Hawaii recap...the final days

So sad...

On Tuesday, we decided to go snorkeling at the local beaches on the North Shore. On the way, we stopped at Ted’s Bakery, a pretty famous North Shore spot for yummy pastries and other food. They have a famous coconut chocolate pie, which Matt ate for breakfast:) Then, we headed to Sunset Beach nearby to snorkel in Shark’s Cove, the best snorkeling spot in the area, and we spent a couple of hours exploring that area. It was so much fun! I saw the coolest, brightest, and biggest fish I had ever been that close to.

Afterwards, we headed just down the road to the Waimea Bay, an absolutely gorgeous beach area, to hang out and snorkel a bit more. We then had lunch at a truck place (not sure what else to call it, the experience was cooler than the description)- sitting outside and enjoying the weather and the view of the ocean. I had a chicken and veggie kabob, with a salad and the two scoops of white rice that seem to very popular in Hawaii. Another one of my favorite parts of Hawaii was how we ate almost every meal outside. The weather was so awesome- hot and sunny but there was always a breeze.

Then, we headed back to Turtle Bay to relax by the pool and enjoy our favorite smoothies they made at the pool bar (Just for the record- my flavor was mango-banana). We had dinner at another one of the resort’s more casual place and ate pizza…and yes, it was actually Hawaiian pizza!

Wednesday was our last full day in Hawaii, which means we had to keep telling ourselves not to be depressed and enjoy the last day. We ate at Ted’s Bakery again, then headed to a Waimea Valley Reserve park, which is a beautiful natural park with lots of history and information about the area. We walked to a waterfall where scenes from 'Lost' have been filmed (They actually film Lost on the North Shore, and although I was on the lookout for Matthew Fox, I don't think they were filming yet). We had hoped to swim in the waterfall area, but they have had a drought so it was closed for swimming. It was a really nice place to walk around and see local flowers and trees. Another cool thing about Hawaii is that there were chickens and roosters just walking around everywhere...and they were more colorful than your average birds. There was also a gorgeous peacock there as well that was very friendly (pictured here).

We headed into Haleiwa again, to do a little shopping and ate lunch at Kono’s- an awesome breakfast and lunch place that is supposedly popular with surfers, where we both had some of the best pork ever. We also stopped by another shaved ice shop and found that shaved ice pretty much tastes the same no matter where you get it (but I could still eat it every day!) For rest of the day, we hung out at the beach and the pool at the resort. They had some dancers from the local Polynesian Cultural Center demonstrate some different dances by the pool, which was cool. We were both tired and needed to pack (plus we had some leftovers from previous dinners), so we decided to order a couple of things from room service to supplement that.

Thursday, we took one last look and listen to our amazing ocean sounds and view, walked around the resort for a bit, and left mid-day to head to L.A……We were so sad but so grateful that we got to spend almost a week there to celebrate our first year! As I'm writing this, I'm trying to remind myself to remember those amazing days in the midst of the craziness I'm feeling right now with school....like my friend Sonia said, maybe I need to get some coconut lotion and just sniff it whenever I need a pick me up!....or maybe a coconut candle for my office?

Next up- Our trip to CA!

Hawaii recap, Part 2

Sunday and Monday.....(sorry for the delay- I've been battling jet lag + a wicked headache+ trying to plan 3 classes+first two days of boot camp making it very difficult to sit down, stand up, and walk up or down any stairs:)

Sunday morning we woke up still stuffed from our awesome dinner, so we had a light breakfast and then hit the beach. We rented snorkeling equipment and explored the bay around our hotel. There weren’t tons of fish, but it was still cooler than any snorkeling I’d done in Florida! At lunchtime, we headed to a shrimp truck just off the main road near our hotel- the famous “Giovanni’s” shrimp truck. There was a long line and you sit and wait at picnic tables under a small tent. What I loved about this place, besides the yummy shrimp, was that it was a cool mix of locals and tourists. One of my favorite things about Hawaii was the adorable local kids☺ What a surprise right?

After lunch, we headed to the town of Haleiwa again. We did a little browsing at the cute shops around the town and waited in line at the famous Matsumoto’s shaved ice shop. It was worth the 30 minute wait. We both got the rainbow option, but opted not to get ice cream on the bottom or the local favorite, red azuki beans….something about the combination of textures bothers me about those combos. We headed back to the hotel, where we had a light dinner at the sports bar there.

Monday…..was our anniversary! Yay! We decided to make a day trip to the South Shore, which is supposed to have the best snorkeling. We got to the Hanauma Bay and it was closed due to jellyfish☹ We still found this amazing cliff-maybe called The Blowhole? I hate this picture of me, but my wish to share the beautiful view will override my vanity.

Since we were in the area, we drove around a bit and had lunch in the area at a burger place. Then, we headed to Peal Harbor, on the way back to the North Shore. The memorial and museum was interesting, but pretty brief.

We got back to the resort and got ready for a very special dinner at Ola’s on the beach. Here’s a photo of us- again, I was having a bad hair and overall face day but I will share the photo with you anyway. We both had great fish again and couldn’t get over how well we were eating here. It was a wonderful way to end our anniversary day and celebrate our awesome first year…but, lucky for us, our celebration wasn’t over! We got to continue it for the rest of the week….

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!!!

I have the Aloha spirit

Not sure if I can say that now that we're back on the 'mainland'- We just got into CA tonight after enjoy this for 6 nights.....
I need to go to bed, but wanted to just share what we've been waking up to each day. I love Hawaii!! More later...'Night!

Happy Birthday Lindsay!

A quick happy birthday to my sister in law Lindsay! She's far away in Mexico, probably spending the day in class and studying, but hopefully she can have a little time to celebrate! We'll be seeing her in about a week in CA so we can celebrate with her a little late....until then, have a great day!!

A nice Sunday

Yes, haven't been writing much lately.. Really, because nothing exciting has been going on and I try not to bore people.

After finishing grading and calculating my grades on Saturday, I was SO ready for a 'day off' on Sunday where I did not think about school all day (except for an hour or so in the morning when I worked). I went to a great brunch with my sister at the oh so yummy Sun in my belly and then Matt and I headed to the mall to pick up a few things for our ***trip*** (yay!). Matt had bought tickets for a 7pm showing of Dark Knight that evening, so we went on our way home from the mall. We waited in line to enter the theater but once in, got good seats and really enjoyed the movie. It is long....but so good. And of course, Christian Bale is just the best:)

Back to work for the week until we leave town- there's so much to do!

Coming to an end....

It's been a busy few weeks- not particularly exciting, but busy with summer school and such. Next week, everything is 'due'- my stuff and my students' final work, so after that will be lots of grading and turning in grades. I'm hoping to get a lot of planning done for fall semester which starts in a month (ah!) before we leave town (more on that later)....

Today was my last day of bootcamp. I've really enjoyed it, despite the early mornings (especially when I had to go the 6am instead of the 7am if I had an early meeting). I feel like my fitness has really increased, and this week on all of our 'end of camp' activities where we compare our scores and times to the first week, I improved greatly! I did almost twice as many push ups and squats as I did in week 1 today- woo hoo!

We also ran the Peachtree Road Race last week, which is a 10k. After going to bootcamp Monday-Thursday that week and the fact that I am not a runner by any means, running 10k on Friday was a little rough. It was my second year, but this year seemed harder- I think it was a combination of being sore from bootcamp and that the ending was more uphill than last year, which made my final impressions of the race very negative overall. We pretty much passed out for the rest of the day, so our 4th of July was pretty uneventful but fun.

We have a pretty laid-back weekend planned for this one. Hope yours is good!