North Shore of Oahu

Lisa and I got an invite to a wedding in Hawaii. As if there couldn't be a better excuse to go to Hawaii........

I guess the whole point of the trip was to celebrate Tanya and Clyde's marriage, which we did in glorious style, but the spectacle of the surf was definitely one of the highlights of the trip for me. It was just the beginning of surf season and the surf came up in dramatic fashion a few days after we arrived. I've always heard about what a spectacle the surf is on the North Shore of Oahu and it didn't disappoint. The warnings called for 30-40 foot waves. The surfers took to the water and placed an awe inspiring perspective on how big things were. They had to use jet-skis to apparently escape certain death by the next 40 feet of in-bound breaker. I wished I had a better camera because it was one of the more impressive things I've ever seen. We stayed at our friends house on the hill above Sunset beach. Sometimes during the night a beach break would hit so hard it would wake me up. Lisa and I spent a bunch of time sitting on the beach. On most mornings we'd fill a Nalgene with coffee and walk down the hill to the beach and watch the sunrise. In the evening it'd pretty much be the same routine only with some nice red wine. One of my favorite things about the North Shore was the nice small town country feel to it, as opposed to the metropolitan grid-lock of Honolulu. Somebody said that Oahu has the worst traffic in the country.

Between distractions by the ocean we made a trip to Honolulu to pick up another wedding partier from the airport. His flight didn't come in until about 8pm so we spent a good chunk of the afternoon touring Pearl Harbor, then went to the beach at Waikiki to hang out before going to the airport to pick up Mike.

We had a wedding to prepare for so I had to get busy with my assignments. I was to assist in building a sign, a card box, and put up some festive christmas lights around the dance floor. The girls made about 400 jello shots, and did a bunch of girly stuff with the bride to be.

Clyde supervising

jello shots

After the set up of the party grounds we went next door to go for a sunset horse tour along the beach. It was fun because the horses weren't trotting the whole time like in The DR. We had a couple of cool guides that did a good job of matching us to the horses. After the ride he said they took the Obamas on a ride earlier that spring. Lindsey was riding the horse that Michelle Obama rode. The President rode a white horse that we didn't take out. It was fun and we were able to ride in shorts and sandals. Along the ride we passed a bunch of native Hawaiians fishing and listening to Ziggy Marley.

for some reason nobody is taking me serious

We of course had a wedding to get back to again. The windy ceremony, just a few feet from the beach, was made super special by the native Hawaiian music sung by Clydes brother and Uncle. They made everyone feel so welcome and as part of their wonderful family. Thanks Clyde! The merry-making proceeded and was chock full of good food, beer, wine, music, dancing and lots of pretty girls....and one wedding crasher that would've had an ass kickin' if not for everyones Aloha.

After the wedding festivities we made serious on some more beach sittin' and sun-sets. The next day we had to get to the airport for an all night flight back to SLC, but first we spent the afternoon snorkeling at Hanauma Bay. Thanks to all my friends, old and new, for a wonderful trip.