This is the yummiest little restaurant in Waimea Valley. This is the beautiful valley with pastures and cows and farmers. This restaurant uses locally grown produce and it was just the yummiest place. Ryan says he is excited to go back to Hawaii just to eat there again...ha ha The corn side dish at this place was amazing. Apparently it is specially genetically altered 'perfect' corn. I swear that is what our waiter told us!
Just kicking it by the pool. That is the tent my dad was sitting under until a lady came around and made him pay $50 bucks or get out of it because you have to pay to use them. It was funny. This was the day we worked on getting really tan by using our "maui babe" tanning lotion. I think it worked pretty well. I miss my tan, we are so white now!
Here we are in Volcano National Park. This is at the Volcano house where Ryan and I stayed for our anniversary.
Just checking out some natural stem vents.
The sulfur that creates all the vog in Kona.
There is lava only 60 feet below where that smoke is smoke is coming out. At night you can see it glowing orange. Now this picture below is of the actually lava flow that goes into the ocean. Pretty darn cool!
This is the day we drove around the whole island. It was really fun seeing everything on the island for a second time.
This is Waipio Valley. It is a really famous landmark on the big island. It really beautiful. Ryan and I actually hiked all the way to the back of it when we first got to the island. It was very intense.
And of course we stopped a Tex's Drive in to get some Malensadas. They are like a Portuguese doughnut. mmmmm, they were delicious! It was a really fun day!
We had so much fun when my parents came to visit us. This is the day we spent showing them our stomping grounds in Kona. They checked out Del Sol, our apartment, and all the stuff we wanted to show them!
This is what Ryan did every day. Well, not everyday but a lot and for sure every cruise ship day. He would sit out on the pier and hand out fliers trying to get people to go to our store. He would set up a little display and harass people.
And of course he got to meet all the crazy locals, like Jake the bum sitting next to him. He lives in a tent, hitch hikes to the pier everyday and makes baskets and hats out of palm tree leaves. Jake walks with a limp because he feel out of a tree while gathering leaves to make his baskets. Sad, huh.
The best story about Jake is the time Ryan, jokingly/seriously, asked him if he ever killed a man. And this is what he said....
ryan: "jake, have you ever killed a man?"
jake: "no, but i shot a guy in the knee caps once."
ryan: "no way, seriously?"
jake: "ya, this was back in my wild drug days when i was selling meth. some guy was trying to jerk me around so i shot him in the knee caps. It is so crazy to see how the leg just flings......ya, i miss my gun."
and then there was silence.....no, i'm just kidding, but Ryan was so amused by Jake. He always had something to say. When we left Ryan gave him all his Del Sol shirts. It's almost like advertising!
Our last night in kona we went to get sushi with our friends we worked with and then we went bowling. It was fun and we miss them....I still don't know about the whole sushi thing though. It isn't THAT good... :)
Ah ya, check me. This was on our Manta Ray night snorkel with Ryan's parents. Aren't wet suits funny. It was so weird getting into the big, deep, dark ocean at night and having to swim a good 50 feet to the spot we snorkeled at. Then these scuba divers went to the bottom and shined huge lights to attract plankton which is what manta rays eat. They literally swim 5 inches from you. It was really cool until I looked up and realized it was only me and three other people left out in the water. Everyone had already swam back. That was when it was really scary swimming out into the open sea back to the boat. This time the scuba divers with the lights weren't guiding me. But I made it safe and sound!
Our cute little Hawaiian apartment. Enlarge the picture to read what the sticker says. I swear that is how the locals talk, it is so funny. They say 'no' istead of 'don't' or they say 'no can'....it is pretty funny when you hear it on comercials and such.
This is the view off the balcony! Oh, it was such a little home sweet home.
This is the best shaved ice EVER. Mmmmm, sometimes I just start thinking about it and I want one so bad! It is a really famous place and it always has a huge line out the door.
This is a cute little restaurant we ate at. The Grass Skirt Grill, Ryan used to eat here when he lived there.
I unfortunately bit my lip sooooo bad. I was practically crying. It took forever to heal too!
We ate at lots of yummy places while we were there!
How ironic. We spotted this car in front of us while in Hawaii and we had to take a picture of it. Also I had a customer in the store once who told me i should buy a yellow Del Sol convertible and they sttoped making them in 1998 so i could get a really good deal. Oh they were pretty crazy and wanted like 10 free tote bags!
The famous north shore sign. The town is called Hale'iwa (pronounced hall-a-eva). Oh we had so much fun!
There were like a million kite boarders at this one beach we stumbled upon. It looked like so much fun, but really hard.
I'm pretty sure this is at Bonzi Beach, but I can't remember. But behind Ryan are the official Volcom Houses where there pro surfers for the Volcom team can live. Pretty nifty....
And this is at Sunset beach.......well at least I think. I can't really remember, but it's a pretty picture :)
The Dole Plantation. Yet another little history stop. It was cool reading about the start of Dole plantation and how pineapples grow. It takes so long, I really appreciate them so much more now.
The pineapple cutting demo. Learned a few tricks.
Eating the famous pineapple ice cream. It was really yummy, even though I wasn't even that hungry for it. But I had to try it....that's what you do at the Dole Plantation!
What a cute little baby pineapple! We didn't do the train tour, just got the ice cream, read all the free information boards and did a little walking tour of a pineapple garden and all the different kinds of pineapples. It was sure fun!
So this is the backyard of the house he lived in while he went to BYU hawaii (where the scary drunk hawaiian broke the window and came in and started beating up their neighbor because they parked in 'his' spot, thats a whole other post).
And they would park their car in this parking lot, and sometimes this gate would be closed, so they had to fit their car in between this opening. And it fit! Crazy huh!?
