Well, the honeymoon is nearly over. We woke up today feeling a little down about having to leave, but amazed at how much we managed to do and see in just a few days here. Now it’s time to leave this beautiful island and begin our journey home.

We started the day off with a birthday brunch for Ben’s mom at the Red Salt restaurant at the Koa Kea Resort. Mimosas and some delicious fare made it a special morning for her 60th birthday.

We stopped briefly back at the house before having to drive out to the Navy Base to return the gear we checked out from the Outdoor Activities Center and then stopped by the Kauai Coffee Plantation on our way back to Poipu Beach. They grow 50% of the US’s coffee right there on thousands of acres. Pretty amazing.

We got back to the house, packed up, and said goodbye to Ben’s family. Then we hopped into the jeep and headed to the airport. It was a ghost town on a Monday afternoon, so we were quickly through security and on our flight to Honolulu. After a brief layover there, we boarded our flight to Seattle, where we sat next to a lovely retired school teacher from Wisconsin. We chatted a bit and watched Due Date with Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis and passed out, exhausted from an amazing week.

When we woke up, we were nearly in Seattle. We landed, got our bags, and took the new Link Light Rail downtown. We were totally exhausted from the red-eye and ended up taking a nap until about noon. After some coffee at Cupcake Royale and Veritas Coffee, we hopped a ferry to Bainbridge Island and did a little walking around. We happened into Island Vintners for a tasting of local wines and then caught the ferry back downtown.

We stopped for dinner at Serious Pie (since Matthew is on a lifelong quest to eat pizza anywhere he can find it) and then went back to Madrona for Cupcake Royale ice cream sandwiches and a glass of wine at Bottlehouse.

Then it was time for bed again, so we decided to finish packing in the morning before we headed to the airport for the last leg of our journey back to DC.

We got on our flight in Seattle to Houston and our United flight attendants were awesome. Linda and Gina loved us and even gave us gifts when we left (it says Mark because that’s Matthew’s first name and the one he uses when traveling, so it’s what was on the manifest):

We made our connection in Houston in plenty of time and boarded our flight back to DC. It turned out our flight attendant on this flight was from Okinawa, so she chatted a bit and wished us luck as well. We finally made it back to DC around 11pm and got back to the apartment at 11:30. We were exhausted, but still on west coast/Hawaii time so we ordered a pizza and watched some Arrested Development before finally hitting the rack, honeymoon officially complete.