Wedding and honeymoon

I would go into a long narrative description of the wedding, but frankly I'm not sure I'm best qualified to do so - I was somewhere between "wanting to turn tail and run" and "disappearing into a puff of nervous smoke" for pretty much the whole day, and my ability to observe fine detail suffered somewhat. I will, therefore, leave the descriptions to others, and just say that absolutely everything about it was perfect, and while I'd never do it again, I wouldn't have missed it or changed a single thing, aside from perhaps the nearly-bawling as I walked down the path. (I will certainly post photos when the photographer makes them available; for the Facebook-enabled, my friend Jeanne has put up a few on my wall that she and her husband took that are really quite nice, if squashed into FB-friendly resolution. We'll just consider them previews.)

It's still a bit of a shock, hearing people refer to Brian as my husband, even though internal-monologue-wise I've made the switch pretty easily.  I wonder if that's because we process self-perception and other peoples' perception of us differently?  Thinking of myself in the role of "wife" doesn't feel any different from "long-term girlfriend" or "fiancee", but hearing myself referred to as Brian's wife by others still makes me do a double-take.

But hey, if nothing else, a wedding's a great excuse to take a vacation.  And after ten hours of flying yesterday (and a twelve-hour sleep following), we're in Kailua-Kona on the Big Island of Hawai'i, which is so far living up to its paradisaical reputation. In one day, we have:

• Met a Master Gardiner for the State of Hawai'i who helped us put together an arrangement of flowers the size of small children for our table
• Eaten two meals at oceanside restaurants open to the air and the surf, complete with adorable small birds hopping around the tables looking for crumbs
• Seen plumerias, hibiscuses, pineapples, bananas, coconuts, and any number of other plants growing in the wild for the first time
• Waded into ocean water warmer than a swimming pool and clearer than anything you see in Alaska
• Laughed at tiny little crabs skittering across the rocks on the shore, and adorable geckos darting across anything and everything on the mainland
• Bought some truly excellent flip-flops from a dude who not only loves selling them, but knows more about flip-flops and their construction than anyone I've ever met
• Discovered that the Chrysler Sebring is one of the most horrendously underpowered and imprecise (as well as other, stronger imprecations) midsize cars on the market
• Shared a strawberry pina colada made with fresh, delicious coconut milk and fruit blended together with ice and garnished with a ripe pineapple slice and a flower, and sworn never to drink another one from a mix again
• Eaten something called an "ice cream banana" fresh from the tree, which was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike a mainland banana
• Stood on a jetty to watch the sunset, and wondered aloud why no one else was standing there...just before getting soaked by a HUGE wave

I have it on good authority that tomorrow I will be twenty-six years old.  We'll have to see what we can find around here to celebrate.  I'm just not sure we'll be able to find anything really special, though; I mean, really, what else is there to do, here?

Wedding and honeymoon

I would go into a long narrative description of the wedding, but frankly I'm not sure I'm best qualified to do so - I was somewhere between "wanting to turn tail and run" and "disappearing into a puff of nervous smoke" for pretty much the whole day, and my ability to observe fine detail suffered somewhat. I will, therefore, leave the descriptions to others, and just say that absolutely everything about it was perfect, and while I'd never do it again, I wouldn't have missed it or changed a single thing, aside from perhaps the nearly-bawling as I walked down the path. (I will certainly post photos when the photographer makes them available; for the Facebook-enabled, my friend Jeanne has put up a few on my wall that she and her husband took that are really quite nice, if squashed into FB-friendly resolution. We'll just consider them previews.)

It's still a bit of a shock, hearing people refer to Brian as my husband, even though internal-monologue-wise I've made the switch pretty easily.  I wonder if that's because we process self-perception and other peoples' perception of us differently?  Thinking of myself in the role of "wife" doesn't feel any different from "long-term girlfriend" or "fiancee", but hearing myself referred to as Brian's wife by others still makes me do a double-take.

But hey, if nothing else, a wedding's a great excuse to take a vacation.  And after ten hours of flying yesterday (and a twelve-hour sleep following), we're in Kailua-Kona on the Big Island of Hawai'i, which is so far living up to its paradisaical reputation. In one day, we have:

• Met a Master Gardiner for the State of Hawai'i who helped us put together an arrangement of flowers the size of small children for our table
• Eaten two meals at oceanside restaurants open to the air and the surf, complete with adorable small birds hopping around the tables looking for crumbs
• Seen plumerias, hibiscuses, pineapples, bananas, coconuts, and any number of other plants growing in the wild for the first time
• Waded into ocean water warmer than a swimming pool and clearer than anything you see in Alaska
• Laughed at tiny little crabs skittering across the rocks on the shore, and adorable geckos darting across anything and everything on the mainland
• Bought some truly excellent flip-flops from a dude who not only loves selling them, but knows more about flip-flops and their construction than anyone I've ever met
• Discovered that the Chrysler Sebring is one of the most horrendously underpowered and imprecise (as well as other, stronger imprecations) midsize cars on the market
• Shared a strawberry pina colada made with fresh, delicious coconut milk and fruit blended together with ice and garnished with a ripe pineapple slice and a flower, and sworn never to drink another one from a mix again
• Eaten something called an "ice cream banana" fresh from the tree, which was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike a mainland banana
• Stood on a jetty to watch the sunset, and wondered aloud why no one else was standing there...just before getting soaked by a HUGE wave

I have it on good authority that tomorrow I will be twenty-six years old.  We'll have to see what we can find around here to celebrate.  I'm just not sure we'll be able to find anything really special, though; I mean, really, what else is there to do, here?