Day 24 : Oahu , The Lagoons

We decided to try our luck at the man-made Lagoons in Paradise Cove again.  Since it was a week day, and most of the tourist Christmas rush has already left the island, we thought we might be able to find parking.  We were right!

We spent the majority of the day here, all three of us, chatting and enjoying the beautiful serene environment.  The lagoons were pretty empty, so we almost felt as if we had the place to ourselves!

We also got to enjoy some awesome whale watching for about an hour.  There were quite a few whales off of the lagoon that were breaching, pec flapping, tail slapping, and water thrashing as Chris likes to call it.

We got home a little after 3 and put on our running clothes and headed out.  We did our 3.8 mile loop at about a 10 min/ mile pace again.  I’m not used to being the slow one in the group, but I guess this is something I’ll have to get used to for the next 20 weeks!

It was a fun and relaxing day, which was definitely most needed after all of our adventures in Kauai.

Day 19 : Oahu – Aloha Swap Meet

We got up this morning and headed to Starbucks to book our one vacation excursion for Kauai that we needed the internet to research prices and ratings on.  After we got things squared up, we headed back to Steph’s to pack for our trip (we leave tomorrow).

We had to catch up on a little bit of laundry, and wanted today to be more of a down day before heading out to Kauai.

We did take part of the afternoon off from packing and organizing to head down to the Aloha Swap Meet again.  The swap meet is only open on Sunday’s and Wednesday’s, and since Steph closes on her house 2 days after we leave, her time here is short lived too.  We headed down again and Chris picked up a few more $5 tee shirts and Steph stocked up on towels.

After we got back from the market, to make up for our few days with lack of exercise, we all headed out on a jog.  I’ve slowed down quite a bit…I’m pretty sure Steph and Chris slowed down their pace for me, although I doubt either one of them would admit it.  We ran 3.8 miles at about a 10 min/mile pace or so.

I’m actually starting to feel a little bit under the weather with a sore throat, so we called it quits pretty early in hopes that I’d be recovered for our trip to Kauai tomorrow!

Day 18 : Oahu – Happy New Years!! Go Gators! Waikiki

We set the alarm this morning and left the house by 715 a.m..  Why so early?  Because we didn’t want to miss the Gator’s play, of course!  Kickoff was at 8 a.m. Hawaii Time.  Steph is a member of the Gator Alumni Club out here, so we headed to the alumni bar of choice down in Waikiki,  Giovanni Pastrami, to watch it there.  We did cheers during the game, including 2-bits.  In the 3^rd quarter, we sang “We are the boys” and swayed like you’d do in the stadium.  Instead of Chris having brewski’s with his football, we had coffee.  It was such a fun atmosphere…there were TV’s everywhere, and we had the little sound boxes that we could adjust to listen to the game at our own individual preferences.  To top it all off, the breakfast there was also delicious!

After a great start to the morning, we walked up and down Waikiki Beach to see all of the sights. 

We came across a monk seal just chilling on the beach.  They like to sunbathe to take a break, so this is apparently a pretty common sight for the locals. 

We spent the rest of the day hanging out on Waikiki Beach, people watching, and chatting. It is one of the all-time best places to people watch…there is such an interesting crowd down there!  The beach offers spectacular views of Diamond Head as well. 

Steph thinks its odd that I look bigger in clothes than I do in a bikini.  I just feel big in general...and I know there's a LOT more growing to come!!

As the sun headed down, we headed back home.  Go Gator’s!

Day 17 : Oahu – White Sands Beach, Happy New Years Eve!

We went to bed pretty late last night after recounting all of our adventures in Maui to Steph.  We slept in and had a lazy morning of just hanging around and chatting.  After lunch, we headed out to check out the beaches on Steph’s side of the island.  We initially attempted to go to the man-made lagoons at Paradise Cove, but there wasn’t any parking.  That place fills up fast!  We did get to see the new Disney Resort that they’re building right there…it’s going to be spectacular (I’m imagining my sister, brother in law, and nieces will visit it one day! J).

Since the lagoons didn’t work out, we headed to White Sands Beach instead.  It’s a beautiful family beach that has views of both Diamond Head when you look to your left and mountains when you look behind you.  We hung out there until the sun started going down, and made our way back home.

Because our plans are to head to Waikiki early in the morning, we decided to hang out at Steph’s to watch the most amazing display of fireworks off of her balcony.  The fireworks started at 630 p.m. and went all the way till 1 a.m..  It was the craziest, most incredible amount of fireworks going off all at the same time that I’ve ever seen.  Apparently, Hawaiians have a long tradition with going completely insane when it comes to setting off fireworks. 

In between trips to the balcony, we sat in the living room and played a game of Taboo (I played on both teams – I won!!!).  It was a great way to start of 2011!

Day 11 - Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!!!  We woke up this morning and made our typical Christmas morning breakfast of yummy Cinnamon Rolls.  After we spoke to half of our families (there’s too much of you guys to keep up with some days!), we headed out to Starbucks to get our Christmas coffee (Caramel brulee…yummy), and then, again, as is tradition with Christmas, went and saw our one movie for the year.  (How sad is that…we make it to the movie theaters one time a year…Christmas day!)  We saw Little Fockers, which was such a cute and funny movie.  After that, we headed home to make Christmas dinner.  We made mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, stuffing, and a pineapple glazed ham.  We sat outside on Steph’s porch and ate our Christmas dinner, and then lounged in the chairs for a little while.

We still had to pack for our 5 day venture over to Maui that starts tomorrow morning bright and early, so we did that.  After we were done packing, we went for a run, and then came home and ate some leftovers for dinner.  We attempted to hit the sack early tonight because our flight takes off at 5 a.m. from the Honolulu airport.  Maui, here we come!!

Day 10 : Hanauma Bay

Merry Christmas Eve!!   We got up at about 630, put on our swimsuits, and headed off to Hanauma Bay.  This time the parking lot wasn’t full, so we made it in.  I did feel a little silly being in my swim suit before 7 a.m., but we were determined to do Hanauma Bay today!  We reached the beach a little after 8, and found a shady tree area that we set up our towels, beach chairs, and cooler under.  The scene reminded me of a corona commercial.

Because the water was a little too cold still in the early morning, we sat in our chairs and read our books for a few hours before hitting the water for snorkeling.  The snorkeling here is beautiful.  The whole bay is a huge coral reef, and there are all kinds of gorgeous fish of all sizes, some absolutely huge.  I tried to measure a few of them, and they were almost as long as my whole arm.  We actually saw a sea turtle eating off of the reef pretty close to shore too.  It was really cool seeing a sea turtle that close up.

I kept telling Chris as he’d try to go over the reefs in the shallow area “too fat” through my snorkel.  My new body size is something I’m not quite used to yet and I was really nervous about hitting my belly (or these ginormous new boobs) on the reef.  We did kind of get trapped in one shallow area that was a bit too shallow, and I cut my leg and my fingers trying to swim over top of it to deeper waters.

As you can see, my new body comes equipped with its own floatation devices.  Handy huh?

The day was so beautiful and relaxing.  It was nice to do an entire day of the beach.  We snorkeled many times throughout the day…the water was a bit cold, so after 30-45 minutes, we’d get out, warm up in the sun while we read our books, and then head back in.  I think we left the beach sometime around 3 o’clock.  It was a great, beautiful day!

Day 9 : Diamond Head, Punchbowl Crater, and Mokapuu Lighthouse

We got up at 6 this morning, packed our lunch for the day, made a quick stop by Starbucks to get our coffee, and headed out to Diamond Head.  We made it to Diamond Head about 730 or 8, and there were plenty of parking spots.  The hike up to Diamond Head is somewhat steep, but there’s plenty of people in all sorts of physical condition that make the trek because of the beautiful site that awaits you once you reach the top.  You can see all of Waikiki and Honolulu from the top.  A lot of people that stay in Waikiki just make a half day of Diamond Head and actually walk from Waikiki up to the top.

Waikiki

We weaved our way in and out of people and raced our way to the top.  We wanted to get in somewhat of a workout with our morning beautiful hike.  Yes, we’re on vacation, but when you’re on vacation for close to a month, and growing a baby, you can’t let things like your eating habits and exercising just go by the way-side!

We made it to the top, sweaty, and feeling exhilarated.  We asked a lady to take our picture, and wound up striking up a conversation with her.  She was a flight attendant and told us things we ‘had’ to do on the other islands. 

After enjoying the view for awhile, we headed back down to the car and to our next stop.  Hanauma Bay.

Hanauma Bay’s parking lot, by 1030 a.m., was already full for the day.  They said they’d let people in again at 130, so we decided, again, to just adapt and do something else on our ‘to do’ list.

One thing on our list to do that we hadn’t done before in Oahu was Punchbowl Crater, still in Honolulu.  It’s a beautiful national cemetery where many veterans from WWII, the Korean War, and all of the other  wars fought in the Pacific.  Punchbowl Crater has some amazing views looking over Honolulu, and over Diamond Head.  It was cool to hike Diamond Head in the morning, and then  go across town to see the entire crater that we had just hiked. 

The memorial was absolutely beautiful.  There were plaques of the stories of the different wars and everything was so green and so pretty.  



We spent a few hours there, and after that, we headed back down to Hanama Bay to see if we could get in for parking.  It was 1245, and the lot was still full, so we headed down to the blow hole that we had went to the previous day, climbed out on the rocks, and ate our lunch overlooking the most beautiful waters.  We were in a little rock cove all by ourselves.

After we were done eating, we headed down to the blow hole beach.  It wasn’t as crowded today, and it was such a fun, relaxing afternoon climbing on the rocks, swimming in the waters, and reading our books.  After the two morning hikes, it was a great break to the day. 

After a few hours at the beach, we headed to the Makapuu Light House and did the hike there.  It's an active lighthouse that is absolutely beautiful.  We saw whales blowing off of the coast on our walk up to the lighthouse.  So pretty!

Day 8 : Lyon Arboretum, Manoa Falls, Blowhole, and Beach

We’ve been heading to Starbucks most mornings, drinking our morning coffee there, and checking up on our emails, updating this journal, trying to straighten out Chris’s school stuff, making our reservations for our next stops, and occasionally responding to emails.  Our reasoning for this is because we wanted to avoid the morning traffic before heading out to some of our destinations that are in or around Honolulu.

We left Starbucks this morning at around 9, and headed off to hike the Diamond Head Crater.  We got to the parking lot at about 9:45, and it was full.  We could wait in a line of other cars waiting for someone to leave…but we decided we’d just adjust our plans and come back to do Diamond Head later. 

We headed to the Lyon Arboretum, which is a rainforest and botanical garden that is maintained by the University of Hawaii.  It was so incredibly beautiful.  We hiked through tropical gardens up to a fall.  We were the only ones on the trail, and we got to enjoy the fall all by ourselves for a bit before heading back down for lunch.  We ate lunch in the beautiful gardens, and then headed down to Manoa Falls.

We had done Manoa Falls back in ’07, and it’s literally right down the mountain from the Arboretum, which we hadn’t done before (and would highly recommend to anyone!).  The trail was amazingly different than it was in ’07.  Half of this is because of the weather…previously we went in September, and with the winter rains, the trail was a lot wetter, which just made it look a lot different.  The plants were greener too.  There was a large tree that we had taken a picture in front of in ’07, and this time around there was a HUGE fallen tree that laid in the way of that tree.  They chain-sawed the tree so you could still walk in the path.  The fall was still just as beautiful as we remembered.  There’s still rocks falling from the top of the fall down, so you can’t get too close to the base of the fall, but it’s still serene to sit there and admire.

After we were done here, we attempted to head back to Diamond Head to hike.  They’re doing maintenance on the trail, so it’s only opened till noon right now, so they were closed by the time we got there. 

Instead, we headed off to see our blow hole that Steph had taken us to back in ’07.  They’ve made a big stop out of it now, so there were lots of people down there.  There’s a little beach to the side of the blowhole that you can climb down the rocks to get to.  It’s more of a little cove.  In ’07, we were the only two down here.  This time around, the place was packed.  We saw whales breaching at the blow hole out in the ocean, and saw a sea turtle feeding on the algae on the rocks.  It was so cool. 

Because the blow hole beach was crowded, we headed down the road and found another bigger beach to relax on for a little over an hour before heading back home for the evening.  The beaches here are so beautiful!  We drove home on the Windward side and were taken aback again with the beauty of the rainforest over here.  I didn’t take any pictures though…you drive on a bridge and through a tunnel before coming out on another bridge and then the highway.  My fear of silly bridges kept me from having Chris pull over so I could get the camera out of the trunk, but the beautiful scenery will forever be etched in my mind!

Day 7 : Swap Meet, Kuola Ranch Beach, Polynesian Cultural Center

It was still raining when we woke up today, so we decided we’d head to Aloha Stadium to do the Swap Meet  & Marketplace.  If you want cheap Hawaiian souvenirs, this is the place to go.  There are local vendors there that sell all sorts of little trinkets, shirts, towels, bathing suits, and all other types of Hawaiian souvenirs.  I’m even more indecisive being pregnant than I was previously, so we wondered up and down here about 3000 times or so, made it to the bathroom TWICE, before I finally decided on a sarong to buy.  Seriously.  Chris refilled his stock on Hawaiian t-shirts, and we picked up some more Hawaiian beach towels to add to our collection.

Just chatting with the people here is entertaining in and of itself.  They’re hard workers who love to strike up a conversation, and are very sweet people.  I’m really starting to show…unless I deliberately try to hide it, there’s no denying I’m pregnant.  My feet were hurting a bit from walking around so much, and I was getting a little flushed, so while Chris was purchasing his shirts, I squatted down to take a mini break.  The lady at the shirt place was so sweet…she ran up to me and gave me a bottle of water and refused to let me not take it.  I tried telling her I was fine, my feet were just getting sore, but she was not hearing anything of it.  She said, in broken English, “you carrying baby, yes?”  I smiled and said yes, and she asked how far along I was and then said “you know boy / girl yet, no?”  I told her no, we’d find out after we returned from our trip.  She wished me good luck and we were on our way.  I think she would’ve chatted with me for another hour if I wouldn’t have felt so silly for taking her water.  She was really sweet.  It’s the first experience I’ve had with someone else being able to tell that I’m pregnant…I was a little embarrassed, but it was actually pretty cool too.

From here, we headed to the Windward side on the H3 highway.  We hadn’t been to this side of the island yet, and the drive through the rainforest is absolutely breathtaking and amazing.  It is almost always raining over here, even if it’s just sprinkling some, but the view is well worth it.  The clouds start to roll in pretty early, and it’s impossible to tell where the cliffs of the mountain tops end and the clouds begin.  The clouds just billow over and it’s green everywhere around you.

We stopped at the Kuola Ranch Beach and ate lunch.  There were beautiful red headed brazillian cardinals everywhere you looked.  It was a gorgeous scene to eat our lunch at.  We drove by and stopped at the Kuola Ranch and drove around to see the sights.  This was where Lost, Jurassic Park, Hawaii 5-0, and some other shows / movies were filmed. 

After lunch, we headed to the Polynesian Cultural Center, and toured around the different islands there.  The place is huge and beautiful. 

Look - Matching Big Bellies!!!

After that, we attempted to do another 2.5 mile hike.  The hike was one we’d found from the Department of Forestry hike trails we picked up.  We drove through a tent city area of the beach, and then through a bunch of local, rundown neighborhoods, to the start of the trail.  There was a huge sign that said High Crime / Theft area.  We looked around, noticed the big Polynesian men eyeing our vehicle, and decided this trail wasn’t in the cards for us.  It was the Hauula Trail System.  Chris wrote on the top of the Trail Map “Inspected ->Deemed hazardous to our safety & the safety of car.  Abort operation without leaving car!”   Silly husband.

On our drive home, we took the North Shore route to avoid traffic, and stopped at M. Motsumoto’s for some more shaved ice.  Yuuumm…can’t get enough of that place!

Day 6 : Pearl Harbor, Dole Pinapple Plantation

It’s still raining today, but not torrentially down pouring.  We’re both rejuvenated and ready to go after our day off yesterday.  We decided that Pearl Harbor is appropriate to do in the dreary weather, so we headed out.

We did Pearl Harbor back in ’07, but they’ve made a huge improvement to the museums and the structure of the place, and it’s absolutely amazing.  Learning about the events of that day from survivors, reading letters sent home, and just seeing how it all developed and played out is humbling.  It really makes you stand back and think.  They told the story before and leading up to the Pearl Harbor, and the effect that the war had on the culture here on the island.  It was so informative, and so touching.  Seriously, such an amazing thing to go see.  We went over to the USS Arizona Memorial, which, like it did last time, gave me goose bumps.  Over 1400 men on the Arizona will forever lie here.  The ship still leaks oil from almost 60 years ago.  The legend goes that the boat will stop leaking oil when the last survivor from Pearl Harbor has passed. 

It started torrentially down pouring while we were on the memorial.  Everyone ran to the front of the boat to get in line for the ferry to ship them back to the main Pearl Harbor exhibit building, and I took the opportunity to take some pictures of the wall with the soldiers names engraved in it who perished that day.  It was eerily empty, but it’s always so hard to get a picture in there because of the mass amount of people that swarm into that area.  I made Chris stand in the middle for a pic too, which he wasn’t too pleased about, but obliged J.

We hung out at Pearl Harbor for about a half a day, ate a late lunch,  and then we went to downtown Honolulu to the Division of Forestry to pick up a few trail maps.  We figured this would help us from getting lost in the woods on our next go round.  The maps actually aren’t too detailed and accurate, but they give enough of an idea of where to at least find the trails.  I think we’re leaving 10 mile hikes off our list for now.

From there, we headed to the Dole Pineapple Plant Plantation to get our pineapple ice-cream.   They own 2800 acres of pineapple crops, and they’re home to the world’s largest pineapple growing farm.  Their pineapple ice-cream is absolutely delicious. 

We went out and checked out their gardens, but didn’t do any of the tours.  They were closed due to bad weather.  To be honest, there’s enough to see on your own that it seems silly to pay the exorbitant tourist fee to get a guided tour of the planation or the pineapple maze.  We learned some cool new things that we didn’t know previously…it takes 20 months for a pineapple to harvest the first time, then 14 months the 2^nd and 3^rd time.  A pineapple will only re-grow 3 times.  Also, to plant the pineapple, you’re supposed to just twist off the top, not cut it off like we’ve done previously.  From there, put it in water until the roots start growing, and then plant it. 

They also showed us how to pick out a fresh pineapple…the eyes need to be big and even, color doesn’t matter, it shouldn’t have a pineapple smell, and you should be able to reach in and pluck out a green topper thingy mabobber (yes, that was their technical term for it too) from the center without much effort.   After you cut a pineapple, you should rinse off the acid before eating.  I actually never knew that you should rinse pineapples prior to eating them. 

In spite of the rain, we had a really good and educational day.  Hawaii is still beautiful, even when it’s raining.  There are lots of rainbows!

Day 5 : Lazy Day ... Starbucks, Sunday night football, and shopping

We woke up at about 8 a.m. today, which is the latest we’ve slept in this whole trip.  We woke up to pouring rain, got up for a few minutes, and decided we just wanted to go back to sleep for a little bit, so we did.  At 10, we got up again, and it was still pouring.  We headed to Starbucks, and FINALLY booked rooms for our stay in Maui.  Woo Hoo…we won’t be sleeping in the car!!

We checked out the weather, and it was raining on the entire island.  We were both pretty exhausted from yesterday’s adventures, and me especially so.  My pregnant, ever growing body isn’t used to that strenuous of a day!  So, we headed back to Steph’s, made lunch, and curled up with our books.  After an hour or so of reading, we got showered, dressed, and headed up to the local Chili’s to watch the Sunday night (day here in Hawaii) football game.  Chris tried out the local brewed Hawaiian beer, and I ate lots of chips and salsa and drank a ton of water.  It was fun watching the game.  We don’t really watch too much TV back home, but when we do, it’s normally a football game we’re catching.

Chris took some pics of me to show off my belly before we headed out to Chili's



Don't be jealous of my pull up pants.  You know you're wishing you had a pair of these for Christmas Dinner!

 After the game, we walked around some of the shops (the Chili’s in is an outlet center).  We’re relatively limited on our space going back J, so we didn’t buy anything, but it was fun looking around.

Day 4 : Lots and lots and LOTS of hiking!

Chris decided to continue on his adventurous hiking trail streak and took us to a 2.5 mile loop behind the Hawaiian Nature Center.  I think it was called the Na' Ale Trail System (or something close to that).  We hiked through beautiful bamboo forests, streams, and lots of pretty Hawaiian Nature. 

From there, we walked back to our car, and drove up to the next hike, at the top of the mountain on a road called Round Top Drive.  The drive alone up the mountain was spectacular.  It offered great views of Honolulu, and it was such a pretty day.  We parked at the trail, ate lunch, and then headed on Manoa Cliff Trail – distance of 6.0 miles.  All in all, we planned on hiking 8.5 miles today.

The Manoa Cliff Trail was absolutely beautiful.  We were high up in the ridges and could see all of Honolulu, as well as so many breathtaking nature views.  We got to a point where the trail split, which we were concerned with because the trail map did not show a split.   It was supposed to be a loop.  We took the direction that made logical sense to following a loop, and after about 45 minutes, we came to a road – Tantalus Drive.  Whaaa???  That was not expected.

See ... we're lost and we still have each other and are smiling :-)!

There were some locals walking their dogs, so we asked them about the trails.  They were obviously not hikers, and told us our car was parked on the other side of the mountain, and that if we hiked up the road (UP = STEEP mountain incline road) about another mile and a half, the road turned into Round Top Drive, and then we could take that down to our car.  Since hiking up the pavement in our hiking boots didn’t sound like fun, we headed back into the woods. 

At this point, we were getting a wee bit concerned with time.  It was 3 o’clock when we came out to the road, and we wanted to be out of the woods by dark…5 – 530 at the very latest.  We high-tailed it back to where the trail split off, making it in 30 minutes this go round, and took the other direction.  After another 15 minutes, we got to another split in the trail.  I had taken a picture of the trail maps with my camera (there weren’t any brochures, just the one in plexi glass at the Nature Preserve place), so we looked to see where the new trail name fell into the trail systems, and it only did a loop going up to the top of the mountain and then dropped us back off right where we were.  So, grudgingly, we headed back to the street.

It was a beautiful forest to get lost in, but I had images of rationing water and sleeping in the woods dancing through my head.  I’m a drama queen with these things though, and always picture the absolute worst.  Chris, of course, thought I was being a retard.  Typical.  J  We made it back to the road a little before 5, and then hiked up in our boots the mile and a half to the road that our car was on.  Our hiking boots at this point felt like lead weights.  We were being goofy as all get out because we were slightly delirious from being so tired.  The Manoa Cliff Trails prior to splitting off to another trail was filled with lots of steep climbs, which were a ton of fun, but by the time we got to the road, we were definitely feeling it.

All in all, we hiked a little over 10 miles today.  We made it to our car safely, and headed home exhausted.   What a day!

Day 3 : Army Permission Trail, Waimea Bay

Chris found  a new hike he wanted to take us on.  It was in the North Shore area again, up in the mountain.  It was most definitely a local’s only trail.  You park on the side of the end of the road, and then go through an Army gate.  I called Steph to see if we were in the right place (I had her look up our place online, since we’re not tech savvy enough to have internet on our phones), and she just started laughing as she’s reading the description.  The first thing the instructions said was “get permission from the Army to enter”.  Hmmm…details, smetails.  Steph’s trail running group runs through that area all of the time, so we felt semi comfortable heading through the Army gates. 

Once we got back there, we were fine…there were people jogging with their dogs.  My guess is that they didn’t get permission from the Army either J.  The instructions for where to go to find the exact trail were … almost absurd.  You were supposed to find this group of pine trees, and then make some turn…yatta yatta yatta.  Eventually our trail ended and we wound up on a paved road.  We trucked up to the top, and saw some beautiful views of the North Shore coast.  About 5 minutes into this hike, I looked over a ledge to see what was down there, and as I was coming back down to the normal trail, I tripped and fell and scraped up my hands and one of my knees.  Hands bleed a lot, so Chris was concerned, but I was fine.  Figures it happens 5 minutes into the first day of hiking though!

We hiked back in this trail for a few hours, ate our snacks that we had packed, and then headed back  to the car.  From there, we headed down to Waimea Bay, ate lunch, and hung out at the beach for about an hour and a half.  Chris had jumped off a big rock here back in ’07, but with the winter tides, and a baby on the way J, Chris decided to forego jumping off the rock this time around.

We went back to Steph’s, made dinner, and then took her up to the airport, dropped her off, and returned our rental car.  I think we might’ve stayed up till 10 something tonight.  That’s the latest we’ve been up so far!

Day 2 : North Shore

This morning we got up and headed to Costco to get our groceries for the length of our stay.  We still don’t really like to eat out all that much even when we’re traveling.  We pack our lunches, and by the time we’re done with festivities for the day, we head home and make dinner.  The sun goes down here around 530ish.  After we ate lunch, we headed down to North Shore to catch the last day of the surfing competition at the Bonsai Pipeline.  The waves, for North Shore, have been pretty small for this competition.  Instead of 10-12 foot waves, they’re 6-8 foot.  It was a fun, relaxing afternoon.  It was cool seeing that some of the surfers from Melbourne made it to the top rounds … one of the Hobgood brothers and Kelly Slater.  I don’t remember who made it to the final two, and I don’t remember who won…but it was so nice just sitting out and relaxing on the beach. 

Chris took a picture with a beached whale while we were there.  I have no idea how I managed to pop out so much in a single day with my belly, but man, that thing is a growin!!  (It actually looks much bigger already...the next morning when I woke up, it was just OUT, and it's just staying that way.)

 We stopped by the infamous M. Motsumoto’s for shaved ice on our way home.  Yuuum.