Chiquita

Happy Birthday Shelley!!!

My friends and I all learned how to play in high school from my friends' mom. Once in awhile we will have an MJ night where we all get together and play. It's SOOOO fun. We have a special board and everything.. heh. However I don't really have any tips or tricks for you. I still need a cheat sheet for some of the characters!!! I think the more you play the easier it will get and you will learn strategies. I usually try to go for tiles all sticks or balls or whatever. Get big points that way.

Mrs. - tvt Ummm.. not sure about B2B yet

Celina you look fantastic! Love the pics

Congrats Lisa and James!! What a sweetheart

Yay Erica.. so excited for you!!

Jaime you look fantastic and so happy

Ugh.. sorry about your problems with the photographer. But I can't wait to see the ones you do have!

What happened with your photographer Celina?? Glad you are back and everything went well

Tammy she is just toooo adorable. What a great new addition to your happy family

Those all look fantastic Tara You looked so amazing!

Oriental Trading Co is a great site to get stuff for OOT bags. Alot of the time they are in units of 12 to order. Depends what you are wanting to put in the bags I guess.

Either the 1st or 2nd weekend of december.. depending on when we have time My cats LOVE sleeping under our tree on the tree skirt

I had 2 Maids of Honour. Both have been my best friends for a long time and I couldn't choose between them.. so both got to be it

Good question. I've had to get a money order from my bank to get all the copies of the marriage license I wanted. So once I get that in the mail then I will send off that green form with the money order. It's supposed to be quicker but we'll see. I'll post in the Maui section how long it took once I get them

Melissa everything looks great I can't wait to see/hear all about it when you get back.. congrats!!

Melissa those are fantastic pics!!! I love that they included Barney in the photos.. that is awesome. And the Depeche Mode song is a perfect choice..

Woot! I just came back from getting married in Maui.. welcome to the forum

We bought our BM's and GM's their outfits and I also paid for BM's earrings, hair and manis and pedis. Like others have said, they were spending alot of money to come to our wedding so for us it was something we felt we should do.

Thanks.. and yes we want to go back too.. the sooner the better

Nice! I will have to go look at them

I have to say everything went very smoothly We had awesome weather the whole time we were there and did alot in the two weeks we had. Airline - Hawaiian Air We drove down to Seattle from Vancouver saturday november 1st and stayed over night at the Best Western Airport Executel. I had a park and fly package with them that included parking the car for two weeks and one nights' accomodations for 4 of us. Worked out great and the car was still there when we got back on friday november 14th.. heh. We booked our flight with Hawaiian Air because it was SO much cheaper than flying out of Vancouver and it was a non-stop flight from Seattle to Maui. We were allowed 2 checked bags each (because we had booked our flights back in february) and I had no problem hanging up my wedding dress in the first class closet. I tried to get bumped up to first class when we got to the airport but we were too late.. they had already filled up the last seats.. ah well. They don't serve a hot meal though.. just snacks and sandwiches and stuff. I wasn't too concerned about that but some people might be. Also liquor was $5 dollars a drink and you also had to pay for headsets if you wanted to watch the movie. You cannot pay by cash either, it's either debit or credit card. Once we landed we had a shuttle pick us up and take us to our car rental place.. Aloha Maui Vans (van rental Maui, van rentals Maui, -- Maui Windsurfing Vans). We got a Subaru Forrester which was great on gas and was roomy enough for all our stuff. And had A/C of course which was a relief We rented a condo at the Hale Pau Hana (Maui Condo Rentals, Maui Vacation Rentals) which is right on Kamaole Beach II. It was so perfect. We had the sunsets every night from our balcony and the beach has great sand. We could snorkel right outside our place and see tons of different fish and turtles etc. We also hosted a BBQ the night before our wedding for everyone as there are BBQ's right outside as well. The only thing about renting a condo privately is we didn't have a cleaning service coming in daily to make beds etc. Didn't bother me at all but again this might be an issue for someone. You can call the Hale Pau Hana directly to rent a room with them and the cleaning service will come in daily. I hired a WC here at home named Susan Hyatt (WEDDING LADY - Expert Wedding Planner in Vancouver, Maui, Honolulu, Bahamas) and she works with Dream Weddings over in Maui. (A Dream Wedding Maui Style - A Full Service Wedding Coordinator on the Island of Maui). We met up with Ashley at a Dream Wedding and she was great. Walked us through everything (marriage license, locations etc) and I felt confident everything would come together nicely. Shelly from Mariah's Mane came to our condo the day of the wedding to do my hair, my two MOH's and my sister's hair. She did a fabulous job and I would recommend her in a heartbeat. We all did our own makeup but I know Shelly does that as well if you wanted her to. Our photographer was John Motelewski (Maui Wedding Photographer & Portrait Photographer - John Pierres Photography (Maui, Hawaii)) and he did such a fantastic job with the photos. We had him for 5 hours which seemed to be the right amount of time for us. He took photos of me and my 2 MOH's then went over to where Jayson was hanging with his 2 GM's and took a bunch of pics there as well. Then he followed Jayson to the beach and took more photos of the guests arriving etc. They had a good range of pictures and you can see them here if you like: http://www.pictage.com/582634 We got married at Mokapu Beach in Wailea at 4:30pm. It was the perfect time of day as there was plenty of daylight for the ceremony and group shots after, but also right on time to get sunset shots with Jayson and I after all the other photos. We had a non-denomenational minister, Pastor Rob, who did a wonderful job with the ceremony, and also had a guitar player for about an hour. I don't think I ever caught his name though.. oops! Our reception was at the Seawatch Restaurant (Seawatch Restaurant :: Maui Restaurants :: Wailea Fine Dining :: Sea Watch) in Wailea and man was it ever fantastic!! The food was top notch and I was sooo stuffed I didn't really have room for cake! We had an open bar as well and the service was impeccable. Every time I turned around they were there ready to get me something else if I wished it. Our reception was out by a pond so it was private from other diners which made me happy. I ordered chair covers and sashes from Covered Affairs Maui (Covered Affairs Maui) and Polly was very easy to work with. We only communicated over email but she arrived at the Seawatch earlier in the day to set up my chairs and came after we left to take them down. I had nothing to worry about! Our wedding cake was ordered from Maui Wedding Cakes (Maui Wedding Cakes - Maui Weddings, Wedding Cakes on Maui, Maui Bakeries, Weddings on Maui) and tasted SO good. I was completely full after dinner but we had done our cake-cutting photos beforehand so I got a taste before dinner. Delish!!!! The Seawatch staff cut up our cake and served it to everyone so I didn't have to worry about that either. Finally, the following evening we hosted a luau in Lahaina for all our guests. I had reserved seating at the Feast At Lele (FEAST AT LELE|OFFICIAL WEBSITE|MAUI'S FINE DINING POLYNESIAN DINNER SHOW) and we had such great seats right in front! The food was to die for I must say. They didn't have a pig roasting in a pit which I was a bit disappointed about, but the dancing more than made up for it and did I mention the food was to die for It was. Highly recommend it there. A few other notes: It's expensive in Hawaii. We saved alot of money by shopping at the Costco in Kahului (near the airport) for flats of water and granola bars and alcohol etc. I bought a few snacks for my OOT bags there and some pineapples etc. Since we had rented a condo you can stock up on cereal and milk etc and save money that way. I had also got a Hawaii Entertainment Book for the coupons.. but the selection for Maui isn't nearly as good as the coupons for Oahu. However you can definitely get your moneys' worth if you buy it. Excursions we took: Open door helicopter tour with AlexAir. Fantastic!! We are photography buffs so it was nice not to have to worry about windows taking pictures Snorkel trip to Molokini with Pride of Maui company. This was a great trip.. they feed you breakfast and lunch as well as alcohol. You do two snorkel trips.. one at Molokini and one at Turtle Town. I also snuba-ed on the boat which was fun Road to Hana. Great day trip for taking photos and stuff.. but not alot to do once you get to Hana.. heh. Haleakala Crater. We went up once at sunset for photos and once at sunrise for photos. It's super cold up there.. I was wearing about 5 layers of clothing! But the photos are worth it. Oh and the forrester handled the twisty road really well. Just watch out for the cows! And the bikers.. and the nene's.. and the wasps.. yuck. If anyone has questions, please ask. I'm sure I'm forgetting things. All in all, we LOVED Maui and would go back in heartbeat. It was sooo nice living in a bikini for two weeks and quite depressing to come back home to our rainy weather.

Where is the swap meet? Maybe by the airport? I heard of a big market near the airport that's only open on saturdays but we didn't get to it. Kihei has a couple of markets where we bought some cool stuff

Those jewelry boxes are soooo nice Love them!

Thanks ladies.. the more I look at the pics the more I like them.. go figure. Heh!