Happy Birthday will ( days ago)!

My sweetie is now officially 26! I am once again married to an older man :-) For Will's birthday I booked a sea kayak for the morning and we went out to a couple of islands off the coast of Kailua beach. It was hard work rowing, and it was honestly pretty miserable on the way out to the little island that was our goal. The wind was going against us which meant we were hitting waves straight on and it was a heck of a struggle, plus it was raining a bit and turtles kept surfacing right next to our little kayak and freaking me out. I was afraid I'd smack them accidentally with an oar! The island was cool though, with little tidepools to explore and impressive waves crashing all over the rocks. On the way back the wind was with us and the sun was out so it was nicer, but we were so tired! After that we went and checked into the Marriott on Waikiki beach, then went on a sunset cocktail cruise on a catamaran which was a blast. I was worried the waves would make Will or I seasick (the waves got kinda big once we went out past Diamondhead) but it was just fun, and we even "surfed" in the catamaran. Once we got back we staggered up the beach to the Marriott where we had an awesome sushi dinner. It was really good, but I had broken my flip flop on the way up from the catamaran so I had to shuffle into the restaurant in bare feet. The next morning we jogged on the beach and did a little bit of shopping, then headed back here to Maeve's. Everything turned out as I had planned, which was really nice, although a couple of times I thought we were late so I was rushing us along, but apparently there is island time here too (although admittedly people are only about 10 minutes late here instead of 30 min-1 hour in the Caribbean). We did a luau last night which was ok, but not great. Having alcoholic beverages available would have made it a bit more fun, but we found out the Polynesian Cultural Center is owned by the Jesus Christ Church of Latter Day Saints, so that explains there not being any drinks. It was really cool to watch 20 gilrs line up and hula though...

Today we were back in Waikiki to go on a little 1-hour submarine tour. I was hoping we would see sharks and octopi and such but it seems like Hawaii only has black and white and yellow fish. There aren't nearly the different colors of fish you see in the caribbean, and the coral is nonexistant. There are lots of big sea turtles though, so that is cool.

I have to run now, we're going to the Ko 'Olina sushi buffet tonight, so I'm going to go get ready. I hear the east coast is getting battered with Ernesto right now, and that they have 12 foot waves at Ocean City. Funny, because that is bigger than they have here right now! I hope the storms don't delay Will's flight home or anything, although he should have a nice flight since he is flying first class, lucky boy :-)

-Sara