Saturday in Brooklyn

On Saturday Jess and I headed to Crown Heights in Brooklyn to visit Shannan and Tien at their new(ish) house. They bought it in the fall (I think) and have been doing a lot of work, so we wanted to check it out. I had never been to Crown Heights and it was cool to check out a new neighborhood too.

Shannan and Tien’s place is on a quiet street in a long row of houses. They have 2 floors, plus a basement. When we arrived they were doing a lot of back-breaking work in the front of the house, transferring dirt and planting. We visited for a bit, then got a tour of the house, which was amazing. Shannan and Tien are doing so much work. I can’t even imagine taking on a project like this myself. It’s not really structural things or major renovations, but still, a lot can go into cosmetics. There is gorgeous wood everywhere, but through out the years people have painted 8 layers on top of it. So they are doing things like stripping down to the original wood. I can’t wait to go back for a visit next year and see all the progress they have made!

Jess and I had tickets to a festival in Prospect Park called Googamooga, so after visiting for a while, we headed over there. The park is not too far of a walk from Shannan & Tien’s, but it was quite a hike to get to the right part of the park…. there were no signs for the festival and the security staff was telling us opposite directions to get to the entrance. So frustrating. By the time we got there almost an hour of walking had past.

Then, when we finally got in? It was chaos. We bypassed the line that you had to stand in to get IDed and get a wristband to drink. The line was probably 100-200 people long. And then you had to stand in another long, long line to get your drinks. We were so hungry by then (it was about 4pm and we’d only had a bagel each early that morning) that we just picked a line we thought looked not too crazy. Wrong. We waited 40 more minutes to pay $8 for a hot dog!

When Jess first mentioned the festival it seemed like an awesome way to sample food from all different well-known restaurants in New York. I envisioned us going from stand to stand and sampling all kinds of different things. Obviously this was not happening. As for the music, the stage by us was on a break for the entire time we were in line. So, we only got a few minutes sampling of a Van Halen cover band at another stage as we were quickly exiting the fest. What a bust!

By then we were so tired from walking around and standing in lines. We were supposed to meet Tien and Shannan back in the city for dinner reservations, but the thought of going back and getting ready was exhausting us. Not to mention that we were extremely short on time, since getting to the fest and standing in lines took so much longer than we’d estimated. We ended up walking back to Tien and Shannan’s house and chilling out in the backyard while they finished up their yard work.

Later on we headed to dinner at Chavela’s. There was a bit of a wait, so we left our number and went to a nearby bar called The Crown Inn. Shannan said that this is a somewhat new place. Actually, she said that the neighborhood has changed so much since they moved in. Definitely seems like an “up and coming” place to be. We didn’t even have one drink before our table was ready, so we hustled back to Chavela’s.

I liked this Mexican restaurant a lot. It kind of had a Día de los Muertos theme going on. We started out with guacamole, some elotes (grilled corn on the cob with chipotle mayonnaise and cojita cheese) and a seafood empanada special. Shannan was raving about the tortilla soup, so we also gave that a try. It was so good. More of a green tomatillo base than any other tortilla soup I’ve ever had.

For dinner we decided to split two large platters. The plato don had chipotle chicken and grilled steak and the plato don pescado had shrimp and tilapia.. and then both plates had rice, beans, guacamole, queso fresco, pico de gallo and corn tortillas. This was all great and we were so hungry so we totally gorged.

The thing I will remember from Chavela’s, though, is the drinks. When we sat down we decided to get a pitcher of drinks and Tien asked if we wanted sangria or margaritas. We didn’t really decide and when the waitress came, he told her we’d have a half of sangria and half of margaritas. Problem solved. Well, here’s the thing: It was a pitcher of sangria and margarita mixed together! And it was SO good. It looked just like sangria with the red wine and diced fruit, but it was extra tangy from the margarita mixed in. We ended up getting a second pitcher even. That was definitely the most I have had to drink in months but it was so worth it.

Jess and I headed back for our train ride to her place in the Village. Overall a great, long day in Brooklyn. It was fun to see a neighborhood I’ve never been to and to hang out at Tien and Shannan’s awesome house.

Boka Korean Fried Chicken


Watermelon soju and Korean fried chicken


Japchae


Bi bim bap


Ddeokbokki

On Friday night I arrived just before dinner-time so by the time I settled in we were hungry. I walked with Jess to St. Mark’s Place to meet Tien at Boka, a place known for their Korean fried chicken. I thought maybe this was an outpost of the place that I had met up with Jeannette and Tien a few years ago, but that was BonChon in Koreatown. Then again, this chicken was very much like that and from what I can tell, St. Mark’s Place has become some sort of little Asia with a ton of Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese restaurants, as well as a sprinkling of karaoke joints.

We all shared a watermelon filled with Soju. It was not very potent, but was very tasty. The chicken was so good. I am usually really picky about chicken on the bone, pulling off the meaty parts and not eating the skin. This chicken was so delicious that I was just picking it up and biting into it. The skin was super crispy and the meat was really moist. We got half drumsticks and half wings and got half of them spicy and half with a garlicky soy. The spicy was definitely really spicy, so we left those for Tien and Jess and I stuck to the soy, which had a great flavor.

We ordered a few Korean sides like japchae and bi bim bap and both of these were great too. Later on we tried a vegetable pajeon (pancake) and that was good. Tien had to leave to pick up his parents at the airport and Jeannette and Yvan joined us. They ordered the ddeokbokki. It’s a rice cake/ball (looks like noodles) in a spicy sauce. This I was not a fan of, but I don’t think it was because it wasn’t good. I just don’t care for it. I remember not being a fan of it before and so this was not a surprise.

The restaurant itself was decorated very warmly with lots of wood. (Don’t use the bathroom, though. It was horrible.) The turnover on the tables was pretty quick and there were a ton of people in and out. We were sort of getting pressured so hurry it up, but we kept ordering more things and ended up staying for like 3 hours! Overall, a really great meal and a great way to kick off my weekend in New York.

Whale-Watching Oscars Barbecue

Name three things you never thought would go together: Whale-watching, Oscars, barbecue! Ha.


Ging, Damien, Billy (Photo by Rob)


(Photo by Rob)


Damien (Photo by Rob)


Jordan & Liz (Photo by Jen)


Cousin, Loden, Brian (Photo by Rob)


Dallas (Photo by Rob)


Cliff Jumping (Photo by Jen)


Ross (Photo by Rob)


Brian & Jill (Photo by Kristin)

If I back up just a little bit, though, when we got back from breakfast a bunch of people had gone to Shipwreck Beach. Dallas and some others left to join them, but since we’d told people to stop by the house on Sunday, I thought I should stay there. Kristin and I sat around by the pool. I took a nap on a float. After a while, it was clear that no one was stopping by until later. I blame this on hangovers! So, Kristin and I went to Shipwrecks for a while too. I had fun playing in the surf with Brian and Chad and Jill for about an hour.


Tien, Pina Colada Master


Cousin, Dad & Dallas Grilling


Dallas, Josh & Tweeny Grilling


Richard & Amanda


Richard & Rachelle


Todd, Kelly, Damian, Vanessa, Sara, Brian, Adam, Christine, Trevor, Kate


Todd & Kelly


Such a pretty sunset!


One last sunset shot, this one taken in the same spot a few days earlier. (Photo by Kristin)

When we came home friends began coming over to hang out. Some just stopped by on their way out of town or on the way to other plans. We had a big barbecue to try to eat up our leftover food and drinks. It was a task we were not up for! We sat out on the lanai and watched whales while eating dinner. There was a beautiful sunset that night and I found a bunch of our friends across the street watching the beautiful show. Also, the Oscars were on (on a time delay) so some people were having fun watching who won. This was our last day on Kauai, so it was nice to hang out with everyone one last time.


Watching the Oscars


Watching the Oscars


Josh & Tweeny watching basketball


Paul, Kate, Caroline, Cory, Tammy, Chris, Dallas


Party Slippers


Cory & Kathy


Dallas, Danny & Chris

Our Wedding Day

We were told many times and it is true: You spend months and months, in our case over a year, planning this day and it is over before you know it. Honestly, I had so much fun and enjoyed seeing everything we planned come to fruition and seeing everyone there, but it really did feel like the wedding lasted 30 seconds. This is one of the reasons I was so happy to have our friends in Hawaii for more than just this one day… so that we could hang out multiple days and spend time together.

Here is how it all went down (Warning – I thought this was going to be short and concise, but once I started writing, I couldn’t stop.):

At about noon my stylist, Mia Moriguchi came over to Ho’Onani Estates. At a little after noon, Steve Koo, our photographer came over and was with us throughout the day. I didn’t do a hair and makeup trial, but I had a lot of photos of hairstyles that I liked. For makeup, I told her that I wanted something natural – I didn’t want it to look like I wasn’t wearing any makeup, but I didn’t want it to look like I was going out to the club. She did great. I think the final look was pretty much just what I was going for.

Also, Mia was nice enough to apply coverup to my legs and feet because my bites were still pretty noticeable. During this whole time my mom was with me and Jordan’s girlfriend Liz. Also, Kristin was a huuuuuge help with getting everything ready and organized for us. She’s also really good at making mimosas with POG instead of OJ! Later on Jess G. and Jess B. came by just in time for me to put my dress and jewelry on, which was awesome because Jess B. made my jewelry! So she put it on me. Also, my dad came over to get a sneak peek.

I got ready in the rental house where our bedroom was located and kicked Dallas out to get ready in the other house. Dallas wasn’t sure up til the wedding day which shirt he was going to wear. He bought 3 and ruled out one. I ended up picking the dark blue one. Good thing, because later on Danny was wearing the other shirt, Dallas’s same new leather slippers and tan shorts! Once we were both ready, Steve and his brilliant assistant (and wife) Laura, had Dallas stand across the street from our estate. There’s a nice wall with some gorgeous lava rock and a beautiful view. They told Dallas to look out towards the water and whatever you do, don’t turn around. Then I walked across the yard, across the street and tapped him on the shoulder. This was our “first look,” our first time seeing each other in our wedding garb. After our initial first look, we took a moment for ourselves, which was nice.

From there we went with Steve and Laura to Poipu Beach. We were not getting married on the beach and I wanted just a few beachy photos. It was so hot at the beach that day and so crowded, too. I was nervous about staying on schedule, though, which is why I picked Poipu Beach. It was the closest. In hindsight, we probably should have gone to Shipwrecks. It’s less crowded, plus that’s where we hang out most on this trip. Also, we ended up having time to spare! Whatever, though. Steve directed us, we got a few photos, and we were on our way. We went back to the house, freshened up a little, and then we hung out wtih housemates as they were getting ready for a while.

At about 4:00 p.m. we headed over to the wedding site. It’s funny, we were totally early for our 4:30 p.m. wedding. Our wedding planner, Marlene Mira, said this never has happened before. She had us just sit in the car with the air conditioning on. Steve and Laura waited it out with us. All of our guests were arriving and walking past us, like a red carpet show. We surprised some of them by rolling the window down and saying “hi.” Funny. At about 4:20 Marlene came out to get the show on the road. It was almost time and she said our guests were getting hot from sitting in the sun. But our guests were still arriving, so we kind of hung back and at least let those who just pulled in or were in the parking lot get to the ceremony area before starting. Marlene was definitely not on “Hawaii time.”

We had the wedding at Joe’s on the Green. It’s a bar and restaurant, a clubhouse, at the Kiahuna Golf Club. This sounds fancy, but Joe’s is a locally-owned business and we were planning a very casual event. How casual? Dallas was wearing shorts and slippers! We told everyone to dress “aloha casual,” meaning wear something nice, but fun and casual. We suggested ladies wear sun dresses and that guys wear aloha shirts. For guys and girls, sandals and flip flops were both acceptable, but socks with sandals is never acceptable!

The ceremony was held on a grassy knoll to the rear Joe’s on the Green. It was pretty much the putting green with the flags removed. Our wedding officiant was Julie Wirtz, who we found online. We liked Julie’s style. She’s spiritual, but not religious and was had a really laid back and personable style. Plus, she was willing to give us kamaaina rates. We worked with Julie to come up with a ceremony that had some Hawaiian flair, but was not over the top. We had a lei exchange with our parents (my niece Stephanie brought the leis up) and we also talked about the meanings of the word “aloha” (hello, goodbye, love, etc) and at one point had everyone say “aloha” together. I thought the ceremony went by fast. Little did I realize that our wedding videos are only about 9 minutes long and that includes the walking part! Yes, fast, it wasn’t just me!


Caroline & Tammy recorded the ceremony

During the ceremony we had the lead musician for Papa’a Bay Boys, the Papa’a Bay Duke, play. The Duke! Dallas and I chose not to have a wedding party. For our ceremony, Dallas escorted his parents down the aisle, then my brother escorted my mom and finally my dad escorted me and handed me over to Dallas. During this procession, the Papa’a Bay Duke played the Hawaiian Wedding Song. For our exit, the Duke played Henehene Kou ‘Aka (For You And I), a traditional Hawaiian song made popular by Israel “Bruddah Iz” Kamakawiwo’ole. The Duke continued to play Hawaiian traditional and island contemporary songs throughout cocktail hour and dinner.

After the ceremony, our wedding planner, Marlene, kind of herded us off to the side, on the golf path, by the musician. She knew that if we started mingling that she’d never get us seperated from our guests. We needed to get our marriage licensed signed and make it all official. In Hawaii you don’t need to have witnesses to make a marriage valid, but we had our moms sign as witnesses anyway. We also had just a few posed, family wedding photos that we wanted to take.

During this time our guests were welcome to begin cocktail hour. We also had a reception table set up. Marlene did such a great job setting this up using things we gave her and things that she just had. This is where our guests got their table assignments, wrote in our guestbook and picked up some photo sharing cards that we had made up. Each table was named after a different Kauai natural site or attraction. Table assignments were inside little beachy frames. It was a box with all of these frames that we’d sweated it out about. The box was mailled a month in advance and only arrived two days before the wedding! Our guestbook featured photos that Steve took during an engagement photoshoot in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago, where we live. The photo sharing cards also featured our engagement photos on one side. On the other side these cards had instructions on where people could view and upload digital photos and videos after the wedding.

All of the flowers at the wedding, including the flowers for my hair and our leis, were collected and assembled by Dallas’s Aunty Helene, her daughter Lei Lynn, Aunty Wendie, Dallas’s mom Kathy, his sister Caroline, and Caroline’s friend Tammy. The flowers turned out fabulous. So much more than I was expecting. And they matched our color scheme and style perfectly. I can’t thank these guys enough for taking this on and doing such a great job! For our leis they did white dendrobium orchids for me and maile leis for the dads and Dallas. The moms leis were made of a fragrant puakenikeni flowers.

Our family photos really did not take a long time, and so in no time at all we were free to join all of our friends and family for cocktail hour. We had a full bar available, but Dallas and I were only paying for beer, wine, and soda. We had purchased our own wine from Costco and then were paying a corkage fee for each bottle opened. The wines we chose were Menage a Trois California White and Mirassou Pinot Noir. For beer we had local brews, a keg of Primo and a keg of Kona Brewing Fire Rock Pale Ale. Our friend Tweeny had been to the Kauai Museum earlier in the day and made a haku lei (read her story here). It took 4 hours to make it! Sometime during cocktails Dallas tried it on… and left it on for a couple hours! It matched his maille lei perfectly!

I heard someone say that pupus were ready, so I grabbed Dallas and headed off. I wasn’t super hungry, but one of the other most advised things before the wedding was “Make sure you eat.” We headed off to stand in line for the buffet of pupus and that’s when we saw our bride and groom table, complete with a plate of pupus for each of us! Have I mentioned how much I love Marlene, our planner/coordinator? She thought of everything.

As far as the food goes, we worked with Joe, the owner of Joe’s on the Green, to have a custom, local menu. We wanted to make sure that all of our guests from the mainland could experience our local Hawaiian favorite foods. For pupus we had won tons, poke and three different kinds of maki sushi, including the local style, which is with canned tuna in the roll. For salads we had local greens with papaya seed dressing, lomi lomi salmon, and a potato mac salad. Our main entrees were kalua pig, chicken katsu, and grilled mahi. White rice, fried saimin, and local purple sweet potatoes were the accompaniments. For dessert we had tropical fruits and macadamia nut brownies. We loved the food and if it wasn’t our wedding, we would have been going up for more, but we had other things to do! That said, I think all of our friends are poke converts. They loved it. Actually, all of the food. People were coming up to us in the following days and without any prompting, telling us that our wedding had the best food they’d eaten all week. Yay!

After we were done eating, Steve grabbed us quick because there was a beautiful sunset. We took just a few minutes out to walk out onto the greens and get a few photos. Steve got some really great photos and I’m anxious to share all of our professional photos in another post.

For our MC, we chose Dallas’s brother, Jordan. He announced us before dinner and announced that it was time for dinner. After dinner he surprised us by saying that he and my brother were going to do a couple of toasts. My brother gave a really sweet toast, that he said was brainstormed in about 5 minutes, and it was the only time of the day when I almost started crying. Dallas’s brother gave a pretty typical Crowell toast, which was like “hey, Dallas is kind of a lot to deal with, I don’t know how you do it, I got your back.” After toasts Dallas said our mahalos to everyone for coming, for those who worked on the flowers, to our planner for making it all happen, to our parents.

Ross was our DJ for the night and now was his time to queue up the music. The first reception song of the night was “Is This Love” by Bob Marley and Dallas and I danced together. At one point Eleanor came up and surprised us by putting a $10 bill in my mouth. I had no idea what was going on but Billy told me later on that it is a Filipino tradition. Makes sense. Eleanor’s husband is Filipino. There were so many little traditions mixed in our wedding. Hawaiian things. Some people put Chinese lucky money in our cards. And we had that whole Chinese luck and longevity table in Honolulu. So fun to learn about everything.

Our second and third songs, which everyone was invited to join in on were “Better Together” by Jack Johnson and a special live-from-Chicago version of “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz. Following that we had one more special song, “Crazy” by Kapena, a Hawaiian band that we like, and then it was straight into the dance music. Dallas worked for months on our playlist and it seemed like everyone loved it. We had such a fun time dancing all night. The playlist started out with 90s dance songs, and then had a few slow songs, then on to some current dance favorites, then a few more slow songs, and then we had an 80s section. Fun parts of the night – my dad really got into dancing and everyone was having fun dancing with him. He even got Dallas’s mom to dance with him to to “Good Vibrations” by Marky Mark. And my nieces, who swore they were not going to dance, danced all night too!

At 10 p.m. sharp we had to cut off the music. I mean, we weren’t even told “It’s almost 10, the next song is the last one.” It was more like “This song that’s playing now? That’s it!” But that’s ok. It was a Hall and Oates song and we knew that it’s a Kaua’i rule that we had to end at 10. Still, it felt like we could have gone on for hours longer! Everything went by so fast.

I must give one last shout out to our wedding planner Marlene Mira, of Mira Mira Events. When Dallas and I began planning our wedding we thought we could do everything ourselves. Afterall, Dallas grew up on Kauai and I’d been there to visit several times. We wanted a really simple wedding. Why would we pay someone to plan things when we could do it ourselves? Well, I found out really quickly that trying to sort everything out and get things coordinated was more difficult than we’d anticipated. After Tien and Shannan’s wedding, and after talking to Shannan the next day about the stresses of getting everything done, Dallas was really convinced we should hire someone to help us out. I’d seen Marlene’s site and was really impressed. I just had a good feeling about it, compared to the other stuff I’d seen out there. And? She was from Waimea, Dallas’s home town. I gave Marlene a call and from the very beginning I knew we’d done the right thing.

When we contacted Marlene we already had our venue, photographer and our officiant but we didn’t have anything sorted out. Marlene was very professional and knew just what needed to be done. She was always very responsive to us and always had good, cost-effective suggestions. It was so nice to have her “on the ground” in Kauai. She helped us plan everything ahead of time, coordinated the rentals, suggested the musician and the stylist, and helped us figure out our food and drink menus. She and her staff were there all day on the wedding day. All we had to do was show up and have a great time! We could not have pulled off this wedding without Marlene and we cannot recommend her enough!

And one more technical note. Ha. Dallas and I created a wedding website for all of our guests before the wedding. It had all of our information about the wedding, Kauai, what do do on Kauai, how to get there, recommendations on where to stay, even a list of Dallas’s favorite local beers and golf courses. We bought our own domain, RachelleandDallas.com, but just forwarded it to a MyWedding.com templated website that matched the style of our save the date cards and invitations. I think that having this was invaluable. And then the other interwebby thing we did was to set up a Flickr account where people could upload their photos after the wedding. At the wedding we had cards printed up with instructions on how to log in and upload. So now we have like 700 photos of the wedding and they started pouring in the day after the wedding. I got a 3rd party batch downloader, so now I have all of the photos saved on my hard drive. When we were walking down the aisle it was like a papparazzi audience! So happy for all of the people who have taken the time to upload their photos and share!

Hanalei Valley & Lappert’s


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From Queen’s Bath, Jess, Ted, Richard, Amanda, and Stephanie went to Kilauea Lighthouse to watch the sunset. Paul Baker, Kate, Tien, Shannan and I decided to check out the Hanalei Valley Lookout….

…. and then, more importantly, stop for Lappert’s ice cream. As if there would be any doubt about it, I got the Kauai Pie, my favorite ice cream ever! It’s Kona coffee ice cream swirled wtih chocolate fudge, coconut flakes, macadamia nuts and vanilla cake crunch. Someday I will try another flavor, but not this day! This was my only Lappert’s on the whole trip!

– – –

On the first day of the trip some friends made a Costco run and we had them pick of several bottles of white wine and several of red. We were buying the wine for our wedding and needed to know which to buy cases of. During the week we had wine tastings and chose a white wine, but somehow we never tasted or picked a red wine.

Well, Jen didn’t go ziplining and just hung out by the Ho’Onani pool all day, so I assigned her the task of tasting the reds and picking one! Tough day for her! So, Jen texted me her choices and on the way home from the North Shore we met up with Dallas, Matt and Ross at Costco in Lihue where we bought a case and a half of our chosen white wine (Menage a Trois California White) and our red (Mirassou Pinot Noir). Yes, everyone had a menage a trois at the wedding!

Queen’s Bath

When we finished ziplining, we couldn’t decide what to do. Some wanted to go for a drink, some wanted to hike, some were not sure. Somehow we all decided to go to Queen’s Bath. I’d been to Queen’s Bath before, but not since my first trip to Kauai. No one else with me had ever been to Queen’s Bath. It’s a little hard to find, you have to go through a bunch of residential and a golf course.. you swear you’re not going the right way. But then there’s a small parking lot and a trail.


Hiking on the wooded trail.


Surprise waterfall on the hike.

So you go hiking down the trail. At first it’s just a path in the woods. Pass by the waterfall.


Jessica


Shannan found a crab.


Ted wasn’t sure about going into the water, but in the end could not resist!

Then there’s a spot where you have to maneuver around some rocks and there’s a warning about people dying. If you keep going, you walk on a bed of lava rock. For a long time. Like, longer than you think you should.


Ted, Kate, Stephanie and Yvan climbing down to Queen’s Bath.

But then finally, we saw Queen’s Bath (Named after Queen Emma who was the mother of Prince Albert, from whom Princeville gets its name.) Basically, it’s a tide pool that has been carved into a lava shelf. When the tide is out, the pool is filled with water (and small fish and sealife).


Swimming in Queen’s Bath.

The water is so clear you can see all the way down to your feet and beyond. It’s so much fun to swim there, and so beautiful, but you can’t let your guard down. It can be very dangerous if the surf is not calm. People have been swept out of the pool into the ocean. And the current in the ocean here is very strong.


Swimming in Queen’s Bath.

So, I can never be totally relaxed at Queen’s Bath, thinking about all of this. I got nervous any time anyone was on the ocean side of the pool.


Jeannette


Richard


Richard’s splash.


Richard, Kate, Ted, Tien


Richard

If that’s not enough, there were a bunch of locals jumping off a cliff here and some of my more daring friends decided to give it a try, much to my dismay. After the wedding, people! How many times do I have to tell you?


Shannan


Paul

Paul Baker said it was the best thing he’s ever done in his life. He did it a few times that day and then went back on another day to do it again!

We had checked the times for low tide before we went to Queen’s Bath and we were in the clear. Still, as soon as the waves started crashing a lot on the ocean-side of the pool, we got the heck out of there!

Check out this video I found online of Queen’s Bath:

Sources: HawaiiWeb, Summit Pacific.