Anniversary, Christmas and my birthday!

December 6th was our full 1 year anniversary. (meaning we hadn't broken up or anything:) ) Nic took me to Lahaina where we stayed at a beautiful hotel right on the ocean. It was amazing! He took me out to dinner at Penne Pasta where we had delicious pesto pasta, salads and garlic bread. After which we wandered around town looking in the shops where he bought me a gorgeous plumeria necklace. (I will be posting a picture later!) The next day he surprised me with a couples massage which was AMAZING!! We had a fantastic weekend away! Oh AND Nic bought me an iPad which I love!!!

At the restaurant!

Heading down to the pool and hot tub!

View from our deck.

Yummy shave ice!!

Be jealous Micah!!! You would love this stuff!

Right after the amazing massage!

Yummy chocolate cupcake!

Pretty pictures I got from my sisters!

The week after our anniversary we went to the Aquarium which was so cool! I saw real life sharks!!! SCARY! We were going to go see The Tourist but Nic wasn't feeling well so we decided to call it a day.

A few days later we were on the beach in Paia and I had my purse stolen! I ended up getting the purse back but the thief had taken our camera, video camera, Nic's phone and both our iPods. It was a terrible day! :(

The next Saturday we went to the mall and bought Christmas presents for friends, family and ourselves! We also saw The Tourist which was FANTASTIC! Such a great movie and well worth seeing! On Christmas day we went to Wailea with the other wwoofers (Pam, Peter and Brendan) to Secret Beach which was absolutely gorgeous! We then went out to eat and had delicious sweet potato fries and vegi burgers. Next we went to see The Little Fockers which was very entertaining! 

Unfortunately I have no more photos to add as we have been unable to take any pictures! We did however buy a new camera and just got a memory card for it so new pictures are coming soon! Today is my 20th birthday. (I feel so old :( ) Nic and I went out for coffee and pastries after he very cutely brought me a breakfast of Eggo waffles in bed! We then did a little touristy shopping in Paia, went to the beach with Kai, Sharyn and Brendan and then bought an ice cream cake for later tonight! Hopefully we will be able to play a few games and watch and movie!! We were going to go bowling but the place was closed. :/ Oh well! Other than missing my family and friends it has been a wonderful day! And that is a very brief summary of things going on here in Hawaii! I promise I shall try to be more consistent with the blogs!!!

Hana (I Need To Do A Lot Of Other Catching Up!)

WOW! Over a whole month has passed by since I have updated on my blog! And so much has happened! On November 27th we drove along the windy road of Hana. If you get a chance look up the road on google maps. Its ridiculous! It was the most beautiful, crazy, sick and scary road I have ever been on! We got up early to beat the tourists! The road started out windy and there were two lanes so we thought, what the heck! this isn't so bad! And then the road narrowed substantially and really there was only room for one car. Every turn led to another and another and another. We were nauseous by the eighth mile along the road! There were small bridges everywhere and turns over 180 degrees were not uncommon! It was so scary driving along the road because here I am inching along at around 5-10mph (which is really all you can do) and the locals come flying around corners going so fast! I swear I though we were going to die at least 100 times!! With all the stops for mini hikes and pull offs for taking pictures and checking out beaches, it took us 2.5 hours to get to Hana (which was 30 miles away). 

Unfortunately none of these photos are in any real order....its kind of annoying and difficult to post and then move around photos!

This was at one of the pull offs. The waves were huge and were crashing all around us! It was breathtaking!

Eating fresh warm banana bread from a stand on the side of the road....YUM!!

We went into a lava tube, this is the opening. I was sooo scared! It was so dark!

 It used to be a nuclear fallout shelter!

There were lots of cool rocks and stalagmites and stalactites! This lava tube used to be a beef slaughterhouse. The owner had 10,000 pounds worth of bones removed before anyone could go down and tour it.

This was at one of the state parks. It was absolutely gorgeous! Lots of black sand beaches.

Signature pose!

We are behind the church where Charles Lindbergh is buried!

Here is the church where Lindbergh is buried.

His grave!

Another picture of the church. We weren't able to go inside but it was a beautiful quaint old church.

Behind the church again enjoying the gorgeous view! Lindbergh certainly picked a beautiful location!

On a short side hike.

We heart the trees!

Nic being a goof!

Pretty flower along the path!

Nic is about to try and pull a Tarzan and climb up the vines. (Oh and he failed by the way!)

Taking pics of a pretty waterfall! There were so many amazing waterfalls along the side of the road to hike into!

A black sand beach.

Black sand!

Another beautiful flower!

AMAZING view!

Waterfall!

Once we got to Hana, there was literally nothing. It was the lamest town! But we didn't mind because it really wasn't Hana we were going to see, it was the drive there. Nic was totally car sick at this point, and so was I! Although Nic was a sweetheart and let me drive, otherwise I would have been vomiting! We were hardly over with our trip though as we decided to drive around the other side of the island instead of going back the way we came. The drive changed from jungle to almost New Englandy with rolling hills and farms, lots of green and even some pine trees! Then it turned to total desert. It was the craziest thing! All in all it was an amazing drive. We finished up the day with going to the movies to see Unstoppable, which we highly recommend!!

There are lots of cattle ranches on this side of the island.

Total desert!

 I will most definitely write about our anniversary and the other things we have been up to tomorrow but its 10:12pm now and I have to work tomorrow and I'm super tired so I think I'm gonna head to bed!!

WATERFALL!!!

Jeesh! I haven't updated in awhile!! We have been busy enjoying every minute here in Hawaii. This week has consisted of going to the beach... A LOT!! Hitch hiking, buses, restaurants, great food, shopping, lots of work and working out and a waterfall!!! I'm putting a bunch of pics up again. (cus we all know a pic says a thousand words which makes it easier for me to document in this blog!!)

We went to Paia Bay Beach last Saturday (pics were in my last post) and then on Sunday we went and visited Kihei and Wailea. We hitch hiked to get into Paia where we did a few errands and got a yummy iced coffee AND they put ice cubes made of coffee to chill it!! How sweet is that??!?! We then caught the bus into Kahului where we hung out in the mall for an hour. We spent most of the time in Borders looking at books. (we have been reading a lot since we have been here!! its so nice to have time to read!) Then we grabbed a couple of pretzels and caught the next bus to Kihei. We ended up going all the way to Wailea. We thought it would have a nice mall...and it did but everything was SO EXPENSIVE! When we looked in our travel book we read that Wailea literally breathes money and it does. It was beautiful but we soon left as we couldn't/didn't want to spend our money there.

We headed back to Kihei where we stopped at the 808 Deli (a recommendation from our Lonely Planet book). Everything was only $8 or under! I got a delicious salad and Nic got a yummy panini!!! We took our food to the beach where we picnicked on the beach. We then went swimming! Yes I Hannah Welch went all the way into the waters of Hawaii! It was absolutely amazing! We swam around and body surfed on the waves. It was a gorgeous day!! We took the bus back to Paia where we went to a Vietnamese restaurant that was entirely vegetarian. It was delicious! Then we hitch hiked...in the dark...all the way to Huelo Point. (which is where we live)

We prayed a lot on that trip back. We were pretty scared as it was dark and we were about an hours drive from home. We got a ride with a couple to Haiku and then since they weren't going any farther we had to walk in the dark. It started to rain and I started to freak out!! But we prayed and about 5 minutes later the rain stopped and a few minutes after that a young man stopped and took us all the way home, even though it was about 20 minutes out of the way. Thank you God! It was a fantastic day to say the least. We love this island! There is an endless amount of things to do. We are having so much fun!

Monday we worked on cleaning cottages (Ocean Lookout) and getting Star, which is a cottage that Sharyn and Jeff just moved out of, ready for guests who were coming on Wednesday. We worked on Star on Tuesday, as well as cleaning Haleakala and Rainbow and we cleaned Star on Wednesday as well. Thursday was a light day of work, we did some weeding and cut down bananas! and we went to Wal-Mart, Costco :) and Borders with Sharyn. Monday and Wednesday we went to Paia beach and then to the gym in Haiku with Jeff, Sharyn, Kai (their son) and Brendan (our fellow wwoofer).

Today we worked a full day (which means about 5 hours of work and I know that doesn't sound like a lot but out here with the heat it feels like an 8 hour day of work AT LEAST!). We cut down hedges along the driveway and weed whacked, it was a lot of hard and tiring work! Oh and on Wednesday we caught a mouse in the kitchen EEEEEWWWWW!!!!

We went to a beautiful waterfall today. We jumped into the pools and looked over the scary 150 foot edge where the water drops off! It was absolutely stunningly beautiful. Isn't God's work incredible?!?!

Trimming the hedge!

My new sneakers!!! I <3 them!

This was in Kihei. I thought the tree looked really cool!

This was also Kihei on the beautiful beach!

Swimming in the warm beautiful water!

Whoa! Big wave!

 

Yes that is me in the water! I went even farther than that too!

Pretty water!

Lookin at fish and crabs in the tide pools.

Walking along the beach!

Bird sign....

Bird tunnel.

This was in Lahaina. There was a Bubba Gump restaurant! :)

Also in Lahaina. This was towards the end of the day and I was hot and tired!

Leaving the pool area after cleaning it!

SO HAPPY TO BE IN HAWAII!!

Yay lots of bananas!

Oh yeah!

Yummy home made coconut soup! Thanks for the recipe Nana!

GROSS BIG CENTIPEDE! That thing is about the size of my hand and if it bites you OWWWWWW!

Creepy frog in the pond!

Cleaning the cottages!

AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS TOFU BURGER! We are picnicking on Paia Bay Beach!

Digging to Spain to find Andre!

More bananas!

So tough!

Nic found trash...and wanted to take a pic.

Super hot out!!

This is Brendan, our wwoofer buddy!

And this is Kai, Sharyn and Jeff's son! He's 13 and so hilarious!

Walking down the treacherous path to the waterfall!

Brendan on the way down.

Off the edge of that water is a 150 foot drop down! Its a beautiful waterfall but don't get to close to the edge! Super scary!

Nic after we had jumped off the rocks into the water!

And me after I had jumped in!!! What a great day! :)