We can't get enough of Waikiki!

We love Waikiki! It's definitely the most fun on halloween but regardless of when it is there's always something to do. We spent the day at Ala Moana beach then walked the strip where we found a gold man!!

He's painted with some sort of gold something or other and looks like a statue. When you walk by and are looking at him trying to figure out what he is, he moves and scares you to death! It was pretty cool.

There was also a guy there with his 4 pet Parrots and let us hold them! Scary!! Especially since the one on my shoulder wanted to eat my sunglasses!

Random Sighting:

Dear Saadia,

Saw this and thought of you!!

Stalkers, Please Identify Yourselves!!

Our blog has been up for just over a week now and we already have almost 600 views!! CRAZY! This can only mean one thing, there are some people out there as in love with our blog as we are! Although we're pretty sure the majority of our blogs hits are repeat visits from our mom's we know that can't account for all of them....so...

Who are you? We love you! As you can see to the right, we've added a guestbook, and hope all our faithful stalkers will sign. We love you and thank you for motivating us to document all our crazy adventures and not let this be one more thing we start and don't maintain.

P.S. We're open to any suggestions you may have of things you'd like us to do or go see for you since you can't be here. We're also open to things you want us to go do purely for your entertainment. If you want us to try and catch a hammerhead pup and use it and a hammers head, we'll do it. If you want us to go cliff jumping, we'll do it. If you want us to set up a lemonade at a surfing competition at the pipeline, let us know. If you want us to do a documentary on the homeless here in hawaii, speak up. If you want us to pitch a tent and live as if WE were the homeless people in hawaii, tell us. If you want us to grow dreadlocks and perform with our Ukulele's and thumb piano on a Honolulu street corner, communicate that to us. If you want us to not shower or shave for the rest of our time here, don't be shy. If you want us to dress as a shark and educate people on their behavior, sign in and holla!!

We're at your service...so long as you sign our guestbook!

Got it? So...sign in, tell us what you think, what you want, and know we love you!!!

Love/Hate Relationship with Sand.

So, I've found that sand and I have a very love/hate relationship.

I wake up in the morning with sand in my bed and LOVE IT for reminding me that I just woke up in paradise...again. Then I'm laying on the beach and a dog runs by and kicks it up and into my eyes and I HATE IT cause It might have just caused me to be visually impaired...permanently. Then I'm rinsing the sand off my feet and LOVE IT because my feet are unusually soft and smooth. Then when taking pictures I realize my lens cover wont entirely close due to what other than sand damage. I HATE IT!

I'm amazed that something as miniscule as sand, a grain of which being just 2mm in diameter can go from being a nonexistent factor in my life to now be evoking so much emotion from me on a day to day basis.

How does it get my skin so soft? How does it get into a closed bag? How can it be so little but do much? How come no matter how thorough you are rinsing off an hour later you'll find some sand in a place you know you washed??? How can sand be so dry, light, flimsy and out of control but also be thick, mucky, strong, and craft-able? I can't keep it out of a closed bag but someone else can manipulate it into a stunning sculpture?

I'm perplexed.

STOP EVERYTHING & MEET CONNIE & SANDY!

Here are two Doctors you need to get to know. Before going any further take a minute to get to know your two new best friends, Connie & Sandy. You'll be seeing a lot of them.

Happy Halloween from Waikiki

Halloween on Waikiki Beach...does anyone else see a ghost in these clouds??? How appropriate.I was not anticipating liking Waikiki Beach so much. Although there was a lot more going on there than at local beaches in Kailua; kayaking, saling, fishing, swimming, etc, it still wasn't nearly as crowded as I thought it would be.

Hanale recommended we go there to try paddle boarding because a huge portion of the bay had a cement wall built round it, offering the perfect conditions for both first time paddle boarders as well as sharkphobics like myself. It helped me be in the water with some peace of mind. Although a tiny part of the wall was open for boats...which just made me wonder well if a boat can get through then can't a shark? And if a shark did get through and there was a wall around a lot of it would it be hard for him to find his way back out? So could there be sharks trapped in this area???

Even with my fears we still rented a board and gave it a shot. Here's a sneak peak complete with some good wipe out footage.

We paddle boarded about until sunset then it was time to put our costumes on and let Connie and Sandy paint the town. We'd heard Waikiki would be fun and boy was it true. The streets were jammed with thousands of people. All of them dressed up. All of them entertaining. And all of them so friendly! It was unbelievable! We had a total blast and are gonna start a new tradition and come to Hawaii every year for Halloween! Anyone else want in???

Connie & Sandy's night on the Waikiki strip was complete with, VIP seating & free appetizers at PF changs for being in the medical field, some lessons on our ukulele's, and free street corner check-ups for the locals. Check out the video at the bottom.

Pineapples & the Pipeline!

Dole Plantation, Killer Tacos, Turtles at Laniakea Beach, Shaved Ice at Matsumoto, Banzai Pipeline Surfing, Laie...needless to say, today was packed from start to finish. We hit the road headed for the Dole Plantation but not without getting lost a couples times along the way.

We finally got there and it was awesome! It's got the train tour, how to cut pineapple demo's, delicious fruit and ice cream, pineapples from tons of different countries, and the world's largest maze.

This is the trunk of a Painted Eucalyptus Tree. That's really the trunk but it looks like someone painted pinks, oranges, and green's on it. It's pretty cool.

While we were there we took the time to get to the bottom of some common myths about Pineapple that you've probably been wondering about...you're welcome.

(be sure to pause the music at the bottom of the blog before starting these videos)

Then we were off. Oahu is a relatively small island but the roads are also small causing it to take a little while to get places so lots of time is spent in the car. Which is fine cause we love jamming to the same 10 songs they play on the radio here. That's one funny thing, I swear we really hear the same songs everyday over and over and over with a random local hawaiian song every once in awhile. We hear Leona Lewis’ Bleeding love & Alicia Key’s, No One, at least 3 times a day...but don’t take my comments as complaints, those are two of my favorite artists and favorite songs....to me that’s just one more thing to add to the PRO’s of living in Hawaii list I’ve been working on.

Today was especially fun to jam since we'd just purchased our Ukulele's and thumb piano and could rock out with them on our way up to the North Shore. Before hitting up the main attractions we swung by Matsumoto to get their world famous shaved ice. The best thing about that is that they put a nice scoop of icecream at the bottom then put the shaved ice and flavored syrup on top. The worst part is the container is not sturdy enough for a slow sipper like myself.

Continuing on our North Shore Adventure we stopped at Laniakea beach where Brooklyn volunteers protecting the sea turtles that come bask in the sun on the beach. We happened to catch 5 at the time we stopped which is pretty great since usually there are just a couple. We also caught one heading back out into the water which is another rarity; to really see them up and about moving.

Anyone who knows Oahu knows you can’t drive the north shore without stopping at the famous Banzai pipeline to checkout the local crazy surfers riding some of the biggest waves in the world. The waves there don’t even compare to those in Kailua. The water was raging. I was too scared to even go into my knees. Just looking out you could see their power and I wasn’t trying to test the ocean.

As we looked out on the open ocean and those huge waves we had a scary thought. There aren’t any Islands to the North of Oahu so looking out off the North shore you're looking at all there is pretty much until the North pole...or atleast Alaska! Is that not a scary thought.

Watch these crazies...don't they know this is where all the sharks are?? Maybe they need a friendly reminder.

After the pipeline we drove through Laie which might just be my favorite part of the Island. It's so rural and untouched in many places. As I get older and think about the types of places I’d want to live I’ve been quite surprised to find I gravitate towards the more rural/country/farmy areas. Funny since I grew up always in cities or suburbia central type places. I’ve never lived in rural areas but I love all that land, space, sky, and the slow friendly pace that comes with it. That’s what I love about Laie.

Then we drove through BYU Hawaii, the other BYU that rejected my application : ) and headed back down to Kailua via the Kamehameha Highway which drives the entire 23 miles back to Kailua along the beautiful coast! AAAAAHHHHH another day in Paradise!

Good Morning Kayak!!

How does an early morning kayaking excursion sound? Sounds good to me...and it's even better when the ocean is your backyard as is the case with Brooklyn. That's right, her backyard is the Ocean! It doesn't get much better than that. So we had a sleepover, woke up, had breakfast and hit the water.

We met 2 locals who were surfing and paddle boarding off Kailua Beach where we kayaked to. Kyle and Courtney. They gave us some good tips of things to see while we're here.

One not so much of a highlight was when we hit a huge wave and flipped the kayak....I'll let Brooklyn add to this post on that topic. I'm still too traumatized to go into any details other than that I cried to the point of laughing then laughed to the point of peeing, then peed to the point of laughing then laughed to the point of crying.

Hey Guys, this is Brooklyn. So heres my perspective. I knew Ceri was apprehensive of the water because of her shark phobia. I was confident that the kayak wouldn't tip. All we had to do was make sure the braking wave didn't crash on the kayak at an angle causing us to lose balance . As long as we went straight into the wave I knew we'd be good.

So were doing just that and it's going smoothly. We're talking with Courtney, our surfing friend, and I see that she's getting ready to catch a wave. I see that we're in front of her so I move the kayak to get out of her way. BAD decision. Next thing you know the wave broke on us and Ceri screams "OH GOL". We're in the water, kayak is flipped, with oars, water bottles and my flip-flips everywhere. I'm laughing but know that I have to be somewhat serious because I know Ceri must be freaking out. She really doesn't like the unknown ocean. I look over and she's parallyzed, curled in a ball hugging the kayak for dear life, laughing/whimpering uncontrollably. After we get our laughter somewhat under control we attempt to get back in the kayak. It was important that we get in quickly cause the waves could continue to brake on us making the situation worse. Ceri is reluctant to release from her ball position because of her fear of sharks mistaking her legs for a sea turtle. Shes not budging, so I try pushing her bottom into the kayak as she's still in the fetal postion. My efforts are of course useless and we're laughing even harder now. We finally make it in safely. No sharks attacked us, but IT was a close call.

We saw lots of sea turtles in the water right there. They sometimes go up onto the rocks to soak up the sun and we were hoping to catch some on video doing just that but today they were swimming it up. We did however catch one on tape in the water for you. A HUGE one!

Here are some highlights:

Today's Frontpage

Today we spent some time planning what we're going to want to do and see when we Island hop next month to Maui and the Big Island. A MUST SEE thing for the big Island is it's active volcano where we're sure we'll see some lava. We're sitting there talking about it and the front page of the Honolulu Advertiser is brought to our attention.

Apparently it's been rather active lately and the lava is seaping over onto the roads in some nearby areas! We've got to see this.

This picture wont be too clear but this was the photo.

It's a U.S. Geological Survey photo and the Caption reads, "Lava crawls across the Kalapana access road, creating a Halloween portrait of orange flames and black smoke from burning asphalt. The lava lobe late last week was about 200 yards west of the county's lava-viewing trailhead, which remains open. To reach the road, the lava burned through a kipuka, or a long surviving island of vegetation.

I can't wait to see it up close!

The Muddy hike

So we headed out early today for a hike up to Maunawili Falls, one of the few waterfalls on Oahu. In the beginning it was great. The paths were beautiful and the greenery was breathtaking.

Brooklyn finds a pretty flower!

A little bit later it proved to be a bigger challenge than we were up for. We hadn't taken into consideration the fact that it rained last night. We got about 20 minutes up the path before we realized it was gonna be more muddy than usual but decided to keep going and cross the streams and what not even though the rocks were VERY slippery. I was a little apprehensive at first but Brooklyn's background with a Recreation Leadership major helped. Knowing I was with a pro put me at ease.

Look at her balance...so impressive.

CLICK PLAY BUTTON BELOW TO WATCH THE VIDEO:

About 40 minutes into it the mud was getting bad and we saw the warning signs that we might not make it out alive...

Brooklyn had done the hike before and knew some steep parts were still ahead that we'd never be able to get up with this amount of mud so we headed back. Tragic.

I only fell once but still ended up covered in mud, sweat...

& mosquito bites.

We spent the rest of the day beach bummin it...