John and Laura's Wedding Day

Yes, I have my Scottie back. He came back last night and not a minute too soon. We stayed up to 1:30 am because he had so much he wanted to share about his trip and I had so much to talk about my weekend. Yesterday was a very full day. I've been working nights and then running crazy in the mornings. I canceled on a baby birthday party and stayed home just to catch a quick nap before heading off to coorindate the ceremony at Hale Koa hotel for John and Laura's wedding.

I always attend the friday night church service so I hadn't met laura before she started asking about wedding services. But, now that I have met her, I just think she is the most adorable thing. She's sweet and so easygoing. Her fiance (ahem...I mean husband) John, looks so serious and then he opens his mouth and it is wisecrack after wisecrack. He's really funny (and I'm married to Scott so I just everyone by his humor). And she just laughs and laughs.

I volunteered to help with their ceremony, because (1) I've been too busy to feel like I was really devoting enough time to helping them plan it and (2) I've never really seen Ralph perform a wedding. I mean, he did mine, but it was all kind of a blur and I don't remember much of it.

The only hitch I could see was they were really on the fence about having a communion. Not a big deal, unless they decided at the last second they wanted communion and I wasn't ready. Second hitch in the plans is that the parking lot is far away from the ceremony site. So, a tired me had to improvise...with a collapsible wood dinner tray and I needed a solid clean fabric to cover it, so I pulled down my curtain. Oh, if they only knew. There was a bottle of wine in our wine chiller, it could have been ours, it have been Stanton's, but, whatever, I opened it. Never opened a bottle of wine before in my life. Didn't know that you were supposed to unwrap label at the top before you try to remove the cork. Kept trying to pull that wine opener out and it would just rip through the cork. Thankful that there were not little pieces of cork floating in the wine.

I'm not supposed to make recommendations to people under my position as the wedding coordinator for the church. But, personally, I loved the Hale Koa as a wedding venue. Mind you, the last wedding I helped at was at Ko Olina and my standards are pretty low after that one. But they were unbelievable attentive and gracious. John left the wedding CD in his car and I really should have known to just bring my back up but I didn't think of it until I was halfway to Waikiki. He's trying to figure out how to get his brother to go look for it...and bam...the hotel staff is stepping in...they have wedding music...and it's the same songs that Laura wanted. The sound system was excellent. The best I've heard in an outdoor ceremony.

The wedding photographer was also really nice. What really struck me about the photographer, Alyssa, was that she was very personable and melded right in. She was calling everyone by name (not just the bride and groom) and she didn't draw attention to herself during the ceremony.

Ralph has a policy about starting weddings a little late. To give everyone a chance to be there. 15 minutes before the schedule ceremony start, the bride was itching to go. She wanted to start. She looked at all the seats that were filled and said "let's start, everyone is here." Laura laura, let's wait a little, you're still early. Five minutes later and 20 more guests have filtered in. "Let's go, that's everybody." Are you sure, Laura...let's just give it a little more time...now there is a whole crowd of guests. She was so excited that we just had to cue Ralph and start it. It was really cute and funny.

If I was to get married again (to the same guy), I would consider getting married at the exact same place. I was really glad when it was over, because I had a long day and just wanted to get in my pajamas and lie in bed...but I was also happy because Scott was coming home. *sigh*

(this post is in homage to my sister who say I write too much. pbttt :)~

(this is from my prime lens...No PS editing at all)

(my classic blur pose, that's gina's shoulder in the corner)

(the videographers had crazy crazy equipment everywhere...I barely managed to catch a glimpse of the flower girl, Laura's grand-daughter, peeking at her)

(Laura also sewed her own dress...whoa, nelly)

A day at Kailua beach

It's my three day weekend in the middle of the week and my husband had yesterday off because of Easter Monday. So we invited my sister and nieces over. She only brought 1 out of the 3 nieces because the other two snuck out the night before. Oooh, so naughty. I lived in a dorm and I only snuck out once in high school. My friends and I sat in the Maluna baseball field dugout for twenty minutes and then went back to bed cause we weren't really sure what you were supposed to do once you were "out."

We tried to dig a pool in the sand for Lauren and she did like it...but she also like crawling in the edge of the water. It's funny but she gets on her stomach and squirms backwards towards the waves until the water rushes up and hits her. She kind of looks like a turtle. When we went off to shower, Scott stepped on a bee and got stung. When he was younger, the doctor did a skin test and told him he was allergic to bees. He used to carry an anaphylactic shock kit around but he said it was so old that he just threw it away. So we were a little worried and kept an eye on him. His foot swelled up and he started getting hives around his neck but it didn't get any worse...so I guess God was watching him.

( I think she ate some sand)



(I call this her filipino bathing suit...she is filipino...waipahu too)

(in the hole scott dug for her...played with textures...but I didn't do anything to her eyes...they're reflecting something cool)



(right after Scott was stung by the mean bee)

Look who turns 1 month old today...

Not me.
She was born on valentine's day and we took these pictures a little over a month later on Saint Patrick's Day. I think she'll run out of luck in April...what holidays are left?


Her mom, Liz, made the cupcake for Saint Patrick's Day. Jenny put it on the baby. She didn't even twitch. That baby can sleep. Kind of reminds me of Scott.

A day at the beach with family

My older sister Cassandra is officially off work until her maternity leave is over. And the twins aren't coming til May so she has a while. So, yesterday (my day off) she and my oldest niece, Ashley, and my youngest niece, Lauren came over to visit the windward side. We ate lunch at my house first. My roommate, Vinnie, joined us. He originally thought he had to testify in court but turns out he had the day wrong. I bought furukake chicken from KJ's. The Waipahu girls loved it and then we went to the beach. I haven't been to the beach in years...it was a shock to my system. Plus, I remembered how much I hate sand. It gets everywhere. But it was a nice day and we found a prime parking spot at Kalama Beach Park in Kailua. Just down the road from the more infamous Kailua and Lanikai beaches.

Lauren has come a long way since being deathly afraid of the water. Now, she'll still cling to you but she loves it.

Photo 2: This is such a rare picture because she's actually looking at me and somewhat smiling. She's a lot more bubbly and talkative with Cassandra around. She's not saying any actual real words that we understand but she seems to think she is.

Photo 3: This is my favorite picture. She was just fascinated with sand. She just kept staring at it and picking at it. Can't you tell? She's covered in sand. She did learn a valuable lesson after she dropped her snack in the sand and she still tried to eat it. I just saw her make a face and stick out her tongue which was covered in sand and she spit out her banana puffed cereal.

Photo 4: This was my bright idea and I made Ashley and Cassandra help me set up the shot. But Lauren decided she was just not going to sit still. She kept getting up and leaving...darn it, once they learn to walk, it's a whole new ball game. But, for some reason, she did decide to do this little handstand and held it for a good minute and I thought it was still cute.