Post-Wedding Bliss

The day after the wedding. Mark's parents, MeLissa's family and Grammy all piled into vehicles and traveled to Lamar where they met all of MeLissa's family and friends from her younger years. The people of Lamar were thrilled to meet MeLissa's new husband and his family.

On September 11, 2004, we hosted a celebration at our home for our friends and family in California. Many of Mark's classmates from Chiropractic school came and several friends made an appearance as well. MeLissa was very excited that her cousin Todd, his wife Kelly and their little girl Maggie came to the celebration! We barbecued and everyone brought delicious foods to share. It was a great time and no one left hungry! During this visit, we showed everyone our wedding video which had been made by MaxEfx Video. If you need a wedding video in Colorado Springs, we highly recommend Angela and Eric's work! (update: they've moved to Alaska where they now offer their services! Eric's brother, however, is available for any weddings in Colorado Springs or Northern Colorado! If you want details, please visit their website at www.maxefxvideo.com!)

We took a break from celebrating for a couple of months, but we certainly weren't without activities. One of our adventures occurred when we were visited by Nanook and Vorbot (Mark's creativity knows no bounds!) from the planet Kitty. These feisty felines came home in the place of Pixie and Banshee after we took them to the SPCA to have "kitty-it" operations. Thankfully, our sweet little kitties (erhem, when they behave!) came back within a couple of weeks.

In September of 2004, we ventured to Yosemite National Park with our friends Matthew and Beth. We had a very enjoyable time wandering around in the sequoia forest and driving around other well known places, but we could have done without some of the hills we had to walk up!

In October 2004, we ventured to Half Moon Bay for the annual Pumpkin festival. Half Moon Bay is the pumpkin capital of the world and now we know why! One of the best parts of this adventure was finding a new delectable to look forward to - pumpkin fudge. Trust us, it's to die for!

In November 2004, the main source of excitement in our lives was selling MeLissa's town home in Colorado Springs. Although MeLissa was sad that she had to sell it, she was thrilled that she no longer had to spend money on something they weren't using!

December arrived and brought with it many exciting appointments on our social calendar. It began, as it does every year, with MeLissa's birthday. Mark had a big surprise planned for MeLissa (as he does every year - he's very thoughtful)! In addition to the lovely Christmasy floral arrangement he had waiting for her when she came home from work, he would be treating her to a cruise on the Bay that weekend. The cruise would be aboard a paddle boat named the San Francisco Belle and would feature great food, dancing and the band Vertical Horizon!

Once the big night arrived, we walked from MeLissa's office to the pier and waited in line. The city skyline was beautiful with all the Christmas lights lit up. Once we were aboard, we enjoyed a fabulous meal and then we explored the boat. We were also able to see Alcatraz from close up (we still haven't made it there to visit!) and were quite happy that there were no convicts swimming toward the ship!

After that fun experience, Mark's parents came to visit us at our home. We celebrated MeLissa's birthday again by going to the A Street Cafe - her favorite French restaurant. Good conversation, good food, yummy wine and to die for creme brulee made the evening quite lovely.

Later that week, we traveled to the HP Pavilion in San Jose where we saw Dolly Parton in concert - up close and personal in the 3rd row thanks to a great ticket find. Dolly sang all of her famous songs in a invigorating show that left the crowd tapping their feet for days afterward!

Soon after the concert, Mark's parents returned to Maui and we were right behind them! We arrived the day after they did with gifts for under the tree. We made good use of our time visiting as much as possible with friends, family and especially Grammy! We did a little last minute Christmas shopping, and looked at Christmas lights (MeLissa is still having Snoopy envy for all the lighted Snoopy decorations she saw.

As if the holidays didn't bring enough excitement, we were treated to another reception thrown by Mark's parents. The party started early with tasty appetizers - even the party crashers (some very cute kittens) thought so. The dinner for the evening was a clam bake which left all of our guests happily full. Before dinner, we were treated to a live Hawaiian band and even an impromptu hula by one of the band's friends!

One of our favorite parts of the evening was that we were able to renew our vows at sunset with a Hawaiian priest! Not too many people get to get married twice in the same year (legally)! We really thought it was neat - unfortunately, due to a snafu with the video camera, we only have pictures (unfortunately again - the good ones are not in digital format). We figure this means we'll have to do it again sometime to correct these issues!

As the evening progressed, we held a Hawaiian-style money dance. For this, we danced while guests came and tucked money into different parts of our clothes and then we had to take it out with our teeth. Thankfully, no one put anything in too embarrassing a spot! It was all in good fun, so we enjoyed it.

After the reception was over, we enjoyed a belated honeymoon in Kanapali and on the Big Island. While on the Big Island of Hawaii, we stayed at the Hilton Waikoloa which was very cool. They had a huge tree in their lobby which Mark posed with. One of the highlights of the trip for MeLissa was swimming with Dolphins. Her group had the fortune to play with the youngest dolphin - Makana (meaning gift). A stuffed dolphin accompanied them home and MeLissa named it after her dolphin friend. We also took a short trip to meet with Mark's Uncle Timmy and Michiko to Wai Pio Valley . We enjoyed a surprise visit from Aunt Keina, an artist who bestowed us with many wonderful creations. We also found a new friend for MeLissa. After our short stay, we traveled back to Maui to enjoy Christmas with Mark's family.
Since Christmas-time, we have spent a majority of our time focused on school and work. We've also been very focused on Mark who's had a couple of surgeries to reattach his retina which have, thus far, been successful. We did have one adventure to Napa in June which was pretty nifty. We stopped by Copia first where Mark met a flashy new friend. We learned how to make fabulous herbal tea from various herbs and where we were able to explore food and wine in a museum-style setting. One of the niftiest things we were able to see were enchanting cakes. One was of the Eiffel Tower, another had lots of whimsical animals coming out of it (pictured right) - there were others which were very neat also. After we had exhausted the exhibits and had walked through the gardens, we made a quick trip to both V. Sattui and the Beringer wineries where we purchased a few yummy wines to restock our wine rack with and then headed home.