knew our pain when we finally landed. It was a welcoming committee at the tiny airport in HI when we landed by the bride and groom. We landed at 9pm HI time which made it 3am our time and we had been traveling for 21 hours or something ridiculous. We made it to the house here at about 11pm and crashed out by midnight. Erik and I and about half of the house were wide awake at 5am this morning since we were still on East Coast time even though we got no sleep. We went out for some coffee and hung out for a little while. Erik and I then took the jeep (rented a bright yellow jeep wrangler) and went driving for 2 hours and took a zillion pictures. These mountains are the most amazing sights I have ever seen. We helped a local out who's car was stuck on the beach. We saw these amazing caves oh and there are roosters EVERYWHERE. We have squirrels back East, they have roosters here. Everyone is so lax here, it's amazing, even the dogs, one by the way was taking a nap in the middle of the road and that was normal to everyone. We got back to the house and it was only 9:30!!! We went down to the beach which by the way, I will not be going back to for the rest of our trip. It is about a 5 minute walk down a hairy cliff and it took me about a half hour to get back up, truly out of shape, thought I would die. It's a gorgeous beach and private, but can't do it again so we will drive to the beach from now on. We went to Bubba's Burgers today for lunch and went to another beach. The family cooked an amazing dinner for everyone tonight. Just when we thought the night was dying down and we could go to bed we had an unexpected visitor. Some guy just randomly walked into the house and acted like he was invited to the wedding, etc, etc. Totally creepy, the guys all kicked him out and then drove the cars up to the top of the driveway to lock the gate. It's scary to think that this house is so open all the way around so we put the house on lock down. We joked that we need a house manifest and you need to sign out if you are leaving. Anyway, I went for a ride earlier today with Allysum and when we were leaving a guy in a jeep was coming down the driveway and we didn't think much of it at first since some people were here setting up tents etc for the wedding but come to find out, it was the same guy. We called the cops to put them on alert, but not much more we could do. Anyway, that brings me to now...it's 10:23pm, 4:23am home time so I am now going to bed. Check back soon. The wedding is tomorrow.
