Company, come and gone

Megan and Paul arrived on Dec 29th and left last night. It was a full eight days and I was grateful to sleep in and putz around the house today, generally taking it easy while mixing in laundry, cleaning the kitchen and some other cleaning.

For those that don't know the back story, Paul and Zac served together on the Port Royal from 2000-2003. (I didn't meet Zac until 2006 at Megan and Paul's wedding. M & P both insist that I probably met Zac back when I visited Hawaii in 2001, but neither Zac and I remember that. Also, I was on the trip with my then-boyfriend so both Zac and I are confident that we would have paid each other no mind had we actually been introduced.) Ever since he left Hawaii, Paul has spoken of his time in Hawaii fondly and I think he was looking for an excuse to go back someday, even before I moved out here.

The week was filled to the brim with activities, so I'm not entirely sure what I want to address here. It would take a month to recap everything. Probably the best way to summarize the trip is . . . bumpy, but good. I don't mean "bumpy" as in "bad". Maybe I should clarify. There are two elements to the aforementioned "bumpiness":

1. Many of our plans were thwarted by one thing or another: weather, poor research, bad planning, Pele (goddess of volcanoes), etc.
2. Spending 24 hours a day for eight days, even with people you know, love and adore, will cause you all to wear on each others' nerves.

We spend the first few days on Oahu, then spent three full days on the Big Island, and then back to Oahu for the last couple. The trip to the Big Island was one of the highlights. Zac had been there before, but neither Megan, Paul nor I have ever been. It's almost easier to post a couple of pix to cover things. Instead of doing 25 photos here, I think I'll try to spread them out over a few days. Hey! A week's worth of blog fodder!


One of the "bumps"? The weather. It's the rainy season out here in Hawaii (yes, we have a rainy season) and the drippings from the sky always seemed to appear at the least opportune times. Megan and Paul had a half-joking desire to go to the beach every day. This photo was taken on our first attempt. We drove to the North Shore, then to Waimea. While it wasn't pouring, it was raining more than we wanted. We wanted to get wet in the ocean, not walking to the beach from our car.
One afternoon we decided to hike up Diamond Head. As you can see, the weather cooperated. The bump on this trip was that when we drove into the crater/park to park the car we were told that the lot was full. If we wanted to, we could pay our money and then go park in line behind four other cars and wait for a spot to open up. (Another thing - it's hard to get four people to agree on decisions. I don't know how the military does it, and I understand why Congress is such a mess.) We decided that Megan and I would get out of the car, Paul and Zac would take the car outside of the crater/park and go back down the hill to park it. (Resulting in an additional 20 minute walk for them back to the hiking trail.) Of course, because of the nature of our eight days, as soon as the boys left to park the car all four cars in line got parking spots, three or four MORE spots opened up and Megan and I couldn't call them back because we didn't bring our cell phones. Needless to say, once the boys got back Zac grumbled about the newly available parking as we crossed the lot towards the trail.
Parking aside, the hike was fun and, as usual, the views were awesome.