Waterpark smaterpark.

We get all ready and head to the water park only to discover it isn’t even open this day. Jeez. 

Instead we decided to spend the day at our pool and lagoon. First stop was the pool, but when the kids and worse, the annoying mother came around it was time to hit the lagoon. 

Em was ready with her beach chair that we ended up not even bringing. 

The day was a little overcast which made it a perfect temperature, but it also gave you a false sense of security when it came to getting baked by the sun. It didn’t stop us from laying out for several hours and taking it all in.  
 Once again, post beach we were hungry and so we walked over to the area of restaurants and shops to have a bite. While we were eating we had the blues game on and listened to our favorite guy Parayko score his first and second ever NHL goals. Great job Colton!!

Once we pushed our plates aside this little guy decided he would enjoy some Spanish rice.  

    
 Not sure what kind of bird that is, but he was pretty enough that Em didn’t totally freak out,  she hates birds. She even got in close to take the pics. Good job Em! 

After chewing down on ice cream we were both tired and headed home were we spent the rest of the night lazing in front of the TV.  That’s also part of being on vacation, right? Sightseeing and checking this out is great, but so is lazing around. We watched about 4 straight episodes of Intervetion. We were addicted to the show about addiction. 

Tomorrow is our last day. We don’t fly out until 10pm but have to be out of the condo at 4pm. We are thinking either check out a waterfall or go to the big swap meet in the stadium. We will see what happens. 

Making the best of a rainy day.

This day we decided to get our history on and check out Pearl Harbor. It started with a typical Canadian Thanksgiving breakfast while watching tv.  

 Once we got ourselves ready we headed out. It was an overcast day but we kept the tops off the jeep anyway thinking we would be fine…about 10 minutes down the road, and more sprinkling rain, we decided to be proactive and put the lids on. They were much cooler this time so we didn’t have to fumble them across the pavement. 

After finding a primo parking spot at Pearl Harbour, the rain was really coming down. Our beautiful hairdos were getting macked down 😖! 

We got our tickets to visit the USS Arizona, the sunken battleship that is a tomb for 900 fallen soldiers, we wandered around and checked out the other exhibits.  

    
 We both thought this was pretty cool so instead of paying $15 for it, we just snapped a pic. 

 It was a copy of the newspaper headline in St. Louis the day after the attack on Pearl Harbour. 

We also met a really neat survivor from that day.  

 He was a spry old guy and was hugging is pretty snug and didn’t want to let go! After what he went through, we certainly didn’t mind letting him have a little extra hug! 

Of course our hunger took over and after we ate chicken jerky and smoke-a-roni’s from the gift shop, we felt a hot dog and nachos were in order.  Only the best for us in Hawaii. 

After our ‘lunch’ it was time for our boat ride over to the USS Arizona. Literally on our walk over we decided that we didn’t feel like getting crammed on the shuttle boat with 150 strangers wearing trash bags as rain coats (I offered to buy Em one but she refused-“I’m not wearing a garbage bag as a coat,” or something along those lines came out), we decided that we had seen enough. We also decided that we weren’t going to admit to anyone that we didn’t go over there…whoops…

I would say  however, that for two girls who pretty much hated social studies in school, we read a lot and came away with a good appreciation of what took place between 07:55 and 09:58 on December 5, 1933…just kidding 😁 

On to Waikiki beach. One thing both Em and I are amazed about is how populated this part of the island is. There are some really run down and crammed up looking accommodations as well. The closer you get to the beach, however, things get a little more spruced up. 

This beach is definitely more crowded than our little lagoon, and the waves were great for surfers of all levels. The better surfers were way out there waiting for the bigger waves while there were first time surfers taking lessons close to shore.  

   It was a cloudy, but warm day so it wasn’t overly crowded, but there was still action. It was cool to see. 
We strolled along the beach and were told to check out a place called Duke’s so that’s what we did.  We had wings and a few (tried pretty much every drink on the menu) frozen cocktails, and had a nice relaxing afternoon.   

 Our bartender, Ryder. That backscratcher came with the Tropical Itch that Em ordered. Only thing was she never noticed it until she was onto the next drink practically. 

 We left the beach and hurried home to catch the sunset on our lagoon. We both snapped multiple pics, but my best one was this one. Got lucky I  guess. 

We decided to head over to Longboards and enjoy another meal at the nice beachside restaurant whole looking at the ocean.  Instead we sidled up to the bar and got drinks and ate  while we chatted with our bartender…again…

Em saw this guy and ‘liked the look of him’ so she asked if she could get her pic with him.  

 ‘A real Samoan’ she said. Cute. 

After dinner we raced back to our resident bar to hang with our favorite bartender Derrick. It turns out the hillbilly ladies were back spending their last night with him too. No pic of Derrick yet, but I’ll get one. The most hilarious thing of our conversations with the hillbilly last night was that the one had to let us know that they were ‘very country’. Ahhhh yeah, the Honey Boo Boo look and accent kind of gave it away lady…

The night wrapped up with us laughing at more stupid stuff and hitting the sack relatively early again. We are both starting to get sad about our trip coming to a close. It’s been a blast so far. 

Tomorrow is going to be a water park and listening to the blues game on the beach. Oh boy…

Hanging with the locals.

Day 2 started just a bit later, but not much. We got a text from our new friends in the morning and decided to try to meet up with them somewhere at the North Shore. 

First we thought we would check out a state park so we headed that way. En route we saw a little beach and some people surfing so we decided to stop and check it out.  

 It was a pretty cool scene. Much how we all tailgate after hockey or before games, it seems that the locals set up their camps on the beach.  
 We carried on our way but before long, hunger started to set in. We also realized that ‘we couldn’t get there from here’ so we abandoned our original plan and headed to meet our friends for lunch. Em ‘found’ us a route to go cross country so we decided to give it a whirl. The roads were very rural, but whose not up for an adventure? Well, when we wee traveling and the road dead ended and the words ‘GO HOME’ were spray painted on a rock, it appeared we had all the adventure we could handle. Em’s eyes grew about the size of cookies and I couldn’t turn that jeep around quick enough. She was so freaked out I got a scolding when I tried to pull the car over to let her take a pic of one of the many feral chickens!! 

We got back on the main highway and all was well. The drive to the North Shore was pretty and took us past the Dole pineapple plantation. The smell of pineapples (and dill pickles?) was strong and smelled delicious. 

Finally we arrived at Teddy’s Bigger Burgers in Haleiwa. The Hawaiian Burger may have been the best burger I have ever had. We had a nice lunch and then decided to go to the Ukulele store with our new friends. It was my dream to get a ukulele straight from Hawaii so I did.  

 It’s nothing fancy, but it’s cute and it caught my eye when I first walked in the door. I annoyed Em with my off key singing at many different moments throughout the day. 

From the ukulele shop we followed our friends to a beach where apparently there are tons of huge sea turtles that come right on the shore. Surf was apparently ‘up’ which meant the turtles weren’t so we never got a chance to see any.  Before we got to the beach, however, traffic was slow and we saw these two cute ‘typical surfer boys’ sitting on the side of the road watching the waves. All of a sudden our window was down and Em was asking if we could take their pic. At first they were kind of like: ‘wtf’, but then we told them that it was they looked like cute surfer dudes and they got these huge smiles. It was super cute.  

 Below is Turtle Beach, but no turtles 😕

 We did see a feral chicken on the beach though. 

 From here we made our way down to a beach area called Pipeline where there was some intense waves meant only for the most experienced surfers.  The pictures don’t do the intensity and ferocity of the waves justice. Trust me, they were intense and the sound of them crashing was quite something. 

 This is a beach where they have all kinds of professional surfing competitions. It is also home to the Volcom house.  Em was going to climb the steps to the place until she realized there was a gate and a security camera at the top of the step. She stopped a little short. 

  

We hung out on that beach for awhile watching the surfers before we decided to head back to that little town and do some shopping. Of course Em had to stop and do this:  

 By the time we got going we were both pretty gassed and called it an early night. It was fun having a guided tour by some locals and they ended up being super nice.  

 

Aloha🌺

First day in Hawaii was a blast. It helped that we had an amazing sleep and felt fully rested and ready for the day…at 6am…We hadn’t really adjusted to the time change yet. 

Anyway, because we got in at night we were finally able to see our surroundings in the day, and it was breathtaking.  

 We promptly got our swimsuits on and headed down to check out the area and our little lagoon. En route we saw those trees with the pretty flowers on them (that’s what I call them. I guess they are called Plumeria trees). Em decided we needed them in our hair.  

 

We wandered around and checked out the pool in our area and then decided we wanted to go to the beach. The place is a bit of a maze, and although we knew what direction to go, we couldn’t seem to get to it. Every turn we took seemed like a good idea but would only leave us in another enclosed area with no way out. We were about to climb over bushes and jump the fence at one point. Flower or no flower in our hair, we wanted to get to the goddamn beach! 

Finally we got back on the main path and we asked a worker. She just pointed in the direction of the beach and said: “that way.” She looked at us like we were ‘special’ and quite frankly, when we saw the huge, inviting arch and the fancy gate that invited us to the beach, we could understand why. DUMBBLONDS!

The little lagoon just outside the property is amazing. White sand, calm, and not overcrowded–well, it was about 6:40am at that point so I guess that might have had something to do with it.  

 On the beach we saw some tiny crabs zooming across the sand. I’ve always loved crabs so it was my mission to catch one. Little did I know Em was taking pics while I was on the hunt.  

    I got pretty into it…
 Worth it: 

 Only about a million more and I will have enough for a crab cake. 

Along the lagoon there is a path that leads to the neighboring resorts. Next to us is the Disney resort so because Em is a huge Disney fan, we headed there. 

Although Em got about 100 pics of Hawaiian Mickey, I didn’t get many pics. What I did get was confirmation that the only reason you stay at a Disney resort is if you have to because your of your kids. KIDS GALORE. It was super cute though and cool to see. 

At this point we were both getting hungry so we had a lovely breakfast on the patio. The view was fantastic and so was the food. It was a great start to our day. The day was still so young and has already packed a lot in. Nap time! 

We picked ourselves up and decided it was time to get some groceries. We parked our jeep in the more convenient, but uncovered spot, which meant it was sitting in the sun. Of course we wanted the roof of the jeep off and while we were unfastening  them we wondered why they were all scratched up. Well after grabbing them to remove them and we scalded our fingerprints off we figured out that the scratches on the roof pieces were because you can’t hold them longer than two seconds without dropping them. Burning hot. DUMBBLONDS. 

Finally we got them sorted out and we were off.  Here we are looking all cute. 

 Here we are after driving around in the jeep. Jeep hair: 
  
Parking at the market was a bit of a challenge so we improvised.  

 After getting groceries it was time to hit the beach.   

   
 Not much beach to be seen in the photo, but trust me we were there. We got there in time to listen to the blues game so that’s what we did. Unfortunately they lost so we had to drown our sorrows.  

 We headed over to the next resort for dinner. Em made friends (shocker) with these two women while I was getting drinks and before you know it, we were dining with Ramona and Sue. They were super nice and we had a great time. We exchanged numbers and talked about hanging out at the North Shore the next day. They had been on the island for a year and has moved there for work. Both loved the island life and we’re just enjoying their evening when two half cut blonds stumbled upon them haha. They were funny though so it was all good. 

After dinner we stumbled back to our property and bellied up to the bar. Shortly after we arrived we were joined by three down home country gals from Nashville. These ladies were full on southern, like Honey-Boo Boo esque. Em being Em was chatting them up like you wouldn’t believe. I got her attention with my Honey Boo Boo impression. Her reaction was equal parts disgust and hysterical laughing so, of course, I kept doing it. When someone is laughing that hard, how can you not?  So funny. 

Of course she got me back when we got upstairs and her hiccups invoked an alarming choking sound within her with each one. It sounded painful and I begged for her to stop, but just as I got the words out, there came that sound again. I couldn’t stop laughing now. 

So, that’s how we ended our first day…too much to drink and hysterically laughing at each other. Does it get any better?