Deep Sea Fishing ... and my first fish!!

My friend Walt, owns his own boat and goes fishing all the time.  So he took a me, Don, Dave and Kristin (Dave's wife) out deep sea fishing on Sunday.  Don used to fish with Walt all the time, so they were used to each other.  And Dave been fishing with Walt once before.  I went fishing with Walt once before, but it was years ago, and I don't think we caught anything.  I know I didn't catch anything!  I don't think Kristin went before.

I had to drag myself out of bed extra early, and I was glad that Don was driving me, I was soooo tired.  We stopped by Walt's house first to see if he needed any help.  The sun was just starting to wake up, and we looked up at the grey sky above us.  We all commented on how ugly the weather looked, and how the wind seemed to be picking up, not dying down as the weather report said it was going to be.  Walt also pointed out that it was almost a full moon too (right around a full moon, fish don't really bite anymore, and it's harder to catch anything).  We followed him to the boat harbor, where we met up with Dave and Kristin.

As we packed the boat with our stuff and got the boat in the water and ready to go, it started to sprinkle some, and I started getting worried that this would be a very short fishing trip.  But the sun rise over the Ko'olau Mountains was pretty.

Walt and Don getting the poles set up before we go in the water.

It started sprinkling some, and I was worried that it was going to be raining the whole time.  Thankfully it wasn't.  It gave us a really nice rainbow over the harbor.  It was a perfect semi-circle.  I wasn't able to get the whole rainbow in my camera, though.

I climbed inside the boat and tucked my bag away someplace safe, and looked over to see Kristin rumaging through her bag.  I saw that she had a banana in her bag, and quickly went over to her.  I very quietly told her that bananas on boats were considered bad luck, and Walt was extremely superstitious about it - to the point that he gets mad if you bring the Banana Boat brand sunscreen onboard, cause it says "banana".  Although Don pointed out that he's not sure if Walt gets mad because he doesn't like sunscreen (the smell or the greasiness that gets all over his poles and boat), or cause it has "banana" in it's name.  So Kristin quickly made sure that she hid her banana in her bag. 

We were finally ready to go, and we headed out of the harbor.  The weather looked like it was clearing up and although it was a little windy and made the waves choppy, it wasn't really all that bad.  Walt set up the lines in the water, and then he climbed up to the top of the boat where all 3 of the guys squeezed in.  Kristin and I stayed below.

Here's Walt setting up the lines for while we were heading out.

It was turning out to be a nice day, we started trolling around an area that he said he had a few bites the other day.  Almost immediately, one of the poles look like it caught something, but the reel wasn't spinning.  I pointed it out to Walt, and he said it was probabbly the drag created from the lure.  We trolled for hours and nothing was biting!  I laid down to take a nap, and shortly after, woke up to Walt yelling "WAKE UP!"  I sat up quickly and saw Don jumping towards one of the poles.  I was so excited!  But we lost whatever fish had bit real quick.  It's the pole on the right that's dipping down some ...

Don reset the line, and I decided to go back to sleep.  I woke up a little later and decided to just sit straddling the boat with one of my legs dangling over.  It felt nice when a wave would come up and hit my leg. 

Don told me there were pilot whales ahead of us, so I woke up Kristin and told her to look.  Dave and Don were both below decks, so I climed up to sit with Walt, who was driving, and to get a better view of the whales.  There was a pod of them, and they seemed to be swimming right towards us, even though we had turned a bit.  I didn't get to see their whole bodies, but swimming, they looked like black dolphins.  Walt told me there were babies and that pilot whales were bad, because they would eat the ahi.  He told me there were times where he had caught an ahi, had it on a gaff to get it on the boat, and the pilot whale would rip it off the gaff and swim away with it.  So he really did not like them at all.  I watched as they swam towards us, and dived under our boat, bumping it a bit as they swam by.  Walt and Don told me that the mommies do that, but with a lot more force - cause they weren't happy that you were in their space.  Walt started cursing at the pilot whales, and we sped off in another direction.  Deciding to try our luck along the ledge.

I stayed up there and chatted with Walt a bit.  I knew that I should keep a look out for a pod of dolphins or a bird pile, but I saw neither the whole time we were up there.  No one, it seemed was getting any fish.  I was starting to wonder about Kristin's bananas....

I went back down and grabbed some water and a bite to eat, and just enjoyed the waves for a while.  Then Walt got really excited and when I looked, I saw a guy in a small boat practically in the middle of a bird pile!  I wasn't sure if the birds were stealing his fish or what.  Apparently, the birds were feasting on Nehu, this tiny little fish.  And there were some Aku and Shibi eating too, they were the ones that were scaring these little fish up to the surface where the birds were catching them.  Walt made Don drive the boat while he changed out the lines and pulled in the lures from the other poles.  Walt explained that we were going to catch the Nehu as bait, and use the bait to catch the Aku.  So Don had to drive the boat into the Nehu pile without using the motor to scare them away, while Walt would try to scoop up as much as he could with the net.  Don was having such a hard time positioning the boat the way Walt wanted it, and Walt kept screaming at Don.  It was a little funny, and I was glad I wasn't Don!  Here's some nehu we scooped out of the ocean.

I've never been in the middle of a bird pile, and it was really neat to see all those bird grabbing the fish out of the ocean.  Dave and Kristin took over the scooping job, and I would try to assit them getting the nehu in the buckets, or pick up the ones that landed in the boat and throw them back in the bucket.  Walt changed the lures to hooks, and baited the fish.

I started chuming the water and we soon got a bite!  Walt hooked the fish and handed me the pole, and I started reeling that sucker in.  I could see the flashes of blue under water as it swam around.  Then next thing I know, Don and Walt are yelling at me to hurry up and reel it in, or a shark's going to get it!  Apparently, there was a shark that swam under the boat, and another one that was swimming after the aku I hooked.  I started reeling it in a little faster, and I could see the shark as it came closer.  Shark week was only a few weeks ago, and thoughts of a shark breaching the water or bumping the boat flashed through my mind.  But Walt was right next to me, and I knew he'd kill me if I lost the fish sooo close to the boat, that I figured I'd take my chances with the shark.  We could see the fish and Walt kept telling me to keep it's nose up!  So I reeled it in some more and Walt scooped it with the net.  I had caught my first fish!!!!

I was sooo happy!  Kristin and I took turns after that catching fish.  We caught 5 aku total.  My last one had such a HUGE belly!  I was so happy that we caught some fish despite bananas being on board.  lol.  We started heading back towards the harbor, detouring through a few bird piles, but catching nothing else.  Walt made a little pit stop in Poaki Bay for us to go swimming for a little while.  As soon as Don anchored the boat, Walt jumped from the top of the boat and made the biggest cannon ball into the water.  Here he is swiming back to the boat.

Walt swam back to the boat and climbed aboard.  He told us that if we don't get in the water, be expected to be thrown in the water.  The boys jumped in quickly.  Kristin was a little hesitant, and I asked Walt how are we supposed to get back in (I didn't want to jump off and have a hard time getting back into the boat).  He said that there was a step on the back of the boat I could just climb on and get back in.  So I jumped in, and the water felt so cool and refreshing after being in the sun all day. 

After we all got back into the boat, Walt decided that he'd gut and clean the fish right there.  So he told us to hurry up and take pictures with our fish.  I grabbed a fish in each hand, and they were soooo heavy!!  We took several pictures.  I caught 2 fish.  I don't know if these are the same 2 I caught though.  lol.

We caught enough fish to have one for all of us! :)

Walt decided that he wanted to clean and gut the fish right there, so he could throw the junky parts outside of the harbor ont he way in.  Don decided that if we weren't ready to leave, he'd go back in the water.

I watched Walt gut the fish, and almost every fish had a big fat belly!  Remember when I said my last first was fat?  Well, when Walt went to cut the fish open, his knife just nicked the belly, and a whole lot of nehu came spilling out!!

We waited till we were out of the swimming area and Don threw the fish heads and guts out and washed down all the blood in the boat.  We saw a honu swimming around behind us.  I didn't get a good picture of it, though.

Then we were back in the boat harbor, and got the boat on the trailer, headed over to clean the boat.  We made a quick pit stop at the grocery store to grab some ingredients to make poke, then headed to Walt's house.  He taught me and Don his secret poke recipe (sorry guys, he said that it was not to leave his house), and fired up the grill to make some teri beef.  The food was sooooo yummy, and I was so full and tired and happy from a long day, that all I could think about at that point was how much I wanted a hot shower and my bed! :)

Insanity Diaries, Days 4-15

I am proud to say that I've been keeping up with doing the insanity workouts and now am on day 14!  Shaun T is the "instructor" in these videos, and although he has killer abs, a smokin' hot body and a cute smile to top that, he's probabbly traded in all his math skills for that body.  He says in the videos that this is a 60 day work out.  But the program is actually 9 weeks long.  4 weeks of intense workouts, 1 week of cardio recovery workouts, and 4 weeks of super duper crazy intense workouts, all 6 days a week.  Even if you don't count the days off, and the 1 week of cardio recovery, no matter what I did, I could not add it up to 60 days!!  So if anyone can figure it out, PLEASE enlighten me!  lol.  I'm counting each day that goes by as an insanity day.

So I made it through 2 weeks of this crazy workout, and it seems like I've been doing this forever.  In fact, it's such a blur, that I cannot really tell you about the individual workouts like I did in my last blog.  All I know is that every day I'm sore and I hurt some place new.  It's a real tough workout, and some days I feel so light-headed after the workout!  I think that I'm getting used to it, though.  Some days the workouts seem to breeze on by so fast!  Even though it's over 1/2 hour and I'm sore, tired and so sweaty at the end, it goes by fast sometimes.  Other times, I'm on the floor wondering when it will be over!  lol.

I did my 2nd fit test, which is basically a repeat of the fit test that I did the first day.  And I was able to increase all my numbers!  Some may not be by much, but it's definately showing that I'm getting stronger.  I did weigh myself, and I did not loose any weight yet.  I didn't measure my waist, but I think I lost a tensy-bit off of my waist.

I think in order for me to loose weight, I gotta start changing my diet now.  Ugh.  I guess I should, otherwise all this work will be for nothing!

Anyways, I survived my first two weeks!  Let's see if I can make it through another 2!! :)

Insanity Diaries, Days 1 - 3

I've been in denial for a long time, but it's kind of hard to ignore the fact that not only am I getting older, but along with that, I'm getting fatter.  I'm not proud to say that I've gone up a pant size and gained ALOT of weight in the past 3 years.   It pretty much happened after I stopped working out.  I stopped first because I hurt my knee so badly, that even after a month, my doctor told me I wasn't even allowed to jog on it, much less work out.  Then, it just got hard for me to get back into working out.

We all hear about the latest diet crazes and work out fads, and I've never been one to even give any one of these a second thought.  Well, at least until now.  Desperate times call for desperate measures, right?

There's this latest work out craze going around ... well, actually 2 main home workout ones that are all the buzz.  One is P90x, and the other is Insanity.  Both, I've heard are crazy hard.  But I could never find someone who tried both, and tell me what the difference is.

Finally, I overheard James chatting with Dennis about Insanity, and started asking them questions.  James lent his Insanity workout DVDs to Dennis, who only tried the 1st fit test and never did anything after that.  I asked if I could borrow them and try them out, which neither of them had a problem with.  James explained to me that P90x is focused more on getting cut and building muscle weight, which you end up loosing weight as a side thing.  P90x's program takes 90 days whereas Insanity's program is only 60 days.  But Insanity is more about loosing weight and getting toned.  You still get ripped, but you don't need any extra equipment.  So after that, Insantiy was definately a clear winner to me over the P90x.  I was looking to loose some extra weight, as fast as possible (preferably), and with the less money I have to shell out (ie. no equipment to buy), the better.

Knowing how bad I am at motivating myself to work out, I asked Don if he'd be interested in doing the program with me.  I've learned that after college, I lost all motivation to work out and unless I have a work out buddy, I find all kinds of excuses to NOT work out.  He agreed to do it, and when I got the DVDs from Dennis, we started Day 1 - our fitness test.

Day 1, Fit Test.  Now with a name like Insanity, you know you're getting yourself in a world of hurt.  That, plus talking to people who tried it, I haven't found one person that I personally know who has finished the entire 60 days.  In fact, they tell me how hard it is and some even tell me that they hate it soooo much!  They were not exaggerating on the craziness of this workout!  I was not even doing a work out- I was just doing a fit test to give myself a baseline to gage myself on my progress for later.  Basically, for 25 minutes, you go through a bunch of different exercises and try to do as much as you possibly can in a minute.  I was dripping in sweat and so tired at the end of the fitness test, I could not imagine how the other 59 days will fare.  I soon found solidarity with all those who have tried this before me, and they became my cheerleaders to keep it up ... as well as bearers of bad news as they all described the pain that was in store for me with the future workouts ...

Day 2, Polymetrics.  I've heard alot about polymetrics from those who did P90x, and I've actually done some working out using my Wii More Active workout game.  But my wii game was like a joke compared to Insanity!  The jumps, hops, drops - take a basic anything and put it on steriods, and that doesn't even begin to compare to some of the things that I was doing!  I was dripping in sweat and my legs were going numb, and towards the end, my whole body was starting to shake!  I could not keep up with the people on the video at all, but I took little breaks and just tried my best to keep moving.  He keeps you moving at high intensity for 3 mintues straight, then you have 30 seconds to catch your breath and grab a quick drink of water before it starts all over ... and faster!!  My dogs were quite interested in what I was doing and Shadow even joined me on my yoga mat during my stretches after the workout.  If I didn't think it after Day 1, definately after Day 2, I could see why it was called Insanity, and decided that it was correctly named.

Day 3, Cardio Power and Resistance.  Now here is when having a work out buddy comes in handy.  I was lying on the couch, watching tv, muscles aching, and really really really not wanting to do Insanity today ... in fact, if I didn't see it for the rest of my life, I don't think I would have been too sad.  Don came over after he finished work, and when I mentioned that maybe we could NOT do Insanity today, he gave me a look that made me feel guilty and pull myself off the couch and get ready for more torture ... uh, I ment workout.  So started day 3 of the insanity I put myself through.  This work out seemed to go by real fast.  Don't get me wrong, I was still dying and dripping sweat and wondering when the pain would end, but it seemed to go by a lot faster then the previous day's workout.  I found that my muscles would be screaming in pain and burning so badly that I would have to stop after sometimes only doing a few reps.  As the workout went on, my high knees became marching in place, my but kicks were more like jogging in place, and the crazy hard fifty million versions of push ups just became regular push ups until I felt like I was going to fall on my face.

I can see how people loose a lot of weight doing this workout.  And I can see why everyone I've talked to stopped doing it.  Truthfully, I don't know how much longer I will be doing this.  Probabbly as long as Don keeps pushing me to do it and not letting me skate off.  I think that if I have 1 day off from it, it'll easily turn into 2 days, then 2 years for me!  lol.

Anyways, the reason why I'm blogging this is in hopes that the more people that know that I'm doing this, the more guilty I would feel for not doing it when people ask me about it!  I do want to loose weight and get fit again.  I'm so out of shape, and it really sucks.  So here's to 57 more days of Insanity!!!!

Flying

I was hanging out with Russ' family Saturday night, when somehow the subject of flying came up. Russ' son, Shaun has been flying since he was 16, and now he's almost 21. Shaun had come home for the summer and was flying gliders for Soar Hawaii as his summer job. I expressed interest in wanting to go flying, and Shaun told me to come up Sunday and he'll take me out.

So Sunday afternoon, I headed over to Russ' so we could head out to Dillingham Airfield to go riding with Shaun. Zac, Russ' other son decided he wanted to go and video tape the ride as well. (Shaun's family had been up in the air lots of times already, so it was only my first time) Debbie, Russ' wife decided she didn't want to come along. So we headed out towards the North Shore, and about 10 minutes later, we got a call from Debbie, wanting to go now! So we turned around and headed back to Mililani to pick up Debbie.

After picking up Debbie, we headed back out to the North Shore, and this time, made our way all the way up there. When we got there, we all ended up eating lunch that Russ had grabbed before ... garlic chicken from Fat Boys. Yum!!!

Then we chatted a bit with Steve, who was the guy who taught Shaun how to fly. I'm not sure if he's the owner of Soar Hawaii but he was really nice and fun to talk to. When he found out that I never ridden a glider before, he offered to take me out on one! Shaun told him that he was planning on taking me out on the Samba (a motor glider), and Steve thought it would be a good idea too. So not long after our lunch, we were headed over to the plane for my very first motor-glider ride!!!

Zac and Shaun helped me get settled into my seat - get all buckled in and stuff. Then we closed the cover and Shaun started up the plane. And then we were off!!!

Here's the view from my side of the plane.  We were sitting on the side of the runway.  The yellow line is the seperation between the "active" runway and us. The planes (gliders, motor gliders, and tow planes) were all parked along the "non-active" side of the runway.

Looking out of our cockpit - it was only a 2 seater and both of us could control flying the plane.  We are still parked at this point, and Shaun was explaining the start up of the plane.

Taking off!

We were at the North Shore of Oahu and it was a beautiful view when we took off.

Shaun and I ... that's basically the whole inside of the plane.  We were gliding at this point, that's why we didn't have our headsets on anymore.  It gets real quiet when we glide. 

On our way back, Shaun stopped the motor and we glided along the mountains.  The Samba is a motor glider airplane, so we didn't need a tow plane to get us up in the air, and we could go anywhere we wanted.  But when we shut down the engine, we could glide along like any other glider.  You can see the blade of the prop in this pic because it wasn't running.  All the othe pictures you'll see it blurry, cause it's spinning.

At the time, I actually didn't wish I was down there, because the ride was so awesome and the views were so beautiful!  But looking at the pictures now, I wish I was at the beach!  hahaha.

 

So remember that picture of me and Shaun in the plane?  Well, this is the rest of it.  It's kind of the same space you have on a commercial plane, but more leg room and your seat doesn't recline.  But notice - there is a key on the pilot's side for a parachute release?  That's the only parachute release in the plane!  Luckily, it's for the entire plane, not a single passenger.

Dillingham Airfield straight ahead!

Panoramic view of the airfield from land.

Beaches in Hawaii are so beautiful!

Hale'iwa Harbor and town.  They were having canoe races.

Shaun even let me fly the plane at one point. I was so nervous and so scared taking over the controls.  It was hard keeping the plane level and the nose up at the same time!  I think I like being a passenger rather than a pilot!!

Picture of the gilders lined up on the runway.  The yellow one just landed.

Zac, Shaun and Russ by the Samba.

Samba in action from the outside.

Jamba Juice Banana Man Chase 5k

I guess every year Jamba Juice has their Banana Man Chase 5k Run/Walk.  It is nation wide, and for Oahu, it was a 5k route around Ala Moana Beach Park & Magic Island.  For doing the race, you get a free jamba juice and a tshirt.  I figured since it was only a little over 3 miles, I'd sign up and take the dogs with me.  I've been trying to get back into exercising again, and this would be a good way to start.  I never did a race before, so this was my first one ever!  I found out that Don, Rosemary and Paul would be doing the race as well.

The race started at 7am, but the lady at the packet pickup told me that the streets would close at 6:30am.  So Don told me that he'd drive me and the doggies down there, and before 5:30 am we were out the door and on our way to Ala Moana!  It was still dark, but there was quite a bit of cars on the road.  My dogs seemed confused about what was going on, but they enjoyed looking out the windows.  We made it down to Ala Moana around 6am.  We took a picture when we parked the car.  Hina's in between us, and Shadow decided right before the picture was taken that there was something more interesting outside the window to look at.

We parked at Ala Moana shopping center, because we weren't sure what roads were going to be shut and for how long.  So we just walked across the street and cut through the park to get to the chip pickup area.  Unlike most races, who give you a chip when you pick up your packets, we had to get our chips the morning of the race.  And unlike most races, where the chip is this small little thing you can tie to your shoelaces, this one was an ankle chip that you attached around your ankle.  I put it on and felt like I was under house arrest with and ankle band or something!  They kept saying to put your chip around your left or right ankle, not your wrist, or your time wouldn't be counted at the end of the race ... unless you did a handstand through the finish line.  I was hoping that someone actually did put it around their wrist and did a handstand through the finish line, cause that would just be awesome!  :)

It was a pretty day out there, and the water was so calm.  There were a lot of people, but it didn't feel overly crowded.  I stayed on in the grassy area away from most of the people cause I didn't want the dogs getting too excited.  Don had gone to find us some water, and found Rosemary, Matt and Paul.  They all came back over and we hung out a little bit before the race started.  Paul had one of the free iced coffees that they were giving out.  He said it wasn't bad, but needed alot of sugar.  I guess the free jamba juices were at the end of the race.  Shucks!

This was the view of  Ala Moana Beach park that morning.

This is the view looking the other way, towards magic island.  Unfortunately, the race route was along the roads, so we didn't get these views during the race.

While we were just chilling on the side, we got to see a bunch of the banana mans warming up around the park.  I debated on asking them to get a picture with me, and decided it was too much of a hassle with the dogs.  So I just took pictures of them instead.  lol.

The deal with all these guys dressed up in the Banana Man outfits is that Jamba Juice was awarding a year's worth of Jamba Juice to the first 3 men and women that passed these bananas and finished the race.  The bananas got a 60 second head start (they wanted 2 minutes head start) and actually ran the race in these banana suits!  They were quite silly.

This last banana on the segway - he actually doubled back before the first mile and took a "short cut" back to the finish line.  He didn't go the whole race, and was a cheater!!!

We made our way over to the start line and they introduced the bananas while they posed for pictures.

They let the bananas go and counted down 60 seconds and sounded the buzzer to signal the start of the race.  I hung back, since I was going to walk the race with the dogs and watched everyone head off.  I didn't realise that they started the time at the buzzer, not when you crossed the start line.  But I wasn't going for time, so it didn't really matter to me.  I got in the back of the pack and started walking with the dogs.  We had a hard time weaving around people, since we didn't have the whole street.  Some mean lady a ways behind me started mouthing off about me having the dogs - really loudly.  I ignored her as she also started mouthing off about the runners that were trying to maneuver around people so that they could actually run the race and not walk.  I sucessfully manuevered the dogs and I around a bunch of people and picked up my pace a little.  I had to keep an eye on Shadow, because once he's through, he's through, and I didn't want to be carrying him the 3 miles!  But he seemed to be happy and keeping up the pace.  I stopped at one of the turns and watched the runners coming back along the first loop and some of them even passed a few bananas!  Although this banana was running backwards, and seemed to be encouraging people to keep running! 

Because I had stopped to take a few pictures, the mean lady had caught up with me again, and was about 10 feet behind me when I heard her once again, complaining really loudly about "again with the pets" and something about "having pets on the field".  I was mad at this point, because one: it was a public road/park ... I could have pets here REGARDLESS if I was in the race or not.  And two: I made sure the dogs weren't in anyone's way - I was in the back of the pack, and I wasn't preventing anyone from passing me and the dogs were behaving and not getting in anyone's way.  (Plus, we were always way ahead of this lady).  So I turned around and told her very loudly "I'm sorry, I read the rules, and I didn't see anything stating NO PETS."  I guess that threw her off, because her friend next to her looked embarrased and she looked away and didn't have anything more to say.  I then quickly manuvered my way around a whole bunch of people and made sure I was waaaaaay ahead of them.

The rest of the people were really receptive of my dogs and we walked along with some of them and chatted.  A few ladies said that the dogs were helping them keep pace and they were glad that I had them there.  I didn't mention anything about the mean lady to them, and I was glad that everyone else was nice.  At the 1/2 way point, there was a water station, and Shadow seemed to be slowing down at that point, so I pulled us over to the side and pulled out the doggie bowl and let Shadow rest and get a lot of water.  The volunteers at the water station were so excited about the dogs, that they made sure that they got all the water they wanted and attention too!!  In fact, they were so excited about them, that they totally ignored me and I had to get my own water off the table!  Hahahaha.  It was ok, though.  I didn't realise it until they started asking me questions, but they were Japanese and spoke very little English.  But I managed to figure out what they were asking and they understood my answers.  I was going to pull out my camera, but I decided not to.  But Hina and Shadow were totally enjoying their little break and all the attention!

I had a feeling that if I let them, the volunteers would spend all day giving Shadow and Hina attention.  And if they dogs had it their way, I'm sure they would totally soak it all up!  Shadow had layed down on the ground, and I didn't want him getting too comfortable, or he'd refuse to move.  So I had to pry the doggies away from the volunteers and start back on the course.  By then, a whole bunch of people had passed us, because we were there for a few minutes.  And much to my dismay, I looked at the people in front of me, and guess what?  It was that mean lady and her friend.  I braced myself for more insults, but none came, and I was pretty happy about it.  I was going to pass them, since they were walking a really slow pace.  But we were on a narrow sidewalk, and the some dude had came up next to the ladies in front of me and was walking along the grassy part next to the sidewalk, leaving me no room to pass them.  So all three of us trudged along sllllooooowwwwly behind these ladies.  Don called me up to find out where I was, because he had finished his race, and I told him about where I was.  He was sitting at a picnic bench a few hundred feet from me, and when I saw the grassy area get big around the walkway, I steered the dogs away from the sidewalk and went ahead to meet up with him.  He said that he'd walk the rest of the way with me and the dogs.  So I gave him one of the dogs to walk.  lol.  We had slowed down our pace because Shadow was getting tired, but we weren't doing too bad.

We reached Magic Island and had to circle around it to get to the finish line.  They had started crowding around part of the route, because that was were the awards ceremony was going to be.  I heard an announcement asking people to clear a path for the walkers coming through, and they did.  So me, Don and the doggies were walking through a wall of people at one point, and because of the dogs, we were getting ALOT of attention.  I saw cameras everywhere!  I guess my doggies are going to be famous!  Hahaha.

We finished the walk in under an hour and I found a shady spot for the dogs to relax in.  Shadow immediately plopped down infront of the doggie bowl of water I put down and just dunked his head in there and drank.  Hina seemed excited still and seemed like she wanted to go for alot more miles!  As we were sitting there, I ate a banana and had some jamba juice.  People kept coming up to me and asking me questions about the dogs.  In fact, along the walk, people kept asking what kind of dogs I had and got a kick out of how "furry" shadow was and what complete opposites these dogs were.  Kids were coming up to me and wanting to play with the dogs and take pictures with them.   My dogs were definately celebrities!!

After a little bit, I decided it was time to go home, and we left.  I thought the dogs would pass out on the way home, but they stayed up and enjoyed looking out the window.  However, within 1/2 hour of getting home, they passed out and slept for hours!!  It was a fun day.

Day #1 of Spring Break!!!!!

Let me start off several months before this Spring Break vacation.  I was coming to the end of the project that I was working on, and it was getting stressful for me, and I was in desperate need of a vacation.  I was trying to figure out where, when and with whom, though.  I was chatting with my friend, Beth, who recently moved to Italy and had just posted pictures from her latest trip to Venice.  We started talking about her Venice trip, then possibly future little trips that her and her husband, John are planning to take.  Then she suggested that I join her on her family trip to Colorado.

I've always wanted to learn how to snowboard, and I never really got to really play in the snow.  So I jumped all over her invitation and started looking at the prices for hotel and airfare and put in my leave at work.  When everything started falling into place, I got really excited about the trip and could not wait!!  Beth told me it was originally going to be a trip with just her, her sister (Bri), and her parents (Chandra and Jr).  But slowly, the group grew bigger and bigger till there was 14 people!!  I guess when Beth invited me, John decided to invite some of his friends, so he invited Don and Chuck.  Don lives in Hawaii, so it was nice to know that I'd have someone to make the journey to Colorado with, instead of flying alone.  Unfortunately, Chuck wasn't able to make it on this trip, which was a dissapointing for us all, I think.

So fast forward to Saturday night, when we were supposed to fly out, getting us to Colorado at noon, where John and Beth were going to pick us up.  Well, Don came over to pick me up (and throw some of his clothes that didn't fit in his suitcase into mine!), and noticed that he had a voicemail, but no missed call.  I didn't think anything of it when he checked his voicemail, until he blurted out that our flight was cancelled!!!  I guess the voicemail told him that our flight was cancelled and to call a certain number to find out more.  I was in shock and didn't know what to do.  He called the number and was on hold for over 10 minutes.  When he finally talked to someone, he found out that our flight was cancelled due to maintenance problems, and they booked us on one of the first flights out in the nexgt mornign to Denver.  This would get us to Denver at 7pm the next day, instead of noon.  We quickly texted John and Beth, and luckily, they were just getting into bed, so we were able to call them and explain the situation.  Beth's family was able to figure out what how we were going to work around the schedule change, and I felt a little better about the situation.

The next morning, we had to get to the airport before the crack of dawn, and made it to our stopover in San Fran almost an hour early!!  So because we had some extra time to spare, I decided before we were even let off the plane that I wanted a chowder bread bowl!! We found a place not too far from our gate that had really good chowder in a sour dough bread bowl!  yum!!

When we finally got to Denver, we found out that there had been a snowstorm that just passed by.  When we called John and Beth to let them know that our plane had landed, they told us that the roads were pretty bad, and that they will take longer to get there.  Since we had just landed and still had to wait for our luggage, I figured they would be there when our luggage got there.  It actually worked out that they got there right when we got our luggage.  Unfortuantely, we had the hardest time finding each other!!!  Don and I grabbed our luggage and went out to the curbside.  There weren't that many people outside, and all these car rental place buses kept swinging by, but no Beth and John!  We were on the phone and we were all utterly confused, because she said that they had just drove around the arrival area and didn't see us.  And I was standing out there the whole time and didn't see them at all!  Finally, some worker at the airport came over and told us that if someone was going to pick us up, we had to go up a floor.  HUH?  That explained how Beth and John circled the arrivals area 3 times and we still couldn't find each other!  It was wierd that you couldn't just walk out and get picked up.  Anyways, we finally found each other, and it was so great to see Beth and John again.  The last time I saw them was at their wedding 7 months ago.

Beth and John filled us in on what was going on ... everyone in the group had gone to the rental place to pick up their rental gear, and in the morning, we'd swing by and Don and I could pick up our gear, since we wouldn't be able to make it to the rental place before it closed tonight.  We were heading over to the 2nd best steakhouse ... Saltgrass!  Chandra, JR, Bri and Bri's friend Lindsey were going to meet us there for dinner.  John said that the roads were getting a little better, but it still looked pretty bad.  John explained that when we looked out of the Tahoe and saw a curtain of white, that it was called a "white out".  I was so greatful that John and Beth had picked us up, because John grew up in Minnesota, and was used to driving in the snow.  I grew up in Hawaii, where I don't have to drive in snow at all, if I choose.  Beth told us about their journey from the hotel to pick us up -  that there were semi's stalled on a hill, and they had to squeeze around all the stalled cars and trucks on the road and how scarey it was.  For some reason, it was hard for us to find the resturant, even with the Garmin.  But we eventually found it, and went in to wait for the rest of the group to show up.  The food was so yummy there!

We were posing like the bobcat on the mantle above us.

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel to check in and call it a night.  Tomorrow would be an early day, and the first day on the slopes!!!

Day #2

Monday morning, and it was Day #2 of our trip, but really day #1 of our Spring Break!  (Have I confused you yet?)  We all met downstairs in the lobby around 7ish to head out to Winter Park Resort, were we were going to ski and snowboard!  The hotel provided breakfast in the morning, so we all woke up a little earlier and went down to grab a bite to eat before meeting in the lobby.  When we all got down there, there was 16 of us and a 4 car caravan.  Here's me and Beth all ready for our first day on the slopes!

Here's Don and John ready to go in the morning

We started our caravan towards Empire Rentals, where Don and I still had to pick up our snowboarding equipment, since we got in too late last night to pick up our stuff with the rest of the group.  The ski rental building was next to the snowboarding building, and when we walked to the snowboarding building, we got our first taste of people from the "mile high city".  We soon concluded (after meeting several more characters throughout that day) that when they were talking about "high", did they were not talking about elevation.

To make up for the worker, the snowboarding shop had lots of cool stuff.  Beth got a new beannie, and John was looking for a neckwarmer.

Anyways, without much help from the guy, we got our gear and headed up the mountain towards Winter Park Resort.  (By the way, my gear wasn't fitted correctly for me, which I figured out about the 2nd day and confirmed it after getting home.  I still was able to use it, but it was quite disappointing, but not surprising from this guy).  The parking lots were lower on the mountain and we had to take a shuttle to the village area.  We all put our ski/snowboots on at the parking lot and all you could hear was grunts, moans and people mutterting under their breath cause the boots are hard to get into!  It was pretty funny to hear everyone.

I tried to stay in the truck cause Beth showed me that it was sooo cold outside!

John getting all the equipment out of the car

One last quick picture before we jumped on the next shuttle to get to the village area.

When we got to the village area, it was super crowded!!  There were thousands of people and the whole day, we kept hearing how normally there aren't that many people at the resort.  In fact, the resort ran out of equipment to rent!

Don and I had to wait in a really long line to pick up our lift pass and class tickets, which didn't really make sence to me because we had ordered our tickets online.  When we got up to the front of the line, the lady at the window couldn't find our reservations.  Don and I had both left our phones in the car, and we didn't have our confirmation number with us.  Bri lent us her phone, but between Don, me and Beth, we were having technical difficulties.  lol.  Thankfully, the lady behind the window finally found our reservations and gave us our tickets.  Unforutnately, by the time we got our tickets and headed over to the class area, we had missed our class.  (We found out later that the kids - Jet, Jaide, Gunner and Skout also missed their classes).  The rest of the group had hit the slopes to go skiing, so Don and I wandered around the area and hung out at the bar waiting to get into the afternoon class.  I was a little bummed that we weren't able to make our class, but I wasn't too sad, because I was still jet lagged and tired, so it just gave me more time to relax and get used to the elevation.  (That elevation was kicking my butt!! I couldn't walk far before getting tired and needing a break!)

We watched the slopes while we waited to meet up with everyone else for lunch.

We meet up with the group for lunch and split up again so Don and I could take our first snowboarding lesson ever!  Don and I got to the area super early, so we wouldn't miss the class this time.  While we were waiting, we took our first pictures with our snowboards!

Unfortunately, our instructor wasn't the greatest on the slopes, but at least we managed to learn the basics of snowboarding.  And I found out quickly, that unlike surfing, i needed to keep my weight on my front foot.  Unfortunately, getting up on that snowboard and going down the hill, I would get into my surfing stance and fall.  Our instructor didn't give us too much instruction about the lift, other than how to get on it.  So when I got on the lift, we didn't know to pull down the bar, and I was so scared at how much the lift chair was rocking and moving around.  Don just laughed and took pictures of my misery.

The view from the lift was nice, though.

Needless to say, we didn't do too well getting off the lift ... we both fell!!!  Don said that they didn't stop the lift and he got hit in the head after we fell.  So good thing he was wearing his helmet!  The 2nd lift we went on wasn't as bad, since I knew what to expect and I didn't fall getting off! Here I am at the top of the hill that the first lift we took deposited us.

I got the heel-side edge and wasn't as great with the toe-side edge, but I managed to snowboard/fall/tumble down the hill.  Don was doing better than me, linking turns and everything.  But I still caught him falling a bit! Hahahaha

But really, he was doing better than I was, and looked pretty good going down the hill.

And the reason why there's pictures of him snowboarding and not me, is because at that point, I had taken a really bad spill ... I just layed there in the snow for a while ... and decided that I'd walk the rest of the way down.  Here we are at the last curve before the bottom.

When we got to the bottom, we waited for the rest of the group to finish up and rested up in the lounge.  Here I am making a sad face because I was tired and sore.  Hahaha

For dinner, we headed to a pizza place called Beau Jo's ... it was recommended to me by a friend at work as having having awesome pizza.  I wasn't feeling too great by the time dinner rolled around - I think it was a combination of being tired and being dehydrated (I wasn't good about drinking water during the whole time we had class).  But the food there was definately awesome!!  The poepl working there ... well, remember what I said earlier about the "mile high city?"  Yeah.  The manager, the balloon lady, the waiter ... who to choose from to win the prize?  Lol.  We did get some amusement from the balloon lady when Jet asked her to make him a motorcycle!  We had told him to ask her to make him a bicycle (ala Wedding Crashers), but he came back with he was going to ask her to make a motorcycle.  It was an interesting balloon bike ... it actually looked more like a bike than her balloon dinosaur looked like a dinosaur ...