Time to catch up

Wow, I have so much to write about, it's hard to know where to start! Midway was the trip of a lifetime. It's such an amazing place and I can't wait to share it with you. But, we'll start with the fun Sarah, Michele, and I had during their visit to Oahu last week.

The girls got to Honolulu on Wednesday around noon and we spent that day catching up, seeing Waikiki, eating puka dogs, and cooking dinner and chatting the night away at the bunkhouse. Our first outing was to Hanauma Bay on Thursday.



As you can see, it's unbelievably gorgeous and generally has good snorkeling. Unfortunately, the water conditions were a bit rough, so we couldn't see all that much. I'm not a big snorkeler anyway, I get panicky about the breathing, but it was a great day at the beach. The weather was a bit windy, but beautiful for the most part.



And here are my girls upon seeing the beautiful place we'll be spending the next few hours. Hanauma Bay is one of two places where I've felt like Dorothy walking out of the black and white Kansas farmhouse into a Technicolor Oz - all of a sudden your whole world is colorful. (Buchart Gardens in British Columbia is the other)



Our trip to Hanauma Bay ended with an unusual sighting - the nasty mongoose! These awful creatures were brought in to deal with Hawaii's rat problem in the late 19th century(rats were introduced to Hawaii via shipwrecks). However, there was one problem with that solution: mongooses are active during the day and rats are active at night. So instead of ridding Hawaii of rats, mongooses wreaked havoc on native species and continue to eat the eggs and chicks of endangered birds, so the folks I work with have a special hatred for them.



The picture isn't that great because the buggers are fast, but if you click and can zoom in you can see it a bit better.

More to come: shave ice, Shark's cove, kayaking, and as always, malasadas!