Paige Visits Hawaii!

Posted on October 11, 2016 by sandersnm

This past week Paige came to visit! She was our first visitor since we moved back and we had a great time doing a ton of fun things on the island.

We spent her first whole day on the North Shore. Started with sky diving, enjoyed some shrimp and corn from the food trucks, saw some turtles, and had shave ice. After all of that, we were even able to muster enough energy to head into Waikiki for dinner.

There she is!

She made it!

This guy was huge.

So pretty..and delicious

Sunday, we went on one of our favorite hikes — Kuli’ou’ou Ridge. We’ve hiked this multiple times and this was the first time we ended up covered in mud.

Action shot.

Josh the monkey.

Found this guy on the trail.

Loved how the clouds were hanging over the mountain.

Paige and the stairs.

Made it to the top!

After our hike, we went to spitting caves to see what the waves were doing. They didn’t disappoint!

And now we’ll do a little jig.

Great waves!

During the week, Paige entertained herself with Pearl Harbor, visiting Kauai and some yoga. The next weekend we went on an ATV tour at Kualoa Ranch, which was a BLAST. This was our first time doing this and we can’t wait to do it again! The weather was beautiful and we had a great tour guide.

First stop Godzilla footprint to the right.

Cows enjoying life.

ATV Selfie!

Paige taking it all in.

Paige failing at the shaka.

Run for your life!

Bunker..half WWII museum, half movie museum.

Insanely nice weather.

Not ready.

Chinaman’s Hat.

Tantalus Lookout

Pu’u Ma’eli’eli Trail

Posted on September 23, 2016 by sandersnm

Two weekends ago, we finally went on our first hike. It was less than 10 minutes from our house and super muddy. The view was amazing and well worth falling down (twice).

Before shot. Clean shoes.

About five minutes in.

One of my favorite shots.

Looking at our place!

Quite the view.

And after.

Oahu 2016

Posted on July 12, 2016 by sandersnm

Only about four months late in posting this, but Josh and I went back to Hawaii for his spring break in March. After a long flight, we got some poke and then crashed.

Fave, spicy tuna!

The next day I volunteered at the Boys and Girls Club. It was so wonderful to see how much the kids have grown and for them all to jump up to ask to be in my group for the field trip. Oh how I missed them! After a day full of volunteering, we headed to the Farmers’ Market for dinner.

Soccer golf with the kids.

Ahi tuna nachos and lemonade!

Friday I was off for a day at the beach with the kids. Unfortunately it ended up being a rather rainy day so we headed back a bit early. After volunteering, we tried Uahai Island Grill for dinner (new place for us!).

Still can’t walk in a straight line…

Furikake Calimari

Garlic Chicken

On Saturday we met up with my dear friend Jenn in Diamond Head for some lunch and an açai bowl. We decided to drive around the island and dream about where we would live when we moved back on day. We finished the day with my favorite, shabu shabu!

FIsh tacos

Açai bowl

Shabu

Sunday we headed up to the North Shore to watch the waves. First stop, was Giovanni’s for shrimp. After stuffing ourselves, we sat on the beach and watched the waves and just relaxed. We tried Tokoname (recommended by our Airbnb hostess) for dinner — another new place for us!

Vegetable Tempura

Ahi

Monday was my last day to volunteer and we spent it at the clubhouse doing crafts. Always so hard to say goodbye! For dinner, we met our friends Tia and Mark to catch up!

Kalua pork with kale

Haupia Sweet potato pie. Incredible!

Tuesday I finally had some time to hike (and it was of course raining). To wait out the rain, we had Lanikai juice for breakfast and just relaxed. After being stuck inside, we ventured out for lunch at Buzz’s Lani Kai. It finally stopped raining, so we did a quick hike to Makapu’u Lighthouse. I’ve done this more times than I can count and it never gets old.

Calimari

Steak salad

Burrito

Excited for my bubble smoothie!

Wednesday we got to hike the Pāli Puka! This had been on our list when we lived there but we were never able to complete it. The views were absolutely gorgeous (helped that we had a perfect day as well). For lunch, we went to Kalapawai cafe in Kailua then home to shower for a night in Waikiki.

Babies!

Coconut shrimp

Duke’s salad bar

Mai Tai

Such an iconic picture.

Love the flowers

On our last full day, we hiked up to Lanikai pillboxes. It was SUPER hot and incredibly crowded. We treated ourselves to a poke bowl as a reward for lunch and went to hang out on the beach. We packed up to leave on Friday and then went to the Farmers’ Market for dinner to meet some friends.

Dreaming of beautiful houses..maybe one day.

Edamame and poke, never gets old.

Lanikai Beach

Not nearly as good as the North Shore.

Gluten-free corn chowder!

On our last day, we packed up and checked out of our Airbnb. Our last meal was shabu shabu (of course).

And with that, another Hawaii trip in the books! A hui ho!

The Big Island: Trip 3 – Day 2

Posted on October 29, 2013 by sandersnm

Our Sunday began with waking up and (for me) still being shocked. We spent some time calling family and friends and telling them the big news! After that, we checked out of our hotel and headed north to Waipio Valley to spend the day there.

Waipio Valley was the childhood home of King Kamehameha I. There are about 100 residents in the valley now along with taro fields, a ranch, rivers and wild horses. The drive into the valley was incredibly steep at a 25% incline. Luckily for us, we had a jeep and were able to drive all the way down and explore. Our trip to the valley included driving through a river, seeing wild horses and watching the waves at a black sand beach. It was beautiful!

Panoramic of Waipio Valley.

Black sand beach at Waipio Valley.

The road into Waipio Valley.

More of the road down.

The switchbacks up the mountain to hike into Waimanu Valley.

Wild horses in the valley.

Driving across the river.

More of the switchbacks.

More of the wild horses.

Black sand beach.

A jeep shot for Josh.

So happy!

The road on the way back up.

Family Fun at Manoa Falls

Posted on October 25, 2013 by sandersnm

As one of our last activities before Jan and John left, we hiked to Manoa Falls and enjoyed the birds, flowers and waterfall. As someone who usually hikes this pretty fast to get to the endpoint, it was so good to hike with Jan and John. Since they had never hiked it before, they took the time and kept their eyes open for exotic flowers, plants, etc., which made me slow down as well!

Pretty purple flowers on the vines.

Love this photo.

Jan and John in the tree arch.

I <3 Tropical Flowers

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Pink Torch Gingers

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Our beautiful pink torch gingers from Molokai!

Molokai: Trip 2

Posted on August 25, 2013 by sandersnm

On Saturday, Josh and I went back to Molokai to do some things that got rained out on our first trip (we also got rained out two weeks ago when we tried to go back). We landed around 6:30 a.m. and headed to the Kualapu’u Cookhouse, which is where we had breakfast when we landed last year. We split the best breakfast sandwich we’ve ever had and some french toast (it reminded me of my mom’s). A great way to start our day/trip.

Delicious french toast!

After breakfast, we headed towards Halawa Valley for our hike (the main reason we came back). We FINALLY had amazing weather. It was bright and sunny and we could not have asked for better weather. We took our tour with Molokai Flowers. I feel like they have become my best friends over the past year…I’ve ordered multiple boxes of flowers from them and have emailed back and forth trying to set up this tour. They are absolutely WONDERFUL! Kalani’s son gave us the tour and we had the trail and the waterfall completely to ourselves. It was so serene and peaceful…a very special place! After we hiked back, we had two different types of smoothies that Kalani made us from fruit on his farm. They were incredible! He even gave us some lilikoi to take back to make our own smoothies. They also gave us some beautiful pink torch gingers to take home. Some of the most beautiful flowers I’ve ever seen!

The start of the hike.

Loved this pretty flower.

Huge snail!

This tree felt like a sponge…and it wasn’t rotting..it was alive!

Old Hawaiian oven.

Shampoo gingers

All of the old walls from the ancient Hawaiian settlements were still intact. Pretty incredible.

Tons of fruit. There were HUGE avocados littering the ground.

The waterfalls!

We got to boulder hop!

A tree growing out of the rocks in the river.

Mountain apples.

We made it! So serene.

There were some caves across the pond.

Josh checking out the writing/pictures on the rocks.

Old writing on the rocks.

SO beautiful!

The valley.

The biggest banana flower ever!

Smoothie time!

Some of Kalani’s flowers.

The beautiful pink torch gingers that Kalani and his wife gave us!

After filling up on smoothies, we started to head back to grab a late lunch. The drive is so incredibly beautiful (even better not in the pouring down rain). It also makes the road to Hana on Maui look super easy. The road is mostly one lane…but there’s not much traffic. We stopped at Mana’e Goods and Grindz for some chicken katsu. We had this on our last trip and it is the best chicken katsu I’ve had. After filling up on smoothies, we decided to split lunch.

They valley.

The waterfall we hiked to.

Panoramic of Halawa bay.

An example of the many hairpin turns!

Maui in the distance.

Delicious chicken katsu!

After filling up, we headed towards the Kalaupapa Lookout and the Phallic Rock. With the weather being so gross the last time we were there, we didn’t get a chance to see either of these. The view from the lookout was incredible and the rock was…well phallic shaped. Women would come here and make offerings and pray for fertility. It was set in a beautiful forest and was a nice, quick walk.

I don’t know why, but I liked this sign.

Kalaupapa National Park below.

The sheer cliffs…we rode a mule down them!

I have no idea what he’s doing…but I found this picture hilarious.

The lighthouse.

The settlement.

Josh.

Phallic Rock.

After we finished, we headed to check in at Hotel Molokai. It was interesting. I think in the winter when it wasn’t so hot it would be fine…however, there wasn’t much of a breeze and it was pretty hot out..no AC and only a fan meant we wouldn’t be sleeping very well. We dropped off our stuff and headed to grab a quick bite to eat before we got HOT BREAD! We couldn’t wait to get bread…it was actually the reason we decided to stay the night and not just make it a day trip. The stuff is so good…last time we got strawberry jam and cream cheese. This time we got the works: cream cheese, strawberry jam, blueberry jam, cinnamon and butter. It sounds iffy but it’s incredible. We took most of it back with us (and have been eating it periodically throughout the day). After that, we headed back to the hotel. We were supposed to leave around 8:45 in the morning, but decided to stand by and leave around 7:00 a.m. since we knew we wouldn’t be sleeping anyways. Excellent decision. There were only nine people on our flight! Our trip was a complete success and it feels great to cross off another island!

The clouds while the sun was setting. So beautiful!

So good!

The bread with all the good stuff on the inside.

Red Gingers. Love!

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Josh bought me beautiful red gingers on Friday. It’s amazing how happy tropical flowers can make you 🙂

The Hawaii Nature Center

Posted on June 26, 2013 by sandersnm

Today for work we went to the Hawaii Nature Center to explore the trails there. We spent over two hours fishing in the stream, observing the plants in the area and searching for “decomposers” (bugs such as millipedes, beetles, roaches and worms that decompose the leaves and make soil). It was really cool to learn all about the different types of wildlife in the stream. We caught tons of freshwater shrimp…they are incredibly small..and see-through!