Wedding Adventure - Day 10 - Hawaii

Our last full day in Hawaii started off with a trip to the spa at Turtle Bay. This was quite an adventure for me as I’d never been to a spa before. After getting changed into robes we were escorted out to a little thatch-roof hut right beside the ocean for a very relaxing couples massage. The sound of the waves crashing ashore made it that much more enjoyable. After the massage we both had traditional pineapple pedicures. The process involved numerous steps, including soaking in warm coconut milk and scrubbing our feet and legs with red Hawaiian sea salt, (that part didn’t feel too good on my gashed up toes from surfing). They then poured honey over our feet and legs. This was followed by lots of crushed pineapple. Next they wrapped our legs up in Ti leaves and hot towels and let us sit for a good ten minutes sipping cucumber water. Cucumber water tastes awful but we just had the most relaxing massage ever so we didn’t care. After unwrapping our legs and feet and sealing everything with aloe, they massaged our feet and hands. After all that pampering we practically floated out of the spa.

During the afternoon we went to the Dole Plantation, the home of Dole Pineapple in Hawaii. I learned a few things here. The first was that pineapples are not native to Hawaii. They are actually native to Brazil and South America and we brought to Hawaii in the 1700s when a Spanish ship happened to wreck on the island. The second was that pineapples don’t grow from tress but instead grow on little spikey plants that look the top of a pineapple. Each plant produces three pineapples. Two are eaten/sold while the third is used for replanting.

There are many things to do at the Dole Plantation. We figured that the pineapple maze would be a bit muddy but we did ride the little train through the pineapple fields known as the Pineapple Express. We happened to catch the train boarding at 4:20. Yes, we rode the 4:20 Pineapple Express. We’ll never be the same.

The plantation has a huge souvenir shop and snack bar serving soft serve pineapple ice cream. It’s really tasty and makes a good float when combined with Sprite.

After the sunset on us at Dole, we headed back to Haleiwa. Tried of the hotel offerings, we wanted to eat at a local place in town. With the surf contest nearby at Sunset Beach, most of the seafood places were crowded and Amy had pretty much had her fill of fish (insert Futurama penguin joke), so we wound up at Pizza Bob’s. Pizza Bobs actually dated to the 1970s and was the fist pizza place on the North Shore, serving generations of hungry surfers since. Our pizza and cheese sticks were very good and Amy recommends the Longboard beer to anybody going to Hawaii (little did we know you can also get it at Kroger at home). It was fun and different, and a little less expensive than everything at the hotel.

Wedding Adventure - Day 9 - Hawaii

Saturday morning we awoke crashing waves. The swell had peaked out overnight and although the waves were still big, the front had moved in and along with it, the wind had picked up, blowing most of the waves apart, making for tough surfing conditions. A Coast Guard airplane was still flying along the beach looking for the missing surfer. We later found out that he had been washed down the shore to a different beach where he went home safely without telling any of the friends he was out surfing with and were left wondering when he didn’t show on the beach at the end of the day.

With the big waves rolling in, the surfing contest at Sunset Beach was resuming this morning and we decided to go watch. The contest is the second jewel of the Van’s Triple Crown of Surfing, held every year in Hawaii as the final three stops of the world pro surfing tour. Yes, such things exist on ESPN2 when nothing else is on. The first jewel was held at Haleiwa a few weeks prior and the third jewel would be held at Pipeline at the beginning of December. The contests are scheduled over a two-week span, but the contest is only staged on days with good surfing conditions. Friday was perfect with big waves and nice weather while today things were getting a bit choppy.

Since we were arriving at the contest from the Turtle Bay end and not from the Haleiwa end (where everybody from Honolulu driving up for the day would be coming from) and there is only one road along the North Shore, we managed to find a good close parking spot about a ten-minute walk from Sunset Beach. We found a nice spot in the crowd on the beach and settled in to watch the pro surfers tackle waves in the 15 to 20-foot range. Every few minutes, a monster set would plow through the line-up, sending the surfers paddling out f the way and those sitting closest to the water scurrying as the huge waves eventually crashed ashore. The crazy accent of the PA announcer made this whole experience enjoyable and they did a good job of explaining how everything worked between the 20 minute score heats.

Unfortunately, the clouds rolled in and the rain started to come pouring down. It let up once, but the second time appeared to be sticking around for a while. Since the rain decreased visibility to the point where it was hard to see any of the surfing action, we decided to go back to the hotel where we spent the remainder of the rainy afternoon in our hotel room reading and going through all of the wedding photos that we had already received as prints.

For dinner (on the recommendation of Hurricane Bob a few days earlier) we dashed between the raindrops and went to Lei Lei’s, located in the clubhouse of the golf course at Turtle Bay. Another fabulous meal, I had the pork shop while Amy had fresh ahi tuna again.

Wedding Adventure - Day 8 - Hawaii

We awoke this morning to find that the ocean outside had changed overnight. The waves had grown much bigger as front started to push down from Alaska. When we arrived, the waves were in the 5 to 12-foot range. They were predicting waves in the 15 to 20-foot range by the end of the day, with the odd waves possible reaching 25 feet!

The day before I had booked a surf lesson in order to fulfill my dream or surfing on the North Shore. Chance, my guide from the Hans Hedeman Surf School located in the Turtle Bay resort, helped me paddle out at Pau’ena Point where I managed to get up on a couple 3 to 5-foot waves for a few short seconds each. It was a lot of fun and a triumph considering my physical condistion and that a year ago my illness almost had me in the hospital. Even if I had been in shape, this was considerably more diificult than my last surfing experience at Santa Monica in California. There I managed to get a couple good rides on some slow rolling waves over a shallow sandy bottom. Here the waves were much bigger and steeper, the current a lot stronger, and the bottom covered in rocks and reef. I did hit the bottom once with my foot and scraped up my toes pretty bad. Still, I had an absolute blast out there even though I wound up dead tired. At the time I was surfing, the air temperature was 72 degrees and the water temperature was 74 degrees. With these nearly perfect conditions I didn’t even need to wear a wetsuit. I was able to wear my usual swim trunks and a rash guard shirt. Even though Pau’ena has sheltered surf for beginners, during the lesson you could tell that the waves were getting bigger and more and more people were paddling out. At some of the more open surfing spots, the waves were getting close to forecast size and it was becoming the biggest and best day of the surf season so far. After my surfing we triumph we celebrated with some more Matsumoto’s shave ice! I had lime this time and it was also good.

After lunch we headed for the more sheltered beach at Turtle Bay (Kuilima Cove) that still had some nice crashing waves. Amy and I stashed our stuff on the beach and went for a swim. The water was shallow enough that you could swim out to the first reef. Normally during the winter on the North Shore the water is too stirred up to be clear enough for good snorkeling, but standing in the shallow water over the reef, you could look down and see tropical fish swimming around your ankles. It was very cool.

At one point I was trying to get on the reef by stepping on some rocks under the water. The “rock” kept sort of moving away from me. Then I looked down and noticed that the rock had fins and a shell pattern on it. I was actually trying to step on a sea turtle! It kind of freaked me out and I started treading backwards away from it, but it seemed to hardly notice and swam away on its own.

After swimming we hung out on the balcony watching the steady lineup of surfers paddling out Kuilima, the surfing spot right next to the hotel. A few surfers were even more adventurous, going for some tow-in surfing on the outer-outer-outer reef which with the big swells was breaking nicely over 15 feet.

We walked down to sit on the reef and rocks while watching the sunset. It was a spectacular view with the surfers riding waves in front of the setting sun; something right out of “The Endless Summer”. It seemed like they were going to keep going to see who could last the longest into the rapidly adding light when Coast Guard helicopters started to fly up and down the North Shore with their spotlights shining down on the waves. This got the last few holdouts into shore pretty quick.

We later learned that a number of surfers had to be pulled from the waves via helicopter that day. At dusk, one surfer was reported missing when he didn’t rejoin his friends on shore and was the subject of the intense helicopter search.

For dinner we elected to eat at the Bayside Café, the restaurant and sports bar in the hotel. The problem with a sports bar in Hawaii is that because of the time change, by the time dinner rolls around, most of the games are over. The Dallas Mavericks happened to be playing the Lakers in LA, so what would usually be a late-night matchup made for good dinner entertainment since it was too dark out to enjoy the view of the ocean out the windows. After the long day swimming in the ocean and battling waves, Amy had a burger and fries and I had pizza.

Wedding Adventure - Day 7 - Hawaii

We decided to spend Thanksgiving driving around the island since we figured it wouldn’t be too busy. Apparently the local Honda clubs had the same idea as their were dozens of little ricer Civics and the like driving along the North Shore as we headed towards Haleiwa. We drove through town and through Walalua (home of the soda works and some great root beer) to Mokule’ia Beach Park. We walked in the sand for a bit and took in the view (and watched some skydivers at the nearby Dillingham Airfield) before moving down the road to Army Beach for a few minutes.

We had the goal of reaching Ka’ena Point which is the westernmost point on Oahu and is famous for having some of the largest known waves in the world. However, the paved road ends about two miles from the point and only a rough dirt trail leads the rest of the way. We put the Jeep into 4-wheel drive and headed down the very rough and irregular trail. We had to go very slow since there were all sorts of ruts and holes in the road, and our rental Jeep, not intended for off-road use (explicitly forbidden in the rental argreement), wasn’t equipped with good all-terrain tires. It was such slow going that after several hundred yards we pulled off the trail to pose the Jeep overlooking the crashing sea. It made for a great picture and although I’m sure the view from the point is spectacular, it wasn’t worth the effort and time.


We got back in the Jeep and drove down to the south shore and through Honolulu. We took H3 up into the ridge separating the south and east coasts and through a long tunnel. The tunnel popped us out high above Kane’ohe on the east shore of Oahu. We wound down through a few short tunnels before we were at sea level and could see the road coming out of the tunnel high above us. Quite the feat of engineering.

We stopped for lunch at Kualoa Park on Kualoa Point on the east shore. The park was very nice with many families out having Thanksgiving picnics. We grabbed a bench and had a lunch of sandwiches and leftover Hawaiian pizza. Several cardinals flitted by to enjoy our leftover crusts. We walked along the beach that was sheltered by Mokoli’I Island (aka Chinaman’s Hat) and like all the others, it was picture perfect and not very crowded.

After lunch we continued on to Kahana Beach which is near Kauhi’makaokalani (aka Crouching Lion Rock). It was also very pretty, a beautiful sheltered horseshoe bay.

Our final stop was at the Foodland in La’ie where we bought some beach towels and reef walkers so we could make better use of the beautiful beaches.

After another sunset from the balcony, we decided to order room service instead of going to the somewhat pricey Thanksgiving buffet. I had the spaghetti and meatballs again while Amy opted for the Ahi Tuna. We spent the evening reading in the room while the waves grew bigger and bigger in size outside. It was a very relaxing Thanksgiving.

Wedding Adventure - Day 6 - Hawaii

One advantage of the time change (four hours from DFW) was that we were up early on Wednesday morning for breakfast. The vacation package we booked with the hotel included air from Vegas, the rental Jeep, the room and the breakfast buffet each morning. Breakfast was always scrumptious with an array of strange fruits available. Who knew that starfruits actually grew like that? The had a selections of juices, cereal, eggs to order, toast, rolls, bagels, and an option of pancakes, waffles and french toast that rotated each day. They also had a section of strange breakfast seafood that seemed to cater to the many Japanese and other Asian guests.

Our first stop today was to drive down to Haleiwa (or Haleiwa-town as the locals say) to go to the North Shore Surf Museum. The North Shore is famous in surfing circles to being home to some of the biggest, most consistent waves. Each winter, storms in the bearing sea create huge ocean swells that race across the ocean until the hit the warm water and air of Hawaii where they rise up into monster waves that challenge the best surfers in the world at spots such as Pipeline, as made famous by the Chantay’s instrumental rocker. It is also mentioned in the songs “Ride The Wild Surf” by the Rip Chords (and the movie of the same name) and ‘Hawaii” by the Beach Boys as well as being the setting for the movie “Big Wednesday”, is featured in the classic “The Endless Summer” and the documentary “Riding Giants”. In fact, my desire to travel here stems from the terrible 80s movie “The North Shore” that I saw a few times on HBO or Showtime in hotels while on vacation with my parents one year in the late 80s. The surf museum included memorabilia and surfboards from a who’s-who of the surfing world. The museum is run by Hurricane Bob, who was stationed in Hawaii with the Air Force starting in the 1950’s. His job was to fly old surplus second world war bombers into the eyes of Pacific hurricanes to study them and help track them before satellite weather technology became widespread. He had a wealth of studies, including some about friends who flew spy missions over the Soviet Union during the cold war and never returned. Well into his 70’s, though he doesn’t even look 50, he’s an avid surfer and is the national champion for his age bracket. We purchased a few souvenirs and cards and also picked up a coffee table book on Haleiwa (since I’m a sucker for coffee table books). Right as we were purchasing it, one of the co-authors happened to walk in to visit with Bob, so he signed our copy.

Next to the surf museum was a glass shop and a cool blown glass octopus in the window caught our eye. Since Amy has a bit of thing for squid and octopi, we went in to check them out. Since they guaranteed we could get it home without it breaking if we carried it on the plane, we decided to purchase one. The one we selected is light blue with dark blue/purple spots. Apparently it is patterned after a species native to Australia that has a very deadly sting/venom that is lethal to humans as there is no known antidote.

After doing some shopping we grabbed lunch. Amy had a turkey sandwich from a bakery in town while I had a couple slices of pizza from the restaurant next door. Then it was time to go to Matsumoto’s general store for their world famous shave ice. I first learned of the place while watching a PBS documentary called “An Ice Cream Show” back in high school. I’ve been to a few of the places featured on the show, and since this was just a few miles from our hotel, it was a must while we were in Hawaii. The shave ice comes in dozens of flavors and with several different options. You can get plain shave ice, which is basically a snow cone or you can get shave ice on top of ice cream, which is the option we selected. Then you can get it “with beans”. The beans are Japanese Aoki beans that have been boiled in sugar. Amy had her orange shave ice with ice cream and the beans while I had my root beer shave ice with only the ice cream. She said that the beans were very weird, both in terms of taste and texture. The final option is to have your shave ice topped with condensed milk. We left that to the more adventurous but it seemed like there was a large contingent who preferred theirs with the condensed milk and the beans.

We headed out of Haleiwa with the aim of stopping at a beach that looked nice. Well, they all look nice. We chose to stop at Laniakea Beach and discovered that two sea turtles were up on the beach sunning themselves. Although cute and oblivious to all the tourists crowded around, the turtles were guarded by a marine biologist who placed a rope around them to give them some space. We looked at the turtles and dipped our feet in the Pacific while watching the surfers on the growing waves at Laniakea and Hultin’s.

Leaving the turtles behind and again on our way back to the hotel, we stopped at the Waimea Bay Foodland store for some groceries. The prices of everything are a bit of a shock but if you just remind yourself that you are on vacation in Hawaii they are not too bad. Since it was the day before Thanksgiving it was rather busy with last minute shoppers. We also stopped at a roadside stand to buy a fresh pineapple from a lady wielding a rather scary looking knife.

After watching the sun set from our balcony, we had dinner in the Palm Terrace restaurant in the hotel. I had a nice big steak dinner while Amy had one of the local fish species. Both were very good.

Wedding Adventure - Day 5 - Vegas to Hawaii

This morning we had to say goodbye to our Vista Suite and experience with how the other half lives. Still we were excited as this meant we were on our way to Hawaii!

Checking out went smoothly and we were pleasantly surprised to discover that the hotel had completely comped one of our nights in the Vista Suite instead of just putting the small allowance that was part of the wedding package towards it. That was probably our biggest win in Vegas right there!

The flight from Vegas left mid-morning and we spent about 6 hours on the Hawaiian Airlines 767 before landing in Honolulu. The flight was long but went rather fast. I think my favorite part (besides landing and getting off the plane of course) was when we pushed back from the gate and they started playing “Hawaii Five-O” by The Ventures over the intercom. It really got me in the Hawaii mood. On approach to Honolulu we flew over Pearl Harbor and saw the Arizona Memorial.

All of our bags made it to Honolulu on the same flight and we made our way to the rental car center. Going outside, the air was such a change from Vegas: humid and very fragrant, much like a flowery shower spray. It rained and then became sunny twice while I was filling out the rental paperwork. Our rental car was a very cool bright red Jeep Wrangler convertible 4x4! It was trick to get all of our luggage into it with the small trunk area but we managed and headed off across the island of Oahu to the famed North Shore.

The Tuesday afternoon pre-Thanksgiving traffic was pretty heavy and the frequent rain slowed things down. However, as we got further outside Honolulu, the interstate traffic cleared up. Coming into the little town of Haliewa, we came over a rise to our first glimpse of the ocean on the north shore with an endless parade of waves stretching to the horizon. The beaches looked gorgeous and the surfers (and their old VW buses) were out in force as we drove along the shore to our resort hotel, Turtle Bay, located on Kahuku Point, the northernmost point on the island of Oahu.

You know that the weather is going to be nice when the hotel lobby doesn’t have any doors. Turtle Bay, famed for its setting amongst the undeveloped fields of the still rural North Shore is a sharp contrast to the Waikiki beachfront crowded with high-rise hotels. It was featured in the movie ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall” but as always, some Hollywood liberties left us not knowing exactly what to expect. Our room was one the 4th floor on the west side of the part of the hotel that juts out into the ocean, with a balcony perfect for watching sunsets. We were very lucky again!

After taking a short walk around the grounds we watched the sun set from our balcony and ordered room service. I had spaghetti and meatballs while Amy had Hawaiian pizza. Both were very good. With a second two-hour time change and the long flight dragging on us, we drifted off to sleep pretty early in the evening as darkness enveloped the waves crashing onto the reef outside the balcony.

Wedding Adventure - Day 4 - Vegas

“The morning after” began around 8 when room service pushed a breakfast cart into the main living room of the suite. The breakfast was included as part of our package and we pushed the cart over by the windows so we could look down on the busy casinos while we ate a feast of toast, steak, eggs, sausage and hashbrowns. It also came with a huge fruit plate that we ended up picking on all day long. We also had plenty of leftover cake to tempt us!

After breakfast we got back into our wedding gear and met my parents downstairs so we could take a couple of pictures of us standing in front of the Las Vegas sign, just like our cake topper. We didn’t factor on the sign being so blinding and shining right into our eyes, but the pictures we took with sunglasses turned out great. Well worth the effort!

After taking pictures, I hurriedly packed my tux up so that my parents could drop it at the Bell Desk for pick up by Tuxedo Junction. While my parents were taking care of that, we headed off to the photo place for 11AM to go through our wedding pictures and pick out the prints that were included in our package.

Going through all of the wedding pictures doesn’t seem like something you should be doing the day after a Vegas wedding, but such is the way the world of digital photography and Vegas wedding marketing works. The couple ahead of us was taking forever to make their choices, with both sets of parents in the office as well going back and forth between two identical looking prints. Finally it was our turn to head into the back room, much like we were going to buy a new car. This is where the slick marketing began as they already had a few framed prints of us sitting out and had a slideshow of the best images already prepared and ready to roll. Since we really wanted to go have fun, visit with relatives and friends and gamble instead of selecting 44 images from the over 200 options, we elected to just buy the rights to all of the pictures along with an additional selection of enlargements. Amy was happy with the deal and so was I.

After the photography place and a snacking lunch, we started packing up the suite. Rodney and Stephanie volunteered to drive a lot of the stuff we shipped out and wanted to keep back for us, so they helped us pack and we carted everything down to their room where they helped us drink the bottle of champagne that came with our wedding package before going to play slots for a while. Finally, the work was done and we could start to relax and enjoy our wedding experience and vacation.

With Amy’s family on planes back to Texas, my parents off to see the early Beatles Love show at the Mirage and Rodeny and Stephanie going to the later showing on the Beatles Love, we had the evening to ourselves.

A fancy dinner for two at Mandalay Bay was also included in our wedding package. It was originally slated for the Asian-fusion Shanghai Lily but at the last minute was switched to the French restaurant Fleur-de-Lys. We dressed up all fancy for the occasion and once seated, were told that our dinner included an appetizer, entrée and dessert along with a wine pairing for each. Although I know it is a serious faux pas to turn down the wine in a French restaurant, I didn’t want it to go to waste and our waitress had to go out into the casino to get me a Sierra Mist.

The dinner started with a pre-appetizer consisting of a tiny bite of a white fish over a tiny dollop of mashed potatoes with a few other fancy ingredients thrown in. I could tell this was not going to be an ordinary dinner. It seemed like we were on iron Chef as they had to explain each item to us along with what was in it. For appetizers, Amy had the tartare with a tiny quail egg on top while I had veal ravioli. Both were fantastic. For the entrée, Amy had some sort of fancy dish with ahi tuna while I opted for the Fleur Burger, that, listed at $85 on the menu, would eb the most expensive burger and fries I’ve ever had. The burger was made from Kobe beef that just melted in my mouth and was topped with Foie Gras and soaked in truffle oil. The fries were made from fingerling potatoes and came with a small cup of truffle oil to dip them in. It was simply fantastic. For dessert, Amy had a chocolate soufflé with mocha ice cream while I had a combo consisting of three parts: a miniature peanut butter milkshake, a little chocolate banana volcano cake, and some vanilla ice cream on a bit of chocolate dipped ice cream with crunchy carmel and peanut butter crumbled over top. Again, it was incredibly good. They then brought out a plate of little petit-fors to snack on and conclude the meal. It was very nice to see that the meal, coming in at nearly $300, was comped as part of the wedding package.

After dinner, we tried our luck in the casino a bit before going to the Fantasy show at the Luxor next door. It was very entertaining but I think we enjoyed the X show at the Flamingo a bit more on one of our previous visits. Still, not a bad way to start married life!

Weddind Adventure - Day 3 - THE Day!

The alarm went off early and I don’t even think I really woke up as Amy went off to get her hair and makeup done and do the bride thing. Thus I was left to my own devices on the morning of the wedding. I had a lot of things to keep me busy, however, from setting up the candy bar to placing the cake toppers. The grooms cake had a surprise cake topper that we had been keeping secret from everybody. After we got engaged, I somehow convinced Amy that we should have a little Lego bride and groom on top of one of the cakes since Lego was a big part of my childhood and a big reason why I’m a civil engineer. We found a person in England who sells little bride and groom kits on eBay and ordered one from her. She even customized the bride’s hair and other details as requested. Not being one to leave anything Lego alone, I added a few more details from some Lego I happened to have stashed away, and swapped the little groom’s flat plastic hair with some spikey brown hair from a Spider-Man set (Amy thought about giving the bride the Mary-Jane hair but it seemed a bit too orange and a bit too volumous at the time). Then, by pure chance, on a model train site I happened to find a little scale replica of the Las Vegas sign that actually lit up and flashed just like the real one. It was perfectly sized to serve as a base for our little Lego couple, and Amy and I wound up with the, in our opinion, the coolest little Vegas groom’s cake topper ever.

The sign and Lego people were to be placed on the groom’s cake, which was a log-style cake from the Jeanne’s bakery in Winnipeg. I decided to place the topper at one end of the cake such that it looked like the couple was about to walk down an aisle of little icing flowers. To keep the sign, with it’s somewhat heavy base containing a few AAA batteries, from sinking into the cake, I built a pile foundation out of lollipop/cookie baking sticks from Michael’s driven into the cake. Always an engineer you know…

After completing a bunch of these little tasks I got dressed up and walked down to the wedding chapel. A few of my relatives were already waiting outside, so out popped all of the cameras. Amy’s brother had rented an Elvis costume for the wedding, and when he emerged from the chapel dressing room in his get-up, the flashbulbs really started to pop. I wasn’t too sure about this idea at first, but the costume was a really high-quality one with all of the accessories, so it came off with the right tongue-in-cheekiness without looking cheap. It certainly added a little something extra to our Vegas wedding!

As the time for the wedding drew near, Amy’s grandfather was nowhere to be found. Apparently an improperly set hotel room clock had him running a bit behind, but he zipped into the chapel on his scooter right before 11 AM as the pianist was finishing up the last of the five songs we had selected to be played while the guests were being seated: “Going to the Chapel”, “Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton, the traditional Hawaiian Wedding Song in honor of our honeymoon destination, and two by The Beatles (of course) “I Will” and “In My Life”. These things are pretty important when an audio engineer is waiting in the bride’s room.

Then it was my turn to walk into the chapel. Since there were no other members in our wedding party, I had to stand up there alone while the pianist went through the Sinatra classic “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”. Very Vegas but a rather long song when you are just standing up there with nothing to do. I imagine I looked rather concerned but I was very happy at the time. It was nice to see that some of my friends from the U of I had actually made it to the wedding as I hadn’t seen them yet in Vegas.

Then Amy walked down the aisle, looking fantastic in her Vegas wedding cocktail party dress in white with green trim, complete with pearls and big green heels. The ceremony went quickly and had a few moment of slick Vegas production, like when the minister just happened to hold the rings off to the side so the photographer could snap a picture of them overlapping in his hand. Thanks to my trembling hands, I had a somewhat difficult time getting Amy’s ring on her finger, drawing some chuckles from the crowd. Amazingly, without any tears from either one of us, it was time for that first kiss and the happy walk out of the chapel with the photographer snapping away. Just Married!

Then it was right back into the chapel for pictures with all of the immediate family in all of the various permutations and combinations. Then we took a couple with all of the wedding guests up front with us. We didn’t know if they would work but they wound up turning out great!

The guests were released to the casino as we embarked with the photographer on our hour-long wedding photo safari around the Mandalay Bay grounds. He took some classic poses in the chapel and then some more fun ones around the pool. He also took a bunch near the arches and waterfalls that they have in front of the hotel but most people don’t even know are there. We even had some done where we are playing slots in the casino. Any Amy managed to stay in her heels the whole time without switching to the green Converse. The photographer took over 200 pictures and we look cute in every one of them! Look at me… look into the distance… look at each other… a little kiss now… All those seasons of America’s Next Top Model finally paid off.

We had a few minutes to race upstairs to put a few things away before heading to Café Giorgio in Mandalay Place for our wedding luncheon at 1PM. We had one of the small banquet rooms in the rear of the restaurant to ourselves, with four tables of guests (26 guests total) and a little sweetheart table for us to sit at. The menu included:

House Salad
Choice of: Butternut Squash Ravioli with wild mushrooms, garlic, basil and fresh tomatoes or Spaghetti with meat sauce
Choice of: Flattened Chicken in a garlic parsley sauce or Pink Snapper served with a lemon caper sauce
Tiramisu

By all accounts the food was excellent and left our guests stuffed even before the cake party. A funny moment came when my Canadian relatives began to tinkle their glasses with their forks and look in our direction. I had been concerned about this cultural misunderstanding as I had never seen this done at any of Amy’s friend’s wedding we had been to previously and I guess it is just a bigger deal in Canada. Hearing the tinkling, Amy turns to me and asks me if they want me to make a speech. I had to tell her that they wanted us to stand up and kiss! So we rather awkwardly kissed as most of Amy’s family was expecting us to give a speech as well. Everybody caught on for the next round of glass tinkling and we did a much better job.

After lunch everybody did some shopping or found a slot machine while we raced up to the suite to finish preparations. I made five or six trips to the ice machine to fill the drink buckets while Amy got a few more things in place. It was a mad flurry of activity as Amy turned an extra bouquet into a centerpiece. She was going to put some flowers on top of the cake, but with Stephanie’s concern that the white orchids might be toxic, we elected not to. Even without the flowers, the cake looked fantastic with all of the delicate scroll work and beading around each of the three layers to hold the green ribbon in place. We decorated the top with a little silver “A&T” letter set. However, for those who walked behind the cake, the topper read “T&A” with a backwards ampersand. Such is life.

With our guests beating down the door for a few minutes around 4PM, it was finally time to welcome them into our Cake Party in the swanky vista suite. As the guests entered they were greeted by the vision of the bride’s cake in the place of honor with the Vegas strip stretching out behind it, just as we had envisioned almost a year before. It certainly drew many Ooohs and Aaaahs from our family and friends. They set about exploring the suite and hitting the candy bar that included bins of gummi slot machine cherries, red gummi coins, mint truffle Hershey kisses, lego brick sweettart candy, mints in poker suit wrappers, chocolate poker chips, red gummi dice, Laura Secord chocolate cigars from Canada and green and white M&Ms. The M&Ms were customized with “Amy & Tyler”, “November 23 2008”, “Maybe in Legoland”, and “You’re Mine” written on various ones. We also spent a lot of time organzizing a playlist for the party, combining Vegas classics with songs that have personal importance to us or just seemed very wedding appropriate. It was quite the eclectic mix but perfect for us.

After the sun set and with the glittering strip as a backdrop, it was time to cut the cakes. There were actually three types of cake, with one layer of the wedding cake being lime cake with strawberry frosting, the other layer being vanilla with strawberry frosting and the groom’s cake being banana cake with vanilla frosting. All were delicious, tasting just as good as they looked!

The cake party lasted until around 8:30 PM when our parents and my friends from the U of I were the last to leave. This was the first time the old U of I train geek crew had been together in the same room since campus seven years ago, so there was plenty of catching up to do and old stories to tell. Kevin and Tanya had just moved to Edmonton, Alberta from Mississippi, so it was very nice of them to take time out for the trip. Joe and Yolanda don’t fly very well, so they actually drove out to Vegas from Indiana, and Jim and Attalee managed to leave their two young boys with family so they could make the trip from Iowa.

After everybody left we tried to clean up a bit but soon discovered that we had forgot to buy trash bags. So it was off to Von’s while still in our wedding gear. We also stopped at In-N-Out for a late dinner snack of burgers and milkshakes. We got a few compliments at the In-N-Out by UNLV and took a few more cute pictures inside while waiting for our food.

After a day we will never forget, it was time to enjoy the spectacular view from the bedroom portion of the suite...

Wedding Adventure - Day 2 - Vegas

As nice as THE Suite was, we didn’t have too much time to enjoy it Saturday morning. Since we were changing into a Vista Suite in the main Mandalay Bay tower for the next three nights, we had to pack everything up into the car before check-out time. After hauling everything down to the parking garage and arranging for the room transfer (we couldn’t get a key to the Vista Suite until 3PM) we hurried through the casino to the valet area where our ride to the Courthouse was waiting.

We knew that our wedding package included limo transportation to the Clark County Courthouse to obtain a marriage license, but we figured that just meant some sort of fancy town car or big taxi. We were quite surprised to discover a black stretch limo with room for 8 waiting for us. Despite these limos being a dime a dozen in Vegas, we still felt a bit like celebrities as we were driven to the courthouse and dropped off at the marriage license bureau.

The marriage license bureau was not exactly what I was expecting. It was a small space with a few tables for filling out forms, and then a set of ropes to line up in, much like making a deposit at the bank. Actually it was more like buying tickets for a movie as the clerks were behind glass with the whole microphone and speaker arrangement and a little slot to slide your documents and cash back and forth. We didn’t have to wait very long and the whole process took about 20 minutes. Walking down the steps out of the marriage bureau, we encountered a group of people peddling wedding guides and transportation to near by chapels (the closest is two blocks away) in case we were in for a spontaneous quickie wedding. Since we already had arrangements in place, they wished us a hearty congratulations before moving on to the next couple behind us. When the limo driver picked us up to return us to the hotel, he told us that we were very lucky and picked a good time to get our license as during the week the line can be one or two hours long. I guess that isn’t too surprising since a typical day in Vegas will average over 600 weddings. Luck finally seemed to be turning our way!

Arriving back at the hotel, we found the Impala and drove over to Tuxedo Junction on West Sahara to pick up my tux and shoes. A few months prior, Amy had measured me and submitted them online along with my selection from the various tux, vest, tie and shoe styles. I was pleasantly surprised to find that everything fit perfectly when I tried the tux on. No alterations needed. Amy, who was sitting on one of the comfy couches in the tuxedo shop actually started to cry a bit when I came out of the fitting room with the tux on. This did not bode well for a tear free ceremony.

With my classic retro Vegas 50s-esque tux and rat pack like black and white shoes in the trunk, we stopped at a nearby Jimmy Johns sandwich shop for lunch and discussed the last few remaining items we needed for the wedding and cake party we’d be having in the Vista Suite in place a of a true reception. The last thing we needed was iced tea for all the southerners who would be in attendance. We hadn’t had any luck finding the right stuff at Von’s and there were not any Chick-fil-a’s in town, so it seemed like we were pretty much stuck. I took a wrong turn after leaving Jimmy Johns but it happened to take us past an Albertson’s grocery store. We decided to give it a try and it happened to have the iced tea we needed.

It was finally time to head back to Mandalay Bay and check into our new room. This was a source of much worry and stress as we had planned our wedding day around having a “cake party” in a big “Vista Suite” overlooking the strip from high atop the hotel. However, they can never guarantee you the exact room and view, so we didn’t know if things would go exactly as envisioned or not. While checking in, the clerk mentioned that this suite had a really pretty view. For a second I could feel things sinking as I thought that might mean we were looking away from the strip towards the mountains. Amy was brave enough to ask, “Which view exactly is that?” The clerk responded that it looked down the strip at all of the other hotels. Perfect!

Excitedly we raced up to the 32nd floor. To give them a wraparound view, the Vista Suites are at the end of the hotel wings, so our room was all the way down a very, very, very long hallway from the elevators. We ran down the hall to the double doors. Behind them we were greeted with the most amazing view of the Vegas strip and a fantastic room in which to spend the next few nights and throw our once-in-a-lifetime party.

The next couple of hours were a blur of hauling boxes of supplies up to the room and getting things set up for Sunday. We had previously shipped a number of boxes containing all sorts of things, from cake cutting sets to all of the wedding favor boxes, to the Mandalay Bay business center. Amy’s parents picked them up on Friday after they arrived and had been holding them for us until we checked in to the suite. While Amy helped them arrange things, I went to my parents’ room to pick up the groom’s cake that my Mom had brought with her on the plane from Winnipeg. It seemed like it was just starting to thaw nicely. We also had to haul several cases of glass bottled soft drinks up from the car in the parking garage. You don’t realize how much easier plastic and cans make going to the grocery store until you elect to go the old school route.

After getting everything staged, Amy’s parents left and it was time to run down to Rodney and Stephanie’s room to check out progress on the main wedding cake. Besides being good friends, Rodney and Stephanie run a side business doing custom cakes out of their home in the Metroplex. Stephanie has created many amazing creative cakes over the years, and when she offered to create our wedding cake, we jumped at the chance. I‘m not sure if they realized exactly what they were getting themselves into, but baking a cake for a Vegas wedding turned into quite the adventure. A few weeks before the wedding, I helped Rodney construct an insulated container to transport the cakes. We lined a huge Rubbermaid storage tub with Styrofoam using liquid nails (Rodney’s great idea of using some baking soda to absorb the glue odors saved the project). Then, a few days before the wedding, Stephanie baked the cake layers and gave them a base coat of icing. Then the cakes were placed in the container along with some dry ice to keep them cool while they made the long drive from DFW to Vegas with minimal stops. They arrived around midnight Friday and had spent all day working on finishing the cake. Stephanie actually brought her Kitchen-Aid stand mixer and had it sitting on the dresser in their hotel room mixing up icing! I’m sure it wasn’t their ideal or most glamorous first day in Vegas but the cake looked spectacular! They had even rolled fondant on the cake board and imprinted a pattern that matched the one used on our wedding invitations. You can get Stephanie's take on the adventure here.

The only trick now was moving the wedding cake from their room on the 9th floor up to the 32nd floor. Unfortunately, Mandalay Bay has two elevator systems, one serving floors 16 and below, and another serving floors 17 and above, so to move the cake between rooms we’d need to ride one elevator all the way down to the casino level, walk across the elevator lobby to the other group of elevators, and then ride all the way back up to our room. Fortunately the bellman came to our rescue and showed us where the service elevators were. This greatly shortened the ride for the cake and kept us from winding up in a crowded elevator. It’s a good thing too as it seems like Stephanie was on pins and needles the whole way with the cake being one thumbprint away from disaster. The cake made the trip safely and looked even more amazing sitting on the large dining table in front of the windows overlooking the skyline of the Vegas strip. Relieved and freed from their task, Rodney and Stephanie sprinted off to the casino.

Since it took a lot longer than expected to get everything unpacked and the cakes in place, we were late for dinner at the Burger Bar in Mandalay Place. It was supposed to be a come and go thing but by the time we arrived, a lot of our relatives were seated together and well into their meals. The food at the Burger Bar was very good after such a long day of running around. I don’t remember a whole lot except for my Dad giving Amy’s brother a hard time while watching Oklahoma trash the previously undefeated Texas Tech football team.

It had been a long day and after dinner we wandered through the casino and lost a few dollars in some slot machines. After taking care of some more setup in the vista suite, we met Rodney and Stephanie at Forty-Deuce. I’m sure this place would be a lot of fun on a Saturday night, but since we had to get up at the crack of dawn to get ready for the wedding, we called it a night early. I couldn’t resist giving Amy her wedding present ahead of time however: a silver Tiffany necklace with a lock charm shaped like the ace of spades.

Wedding Adventure - Day 1 - DFW to Vegas

After months of planning, this morning we awoke early to begin our Vegas-Wedding-Hawaii adventure. I was not feeling particularly well, so it was pretty rough getting to the airport and through security. We flew out to Vegas on American Airlines and I was pleasantly surprised that they did not try to charge us for an extra bag when we checked in. Since Amy was carrying her dress on the plane she still had two bags to check. While we were dropping the bags at the security screening area, the TSA officer asked me the usual questions regarding banned items in my bag. Then he asked Amy if she had more than three pairs of shoes in her bag. A nice spot of humor in what, at 8AM, had already been a long morning. Boarding the plane we caught our first bit of luck as the flight attendants made room for Amy’s dress to hang in the closet by the main door, saving her from folding (or more likely crumpling) it into an overhead bin.

The flight to Vegas was uneventful and I drifted off into iPod sleepiness for most of the way while Amy watched the remake of Ocean’s Eleven on her Nano. We were very excited to land in Vegas. However, as we waited and waited at the baggage claim and watched all of the other passengers drift away with their bags, it became very apparent that one of Amy’s bags did not arrive in Vegas with us. There was another rather concerned couple from our flight wandering around without any bags, so at least we were not alone (and had two of the three bags, plus the all-important carried-on dress). We talked to the representative in the American baggage office and she said that the bad hadn’t made the flight but would be put on the next flight arriving a few hours later. She said the bag would be delivered to our hotel later that afternoon. It had not been the best start to our trip.

Somewhat weary, we made our way to the rental car center to pick up our wheels for our time in Vegas. After a few bad experiences with the long lines at Dollar, we booked through Alamo this time, and after a few short minutes at a self-serve kiosk, we had our car: a bright red Chevrolet Impala. Although lacking in personality and excitement, the car had a huge trunk and did a great job of carrying us all over town while running our endless string of errands.

First stop was Michaels where we purchased a large tub to put drinks on ice at the keg party (we had previously shipped two smaller tubs we bought at Crate & Barrel in Dallas). Then we headed off to two different Von’s grocery stores to pick up bottled drinks and supplies for the cake party. Von’s is the Nevada version of Tom Thumb (for those of you in Texas) and Safeway (for those of you in Canada). With a car full of luggage and groceries (mostly soft drinks in glass bottles) we stopped at the In-N-Out Burger on the edge of the UNLV campus for a late lunch. It was good as always.

It was finally nearing Check-in time so we drove to Mandalay Bay and checked into our suite in THE Hotel where we’d be staying for one night. THE Suite was very cool, with a main living/sitting area with a couch, desk and widescreen television (and powder room by the front door complete with THE tp) and then a separate bedroom with another huge television. The main bathroom was huge with a fantastic shower lined with some sort of stone that felt amazing on your feet. We really need to find out what it is so we can use it when it is time to renovate our own bathroom. Our floor-to-ceiling windows faced away from the strip, overlooking the busy I-15 freeway and the anthill of a parking garage with the mountains in the distance.

After settling into the room, checking to see if our families had arrived and some blimp-watching, we wound up going to New York New York with my parents for dinner and some slot playing. Amy and my parents had dinner from the little fish and chips stand while I had some pizza from the New York-style (what else?) pizzeria just off the casino floor. It was very good. On the way back to Mandalay Bay, we went through the MGM Grand where my Mom stopped to play a Monopoly Grand Hotel machine and more than doubled her investment in a few short minutes.

It had been a long first day and we had a full schedule for Saturday, so we called it a night early (by Vegas standards).