San Francisco

I know, I know, this is a little late. But never late than never. I finally got the pictures uploaded and have caught up at work so I wanted to let you in on our fabulous time in SF!

It was very nice to have just a 5 hour flight from Hawaii instead of our usual 10 or so for starters. Ellie was a good girl on the plane as usual and we got into the airport at about 9 pm. We were meeting Tim who's flight was coming in about 30 minutes later. It was really delayed and he didn't end up getting in until 11 pm or so. Justin and Jamie were there to greet us and it was really good to see them. After making a McDonalds run (and getting pulled over by the cops!) we arrived at there awesome apartment. They are just one block from Golden Gate Park and 3 blocks to the ocean. It's a small place but very nicely done. Everything looks new and they have it decorated super cute.

The next day, Jamie took us out into the big city. We started the day off with a drive through Golden Gate Park. I had never been there before and it seems like it has a lot to offer. It was SUPER busy for whatever reason that day but we got a good view of some all military housing and the botanical garden. We then headed over to Chinatown. Ellie wanted to buy everything in sight and ended up with a green horse, umbrella and fan. Although we weren't super hungry, we felt like we should get some food while there and got a box of chicken fried rice. Here are Jamie and Ellie in a HUGE chair in the restaurant.

We then let Ellie play in a park for a bit before we headed over to Lombard Street. Supposedly this is the "Crookedest Street in the World". We climbed one of San Francisco's HUGE hills before we even got to this street. Here we are at the bottom. You can see all the cars zigzagging down the street behind us.

By the time we got up both of the hills, we were pretty tired. But I'd say the views were totally worth it! Here we are at the top!

Made homeade pizza for supper and hung out at home with a movie! Tomorrow was another big day!

Ah...Kauai

On the 5th of June, we took a 4 day trip to the neighboring island of Kauai. This Hawaiian island is known as the Garden Isle for it's lushness, greenery and flora and fauna. All of this is possible as it also plays host to the wettest place on the earth, Mt. Wai'ale'ale. Lisa, Jeff and Owen went with us and we had a fabulous time. We stayed on the lush North Shore for the whole trip and decided we would have to come back someday to see the rest of the island.

We left early on Friday and after a 40 minute flight, arrived at around 8:30 am. You must rent a car on this island and we upgraded to a nice SUV to have room for all of us and our things. We couldn't check into our beach house until later in the afternoon so we set off to stock up on groceries at Costco and went to see some sights. First stop Wailua Falls. This is where the opening scene to Fantasy Island was shot!

We then stopped at Lydgate Park where they had this awesome wooden play structure for Ellie to hang out on.
It had volcanos, tunnels and more.
The beach looked great and we decided we would have to
come back and snorkel here later.

On to Opaeka'a Falls. This was quite far away but also very beautiful.












Headed around the island and came to the Kilauea Lighthouse. This was just some stunning scenery with the water crashing up against the black lava rock. We had a picnic lunch here and stayed for a bit.
Our beach house was ready early so we drove the rest of the way through the towns of Princeville, Anini and Hanalei. It was so lovely and quaint. Just one narrow road, winding through a very jungly, overgrown area. Lots of time the greenery was over the road and made a sort of tunnel. There was also a series of one lane bridges that we had to cross and traffic had to wait on either side for their turn. At last,we arrived at Lauralani. It was even better than we hoped for! Here's Ellie enjoying a glass of lemonade on our deck overlooking the ocean!The house had everything we needed and a view to die for. It had lots of books about Hawaii that we all spent time reading our on the porch and many movies that were made here on Kauai; King Kong, The Thorn Birds, 6 Days Seven Nights, etc. Plus they had a lot of fun games which we also spent time with in the evenings. Here's the view from the master bedroom!
We unloaded our groceries and unpacked and settled in for the evening. Who wants to go anywhere when you have this wonderful home on the ocean!

Lisa, Ellie and I had reservations for the next morning to take a boat tour up the Na Pali Coast. The boat left out of Hanalei and headed down the coast.
This was stunning and most of this part of the island can
only be seen by boat.
The road ends at Ke'e Beach and
a hiking trail begins. I believe you can hike about
11 miles
in and we saw lots of people camping
and kayaking around these deserted beaches.
It looked so remote and awesome! The tour lasted 4 hours or so, with lunch and an hour of snorkeling. The cliffs were so big and these pictures just don't do it justice but I will share them anyway. We even went into some sea caves and saw at least 10 waterfalls! It was really a great tour and something I'm so glad we did.








The snorkeling on this tour was actually very good. Ellie did awesome! She was in about 20-30 foot of water and snorkeled all around like a pro. We saw
a lot of different kinds of fish and 2 that we weren't so happy to see.
We got ourselves into a little cove of coral
and when I looked down, there were two 4-5 foot sharks playing around. I told Lisa and she said,
"Where?". RIGHT BEHIND YOU! We just swam away and everything was fine. Luckily, Ellie didn't notice them so all was good. Here are some of the fish eating Ellie's oreos that the captain through overboard!

We hung out at our beach house with some cocktails and Lisa and Jeff went into Hanalei to eat while we stayed back and watched Owen. Most days, they took a walk along the beach in front of our house. Here they are getting back from one of those walks.

The next day was beach day. We wanted to explore several of the famous beaches on Kauai. First we hit Ke'e Beach and from the poll we took last night, it seems it was the most popular beach of the whole trip. This place had everything; calm waters for swimming, great reef for snorkeling, shade and drop dead gorgeous scenery. This is the end of the road in Kauai and you can't go any farther unless hiking or boating.





We stayed at this beach all day and Owen got to ride in the float that we got for him. He really loves the water and just kicks and kicks his little legs!

We went back to the beach house for some snacks and Lisa and I headed back out to snorkel Tunnels. This is a very famous snorkeling spot and something I didn't want to miss. Boy am I glad we didn't. It was some of the best snorkeling I've ever done and we saw just a TON of different fish. I bet I saw 5 fish that I've never seen before. I wanted to bring Ellie back in the morning.

Spent the evening in the town of Hanalei walking around and went to an awesome restaurant where I got some macadamia nut encrusted mahi mahi. It was delicious. Here we all are ready for our night on the town!

The next day we had to leave but our flight wasn't until
5:30 so we had all day to do some more exploring. I did take Ellie to Tunnels but our experience wasn't as great. The tide
was low and we had to skim across the coral which always really scares Ellie. The fish just weren't as abundant either but at least she can say she snorkeled Tunnels!

There's more to Kauai but today is our last day and we're headed to the next portion of our vacation; San Francisco to stay with my brother and sister-in-law Justin and Jamie! Can't wait!

SEE YOU ON THE MAINLAND AND
ALOHA!

Sunday=Funday!

Ellie and I got up very early and took off to snorkel Hanauma Bay.
It was a little cloudy and thus a bit hard to see but we had a nice time, saw a few fish and even 3 eels! One was a moray and the others...no idea! Here are some of the pictures that turned out with our underwater camera. You never know what you're going to get with these until you actually get them back! Holding Ellie's arm, swimming, getting pulled by the current and trying to take a picture doesn't always work the best!

Some kind of puffer fish. This was big, over a foot long

Here is a Moray Eel, also quite big

Jeff says this is a Turkish Moor

This is another eel

This fish, Hawaii's state fish, Ellie learned how to say:
Humuhumunukunukuapua'a

We then headed into Waikiki for lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, Tiki's. The view is phenomenal and the food's pretty good too.
I had my first Lava Flow of the trip (pina colada with a strawberry puree') and the fish tacos. Wendy, I know what you're thinking. "I thought Debbie didn't LIKE Mexican and seafood mixed together". And you're correct. But someone (I think Tim) got these last time we were here and they were delightful. So, just to note, I picked out and ate the blackened Mahi Mahi first, then put salsa on the tortillas and ate the rest as a taco. Voila, separation of taco and seafood!





We came back, showered up and headed over to the Windward Community College to watch a performance of keiki (children) hula. When we were married here, we had a keiki haula (hula group) come perform at our reception. I've stayed in contact with their kahu (teacher), Ka'Ohu and she told me about their special show they were having. It was very nice to see her again and the show was very cute. Girls from the age of 3 on up all dressed in different Hawaiian costumes did lots of different types of hula, solos and group dances. We didn't realize it was actually a ticketed show and was sold out. Luckily they let us in anyway.

Lisa had to work late and we had supper in the crock pot tonight. Tomorrow is our last full day in paradise!

Another day...another beach!

Ellie and I headed to a new beach today...Waimanalo! I hear from some of you that all my beaches look the same. Correct! GORGEOUS! Ellie really wanted to show Lisa and Jeff her new boogie boarding skills and we were meeting up with them later. After making a few ponds and canals in the sand here,
we grabbed some BBQ for all of us and headed over to meet them in Kailua. They weren't going to stay long as they had errands to run but the waves were so fun we all ended up staying all day. We all caught some air while boogie boarding and had a great time.

Ordered Pizza Hut for supper and, as usual on a full beach day, to bed early.

A trip to town

Today Ellie and I watched Owen in the morning. He's such a good baby and we didn't have any trouble with him at all. It's a long story, but I'm known as Chicken Auntie to him. Let's just say it has something to do with some clucking noises I make!
Dropped Owen at daycare at noon and headed back to Kailua Beach. We only had a few hours as we were headed into Waikiki for the evening; starting with a historical tour of the Moana Surfrider. We absolutely love this hotel and it was the first built on Waikiki. We've stayed here a few times and it's heaven. Unfortunately, their website was wrong and the tour time had changed. We headed over to Jimmy Buffet's Restaurant and met up with Jeff for appetizers and cocktails.
This bar is really neat with an ocean theme so we snapped a few photos. Since it doesn't have an ocean view, it has one huge wall where they project their own view!


We split the Volcano Nachos and had some fruity drinks!

We had a visitor come and make balloon animals for the kids too. (Ellie said, "I think he's wearing a costume mom") Ellie got a turtle balloon and Owen got a poodle.

















We walked down the Waikiki strip to the Outrigger Reef on the Beach. Walt Keale, the musician who played at our wedding, was performing with his band there. We had some cocktails and listened to his soothing Hawaiian sounds (while Ellie illegally swam in the hotels swimming pool!). I had a chance to visit with him for awhile and he played "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", which was the first song he played on his ukulele and Tim and I danced to at our Hawaiian wedding last December.

An old friend....

Today was King Kamehameha Day here in Hawaii. A state holiday so both Lisa and Jeff had it off. Jeff worked from home and we headed out on another adventure. (Ok, so Ellie was REALLY sunburnt so it was to be an inside day!) We went to the Macadamia Nut Farm and had some free samples of all kinds of nuts; cinnamon sugar, onion and garlic, Kona coffee. We stocked up our supply and headed to the Ala Moana Mall. Lisa was treating me to lunch for all my help with Owen! She took us to THE most fabulous restaurant. It's inside the Nieman Marcus and is calledMariposa. What a treat. It has an amazing view and Lisa had made sure to reserve an outside table.
I had the chilled King Crab salad and it was to die for. Filled with fresh crab,
buttery lettuce, palm hearts, avocado and green goddess dressing. Lisa and I both had a fruity drink as well. They bring out these gigantic "bready" things at first called popovers and you eat them with strawberry butter. Delish! Plus a little cup of chicken consumme' which was a wonderful treat!

We then went to see an old friend of mine from my Sigourney high school, James Walther. He's a Deputy Attorney General here in Hawaii and has lived here for 19 years. He showed us all around his lovely new home and we spent several hours chatting and catching up. It was wonderful to see him and we are planning to get together Friday evening and/or possibly Saturday. He and I were lifeguards together in Sigourney so spent lots of time together! Forgot to take photos so will post them when I see him next.

Headed to Costco for some gifts and food supplies then home. Jeff grilled shark and salmon for supper and it was absolutely wonderful. Tomorrow, we will be taking care of my favorite nephew in the morning, must get my rest!

Last week...

We got home from Kauai Monday evening and I will have to make that a separate blog entry when I have lots of time as there is SO much to tell. It was wonderful and the beaches were amazing. Here's one picture to ease the anticipation! Ke'e Beach

Tuesday, Lisa and Jeff had to go back to work and Ellie and I decided to just hang around the house and relax. We went to Jack in the Box for lunch which was fun as we don't have them around here. They have everything from burgers to tacos to egg rolls so a little something for
everyone! Ellie wanted to get something for her dad at Nanko Fishing Supply and ended up with a few gigantic squid fishing lures. I don't think there are any fish in Iowa that will bite on these big lures...but it's what she wanted to get him!


That evening when Lisa got home we went on a hike on a wonderful trail behind their house. It was uphill for the first half but very cool and jungley once we got going. There were some cute surprises along the way and a wonderful view at the top. We took pictures of several of the beautiful flowers along the way.







This one looks like a bumblebee!

The view from the top:

Bamboo forest:






















Wednesday, Ellie wanted to go to a beach where there were "some waves". She met a little girl on Kauai that shared her boogie board and they had a blast. We headed back to Kailua but to the middle of the bay this time. It was just what we were looking for. I took her out on the board to get her adjusted and to learn to balance and you can't believe what a little girl from Iowa learned in 4 hours in the Hawaii surf!

It's like she was a total natural. She was just getting pummeled by waves and didn't care, she'd head right back out. She came up to get sunscreened a few times but was in the water continuously. By the time we left, she was like a pro; standing with her board, head turned slightly to watch for the wave, hopping on the board and riding all the way in, up onto the sand.
Here's one she caught!

We had a blast and even old mom took the board out and was able to catch a few waves (my back is paying for it now!)

Got some great turkey sandwiches (pepper turkey, avocado, sprouts, etc) at the Kalapawai market at the beach and headed home. Lisa had to work all evening so Jeff and I had some beers in the gazebo and to bed early.