At the Lagoon

This photo makes me laugh because they look dedicated to their conversation while sage sprints off towards the ocean. I swear, we caught her before she drowned...

Aulani-Disney Hawaii Resort

Dana's momma is staying right next door to the Aulani which is the new Disney resort in Oahu. Naturally, we had to drop in to check the place out.
It's awesome. I want to live there.
The great thing about it is that it's not very "disney." They have Disney Land and Disney World for that. This place is more Hawaii than Disney if that makes sense.
Except for the pool.
The pool is all Disney and awesome!

This is the side of it-the view from the condo that Dana's momma is staying in.

 This is the front.

A little wedding chapel out front. There is a wedding chapel at the condo that Dana's momma is staying in and I swear we watched about 15 limos drive in and out throughout the day. There was back to back weddings going on.

And here is the beach at Aulani. It's one of a series of 4 man made lagoons.

And the pool:

 The building has a lot of Hawaiian style art on the side:

 The ONLY way you'd know it was a Disney resort is this little carving of Stitch off of the movie Lilo and Stitch:

The inside:

New Pool

We bought Sage a small, plastic pool for the backyard. She loves it.
This is her super model face:

 She cannot make a sane face in most photos:

 This is one of the trees in our backyard. There are two of them. I think they are really pretty:

I took all of these photos at about 10:00 am-When it was already 80 degrees and beautifully sunny-I ain't leaving ya'll.
Send sweet tea.

Pineapple

There is a lady who lives across the street from my mother. We call her Gram, and she grows pineapples in her living room. I knew pineapples came from Hawaii so I just kind of assumed they required some sort of sunlight/warm weather. Nope, this lady grows them in her house.
When we got to Hawaii and visited the Dole Plantation a worker showed me how to start a pineapple. So I have been saving the ones we have bought-and I am going to grow one!
If you don't know, pineapples take a long time to grow- over a year. And each plant only produces one pineapple a year.
I have some time.
Check out my two that I have started. The left one has been soaking the longest. See how long the roots already are? I planted it in a bucket today. We will see how it goes...
If Gram can grow a pineapple in her Georgia living room then certainly I should be able to grow one in the pineapple motherland of Hawaii.

Hale Koa Retreat

Dana's unit sent many of the families on a marriage retreat this weekend. We just got back today. They paid for us to stay in a hotel down on the beach in Waikiki, all of our meals, tickets to a luau, and provided child care. I was somewhat bummed to be going back into a hotel since we just finished a month long stay in one but this trip turned out to be really fun. Fun for Dana and I anyway- Sage thought daycare sucked.
The Hale Koa Hotel is a pretty neat place. It's a military hotel down on the strip in Waikiki right there with all the other hotels and touristy stuff. It didn't feel like a military type hotel at all-if you didn't already know you wouldn't notice a difference. The only people who can stay in the hotel are military, retired military or families of soldiers. I guess that would probably be the noticeable difference- the place was packed with older retirees and then our twenty or so families that attended the retreat. When we went to the bar we would meet old Navy retirees who served in the 30s. They were very fun to talk with.

This is at our table at the luau:

View from our room's balcony:

My fancy drink:

Another balcony view:

Sage at the beach:

The poor piggy that became our dinner:

Dana and I at the luau:

That was where the little piggy got roasted up to eat! Called an Imu:

Another balcony shot...it was really pretty up there!

Hawaiian dudes carrying around our piggy dinner:

More Bike Pics

I know I already posted photos of the new bike.
But those were photos from day #2.
These are day #1 and even better!

She loves her helmet. We have to hide it from her during the day or she wants to wear it around all the time. Which is probably not a bad idea actually...

 I swear on a box of chocolate this is the very first photo on her bike and this was the face. It was hilarious!

 She's still growing into that helmet...

 With my cat-like reflexes I caught her before she hit the dirt.

Dole Pineapple Plantation

One of the first things we did when we arrived to Hawaii was to visit the Dole Pineapple Plantation. It's only about 10-15 minutes from post which is where we lived for the first month we were here. The last time my family visited Hawaii we went here with my grandparents. There are some pineapple people wooden cutout thingies that you'll see at the bottom of the page. I swear, I still have the photos of my Memaw and Pepaw looking through the SAME ones.

This is Sage sampling some Dole Whip. It's their pineapple ice cream and I swear to you it's the best thing ever. Thank goodness we got out of that hotel and away from there...because I want more. Now.