Rarotonga: Part 6

After all the excitement of snow the post is finally back to normal today. I came home to two bills (boo), two parcels and a lovely note saying there were five parcels for me to collect at the post office!

Unfortunately i can't get them tonight, so they'll have to wait until tomorrow. but I'm uber excited!
One of the parcels I got today was for Nick (lame boy stuff) and the other was my costume for Halloween/his work function/whenever else I can get away with wearing it...A Cinderella dress!

Since my exciting new parcels are at the post office waiting for me to collect tomorrow and there's not enough light left for some decent swatches I thought Id share some more holiday pics.

The day before Mum and dad were due to fly home we all went on a safari style tour of the island. It was awesome.

Why would anyone want to leave this?

The inlet the Cook island Maori people left from in their Waka....They made it all the way to New Zealand.

The Needle, a rock formation at the heart of the island.

Telephone tree

BBQ Trout...omg delicious

When we got back to the resort we snorkeled, sunbathed and hit Happy Hour...In Rarotonga happy hour isn't an hour at most places. Half price cocktails? Count me in!

Happy hour...I miss happy hour...

Those wern't all my drinks! 

Procrastinating

I should currently be writing a billion comments for parent teachers tomorrow...yes i left the comments to the last minute. I hate writing comments!

So instead of writing my comments I'm taking a few minutes to procrastinate and post on here :)

In all fairness I have completed my reading and writing comments. I just have the maths ones left to write.

I've been a little slack with posting since I came back from my amazing wedding/holiday in Rarotonga.
I'm actually having a few nail issues. my nails were just how I like them  in Rarotonga...but they made getting my contacts in a little difficult.

So here are some holiday nails!

A few days old wedding nails... BB Couture Tink Pink and a nail sticker. Mickey and Minnie are making an appearance.

Sinful Colors Thimbleberry out and about on a 4 wheel drive safari tour.

OPI Catch Me In Your Net. We were visiting the marine reserve  for a snorkel so I needed to wear something mermaidy!

Anyway I got back from Rarotonga and attacked my nails with a file... I was determined to have straight tips...which I hated. So out came the file... then the nail clippers... and then finally I got so fed up with my nails that i attacked them one lunch time with a pair of school scissors.

needless to say my nails are nubs right now... my mum was proudly showing me her nails the other day. Silver with black shatter on top. She looked to see what colour I was wearing (I wasn't wearing polish) and exclaimed..."oh, what did you do? Don't worry they'll grow back". Lol....I do love my mum.

Anyway back to writing comments... I'll be at school from 8am to 8pm tomorrow and Tuesday...argh.

Rarotonga: Part 5

The day after the wedding I actually abandoned Nick and left him in bed. He was still feeling pretty bad and needed to sleep. I wanted to go to the markets though. So Mum, Matt and I took off on the 8.40am bus to explore the markets.

It was awesome. It wasn't just a tourist market, it was the local market. There was food, vegetables, tourist things, clothes, jewellery and did I mention food? There was so much food!

Busy markets

Mum and I 

Nick with the new toy i bought him at the markets.

Nick was feeling a lot better that afternoon and we managed to get snorkel gear from the resort. So we went for a snorkel! There were so many fish in water by the resort. It was so much fun.

Sexy goggles (If you looking closely that is BB Couture Tink Pink on my nails)

Fish!

Looking back at the resort from the sea

 After a swim Jess, mum and I went to learn to tie our sarongs.

Myself and Jess looking sexy in sarongs.

then later that night we went to the island show. It was amazing. A full buffet of Cook Island food and an amazing dance show. It was actually a rather busy day, but pretty awesome.

Food!

Dancing!

 And i'll leave you today with a sunrise image rather than a sunset. I took this photo the first morning of my married life...(awwwww)....

Mickey and Minnie dancing in the sunrise

Wedding: Getting ready

Day 4 was the day of the wedding...
Luckily after the disastrous day on the Thursday, Friday went mostly smoothly.

We made a decision at 9.30am to go ahead with the wedding, even though Nick was still really sick. We'd come all the way to Rarotonga, and dragged our family and friends out there, so we kind of needed to have a wedding.
We decided to push the ceremony back an hour so it was cooler for Nick.

Then we kicked Nick out of mum and dads room and sent dad with him to baby sit and make sure he was taking medication.

Us girls went to get our hair done.

Half way through...

Done!

Christine getting her hair done

Then we snuck back to the room, I didn't want anyone to see.
We worked on the reception playlist...because I was very well organised and still decided on songs a few hours before the wedding. We also drooled over the dress.

Dress and bling.

After lunch we crept back to the salon to get flowers in our hair and sort out our make up.

Make up and flowers done.

Mum getting her hair blow waved

The hairdresser said he'd come back about 3.45pm to put the veil in, spray our hair again and touch up my make up. So we crept back to the room again and Jess met us to do mum and Christines makeup.

Jess doing Christines make up

Jess doing mums make up (taken by the photographer)

The photographer showed up at 3.30pm and started snapping pics.

Veil in!

Lipstick re-touch

Garter

"play with dress"

If I get time i'll post the ceremony pics later today.

Hope everyone's enjoyed a sneak peak at my wedding. Now I must get ready for work.

Rarotonga: Part 3

Our third day in Rarotonga was awful. It was a day before the wedding and everything was going wrong.

Nick got continually worse through out the night. When he's sick we get worried. He has Nephrotic Syndrome cause by Minimal Change Disorder...a.k.a his kidneys have issues. He is in remission and hasn't had a hospital stay for over a year...but we still get worried when he gets sick.

We ended up taking him up to to the local hospital. Luckily one of dads friends was able to take us and he's a Cook Islander. It was very handy having some one who could speak the language. We got seen very quickly.

Rarotonga Hospital

Turns out Nick wasn't dying, he just sounded like he was. The doctor gave him some antibiotics and some paracetamol. Through out the day he didn't make much improvement and we got to the stage of considering cancelling the wedding...or trying to move it to Saturday. The problem was we couldn't get a photographer for Saturday.

After more meetings with the wedding planner and photographer we decided to try dosing him up with ibuprofen and paracetamol every few hours alternatively. We had to turn off all the air con for him, so it was unbearable being in the room with him.

Then we had to move rooms again, because of that issue with the air con again. Luckily it was only to the room next door. So whilst we had two rooms we thought we'd better try the dress on...which is when I discovered I'd left my bra at home!

After all the issues with Nick being sick, me being unhappy with his family, considering cancelling the wedding, the dress not going on because I was too hot....the bra was the final straw and I broke down.

I hadn't packed any light coloured bras except for a padded taupe one...I really didn't need padding with my dress but we couldn't get to the shops. It was 3.30pm and everything closed at 4pm!

We had a big dinner that night with everyone who was coming to the wedding. Nick of course was in bed. We decided to keep him in mum and dads room so mum could play nurse. She's a much meaner nurse than me and could actually get him to drink.

Wedding Arch.

 We also made time to visit the Wedding arch where we hoped the wedding would happen the next day. Here it is un-decorated.

Sunset from mum and dads room.

And of course Thursdays sunset picture.

I didn't take many pictures on the Thursday...it was rather a stressful day. That night I was up till after midnight writing the list of photos we wanted and trying to make the reception playlist. It wasn't cool doing everything alone.

Rarotonga: Part 2

Our second day in Rarotonga the weather forecast was for heavy rain. Luckily we had a lot of wedding organising to do. Meeting with the wedding planner and taking a trip to the court house were high on the priorities, as well as making up the favour boxes for the wedding.

In Rarotonga we learnt pretty fast not to listen to the weather forecast. Yes it rained heavily...until about 10am. Then it stayed overcast a little bit longer before becoming fine and of course hot.

Coolest kid I know, chilling waiting for his Scooby Doo Burger.

It was warm enough to go for a swim/paddle down at the water after lunch. I wouldn't go swimming in NZ after heavy rain! I decided to wear Senorita Bonita as a pedi colour. Island Escape seemed like a very appropriately titled collection!

Senorita Bonita on the sand

Hanging out with that awesome 5 year old Bradley.

 Brad was incredibly cute our first night in Rarotonga. Nicks family flew in a couple of days before us so Brad got a little confused about why we weren't there. That first night we went to hang out with his family and Brad was asleep. He woke up and saw me there, blinked a few times and I went over to him to get a sleepy hug. He said "I thought you weren't coming" and gave me a very sleepy hug. He was very happy to see Nick and myself lol.

Later in the day we caught the clockwise bus. Yup I got that right...the clockwise bus. There's only two buses, clockwise and anti-clockwise. We went in to the town center of Avarua.

Clockwise Bus

Bus stop in the town center with amazing scenery.

When we got back we were in time for happy hour and a stunning sunset.

Nick said he wasn't feeling great and went to bed moaning and groaning. I figured he wasn't too sick, as he ate the pizza I took up to him (which was delicious). I also thought he was trying to get out of making favours.
Unfortunately I checked on him later that night and he was burning up.

Christine (my bridesmaid) Mum, Dad and I made all the boxes, got the ribbon and cut outs glued on and folded all the place setting name cards. I manned the glue gun and managed not to burn myself. High five me!

Favours. Pink for the girls and blue for the boys...yup I'm a primary teacher!

We made the favours up in mum and dads room. It was amazing. They got moved into it that morning as the air conditioning was playing up in their original room. Instead of moving them into another beach front room, the hotel moved them to one of the VIP suites. It was so big and spacious, had a massive bathroom, had a spa bath, amazing views out to the ocean...but unfortunately the next day the air con gave up in that room to...so they moved them into the VIP suite next door. I'm wondering if Dad was just unlucky when it came to using the air con! In all fairness it was the remote that wasn't working. A sensor was broken?

Rarotonga: Part 1

We did so many awesome things and took so many incredible photos during our stay in the Cook Islands that I've decided the best way to share it with everyone is by splitting everything into days. Don't worry the wedding was day 4, so you won't have to wait too long! (If you can't wait to see the wedding pics email me and I'll link you to facebook)

Anyway the first day was getting up at 5am, reshuffling things in my suitcase and double checking I needed everything. I'm notorious for over packing...my suitcase weighed a lot more than it was supposed to. Luckily I got it down to size!

I think one of the awesome things about our trip was the fact that we were surrounded by people we care about and spent an awesome time with friends we don't get to see as often as we'd like.

Anyway we got up to Auckland airport and had to transfer from the domestic to the international. So here we are waiting for the bus. Mum, myself and my brother were 'lucky' enough to get in this picture taken by dad. Yup that cream bag is my wedding dress, mum didn't trust me to look after it! She even started referring to herself as keeper of the dress! I'll have to get her a t-shirt printed.

Keeper of the Dress

 The flight to Rarotonga was horrible for me. I had a sinus infection still and wow, it felt like my eye was going to explode from my head, my head was going to split open and my nose I can't even explain the pain. Darn pressure. After 3 cups of tea, 2 ibuprofen and 2 paracetamol the pain subsided enough for me to eat and watch Hop... The air steward gave me some awesome smelling oil stuff for landing, and it wasn't so bad as it could have been.

When we landed in Rarotonga it was kind of a shock.  It was hot, we had to walk on the runway to get to the terminal, the scenery was amazing and we were the only plane in.

Our plane right outside the door, while we lined up with everyone else to go through customs.

Going through customs was another shock. We had a lot to declare. Food, alcohol, medicines...They let us straight through.

When we got outside it was hotter than it had been in the airport! And we got lei'd. Nick and I got special ones as we were the wedding couple.

Outside the airport.

On the bus to the resort.

 The landscape of Rarotonga is very beautiful. Lush and green and palms everywhere.

From the window of the bus.

We got to the resort just in time to catch the sunset from our room. This is one of many amazing sunsets we saw in Rarotonga. Unfortunately there was some cloud cover that first evening, but wait until you see some of the others. Spectacular.

Sunset with cloud cover.

I can tell you we slept well that night. Well at least until the most awesome thunderstorm ever woke us up. When we get thunder and lightning in NZ it always comes with rain...normally heavy. This thunderstorm was just thunder and awesome lightning. It went on for ages out to sea. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of the lightning...the air con was on too cold and I didn't want to leave my bed!

And a quick thank you to Beauty Behaved and nailsbycourteney from An Amateur's Nail Obsession who have both given me awards. I will post them, promise! It just might be a little later in the week.