Hawaii: Day 3

Happy Father's Day to Eric! Celebrating in Hawaii... not too shabby! (Of course, I have no clue where I packed his Father's Day cards... hoping they are found quickly and didn't get left at home!)

View from our condo's balcony

We started out the day at a wonderfully lazy pace. We played cards, ate a casual breakfast, and unwound. Around 9:30, we wandered to the pool for a little fun in the water. It was already warm outside, so the water felt amazing! Annika said today was the first day that really felt like vacation. Up until today, we were moving at go-go-go pace and today was anything but that. It was slow, relaxed, and peaceful. No timelines, no deadlines. Just island time!

Eric, Conor, and I opted to walk across the street to take a peek at the beach (Kamaole Beach Park I) and local stores/restaurants. Conor had a great time playing in the sand and in the water (his shorts were soaked by the time we headed out). We saw rain off in the distance to the south and the wind was unrelenting. Because the rain was to the south and the wind was from the north, we figured we'd be fine, but decided to head back to the condo just to be safe.

The sand was so soft and not a barnacle in site.

Eric enjoying the soft sand under his feet

Conor's sand art

Threatening sky to the south

Happy feet!

This afternoon, I decided to make the most of my warm weather opportunity and parked myself on the balcony to read and eventually work on a crossword puzzle. After awhile, Annika joined me and quickly became my crossword teammate. Thanks to her 7th grade geography lessons, she knew the answer to the clue about a landlocked country in Southern Africa (Spoiler: the answer was Botswana). Conor decided to join us after a bit and was also a lovely team mate ... if for no other reason than his completely random guesses, even without knowing the number of letters in a given answer. While the kids and I diligently attacked our puzzles (yes, we moved on from the first one to a second one ... until Annika hijacked the book when she realized there are also word searches in it. 

While the kids and I were outside puzzling, Eric took nap and enjoyed all that is vacation time! (If I didn't fear it would mess up my night's sleep, I would have also napped.) I think the rather frantic pace of the past few days caught up with him. 

We eventually, like we suspected, we did get a bit of rain, but it was nothing like what we get at home. It didn't stick around for long, but it sure upped the humidity! We got enough rain to fill the air with that oh-so-familiar smell of damp earth and to up the humidity enough to make the air feel a bit thicker.

Our evening was like the rest of the day - rather unstructured. We happened to watch The Incredibles 2 as a family simply because we happened to find it on TV. It was fun to just relax for a bit and be together. No laundry, yard work, cleaning, or errands got in the way. Chillin' out was the name of the game. 

For dinner, we got take-out from JawzMexican Grill, which is about 2 blocks from the condo. It was one of the places Eric, Conor, and I came upon when we were on our walk earlier in the day. I had their fish tacos (yum). Conor was over the moon that they had "nacho fries".... basically, nacho toppings on French fries instead of tortilla chips. He was thrilled ... the rest of us were unsure of that combo. Annika had a taco salad, and Eric sampled their nachos. We had very full, very happy tummies!

Around 7, Annika and I headed to the beach to watch the sunset once we realized the view would be much better from there than it was from the balcony. (Boy, were we right about that!)

Sunset from the balcony

Obviously, I'd been to there already but it was all new to Annika. The great lack of rocks on the beach stunned her. Sand! There's so much sand! She loved the warm ocean water as much as Conor did (no shock there!) and came back with rather soaked clothes, too. (Again, no shock.) The sunset was stunning. The sun's colors reflected on the shimmering sandy beach each time the waves retreated. One unexpected difficulty  that I encountered while photographing the sunset was the fact that my viewfinder kept fogging up... going from AC to humid beach wasn't the best in that department. Oh well... vacation troubles are easy to work through! :)

Beach gals 

Happy girl in Hawaii

Sunset looking north at the West Maui Mountains

Sunset Palm Trees