Buying on a Whim can Sometimes be GREAT!! (Part 2)

This has turned slightly overwhelming to me: recapturing my vacation to Hawaii. So far, I've only gotten past the first sunrise - and we all know that was a slightly long post. So I'm trying to figure out what is most meaningful to me, and what will be most entertaining for you...but my filter of 'entertaining for others' is slightly off...I seem to think everything I find entertaining will be entertaining to everyone else as well. Oh dear. I guess I have the comfort in knowing that if you start to get bored, you can always skip ahead or stop reading altogether. :)

Sunsets
If there is anything more beautiful in Hawaii than the sunrises, it would have to be the sunsets. It's a different kind of beautiful, however, because the atmosphere is completely different. The sunrise comes at the end of tranquility - putting the calm night to bed. The sunset commands tranquility itself, but is flanked on either side by the excitement of the evening.

And a sunset wouldn't be much of a sunset to me without clouds. Without clouds, the setting sun rays would speed away into space with nothing to deter their path. It is the cloud that gives the sky it's fiery color - it is the cloud that captures my attention.

My New Favorite Animal
What a funny creature the crab is! This little guy was my companion for an hour and a half the second morning. We watched the sun come up together and, for a long while, ours were the only two footprints in the sand (...well...I suppose his were more like 'clawprints'...)! This crab strengthens my belief that God must have a sense of humor. I watched him settle down in a footprint, only to be washed up shore by the next large wave. I watched him hunker down when a runner would come by - he'd sit flat on the sand, pull his eyes down, and remain completely still until the runner was past. Then his eyes would pop back up and he'd return to play in the surf. I watched him 'be intimidating' when he was spotted by three ladies taking a morning stroll - when he knew he was spotted, he jumped up from his 'hunkered down' position, stood on the very tips of his legs and raised his body off the ground as far as he could. He jumped back and forth from one side to the other until the ladies had had enough fun and moved on. He watched them go and finally relaxed his stance with a triumphant little dance (I can't think of any words to describe it) and I laughed out loud.

The surfers and bodyboarders were out by this point, so I turned my attention to them. There were many times I laughed out loud as someone would take an exceptionally hard spill (that's my kind of humor - I could sit and watch America's Funniest Home Videos all day long!).
I zoned into my own little world, sitting there alone on the shoreline, laughing at crabs and people, slightly rocking to the song in my head (which happened to be "Under the Sea" from The Little Mermaid...), and running my fingers through the sand, when a small, Asian lady came up to me and said with a smile, "You enjoying dis?" I turned to look at her and she continued, "You enjoy de ocean?"
"Oh. I love the ocean." I said back
"I been up dere chanting." She pointed up the shore to a small yoga-looking mat. "You should try." She handed me a business card and said, "Chanting a good way to connect wid universe. It good for you." She started to back away to her mat.
"Oh, um. Thank you." I said
"Chanting will help you."
As she walked away, I thought about the gospel of Jesus Christ. "Naw," I thought, "I have a better way to connect with the universe." What better connection is there than knowing that God made all of this for me? That He loves me and wants me to have everything He has? I already feel a strong connection with this world because my own Father created it. I wish I would have been brave enough to speak my thoughts while she was standing next to me........maybe next time.

Mountains

While my favorite things were the ocean, the sun, and the clouds, Brian's favorite things were the mountains. And what an impressive sight they were!!! From sea level to 3700 feet in less than 5 miles at some points. And they were so GREEN! Usually steep cliffs are not hospitable to vegetation - but somehow, these plants hung on! Spectacular.



Our One Full Day
We rented a car the last day we were there and drove up to the North Shore to visit my old stomping grounds. It was SO FUN to retrace my steps with my husband by my side. We visited the Laie Temple,
hiked out to Goat Island,
had some shrimp at a shrimp shack,
and finally topped it all off with some shave ice at Matsumotos! What a fun, fun day! It was especially great until we couldn't really find any showers to shower off in before we caught our 9:30 plane that night to come back to the real world. So, we had to travel with salt and sand in our hair and...other places.

I seriously, SERIOUSLY would have missed out on one of the best trips ever if I hadn't let my husband buy my ticket on a whim. What a beautiful, wonderful world we live in. :)