Madre & Aunt Barbara's Visit - Week One

Well after months and months of anxiously looking at the calendar, waiting and waiting for Madre and Aunt Barbara to get here, they finally did!  

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Tues June 25th

They arrived! They flew all the way from Phoenix to Honolulu, and boy were their arms tired! <--- lol that was just for you, Madre.  (It's her favorite joke that she tells every time she goes in an airplane lol).

So our first day was pretty uneventful.  We came back to the house and I gave Barbara the tour.  Let them settle in.  We also made our calendar of events!  You know me, organized!  And I like to make sure we get in everything they want to do, instead of spending the morning planning on what to do for the day.  Woohoo structure!

Anyhoo, we fancied a field trip to Sam's Club, so we went and bought some foodies.  

After that we went and saw the first movie of their vacation:

MONSTERS UNIVERSITY!  Yay!  I really wanted to see it and figured I'd spare Rob, so Madre and Barbara agreed to take me.  Yipee!  It was adorable!  I loved it!  It will definitely be going in my Disney movie collection :D

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Wed June 26th

After a boring morning of taking care of car stuff, we headed over to the Swap Meet!  Madre and Aunt Barbara made out like little souvenir bandits!

After being in the hot, sweaty sun at the Swap Meet, we came home, cooled off and spruced up!  Then made our way downtown to the Halekulani Hotel.

They have a bar down by the beach.  Barbara came here way back in the day and really wanted to go again!

Definitely was a good idea, look at that view!

 Fancy pool!  Barbara actually had a poster of this in her bedroom, I remember it from when I was a kiddo.

Enjoying the first of her mmmaaannnyyy Pina Coladas

Madre with her virgin Strawberry Pina Colada

I ordered a virgin Mai Tai.  (I understand making it a virgin means I'm basically just drinking juice, but juice is delicious, so there).  Yeah, it was AWFUL!  In place of the dark rum, they used iced tea.  Who does that?!?  Bleck!  

So I joined Madre's team and traded my nasty Mai Tai in for a tasty tasty virgin Strawberry Colada.

This is a century old Kiawe Tree, it's been sheltering visitors to Waikiki since 1887!

Glorious sunset :)

Just a couple of snapshots of pretty flowers that they had around the hotel

The beach at night

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Thurs June 27th

On our trek to the east side of the island, we stopped here...

Sooooo delicious!  You can be jealous, it's ok!  Malasadas are Porteguese Donuts, but they don't have holes in the middle.  

We got 3 regular with cinnamon sugar and then one with custard filling, one with a chocolate filling, and one with Haupia (or a coconut cream filling).  Yum yum yum!!!

Chillin' with the sharks at Sea Life Park

The ever adorable sea turtle!

Awww Aunt Barbara and Madre posing in front of Manana Island

You can see Makapu'u's Lighthouse off in the distance

Dolphin show!

Another show in the Ocean Theater

That's me helping out with the show!  The Dolphin and I are waving to each other! 

:D :D :D

The cutest little penguin.  

Not gonna lie, I had to force myself to stay in my seat.  I really just wanted to snuggle this adorableness!!!

Sea Lion show!

At the touch pool.  Madre touching a Sea Star

And a Sea Cucumber

Barbara touching the Sea Cucumber

And the Sea Star

Me touching the Sea Urchin.  It was spiny, but not horribly pokey.

After Sea Life Park, we visited Halona Blow Hole

And saw a cute lil Sea Turtle surfing the waves!

A close up shot 

(you can click on the picture to enlarge it)

After the Blow Hole we made our way to inland...

A little history on the treacherous Pali Road

How it looked back in the day... I probably would of opted for the longer canoe ride lol

But it sure is green and lush!

A little more history about one of the battles King Kamehameha I fought against Maui warriors while he was trying to unite the islands.

What a horrible way to go, huh?  Yikes.

This picture gives you a little better perspective on how steep these cliffs are!

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that it was CRAZY windy!  Look at my face! LOL And my braid is going straight out!

A plaque remembering some fallen Airman.

It's amazing how nature adapts to its surroundings!  Look at what this tree has done to live in this immensely windy area.  Fantastic!

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Fri June 28th

A few pictures from our hike to Waimea Falls

 We had a Peacock for a traveling companion on part of our hike :)

A turtle at Turtle Beach?!? Who would of thought! ;)

I love these creatures!

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Sat June 29th

A late afternoon picnic at my favorite beach, Ko Olina Lagoon!

We swam, ate, and relaxed until sunset (it was also the day after Rob's duty day, so we left him to get some much needed rest.  Especially since he'd been working 14 hour days the whole week.  Poor guy.)

Gorgeous!

After a nice relaxing time at Ko Olina, Rob and I took Madre and Aunt Barbara out to dinner at Dave & Busters and to see a movie.  We saw, "The Heat".  It was pretty hilarious, though I could of gone without a lot of the language and the throat part! YUCK!

Well, this concludes our first week!  Week two, here we come!!!