Aloha, 

 

Yesterday we had another wedding at the Mill! Yay for weddings! We had a little bit of fun before we all got in the grind of things and Steph decided to swing by the caterers and "ice" them. I don't know if she fully understands that she just started a war with them and it will probably not end in her favor. Hopefully it ends up with tons of yummy food though! I had at least 34 lemon basil macaroons yesterday. But I'll keep you all informed and in the loop regarding that war (and the yummy food lol). This was Corine's first wedding that she coordinated completely by herself and it went super smooth! It was a candlelit ceremony and she even saved the bride from her veil going up in flames. Seriously, the bride almost lit herself on fire from the candles. Corine to the rescue!

I took only a couple of pictures as it was the biggest wedding I've seen in the Mill thus far. They had about 55 guests or so, which is still somewhat small by my standards. Turns out the groom was from White Plains! And I knew his brother because he was in Symphonic Band and I was in Symphonic Orchestra. 

The world really is THAT small.

 Gorgeous flowers

Chandeliers on my iPhone!

So after that, Clarissa and I went to Tuk Tuk Thai for lunch and spent a little time together. She's actually freaking hilarious. Her friend, Chi (pregnant henna belly shoot...earlier post), had her baby and she was 9.1 pounds! That's a HUGE baby...especially from such a small woman. Anyways, Clarissa goes "Oh Molly, Chi had her baby today. 9.1 pounds. That's a biiiiig bernie." LOL. Unfortunately Clarissa leaves on Tuesday so there's only a few more days where we will be able to hang out and go places. Then I will really have no friends haha.

That's all I got! I'm in the office manning the phone and waiting for someone to spontaneously come by so I can give them a tour or something. I haven't really had too much to do but hopefully that will change as it will just be Sylvia, Steph and I in November..probably will get slammed. Anyways, Clarissa might even come back early (she's off today) and take some shots of me in the Cane House. That would be exciting. She actually just sent me a text that said "hang in there mermaid. this too shall pass." LOL. Those are my exact sentiments.

I can't believe it's almost October. WOW.

With warmest aloha,

MJ

Aloha!

Yesterday was an action packed day. Both Clarissa and I had off so we did a million and two things. We went to the Iao Valley State Park for a photoshoot with her friends really early in the morning, went to the Honolulu Coffee shop to visit Nicole (HEY GIRL, I'm all about the fishing and boss pictures cooking fish on stones), drove all the way down to La Peruse, checked out McKenna Landing for some snorkel action which never happened because it was murky, quickly saw Big Beach because it's the "quintessential Hawai'i beach", had a swim at Keawakapu in Wailea, went to my fitting at Tamara Catz, tried to find the Princess Pools again, and had dinner at Colleen's with Cindy & Jason.

 This was some of the Japanese garden in the Iao Valley..

 Clarissa doing her thing in the Portuguese gardens...

 Big, beautiful Iao Valley "dreadlock tree" aka Banyan tree.

 So big!!!

 I was so excited! Definitely wore wrong hiking shoes...again. Oh well, these are now my hiking shoes.

 I had to have a million pictures. The air was so fresh and crisp...it felt like "real air".

 Climbed into a secret cove with a waterfall. Brandi (the henna artist) is on the left and turns out the woman on the right is Nakota's older sister, Everly. REALLY. Small world.

 The Iao Needle is right behind me. I am so Indiana Jones right now.

 "The fairy green place"

 Hiyooo, ginger in my hair! Hiding in a green sea of lushiousness.

 Nakalele blowhole. This is it still if you see the little hole in the middle, that's where it blows.

 The waves didn't really feel like crashing so we didn't get to see it shoot up 70 feet or anything but I captured a little blow!

 This place is called La Peruse. Everything in this picture is volcanic rock and ash that has been left from the last time that Haleakala had an eruption. I stubbed my toe at least fifteen times and it hurt like a muuuugggg. I guess I should just pack proper closed toe shoes if I intend on going on an adventure?

 Not sure what's going on here, but I like it.

 I was ready to go into the water dress and all.

 If I told you what this picture reminds me of and why it makes me laugh, you would all laugh.

...oh well. Too late. This is what my hair reminds me of. UNCANNY RESEMBLANCE. lolol. (You should all be laughing but know, I am so serious)

 I love this picture.

 Creepin' on Clarissa at La Peruse.

 BIG BEACH SIGNS.

 Oh, hey there.

 Big Beach view.

Then we went to Keawakapu Beach for a swim...

You couldn't see my face and because some of my readers were SO concerned over my beach bod, I figured I'd filter it. If you click it, you'll see the most attractive face ever.

So we left and went to Tamara Catz after a quick beach shower. You know those showers at the beach. Anyways, we get to Tamara Catz and they were like "Oh, do your hair just like that." I said, "I just came from the beach." Seriously. They want it as BIG as possible, so I tried to do that before they took the sample snapshots.

 I'm so brown!!!!

 Dress one.

 Some outfit she gave me. Loooved that top and color.

 This is the dress I couldn't stop looking at the first time we went into Tamara Catz. I prefer it in all white, but I can't just walk around in beach wedding gowns. I would love to though because I LOVED IT.

 Does anyone want to come up with an occasion that I can wear this dress? Please.

 Back of the dress.

They also had me try on this pink dress but no pictures of that. Pretty simple. I asked them what they had in mind for the shoot and they're pretty "go with the flow". I'm really glad Clarissa is shooting me though. Probably will put me more at ease. AH! Can't wait! This Monday at 4:30 is the call time. I don't think I'll be able to release any pictures until Tamara Catz does, but we'll see exactly what this arrangement is....and if I can get some goodies and gifts!

If I do get a gift, I am getting that dress. Friends, come up with an occasion that I can wear it PLEASE.

After that we tried to find the Princess Pools again. The Princess Pools are natural pools made out of lava rocks that fill like a basin with sweet water. It is in the thick of the rainforest hidden from everything, basically. It's close to impossible to find (even the locals don't really know about it) and extraordinarily beautiful, according to Clarissa. She told me that it is covered with a canopy of vine and all sorts of things that grow in the rainforest and the sun filters through at specific times during the day. Well anyways, last time was an epic fail and so this time we had a few more directions than last...still nothing concrete but a better idea of where to find it. We parked on some strange road and had to hike about an hour until we found where it was AND THEN it was too dark to even go to it. Maybe early Monday morning we can try to find it again...

 Beginning of the road we started to hike on.

 On that far out cliff is a house. So remote. So removed. I don't know if I could live out there...unless I was crazy in love and only watched SVU.

Clarissa had done a photoshoot for a friend's birthday at the Pools. This is one of her pictures from it. This kind of gives a little bit of surrounding scenery so you can get a jist of what it would look like. In the back its only black lava rock and the pool is deep enough to swim. I think I'd have to see it to explain it...

Even though we didn't actually make it to the Princess Pools, we did manage to have a little photoshoot nonetheless. It was getting dark so we just chose some vine-y area and decided to shoot there. It's really hard for me to be shot in nature because I'm really not that much of a nature girl. When we found the spot, I immediately ripped my dress off got down to my bra and panties to try to catch the right shot. I got annoyed that my bra was going to be in the picture so I literally chucked that sucker into the dirt path and was like "hope you don't mind, I have a ___". HAAAAA. Can't wait to see the pictures, pretty sure some of them probably have some boobies. Actually, I'm positive they do. Woohoo. What am I even going to do with these? I'm going to look back when I am 80 and remember the time I got naked in the middle of some random rainforest road and took some pictures in vine with wild hair. I'm sure it will make for a good story...and hopefully some even better pictures :) I mean if nothing else, we saw a rainbow when we left. I'd call that a perfect day.

 I woke up with over 35 mosquito bites. FML. Don't get naked in the rainforest. I have ten alone on my right thigh.

 Sue (the bookkeeper) gave me this! I was going to download it on my Kindle but this is THE BEST guidebook the island has to offer. Apparently locals hate it because it turns all the private, hidden gems into tourist attractions. Oh well, I'm a fake local.

And this was so sweet.

Happy 3 day after National Sibling Day day! 

With warmest aloha (my favorite mermaids),

MJ

Aloha goddesses (and gods), 

LOL. That's still hilarious to me. Anyways, hello! I figured I'd take the time to explain what "big bernie" means. At the Mill, you have to fluff up your pillows after you sit on the cushions and such. EVERY time. I guess they have so many people coming in and out that it has to look immaculate at all times so you can't leave your seats unfluffed. Seriously.

Obviously, you wouldn't know this unless someone told you. I told Clarissa maybe a week after she got here and started hysterically laughing because she didn't believe I was telling the truth. I told her to watch everyone else next time at lunch or whatever and then she realized I was serious. I have never seen anyone sit in the living room in the main house at the Mill but Sylvia had said it's not off limits, just not used that often. One day it was just Clarissa and I in the house and I decided to sit in the living room. After SINKING into the most comfortable couch of my life I realized I had to fluff up the couch cushion/pillow. This was the heaviest cushion EVER. Literally I was smacking this pillow so hard trying to make it look decent again. I had lifted the cushion and it said "Big Bernie". Clarissa lost it (literal tears) and was laughing while exclaiming "You're fluffing up the Big Bernie!". Sylvia actually told me that each cushion weighs 40 pounds. WHO WOULD SHIP THAT TO HAWAII?! Actually, I am kind of curious of having one shipped to my eventual apartment when I move out. It was the most comfortable couch I've ever sat on, that's for certain. So long story short, when I say "big bernie" I mean it as anything I want it to be. I could say "I'm chilling with the big bernie" and I would mean Clarissa, or whoever I am with. Or I could say "I hit my big bernie" and I was just chillin' or being a bum. I use it usually when I'm not doing much of anything or just chillin' out the way I would on a big couch. Basically it's the equivalent of "DaKine" here which literally means anything you want it to.

So, I hit my big bernie last night and had a peanut butter mousse-chocolate ganache-whipped cream cake sent straight from Jesus last night.

Now you're in the know.

With warmest aloha,

MJ

Aloha mermaids,

In case you didn't know, people here refer to their friends as "mermaids", "goddess", and I suppose "god" as well. Anyways...hello mermaids.

I hadn't posted after the Pacific Weddings event so I figured I'd fill you in. It was a cocktail party and actually had people dressed up for it! They wrote "dress to impress" on the invite apparently. I just dressed as if I was going to a cocktail party, which is still overly formal by Maui standards. Anyways, it was at this beautiful restaurant called Merriman's in Kapalua Bay. The restaurant is placed on the water and there are fire pits to sit around. Really cool spot and I'm so glad that I got to dress up. NUDE PUMPS WOOHOO!!! I arrived with Clarissa and her photographer friend, Hanna, maybe 45 minutes into it. We had a "grand entrance" of sorts...if you consider an entire congregation of people turning to look at you as you walk in an entrance. I met a few cool people, had a couple of their signature cocktails, ate some of the pu-pu's and sent my follow-up emails when I got home. A good time all around.

" Dressed. To Impress. Spark these ___ interest."

 Merriman's view.

 Fiyaaahhh pit!

 The photobooth was a hit! Check out that PYT on the lower left corner. BOOM.

 Clarissa and I. My favorite is the one in the upper left corner!

 We wouldn't leave the booth. hahaha

I'm missing one of them but I got three! Also, the reason that the picture that is just a black square is because I got as close to the camera as possible. Oh, the vanity.

With warmest aloha, 

MJ