Nate was supposed to go to a medical conference in FL and he was going to take me along so that I could enjoy some sun and some beach, but after booking everything he decided that he didn't want to go. He decided instead to go to a conference somewhere else a couple months later and take his staff so they could get some needed training. This left us with some plane tickets and some already scheduled time off to use. What to do? What to do? As indicated by a previous post this has been a difficult year and especially difficult couple of months with the office move. The one place that we get the most relaxation and feelings of zen and peacefulness are on the islands. Now that we have a child old enough to drive we decided to leave the kids home alone instead of getting a sitter. We tried and tried to convince Emma that we should get someone to just come stay the night at the house, but she would have none of it. She wanted to go it alone because she hates awkward moment filled days spent with someone she doesn't know. I was pretty freaked to do it, but I had all my neighbors on stand by and some other friends that lived minutes from the house in case she changed her mind or needed anything, or the boys tried to kill each other. I called them 3 times a day to check on them and they did awesome. I have such good kids.
We decided that since we hadn't been to the big island yet to see lava that we would do that for our adventure while we were there. Nate was surprised that I didn't want to do anything this time. Usually I have a mile long list of things I want to do that involve money and high adventure, but this time I just wanted to chill. He was beyond delighted! We did however spend an entire day on the anticlimactic lava adventure. Our shuttle picked us up at 5:30 am and took us to the airport for our 7 am flight. Nothing in the airport was open so we didn't get breakfast :0( anyone who knows me, knows that isn't a good thing. I have the nickname of hulksmash for times such as these. The funniest and most surprising thing happened when we were about to board our little puddle jumper, this group of people from either China or Japan (sorry, not sure) literally pushed us out of the way and got in front of us. Then they just did that laugh, smile, nod thing that they do. It was hysterical. What's your hurry folks? We chalked it up to cultural differences. They are also extremely unaware of getting in anyones bubble. I think they live somewhere with oodles of people and you have to fight for everything you get thus they cut and get pushy. When the plane landed the power was out at the airport so we didn't get a platform to get off the plane so we walked down the little airplane stairs and then got ushered through some back entrance and out to the parking lot. So again, I was denied food! But wait. I see in the distance some vending machines. Angels were singing that I had been saved from my hunger. Um, remember, the power was out. Yeah. Denied food once again. This was going to get interesting. Luckily the pushy people were not on our tour so we loaded into our little shuttle bus with 20 other people and headed for our first stop. It was in a little town called Hilo and I could see why we had never stayed on this island before. Not many stay on that side of the island because of tsunami threats and all the rain so everything is run down. I was able to procure some overpriced snack food and beat down the rising beast. One of the funnest things about the tour was that their were 3 families from Australia so I just listened to them talk all day. A little 10 year old girl was my favorite and she hung out with us most of the day, which I loved because her accent was adorable.
We got to stop at a genuine black beach. It was truly black sand. Very black sand because it is crushed lava. I love the signs in Hawaii and got a kick out of the warning about falling in the water. I forgot the name of those huge trees, but they are so enormous and beautiful. I loved just standing under them and watching the wind move through the branches. We also got to visit and orchid farm. I love orchids so that was fun to see all the varieties and stages of growth and just how long it takes to grow one. It's like 7 years or something like that. We also went into the state park to see where different lava flows had destroyed different parts of the park and villages. (those are on the pic 2 up) one of the coolest stops was where the lava had taken out a road and parking lot. we walked around on it and that part of the road will never be reopened. They made a new road higher up away from the path. the main attraction was supposed to be at the end of the day when we visited this enormous crater that has active lava in it that glows at night. Well, it is getting dark later and later and we had to leave by 6:15pm to catch our 7:40 flight back to Oahu. We got to see a little bit of the glow once it got dusk, but when 6:15 hit it was still too light. We came all that way and didn't even get to see the lava glow. Our entire group was pretty bummed, but whattaya gonna do?
So, one of my other addictions is eating good food, and I always have to leave my state to get to any. So when I go somewhere with good food, all I want to do is eat. My diet this time consisted of mostly pancakes. We decided to try out this place called mac 24/7. They have been on a tv show for their pancake challenge and they have a chef show winner as their chef now too. So we just had to try these famous pancakes. We decided not to do the challenge size but the size we got was still huge. Nate hates fruit so we got the cinnamon streusel with vanilla coconut syrup. My mouth is watering for them as we speak. I took one bite of the most fluffy and flavorful and just down right divine pancakes of my life. I couldn't believe that I was actually sitting there having the most amazing food moment of my life. Because it was so amazing we decided to go back and try some "real" food from the menu and were not disappointed at all. Nate had one of the best dinners he's ever had. Well, what to you do when you are finished with such a great meal? Have some red velvet pancakes to top the night off. Again, we thought we had died and gone to some sort of pancake heaven. The day before we left I went there for the last time to relive the cinnamon streusel carb and sugar heaven. I did eat some other food on the trip. My other favorite was that shrimp truck. Food trucks scare me, but I was feeling extra brave on this trip and actually drug Nate there. I think he was afraid to go because I was hungry and when we go somewhere that ends up not being good when I'm hungry, things get a little hulksmashy. This was so good. There are trucks all over the island so it is hard to know which to go to, but with a little help from the internet you can pick the right one, and we sure did. Nate got the garlic and I got the spicy and we had got the tip to ask for extra sauce for the rice. The little salad was good and the pineapple had come from the plantation down the road so it was juicy and delicious. The only down side is that you have to shell your own shrimp that are covered in sauce. You just have to get a little messy and then go clean up in the sink attached to a hose and you're golden. I also got to try a cupcake from a place that recently won a cupcake challenge on tv. They were pretty good, but I'm a little sad that we didn't try to find the one I went to a couple years ago that was so good. It was still fun to be able to say that I tried it and they were pretty good and the girl that won was actually in the store helping us so that was fun.
While we were there we also got to see a broadway play. It was a total bonus that they were there at the time. Nate hadn't seen it yet and I had already seen it twice. We were sitting next to a loud mouth kid (adult male) that was on a date and kept yelling out things to the cast like he was at a baseball game or something. It was our first day there so it was a bit hard to stay awake because of the time difference, but I actually got to see the girl that played Galinda in Chicago at this one so that was extra fun because she does such a good job. We also just hung out at the beach and soaked up some sun. One of the days there was a little kid building something......hmmmm....there are two mounds.....close together.....he kept smoothing and adding sand to the piles at the same time......I wondered if perhaps he was still being nursed or mommy had gotten some work done. hahaha I almost went over to him and asked him what he was building. People watching is so fun.
Nate hadn't got to see the Temple or BYU while we were there several years ago. The church owns a ton of land right there so the PCC, temple and byu are all in a line right next to each other. When I was there last time with my friend, C, the Temple had just been remodeled so I got to go through for a tour. This time we thought for sure we could go in and do a session, but before we left home we checked and it was closed for cleaning. I have failed 2x now trying to do a session there. :0( We were there on Sunday checking it out and it was fun to see all the people walking around in their church clothes on their way home from church. We were stunned to discover 4 church buildings right there next to the temple and across over by BYU.
As always the time goes by too quickly, but we had such a great time and I love that my husband loves to take me places to spend time with me. I'm a truly lucky and extremely blessed girl.
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