Uncle Joy's Wedding

The explanation for these pictures is at the bottom (my computer refused to copy and paste). Enjoy!

Happy girl loving being on a plane!

Nana and Addi in Kona

Addi at her first beach! Not a fan of the sand

it turns out :-)

This is Sandy and his brother, Dale

being dashed against the rocks as they

attempt to snorkel.

"Ahhh! This is the life"

Joy, Warren and Lindsay right before the wedding

Sandy and I right before the wedding

Addi practicing to be a flower girl
the happy girl

the girl who needs a nap, but is still so cute.

Sandy eating dragon fruit It's like a very

sweet kiwi and it's magenta

Sunset in Kona

Ok, here's the family joke. Because of my dairy allergy,

I usually can't eat dessert. The helpful waiters often

offer me a bowl of strawberries. On this trip,

they brought me a bowl of strawberries, but this time

it was flambe with dragon fruit in a coconut.

They know how to do a bowl of strawberries in Kona.

A volcano crater. I don't think you can see them,

but there are people down there.

A piece of lava tht's been in the tree for

about 60 years.

Addi playing in the volcanic dirt.

Fun picture of sand

Addi watching a "sleeping" turtle

Addi getting ready to snorkel

The second snorkeling spot where we swam

with dolphins.

View from our balcony

Picture from the plane

Addi is still happy even after several hours flying home

Having fallen behind (by about 4 months) on the blog, I have decided to not catch up, but just skip a bunch of things and just start over now :-) However, Sandy's sister, Joy got married in August and I just can't skip her wedding....it was too amazing! So, here is our Hawaiian wedding adventure!

Our flight left Tri-Cities (about an hour from Walla Walla) at 6:00 in the morning - which would have meant that we had to leave at 3:30...not ok. So, we drove over the night before, stayed in a hotel and took the one minute shuttle to th airport. We have flown enough with Addi that we have our luggage situation down, so that was much smoother than it's been in the past. We flew from Tri-Cities to San Francisco to Kona. Addi did very well on all of the flights. If she had had her way, she would have walked up and down the aisles saying hi to everyone. As that is not every travellers' idea of a good time, she had to stay in her seat. On the flight to Kona, we were actually seated right behind Sandy's Aunt and Uncle. That was fun to be able to chat a bit on the way over.

Because of the time change, we took off at 6 in the morning, traveled for about 10 hours and arrived at 11:30 in the morning...how great. I laughed out loud when landed because all I could see were the palm trees and black lava rock. I laughed because it was so surreal to experience a tropical place first hand...amazing. It was also W....A....Y more humid than I had expected. Fortunately, I love it :-

This was the first destination wedding that we had been to. One of the perks is that the family has minimal responsibilities, so we were able to play for the full two days before the wedding. We walked around to the shops and went to our first beach. Sandy and his brother, Dale tried to go scuba diving at the first beach, but it turns out that it was all just rocks. Dale got pretty torn up, but not enough that it affected the wedding - (way to go Dale, taking one for the team :-)

Joy and Seth's wedding was beautiful! It took place on a grassy lawn overlooking the ocean. Addi practiced as the flower girl, but the wedding took place at naptime, so I carried her down the isle. Sandy sang (which was of course beautiful). Addi was just ever so slightly disruptive. She kept asking where papa was (singing), but soon settled down! After the wedding we walked up to the reception which was on a balcony overlooking a bay! After the sun set, we were able to watch the manta rays feeding..I mean, come on..it was amazing.

Over the next few days we were able to visit a volcano and go scuba diving a few times. The first day we were in a shallow bay, where the fish were so close - it was incredible. I knew people loved to snorkel, but wow! It was incredible. The second day, we went to another beach. The water here was 30-50 feet deep (a whole different ball game). At one point, someone said that there were dolphins out past the drop off. We swam out into the deep water (which was scary because we couldn't see the bottom anymore). There were about 30 wild dolphins that just swam around us. They were about 5 feet away. INCREDIBLE!!!

The whole trip was a blessing - Joy and Seth's wedding was amazing! Being in Hawaii for a week - also great!

Here are some of the pictures of our trip!