The last weekend in August

My hubby had a surprise for me last Saturday and Sunday; he was gonna take me somewhere he'd gone before, but knew it would be a new experience for me.

All I knew was that we were headed towards the North Shore. I was super excited until I realized that there was no SD card in my camera! Nooooooooo! So we stopped in Hale'iwa town to pick up our 2GB of memory to capture the days events.

[Pic, top: famous Hale'iwa sign / Pic, below: cop on an ATV on thefamous Hale'iwa bridge]

Hale'iwa was busy as ever with tourists. And the roads seemed a little backed up, but we attributed it to tourism and slowly made our way to our goal destination...Waimea Valley.

This is where you can walk through about a kilometer of preserved Hawaiian native plants. There are rare birds, and at the end of the hike you get to see Waimea Falls. Here are some of the pics we took along the way...

We didn't swim because the falls was low, and the water seemed a little stale murkier than he remembered, so maybe next time. It was a nice hike; flat, not too long both-ways, not too crowded. We didn't get to see the endangered bird that lives there, the 'alae 'ua (Hawaiian moorhen), but we saw that pekake (peacock) and chickens of course, and a few others. The highlight of course was waiting for hubby to walk all the way back to the falls to find the car keys - oh boy.

On our way back, we stopped in Hale'iwa again for some dinner at Cholo's Mexican Restaurant. It was either that or the Thai food truck, which I'll have to wait for. I was craving some goooood Mexican food for sure. The were out of tamales, so I got fish tacos (ahi). It can be hit or miss with fish tacos, but they were loaded, very yummy. Plus, they had a few hot sauces I had never tried. Some burned, some didn't, but it was all good. We checked out a little surf museum and several surf shops, then headed to Sunset Beach Park to watch...the sunset. (haha)

We were shocked to see the swells happening - it's still summer! Not sure why, but there were freak swells crackin' and we watched for at least an hour, until the sun was gone. We don't even have a rack on our car to bring the boards, but we wished were good enough to surf there in the first place...someday! That will be one of our goals while living here.

The sunset was gorgeous, but the ending was a bit stifled by some clouds on the horizon, as usual. Still got some great pics and even some with surfer silhouettes - nice.

One last look...

...and then we headed home.

That was Saturday. Here is Sunday; more simple, but still awesome:

Went to our new church, met a couple people that seemed interested in actually seeing us to say hi again some other time (I dunno, just got that vibe). Then we went grocery shopping and got all the goods at Safeway. Had some good eats at home, then took a nap. THEN we got ready to go SURFING. Geared up with board shorts and SPF 85, we grabbed our boards and headed to Waikiki. We were ready to go! But the waves were not. It was completely flat!!

We didn't let the moment go: we bought some extra cheap goggles and paddled out to do some "diving" and look at the reef and fishes just off shore. That was a lot of fun. When the waves aren't coming in so constant, you can see everything down there. Just FYI, we did find Nemo. (wakka wakka)

Some waves started to pick up (about 2-footers), since the tide comes in right after sunset. So as the sun was setting, we joined the dedicated surfers who had been out for hours catching what they could. I caught a lot of those little waves and stood up every time with the pink and orange sky behind me.

To satisfy our newly grown appetites, we grabbed some dinner at the burger joint my boss also owns, called Teddy's Bigger Burgers in Waikiki. Heard it was really good, even back in Washington, but we put them to the test ourselves and boy did they passed. Really really good burgers; we'll be back for sure! Of all the burgers we've had here so far, Teddy's has been the best by far.

We decided to walk around the block since my honey at a double 9-oz patty burger - yeah, yikes. We stopped at a part of the beach where Indiana Jones was playing at an outdoor theater screen. So awesome! Wasn't a fan of the movie, but it was cool to sit in the sand under the stars and moon with all those people, just watchin' a movie. Then we rented one on our own, and it was all a perfect end to a perfect day.

Corny, I know. And much longer than I thought it would be! It was like two full days of being on a date with my husband; we don't get a lot of those opportunities, but now we'll be looking for them.