Smothers' Soliloquy: The days we saw the first sunsets!

We awoke after 12 hours of sleep (6 pm to 6 am) feeling perfectly refreshed. We sat in our living room, overlooking the ocean, and drank Kona coffee.

Well, Ryan, Jonathan, and Amberlee drank coffee. I sat and held my coffee, waiting for it to get lukewarm before I dared drink it.

I never did.

First order of business: find food.

So we did.

............

We got to a cute little breakfast place, and grabbed a menu. Immediately, I had a choice conundrum. Which sandwich should I get? The fancy "Longboard" with a fried egg, lettuce and tomato, or a Veggie breakfast sandwich. I love veggies but I felt like maybe I needed some protein.

And this is where traveling with friends has benefits. Amberlee had the same conundrum, so we each got one and then went halfsies.

A decision we thoroughly enjoyed!

..........

At breakfast Amberlee got something in her eye. She tried to wipe it out, but was covered in sunscreen, making that tricky.

She was all squinty and suggested we try to find some eye drops.

Ryan suggested getting her an eye patch instead.

I think he was joking.

He also said, "Or you could just look like you're winking at everyone."

Needless to say, we got her some eye drops.

There are also chickens everywhere. Just like Africa.

[chicken. or is that a rooster?]

.........

I'm just going to say it. I forgot a strapless bra. And no, I don't have a strapless swimsuit either. And yes, I need a strapless bra for all of my "nice" dresses.

This is a dilemma. If you're a girl, you get me.

We needed to find me a bra, preferably sooner rather than later.

We had to go grocery shopping anyway, so I wasn't really inconveniencing anyone. But let's be honest, if it came down to it, I would have inconvenienced them all if it meant I would look cuter in my photos.

We started at Walmart. Needless to say, we found nothing suitable there. So we grabbed some nail polish and coconut-clay facial masks instead.

What can I say, we're opportunists.

We decided to try Macy's next. Not only did we find the perfect thing for a great price, but they were also on sale! Amberlee is quite the skilled shopping buddy! They were two for 20 dollars! Score!

Poor Jonathan and Ryan waited awkwardly in the purse section, lest they be called perverts for standing in the lady's panty section.

..............

We grabbed food at Costco afterwards. Our checkout clerk's sister lives in Arlington. She also gave us some pearls of wisdom:

If you see an abandoned beach, it's not a hidden gem. It's because the waves there are dangerous, stay out!

We did get a mini-lunch with all the free samples at Costco. Although, half of them ended up on my dress, so maybe it wasn't the best place to eat lunch.

............

We got home and ate a real lunch and then took a nap. Shopping is hard work!

And, we didn't want to be in the sun between 10 and 3, exposing ourselves to skin cancer.

..........

After our nap we put on about a zillion gallons of sunscreen and walked out of our patio, across the street, and onto the beach.

And in case you saw some article on the Internet about sunscreen causing skin cancer and believed it, you may want to review correlation vs causation. Or read this article http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-great-sunscreen-cover-up/

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, good.

I was all disappointed because they had a big area sectioned off, but it turned out to be the most exciting thing ever!!!

THERE WAS A SEAL ON THE BEACH SUNNING HIMSELF!!

[SEAL FRIEND-see he moves]

Amberlee declared seals to be her new favorite animal! She then named the seal Felix, in case we run in to him again at a fancy dinner party.

We took about 100 pictures with the seal, and then sat down to read on the beach.

We finally got tired of that and came back to swim in one of the 3 pools at our condo.

Then we got hungry again so the boys grilled fish.

Which isn't nearly funny enough to include in a blog....

Except that it started raining while they were grilling. I wasn't really paying attention to that, I was too busy trying to capture the perfect rainy-sunset picture.

And no, I never got it. Sorry to disappoint you.

[fish dinner]

But I did get this one of the sunset:

[Rainy sunset]

We ate dinner with wine, and then saw the shortest sunset (it lasted maybe 30 seconds) between clouds. We practically live next to the beach, so Jonathan promised we would get a chance to see another one.

............

We then went to find a board game to play. The library only had puzzles, Star Wars monopoly, and a game called The Shtick Adventure Domination.

We ended up just getting a deck of cards and some juice.

They have a room here just for juice. A juice room. It's some kind of tropical guava pineapple something. It was delicious. We drank the delicious and then went home.

Ryan was already asleep and resisted all attempts to wake him. So Jonathan and Amberlee read while I blogged. Can't let down the blog followers. I made them proofread my first Hawaii post.

There was laughter. That's good news! Then sleep.

..........

We awoke on Monday to pouring down rain. Ryan got up at like 5:30 or something.

We researched roosters. I wanted to know what the picture above was. Ryan and Jonathan educated Amberlee and me about rooster. Kind of. The male chicken is a rooster and it's pretty to attract the females (to which Jonathan replied "Ca Caw!")

The hen lays the eggs. Then the rooster comes to fertilize them. How?!

We saw a rainbow. I enjoyed it for about 3 seconds and then ran inside to grab my camera before it disappeared. By the time I got back out, it was gone. Ryan got a photo for you though.

[rainbow]

Disappearing rainbow. Lame-O. That rhymes!

...........

We decided to take a walk to spouting horn. It was a mile up the road. It's basically this rock formation that spouts water like a whale whenever a big wave crashes into it.

I got some photos.

Some of them were terrible quality.

[someone's thumb]

Some were great quality, but those are on my DSLR, so you can't see them yet.

Some of them were taken by Ryan, and those turned out to be beautiful.

[pretty photo of spouting horn]

We also got a photo together. Don't mind the fact that we were sweating like pigs.

[spouting horn shot]

I also got a picture of some baby chickens. And their mommy.

[adorables]

I searched forever (probably 45 minutes) in the little trinket shops for a black pearl necklace/bracelet/earring set.

[set]

I was considering the necklace pictured above, along with some other options. I wasn't exactly sure which one I wanted until some old lady picked my necklace up. Mentally, I yelled, "put down my necklace you old witch!" And she must have heard me mentally, because she did. And then it was mine!

Now I can finally live out my fantasy of being Elizabeth Swan and The Curse of the Black Pearl. Well, not exactly. We don't have a pirate ship. And we don't have Jack Sparrow. But we are going on a sunset cruise tomorrow, so it should work out nicely.

Now we just need to find some swords....

..........

We started our walk back at 9:45 Amberlee and I were starting to get hungry, which actually means we were starting to get hangry. Which means so-hungry-we're-angry if you're not current with the slang lingo we young kids are using these days.

We decided to split a sandwich as a snack when we got back to the condo.

When we actually arrived back, we were all covered in sweat and drenched in hanger. We decided to make a mid-morning snack.

[Ryan, using his 5+ years of experience in the sandwich-making industry]

[Our 10:00 snack. Or more appropriate, 2nd Breakfast. Or Elevensies.]

..........

Then we rested so Ryan's back would be happy, Amberlee could paint her nails, and I could write. On the side of the beach. Feeling the cool ocean breeze.

..........

We went shopping for sleeping shorts. It is WAY to hot here to sleep in pants and both Amberlee and I were vastly unprepared.

We're quite hot in our pajama pants. Hot. Get it?

We went shorts shopping, but didn't find any shorts. We did find some ice cream and free nut samples.

We also visited the Farmer's market and got 2 coconuts. I managed to convince the boys we needed adorable coconut pictures. These boys really love us!

[coconut]

I got full of coconut water really quickly. Literally, I was full of it.

We also bought a 6 dollar pineapple and a 5 dollar mango. This mango better be the tastiest mango ever!

[fruit]

Amberlee bet me that she could smash her coconut in 3 tries. I bet not. She did. But I did it in 2 tries!

[smashing!]

And then, to celebrate National Coffee Day, we went to visit Kauai Coffee Estate. It was beastly hot outside, and we sweated like beasts drinking the hot coffee. But we tasted it anyway.