One of the best decisions we made was to rent a private vacation house for the entire week. We chose the Garuda Villa near Lahaina town. The four-bedroom house boasts spectacular views and is tastefully decorated in Balinese style with a pool area, complete with jacuzzi and bbq grill, that was perfect for hosting our welcome dinnner and brunch. My family decorated the house with festive Chinese new year elements like mandarin oranges and calligraphy, and we lined the foyer with our personalized guest goodie bags.

It was soooo great to see all our friends and family in tropical Maui! We had a buffet spread from Aloha Mixed Plate with "Hawaiian" local favorites like kalua pork, shoyu chicken and haupia. We also performed the Chinese tea ceremony, serving tea to our parents and receiving red packets. Near the end of the night, everyone gathered around to watch a slideshow of our childhood pictures and pictures of us as a couple throught the years.

The morning-after brunch was a relaxed affair by the pool. We had a "brunch spread" of scrambled eggs, french toast and a mountain of baked goods and cinnabuns..... the biggest hits with our guests though were the barbeque ribs that we marinaded ourselves in a "secret sauce" and the Malaysian dishes that my dad whipped up in the morning.

After brunch, a bunch of us went for a sunset sail along the Maalaea coast. It was a tad windy but the champagne was flowing and the company was wonderful. A funny aside, as we were leaving the house for the sunset sail, there was a huge, all-out forest fire brewing in the not-so-distant grasslands. In fact, it looked so serious we took all our bags with us in the car just in case!

SO... having been on many-a-snorkel trip, I thought we'd do something a little more exciting, be a little closer to the water, by arranging this ocean rafting trip. Haha! They sure weren't kidding when they said it might be "bumpy". We were on an ocean rodeo for the whole morning—our little raft rode up these 6-foot waves and then came crashing down, again and again. A few of us had to get dropped off (including my very brave parents) but otherwise, the rest of us had a roarin' time (in the broad sense of the word :-)).

On Wednesday, we packed ourselves into a minivan and went through five different climate zones to Haleakala crater. On the summit, Jeff lamarca and I polished off the last of the wedding cake and you can see a picture of me attempting to carry my baby sister (yes, to me she will always be a big baby). In the afternoon, I joined Ed and his parents for golf at the Plantation Course at Kapalua—from every hole we could spy mist and rain in the distance, dramatic clouds floating overhead, the ocean in the back, pine trees and rolling hills.... simply gorgeous. Thursday, Sandhya, my sisters and I woke up extra early for the scenic drive to Hana. So proud of us! We hiked for hours, encountering some amazing old trees and even a bamboo forest (it was straight out of Crouching Tiger), to see the waterfalls of Oheo Gulch. By Friday, most of our guests had left and Ed and I headed off to the island of Lanai for a mini-honeymoon.