Aloha Oahu.

 We went to Hawaii last week. Haha that's what I wrote when I started this post. For shame. It's over a month now.

First day, just got up to our hotel room. We were on the 8th floor which was higher than you would expect. Our view was (obviously) overlooking more of downtown, which was delightful. First night there we were renting our car and I was outside waiting with a family that had just arrived. One of the daughters was looking at the vending machines and she said, "They have the exact same sodas here as in America!". Yikes.

This has nothing to do with a trip, but I told Eric I could see his reflection forever so he put his arm around me. Hahahahaha. 

Monday morning we woke up early (the 3 hour time change helped) and my boss texted me asking if we wanted to go on a hike. I had that brief moment where I thought to myself I really don't want to get up and go already when we could just go lay on the beach. But Eric said let's do it and off we went. That moment could have changed our whole trip, and I'm so glad we went. It motivated us to make the most of our time there.

We went to Diamondhead and hiked. It's not too hard of a hike, it's not super long, and there are a couple spots with stairs and tunnels because they were some sort of lookout spot in WWII. Weeellllll, I don't do very well in caves/tunnels/confined spaces. We were walking through this tunnel wide enough for about two humans, tall enough for one, and I got super nervous. And a little panicky. And we got out and I threw up. Oh and we went with my boss. And I've thrown up twice now in the last... I don't know... 8 years... and both times have been with my boss.

Other than that, the hike was lovely and really not hard (I promise you won't throw up, it's not that bad).

We kind of struck out on food there. We tried to listen to all of your good advice, but it was too much to narrow down and we ended up being underwhelmed. It may also have something to do with how expensive it all is, makes you expect better taste/quality. One place we did love was Hula Dog. It's off of Waikiki and they make delicious tropical relishes like mango and pineapple, and mustards of guava... and they were really good! Plus they skewer the bread/loaf so there is no hole in the bottom, kind of like a corn dog, but not.

We were driving all over the island and we saw a macademia nut farm so we wildly veered off the road into it and looked around. I bought a couple postcards I didn't send. Best laid plans.

Then we stopped at the LDS Temple, and it was lovely. 

Tuesday morning we played volleyball and hung out on the beach with everyone from work. It was surprisingly (sorry co-workers for my lack of faith) enjoyable to socialize and to play. Except that Eric may have broken his toe; he at least sprained it. 

We peaced out to go to Hanauma Bay to snorkel, only to find out that they close down the whole bay on Tuesdays in the spirit of conservation. It worked out because I got a killer headache, I'm sure induced by too much sun and not enough water, so we went home and chilled for an hour or so and nursed my head back to normalcy. We got up, got ready to go and headed up to the North Shore to meet up with one of my dearest family friends, Thorne, who lives on the island right now. He was in the Marines with my brother and we quickly realized he was a perfect fit into our family, it's been probably a decade now. Wow.  

He is engaged and we got to meet his lovely fiance. You know those nights where you just genuinely have a wonderful time, where the dark is warm, the breeze is light. Thorne grilled for us and it was the best food we had the whole trip. We pet the dogs and didn't want to leave. When I mentioned to a coworker that we were meeting a friend one night, he said something about having friends that lived there but not wanting to see them, "because [he was] on vacation". Seeing Thorne and L reminded me how wrong my coworker was. What is better than an evening with good friends that you don't have to catch up with at all, unless you want to?!

Wednesday we went to the swap meet at Aloha Stadium, which was basically Eric's dream come true. Or so he thought. We were grossly underwhelmed with the contents. The booths wrapped entirely around the stadium, but there were really only about 5 different types and they just repeated themselves over and over.

We were also exceptionally sunburnt from the day prior, Eric so much so that he had to keep completely covered. Like this:

Whatev, win some, lose some. And we got to see another stadium, which is kind of a thing that we do.

On the way back to Honolulu we checked out Leonard's Bakery, a must-eat recommended by one of my good friends who used to live there.

I swear they were good. Pay no attention to Eric's face...

We hit a ton of traffice that day and the swap meet was a bust, so we just headed into town to get some good food. Eric was already cranky, so when I went to take a picture of him he said, "Don't take a picture of me!"

So I didn't.

We were able to go to Hanauma Bay on Thursday, and we snorkeled. Eric had never been, and all he wanted was to see a sea turtle, which he did, and he chased for awhile. I successfully snorkeled without a life jacket, which is a feat for me.

That night we had a group dinner with my company, a cool place called The Shorebird at the Outrigger Hotel on Waikiki, where you grill your own meat. Funny, it took them about 30 minutes to bring us our meat raw so we could go cook it. I guess that's just what you get for a big group. It was good, kind of fun to be on the beach grilling.

Oh and did I mention karaoke? We had a front row seat.