Hiking, working, and shopping

On Wednesday, Cole and I went to Iao Valley and went hiking. I'm not going to say too much, I'll just get to the pictures, because it was GORGEOUS! We went around 10:30 I think and were there til about two. I took a ton of pictures with my camera, but I don't have a way to put those on here yet. You will be seeing the ones taken with my phone, which are still pretty good. No picture can really do it justice, but you can at least get an idea. Enjoy. 

Obviously here you can see that there is a path for visitors, but Cole and I ventured off of that and did some exploring on our own. 

There was a stream running through the valley with a lot of these big rocks in it. We left the trees and walked on the rocks for a while. However, Cole has much longer legs than I do, so it was a lot easier for him. I had to wade through the water a few times because I couldn't make the jump from rock to rock. During one such wading time, I may or may not have stepped on the side of a rock and lost my footing a bit. And by "lost my footing" I mean I totally fell in the water... :) Oops! Good thing Cole had my phone and camera! 

There is a ton of history here. I got a better picture of this point on my camera, but this will do to tell you about it. The smaller peak on the left in this picture is the Iao needle, which was a lookout point when King Kamehameha united the islands. Iao Valley was a big battleground in 1790 when Kamehameha defeated Maui's army. 

I loved being surrounded by the mountains. It was so gorgeous and peaceful. 

There were lots of cool plants in there too. It felt very jungle-like. 

Normally there would be a lot of waterfalls to see in the valley, but since it had not rained in a while, we didn't see any. 

So Iao was the exciting adventure for the day. Definitely a place I would like to visit again. 

Yesterday I worked for a couple of hours in the morning, then Sandy and I went to a resale shop, because Cole needed aloha shirts for his job, and they had a great used book section. I've been reading a lot since I got here, so I got a couple more books to put on my "to-read" list. Between these and the books that Aunt Terry gave me when I was at her house, I should have enough reading material to last me about a week. :) Okay a little longer than that. I might have to ship a box back home of just books at the end of the summer, because they will make my suitcase too heavy! Anyway, right now I am in the middle of Eye of the Needle, which you gave me for Christmas, Mom. It is pretty good so far; a bit more historical than what I usually pick up, but it definitely has me hooked. After that I don't know what I will read, but I have lots of choices now! 

Today Sandy and I went to Lahina and Ka'anapali and checked out the tourist area of the island. I had not been all the way over to Ka'anapali yet, so that was fun to see. We did a little bit of shopping and she showed me the hotel that she likes over there. It is the Ka'anapali Beach Hotel, in case anyone was planning a trip here. :) It looked nice; right on the water with a big garden area and lots of plumeria trees. We walked along the beach a bit and I saw people over jumping off of Black Rock. It didn't look so scary from a distance.. I'm sure that changes when you're standing on top of it though! After we were done shopping, we stopped in Lahina for groceries. Then we came back to Makawao. Now Cole is at work, Kevin and Sandy are going to meet some friends of theirs who are here on vacation, and I am going to hang out and make some more progress on my book! 

Tomorrow we are going to an outdoor music festival thing, and then some other friends of theirs on the island are coming over for dinner. Hope all is well back home! Aloha! 

Back to Reality

Sort of. I mean, I'm still in Hawaii, after all. :) 

Anyway, Monday Cole and I were going to go surfing again. Well, he was going to surf; I was going to sit on a board. But the surf didn't look good, so he said we shouldn't go. I ended up helping him change a tire on his car because one had a slow leak. The spare was rusted to the attachment, so I had to hole the tire back while he pried it off with a hammer. He had never changed a tire before, and I had, so I felt kind of cool. :) I'm sure he would have figured it out on his own, but I was there so I helped him out. Got my hands dirty and greasy and felt like a farm girl again! I didn't work on Monday, so I started looking for jobs in Ames or Des Moines for this fall. I mainly looked for openings, but I did fill out a couple of applications. Ideally I would like to work at Meredith, but the only things they had open either were not in my field or were senior positions. I'll have to keep checking to see if they open any more spots. 

Today I worked at the tutoring center for a couple of hours with Noah and Melia, two kids I've worked with before. I did reading activities with both of them. I am really enjoying the tutoring. I know I don't want to be a teacher and have a classroom full of kids, but I have a lot of fun with the one on one work. I got done tutoring at 12:30, and I came back to Sandy's house and finished my book. At three thirty I went back to Kahului to pick up Sandy at her office. I stopped at Kmart first and returned one of the swimsuits I bought a while ago. The return line took FOREVER! I was only the second one in line, but the lady ahead of my wanted to get ahold of Josie; kept asking for Josie; no one could find Josie. There were four people standing around trying to figure out where the heck Josie was, and not one of them came over to help the other eight of us in line! So that was super fun... They never found Josie, by the way. Anyway, I finally made it to the office at 4:30. Then Sandy and I went to the grocery store to get things for supper. We ended up having to go to two different stores, because the first one didn't have any chicken. One of the hazards of living on an island I guess. Now we are back at the house for the night. 

And an update from Iowa: We are done planting! Yayyyy!!!!! 

Waikiki Weekend

Sandy had to go to Oahu this weekend to officiate a swim meet. I tagged along to see another island and hang out at Waikiki beach! Our flight was early, and it only lasts 30-40 minutes, so we were done traveling by 9:00. We went to target first, because Maui doesn't have one, and Sandy looked for things to put in her student store. I bought a new suit, because Sister Laura said I had to. :) When we were done there we went to the Pali lookout. It is up on the mountain a ways, and it has crazy strong winds. The day we were there the winds were clocked at 68.2 mph. Here are pictures from the lookout. 

This is the wind tunnel. The fastest winds come through here. You could stand here and lean forward into the wind and it would hold you up. It would also take off any clothes that weren't securely on your body. A few girls were there in dresses and you really can't fight a 70 mile per hour wind if it wants to blow your dress up. I was glad I was wearing shorts. :) 

This is what my hair looked like after we made it back to the car. :)

We left the lookout and went to find our hotel. It was an old one right across the street from the beach, and it was a circle. We got a room on the top floor, and the view was awesome. 

Technically a "partial" ocean view. Good enough for me!! 

We brought our stuff inside and then we walked down and stopped at a restaurant called Tiki's for lunch. I had the Island Crusted Ono, which was a white fish served on purple potatoes with baby bok choy and an awesome citrusy chilli sauce. It was delicious. 

After lunch we walked back to our hotel, and on the way we stopped in a couple ABC Stores. These stores are everywhere along the beach. There's two or three in every block! They have pretty much everything you could ever want. Food, souvenirs, toiletries, clothes, jewelry, wine, etc. They were all packed full of anything and everything a tourist might need. 

We went back to the hotel and Sandy got ready to go to the pool where the swim meet was. I went down to the beach and just walked around and hung out for a while. I watched the surfers and I tried to tan my legs a little bit. :) Eventually I went to an ABC Store and bought a wrap for dinner (sorry Laura I mean supper) and I sat on the beach and ate it while I watched the sun go down. 

It was a really peaceful evening for me until a random guy started talking to me. It was no big deal really; there were lots of people on the beach still. But then he asked to read my palm and I was like oh look at the time! It's weird o'clock! And I went back to the hotel. 

On Friday, Sandy was gone before I woke up. Around 9:30 I had my suit on and I was heading out to the beach. I laid out and swam for a couple of hours, then I went back to the hotel and changed. I had to pace myself on the beach because I really didn't want to burn. I walked along the beach and shopped for a little while and ate lunch. Then I went back to the hotel and put my suit back on. I walked a little farther down the beach this time, and I swam and tanned again. 

This was my view for most of the weekend. :) 

When Sandy got back from the pool, we walked down to another hotel and ate at Duke's, a restaurant named after a famous Hawaiian surfer. I had a mai tai for the first time, which was delicious, and I ate opah, also called butter fish, that was fantastic. 

The mai tai. 

The opah. I think this was my favorite thing that I ate over the weekend. It was so good. 

After we ate, we went to the international market and bartered for a ring. That was a new experience for me. It was 10:30 by then, so I think they were about to close, which is part of the reason that we were able to knock 90% off the price. 

It matches my necklace. :) 

We also walked through a store called the Stupid Factory. They had some hilarious shirts and knick knacks. Here are a few pictures from that store. 

:)

Saturday morning I walked in the opposite direction of the beach and checked out all of the shopping that way. There were a bunch of fancy stores that I couldn't afford, like Prada, Coach, Chanel, etc. but it was fun to walk around in them anyway.there was a cool store called sand people that had lots of things for the home in it, but I didn't buy anything because Sandy told me there was a bigger one on Maui. I'll have to check that out sometime. 

When I got back from shopping, I went out to the beach again, this time with a raft, and I floated around in the water for a couple of hours. They have a sea wall in certain places on the beach, which keeps the waves from coming to the shore and kept me from getting pulled out to sea on my raft! 

At 3:30, I walked about a mile to another hotel because I scheduled a massage for 4:00. :) It was an 80 minute full body combination massage. It was wonderful. I was 110% relaxed after that. 

We ate at Ocean House for dinner that night. The restaurant opens right onto the beach, which was pretty cool. I had macadamia crusted mahi mahi. 

Blurry :( 

This was also very good, but it couldn't beat the opah from the night before. 

We walked back along the shore and did a little bit of breaking and entering. We wanted to wash the sand off our feet, so we found a hotel pool and went in there. I'm pretty sure if they didn't want people in there they wouldn't have made it so easy for me to open the gate. :) It was an awesome pool; there were lounge chairs in the water, a waterfall, and a slide. We were curious to see where the slide ended, because it was built above the water fall with a bunch of rocks. Again, if they didn't want people up on the slide at night they wouldn't have made the rope in front of the stairs so low and easy to step over. :) No worries, we didn't get in trouble.

Sunday (today) we got up and packed our things, then we went to Cheeseburger in Paradise for breakfast. I had pineapple pancakes, yum! We were ready to go early, so we checked out and went to the airport. I called home and talked to Dad and got to wish him a happy Father's Day and hear about their fun day and told him a little bit about my trip. Then we got on the plane and flew back to Maui! It was a very short flight. Less than 40 minutes. I took a few pictures as we were flying. This one is from my phone. I got some better ones with my camera that show two of the islands. This one is just ocean, but it's pretty. 

This was just when we landed. The mountains looked pretty so I took a picture. 

Kevin picked us up at the airport and now we are back! That is all for my weekend vacation on Oahu! Enjoy the pictures! I may be posting some from my camera on Facebook later this week. 

Catching Up! Monday - Wednesday

I apologize for being so behind again. I need to get better at this. 

So! Monday. I knew that I didn't have to work on Maui Family Magazine this week, so Sandy scheduled me to do some tutoring. I didn't have to be at the office until 3:30 though, so I did a little bit of searching online, and I figured out which nearby beach was a popular place for kiteboarding. I ended up at Kanaha Beach In Kahului. There were a bunch of people on the water when I got there. A few people were beginners taking lessons, most were average, and three or four of them were definitely advanced. They were jumping and flipping and doing all sorts of tricks. Here are a fe pictures from that afternoon. 

This is only about a fourth of the amount of surfers who were out there. 

This guy was doing some great tricks! He was jumping 15-20 feet in the air and flipping around. Another surfer tried to do the same, but he failed. It was more of a small jump and a botched landing. 

This picture I took just so mom could see this girl's GIANT lens. :)

I left the beach around three and went to Sandy's office. I was mainly observing, so I sat with one student and his tutor while they worked on reading. The second hour I did the same, except this time I did a few of the exercises with the student. After that it was time to go home. 

Tuesday I went to the tutoring center early with Sandy, and I read for a little bit until I needed to work. At nine thirty, I sat with a student named Ryder while he took his assessment test. I basically just had to read him some instructions and answer any questions he had about the test. I think Melia came in Tuesday too to work on math. I sat with her and Sandy on one of the days anyway. I'm pretty sure I came back to the house and read after that. I don't really remember...it was a long time ago. I think my age is catching up to me. ;)

I went to the office early again on Wednesday and I worked with Ryder on math. We did some adding exercises where he had to carry the one, and we did some large number subtraction problems. After that we moved on to fractions. He had to write a fraction based on the number of pieces shaded out of a whole shape or a group. They have workbooks and plans all ready to go every day, so I basically just take him through the activities and make sure he's doing it right and help him when he gets stuck or confused. After we did several activities with fractions, we tried moving on to some multiplication. This was pretty new to him; they haven't done much with it in school yet, so it was sort of an introduction. 

After Ryder and I were done, I came back to Sandy's house and did a load of laundry and packed for the weekend. I went back to the office at 2:30 and worked with Noah on reading. We read some stories and had to figure out the main idea, and we worked on learning some new vocabulary. 

A little after four, one of Sandy's tutors, Laura, came to the office to lead me to her house. She had invited me earlier that day to go to the Maui Film Festival with her and her friends. I was excited that she invited me, because she is really the only other girl I know here who is close to my age. I followed her over to her house, and we stopped there for a bit so she could feed her dog and pack blankets and jackets to take to the movie. The view from her house is amazing. It is up on a little hill, so you can see the town down below and the ocean from one side, and on the other side is a great view of the West Maui Mountains. I don't think I could ever get tired of those views. 

When she was ready to go, the two of us and her friend Nikki drove to her sister's office and helped her move some furniture around. Then we drove to Kihei and bought some sandwiches, wine, and sides to bring to the movie. Technically, you aren't allowed to bring in outside food, so we snuck it in inside our bags and blankets. I actually tweeted about how I was having fun with my new friends sneaking food into the movie and the Maui Film Festival retweeted it. I guess that means they weren't too upset with me. :) 

The movie they were showing on Wednesday was a documentary about Eddie Aikau, a famous Hawaiian surfer. They had a short "opening ceremony" thing before the show, with a chant/dance and some words from the family of Eddie Aikau. I know it is small, but you can see in this picture a few of the dancers. It was the first time I had seen any traditional Hawaiian dances, so it was really neat to watch. 

The movie was excellent. It was all about his life and his surfing accomplishments and his love of Hawaii. He was a life guard on Oahu, with a record of over 500 rescues and 0 losses. Pretty amazing. When he was in his thirties, he was on a boat sailing to Tahiti. Shortly after they left the islands, the boat got caught in a storm and flipped over. After waiting for hours and no help came, Eddie got on the surfboard and started paddling back towards shore. No one knows exactly what happened, but he never made it back, and they never found him. It was such an interesting movie to watch; I was hooked from the very beginning. 

After that film there were a few minutes of local people from different islands singing in a Hawaiian music video, and then there was a second film. It was probably 10:45 when the second one started, and I'm pretty sure I fell asleep right away. Oops! :) We left before that one was over, because we were all tired. Then the big challenge: driving to Makawao in the middle of the night! Ahh! Just kidding, I made it back just fine. I didn't even need directions! I got back to Sandy's house and got to bed around one thirty. I woke up four hours later to get to the airport and fly to Oahu! Yay!

Weekend Update

Alright, sorry I've been MIA for a while. It's been a busy weekend. 

I'll start with Friday. We went over to the west side of the island and I attempted to learn how to surf. Lets just say I won't be going pro any time soon. :) Surfing is not easy. I got into the water, and Cole jumped on his board and started paddling, so I hopped on mine and splash! Totally slipped off the side. Whoops. So I tried again, a little slower, and I managed to lay on top of the board. They float great, but they are narrow, so even just laying on the board you have to be balancing yourself constantly! At first, that was all I could really focus on. I started paddling out into the water, for the most part keeping my balance. Thank goodness the waves were small today, or I don't know if I would've been able to paddle out there! I have short arms, which makes it difficult to move very fast on a surf board. The majority of my time was spent trying not to fall off and paddling around when I started drifting with the waves. I tried to catch a wave a few times, but I was unsuccessful. I'm not very skilled at knowing when the wave is pushing me enough that I should stop paddling and stand up. I did finally get used to turning my board around, laying down, and paddling. Now I just have to figure out the standing part. Which should be simple, right..? :) I will definitely be giving it another try sometime soon. Here are a few pictures of the surfing adventure. 

Sitting and watching for waves to come in. 

There's Cole riding the wave. Clearly I missed that one... :)

This picture is awesome with the wave splashing up and Cole surfing in the background. Who knows where I am. Sitting out there somewhere I'm sure. You know, just balancing. :)

Saturday we all slept in a bit. I was exhausted from all that paddling and balancing, so the sleep was needed. Around eleven, Sandy and I went to Paia and looked at some of their cool shops. I found some really pretty stuff there. I didn't buy any clothes, but I definitely plan to get some things from there. I also picked out a few gifts for some people back home that I'm excited about. And I mailed Dad's present. Hopefully it gets there by the weekend! :) After we were done shopping there, we went to Kmart, because I needed a new swimsuit. I loved the one I had, but it was not sufficient enough to deal with the waves while surfing! I decided that I am a fan of one-piece suits. They stay on, and that's what's important! 

For dinner on Saturday we had grilled pork chops, and I tried lamb for the first time. Since it is a fairly common meat I don't think it fits under Matthew's category of "weird food" that I am aupposed to try. I thought it tasted pretty much like beef. After dinner we played a card game called golf. If anyone reading this used to ride the bus with me, it was almost the same as the version of golf we used to play on the ride home from school. I think Katie and I might have played it at home a few times as well. Out of the four of us, I got third. (I didn't lose, yay!) Kevin won, then Cole, then me. Sandy had the highest score. But she also holds the record for the lowest score, so I don't know that I could beat her again. :) 

Today, we went to the Wailea and Makena area again for the morning swim. The group they do this with is the Maui Pink Caps. (Most of them wear pink swimming caps.) I had a kayak again, which I think I am getting better at. I could actually steer myself around today, which I was not very good at last time we went out. I got a little bit of a tan I noticed, because I can see some crisscross lines on my back from my new suit. No bad sunburns yet, so that's a good thing. I got a little one on my shoulders last weekend, but it has turned a nice brown now. The water was so nice today, pretty flat when we started, although the wind did pick up a bit after we had been out there a while. The best part still is how clear the water is. It amazes me every time I'm in it. You can see everything! Cole got some great pictures worth the underwater camera. 

Sandy and I on our kayaks. 

Here is a picture of my kayak from below. Cole was diving around looking at the coral and the creatures. 

Fishies! 

This is a pufferfish swimming above some coral. 

Cole saw this while he was swimming. It's a pillow star. The other side looks just like a starfish, but puffy. Cole and another swimmer went down and picked it up and brought it put to show us. Fun fact about these things, they balance themselves, so when they put it back in the water, it immediately tipped itself over and floated down to the bottom. The star was on the bottom, probably about 15-20 feet deep. I'm glad Cole was the one getting it, because I don't think I can dive that deep! 

After we got home, everyone was just relaxing. I did some reading and then FaceTimed with everyone while they were having a bonfire. I'm definitely glad that we have that connection and I get to see everyone's faces. :) That's all for this weekend! I'll try to stay current with next weeks activities! 

News alert!

I'm about to try surfing. Stay tuned. 

It was my birthday!

So yesterday was my birthday, obviously. :) It was a very peaceful day. I slept in a little bit, then I did a little bit of reading out on the deck. Nicole came over after lunch and we got a few things done for the magazine. I wrote up a post to give away some sunglasses, and Nicole worked on trying to get some sort of contest set up to give away tickets to Sesame Street Live. She is coming over again today so we can do a little bit more with that. When everyone got home last night, we had dinner and cake, and Sandy gave me some Locals flip flops, so now I don't look like a tourist anymore! I fit right in! Minus the whole pale skin thing... :) 

This morning I drove Sandy to work in Kahului, then I drove back to Makawao. That way, I have the car in case I want to go somewhere. I might go over to Paia later, because I found something awesome to send to dad for Father's Day, but it's a secret!! So anyway, I drove by myself again today, this time for more than a few blocks! It went smoothly, and I didn't get lost (yay!). I still haven't quite figured out my cardinal directions around here. It's so easy to get turned around, because the roads are all so curvy! And there are so many huge trees up here on the mountain/volcano, so it really decreases visibility. I'm facing north right now, but I would've bet money that it was west. It hasn't been an issue yet, so lets just hope I don't get lost before I figure it out! Maybe I should buy a compass...

It rained a bit this morning, but it is done now and the deck is dry again, so I am going to go back outside and make some more progress on this book. Catch you later! 

Earthquaaaaaake!!

There was a 5.2 earthquake in Hawaii today. No worries, it did not create a tsunami. Nicole and I were sitting in Sandy's kitchen and suddenly the table started shaking! It only lasted for about 30 seconds, and we weren't even sure what happened at first. Then we saw on Facebook that it was indeed an earthquake. Crazy! 

Today was the first day of work for me. Nicole came over and showed me how to edit the website and how we can share files back and forth. I got it set up on the iPad and made a few drafts; just tried to get the feel for things. We tried to figure out how to set up a photo contest on Facebook, but it was a bit of a struggle. We haven't gotten it completely figured out yet, but it's in progress now anyway. I will most likely be in charge of managing the contest along with promoting it on twitter and the website, etc. 

We also did some brainstorming about some ideas for articles I could work on for the website. For now, I am going to work on writing something about ways to make Father's Day memorable and do some research on the "best of Maui." This is something that was done for Oahu in another magazine; they wrote about things like the best place for a picnic, and the best family friendly restaurant in Honolulu. Nicole would like to do the same for Maui, so I will work on figuring out what categories to use and what places fit those categories. 

Nicole is coming back tomorrow afternoon so we can hopefully make more progress on the contests that she wants to set up, and I can go over any research I have about those two articles. That's all I have for today! 

Working hard. Well, not yet.

Today was the first day that Sandy's office was open since the end of the school year. I went to Kahului with her to meet with Nicole about starting work for the magazine. 

We got to the office around noon, and I had some time to kill, so I drove to the nearby mall to check it out. (First time driving in Hawaii, woo!) I had some lunch and walked through the stores. It was the regular stuff, Macy's, sears, forever 21, etc. There were a few stores that I didn't recognize, but most of it was regular mall stuff. It was outdoors, so it got pretty hot, and I decided to head back to the office. 

On the way out, I passed a used book store, so I went in. Most of it looked pretty old, but there was some new stuff mixed in. I walked around a while; I would have just sat down and read, but there was zero air movement in there, so I decided on two books that I wanted. Two books for three dollars! Yay! 

I made it back to the office and I just hung out and watched some Netflix. Then a girl came in to the learning center to do an assessment, so Sandy had me sit with her while she took it and answer any questions she had about the instructions. She didn't need much help, so I just waited until she was done. 

After Melia was done with her assessment, Nicole came in. We talked about the magazine a little bit, and she asked me about school and what I wanted to do. We are meeting tomorrow, and she is going to show me how to update the website. I think I will be doing a lot of work right now on the social media aspect of the magazine, since there isn't a new issue coming out until August. She has some ideas for give-aways and contests that she is hoping I can manage through Facebook and the website. Once July rolls around, I will be doing a lot of editing, because that is when the articles will come in. I also will be doing some writing for the website right now. 

After we got back from the office, we went to Paia and ate at the flatbread pizza place. It was super delicious and the town was so cute to walk through. I saw a great place to get a painting for our apartment next semester. It is all locally done work, so I'm excited to go look around and find something to take home with me! 

Now we are back at the house watching the Voice. I do love Blake Shelton.. :) 

I don't have any pictures from today, but I realized that I forgot to post this one of me standing by the surf board fence! This was from Friday on the way to Twin Falls. 

That's all for today! 

Nude Beach!

Calm down, I wasn't on it. :) Apparently there is one on the island though. I'll come back to that. 

So today was the Sunday morning swim. A bunch of people get together and swim a few miles along the south shore. I can swim, but obviously I don't have a whole lot of experience with ocean swimming, so I was in a kayak. Sandy always takes her kayak out and escorts the swimmers and watches for boats and whatnot, so she borrowed her friend's kayak for me today. It was actually pretty easy to use once I got in and got the feel for it. Here is me on the kayak, soaking up the sun.  

The swimmers go to a place called the point, where the rocks come out farther and separate the beaches. Sandy and I went past the point, because she wanted to show me Little Beach. Little Beach is right next to Big Beach, separated by a small cliff/rock pile, and clothing is optional. O_O So basically it is a bunch of old dudes playing frisbee or whatever it is you do on a nude beach. So we had a good laugh about that, then we paddled back and met up with the swimmers on the way back to the beach where we started. 

When we got close, I got out of my kayak and put some goggles on to look around. It is crazy how clear that water was. From up on my kayak, I could see the bottom when it was 30 or 40 feet deep! Then with goggles under the water you can see everything! I swam around over some coral, and Janet, one of the swimmers, pointed out the state fish of Hawaii. It's called the humuhumunukunukuāpuaʻa. They call it the humuhumu for short. I also saw some pencil urchins and some black urchins that apparently you never want to touch. According to Janet, their spines break off in your skin and you can't get them out until they dissolve. Painful stuff. So I kept my distance from those. After we made it back to the shore, we were standing in the water and someone yelled something, so we all put our goggles on and there was a sea turtle! It swam no more than ten feet from us. So I got a little closer and watched it for a while. It was surprisingly speedy. You are not allowed to touch them, so everyone made sure that it had plenty of room to get where it was going. That was a pretty exciting few minutes. Here are a couple of underwater pictures that Cole took. 

After the kayaks were loaded, we drove into a town, Kihei, I think, and got shave ice. Not shaved ice. They call it shave ice here. They also put ice cream on the bottom and cream on top. Super delicious. I got strawberry and pineapple flavored with coconut ice cream. It's was excellent. 

We sat down by a little open-air market with a bunch of shops to eat them. That is where I saw this sweatshirt and I thought of Laura. :) 

Never gets old. :) 

Now I am back at the house, pretty exhausted from all of that swimming and paddling, and the cat is being pretty cuddly, so I think I am going to hang out with her and relax.