Labor Day Weekend

A little late, but better late than never. Right?

We decided to use Labor Day weekend to explore the island and have some family fun. On Friday, we had our first official beach day.

Waimea Bay Beach

We went to a small, cozy beach on the North Shore called Waimea Bay Beach. It's a small cove with the highway on one side (seen above) and cliffs on the other. There was even a large rock the went out far enough into the ocean that you could jump off of it. The water was beautiful and clear, but there was a strong tide. Apparently, in the winter months this is where all the big waves will be. We set up our new SPF-50 baby tent and gave Evie her first taste of playing in the sand.

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She and Jay went into the water and she loved it! She really loved sitting in the shallow areas and having the waves rush up over her feet. We saw turtles swimming near shore but I wasn't able to get a good shot of them. After a bit of play, she got hungry. So like a true island Princess, she took her bottle in the tent with the sea breeze blowing and the waves crashing in front of her. She lasted about 2 hours at the beach before getting sleepy, so that's when we left. We stopped at Giovanni's shrimp truck on the way home and had some garlic shrimp for lunch. Delicious, but stinky! I think we smelled like garlic for at least two days.

We didn't do much Saturday; I think it was too rainy. I was up early to watch ESPN Game Day (I refuse to DVR it). Jay worked on pictures for our damage claim from moving. After everything was submitted, we had $4,500 worth of items damaged! Not sure how much we'll actually get to fix/replace things, but it's still annoying to have to deal with.

Sunday we had pool day. There's a pool less than a five-minute walk away so it's easy to go there without having to lug a bunch of stuff. They have lanes for swimming laps, a high dive, and a kiddie pool. We took a float and put Evie in the kiddie pool, where she was just tall enough to touch. She bounced all around the pool and had a great time. Unfortunately, we were able to stay only ten minutes or so before it started to rain. 

On Monday, we headed to Waimea Falls to go hiking. Located on the North Shore of Oahu, there's a beautiful waterfall and rainforest park as well as a restaurant. Lots of movies have been shot there, including the second Hunger Games.

Lily pads

Waimea Falls

We hiked up to the falls with Evie strapped to Jay's back in the baby harness. She seemed to enjoy herself, although she got fidgety after a while because she wanted to get out and move around. It was a beautiful hike and we saw a lot of tropical plants. At the falls, a tour guide offered to take our picture and was very friendly with the baby.

After we returned to the entrance to the park, we had a quick lunch at the park's restaurant, The Proud Peacock. The food was decent and just what we needed after spending the morning in the sun. There were peacocks walking all around the outside deck, but they didn't bother you if you didn't bother them. Jay and I split a snickerdoodle ice cream sandwich for dessert, which was made of all local ingredients and definitely worth the calories!

Labor Day weekend was a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to more adventures this fall.

Honeymoon Beach for Daddy's work picnic