Byodo-In Temple and Halona Beach

Jon celebrated his 33rd birthday on Tuesday, but we decided not to do much that day other than give him cards and bring him Cheesecake Factory for dinner. We were all pretty tired, so we decided just to head over to the lagoon at the Hilton, Evan's "pretty beach" with the construction trucks. It was a lot of fun. We actually met a woman from Australia who is from Cleveland and knows people who live in our neighborhood. What a very small world. She had 3 little boys who Evan was playing with on the beach.

On Wednesday we drove through the island on the H-3, an absolutely gorgeous drive. It was raining in the mountains, so there were waterfalls decorating several of the lush green slopes, plus one place that I would love to go called the Haiku Stairs. It is literally a steep staircase going up the side of one of these mountains. It looks amazing. The stairs below are not these stairs, this pic was taken of Evan feeding the Koi at the Buddhist temple.

Our destination was the Byodo-In Temple, for several reasons. Jon had mentioned wanting to see a temple, it has a giant Koi pond and Evan is now obsessed with Koi, and it was used in Lost. Despite a bit of drizzle and then downpour, we all had a great time. The only part we missed was there was a large area of beautiful Japanese graves up a hill near the temple and we had wanted to walk around to see if there were any Suganos buried there but we didn't have a chance due to the rain.

We decided to drive down 72 on the southeast corner of the island and ended up at the Halona Blowhole lookout. We discovered it isn't actually that difficult to walk down to the beach below, famous for being the beach in "From Here to Eternity" that has inspired every grown person since to want to roll around on the beach smooching a member of the opposite sex. Interstingly enough, this seems to have been one of Evan's favorite beaches. We were there for about an hour as he and Jon explored tide pools and climbed rocks as I watched locals jump off the rocks into the surf below.

I also have to mention one of the strangest things I've ever experienced. Once Jon had left for work Evan and I headed over to the playground. There was a group that walked through the park of about 20 Japanese tourists taking part in a tour with a woman narrating. I found this fascinating and was watching them for a minute or so. Once they had exited the park I stopped paying attention. Three Japanese men, probably in their 30's, left the group and walked over to me and Evan. One said, "He's beautiful," but clearly they didn't speak English well. I said thank you. One of his friends then reached out to Evan, I had thought it was because he thought Evan was going to fall climbing up the stairs to the jungle gym. I was then very surprised when the man then lifted Evan up and placed him on his lap in order to pose for a photo that his friend was ready to take. So, I'm not sure if this was one of those situations where you turn to a friend and say, "I dare you to go over to that stranger and take a picture with them" or if maybe they could tell Evan was part Japanese and found a blonde-haired blue-eyed Japanese little boy was cute, or maybe it's perfectly acceptable to take a picture with a little blonde-haired blue-eyed kid because it's novel. Who knows. But I called Jon on the cell phone immediately, not because I was concerned in any way, but because I found it such an amusing and unbelievable story to tell that I had to share it, and everyone else I knew would have been sleeping by then!

Lost

Much like the day of the Maui luau was my favorite day in Hawaii during our last visit here, I believe that today is probably my favorite day this time around. Jon was so kind and generous as to offer to drive up to the North Shore again, so that I could see Papa'iloa Beach from "Lost" before the set was torn down for the season. While there, we found a man sitting a bit back from the beach, in the middle of nowhere, with several sprinkers running. It seemed very peculiar to me, so I waved and kept walking. Jon bothered to ask him what he was doing and if there was anything else "Lost" related for us to see there. It turns out the man, I think his name was Wally, had the job of making sure the sprinklers were running because that little area of land was Mr. Eko's grave and it needed to be kept green for the show.

Another amusing point was, there was a large object at the far end of the beach that turned out to simply be a large block of concrete. But, when Jon asked me what was down that direction, my response was, "well, that's where the underwater looking station is."

After the Lost beach and getting my pic taken at Eko's grave, we drove a couple of miles further to the Waimea Audubon Center. It's basically a huge botanical garden with a paved walk that ends with a waterfall. The neat thing about this waterfall is, not only can you swim in it, but there's a lifeguard and they provide free lifejackets for the little ones. Which was convenient, since of course the minute Evan saw people swimming there said, "I want to go in the waterfall." Fortunately I'm a strong swimmer and he was wearing a lifejacket, because, the water is about 30 feet deep. Of course, I took him in though and he loved it. Some nice European boys even helped us to get closer to the falls. Oh yeah, plus, this just so happens to be the waterfall where Sawyer and Kate take a dip too. Here's some more pics from our day:

Oahu Luau

We were delighted to find out earlier in the week that there was a luau within walking distance of our condo that was taking place on Sunday night, which meant, Jon could actually go. We were pretty excited because Evan did so well at the luau in Maui last time we were here and we all had such a great time.

While the location was great, with the sunset over a lagoon and palm trees in the background, the luau itself was not on par with the one we'd attented in Maui. Now, everything I've read has said that the best luau's are on the other islands, so I can't complain too much. The plusses were, the location, it was nearby to the condo, and the guys twirling flaming swords. The people we sat with were a woman and her daughter, from Montana. It was interesting how they ended up in Montana, they had lived in Chicago and decided they wanted to move somewhere away from the city. They were such nice people, the woman was there celebrating her birthday.

Evan got very antsy after being there for about two hours, since the entertainment didn't really start for awhile, so by the time the hula dancers came out, Evan watched for about five minutes then we headed over to the lagoon and stripped him down to his diaper and let him swim and play in the sand while we watched the rest of the luau from the side. We got to stick around to the end, so that was nice. Then we headed back to the condo and took a dip in the pool before it was drained for the week for repairs.

Back to Kailua Beach

Well, first off, I am losing my mind and can't seem to recall what exactly we've done each of the past three days. More specifically, on Saturday and Sunday. And no, it has nothing to do with alcohol consumption. I think we went to Kailua Beach on Saturday. Anyhow, Kailua is our favorite beach here. It's gorgeous and goes on forever, plus it's an easy half an hour drive from the condo. We finally convinced Evan to have a good time too, by first digging a large hole in the sand, large enough fo rhim to sit inside of. Then he discovered the shallow inlet of water that flows through the middle of the beach where all of the kids were playing. Getting him out of there was a little rough. That night we spent some time at the playground then ordered Thai food from Keo's. It may have been one of the best meals I've had here (besides my cold noodle and shrimp tempura combo from Sobaya at the food court).

Oh yeah, and I got a new bathing suit, the first time I've bought something other than black in at least five years.

Sea Life Park

I think Jon is starting to learn one of the tricks to parenting that I've discovered. Try to avoid situations where you know you'll have to say no. For example, going to Walmart and taking Evan into the toy section or pointing out the people swimming with the dolphins at the Sea Life Park. Fortunately, we'll be coming back here in January and bringing my mom along, so I am thinking we will all go to the Sea Life Park together and do the whole swimming with the dolphins thing then. Plus, as long as Evan is under two years old, he gets to do it for free with me and Jon.

Anyhow, the Sea Life Park was neat and we all had a good time, though it was very hot, no shade at the sea lion or dolphin shows or throughout much of the park. But it was nice, built much more for smaller children with all of the various displays close together, so that we saw everything in under two hours. I think mine and Evan's favorite part was feeding the sea turtles. You could get within six inches of them and feed them lettuce, celery and broccoli which was very cool. The park is also situated in a gorgeous location on the easternmost corner of the island, overlooking the ocean and Rabbit Island.

The rest of the day was spent sleeping and then we walked with Jon to work. I think we're headed to Kailua tomorrow.

For now, it's time to give Evan a bath and head to bed once he's done watching "Cars" for the 10th time this week.

Lost and Found

I forgot to mention, Wednesday night Jon found his wedding ring, he'd apparently set it down at the office.

Thursday Already?

Well, it is indeed Thursday. Evan is still napping, since he didn't fall asleep until 4:30pm. We had a good time today, drove about a half an hour up to Ko Olina Lagoons to the JW Marriott to hang out with a friend/coworker of mine who happens to also be here. A word to the wise. If you're driving up to Ko Olina Lagoons from Waikiki, make sure you either leave early enough to park in the very limited public parking or that you have the name of a guest staying at the Marriott there. After making the drive up and arriving about 10:45am, we discovered there is an entrance gate to the resort properties and lagoons. If all public parking is full, they tell you to turn around and try back again later. Umm...no. I would have been really ticked off. But, fortunately, we were meeting up with friends who were guests there. The security guy called the front desk at the hotel to verify their name and then let us in. We then paid $20 to park on the Marriott's lawn. So, point being, I'm glad we made it up there and got to hang out with my friend. It was nice to have had a chance to see the lagoons too and there were some fish and Jon got to do a bit of snorkeling. But, we won't be going back there. I'll stick with Kailua and Lanikai, still the two prettiest beaches here, or Hanauma Bay for snorkeling.

My friend and her husband also went up to th North Shore yesterday and went to Papailoa Beach, where the beach scenes from Lost are filmed. She showed us pics of "tent city" and of huge sea turtles right on the beach. We, of course, drove right by there the same day. So now, bless his heart, Jon has offered to make the trek back up to the North Shore while we're here so that I can see this beach. I've been receiving email updates regarding where Lost is filming, so maybe we'll even catch a glimpse of some filming while we're here.

I'll try to post more pics soon.

Headaches

Fortunately last night Evan stayed awake until 9:30pm so that he slept until 7:30 this morning. Which meant we were up for the drive to the North Shore. Unfortunately, before we left we discovered that Jon appears to have lost his wedding ring, either in the Hilton's lagoon or in the condo's swimming pool. No luck finding it yet. But, as with the last trip we had here where he added a scrape to the fender of our rental car, better him than me as I tend to blow these things off. Things happen, and there's no use ruining time in Hawaii over something which we have no control once it's happened.

Now that we were already in a poor mood, I did a terrible job of reading the map on the drive, adding another 20 minutes or so, plus there was a bit of road construction. Regardless, we made it to the North Shore in one piece. It didn't seem like there were any turtles at Turtle Beach as we drove by, which was our initial destination, so we continued another mile or two down the road to Waimeia Bay. The water there was gorgeaous and blue. Evan got to sit on a four-wheeler and meet a lifeguard. Plus he was once again adventurous and headed into the water. It's right in between the summer (calm) and winter (surf) seasons however, so we couldn't take Evan in very far while feeling safe. We still had a great time playing in the sand and a bit of water. And then headed over to Haleiwa for Hono's shrimp. Mmm...SO GOOD! I had the butter spicy shrimp like last time and Jon tried the Garlic Shrimp. Then we stopped by Matsumoto's for shave ice. I have to say, it was good, but...I'll probably get yelled at for saying this, it wasn't necessarily any better than a snow cone back home. Sorry. The Hono's shrimp though...I dunno, there's just something awesome about eating shrimp cooked up for you out of a truck.

We made it home safe and sound and the boys are both napping.

The 6am Wake-Up

Evan decided to wake up at 6am on Tuesday, so rather than try for the hour or so drive to the North Shore, we decided to walk across the street to the man-made lagoon at the Hilton. Of course, this seems to have been Evan's favorite beach. There are no waves, it is backed by a parking lot and one side has a wall up with a small window in it to view the construction going on next door. This morning (Wednesday), he asked us if we could go to the "pretty beach". We said "Sure, we'll go to the pretty beach," he added, "the one with the trucks?" As Jon then added, "beauty is all in the eye of the beholder." Anyhow, he loves it so I'm sure we'll spend some more time there. We've actually bought tickets for a luau there for Sunday night. We really lucked out as Jon can only go out on Saturday and Sunday nights due to work, and this is the onyl Sunday night in October that this particular luau, right across the street from us, is taking place. Hopefully we can keep Evan from taking a dip in the lagoon!

Monday

I'm not really sure how I managed to write a full blog everyday while we were here last time. It just doesn't seem like I have the time this trip. Maybe it was easier to write because everything was so new to us. This time, Anyhow, on Monday we drove to the Windward side of the island to Lanikai Beach. It's just down the road from Kailua Beach, these are both rated two of the best beaches in the world. It was beautiful. Here's a couple of pics:

Evan finally likes the beach and ocean now and can't get enough of it, almost to our detriment. But thank goodness he likes it now. Evan also was the little social butterfly, introducing himself to a four year old girl from Oregon named Anna and a little boy two days older than him from San Fransisco. Oh yeah, and Jon found a dead Moray eel in the water. He was fascinated, but not quite convinced enough it was dead to pick it up out of the water with a bucket. That's ok though, I didn't tust it to be dead enough to even go into the water anywhere near it.

We're Here

That's really all I have to say for now...we're here. We made it here to the condo, by way of a day and a half in Los Angeles visiting with Audie, Grandaddy, Baachan, Auntie Martha, Uncle Larry and Flora on Saturday. Evan has done a great job so far. My laptop tells me it's currently 4:51am in Cleveland right now...ugh.

I'll write more tomorrow about our trip to one of the world's most beautiful beaches, Lanikai. It was a great time and it appears Evan now enjoys the sand and the ocean. We're so grateful he's getting over this fear, it made going to the beach very difficult last time. It's much more enjoyable now. Seems like I'm the one having more issues this time around. I guess jetlag is getting to me more than I'd realized. Yesterday I put the dirty clothes in the dryer instead of the washer and ran the washer empty (they are an efficiency/top-bottom set-up), then ordered dinner from a restaurant I thought I remembered being one place but was actually about a mile further down the road, and I was walking to go pick it up, so that was no fun. Tonight, my cell phone made it's way into Evan's bathtub and I have no idea if it's going to work again plus I whacked my knee on the corner of Evan's bed here. I just want to go to sleep.

Goodnight.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Well, we are now home in Cleveland. I didn't have a chance to write the last day or so that we were in Maui.

The day before we were leaving Maui it rained on the north side of the island. You can see from some of these photos that it was not raining on in South Maui. Actually, this day was probably the most sun we got while we were on Maui. We drove down to Maluaka Beach, just south of Wailea in front of the Maui Prince hotel. It was gorgeous. We just hung out and took turns walking with Evan up and down the beach. We could see the area where we were staying from the beach we were on, and saw it getting poured on. On the drive down, we could see snow up on the peak of Haleakala. While at the beach, Loribeth called my cell phone to tell me it was on the news that it was snowing on Haleakala. Apparently this is a big deal and never happens.

Snow on Haleakala:

Once we got back to the condo, we ordered lunch from the Okazuya Deli, they have really great stir fry. The night before we left we took it easy. We picked up Loribeth from work, and Amanda came over. We ordered some appetizers from the Lahaina Store Grille & Oyster Bar and watched Comedy Central for a couple hours before heading to bed.

January 31, 2008

The morning that we left, Thursday, January 31, we saw some great rainbows from our lanai. We also had the chance to watch a mother and baby humpback whale, about 100 yards offshore, swimming across our field of vision. What we really saw was the baby practicing its breaching, jumping out of the water, the two whales spouting next to each other, and the hump of the mother's back coming up out of the water as she swam next to her baby. So, none of the full breaching and tail slapping that we saw off on the horizon a few days before, but it was still pretty cool. Loribeth ordered us white chocolate chip macadamia nut pancakes and a big kahuna omelet from Gazebo. Breakfast was delicious. Loribeth sat with Evan and played on the computer. He now knows about pbskids.org and asks for the Cookie Monster page.

I dropped Loribeth off at work, and we took a photo of the amazing view of the house where she is a nanny for the rich and famous:

I have to admit, I will miss the Maui condo. We stayed at the Hale Ono Loa in Honokowai. It is two buildings down from where Loribeth lives, in the Kaleialoha. The particular condo we had, Unit 109, was fantastic. It is one of only 5 units in the entire complex that is ground floor and oceanfront. The yard for the other 4 units is all connected, but this particular one benefits from having a "front yard" that is practically to itself, so we didn't need to worry about Evan bothering anyone when he ran around outside. It was perfect. We were able to sit outside and eat our meals or have drinks and watch for humpback whales, sea turtles, sunsets and rainbows. We had the same view from a huge picture window inside the living room area of our condo. Here are some pics of our yard, if only I had such nice landscaping at home!

The trip coming back to Cleveland was a long one. We flew out of Maui around 4pm to Honolulu, our Honolulu flight was a red eye around 8pm, we landed in Houston at 7:30am (2:30am Hawaii time), and finally got to Cleveland around 2:30pm Cleveland time. Evan did a pretty good job sleeping on the flights, with the exception of when he coughed so hard that he made himself throw up all over me on the flight to Houston. Fortunately, there was only about an hour left to that flight before we landed.

And now that we are home, there's really no place like home. It's great to have reliable mexican, italian, thai, vietnamese, middle eastern and indian food to choose from within a ten minute drive of our house. Jon went to the grocery store and was back in no time, he commented at how when the lines started getting long at the grocery store last night that they paged some people to the front of the store to help bag groceries. That and he paid half the price he paid for milk in Hawaii. It's amazing the conveniences we take for granted.

At the same time, we took Evan to The RainForest in Cleveland today to get him out of the house. It was amazing to think we were hiking through a similar forest in Hawaii, only it was a real one. I think when I stepped outside this morning my tan instantly evaporated in the cold. As we were getting into the car to leave The RainForest, I slipped on a patch of ice.

So, it's good to be home, but I am definitely looking forward to working on my tan again in April when we go to Hilton Head!

Here's some pics from snorkeling that we finally had developed.

Enjoy!

Hanauma Bay:

Lu'au + Wailiea

Yesterday I had a real vacation day. I didn't check email and I didn't write a blog. It was wonderful. It rained in the morning where we are staying in Honokowai, so we drove Loribeth to work, and then decided to drive down to South Maui, to Wailea Beach. Praise God, we had the one spot of sun on the island and were able to have some fun and go swimming. Evan got over his fear of the sand today while we were at the beach. We had a great time, with the exception of a hungry Jon discovering there's no such thing as "fast food" here. Both drive thrus we tried to go through were a pain and we ultimately didn't end up getting food for lunch and coming home for leftovers before leaving for the lu'au.

Loribeth met us at the lu'au. We chose the Old Lahaina Lu'au, since Loribeth said it was the best. It was amazing. It may have been my favorite activity on our vacation. Evan went with us. I had made reservations for the traditional seating, which involves sitting on pillows on the ground with a low table to eat from. It turns out these tables are front row for the lu'au, so we had an amazing view, plus it was the perfect height for Evan and he didn't have to sit on our laps. Since it had been rainy earlier on, the sunset with the clouds was beautiful on the shore in the background. The food was amazing, it was so good. Evan sat still and paid attention to the hula dancing. It was probably the most peaceful moment I've had in a long time, I actually started to cry a little bit, because it was so nice to just be able to all sit together and enjoy something together, without having to be running around, or Jon being frustrated, or Evan running around crazy or squirming or screaming. All of us actually enjoyed it, it was wonderful. It began to rain a bit in the middle of the performance, so they cut it early by about half an hour, which is too bad, because it did stop raining, and I didn't mind the rain at all I was having such a great time.

We came back afterwards and hung out at Loribeth's and Amanda's condo doing some laundry and then went to bed.

This was one of my favorite days in Hawaii.