Hawaiian Honeymoon - Day 3

Day 3

Wednesday was the day we decided to rent a car and drive around the island. It was rainy (more like sprinkling) so we chose a good day to just drive around.

 This is the center of Honolulu. Their roads were like 4 lanes but completely surrounded by buildings. It was weird and hectic. The scenery was very pretty once we got out of the city.

 These trees are so funny looking. I was amazed that trees like this existed, but I am easily amused by things like this.

North Shore

We made it to the north side of the island in about an hr and a half. That is nothing compared to driving from Rensselaer or Thayer to Muncie.

 We were both confused by this blue stop sign. It was in a parking lot, but I never once thought I would see one of these.

 These were the waves at North Shore. They don't look that big in the picture but in person they were absolutely huge. There was no way either of us were wanting to get in that water. The beaches were actually closed this day because of them.

Us at North Shore

Relaxation

After driving around for a while, we headed back to just relax before our Luau.

The scenery on the walk back to our hotel.

Curt stylin' at the beach

Luau

While planning our honeymoon, we decided we would go to a luau. In reality the food was weird but the story, music, and dancing was very cool/interesting. The reason the food wasn't that good was because it was "authentic" Hawaiian food. It was a good experience though and we hit up McDonald's afterwards. :)

Before the luau

 

 They started the luau out with this girl twirling balls on a string. There is a name for these, but of course I can't remember it.

 The performers switched outfits at least 5 to 6 times throughout the night. The cool thing was that they were telling a story. The whole luau was about where the Hawaiian people originated from and a little bit about their culture.

They ended the show with the guys twirling fire but my camera wasn't doing so hot. Mixing low lighting with movement makes taking pictures extremely difficult.

Hawaiian Honeymoon - Day 1 & 2

DAY 1

Time for some honeymoon pictures! For those of you who don't know, we went to Honolulu, Hawaii for our honeymoon. Just getting away for a week was amazing. The best part was we would go to bed at 1pm our time and it was like 10pm in Hawaii then we could sleep for 10 hours and get up at 8am. This gave us the whole day to enjoy being there. First off traveling to Hawaii is terrible. We didn't have trouble with our connecting flight or anything but those are some long plane rides.

This is what Washington looks like from the sky. It was probably the coolest area to see from the air. The clouds were low enough to have some of the mountains showing through.

 

 Curt became a professional flier after this vacation. He had never flown in an airplane before but realized it isn't that big of a deal. I do know he has had his fill of flying for awhile (hopefully not forever :p). Mostly he was just bored because you sit there for 5 to 6 hours in a small space.

 We finally made it! Our travel agent set it up so that we would be greeted by someone and taken to our hotel. They even gave us lei's which smelled good but they were way to strong. It was still a cool way of arriving in Hawaii. Traveling took the entire day for us. We started at 11am Central time and arrived in Hawaii at like 9pm their time (which was 1pm central time). So we really just got situated in our room and fell asleep watchin some TV.

DAY 2

 We stayed at the Hilton Hawaiian Village on Waikiki Beach. After staying there for a week we decided that we were at the best resort on the island. We say that because on the other side of the island the waves were like 25-30 feet (pictures will be posted on a later blog). Then in our area, our resort had everything we could possibly want. We wouldn't have had to leave the resort since it had everything but we wanted to explore.

  

This was our view. We were on the 23rd floor out of 25. It was pretty cool to have this view. The weird thing was you can feel the building sway in the wind.

Okay your probably thinking..."Really a picture of a fish?" BUT this is a koi fish. I had absolutely no idea they were this giant. I just wanted to share our 'what the heck' moment.

BEACH TIME!

We of course had to do the cute name in the sand picture. It's so weird to have a different last name but I love it! 

 So when we got to the hotel (at 9:30pm) our room wasn't ready. How does that happen?! Anyway, we were told we had to wait but we got $100 credit on our account. It ended up we had to wait 5 minutes so it was definitely worth it. Well we spent half of our credit on snorkel stuff. You can see Curt (above) modeling his gear while you can see me below!

 The cool part was we just walked into the ocean and could see tropical fish. We didn't pay to go snorkeling since we could do it for free. Now for some scenic photos from the area on the beach we were at.

Diamond Head

 We also walked around Honolulu during our day there. We didn't go too far because believe it our not about 80% of the people that were visiting were Japanese. You almost felt like you weren't in the USA.

The streets of Honolulu

A really cool tree with extremely long roots.

Our first palm tree picture!

Since this was New Year's Eve we decided to go out to dinner. We went to Tropics Bar & Grill which was located in our resort. It ended up being our absolute favorite place to eat. They had the most amazing ribs.

Look back soon for the next part of our honeymoon!

Our Wedding!!!

Yay! Time to talk about our amazing day! Our wedding day went very smoothly. In fact, we actually arrived at the reception ahead of schedule. I'm sure a lot of brides say this but I can really say our wedding day was perfect. The only mishap we had was that Curt broke his pants right before the wedding. Luckily, the people that did our flowers (Jordan's in Rensselaer) also do tuxes and fixed it for him. Oh and the Presbyterian Church's pastor called me Krenra during his prayer. I thought it was hilarious because our nephew Colton calls me that. If anything it lightened the mood. Now I will warn you I don't have many pictures but I will post more when the photographer gets them done. 

Our first kiss as a married couple! 

LOVE IT!

One thing Curt told me was that he did not want to see me before the wedding. He loves being traditional and I'm glad we did it that way. It made the ceremony more special. We took a few cute pictures of us before like the one above. I can't wait to see the rest!!

Our nephews did an amazing job! From what I hear, they didn't want to get out of the wagon so I'm sure they loved it. Colton especially loved the reception. I didn't think he would ever stop dancing! A funny story about Colton was that during the rehearsal he wanted to come stand by me. His mom said no (obviously) and he started to cry and said "I don't want Krenra to get married!" Every time I think about it I laugh because I think he would have preferred that I married him. 

Us cutting our delicious cake! Thinking about this cake makes me want a piece. Luckily, I have almost the entire thing in the freezer and will eat some after dinner now. :) 

So the photographer, Samantha Mitchell, had a picture of me up as a sneak peak. I thought I'd share it with you all as well. 

I will definitely post more pictures as soon as I get them but right now this will have to do! From what we hear everyone thought the wedding was beautiful and we think so too! It was definitely perfect for us because we were marrying our best friend. Now I just want to thank everyone that helped out. Our day wouldn't have been as special without all of you there and with all the help we got. I am glad its over now because no more planning! I also get to see my husband every day and love every second of it. Even if we are disagreeing.

I'm Back! / Pogue Holidays

Hello! I am finally back to my blog. I will warn you this is a long blog but most of it is pictures. Now I'm sure most of you want to hear about the wedding and honeymoon but I still need to catch up from Christmas so that first. Well Curt and I have had an extremely hectic month and I don't feel like we will ever get unpacked and organized. I'm hoping eventually it will happen. ANYWAY on to pictures. I'm now married into the family and they can't get rid of me (I only have to worry about payback) so pictures will be posted.

 First some pictures from Thanksgiving. You will come to realize fast that they try to not get their picture taken.

Daisy just so happened to get in the way.

Beautiful!

Yay...I got the cutie to sleep and not scream.

CHEESE!

Thanksgiving and Christmas with the Pogue's just means lots of music and laughing. I think I fit in very well. :p This year we visited both grandma's. 

Grandma Pogue

Grandma Pogue was in the hospital recovering from knee replacement. I figured I'd tell you ahead so you understand the hospital pictures.

Such a good picture!

Colton was entertaining everyone....like normal

Grandma Brown

On the move

I should be a photographer, right?!

Grayson with his Grandpa

CHRISTMAS TIME

I LOVE Christmas. It is my absolute favorite time of the year. I don't even remember it happening. I had so much going on its like it passed on by. I think I listened to maybe 5 hrs of Christmas music during the season....so sad. :( Next year will be better. Curt will just have to get over my music playing or grab a guitar and join in.

Me showin off my gifts from Curt. We said we weren't exchanging gifts but he still got me some.

Poor Grayson was crying so hard his face matches his outfit. Luckily he got new formula and is happy!

Haha its such hard work being a baby

Well I tried to get a good pic

GOTCHA

I think they are pretending not to notice. haha

Like a child he was so excited to open gifts.

Colton's workbench that he absolutely loved.

Well now your caught up as of December 26th. Keep checking back for the wedding blog!!