Hawaii - Part 1

It is so weird that is already Thursday, I keep having to ask people what day of the week it is, seriously such a great feeling and a true vacation!  My flight was uneventful, I was the lucky one who got to bring all of the paddles with me, the check in process at LAX was an experience and I am so glad I do not travel on a regular basis.  When I arrived they did have a seat for me so I just hung out hoping I would not get bumped off the flight.  After getting seven different seat assignments I finally landed in the exit row, hello leg room!  It was awesome, only one person next to me and and all the free space to move around in I was in airplane heaven.  I arrived in Oahu and met up with some of paddling peeps, hung out there for awhile and made my way to Kona a couple hours later.   It was a long day and the time change did not help things, once we settled in we grabbed dinner at Poncho Lefty's and called it a night!

Leg room!!!

That is an interesting way to spell Erin!

After a long long day, this is what tired looks like, midnight our time.

much needed, but it tasted gross.

Yesterday, was a tad bit rough, I had a horrible headache and sore throat all day long, so it made things a bit more challenging.  We went to Honaunau for a little snorkeling adventure, it was pretty neat but I have decided I am not much of a snorkeler and I would rather body surf or paddle in the ocean than snorkel.   After the snorkel trip we toured the City of Refuge and then ventured back to Kona.

Good morning, this is what we woke up too!

Some of our peeps!

A new job opportunity?

Getting ready for the race!

After all of our outings for the day I came back to our place and took a much needed nap and then headed out for dinner.

This morning I was feeling much better, we headed down to the beach for a little paddle practice, had breakfast, bought a few race t-shirts, napped and now we are getting ready to head out for the night.

Oh so good!  I was soooooo hungry!

Aloha!

Keep Calm!

Another busy weekend for documenting!  After my darn near two day nervous breakdown on Thursday and Friday I made it home in one piece to the disastrous place I call mine.  Laundry, dog hair, dishes, junk, you name it, it was there and I finally decided to wave the white flag and surrender, I watched a little tv and then crawled into my bed.   

Saturday we had our second to last 9man race in Oceanside, my crew rocked the Open Coed Unlimited division and brought home the gold!  I paddled and steered the race which was awesome, however the freezing water was not so awesome.  There is nothing worse than jumping from a nice dry boat into cold water, but hey it is all in the name of fun!  I had never done a water change into an unlimited boat before, so needless to say they were not pretty but I made it into the boat so I call that a win.  

I love this picture, because this is exactly the way my life is right now!

After the race I jumped into my car and drove home so Ken, Mr.Pie and I could make it to the Rancho Mission Viejo Rodeo in San Juan Capistrano.  We scored some good seats in the shade and enjoyed all of the events, my favorite event is the calf tying, it sounds horrible and but it is so thrilling!

Ya, it is pretty wild there!

They have such a nice grass area out there and the sun was just right to play around with our shadow's! I think this is the first photo of the three of us. 

Sunday, we all headed to Baby Beach to hang out with the Ferguson Clan.  We brought out the SUP board and OC-1's but it was way to windy and not good conditions to let the kids go out there so we loaded everything up and went back to my place (where there was no wind and it was soooo much warmer) and let the kids swim.

There are no words for this girl!

The boys took the stand-up board out together, they did really well paddling around the harbor together on it.  Cole was using my canoe paddle and Mr. Pie had the SUP paddle, they were moving pretty fast and able to follow me around on my canoe.  I'm so glad they get along so well and that they are at an age where they can do fun activities like this.  Mr. Pie had so much fun, he was sound asleep by 7pm!

This might be on of my favorite instagram photo's!

Today I have a whole list of items to take care of.  I have packed my suitcase and I was up till 1am doing laundry and cleaning house, I know that is way to late to be running the vacuum (sorry neighbors) but I needed to get this stuff done!  This is my list of stuff to do today before I leave tomorrow morning.......

I need to buy tie downs for my GoPro

Go to the bank

Get a pedicure

Buy new flip flops

Get some snacks 

Buy bubble wrap for all of our paddles

Go to Home Depot and buy some straps, duct tape and rope just in case we need them in Kona

Locate my sunscreen

Take Gracie to camp

Pack some movies

Buy a case for my laptop

Iron some shorts

As I was typing the list above, Ken sent me this picture, talk about timing! 

OMG, I totally forgot to mention my Starbucks caught fire the other night and is closed until further notice, my worst nightmare has come true.  

Well, I am off in the morning, I cannot wait, I cannot believe it is actually happening, our team is off to an amazing adventure together!

Blog updates from Hawaii if I have time, you can always follow me on instagram @ recgirlem.

ALOHA!

The Next Time......

There is nothing better than saying to some of your best friends "the next time I see you, we will be in Hawaii"!  Last night after practice as we were all leaving it finally dawned on me that I am going to get to spend my vacation with some of my best friends, it really does not get much better than that!  We have a week of fun planned in paradise and I cannot wait!  This summer has been soooooo busy and stressful that I have not had a moment to think about my upcoming vacay and it is starting to sink in that I really am leaving in just a couple days.   I have gotten everything ready at work (except, I found out yesterday I have to go to work on Monday for a few hours) and now it is time to catch up on weeks (yes that is plural) worth of laundry and housekeeping, get a pedicure, maybe hit the mall for something new to wear and pack.  Lots to do, but it is so worth it, I cannot wait, see you on the sand with a fruity cocktail in hand everyone!

And the fun keeps coming!

The fun never stops!  I had a three day weekend this past weekend and honestly it felt like I had not been to work in a month come Sunday night due to all of the weekends activities.  It was go go go all weekend long and I am starting to become fearful of the day I do not have anything planned, cause what will I do with myself?  Friday, I took Gracie-girl to the Vet, she was due for some shots, so it was quick and easy, she was not too excited about it but whatever dog, you need to be vaccinated to go to camp so get over it.  After the Vet, Ken and I met up at Baby Beach in Dana Point for some paddling, we took his new boat out and I may or may not of tried to convince him that his new boat should be my new boat, for some reason he was not convinced!  We paddled for a couple hours, had lunch, cleaned up, ran some errands and had dinner at one of my favorite places, King's Fish House, yum yum was it good!

Ken and his new boat!

We are ready to roll!

No Oysters for me!

Lobster Roll = Delish

Saturday was a long practice, about 20 miles of paddling with a nice dolphin show mid practice, after practice I jammed home, so I could shower and make it to wedding #4 of the summer.  The wedding was at 4:30pm in Pasadena, we were kind of nervous about traffic especially with the freeway closures going on, so we left at 1:45pm and got there about 3:45pm, so we stopped and went to the most ghetto Flame Broiler ever!  It was so funny walking in there all dressed up, I'm sure everyone was looking at us.  While we there, they had total trash tv on, it was amazing that someone actually thought that what they were showing was appropriate.  We arrived to the church after a much needed food break and met up with a bunch of Ken's friends, it was nice to meet some of his peeps, especially since he knows a lot of mine.  95% of the ceremony was in Armenian, so I have no idea what was said, what they did and why they did certain things, the reception was very interesting, bright lights, gaudy decor, Armenian techno music all night long (I wanted to shoot myself all night long) and enough unidentifiable food to feed an army (I stuck to salad, beef and veggies, I knew that stuff was safe to eat).  I quickly turned into the designated driver as Ken and his fellow buddies discovered the bottle of Kettle One Vodka on our table, lets just say it was almost empty when we left and Ken was barfing the moment we got home!

We had over an hour between the ceremony and the reception, so we stopped at the Glendale Galleria for a cocktail, martini's, yes please!

Inside the reception hall!  Yep it was quite colorful all night long!

When Ken was still smiling!

Sunday was family picnic day at Baby Beach (cause I don't spend enough time there), it was a blast!  I brought my OC-1 and Ken brought his stand-up board and we took enough pictures to fill at least ten photo albums!

Best shot of the 5 kiddo's!

 

Look at them last year!  I think Cole wore the same shirt this year.

Mike's first ride on the boat.

 

Cousins Derek and Caroline

Ryan, Caroline and Shannon

 

No life jacket for Caroline (she can swim), this created an uproar amongst some of the beach patrons, especially when Cole jumped off the board and Caroline started to go in after him!

Mari's first time standing up on the board!

 

Way to go Cole, such a good paddler.

Paddling all three kiddo's!

 

He is the best!  Ken spent the afternoon shuttling Mari around the harbor.

I'm going to pretend I do not see Mari sitting on parts of the boat that are not meant to be sat on!

 

Super DAD!

Auntie Janis and Ava

 

Cornhole!  Super Dad built it for us, now we need to paint it!

 

Look at that form!

 

Ken and I!

 

All cozy after a long day at the beach.

 

What a great day at the beach, everyone seemed to have a wonderful time, the OC-1, stand up board and cornhole game seemed to be a hit, looking forward to next years picnic.