Showing posts with label Malaekahana. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Malaekahana. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

August Recap Continued....
August 25, 2010

After exploring some more of the North Shore we returned home to Waikiki for dinner at Tanaka of Tokyo. It was, of course, delicious as always!








After dinner we all came home and fell asleep!! Tony was returning to work the next day, and we were all exhausted from driving around the island.

August 26, 2010
Joe woke up early and went surfing with Jimmy, while I enjoyed some extra sleep! When Joe returned, the two of us walked over to the Hyatt for very relaxing and amazing massages at the No'ola Spa! Worth every single penny!

After our massages we walked around Waikiki for some shopping, which was followed by a yummy dinner at Hula Grill.



Mike (Russell's Dad) and Russell


Russell and Joe




Nice Russell

August 27, 2010
The following day I drove Joe to the airport before heading in to work. Joe was a very good guest, and we had a nice little staycation with him.

September 3, 2010
Tony and I had a date night, and went to dinner at John Domini's, a restaurant right on the water. I forgot my camera, so there aren't any pictures to share - but we shared some oysters on the half shell and some lobster bisque to start. The oysters were yummy! Our entrees were good too and Tony really enjoyed that mine came with a bib! Our seats were next to the windows, so we had a front row seat to the Hilton Hawaiian Village's fireworks!

September 18, 2010
Ever since my fun camping experience with my friends, I have been wanting to go camping with Tony. Only problem is they don't allow pets on the campground and we haven't trained Rusty how to walk himself yet. So we decided to do a test run of boarding Rusty. We took him to Pacific Paws in Hawaii Kai, where he gets groomed. They have doggie day care as well as cage free boarding. We dropped him off Saturday morning, and headed on down the road to Malaekahana.

We finally arrived, got our camp site info and found our site.... All the way in the far right mauka corner... Not on the beach, but on the grass (this comes into play later). We parked the car and started setting up our tent (thanks Stacey), but a light drizzle started, so we hurried to complete the tent. The rain passed so we continued to unload the car, unrolled the air mattress, connected the extension cord to the car and plugged in the pump, when the skies opened up and down poured on us! Five minutes later the rain let up and we continued set up, and ordered wood to be delivered (a service offered by the campsite). I took Tony on a tour of the grounds and we walked along the beach. Also showed him my awesome beach campsite from last time.

Tony and I, being the rustic campers you can imagine us to be, then walked back to the main office so we could connect our iPad with the wireless internet and sign up for a 3g account with at&t. You may be thinking, "but your camping, why could you possibly need internet, or your iPad?" Simply because we forgot to make our Fantasy Football picks, duhhh. And one of the main reasons we were going camping was to test out the Star Walk app on the iPad, because on my first trip here I had never seen so many stars in my whole life.... Combined!

Starting a campfire with Tony was an adventure (as is every event with Tony which is why I love him). I was trying to sit back and let the "man" set up the fire but after i saw him throwing (yes throwing) the large logs in first i had to step in. We finally, as a team, got a great fire going, that lasted the whole night!!!!

We returned to our site and started the grill (a 400 piece grill that I single handed perfectly assembled). Started our feast with some brats and mmmm were they good, but not halfway through our brats it started to rain again. We cuddled together under our umbrella until it passed. 


As it started to get dark, our feast continued with huge delicious cheeseburgers.... And then it rained again.... And again..... wait for it, and again. When it wasn't raining, we were enjoying each other's company around the warm camp fire. Later in the evening we roasted marshmallows over the fire for some yummy, gooey s'mores. Unfortunately, because of the rain, there were not any stars to see that night.

It rained all night long and when we awoke in the morning, we had some new friends sleeping in our tent with us trying to escape the rain. There were ants EVERYWHERE!!! Last time it did rain a few times, and it definitely rained thought the night, but there were no ants. This is why I will only be camping in the sand in the future. Lindsay Alperstein doesn't do ants! To top off the morning, it was still very cloudy, meaning no sun for the beach. So we packed up our stuff and started the journey back home!

Rusty was very excited to see us, but had a hard time telling us since he had lost his bark playing all night with his new friends. The folks at Pacific Paws said he did great.

When we got home everything went straight out to the lanai until it could be washed / debugged. I hopped directly into the shower!! Overall a good experience, but hopefully next time no rain plus lots of stars!

September 24, 2010
Went out to celebrate Tracy's birthday at Amuse - a self dispensing wine bar in the amazing Inspiration Furniture Store.



Saturday, September 25, 2010

August Recap
August 2-3, 2010
A bunch of coworkers and I went camping at Malaekahana to celebrate Michelle's birthday. This was quite the struggle for me, since I had never ever been camping before. After having my arm twisted, I agreed to a night in the wilderness. And by wilderness I mean a gorgeous beach on the North Shores of Oahu. 

The tent where I cuddled with Stacey.
Michelle's Birthday cupcakes
Michelle's Rainbow Birthday cupcakes by Tracy
 The view... This is my kind of camping...


Kim's Yurt - another plus to Malaekahana - the option of camping without the tent.

Our campsite...
The view behind our campsite
The campfire... hard to photograph
 The girls... we had a hard time getting a good pic of us all... here are a few attempts.
We had a really great time hanging out around the campfire, barbecuing, and chasing sand crabs on the beach. In the middle of the night you can hear the wild chickens jumping on top of your coolers and the picnic tables. I think there was a family of chickens living behind our tent. Other than the chickens, it was extremely peaceful sleeping to the sounds of the ocean.

When I woke up in the morning, I couldn't believe what a sauna our tent had become in the bright sun. I, surprisingly, was the first one to wake up, the sauna was making me sick... so I got into my bathing suit, and took my chair to the beach. Surreal being on a beach pretty much all alone.



 To prove I really was there...
And my artsy pics
 
And one more...
 ;
 
Pics of our Campsite... It really is on the beach...
 
 
August 11, 2010
I flew to South Beach, Miami, Florida for Cat's Bachelorette Party weekend. I left on Wednesday, to get there on Thursday morning. I flew into LAX - my first time on California soil - and found out that my next flight was delayed for an additional 4 hours (on top of my hour and a half layover)!! And being that my first flight landed at 9:30pm, the stores in the terminal were closing about an hour or so later! I went to Chili's to try to eat and waste some time... I ordered some food, and was falling asleep in the booth! After sitting there for an hour, I decided to walk around the terminal... only everything was already shut down!! I found myself a charging station, and plugged in my phone and my iPod and started catching up on episodes of Dexter. Five hours with nothing to do feels like 10 hours!! 

When our plane finally arrived, I heard the outgoing and incoming pilots chatting, and heard them say that our flight was almost canceled, but they found another plane to use! Luckily, on all legs of my flight I  had a window seat, so I could cuddle up against the wall of the plane and fall asleep. I fell asleep before the plane even took off from LAX!

August 12, 2010
I finally arrived on to Miami on Thursday morning - and was greeted at baggage by Cat and the rest of our party. We grabbed a cab over to our hotel, The Ganservoort, South Beach. The hotel was beautiful. Cat found a really great deal online, because normally the hotel costs about $350 a night! As soon as we checked in and got settled we changed to go to lunch. Miami is SO HOT & HUMID!! We all immediately began to sweat as soon as we stepped outside. We made the walk over to Lincoln St and found a cute little Italian place for lunch. After lunch, we relaxed for a bit in the room, and then headed up to Plunge, the 18th floor pool lounge. Check out the view...

 Following those pictures, we all proceed to fall asleep on the pool deck until the sun set!! No one even noticed because we were all so tired!! We decided to take it easy that night, to prepare for the rest of our short trip - so after showering and resting for a bit we surprised Cat with a Naughty Bridal Shower!! I asked her to open the dresser to hand me my sweatshirt, and when she did she found gift boxes and bags galore!
Our Card to the Bride to Be
Pretty Silky Bride Robe
My Gift :)

Like I said, it was a Naughty Bridal Shower, so we will leave the rest to your imagination. For dinner we decided to veg out on nearly $80 worth of Chinese food delivery!

August 13, 2010
The next morning, the girls - minus me, all woke up early to catch some rays by the pool at Plunge. I was still recovering from the 6 hour time difference, and too many hours of travel. I  did finally show my face in the early afternoon and joined them by the pool.
Our view from our lounge chairs. 
The entire pool was 4 feet deep, and the perfect temperature to give you relief from the boiling hot Miami sun.
Amber & Kitty Cat
That night we got all dolled up to go out on the town....
Grace even let Cat put make up on her (she NEVER wears make up)!
Look how Purrrty!
 Grace & Kitty
We took a cab from our hotel over to Wet Willie's... Unfortunately there was no AC (open air bar) so we ate shared some pupus and moved on... but not before taking some pictures...
Me & Linh
The girls
Amber & Grace

After leaving Wet Willie's we walked down the street looking for some place that peeked our interest, but everything was either too busy or too hot... So we headed back to our hotel and went to club Louis... 
The Bride-To-Be

August 14, 2010
The next day we only lasted at the pool for a few short hours - our skin couldn't take much more of the Miami heat. We headed to Lincoln Street for some lunch and shopping... Linh wanted to try a Cuban sandwich, so I asked around and found us a cute little Cuban restaurant. After shopping til we dropped we headed back for some showers and some rest. We surprised Cat with some Bachelorette Party T-shirts...
We were told to try Joe's Snow Crabs, but when we called to make a reservation we found out that they were closed for the season :(. We tried to find a replacement and made a reservation at another Snow Crab place on Ocean Drive. When we walked in they didn't have our reservation, and were not very helpful, so we decided to leave and go down to a restaurant that smelled delicious the night before. Fox Cafe was located a few blocks away and we got a nice air conditioned table inside. We all were very excited for some oysters - but unfortunately this place served us warm raw oysters - which we promptly sent back. After this, everything else was wonderful. We shared Calamari and Mussels, and we all got delicious entrees.

We all had a wonderful trip to Miami - but I should have tried to stay an additional day or two - 5 days of travel for 3 nights of fun is very tiring!

August 20, 2010
 Later that week, our friend Joe came to visit! On his first night, we took Joe to dinner at Doraku for some delicious sushi. We went to sleep early, so everyone could get some rest and woke up early to go explore Manoa Valley. We can see Manoa Valley from the windows of our apartment, but hadn't yet visited.

August 21, 2010 
We started our drive up the mountains and stopped for a photo op. Check out this view!


The Valley
The Boys
We could even see our building!!
We kept driving up the mountain to another lookout point... and an even better view!
 
View to the Left
View to the Right
Tony & Jimmy
Joe taking in the view

Jimmy is a very knowledgable tour guide... He taught us so much on this trip, but he made the mistake of showing Tony & Joe an avocado tree... which quickly prompted Joe to try and get an avocado... which in turn got Tony to climb the tree for a tiny unripened avocado.... Poor Avocado.

We continued further up the mountain to Kalawahine Trail.
Look how GREEN!!

Coffee Beans
Me, Tony & Joe
Jimmy, Tony & Joe
Strawberry Guavas
Tony trying to hide and scare me... He forgot his camo...
Where's Waldo?
Ti Leaves
Me, Jimmy & Tony

After our hike, we took Joe to Zippy's for delicious loco moco. I had to work over the next few days, but Tony & Joe went to Pearl Harbor and saw the Arizona Memorial and did lots of surfing.

August 25, 2010
On Thursday, we went to take a drive over to the North Shore, unfortunately the traffic was HORRIBLE headed over to our normal beaches, plus it was raining, so we headed to the other side of the North Shore. We went to Ka'ena Point, which is the westernmost point of Oahu. Ancient Hawaiians believe this was the "jumping-off" point for souls leaving this world.




 I have been working on this post all week long, but have been so busy - I will continue the end of August through now on the next post, hopefully later today!!!

xoxo & aloha