a sunburn is earned, not bought

Tell me about it!  The summer is almost over and I decided to change my bathing suit design which exposes a whole different part of my top to the sun.  I have earned this sunburn!  And no, Cathy Peet, my top and bottom still do not match in case you were wondering!  Chris would like for me to let you know that black people can also get sunburned and even peel.  I  keep telling him aloe vera is his best friend during times like this.  With that being said, any guesses as to what we've been up to???

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, we have been at the beach.  On Friday, we decided to hike the Lanikai Pillbox Trail.  This hike was pretty easy and really beautiful.  There were a few bunkers, or "pillboxes" along the ridge.  These bunkers were used during World War II to observe the windward coastline against possible Japanese invasion.  Once we reached the top, we were able to see the "Moks Island" in front of us and the Ko'olau Moutains behind us.  

partners in crime

popping out of the pillbox

After our hike, we headed to Lanikai Beach.  This beach is #2 on my list of favorite places, right behind the North Shore.  It was super crowded though and I even saw jellyfish swimming in the water but we still had a good time.  Jaden got stung by a jellyfish but it didn't really bother him until way later when it was time to go to bed.  Imagine that?!  Below are some photos of our day.  We ended our night watching the sunset and fireworks at the Hilton.  Like Ice Cube said, "today was a good day"  :)

gotta love the self photo

we don't ever want to leave

these sunsets never get old

On Saturday, we went to a beach close to home to watch the annual Dragon Boat races.  In my mind, I had something totally different pictured.  In reality, they were canoes that were painted to look like dragons.  Very anticlimactic.  

I could do her job!

On Sunday, we headed to the beach in front of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.  This hotel is the most ugly/beautiful hotel I have ever seen!  It is the color of Pepto Bismol (gross) and looks like an old spanish mission from far away.  However, when on the actual property it is one of the nicest places I have ever seen (if you can get used to the pink).  There is so much history behind this hotel.  It was built in 1927 (maybe pepto pink was in back then?) and was used as King Kamehameha's playground after he conquered the island of Oahu.  Even Shirley Temple stayed here during the 1930's.  

Shirley Temple was a great actress and Jaden really loves the drink, but I wanted to come here because there aren't any rocks in the water!  A lot of beaches here in Waikiki have coral even in the most shallow parts which makes it really hard to swim.  We spent a majority of our day here and then headed home.  When we got there, we had an interesting visitor waiting for us.  Chris wouldn't let me bring her inside, though.  She doesn't look like an alley cat to me.  

Flossie, the cat!

We woke up this morning to gray skies and 100% humidity.  We quickly decided today was going to be a "do nothing" type of day because of Flossie, the tropical storm (not the cat) was headed our way.    Chris and I caught up on a few shows and Jaden alternated between the tv and his nintendo.  

Hopefully the storm will pass by tomorrow so we can get back to the beach.   Don't want my sunburn to fade!   

Aloha!

North West (not Kim and Kayne's baby)

These past two days have been very relaxing.  There aren't even any attempted murder stories to report!  At this point, Chris has fallen madly in love with....Hawaii.  He loves me too, obviously, but he really loves Hawaii.  It is cool to be able to see it from his perspective because I have probably been here a total of ten times before this summer.  Isn't it a shame that we can take such a place for granted?

Yesterday, we headed to my favorite place, the North Shore.  We stopped first at Sunset Beach and spent about four hours here.  Jaden found kids to play with so he was pretty much occupied the whole time.  Chris and I relaxed, swam, and talked.  I had forgotten what it was like to speak to another adult! Below are some pictures of our time at SB!

Tebow - ing!

The Miller Lite is not Jaden's  :)

 After our day of fun in the sun, we packed up and headed down the road so we could watch the turtles and the sunset before dinner.  Chris was quite impressed with the size of the turtles and their ability to hibernate with so many people gawking at them.

The honu (turtle) Brutus

<3

Today was another low key day.  We started with a visit to T-Mobile so Chris could get a new, dry, working phone  #hawaiiproblems  Then we headed west, to Ko'Olina to swim and snorkel at the lagoons.

 Jaden found a group of local kids to play with and Chris and I relaxed, again.  We even found a local too!

We ended the day by stopping at Target, my home away from home!  There is only one Target on the island, so we had to take advantage of it while we had a car.  Both Jaden and Chris got unique Hawaiian gifts.  Can you guess which one belongs to which?

 Aloha!

Bad Decisions

Chris thinks I'm trying to kill him.  And it isn't like "kill him with kindness" either.  He legitimately thinks I'm trying to kill him.  Ok, let me tell you what happened, and then you can judge for yourself.  Disclaimer:  I did not, in any way, try to "kill" him,  it was more of a case of air headedness (mine).
So, Chris got here on Sunday at noon.  He slept a majority of the eight hour flight, so he thought he would have no problem adjusting to the time difference.  Even so, I suggested we take it easy for the day.  A light walk to the beach, hang out for a few hours, and then call it a day.  He was agreeable so off we went.  Well, remember the other day when I told you a huge swell had come in?  Yeah, so by Sunday, it still hadn't left and the waves were huge!  We all went in the water anyway but Chris spent a majority of the time being the ocean's ragdoll.  I was also knocked down quite a bit but I think that was due to being off balance from laughing at him so hard.  For the record, I did try to help him as much as I could.  By the end of the day he was all smiles though!

We were all asleep extremely early on Sunday night so we could get the most out of Monday.  We decided to go to Makapu'u Lighthouse and then go see the tide pools below.  Being the native Hawaiian that I am, I googled high tide/low tide times.  For those of you that don't know, tide pools are best seen during low tide.  One of the reasons is so moronic adventurous people don't get swept out to sea by huge waves when trying to scale rocks to get to said tide pools.  Low tide = no drowning.  Well, the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) said low tide would be at 9:30 am and high tide doesn't come in until 4:30 pm.  They seemed like a reputable source so I believed them.  

First, we walked to the lighthouse and did a little sightseeing.  It was a lot of fun for all of us to be doing something together after six weeks of separation!  Below are some photos of our hike.   

We don't color-coordinate on purpose, I swear! 

If you jump, I jump

By this time, it was only 11 am.  We had five hours before high tide so we walked down to a separate trail that led to the tide pools.  This did require some rock scaling but nothing our agile bodies weren't capable of.  An odd thing happened though.  With every rock we climbed, it seemed like the waves were getting higher and more powerful.  We I suggested that we persevere.  Chris ended up leading the way, but as he stepped onto a lone rock with no shelter, a massive wave toppled over him.  He must have the balancing ability of a tight rope walker because he did not fall off the rock or get swept out to sea.  He was, however, totally soaked, along with his brand new phone.  When he suggested that we don't go any further,  I happily obeyed.  We'll never know if it truly was high tide or a rogue wave, but, again, I wasn't trying to kill him!

We decided to tone down our adventures and head to Kailua Beach.  The sand here is soft and the waves are ankle slappers.  Jaden and Chris played football in the water while I worked on my tan.  Chris even inflated my float for me.  What a guy!  After his brush with death and a day at the beach, I treated us all to shave ice.  By this point, I was back in his good graces.  But not for long.

After our full day, we showered and headed to dinner.  It was nice and uneventful.  We talked about what we should do the next day.  I still had a cabana rental to use at the Hilton from that timeshare presentation.  Since I knew we would be able to completely relax at the pool all day, I suggested we hike the Haiku Trail which is also known as "Stairway to Heaven".  This is one of the most famous hikes on Oahu for many reasons.  The trail was installed in 1942 to enable antenna cables to be strung from one side of the cliffs to the other.  These cables transmitted very low frequency radio signals that could reach US Navy submarines as far away as Tokyo Bay (Japan).  The trail is composed of 3,922 stairs and if you go early enough in the morning, hikers can watch the sunrise and see a 360 degree view of all of Oahu.  Sounds pretty amazing right?  We thought so.  The only slight problem is this hike is closed because its access is through a residential neighborhood.  A security guard gets on duty by 5 am and will turn hikers away if you don't beat him through the gate.  We set the alarm for 3 am and were out the door by 3:15!  We had flashlights and a detailed step by step map to guide us.  We arrived in the neighborhood by about 3:45 am and there was no guard in sight.  Success!  It took us a little while to find the entrance but we eventually did.  Well, I guess from the entrance to the stairs is about a 20 minute walk.  Directions to the stairs went a little like this:  at the fork in the road, go left; at the next fork in the road, go right; up a ways find the man made trail that looks like a u turn and take that; then find a hole in the fence and climb through.  I'm sure those directions were doable in the day time, but for us, it was pitch black (flashlights didn't help much), in the rainforest, animals all around us making noises, and not a soul in sight.  When I uttered the direction of "find the man made trail" I thought Chris was going to kill ME!  Jaden was terrified and Chris and I were both pretty scared too.  We decided to go back to the car as quickly as possible.  On our walk back, we passed two people (a man and a woman) who seemed to appear right in front of us and didn't say anything.  Chris and I independently thought they were ghosts.  We made it back to the car in one piece and high tailed it out of there.  It was still dark so we were able to grab a quick breakfast and go back to sleep.

After we all got a good second half night of sleep, we headed to the safest environment possible:  the Hilton Hawaiian Village.  Jaden swam all day and we tried to forget about the horrible morning.  By the end of the day, we were laughing about our adventure (at least I was).  Chris still thinks I was trying to kill him though.

He's too cute to kill  :)

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

Did you miss me?  I apologize for being MIA but I have been in the pits of despair all week.  On Monday, I accidentally looked at a calendar and realized it was July 15th.  What's wrong with July 15th, you ask?  Well, technically, there isn't anything wrong with it, but if you're a teacher, you know where I'm going with this.  I have one more month of summer until I report for duty.  Yikes!!!  Talk about being shell shocked.  Why does the summer go so quickly?  Note to self, buy plane ticket to come home.  Is it too late to bank on winning the lottery?  If I were in Texas, I would probably be in guilt mode right now.  I would probably be thinking about working in my classroom, writing up lesson plans, attending conferences, etc.  I can't do any of that out here, though.  I'm stuck on an island for thirty more days.  Praise the Lord!!

I did manage to pull myself out of a depression to go on walks every morning.  One of my walks led me to the Diamond Head Lighthouse.  Apparently this lighthouse was built in 1899 and still uses the original Fresnell Lens (whatever that means), which can be seen up to 18 miles out to sea.

We also managed to spend a couple of days at the boogie board beach (I don't think that is its official title).  There was a pretty big swell that came in on Tuesday, which made the waves a lot bigger than normal.  It is interesting to feel the energy in the air when there are big waves.  Kids and adults were sprinting to the water and it seemed like all other daily activities ended.  

Jaden is somewhere in the mass of people

We also managed to fit in some football time, too.  I saw that they were holding a football camp for two days at Punahou School, so I signed Jaden up.  Punahou School is a very well known, expensive private school that President Obama graduated from.  Again, he wasn't there.  It is a beautiful college-like campus, and the football wasn't bad either.  Jaden had a great time and I was really impressed with how organized and well run the camp was.  I did have to sit through a mini presentation given by the booster club asking us to consider enrolling our child in their school and to give a generous donation if we were able.  It costs $20,000 a year to go there so I politely declined the way a proper southern woman would.  I told them "bless your heart"  :)

pre camp snack

A view of the "middle school" field.  Palm trees were not photoshopped in!

Beat me out the front door at 8 am.  He was excited!

 I've already thrown out the calendar and we will spend the next few weeks enjoying every moment out here.  Tomorrow is an extra exciting day for us because Chris gets here.  He'll be here for about two weeks and Jaden and I can't wait to show him all the things we've been doing.  I'm sure there will be more blogs in these upcoming weeks.  I told him he could even be a guest author!  He laughed at me.

Aloha!

Beach Bums

The title of the post pretty much sums up what we've been doing the last few days.  We have been trying to find new beaches to go to but also frequenting the ones we love!  The other day we headed up to the town of Lai'e, which is pretty close to the North Shore but is on the eastern side of the island.  It wasn't the sunniest of days, but that didn't matter to us.  We stopped at Hukilau Beach, which is also known as Pounders Beach.  The waves here were tall (about 4') and crashed right on the shoreline, which made them pretty intense.  By the end of the day, Jaden's boogie board had snapped in half.  Can't believe that duct tape didn't prevent that  :)

fins were a definite requirement for this beach

he likes to ride in the "barrel"

rainy days make for awesome rainbows!

 The next day, we headed back up to the North Shore and spent our day at Sunset Beach.  The waves were much calmer here and it seemed like we had the whole beach to ourselves.  We mostly just relaxed in "Mellow Yellow" and enjoyed the day!

yep, that's me out there

happy, happy, happy

this is the life! 

That's all for now, we've have to get to the beach!  Aloha!

Another Day in Paradise

I'm going to need a vacation from my vacation!  We have been gone since 9 am.   I rented this little speedster (the car, not the kid) and we headed back up to the North Shore.

He was mad because I wouldn't let him drive! 

Obviously the beach is always on our daily agenda, but I also wanted to go to Waimea Valley to walk through the rainforest and hike up to the waterfall.

Waimea history

So lush and green!  Really reminded me of Texas  :)

Waimea Falls

It wasn't a very long hike or a very big waterfall, but we still had fun.  Jaden was able to swim in the lagoon and attempted to climb up the rocks at the falls.  The most amazing part of the hike, I thought, was the vibrant colors of nature.  I'm no botanist and I don't know the difference between flora and fauna, but these plants and flowers were so beautiful.

My friend, Pamela, would love this flower!  

Once we had our fill of nature, we headed across the street to Waimea Bay.  I told you in a previous post about the North Shore and what the waves are like in the winter.  Waimea Bay is probably one of the most famous spots because of its history.  Because the way the water breaks, Waimea Bay was significant in the development of big wave surfing.  Larger surf at the bay went unridden for years until 1957, when a handful of surfers finally paddled out and rode the giant waves.  For decades, Waimea was the most prestigious big wave surf break in the world.  One of the most famous surf competitions, "Quiksilver Big Wave Invitational in Memory of Eddie Aikau" is held at Waimea Bay.  This event takes place to honor the legendary surfer and the first lifeguard of the North Shore.  Since its inception in 1984, the tournament has only been held seven times, due to the sole condition that the waves be at least 20 feet high.  The most recent tournament was in December 2009, when waves in the bay reached 30 to 50 feet high.   

This is not Jaden, nor is this my picture.  Winter waves at Waimea Bay.

Luckily for us, in the summer time it looks like this.

Jaden spent about four hours jumping off that rock while I floated on my raft in the water.  I'm glad he's so active but I wonder where he gets his fearlessness from.  Certainly not me!  It must be a boy thing.  

Got bored of walking up the regular way?

He told me he did this one with his eyes closed.  Music to a mother's ear.  

We ended our day driving into Haleiwa Town.  We made it to Matsumoto's Shave Ice just before it closed.  Matsumoto's has been in business for over 60 years and is famous for their shave ice.  On a summer day, they serve up to 2,000 people.  The line was probably 25 deep when we got there.  I thought it was good, but I think we'll stick to Waiola Shave Ice instead.  Nonetheless, it was a refreshing treat after a long day! 

Five different people commented on my hat.  Hook 'Em!