I woke up around 9, and didn’t hear any noise coming from the front room, so I went to check on my niece who was still fast asleep. We finally woke her up around 9:45, but she fell back asleep until around 10:15 when we woke her up for good by putting an ice pack on the bottom of her foot.
After a nutritious breakfast of grilled cheese sandwiches, My niece and I picked up a couple energy drinks and then hiked up Manoa Falls. The hike takes me between 20-30 minutes one-way. We made it up to the top in 2 hours. Not because she is out of shape, but she is curious about everything.
“Hey Trav, what is that?”
“Graffiti.”
“What does it say?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who wrote it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did they write it?”
“I don’t know.”
“How long has it been there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Isn’t it illegal to graffiti?”
“I don’t know.”
We reached the bottom of the waterfall and she wadded in up to her hips, but there were little tiny fish and tadpoles in the water which freaked her out. We made it t the bottom of the hike in 15 minutes because she was sprinting and jumping off of everything.
We got home, had some more grilled cheese sandwiches, changed clothes, applied sun block, and waited for my niece to finish her episode of Friends and then we went to Waikiki and took surfing lessons. We had to wait about an hour for an instructor to free up, so my niece and I played in the water.
We got a crash course on how to stand up, how to paddle, and how to fall off the board, and then we were out in the open ocean waiting to catch a wave. Once Rebecca got the hang of it, she was doing a really good job. My niece, who had never touched a surfboard looked like she had been surfing for years. I caught a couple waves, but my arms and shoulders wanted to stop working after about an hour. Paddling is hard work. I told Rebecca that if I did this every day I would be in great shape. I could have that “V” shape in my lower abdominal that women seem to find sexy instead of the “U” shape I currently have. I tried to catch one last wave, but just as I was about to stand up, I saw a pair of eyes as wide open as genetics would allow staring at me. A tourist was right in my way, and standing up would mean hitting him square in the chest with the front of my board. I jumped off, scrapped my foot against the coral and then came up for oxygen. The blood from my foot was quickly attracting the attention of curious ocean critters. Luckily we were a mere 20 meters from the shore, and the bleeding was no more than a paper cut. Our time with the boards came to a close, but my niece wanted to play in the waves, so she splashed in the shore break whilst Rebecca and I sat in our chairs and watched.
We went home, got cleaned up and headed to California Pizza Kitchen for dinner. I ate way too much because their pizza is not good second day pizza, and because I was so hungry. I thought about asking to be wheeled back to the car because I was so full, but I managed to waddle. We went to the grocery store for some bread, butter, cheese and soda, and then we went home where I laid on the bed taking short panic breaths so as not to disturb the food baby gestating inside of me.
moving to Hawaii 