Melissa+Christopher

Back from Hawaii! I've got to say that being married is the best. We've been busy setting up our apartment and have become frequent guests at our next door neighbor's place, IKEA. If you have any interest in talking to this happy couple, I'm sure if you wait outside IKEA's glass doors long enough, you will eventually see over-excited Melissa and good-sport Christopher wheeling a cart stacked with things for him to put together. Lucky I married a patient man.

Besides the apartment, we are back to work and feeling a little blue about it. So to cheer myself up, here are some Hawaiian highlights. Enjoy.

  

--having to say Aloha at least 3 times at each event at the Polynesian Cultural Center until we reached the entertainer's enthusiasm satisfaction.

--playing with the sea turtles and swimming with the dolphins.

--seeing a couple dressed to the limits of tourist style (complete with matching flower print shirt and shorts for the woman, fisherman hat and fanny pack for the man) in two different locations on two different days.

--getting a worthwhile sugar headache from a strawberry shaved ice/vanilla ice-cream treat at Matsumoto's in Haleiwa.

--playing on boogie boards in the ocean with Christopher.

--having a husband who loves me enough to help me build a sand castle replica of Thomas Cole's Course of the Empire series complete with snapshots of all five phases...Savage State, Arcadian State, Consummation, Destruction, Desolation...yeah, we already made fun of ourselves enough thanks.

--eating stuffed shrimp at Jameson's overlooking the ocean.

What a great trip.