Waking up at 4am the morning after your wedding is NOT a great feeling and I would recommend to those planning their weddings NOT to arrange to fly out anywhere THAT soon after your wedding day. I know how desperate you are to get on your honeymoon but seriously, it is no fun setting off on your first day as Mr and Mrs wanting to kill someone because you’re so tired and the only person you can find is your other half! Secondly, if you think you’re in a mood now, wait until 12 hours later when you are STILL sat in each others pockets on the flight!
We dragged ourselves out of bed bleary eyed and dreading the day ahead.

After such a dream of a wedding and a perfect few days being spoilt rotten by the Hilton Waikoloa we never wanted to leave! Our enquiry into a basement room or a shed or even a vacant laundry room to live in was an unrealistic plea and we climbed into our awaiting taxi to the airport. We waved at the hotel and looked moodily out of the window at the sun rising on a new sunny Hawaiian day.
We made our connecting flight, again with a V on our baggage tickets which meant the bags had a 50% chance of arriving with us which of course filled me with joy as they had been true to their percentages on the last flight! All we needed was a bag not to arrive and we would be either waving goodbye to our flight to Seattle or our luggage! Neither a great result!
The straight up and down flight landed in Honolulu within 30 minutes and our bags arrived side by side on the conveyor belt. Thank the lord! We collected them and found a spot to spend our next 6 hours waiting in the airport! Having to fly interisland isn’t great when you have connecting flights. This was the only flight that got us into Honolulu airport in time so having found a quiet corner we both opened up our laptops to get to work and the terrible sinking feeling when there is no wifi to a blogger is indescribable! I have 6 hours to blog, catch
up, resize photographs, e-mail, cut videos…anything and everything…but no! There is no wifi. Now what? So we went and laid on a concrete bench in the chinese garden (yes outdoors in an airport) and read our books! 6 hours is a long time but we made it through without dying of boredom.

We boarded our flight to Seattle and tried to sleep, we still had a long way to go once we landed. Our flight was 5 hours and probably the longest 5 hours I have ever known. I don’t know about you but I just cant sleep sat up! Sitting in the most upright chair ever made is not condusive to sleep, especially when the child behind you is practising their tap dance routine on the back of your chair.
Anyway it was a restless journey and it was when we finally landed in Seattle airport after travelling for 16 hours that I flipped my lid. We had a one way mini domestic in the Seattle Tacoma airport which is the worst aiport I have ever encountered in my life! Miles and miles of airport with no-one that wants to help you. We had intended to stay in the airport that night and wait for a connecting train to Vancouver at 8 the next morning. That was not going to happen without us really falling out so we decided to hire a car and drive to Vancouver NOW as we were still wide awake thanks to the 3 hours time difference. Car hired we set the Sat Nav to Vancouver and away we went. The boring 3 hour drive was broken up by a visit to a terrible 24 hour McDonalds and a stop at border control which was as much fun as you can imagine it was!

We eventually arrived in Vancouver and decided to park up somewhere and
try to get some sleep before returning the car. We (apparently ‘I’)had a couple of hours rest and arrived back at Vancouver airport at 6am. We looked at getting a ferry back to Nanaimo (where we are heading to collect Peggy to continue on our journey) and it meant buses, sky trains and then the ferry so as tired as we were we decided to fly back to the island on the fabulous sea plane again. Tickets booked we caught up with Jaeger while we waited for our flight!
Finally we landed in Nanaimo 24 hours later where Clark was waiting for us. We sighed with relief as we arrived ‘home’ and went to bed to have a couple of hours rest.
Feeling like new pennies we had a great dinner with Clark and Angie and told them all about the wedding and all the adventures we had been having in Hawaii.

The next morning we received some sad news which meant we were going to have to fly home.
The night before the wedding in Hawaii we heard that a close family member had become ill but as it was early days we didn’t need to go home straight away. It made the wedding such an emotional time for us and Owana’s thoughtful legend gave us the time to reflect and think of those we miss everyday at home. We kept in touch with family whilst travelling back to Nanaimo and unfortunately just as we arrived there had been a turn for the worst and it was decided we would fly back to be with our families.
The day was spent arranging flights back to Vancouver and then from there to Manchester. We tried all day long and struggled to find available flights for the next day and the next flights were days away. We had prior to the news booked tickets to the Ballet and the ice hockey and decided we would still go. We needed a break from the worry and the computer screens and as it stood we couldn’t return for a few days anyway.
Angie and I went off to the Canadian Royal Ballet which was a first for me but will certainly not be the last. It was absolutely mind blowing! The dances were modern and absolutely captivating! They even did a few dances to Johnny Cash which was different but brilliant! And I can’t not mention the boys bottoms in tights which were great entertainment!

Alex and Clark went to enjoy the first Ice hockey game of the season and Alex tried to film at least one score but failed miserably and we collected them at the pub after we had had some cocktails and giggles with friends of Angies. We both really enjoyed our evening and the break was just what we needed to start the next day rested and commited to finding those flights.
We were actually awoken early the next morning by Clark with the phone in hand telling us that a seat had come available for today and he had the airline on the phone for us to book! Bless that man, he had been up hours already and found us seats on the flight that we had written off getting! We jumped up, booked the tickets and started to look at flights back off the island. The only flight that would get us in in time left in 1 hour and we had to be there 20 minutes before take off! We booked it, packed what we could and Clark and Angie abandoned their breakfasts to take us to the seaplane port…again!
Our pilot on the sea plane to the airport was hilarious. Claus is a singer and sang the whole time as he put our bags into the pontoons of the plane. We were the only passengers at this stop and Alex sat in the co-pilots seat. Claus jumped in and we started taxi-ing out into the ocean, as we did Claus explained that we had to sing along with him whilst we set off. He handed Alex the handwritten words and we sang along laughing our heads off! We landed and picked up 2 new passengers and we had to sing again, this time to Louis Armstrong ‘What a wonderful world’. One of the new passengers said he had been flying with Claus
for years and was used to it. We all sang at the top of our voices as we took off again for the airport! It cheered us up a little and we arrived at Vancouver Airport again and queued for our flight to Manchester.

We finally got to the front and as we had booked only 2 hours ago we weren’t on the system. We stood and watched everyone else check in while someone sorted out our tickets. We were eventually led to a desk and told that the flight had been overbooked and we couldn’t get that flight today!
I could have cried and was about to when Alex calmly said “so which flight are you putting us on then as we ARE going home today!” I think the woman must have seen the look on Alex’s face and realised he was not joking in any way and silently handed over 2 tickets so goodness only knows which poor soul did not get on that flight. I really am sorry!
So another 2 flights and another 16 hours travelling and an 8 hour time difference we made it home and headed straight out to the hospital!

We were so glad we had gone home and were with our families.

See what happens next on our wedding adventure!