After our somewhat less-than-enjoyable red-eye flight from Tokyo to Honolulu, Judy and I managed to move our connecting flight to Kauai up a few a few hours (with the guy at the check-in counter stating no less than three times, “I’m supposed to charge you to change it, but I’ll wave it for you.”) and finally arrived at the Kauai Marriott Resort in the city of Lihue at around 10:00a.m.

We had requested early check-in since we knew that we would be arriving in the morning, however we were disappointed to learn that there were no rooms available when we got there. Having some time to kill, we headed down to the poolside restaurant for breakfast, but we hardly had an appetite in our state of exhaustion. We also looked quite ridiculous sitting at a poolside cafe in Hawaii wearing long pants and sweaters, with winter coats resting over our seatbacks. Eventually the desire to sleep became too strong, so we ended up spending the next few hours dozing off at various locations around the hotel, including on the beach, in the garden and on a couch behind the big Christmas tree in the lobby (where at one point we awoke to the sound of a little boy asking, “Mommy, why are those people sleeping over there?”). Finally, a room became available and we were at long last able to take a shower, take a nap and begin our vacation.

Looking back, our four days in Kauai are a bit of a blur. The majority of our time was spent finalizing everything for the wedding: meeting with the wedding coordinator, getting our marriage license, preparing decorations and gifts, ironing all of the last-minute details, etc., etc., etc. However, despite all of the running around, we did manage to enjoy ourselves quite a bit. We were able to spend time with the various family and friends who made the trip out to join us, we took a dip in the ocean, played volleyball (albeit horribly), relaxed on the beach. . . and, oh yeah, and we also got married!

More to come soon! For now, here are a few photos!