Friday, July 26, 2013

Catchin' Waves

This past week was our big trip to Hawaii. We spent a total of four nights in Honolulu/Waikiki, and four nights on the North Shore if Oahu. We spent a lot of time walking and exploring the first day. We spent a lot of time trying to find a good, local place to eat, but were disappointed that most everything was a chain that we had at home. We ended up at Arancino for lunch and McGillyCuddy's for dinner. The next morning, we headed to the North Shore for surf camp.


Our first day surfing was good, but I'll admit i was a bit disappointed at how small the waves were. We took a hike our first day on the North shore. Once we reached the top, we had panoramic views of Sunset Beach and Pipeline. From our condo, we could walk to Turtle Bay, and caught the sunset as we walked along the reef.


The next day, I was able to catch two waves on my own while surfing, which was exciting since that was one of the things we worked on at our last surf camp in Costa Rica. We went stand up paddleboarding that evening with the sea turtles. I was amazed at how many there were and had to make quite an effort to stay the required six feet away.




I was able to try a smaller board for the rest of the week, and I enjoyed having the challenge. It was a bit more wobbly, but I felt more comfortable by the end of the week. That night we went on a sunset catamaran ride, and after the ride we ate in town at Haliewa Joe's.


The next day we went for an early stand up paddleboard trip in the ocean.


We also went to the weekly farmer's market and had the most amazing ice cream sandwiches. Mine was lilikoi (passion fruit) ice cream with orange zest cookies.


We ended the day listening to live music at Turtle Bay while watching the sunset and drinking a Mai Tai.

Throughout the week, we also spent a lot of time at the pool hanging out and reading. We took yoga twice and had our first real massages. There was a photographer in the water with us on our final day surfing, so we were able to get some close up pictures.



Our first day back in Honolulu, we started the day at Pearl Harbor.


We had the opportunity to take a boat out to the Arizona, which was pretty interesting.


We spent the afternoon snorkeling with fish and sea turtles. We agreed that this was a highlight of the trip. The turtles were so close and there were tons of fish.



We did a ton of walking the next day on our excursion to Leonard's Bakery and Diamond Head Crater. Leonard's is known for their Portuguese Malasadas. We couldn't decide what to get, so we ordered one of each!

Our hike up Diamond Head was much busier than I expected, but we did manage to get a few pictures at the top.

We ended our last full day at the Paradise Cove Luau.



Overall, it was a nice trip, and I'm glad we had the experience of going.

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Eatin' Street Food

Yesterday we did a walking tour of street food in Denver. We visited five different locations, some of which we had never heard of. We took the W line light rail for the first time.

The first stop was Caveman Cafeteria. They specialize in Paleo food but do have several "Cheat Day" exceptions. Their target audience is Crossfit members, and they got their start with Kickstarter earlier this year.

Wagyu Beef Slider on a Pretzel Bun w/ Demiglaze

Bistro Steak w/ Mushrooms and Demiglaze

Our next stop was Basic Kneads Pizza. We have tried them before outside Prost Brewing Company and liked them so much we went back for a second pizza. My favorite that we tried on the tour was the Sweet Thai Chili Chicken. The 16th street setup is their newest and is equipped with a full wood burning oven. In order to accommodate the ovens, they build the trailers themselves in a backyard.

Pepperoni & Margherita Pizza

Next up was Biker Jim's Gourmet Dogs. We've heard of them several times and seen them on several Food Network/Cooking Channel shows, but had never tried them. We tried four different types of sausages. My favorite was the wild boar with apricots and cranberry. I knew they had some unique menu items, but didn't expect to be eating rattlesnake.


Biker Jim's exotic menu.

The "Off the Menu Special"
Pheasant and Rattlesnake w/ Cream Cheese & Coca Cola Onions

Our dessert stop was Petey Bird Ice Cream Sandwiches. This is the company's first summer. It was interesting to hear the owner left his engineering job to pursue ice cream sandwiches and he designed the bike cooler himself. The original "mini" size sandwiches come two to a package, or you can upgrade to a large. I would love to go back and get two mini packages so we can have two different flavors.

Peanut Butter and Chocolate

Chocolate Chip Walnut and Banana

Our final stop was EVOO Marketplace where we sampled tons and tons of specialty olive oils and balsamic vinegars. The combinations were endless, but we ended up purchasing two we've had before due to their versatility. In the future, I might like to buy a fruitier balsamic.

Overall, it was a good day and I'm glad I bought the deal. I was feeling a bit guilty for skipping kickboxing, but I think it's more because I enjoy going and missed it. It may have also been because I was on a great workout streak and hadn't missed a day in July. I'm still not sure if I'll go again since I won't be going for the next three weeks and it was only a ten week deal. We finished off the evening running some last minute errands for our Hawaii trip. It's almost here!

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Movin' Dirt

This was a successful weekend working on the yard. Because of the holiday, we had four full days to work and accomplished a ton. Eric had fun driving the Bobcat to level the yard. I even had a turn and moved a few strips of dirt. I'm not too happy about having to take down the fence to get the Bobcat in, but I am realizing it was the only way for us to level the yard.

Me having fun driving the Bobcat.

I hope the fence goes back up soon.

We underestimated the amount of dirt we had and ended up needing to order a dumpster. We moved approximately eight tons of dirt into the dumpster, along with some miscellaneous items we've been meaning to get rid of.
We moved about two-thirds of this pile into the dumpster.


That's a lot of dirt!

We spent the rest of the weekend measuring and digging a trench for the retaining wall. It won't happen before we leave on vacation, but I'm hoping we will be able to put the wall in soon after returning. Eric had to dig out the old sprinkler system, so we also have those trenches.


I also researched and contacted a few companies to look at redoing the deck. After spending so much time around it, we are noticing it is much more unstable than we realized. I think it will be good to do everything at once. I was concerned that having the lower part of our yard look really nice would emphasize how bad the deck looks. Even though we are nowhere close to being finished, it feels good to accomplish something. Not only are we saving money, but it's easy to get in a workout everyday.

I am thinking this would be a good project to showcase in my classroom this year to show how math can be used in the real world. I think I'll post some of the in progress pictures along with open ended questions, just to get the kids thinking and to perhaps realize that math can be applied in real life.

I finished booking the last of our Hawaii activities, and am really looking forward to my extended trip in Washington. In addition to surf camp, we will visit Pearl Harbor, attend a luau, and snorkel. I also feel good about the list of free activities I found that we can fit in whenever we would like. There's something about the anticipation beforehand that really adds to the fun of going on vacation.