We made it!

We freaking made it…I’m sitting in a bed right now that is the result of almost a full year of planning. Big, big, HUGE props to the Ho for making this happen. It was a team effort as our lives really are, but you really deserve the credit for this one. I have an amazing fiance, guys. The BEST.

So, our day started off a bit rocky. We were scheduled to awaken at 5:00am and leave by 6 so that we could be two hours early to our flight at San Jose at 8:30am…HOWEVER..Liz got a call from Hawaiian Airlines saying that our flight had been delayed to depart at 12:30pm. Ya…that’s a 4-hour difference right there. Pretty significant.

We didn’t complain, however, since it meant that we’d actually get to sleep a lot more, and then wake up and kind of have a normal morning. It was especially good given that the Coops would really benefit from it. So, we did that, got some extra sleep, had a pretty normal routine with the Coops, and then we were picked up by our legitimately amazing driver William. Apparently, Liz’s mom had just found him on Yelp, and he had great personality, was super on time, nice car…I mean, he was just great. And, how often do you genuinely feel that way about drivers?

It sounds like such a luxury. Oh, you took a driver to the airport in the morning. But, if you think about it, what else are you going to do for a trip out of town for an entire week? All of us were going, and you can’t PARK your car for that long. You have to get a ride. Hence, a driver. And, William was the best.

Getting Coops through the airport was a bit of a wait at first, just because it seemed like she had to check stuff on her computer forever, but once that was done, it was all pretty easy. For reals. That was a huge relief. Everyone seemed to know what they needed to check, and we had all that, so they just checked us and let it through. There wasn’t anyone who didn’t know what-was-what trying to tell us Coops couldn’t be with us.

The plane ride was pretty chill. There was free food. Some napping. We tried to get Cooper to pee on a pee-pad in the bathroom a couple times, and he totally didn’t get it and just laid down on the pee-pad instead.

And, then, we were on the ground in Maui. It’s crazy to be here. I’ve heard about Hawaii for so long, and I’m finally here. It is hot. Legitimately hot. I believe we came in time for one of their hotter streaks during the year. We went straight from getting our rental car to Costco and boozed it up for the wedding (ie- got the alcohol we’ll be serving), went to Petco to get Coops his food for the week, and then trucked all that to our hotel. Oh, and we got food for dinner, which was good, because I was fixin’ to be STARVING by the time we got home.

Ryan had just had time to get to his hotel room and shower, so he came by literally as we were pulling up to the hotel. We unloaded, and then set up dinner, which was a Rotisserie Chicken, fresh fresh FRESH Poke (which is raw fish mixed with seasonings and stuff, a cesar salad, and some Kona Brewery beers. Mmmmmm. Then, we walked out to where the pool is and looked at the sunset. It was ridiculously gorgeous.

Then, we hung out for a bit before heading over to the hotel that we came *this* close to booking our wedding at (instead of through the wedding planner we contracted and doing it at their estate) to get some drinks at their poolside lounge and meet up with those of our wedding party who had arrived at this point. That was my brother Seth and Queena, Scott and Addie, and Joe showed up, too, sans Madhuri who wanted to take a shower and chill out.

The Andaz is GORGEOUS. Seriously…it’s amazing. Liz and I totally agreed that it’s totally a place that we would want to stay at when we come back. Hopefully next year for our one-year anniversary. That would be awesome. But, they’re right on the beach and the drinks were great. I had my first Mai Tai (shoot me in the head), and then we walked down to the beach which had sand like freaking clouds, and walked in the surf in the moonlight…it was freaking magical.

Oh, and I skipped over the part after dinner where we walked with the Coops along the road that runs outside of our hotel. That was awesome. Did that with Ryan and kinda caught up with him on what he was up to.

Tomorrow, it’s golf with Ryan, and dinner with the Ho as we celebrate our soon-to-be antiquated 10-year anniversary of being together. It’s gonna be an awesome day.

I’ve attached two of the videos for this upload of the blog, but there is another one, it’s just uploading right now. It’s a cut together of the later little clips that I took of the second half of the day. I’m pretty tired. Eyelids closing. So, I’ll update that tomorrow probably.

Good night guys! 🙂