little bits from our hawaiian honeymoon.

(oahu&maui)

many more to come.

*check out the flickr album for descriptions of each photo*

hanauma bay, ohau | waimea bay, ohau

Our honeymoon to Hawaii was the best trip I have ever taken. It was the perfect combination of complete relaxation (napping, reading, lying on the beach) and uncharacteristic spurts of athletic activity (surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving). Two weeks was also the ideal amount of time to be away - we were well rested and eager to re-connect with family and friends.

Unfortunately we came home to a very messy house. It looked like a hurricane had hit it - wedding stuff, my stuff from moving in, suitcases from our honeymoon - a veritable disaster! We've been busy trying to give it some semblance of order, but I seem to have hit a roadblock with our bedroom. It's been sitting there for a few days, crying for attention, but I keep finding more pressing things to do... Hopefully I'll attack it this afternoon!

Thanks for being patient with the blogging break & for all your sweet comments on the last post. More photos will be coming soon! In the meantime, check out our fuji instax shots from Hawaii here (this one is my favourite!).

(all photobooth images available here)

We're married! It was beautiful, hilarious, laid back, and the happiest day of our lives. But we are more than ready to say good-bye to wedding to-do lists and hello to Hawaii this evening! While out there, we'll be taking a facebook/blogger/twitter two week break, so we'll see you on the flip side, friends!

Love, Mike & Janis

*Check out a few wedding instagrams on my twitter.

By forgoing bridesmaids, I knew that I might miss out on somethings like a proper bachelorette. And that was completely fine with me.

But when two of my close friends suggested a low-key, beach side bachelorette, I was completely smitten with the idea. They brought flowers, stacks of magazines, an outrageous amount of delicious food, a beautiful gift and decorations that they hung from tree branches. I felt doted upon, loved, and relaxed - quite the winning combination. It felt like a little vacation from all the wedding craziness!

Speaking of which, three days!

Yes that's me there in the corner - hightailing it out of the photo, just a little too late.

Mike, in kindness and good faith, let me assist him at my cousin's wedding this past weekend. I mostly tried to stay out of the way (occasionally failing, as the above photo bears witness), fix Kristin's dress, marvel at Mike as he perfectly executed the photoshoot portion of the day (read = extremely attractive), and carry bags and coats. I did manage to snap some photos as well, of which Mike was highly complimentary. (Seriously, that man is just the nicest!)

The wedding was gorgeous, colourful, and crazily creative. Thanks for setting the bar so high for mine, dear cousin! ;) These two lovebirds have been dating forever so it was awfully nice to see them make it official.

There were some additional fun twists to the weekend which included somehow getting my seatbelt twisted around my waist. I got completely stuck, laughed hysterically until I cried and a convenience store employee had to use a wrench to undo the seatbelt.

I also chipped my tooth last night as I was tickling and playing with my niece and nephew. Never chipped a tooth in my life, so why not do it less than two weeks before they wedding?! It's not a huge trip, but it will unfortunately will be bit of a tricky fix.

In an effort to make me feel better, Mike commented that we can now go by "chipped tooth" and "snaggletooth" - an attractive combo, n'est-ce pas?

We are going through a crazy heat wave right now. I want to spend every day at the beach, like I did last Friday!

Nikaela (my favourite local blogger) wrote a lovely tribute about our dear prairie city:

In winter, I wake up to my radio alarm clock warning me about -47 degrees celsius (-50 degrees f). frost bite, hypothermia, loss of limbs. Yesterday that same radio alarm woke me warning me of +46 c. (116 degrees f) heat stroke, sun stroke, etc

Because we are landlocked, because we are far enough north to get that cold, because of a host of other factors I don't understand, we get some of the biggest extremes in the world. It makes for a certain type of personality, I think. In winter we keep going with school/work/life even when we have to plug in our cars and shovel for hours to get out of our driveways. And in summer (because we must take advantage of it, because soon it will be winter again), we play outside with hats and sunscreen and hot dogs and put off getting an air conditioner, when most southerns would look at us like we're nuts. Maybe we are nuts.

Yesterday, Mike's mama got a new puppy. His name is Mac & he's an Australian Shepherd. He is also cuddly, playful, and pretty darn adorable.

This new puppy gave us the opportunity to roll around in the grass and drink slurpees on a warm summer evening. Doesn't get much better!