MEET THE JOHNSONS!

This post will cover the most important day of our whole trip - the day Robyn and Stephen became man and wife!! It was truely the most loving and heart-warming ceremony I've ever witnessed, and I know for a fact there wasn't a dry eye in the house (well, beach, to be exact). I'll start with Friday though, and the awesome rehearsal dinner cocktail cruise that Stephen and Robyn invited each of their wedding guests to attend! Here are Stephen and Robyn on the trolley on the way to Whaler's Village, where the cruise started. You can tell how radiant they both look already!

Here are Ted, Amber (Robyn's sister and co-matron of honor), and their twin two-year-old cuties, Megan and Elise:Here are Jay and Dad in front of the Shangri La, our cruise vessel:
Don't worry, I asked them to make crazy faces for this photo...
The sail of the Shangri La:
I absolutely LOVE this photo of Robyn and her niece Elise!
We couldn't resist a family photo in front of the amazing sunset:
And now on to the big day!! Since I was in the wedding, I didn't get any photos of the ceremony on my camera, so you'll just have to trust me that there were a lot of BIG smiles and a lot of tears. The whole event was so touching and sweet, and everyone was just so happy to be there to witness and be a part of it. Here is my photo of the Newlyweds with their officiant, Pastor Vance, immediately following the ceremony:
After the reception started, right there at Ka'anapali beach at the Castaway Cafe (which I must say is an amazing restaurant, that manages to combine delicious food with a comfortable and casual atmosphere), the bride and groom went back down into the sand for some photos in front of the gorgeous sunset. I didn't want to intrude on their romantic photos, so I just took this one of Jay taking photos of them!
Although this one is blurry, I love the HUGE smiles on their faces coming back up from the beach after all those romantic, kissy-face photos!

Here are Robyn and Stephen with his best man Jake, and his wife Rose and daughter Reagan, who was quite a joy for all of us to dance with at the reception!

Dad took this photo of Jay and I as the sun was going down. I really loved my co-matron of honor dress, and my beautiful plumeria hair-clip and jewelry!

Of course, I had to get my photo alone with my Robyn:

And one with my best buds together:
Then I made Dad and Mom smile as big as they could manage for this one (don't they look great when they show some teeth?!?!)

Here is the bride and groom sharing their first dance, to the Israel Kamakawiwo'ole version of Somewhere Over The Rainbow (What A Wonderful World). If you haven't heard the song, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A2Jt4WOxN8 to watch a video that includes many beautiful rainbow photos!

And finally, the morning after, we said goodbye to Mr. and Mrs. Johnson (although we were lucky enough to see them again at the airport, so I got extra hugs!)

GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN

For Robyn's Bachelorette, we decided to get all the ladies together and spend an entire day doing girly things. We started the morning at the Heavenly Spa at the Westin. We had Hawaiian Lomi Lomi massages and Pohaku manicures and pedicures. It was absolutely wonderful! Plus, we got to use their jacuzzi, sauna, and steam room. Here are Robyn, Sandra, and Amber in the sauna:

Here are me, Robyn, and Sandra after our massages:

After getting dressed up for a night on the town, we gathered the ladies in my hotel room to plot a surprise for Robyn. Everyone got "leid", placed a pair of panties in a bag, and we walked over to Robyn's room to pick her up. For our first game of the evening, we had her pull the panties out of the bag one at a time and try to guess who brought which pair. It was much harder for her than we thought it would be, although, to be fair, there were 17 of us there, with a couple extra panties from guests who couldn't make it to the party! I think Robyn got 4 correct, including the pairs from her mom and sister!

The next game was a Hawaiian-themed Digital Scavenger Hunt. We broke the bachelorette guests into 2 teams based on the color lei they picked at the beginning of the night, then asked them to take 25 pictures of specific tasks... anything from taking shots, to climbing a palm tree, to piling the group into a hammock, to hula dancing, to getting in the ocean... well, you get the idea! Everyone had cameras going, so I only have a couple pictures to show:

By the way, Team Purple won (by 4 points)!

After dinner, we played one more game: Gum Groom. Before the party, we asked Stephen 23 questions about himself (we had a hard time coming up with 25 questions we thought Robyn might not know the answers to... after 12 years together, they know each other pretty well!) Every time she got one wrong, she had to chew another piece of gum. We managed to trick her into getting 8 questions wrong, although she argued a few of them... We let her take it up with Stephen though, since we wanted to see a mouthful of gum! Here she is halfway through the game, right after we asked her a naughty question... apparently there were 2 correct answers, and she wasn't sure which one she should give away first!

After the game, half the group called it a night, and the rest of us migrated down to Lahaina to take Robyn dancing. Turns out Paradise Blue (the club we'd planned to go to) had recently closed down, but we found a cool bar called Moose's that combined dance club with sports bar with local hangout. After 2 rounds of Mai Tai's, we hit the dance floor! Here are Chelsea, Holly, and Rose making a toast to the bride (who is off camera to the left):
Here are Robyn, Chelsea, and Holly enjoying their drinks:
Another shot of the girls at the bar: Rose, Sandra, me, Robyn, and Holly:
And finally, I had to throw in at least one shot of Robyn dancing!

ALOHA MAUI!

Hello Maui, here we come! This is my first view from the air, of west Maui:

This is the Ka'anapali Villas, where most of the wedding guests stayed:

Here are Debra, Jay, Stephen, and Robyn on our first morning snorkeling. We went right out in front of the resort, where there is some of the best snorkeling on the island!

Mom and Dad arrived that afternoon, so we high-tailed it to Happy Hour at the Aloha Grill:
Then we moved over to the Old Lahaina Luau, where there were many more "happy hours", tons of delicious Hawaiian foods, great entertainment by very talented dancers, and the best service we've ever had - Thanks Mikey! Here I am with some of the welcoming committee:
The next morning we woke up early and left the villas by 4:00am to see the sunrise at Haleakala National Park:

You can see Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa (on the Big Island) in the background here:

We took this photo at the top of the crater, at 10,023 feet!

After stopping at Hosmer Grove to do some birding on the way back to sea-level (more on that in a later post), we grabbed a delicious and much over-due breakfast at Grandma's Cafe, then hit the Maui Winery (and yes, we thought of you David and Taryn the whole time we were there), and finally visited Iao Valley State Park before getting back to the resort. Here are Jay and I in front of the Iao Needle:

Friday morning, we got up early again to join Pacific Whale Foundation's Molokini Crater and Turtle Arches snorkel tour. We saw some beautiful fish and lots of sea turtles, and even these Spinner Dolphins from the boat:

Once we got in the water, we were actually able to hear the dolphins, which was really cool! Mom and Dad did a great job with their first time snorkeling and seemed to really enjoy the trip:

That afternoon, we attended the resort's Friday Mai Tai Happy Hour while waiting for the trolley over to Whaler's Village for the cocktail cruise that Robyn and Stephen had planned for all their wedding guests. Here are Jake and Jay with Mai Tai's in hand:

After another round of snorkeling Saturday morning (we managed to go every single day while we were in Maui!), we went over to Lahaina with Mom and Dad to see the International Festival of Canoes. The outrigger canoes being carved by the master canoe builders were amazing, and the location in Banyan Tree Park, where a single Banyan tree takes up the ENTIRE park was really cool! There were a lot of other local Polynesian artisans there, and we couldn't resist buying our trip souvenier, a tiki carving by Kalolo T (his last name is so long, he only signs his work with a T). Here we are with Kalolo and our tiki made of Milo wood:

And here are Mom and Dad in front of one tiny portion of the big Banyan tree: