Our duo becomes a trio - day 2 and 3 in Hawaii

Day two in Hawaii consisted mostly of beach, beach and a little more beach. Elise and I spent almost 6 hours at Kailaua Beach on the east side of Oahu. It was picture perfect (see below)!!! And when I looked toward the mountains I kind of felt like I was on an episode of Lost.

I need to tell you all about Vicki the Versa (or Vespa as I often call her). She is our rental car and she's special. She has maybe four cylinders...maybe. And on all these mountainous roads in Hawaii I sometimes think she's not going to make it. There have been several instances that I have had the pedal to the medal - literally and she is just inching up the mountain. But when she's going downhill, watch out!!!! She'll get going super fast real quick that you have to watch out for her. She's sneaky. And to make maters even worse - Hawaii roads are super crazy! You'll be driving along and all the sudden your lane ends - no warning. Or you think you're in an exit lane to get off the Interstate and then all of the sudden you pass the exit. (BTW: why are there interstates in Hawaii - someone please explain that one) But I'm getting a handle on the roads. And Vicki and I are bonding. But I really miss my Pathfinder at home.

On the night of day two, Elise and I officially "kidnapped" her cousin Stephy and she is now on vacation with us thru Sunday. For those of you that don't know, Stephy is based out here at YWAM Honolulu  (YWAM stands for Youth With a Mission). We went to the YWAM base Thursday night for a worship service and then took Stephy back to our hotel with us. She's not thrilled about waking up as early as Elise and I do, but she's having fun with us.

On Day three, we got up early to head to Hanauma Bay to go snorkeling. We got there about 9 a.m. and Vicki found prime parking for us. After watching the required safety and preservation video (which I'm pretty sure was filmed in the 80s) we went down to start snorkeling in the bay. We saw tons of beautiful fish while in the bay. The colors of the fish were brilliant - high five God!!! I had hope to see a turtle but no such luck :( Stephy got up close and personal with a fish that swam right in front of her masked. Elise and I both got rammed into by other snorkelers that apparently didn't see us. I yelled 'beep, beep' at the guy that ran into me. We snorkeled for a few hours but left around noon because it was getting super hot and super crowded. Elise and I had both already started to burn after our 6 hour beach day the previous day so we didn't want to fry any more. So we jumped back in Vicki and went and got some shaved ice - which was ohh so good. Now we're back in the hotel reading our books (I'm already on my second one) and getting ready to go to our luau tonight. I'll posted about that tomorrow.

Until we meet again - aloha!