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Showing posts with label Kailua Beach. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kailua Beach. Show all posts

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Happy Half-Birthday, Dan! (oops)


Funny story: I wrote this blog post last summer (Dan's birthday was August 2), and just realized it was still in "draft" mode. Better late, than never, I guess. And so I thought the half-birthday (today) was an appropriate day to finally "publish" the post.

Happy 26.5th birthday to my husband!

We moved into our apartment at the end of July, and Dan's birthday is the beginning of August, so we were still settling into our new place. On the day before Dan's birthday, I gave him a couple gifts to open early because we wanted to BBQ a home-cooked meal. I bet you'll never guess what the gifts were...grill tools + accessories for our new grill (which was a gift from my parents). 
The grilled tuna and kabobs were delicious! And Dan's already loving his new grill. I'm sure we'll get a lot of use out of it this year, since we can pretty much BBQ year-round. Yay!

Dan's birthday was during his ER rotation, so he happened to have his birthday off. What a special treat! We had a relaxing morning at home with Syd, complete with more presents and of course, Jamba Juice.
Note: Dan's got quite the sunburn action going on...hehe
Then, we spent the day at Kailua Beach...with Syd. We feel guilty going without her now, especially since we know how much she loves it.
For dinner, we took the recommendation of our neighbor, and tried Roy's - a delicious restaurant in Hawaii Kai. When I called to make a reservation, I mentioned we would be celebrating my husband's birthday, so they had a little hat waiting for him. It was a wonderful evening celebrating a wonderful guy.
The complimentary birthday dessert was chocolate (which Dan doesn't like) so he ordered a different dessert and I got to eat his birthday dessert!
We still can't believe we live in Hawaii and got to celebrate both of our 26th birthdays here. Our 26th year will undoubtedly be spectacular!

Happy birthday, Dan! I love you.


Friday, August 31, 2012

Kindness


My brother was our first visitor to our new home here in Hawaii.  He was here for 10 days, and we explored so much of the island in that time.  We wanted to make his first trip to Hawaii memorable, and it certainly was.  [I will blog more about his visit later.]

Towards the end of his visit, he and I met up with a new friend to go stand-up paddle boarding at Kailua Beach Park.  [Side note: It is so much harder than it looks!] 

Shortly after we paddled out, I noticed Jon's sunglasses were missing.  They had fallen off his head and consequently, were now at the bottom of the ocean.  He didn't seem to mind, though, since they were just a cheap pair he had bought for the trip.  However, when I noticed the missing sunglasses, I had a brief moment of panic because Jon was also carrying our underwater camera (the one that Dan had just bought...see the last blog post) and I feared it had the same fate at his sunglasses.  So I called out to make sure he still had the camera.  He did.  We were good.  

Time passed.  We paddled pretty far out.  We fell on and off the boards.  It was a great morning.
  
Until... 

Jon realized what I had initially feared = the camera was no longer in his pocket. 

My heart sank.  I could have cared less about the camera.  It's a material possession.  It can be replaced. I was more concerned about all of the pictures we had taken from his trip to Hawaii that could not be replaced.  

So Jon, our new friend, and I tried to quickly devise a plan.  Jon was going to stay put in the ocean.  He believed that the camera had just fallen out of his pocket, so it couldn't have been far from his current spot.  Our new friend was a very good swimmer and could open her eyes underwater, so she began to look around beneath the surface.  I paddled back to the shore to try and find someone who would perhaps let us borrow their snorkel gear so we could better see underwater and possibly find the camera.   The first few people I asked spoke very little English and/or they did not have any goggles.  I was getting discouraged, but I continued to walk along the beach.  I finally came across a couple who was willing to help. They were headed out to snorkel anyway, and they gladly responded to my request to help us look for the camera.  What a blessing! 

From there, the couple met my brother out in the ocean and they all began to search for the camera.  I sat on the beach with the paddle boards.  And as I sat, I prayed.  I knew it was a "trivial" prayer request, but I prayed that somehow we would be able to save our pictures.  

Time passed.  More time passed.  They swam out pretty far and everyone made a valiant effort to find our camera.  But to no avail.  It was nowhere to be found. 

RIP Camera

Obviously, my brother felt horrible.  And I was sad. But I tried to encourage him. I wasn't mad at him at all.  It was an accident! And I totally understood that.  It could have easily happened to me if I were the one carrying the camera.  Even though we had lost several pictures from his trip, we were thankful for the memories and opportunity to experience all we had done in the first place.  Plus, we had several other pictures from other cameras to document his trip. Nonetheless, my brother insisted upon buying us a new underwater camera, which was extremely generous of him.  

This all happened about 2-3 weeks ago.  

Fast forward to this week.  Dan texts me from work telling me to call him ASAP, which I now realize is a horrible thing to text someone! See, Dan typically doesn't get cell service at work, so I had gotten used to not hearing from him throughout the day.  So a text of this nature immediately sent me into panic mode, thinking something was wrong.  Thankfully, nothing was wrong, but he was calling to share a very strange voicemail he had just received.  It was from an unknown number. The woman left a message saying she thought she had found our underwater camera! What in the world?! We both were shocked.  Even if this were true, we were baffled at the thought of someone not only finding the camera, but also how they would have tracked us down.  Our name wasn't on the camera.  And even if it was, certainly our contact info wasn't.  We were so confused.  So Dan passed on the number and suggested I call to inquire.  

I called the number and a pleasant voice answered.  I explained how we received her message about the camera.  She was so excited I had called back!  Her husband had been snorkeling at Kailua Beach, and he found the camera.  He took it home and dried it out and they were able to view the pictures! Apparently, they had looked through the pictures and seen a picture of Dan in his Army uniform.  Then  they noticed a stethoscope in another picture.  From there, they somehow found Dan!! 

While on the phone, we made a plan to meet up at a local grocery store so she could return the camera.  And she ended the conversation, by saying, "And don't worry, I know what you look like so I'll be able to find you..." Totally weird slash creepy, but I met her yesterday morning, and got our camera back! (I took a friend with me to meet her just. in. case.) 

I'm still not exactly sure how they found us (and if it wasn't such a random act of kindness, I would have been way more freaked out), but I was certain God had answered my "trivial" request.  Of course, His timing was different than mine, but He heard me and He answered me.  He cares about even the smallest details! 

Here are two underwater pictures that were rescued (so thankful!):

Yes, that's a real shark. More on that story later!

Cute, lone sea turtle just swimming along.


Friday, July 13, 2012

Sydney Goes to the Beach


Sydney (like most dogs) absolutely loves:
- People
- Going for walks
- Going for a ride
- Swimming
- Playing fetch

These things made us super excited about taking her to the beautiful (and many a pet-friendly) Hawaii beaches when we found out we were moving here.  They also made us super apprehensive.  When we first arrived, we hesitated taking Sydney to the beach for these exact reasons + a few others:
1. Sydney loves going for a walk almost to a fault - she pulls like you wouldn't believe.  She's been easy to train in so many ways, but there's something about her excitement getting in the way when she's in a new place. Not to mention when you add car rides and people in the mix. 
2. We were living in a hotel and all that that implies (one room/space, sandy/wet dog...no thank you)
3. We were renting a car at first (see #2)

Every time Dan and I went to the beach without Syd, we felt really guilty (especially because it meant she was stuck in the hotel room).  We knew she'd love it, but had no idea how she'd behave.  We'd enviously watch other dog owners and their dogs at the beach.  (I'm pretty sure one day we were obviously staring at this lady, jaws dropped) Perfectly trained dogs.  Totally ignored people walking by. Didn't take their eyes off their master.  Stayed nearby off the leash.  

After a while, we finally realized we had to try it.  We wouldn't ever know how she'd behave unless we took her.  We had it all planned out.  Our cars had made it safely to Hawaii, so we bought a sheet at Target and along with some towels, we covered the backseat of Dan's car.  We now had the apartment with a fenced in backyard + hose and planned to give her a bath before heading back to the hotel. And...Kailua beaches are pet-friendly!

So, here's a recap of Syd's first trip to the beach...

First, days prior, she sat very patiently while we switched out her old collar for a fun, surfer-dog, collar. She was pretty darn excited about it. 
Days later...arriving at Kailua Beach Park.  At this moment, we were regretting the decision.  The beach (sand+people+water) was now her sole focus. 
Nevertheless, we continued on.  But we knew taking her off the leash (or even letting go of the leash) was not an option.  
As I mentioned earlier, Sydney loves to swim. She would spend hours in my parent's pool during the summers, and we would frequently take her to Presque Isle in Erie (very far down where there were no people) and let her swim in the lake. She had also visited VA Beach, but never swam there. So even though she was a great swimmer, she had never swam in the ocean before. Her reaction to the waves (even though they were small) was so funny. You could tell she didn't know what to think of them at first. But eventually, she got used to them. She and Dan swam for a while and I sat with our stuff and took pictures. 
We could tell she started to get tired, so we all took a break to sit in the sand. Eventually, she calmed down, drank water, and rested. She even patiently sat while Dan buried her paws in the sand. So cute. 
After an exhausting (but better-than-we-had-expected) afternoon, we headed back to the apartment for her to get a bath. She loved her new backyard and ran around drying off for a bit.  
I think this will be her new favorite spot in the house...
After she was dry, we headed to our friends Kelly and Andy's house for dinner. They have a house in the same town as us, and they have two labs. One of my Erie co-workers had given me Kelly's name when she found out we were moving to Hawaii, and Kelly was an invaluable resource throughout the moving process. I emailed her a lot. With a lot of questions. And it was incredibly helpful because they made the exact same move (with dogs) just a few months before we did. Anyways, not only were they kind enough to invite us over for a home-cooked meal, but they also opened the invitation to Sydney so she could run around the yard with their dogs. Sydney definitely had a big day!

With Sydney's first Hawaii beach experience, we learned some things that worked and some that definitely didn't. We've since taken her back a couple of times, and each time she's done better and better. She's quite the wave-jumper now!