Jason and I have not been on a vacation together in five years. It seemed only appropriate to have something planned at the end of our busiest wedding season to date…with no kids! We are forever grateful for Jason’s mom for keepin our kiddos for 10 days…who needs the vacation now??? Jason’s sister Wendy lives with her husband on Oahu, and let us stay at their place..along with our dear friends Walter and Margaret who came with us. We spent our first few days on Oahu, hopped over to Kauai for 4 days, then back to Oahu for the remaining few. The GOAL: to explore both islands tip to tip…the roads less traveled, local secrets, questionable hole in the wall food stops:) This wasn’t a “Lets lay out and work on the tan- while I sip a Pina Colada” vacation..(my lack of tan is to prove it:) but rather a “Lets do EVERYTHING we could never to with little kids” vacation. Hiking, climbing, jungle explorations, snorkeling, & maybe a babbbbbby bit of occasional trespassing:) Sunrises began with Starbucks, piling into the jeep, and just driving…all day exploring with no real plan or agenda. I swear, for most of the trip I didn’t even feel like we were in Hawaii, but rather the rain forest..I always felt like we were in some type of Jungle…I would sit in the backseat of the car and wonder if I should be singing the tune to Jurassic Park or Dora the Explorer. It was sureal, but nice:) We didn’t take as many pictures as I would have liked, because 75% of the time it was a little sketchy bringing the camera out with the rain, and amount of mud we were trudging through..but here are a few memorable ones from the week..
Walter and Margaret live in San Fran..and are somewhat responsible for getting Jason and I hooked on good Thai food. They are both vegetarian and are the reason I am now obsessed with tofu.. One of Walters friends told him about a Thai food truck in Haleiwa called Opal, that is a legendary local favorite. Normally the site of a taco truck or anything in close resemblance makes me gag a little bit, but I figured to trust the pro’s. Seriously, there aren’t words to describe our experience at Opal. All I CAN say, is Halleluja that I don’t live there cuz I think I just found my weakness. Within our week there, we ate that Thai food 4 times. The owner was amazing..he came out the picnic table multiple times to make sure we were maximizing the flavors by mixing this with that, pouring this on that..etc..true passion. By day 2, we had already become regulars, and he didn’t even let us choose what we wanted to order he said “sit down…how spicy do you want it?” Amazing…when we left after that last day of lunch there, I told the owner “Thanks for ruining it for me..no Thai restaurant will EVER come in close comparison to this:)” We all looked at him and jokingly, but with 99% seriousness said, “do you ship airmail???”. It was that good..
After eating there, we had hours of dragging our food babies around and we felt much like this…
While we were there, Walter had a custom surf board made, so we spent alot of time at this surf shop called 3rd Stone..they let us peek around in the factory and where all the magic happens..
Ohh…did I mention my husband is adventurous..to say the least..he does this backflip action anytime the opportunity presents itself..like NO BIG THANG….I’ll just do a cannon ball thank you very much:)
One thing to note about Hawaii. Wild Chickens EVERYWHERE.
53. The number of mesquito bites I got on our trip. Margaret and I were getting eaten alive everyday..we had to be creative with covering our bodies before we wised up and just got bug spray..
This vacation was VERYYYY much needed..Sand on my feet, salt in my hair…I needed to play in the rain, hike a few mountains and have a daily dose of shaved ice to re energize a bit from our crazy year..thank you soo much to all our amazing clients, friends and family, for hangin in there while we’ve been so busy this season..we are soo blessed to have you all in our lives…thanks for being patient while we spent a little much needed “US” time..XOXO..
And P.S-Yes, this was Hawaii and not Santa Cruz with the brown water:) It had been raining a ton, so there was massive amounts of run off mud in all the water. Awesome.
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