Aftermath

The Maui life happenings. Sometimes its slow and relaxed, boring (which everyone needs sometimes). And sometimes it is jam packed with a lot of fun stuff going on. It's a small island, information about events that are made public will make it's way through the island and eventually everyone will hear about it.

Something before my Europe trip that I never got to blogging about was the Broke Da Mouth Food Festival in Lahaina. Lahaina is the main city on the West side of Maui and honestly not much goes down over here for the locals. Because West side is covered with tourist resorts and restaurants catering to tourists on holiday. Not so much for someone actually living on the West side. If we want a new pair of pants we have to drive an hour+ to the "other side" (meaning anything not on the West side) to go to the nearest department store. Anyways, this festival took place in Lahaina, so everyone was stoked because nothing happens in Lahaina like this, and was put on by a friend of mine and her husband who owns an event coordinating and productions company. The food festival was to highlight and promote local restaurants and businesses through a maze of booths and they provided live entertainment. 

My friend Kelly was in charge of putting on a fashion show with stores and local designers in the area. She teamed up with Tressica who has a non exclusive modeling agency on Maui and they put one the best fashion show I have been apart of on Maui! It was organized. Produced beautifully. Styled well. Had a theme and story line. Cool quirks, etc. My favorite part was that I started off the show dancing behind a white linen sheet with a spot light on me (so the audience only saw my shadow) and I was a mermaid goddess so I carried a really cool looking net. They couldn't have picked a better model to start out the show dancing. I wasn't nervous, just so stoked I got to model AND dance! My two favorite things :D Here are some photos and a youtube edited video of the fashion show. I wore 4 different looks but the video only have two of my looks, and the photographers only caught 2 of the looks (that was a bummer afterwards, but the show still went smoothly so I still say it had been the best fashion show so far on the island. The theme was Divinity.

The mermaid goddess look

$150 Maui girl bikini

Clapping for the finale walk through (I'm not just clapping for myself as I walked the runway hahha)

All the credit: The first ever Broke Da Mouth Food Fesitival produced by Go Big Productions. Modeling agency Pure Talent USA, headed by Tresseca Norris and Kelly Lillian Mahon put on an exquiste fashion show the first night of the event that I modeled in. The clothing featured designers and shops from all around Maui including Mahina, Hayhay Couture, Isle Empress, Passion for Fashion, Blue, Maui Girl Swimwear, and Karina's. Hair was styled by Plush. Make up done by Ginny Block, Maui Makeup Artistry,and Bella de Beau by Kristin Werthman. Photography and Media by Genevieve DeRego, Tyson Moore, Robin Christmans, and Merman Media. DJ and Music by Tobin Lindell. And GoGo dancer Emily Shaw.

Click the link below to see the edited video footage of the fashion show. I appear 3 times. Once in the beginning, second in slow motion at first with a blue flowy shirt, and third I'm toward the end in the yellow bikini

Fashion Show Pure Talent USA Maui

Hula Grill sells merchandise with it's logo on it. They decided to better promote the different shirt styles to have some of us employees model the merchandise. Now those photos are on a slideshow alongside the T-shirt booth. They posted a few of them on Hula Gril''s fcaebook page so here are a few of those:

Since our Europe trip where we took a cooking class in Florence and were taught how to make homemade pasta, Jon has been obsessed and we have bought a pasta maker =)

nom nom

The kitties missed us while we were in Europe for a month

His favorite spot, right above my head on our bed

Both cuddled above my head on our bed

The next blog will have Halloween and my birthday celebration photos on it. It's good to be back on the island :)

Backpacking Through Europe... What Can I Say?

It's been awhile blogger friends. I've been to Europe and back, experienced another culture, another way of living. Learned yet another language and built upon my foundation of a different language. I went on many adventures in new unknown lands with the love of my life and learned new things about him and our relationship, only making it stronger. I now appreciate certain aspects of our American lifestyle, and Hawaiian lifestyle, but also see that there are other, better ways of doing things. Learned how to live a month with literally only a backpack and the clothes on my back. I have awakened a "travel bug" inside of me, I want to see more, understand other countries, and see what they have to offer.

This blog was intended to inform my audience of our life in paradise- Maui. So I won't stray too far from that primary objective to this blog. But our back packing trip through Italy and Paris took over almost a full month of our life, and fulfilled us in ways we never expected.

Here is a photo montage of my favorite images from our month in Europe. On my facebook I have an album for each city in depth (100-150 photos from each city) so check those out to really understand our trip. These are just the highlights.

Italian rooftops

First meal in Florence

First Italian restaurant we stumbled upon for dinner where this owner sang Italian opera as he ran food, took orders, cleared plates, rang people in at the cash register, etc. Unforgettable!

Random guy doing a photo shoot with us in front of the Duomo

Duomo (Italian for cathedral)

We somehow snagged the only front row seat to the Duomo at a nearby bar

Handmade pasta class in a Florentine chef's personal kitchen- Jon's dream come true

Look how happy he is :)

It was AMAZING

The Italian tradition, espresso or cappucino in the morning

San Lorenzo street market. Where we haggles for 2 leather jackets, a leather belt, and 5 beautiful scarves

Infamous bridge in Florence- Il Ponte Vecchio (the grand/old bridge)

"Faux" David statue

One of the most unforgettable evenings of my life.
 Yes those buildings in the background are real

Free food with our bottle of wine in a front row table on top of a hidden hill we stumbled upon while walking around... yes please :)

We met my best friend Toni from Maui and her boyfriend Bradley in Tuscany

First Italian style thin crust pizza. This is supposed to be for one person

The leftovers were used as my umbrella later while trekking through the hills outside of Siena to get to a farmhouse

The grounds of the castle we all stayed in outside of Siena

 Inspired by the Florence cooking class,  Jon made pasta for us and our new Canadian honeymooner friends staying nearby

Lookout on top of the castle grounds of the nearby hill towns

All gone :(

Our favorite meal through out our entire trip

Best pasta I had the entire trip.  Fresh Mushroom and Truffle creamy pasta. ughhhhhh yum

That's the castle up on the hill

My favorite part of Siena was getting lost along the back residential streets

Il Campo Piazza- Argued to be the most beautiful piazza in all of Italy

Talking story with an old local lady. She very much insisted on me having "bambini" soon (children)

Having dinner in the dungeon of our castle... There was a dungeon connected to our bedroom

Sunrise in Tuscany

A random doggy followed Jon home

An old man picking ripe olives out of the olive tree on the castle's property with a rickety only wooden ladder. Precious

Walking along the highway, alongside vineyards

Volterra

Our hotel at sunset

The bulbs along this archway used to be faces,  dating back to the 1st century!!!!

Saving the world, one Tower of Pisa at a time

Riomaggiore in Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre means 5 lands/towns. They line the coast line with hiking trails in between them. Super local, beautiful, low key, colorful, welcoming, but a little over run by tourists during the day (understandably, it's beautiful)

Along the Via Dell'Amore. The "pathway of love", where young lovers from seperate towns would meet up for a rendez -vous away from their feuding cities

Everyone "locks their love" along the Via Dell'Amore to ensure their love will last forever. We didn't have a lock , but we did have a wine cork from our favorite wine produced by the castle we stayed at in Siena

Picturesque Manarola

Who gets a chance to swing on the swings and play on the teeter totter in Italy on top of a hill overlooking the Mediterranean Sea?! Gotta do it

Corniglia

Smallest wine glasses we encountered. Smaller than his hands...

Hiking between the 5 towns

Vernazza

Our picnic dinner high up overlooking Vernazza and Corniglia

Statue along the sea in Monterosso al Mare

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Lots and lots of thin crust pizza

Our "bar crawl" hopping between restaurant to restaurant for wine tasting and appetizers (better known as pupus in Maui "poo-poos")

Amazing. 5 reds and 5 whites from each of the 5 towns in Cinque Terre

Venice

Street produce markets

Doge's Palace

Venice, the city of water, had overflowed from the previous day's rain

So we tapped into our Maui roots and went barefoot (notice everyone around out of the water :)

Carnival masquerade masks galore

I love this. Italians leave their laundry and sheets out to air dry. Makes the hidden streets look so  homey

"You are my life"

This is how tiny some of the alleyways are!!

The Vatican Museum

Infamous in the Sistine Chapel

Roaming around Rome until the late hours of the evening

The Colosseum. Unreal to be there in person... 

The prison that the apostles Peter and Paul were held!!

The statue doesn't seem as big unless you have me to compare to it's size!!

The pope's church St. Peter's Basilica. The grandest and wealthiest cathedral in the world

Vatican City. Smallest private state in the world

Pasta and Pizza coma all trip. Our favorite thing to do is order "una bottiglia di vino rosso della casa" which is a bottle of house red wine. It's like they have a keg of red wine in the back to serve as house wine so you get a pitcher of red wine for really cheap, but it always still tastes great, very easy drinking.

Probably the biggest structure I have ever been next to. The photo doesn't do it justice

Maybe this helps. That's me in the center standing in between the middle pillars. This thing was jaw dropping, as many other structures were in Rome

The Trevi Fountain. All the coins that people throw in there to make a wish are actually donated to a local church!

My favorite part of Rome. Trastevere. Magical

Gelato was a daily ritual for us ( just as drinking espresso in the morning and a bottle of wine in the evening became). Gelato is more dense than ice cream, so more flavorful, fulfilling, and usually creamer, unless you like the sorbetto as I do which is dairy free, the more tart flavors :) I'm not joking when I say every day

Dinner overlooking Sorrento in Southern Italy

Capri private boat trip!

Famous

Capri was my favorite place to visit. Like a green wealthy Greece. So beautiful. Great memories

A little sea sick... but that didn't ruin the trip

Sampling Lemoncello, what Southern Italy specializes in

View from our hotel

Hotel stay in Salerno

goofy

He had many of these along the trip

And they ended up like this

First baguette in Paris

Jon made an Italian dinner for me and Catiy to thank Catiy for letter us crash her pad for 5 days :)

I used my perfect french (ya right) to ask how much for a day pass. After a lot of French words I didn't understand she said "no women." I said "that's fine... I don't want one, my husband wants a pass." She said
"GAY gym" ... ooooo... ok bye. I didn't know that even existed?

Rockin' the buret

The beautiful street art was unforgettable about Paris

The Seine River

Notre Dame

Thrift store shopping in Paris...

Entrance to the Louvre

First Parisian crepe (not so good on the street)

We had a picnic in front of the Eiffel Tower one evening

And walked around into the wee hours of the night

Best baguette we had was in Montmartre
(see the cool art on the wall, it was everywhere)

View from the Sacred Heart Church

One even looked exactly like me!

The real Moulin Rouge

One day our lunch consisted of only French pastries and wine. When in Paris..

And there just so happened to be an amazing event one evening called Nuit Blanche: White Night. Where countless museums and stores stay open extremely late with free admission. There are people playing music and having dance parties along the river, showing black and white intellectual movies along the bricks of the Seine, lots and lots of fun.

One of our most memorable souvenirs were these handmade postcards we found in our favorite part of town Montmartre and we hadn't seen these postcards anywhere else in Paris. There were different scenarios of this blonde girl and brunette boy flirting all around Paris. They were the epitome of Jon and I. So we picked our favorites and went around Paris and reenacted the scenarios as best we could!

Now that was probably a lot of pictures... but thats the best I could do, I have well over a thousand pictures from our trip!! Again to see more in depth check out my Facebook, or ask me to send you more sperately. But in all, this trip matured me as a person, grew Jon and my marriage, and sparked a passion for travel. Probably next year around that time we will be jetsetting off to another country. I can't wait.