Out and About

HAUNAMA BAY!

Of COURSE we went here. It's the best snorkeling anywhere, and now it's close to home. I suffered through that orientation video for like the 10th time - David and I can sing it to each other now. Which, as those of you who have witnessed it, is not necessarily a good thing. But it's funny. David takes care of the Hawaiian chanting part. I do the extremely lame underwater song. Maybe I could find a copy and post it here...but probably not.

Here, Corene is getting snorkeling lessons from David. I think this is her first time doing it? I was watching from a nice, warm distance. Someone had to protect her camera! It took them awhile, but they got the hang of it, and Corene turned out to love the water just like David. Or, I suppose, David loves the water just like her. Whichever.

It was great - when she climbed out of the water, she was so happy. She actually kind of yelled, 'I went snorkeling!" and everyone on the beach turned to stare at us. It was awesome. Luckily, I have been innoculated against parental embarrassment by my mother, so it was just fun.

While Corene was here, my unprofessional self kept making Corene take pictures that had terrible lighting. She did a good job of reining in the frustration, because I am pushy and blissfully ignorant. I want certain things in the background, lighting be damned. This is probably why most of my pictures kind of suck. Ha ha!

Classic from behind shot!

Anyway, this was one of those moments, but I didn't care, because I wanted the palm trees and crater in the background. I still like it, even though she was totally right, and the light completely washes out the picture. At least I got the compositional law of thirds right.

After this, I suckered everyone into going to my barn so I could squeeze in some riding time. There was a botanical garden right next to my barn, so I figured they could spend some time looking around and taking pictures of flowers. Which they did - although I'm not going to post them here. I'll have a special post dedicated to Corene and her wonderful camera.

So here we are - she took some great shots of the resident peacocks. Most of the time, you can find them hanging out in the branches of the trees. It is an amazing sight to see them fly down from such great heights.

Why yes, I DO make that helmet look dead sexy.

Anyway, so this is me, attempting to ride. Apparently, when you take a break and then come back, riders tend to lean forward too far in the saddle. I'm trying to break myself of that habit right now.

Day 4 (or 5?)

Well, I am now back at work, and having no fun. So, you get: Day in Pictures without my snarky comments.

Ok, so after this everything is out of order and whacked, and I think I am missing a day? I apparently have no pictures of one day occurring. Considering that both David and Corene were on the job, I find this highly unlikely. I probably just lost them somewhere.

Anyway,

At some point, they had a nice, relaxing day at beautiful Ko Olina. Nowhere better for a lazy day on the beach.

Day 6? 13?

I love the North Shore, as I am sure I have said before. Especially since I've never been in winter, when then waves are really up. Naturally, there was a big storm system blowing through, so the waves were supposed to be crazy high - around 25 feet, which is a substantial increase over the norm, 3-5 ft. We were hoping there would be some surfers out, and a good photo op for Corene.

Sadly, the surfers were elsewhere, or really far out to sea, which made them more like specks than subjects. So we just took shots of the beach.

See that haze? It is actually a mist that was hanging over the whole shoreline from the giant waves that kept crashing on the beach. Nuts.

This is the Lost beach, by the way.

(Jennifer, guess what? The Lost set is back up! What the!? You have to come back and visit so you can see it. Ha.)

Another reason I was so excited about the North Shore this time was that I was going to do something NEW. Very exciting. There is supposed to be the best botanical gardens on the island over there, and I was looking forward to seeing it with Corene. Of course, Trip Disaster struck again, because it always does. I think Emily might have escaped it, but only because I was too tried over stressing about someone else's longer stay (which I LOVED) to actually plan anything. We just kind of went and…did stuff. Yeah.

Anyway, when we drove up we saw it was Closed. I proceeded to throw a fit in the car, raging against my extremely bad luck, becuase it's always about me. WHYYYYY?!? about sums it up. I think Corene was too focused on calming me down to actually be upset herself. Oh well, now she has something to look forward to when she makes it back out here.

So Plan = Down the Drain. Dejected, we headed into Haleiwa town to go look at all the cute little shops.

Here I am, ruining yet another otherwise decent shot. Meh.

Which ended up taking up half the day, surprisingly. We went in our favorite gift shop with the koa wood postcards, shopped around for some island wear, looked at pearls, and watched the lady making glass figurines, which is always fun. Also, I think it was this day that Corene discovered her deep and abiding love for kukui lotion.

We also had lunch at a great new spot, The Grass Skirt Grill. It has amazing seafood, served with brown rice, insanely good salad and homemade dressing, and of course, pineapple. YUM. David went out on a limb and got this astounding BBQ-ish sandwich. Of course, it is way too far away to visit often. Figures.

After that, we just wandered along the coast, because the water was too rough to get in. Along the way we came across these adorable guys:

What you lookin' at?

One crashed-out turtle

Random side-story, mainly because I want to chronicle every time I fall, just for posterity:

The continuing theme on this trip was the repeated breaking of my very nice sunglasses, sometimes within 10 minutes of me painstakingly fixing them. Furthermore, while holding them together so the super glue had a chance to work, I would always invariably glue myself to them, no matter how I tried not to.

This breaking was happening so frequently, that it got to the point I just kept going around squinting, because whenever I glued them back together, the fates would collide and something bad would happen to me, usually involving gravity. In this case, I had just reglued them in the car, and as I was STANDING STILL and watching Corene take some amazing photos of these turtle twins, when - wait for it - I fell over and just about sprained my ankle. !?!? So my glasses broke, again, but this time sand got stuck all over the still-wet super glue! Perfect. From my various attempts at trying not to glue my fingers to the frame, my glasses were covered with permanent bits of paper towel, metal flakes from my tweezers, and now sand. I'm nothing if not classy.

Back to the cuteness:

That is one fat seal.

We stopped at Sunset beach, because I thought it was going to be a Great Moment in Photography. Why do I keep doing this to myself? Will I never learn? Stupid Sunset Beach did not live up to it's name, yet again, and even Corene wanted to get out of there. SUNSET FAIL. So we drowned our sorrows in some pie; chocolate-halpia nirvana from Ted's Bakery. After that we just cut our losses and headed back home in the dark.

Day: Somethinger-other

Holy smokes, Corene and David got up and left the house at 5 AM to hike a trail and watch the sunrise. I'm sure it was very beautiful. I would have no idea, because I was at home, asleep.