Hawaii recap, Part 1

Hello everyone!

We returned from L.A. late Monday, only about 2 hours later than the original plan....I'd have been shocked if we weren't late- something always happens when traveling from the west coast or vice versa, especially since we had to stop in Dallas. I've been incredibly jet lagged today and yesterday. We had a really great time in CA visiting family and friends- more on that later.

For now, I wanted to share a few pics and an idea of how the first few days went. Of course, all of the photos are by Matt:)

We arrived late afternoon on Friday, after a layover in Dallas. We rented a car and headed from Honolulu to the North Shore. Surprising, there is a lot of traffic around Honolulu, so it took us awhile to get to the more scenic and rural North Shore area. We stopped in the small town of Haleiwa to grab a bite to eat a shrimp truck and walk around for a bit. They have these shrimp trucks all over. People line up to buy $12 plates of fresh shrimp, cooked in their shells in a variety of sauces and served with two scoops of white rice. I liked it, but didn't like this shrimp truck as much as where we went on Sunday- the more famous "Giovanni's" truck...again, more on that later.

Exhausted from the trip, we drove a little further, past gorgeous small beaches, some houses, and little else...then, we arrived at our resort- Turtle Bay. If you've seen "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", you saw what the resort looked like. It was just as beautiful in person, and it is in an amazing location right on the beach. Our room had an amazing view and we left the door open often to get the ocean breeze and hear the waves. We soaked up the amazing surroundings and went to bed early.

Saturday morning, we had breakfast on the beach, at one of the resort's restaurants -Ola's. We relaxed on the beach for awhile, then headed to another local beach for our surf lesson. There are a few things I learned from our 2 hour surf lesson- 1. how to stand up on the board (but obviously not how to remain standing), 2. my deformed ribs that stick out make it extremely uncomfortable to lay on the board for any length of time, and 3. surfing is a really, really good workout for your arms. The tide was pretty strong and I felt that I was paddling and keeping myself from drifting to sea or the beach more than trying to catch the waves. It was fun though, and I did get up for a second or so a couple of times. Most exciting was that we saw a sea turtle swimming right next to us- it was huge! I was so excited...I had pet turtles as a kid but had never been so close to such a big turtle.

After resting at the gorgeous pool for the rest of the day (I know, it's a hard life), we got ready to eat dinner at another of the resort's restaurants, 21 Degrees North. It's a really well- rated restaurant for the area and we quickly realized why. We had an amazing meal, one of the best either of us has ever had. Matt had great ahi and a crab crusted sea bass. I had a crab salad and a pepper-seared ahi. Desserts put us over the edge and we left full and really impressed. Things were starting out well!

Sunday- Wednesday to come soon - including- our anniversary!!!