Loli Is Here!

Lori Beth comes to visit again. And mommy is so happy! Lori Beth is my friend from college. She also happens to be first person besides Jon to see Evan when he was born. What makes this particularly special is the unique fact that, she was living in Maui at the time. She was training to be a doula and I had invited her to come to Ohio and be there for Evan's birth if she could make it out there. So, she booked a flight to arrive two days before he was born. This is a huge deal. She timed her two weeks of vacation out to Ohio around the birth of my son. For this, she gets Auntie status. And she is the only person besides Jon who actually saw me in the labor and delivery room with Evan. No one will ever share this memory with me. The story is quite amusing. As she was waiting at the airport on Maui to fly to Cleveland, I went into labor and called her. As she was traveling I was in active labor. Shortly before she landed, I gave birth to Evan. Shortly after she landed, she had a friend drive her directly to the hospital, after a long 12 hour trip, and was the first, besides Jon, to see Evan and I together. For this I will be forever grateful and amazed. Who does this kind of thing? Only a very special person.

So, whenever we are in Hawaii, we try to make sure she can come visit us, at least for a weekend. She actually got in on Friday evening. Evan and I picked her up from the airport, then managed to walk over to the harbor just in time for the Hilton's fireworks show and then picked up the best Outback Steakhouse meal I've ever consumed. This was on Friday night.

On Saturday, all of us headed over to Ala Moana Beach and played. Afterwards, while Evan was napping, I helped Lori Beth find her Rocket Dog shoes and introduced her to Gap jeans, the best jeans ever for women who happen to have hips and curves.

Grandma arrived this afternoon too, so we had a full house! It was funny how we are on vacation and hosting house guests. We ordered some barbecue from a local restaurant and had dinner outside by the pool enjoying some Longboard brews...and using my new Reef sandals with a bottle opener installed on the bottom to open them! How cool is that?

BTW, Loli means Lori in Hawaiian, and I decided this trip that Loli is an absolutely perfect nickname for Auntie Lori Beth.

Sunny Day...Sweeping the Clouds Away

Uh, yeah, so I started to write the title of this post and Big Bird started singing in my head. Go figure.

Today we actually looked at the radar and the report was sunny all around, so this time we decided to try out the Leeward coast again. Jon prefers Kailua with its showers and facilities, and I want to take my mom to Lanikai anyhow, because it's so picturesque, so we ended up at Kailua beach. We've now officially been to this beach for each of our three trips here, probably a good sign to check out this beach if you are ever on Oahu. Anyhow, we had a good time. Evan enjoyed walking on the sand with Jon. They found a piece of driftwood with some small shells attached to it, this they enjoyed exploring, Jon would touch the shells which clearly had something living inside of them as each would clam up much to Evan's chagrin.

Then Evan came back for a rest with me and play in the sand, and then I took him in the water for some wave jumping. He seemed to love this until one somewhat large wave smacked us in the head, at which point I am pretty sure I lost my sunglasses I had purchased the day before.

Rainy Day

Today we learned to check the radar. I wanted to drive across to the east coast of the island to Kailua and Lanikai, two of the most beautiful beaches in the country. As we drove along the Pali Highway we realized this wasn't going to happen today. It was raining. As is typical on the Leeward coast, so now we know better. But, we decided to drive south along this coast and find some sun, and we did, at Sandy Beach. It worked out well.

This beach, is, well, sandy. And, it also has lava ledges to walk around on and explore and some neat tide pools.

We were able to find urchins as well as a small little pool cut out of the lava rock by the surf that Evan referred to as his own personal hot tub.

Additionally, this is the place where locals come to bodysurf. Jon actually considered going in the water. I thought it was best if Evan got to go home with a dad who didn't have a broken neck:

No fun was lost today, despite the rain on the Leeward coast.

What a Difference a Year Makes

Last year at this time Evan would have been very mad at you had you placed him down on the sand, and especially if you tried to make him stand on the sand while in the water. Today, he ran around chasing Jon through the ocean, squirting a large fish with a spray bottle, and running around on the beach with pidgeons.

I remember a time when Jon and I were convinced we would never be able to spend a day at the beach due to Evan's fear of the sand and ocean. Today we discovered that the beach at Ala Moana park, about a ten minute walk from our condo, is perfect for Evan. It is as calm as a bathtub, so he has no fear of being knocked down by a wave. And he had lots of fun with his new sand toys and construction trucks. Since Evan was feeling particularly "self-directed", he and daddy hung out while mommy had a much needed rest on the beach. It was divine.

Diego and the Aquarium

Today we took it easy and went for a visit to the aquarium. I think we'll probably have a pretty low-key first week, as we want to do a lot of the really neat stuff next week once my mom gets here. She'll be out here with us for two weeks. Jon was pleasantly surprised to find out that our admission was half-off because we have a family membership to the zoo in Cleveland, so all three of us got in for $9 total.

The park outside of the aquarium has a large banyan tree, so Evan took a stab at swinging on the vines ala, "Go, Diego, Go!" He did a pretty good job, I was surprised at how well he was able to hold on and naturally figured out to wrap his legs around the vines for a better grip. The aquarium was awesome, it is really a great aquarium for small kids, and we spent over two hours there, which is a feat in itself for Evan. We had fun comparing some of the exhibits to the ones Curious George finds in the book where he visits the aquarium. Plus, Evan loved the touch pool, where he got to hold a hermit crab who tickled his palm.

Evan's done pretty well with adjusting to the time difference, Jon and I both have the sniffles. Other than that, we're all doing pretty well...I hear there's lots of snow in Cleveland.

The View From Here

We arrived without incident in Oahu on Saturday afternoon. The group relocated to a new condo, called The Watermark, a couple of blocks away from the old one. Amusingly enough, in checking out Google Maps, I discovered a Food Pantry grocery store smack dab in between the old condo and new one, within a very short five minute walk. This is amusing because, the last two times were were here we could have very easily walked to this grocery store, rather than drive to the mall for groceries. We just never knew this grocery store was there, because it is situated down a side street that we never ventured down! So, I am very happy. I was excited about this grocery store, it seemed to have more variety than the one at the mall. And besides, we are now even closer to the mall, which means we can now walk there in a matter of minutes!

Anyhow, this condo is ridiculously nice, check out this link if you don't believe me. It's new, and it is designed much more like a hotel than a condo complex, with large manicured grounds and a big infinity pool that Evan and I took a dip in last night. As we walked through the gardens we realized there are several little areas with new barbecues for hosting friends, as well as one large covered pavilion with a gas grill and dining room set-up, where a small group of people were having a nice steak dinner (I wanted to join them!). Like I said, ridiculously nice.

I can't yet take a picture of the view this morning because I can't figure out how to open the remote controlled floor to ceiling screens on the windows, so the above are photos the group had sent to us. But I enjoyed making coffee in the granite-countertop-Viking-decked-out kitchen!

I'll write more later.

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!