Amoeba, Aloha!

As Anders and I started planning our honeymoon travel, we realized that a stop in the Bay Area would be a great way to get to Hawaii! 

We booked a flight for early Thanksgiving morning so we could arrive in time to do one of those cherished holiday activities--cooking! Fifteen people in the kitchen, five delicious casseroles and one turkey later, the fun had just begun. Thanks, Bowles family, for passing on this fabulous sweet potato recipe to Andy--over the last few years it has become a Thanksgiving favorite!

Did someone say, "Amoeba?" While the cooking was fun, and the eating even more enjoyable, by far the best part of our trip was our wonderful group of friends, our California family, coming together to hang out. Jill made the trip from Minnesota, Trevor gave up Potter family home cooking to stay in Cali and we were reunited with Julie's brother, David, from our trip to Oregon for last year's Thanksgiving. Oh yeah, and here is a picture of us re-living our wonderfully crafted flashmob (thanks, Britta!). This move is appropriately called the Amoeba=).

The guys headed out through San Fran to go surfing for the day. There's no photos of us girls doing one of my all time favorite Bay Area activities...but let's just say I have a beautiful new lime green skirt as evidence of how we spent our day.

Have I ever mentioned how much I like sushi? If not stay, tuned, it will come up again=). On our last full day we packed into our favorite sushi bar, ManPuku, and then headed up to Indian Rock for the sunset. 

Our weekend in the Bay was everything we hoped for (Thanksgiving meal, hanging out at the Albatross and the Miz-Lo, playing some Settlers, hearing updates on life) and it was great to see everyone! We're so thankful to have such amazing friends. We hope to come back again soon! 

Aloha, Hawaii! We all know that Hawaii is known as paradise right? In other words, you think of beaches, nice weather, palm trees, etcetera. However, they don't just call it the "rainbow state" because it fits with the theme. On top of everything else, there really is a rainbow almost every day. Hard to believe until you experience it, but just in case you still don't believe me, check out the double rainbow that just showed up out of the blue...no pun intended=). 

For the beginning of our week, we stayed with some wonderful family members, the Culhanes. Sadly we do not have a great photo with them, but, we did have a wonderful time and therefore made some great memories. Geoff, Pi'ilani and Kehau have always been great connoisseurs of Hawaiian food, and to celebrate our wedding/honeymoon they took us out for an incredible dinner at a nice restaurant. Enter, this beautiful ahi tuna (told you the sushi would be back), and I'm in heaven! We so appreciated our time with the Culhanes on Oahu and also look forward to seeing them again. 

On to Maui! We show up at the rental car agency and they say, "Would you like to upgrade to a Jeep for $60 total  for your 4 days?" (much cheaper than the arm and a leg they asked for online when booking in advance), so with one look at each other we say, "Yes!!" This was one of the best decisions we made. Thanks to Scott, our personal tour guide (via text), we made our way around the east coast of the island. I never cease to be amazed by the  myriad of fresh fruit available right on the side of the road, so refreshing.

Oh yeah, and we found some sweet waterfalls on the side of the road too! Can't beat spending the day swimming in a lagoon and having your new husband jump over your head=).

The late afternoon view from our car...did I mention that we got a Jeep and it was awesome?!

Another really amazing thing about Hawaii, are the areas of the islands where there are no buildings, and very few people...just incredible views. As we completed our drive around the south coast of Maui, we were following the sunset for about an hour, and besides the rolling road ahead, there was nothing but the sloping hillside and the ocean. Definitely worth the trip. Aloha until next time!