January 1, 2005
I am back from my honeymoon in Hawaii! Brian and I got married on December 21 on Eternity Beach on the island of Oahu. It is the beach that provides the only access to the Halona blowhole. It was all very wonderful…
Right after we got our marriage license on the 20th in Honolulu we decided to go for a swim in the ocean at this little beach park on the Waianae coast of Oahu. Bad idea. We were robbed! They even stole our marriage license. 
They stole all of our ID and money along with all of our credit cards! Fun! So, by the time the police came and we found out how to get a new marriage license, the marriage license office was closed. The next day we went to get our marriage license and they had only metered parking. We had no money! We had to beg a police officer to allow us to park on a curb so we could go in and get our marriage license. Fun. When we went in they immediately recognized us and we barely had to say two words before they knew who we were. “Oh you are THAT couple who was robbed…” was the way most people addressed us. The wedding was in less than four hours at this point… All went well during the wedding. It only rained a tiny bit and all the parents made it down the rocks we had to climb to get to the beach. The ceremony was great and it was just what we wanted…
Later that night for the after wedding dinner/party/reception (whatever it was) we would out on a sailboat with both sets of our parents. Everyone took Dramamine and rubbed motion sickness stuff behind their ears. We were all ready to go sailing! This was the same week as the “Banzai Masters” competition was held so waves and swells were huge. Some of the waves were reported as being as much as 40 ft high. It was a bumpy ride on the way out of the harbor (but fun). We were all having a great time. Then almost everyone started getting really sick. I threw up a few times over the side of the boat. Brian’s father and my mother did the same. Brian was queasy but his mother and my father both seemed to be perfectly fine. We came back in early because of the enormous swells but we had a great time. We got back to the dock and had a light dinner and cake and we all went back to our hotels in the limo.
Brian and I went diving with the sharks on the North Shore off Oahu a couple of days after Christmas and we had a great time. Of course, we went not too far from where the Banzai pipeline was so the ride was bumpy and being in the dive cage was interesting because of the huge swells. So, we went about three miles out from shore and were able to dive with about 40 or more sharks circling us. It was really great. I got back on the boat and tossed my cookies…again.
When we were leaving Honolulu we had absolutely no ID to get on the plane. The police had given us this little piece of paper which is supposed to suffice for ID. So, we check-in to get our tickets and even after they see the piece of paper and we tell them we have no idea they always STILL ask for a photo ID. They are just that stupid, I suppose. I offer to show my birth certificate but they have no interest in seeing that. They barely even look at the paper which is rather frightening. They never called the police to verify anything… They did hand search our baggage though. The most fun part was being searched at the airport and having all of our carry-on luggage searched through. I hope they had fun sorting through dirty underware and the like.
We did have an interesting airline fiasco on the way home. We were supposed to fly into San Francisco on the 29th and then catch a plane to Chicago to get home. That never happened. It was raining in San Francisco so our horrible pilot kept going up and down circling around the airport and going back and forth around San Jose. They never closed the San Francisco airport because it was never that bad. We also were the *only* plane that ended up at San Jose. We arrive in San Jose (no explanation up to this point) and people are throwing up all over the plane (literally). We arrive and the flight attendant tells us all that we are in San Francisco and that we will be getting off the plane in just a few minutes. The pilot announces five minutes later that we are in San Jose (50 miles south of San Francisco) and that we are NOT getting off the plane anytime soon. So, an hour later we are still sitting on the runway and the San Jose airport has essentially closed and they tell us we are lucky to be getting our baggage but that will take at least another hour. Then they will give us taxi vouchers to go 50 miles because San Jose is closing. But they remind us that they will be able to help us in San Francisco and we will all get on flights quickly, blah blah blah. So, all 200+ of us arrive in San Francisco and are greeted by a maintenance man that tells us that the airport shut down two hours ago and that no planes are leaving until 6:00 AM. So, all of these people are now stranded at SFO with no flights and American Airlines does not even send a representative to talk to us or help us. A large number of us just sat or slept in front of the American ticket counters and waited. So, at 4 AM one ticket agent shows up and looks rather puzzled at the large number of people in line. They are surprised to find out that we all had spent the night there because no one called them to tell them anything. Fun for all! Then we had to go through security again. We were anticipating another search like we had in Honolulu. This time, however, we showed the TSA our paper they looked clueless and had no idea what to do. So, instead of asking someone who DID know they just sent us through and did not even bother to check ANY of our stuff or do anything. So, we basically got through security and boarded the plane without anyone in the entire airport asking for any kind of ID. Scary. So, instead of flying to Chicago we instead flew to Dallas, Texas! Even more fun! Then we had a layover and then we flew to Ohio. Fun. We were not able to choose our seats on the flights to Dallas or Columbus so we had to sit in exit rows. We had no problems with flight attendants saying anything when we were flying to Dallas. However, EVERY flight attendant on the stupid plane commented that we should try to shove our backpacks farther under the seat. Perhaps, they are ignorant of the bar that is below the seat. It is not as though someone could not walk by if they needed to. They mentioned that the next time we fly on American Airlines we should make sure to put one backpack sideways and the other in the overhead storage bin. When we fly American Airlines again? lol, Yeah right. Finally, after that experience we arrived home. 
Yay!
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