Honeymoon Part 5: The Road to Hana

Friday morning we got off to a little bit of a late start because we had to make a pit stop at the police station to pick up our recovered items. But from there, it was on to the infamous Road to Hana and what ended up being one of my favorite days on the trip!

The Road to Hana is ca-razy. Really, you have to be insane to drive it. But t was honestly one of the main reasons I wanted us to rent the car in the first place- so we could take our take and explore. You're literally driving through a windy, twisting rain forest, and it's pretty scary awesome!

 The highway has 600 turns and 57 one lane bridges... one lane- so only one side of cars can go at a time... on blind curves... on a highway where crazy locals are trying to get to work on time...

But I say it's worth it.

In photos, the following is what our day looked like (btw, we now had my camera, Bri's camera, and my phone camera, so we fully took advantage and took a butt ton of pictures. You read correctly. A BUTT TON...

Right before we hiked to Twin Falls

Twin Falls

We made the trek through the stream to get closer...

Then we trekked further and got behind the falls...

We started a trend and more people followed... See them in the background behind Brian?

Rain forest hair is sexy

Hiking in mud while wearing a dress and flip flops is a whole new kind of adventure!

View from the trail

Can't help it- I was excited to be married!

Brian may or may have been rethinking the situation :)

Rainbow eucalyptus- they look like they've been painted with green and pink paint

Hermit snail?? One of the weirdest things I've ever seen...

Black sand beach!

Lava tube!

Sweet waterfall... turn your head to the right, I'm too tired to edit! :)

See how happy we look? It was a fun day of exploring and adventure. We even made it back before it got REAL scary at night, and just in time for dinner. We headed to Front Street to find a delicious restaurant and ended up at Captain Jack's Island Grill where we sat up on their rooftop dining and shard a Philly cheese steak and a chicken quesadilla. It hit the spot and was a good end to a great day. Oh, and I got some more coconut chapstick... mmmm, delightful!

Someone has a case of the Mondays!

lol... His name is Brian!  ^

I had big shoes to fill today... literally. I left the house in my flip-flops. Because that's what I do. It makes my feet happy. For three reasons... 1, if I try to put shoes and socks on inside the house, Kevin tries to eat them. 2, When I take Kevin outside right before I leave, I will inevitably have to walk on wet grass, thereby wetting my shoes and soaking through to my socks, leaving me with soggy feet for the better part of the morning. No bueno. 3, One of the best feelings in the world after a long day standing up and chasing after kids is driving home with the air conditioning vents blasting on my tired, sweaty, flip-flopped feet. I know that sounds gross, but really, it feels awesome and it reminds me of summer. And anything that reminds me of summer in January is a-okay in my book. (Plus, driving with flip-flops is slightly more safe than driving barefoot. I think.)

Anyway, my Monday was actually pretty sweet, except for my royal f*ck up that began my morning...

Like I said, I left the house in my flip-flops. I triple checked to make sure I had my socks. I moved some shoes out of my way in the garage before getting in my car. I even picked up one of Brian's flip-flops that had escaped from the rest of the shoe convention. I'm pretty sure my hand must've grazed my tennis shoes in an OMG-our-hands-just-touched-in-the-popcorn-on-our-first-date kind of way.

Buuuuuuut, low and behold, when I got to work, I discovered that I failed to pack my shoes. I had socks. And flip-flops. Not a good situation for teaching PE. Way to set the example, Kristen.

Luckily for me, I was able to turn my case of the Mondays frown upside down because my silly old mentor is a hoarder, as evidenced here:

Yep, all 3 of these pictures are from within our office

Because of her "your trash is my treasure" mentality, there is a pair of shoes (albeit, a size and a half too big) that one of my former colleagues had left behind after she transferred to another school. FIVE years ago. I tried them on, and although they were not my size or really even my style (sorry, Melinda!) I wore them all day anyway.

White socks with black shoes... not feeling it.

I am not coach M...

But after that little hiccup, the rest of the day was great. I got to meet my student teacher and she seems like she has it pretty together. I got some wedding stuff taken care of. I took dog Kevin for a walk around campus in the evening while Brian and Human Kevin ran the track. And I did some Turbo Kickboxing and ab work. Not bad, not bad!

Weekend Recap
Brian and Kevin are falling asleep on the couch (dog Kevin, not human Kevin- although I wouldn't put it past them), so I'm gonna make this quick...

I feel like we knocked a lot of stuff out this weekend. We were definitely busy!

Saturday I was stuck working a snack bar for softball for most of the day, but then we celebrated Brian's dad's birthday. After that, Brian and I headed over to Rachael's house for a party for her brother, so we got to hang out with her and human Kevin for a bit.

On Sunday, we took dog Kevin for a mini hike on a local trail (2.5 miles), then we headed to Crate and Barrel to register. There are a lot of cute things there, but it's stuff you can get at Target for like, half the price. I can't justify spending more than necessary... even if I'm not actually the one spending it. So I think we'll end up really registering elsewhere. Oh, and I think we both decided we'll take the moms along next time, because quite frankly, I have no idea what a melamine reamer is (it sounds dirty. Maybe we should get one?) or if I'll ever really use a melon baller. (Hmm, that sounds dirty too. Perhaps there are more to these items than one would think, no?)

After our morning events, we did what all slightly overweight engaged couples dream of... we went to our first cake tasting! And believe it or not, I think we found our baker. Now I can breathe a little bit easier. But just a little. But we still might go to some other tastings. Because when else will we get the chance to? And we're fat like that.

We rounded out the night by meeting my parents for our traditional Chipotle Sunday dinner. (Our Mexicali version of Sunday Sauce... my Italian grandparents are probably rolling over in their graves right now.) Then it was back to the house where we researched some more honeymoon spots... which needs to be booked, like, yesterday.

We're looking into Sandals (which one, I have no idea...)or one of the Hawaiian islands. And of course, I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for Italy. Any suggestions or helpful hints?? :)

Okay, time to put these boys to bed! ♥

Weekend Recap and Polar Bears

Not this polar bear...

Dukie, my boy!

A whole different kind of polar bear! See, I finally got my mom to help me with the official guest list (for now anyway, it seems to change all the time!), so I've been starting to address my save the dates. If you remember, they have a vintage Hollywood vibe to them.

In fact, the whole wedding has a vintage theme going on, which I think is pretty awesome.

Anyway, I made my save the dates postcards for 2 reasons. One reason is that I was able to give it more character by making the back look like an old distressed postcard. The second is that you can save some money on postage. In fact, I saved $24- more than half of what I would have paid if I had put the cards into envelopes. There was only one little glitch...

I was working on wedding stuff on the floor of the weight room today at work...

Do you notice the stamps? They're POLAR BEARS! Here's another view:

Kinda throws off the whole vintage vibe, eh? A couple of thoughts ran through my head when the lady that was helping me brought these out. I thought maybe if I asked nicely, she would pull out some pretty ones from a back drawer somewhere. Or maybe I should get mad and demand some stamps with flowers. Or maybe I should just explain that these stamps were for a wedding. But in the end, I just said thanks and I took my polar bear stamps. Oh well. :)

*******************************************************************************

Weekend Recap:

Friday night was pretty mellow... we just stayed at home and I was actually asleep by 9:30 because I had a big day planned for Saturday...

Saturday morning I woke up at 5:30 to meet my buddies Alexis, Michelle, and Melissa for a sunrise hike! It was super windy, but we toughed it out anyway!  

Alexis, Michelle, Me, and Melissa- I can barely open my eyes in that wind!

After the hike, I came home to hang with my boys for a little bit, then it was on to work. We're helping host a JV tournament for the next 3 weeks and the varsity team is running the snack bar. Perfect way to spend a Saturday afternoon. (Can you smell the hint of sarcasm?) We did cap the night in a nice way though- we went out to dinner with Human Kevin and Rachael and some of their friends for Kevin's birthday. It was a very nice evening out!

Sunday, we woke up early again and went for a sweet little 4.41 mile hike back at Runyon Canyon. No celebrity sitings this time, but we did run into Dog Kevin's brotha from another motha Ike and his friendly owner that we met at our last tour at Runyon, so Kevin was pretty jazzed about that! Then we met Brian's parents for lunch and my parents for dinner. Because we really like to eat. And because we REALLY like our families. :)

I was lucky enough to get Monday off. My dad helped me wash and detail my car in the morning. Then when Brian came home, we went and saw Little Fockers. It doesn't quite match what that hilarious group of actors did in Meet the Fockers, because in my opinion, that movie was comedic gold! But this movie was extremely cute, and I love, love, LOVE this ensemble of actors! 

From there, we walked around the mall a bit, and then it was back to my parents house for another dinner with the crazies (Talk about meeting the Fockers... these people are nuts sometimes! It's a wonder I made it out so normal! lol) to work on that list.

And that brings us back to today and my polar bear fiasco.

♥

 

Anyway, not that anyone reading this will care, but at work today, I learned a piece of good news and a piece of not so good news. The not so good news first: My sweet little class of 17 kids will be no longer. I knew it was too good to be true. No class is ever that small. EVER. They're going to add 20 kids, so it'll go up to 37, which in reality, is still a small class. Oh well. On with the good news! I found out that I will be getting a student teacher for two periods! This means that I will be teaching someone how to teach, and I get the title of Master Teacher! Can you feel the power?? ♥

Off to go address some more polar bear cards!

Christmas, New Years, and Gadgets, Oh My!

It's almost January 3rd, so this is coming a little late, but I think it's worth the recap!

Christmas was awesome! Brian and I woke up early and took Kevin downstairs to have our own little family celebration. My main gift hadn't arrived yet, but Brian had plenty of other fun gifts for me in the mean time! And I hid Brian's gift and then sent him on a scavenger hunt to find it, so that was fun! And before too long, it was time to split up to go to our respective parents' homes for gift exchanges. We were apart for the rest of the day until the evening when Brian left his grandparents' house to come to my mom and dad's at the end of the night. Good times were had by all! And today, my big gift finally arrived...

Garmin 405!!!

My very own gigantic Garmin watch! SO exciting! So now I can set measurable goals and actually know if I'm reaching them without having to run 10 billion laps around the track at work. Whew! Awesome! I love Brian. Oh, and I got him a Bowflex (that we still need to put together!), so we should be looking A-M-A-Z-I-N-G by wedding time!

Side note- It's January 2nd. The wedding is June 11. My dumb ass was thinking that I still had 6 months to freak out plan, order, sign contracts, etc, when my mom informed me that no, I only have 5 (read: FIVE) months for said planning. Oh crap!

 New Year's Eve was a blast! Brian and I invited some of our best buddies over and I couldn't have asked for a more fun way to start 2011. Our friend and groomsman Mike said that the first hour you spend in the New Year is how you'll spend the rest of the year... like, if you're alone, you'll be alone for the year, if you're happy, you'll be happy, if you're resentful, well, you get it. Well I spent the first hour happy, surrounded by wonderful people, my house was lit up and filled with love, I was tired but excited. That sound like a good year to me! Needless to say, I am definitely looking forward to everything that 2011 holds for me!

Brian and I in front of our tree on NYE

Me, Maid of Honor Alexis, and Bridesmaid Rachael

The whole group!

My new Garmin wasn't the only new gadget I have in my possession... I added a new blog gadget to the right--->>>... now this may not be exciting to you, but it's my blog and it's exciting to me! :p  I'm going to be keeping track- along with the help of my Garmin- of all of my runs/walks/hikes. (Part of a New Year's resolution, perhaps??) 

We went on a 3 mile hike in Runyon Canyon  with Rachael and her boyfriend Kevin, our Kevin, and Rachael's Boxer Bailey. Kev and Bailey were quick best friends and the hike was a lot of fun! Everyone was out there with their families and dogs. And we even saw Oscar from The Office getting his workout on! Good for him!

I'm just guessing at the 3 miles based on what other websites have listed the trail at, because that beautiful hunk of a watch was not in my possession yet. But I'm going to count it because I did it and I deserve to! It was a great start to the new year- great company and a great work out!

Me, Rachael, Dog Kevin, and Bailey

Brian, Me, Rach, and Human Kevin :)

Unfortunately, the weather in LA is not up to it's usual awesomeness (yeah, I make words up). It's been dumping rain. It's even snowing just north of the valley, which is really weird. Needless to say, I did not get in a workout today. I'll be back tomorrow though- that's a promise!

Good night!