The sound of the rain on the tropical foliage was nice to sleep by. On Thanksgiving day we were about to leave for a sight seeing drive when their daughter brought us some of the turkey that was prepared the night before in a large Ziploc along with some beautiful fresh flowers for the little cafe table in the kitchen. Our turkey, some wine, some crackers, cheese and fresh fruit from the fruit stand just down the road made a wonderful picnic. It was just what we needed after 10 years of marriage; a simple place without pretense or expectation, a real place, in the real world, to remind us why we were married in the first place.

Big wedding days are cute, and fancy honeymoons are nifty. But in a few years when kids, careers and the world make those unrealistically remembered days fade, a real place, surrounded by real people may be just the respite that remind you that God didn’t build the Marriott, and bridal magazines don’t have the recipe for love. It’s right there beside you, wherever you are, whatever you are doing. Sometimes the glitz and glamour of our manufactured world can lead us away from the true happiness God put right in front of us. Heck, he put us here in a tropical garden with nothing but the heavens to over our heads, and to this day, you’ll never be closer that when you hold each other close without a stitch of clothes on your back. We realized that I think that Thanksgiving evening.

We haven’t stayed in a hotel since. I excitedly search every year for that next place. Someplace to experience each other. Someplace with character enough to make new friends, experience new things, all without the expectations and bustle that might otherwise distract me from the most amazing woman in the world. Someplace where imperfections are beauty, differences are character, and God’s creations aren’t franchised. If that means we need to bribe the three legged dog to leave us alone. I don’t even mind bribing the three legged dog with some of the turkey while we try to sneak into the Jacuzzi Adam and Eve style.

Now the roaches, I can live without those, but I’ve never been anyplace tropical that didn’t grow them big….

-Amy

My husband and I disappointed by the way the place wasn’t as clean as the pictures looked, tried to make the best of it back when we were first married. When in the middle of the night my husband awoke telling me to get out of the bed. There was a roach biting the back of his neck. I ran and turned on the lights to find dozens of roaches all over the room. I was horrified. My husband got on the phone at 3am calling hotels telling them our situation to determine if we could get the heck out of what we had now named the “Roach Nest Cottage” luckily the manager and the Kauai Coast Resort at the Beachboy got us in for $84 a night. This was beautiful, right on the coast and a timeshare. The place was pretty empty being that we were there in October so felt like we had the whole resort to ourselves. Lucky for you, you got your money back. We weren’t so lucky. Well I guess it will give us a story to tell the grandkids.