Hawaii Life - Week One

Our first week here on the North Shore has been awesome! The kids have settled into the online school routine and are getting their work done first thing in the morning. We've been active and outdoors for hours every day and exploring right around us, trying to get to know the area better. Our house is directly on Banzai Pipeline Beach. We are one of 3 houses that is not a "sponsored" surf house here on Pipeline. The surf has been pretty big aside from yesterday and today. We've been told over and over by probably a dozen or so people that Pipeline this time of year is NOT for us. So we've listened. We've played in the surf near the shore and tried to boogie board a bit right near the lifeguard station but the waves are pretty intense. It's really fun to watch all of the pro surfers catch the big waves. 

We've had tons of rain the first week here. On Saturday, Jeff went out for a run and got caught in a downpour. He came back absolutely drenched, it looked like he had jumped in the ocean! I'm trying to up my exercise game while I'm here and since I'm not playing tennis every day, I decided that the most efficient way to get my cardio in is to run. So I've been alternating running barefoot on the beach and running with shoes on the jogging path by our house. Both are tough but the beach is unbelievably hard! On our first morning, I saw a lady running on the sand and I thought, "See, I could do that. She's running nice and slow, I'll just do that and start nice and slow." Little did I know that it is an absolute calf burner and it's about 10x harder than running on asphalt! With every step, you sink past your ankles in the sand. But I'm sticking to it. How often do you get the chance to train this way? 

Family dinners have been one of my favorite things here in Hawaii. At home we are just scattered and busy and it's so hard to make family dinners work consistently. But here, we're all together all the time so when the sun goes down, everyone pitches in and helps make dinner together and we all sit and eat together on the lanai. It's a mom's dream!!!

Yesterday Mikey, Kate and I went to the park down the street to play some tennis. The courts had finally dried out and we were missing tennis. When we got there the park was packed! Tons of families playing on the playground and kids skating. There was an older man giving a group of kids a lesson and some other people playing on the only other court. They yelled across the park and asked if we wanted to come play some doubles with them. We agreed and had a great time playing doubles with Sebastian, the Catholic priest in Kahuku and Regan, a local lady who lives near us. It was super fun, even though they basically worked us over haha!

Isaac has been dying to try surfing so we rented a few boards and tried several different beaches over the last 2 days. It's been tough. Winter surf on the North Shore is intense so we've tried a few spots recommended by locals at the surf shop and other people we've talked to. It's been so windy that most of the beginner spots are pretty blown out too. We tried Pa'eana point and Jeff barely stopped a guy from stealing our stuff while we were out surfing. We tried Castles but the shore break and wind were so strong that we ended up just body surfing. Finally last night the wind and rain died down and the waves at Pipeline in front of our house looked like they might be manageable. At least Isaac was determined to try. So I told him I'd go out to the beach in front with him. With so many warnings from locals, we were cautious so Isaac just played in the waves without a board. While I was watching him I happened to look up and see a huge humpback whale jump all the way out of the water and crash back down into the ocean. It was amazing!!

Today we went to Pearl Harbor. It was a sobering experience to learn about the attack and how many lost their lives. We took the boat out to the Arizona Memorial and listened to the audio tour. Because of Covid, there were hardly any people at the historic sites. 

After Pearl Harbor, we tried to find a unique place for a late lunch. We ended up getting separated (we rented two cars because it was cheaper than renting one mini-van or a car big enough to fit 6) so Kira, Mikey, and I found our way to a totally off-the-beaten-path Poke shack in an industrial part of Honolulu. We were the only ones in the shop and the owner/chef was so awesome! We spent probably half an hour sampling his food and talking to him about his restaurant and training. He told us how he took a 3-month class just on rice and how to identify every different kind of rice and what made it unique. His food was AMAZING!! He was so passionate about every part of it. He was so proud of his sushi cakes and showed us one he had just completed and you could just see he was beaming with pride. It was so cool looking! It was for sure the best poke I have ever had. I love meeting people who are so passionate about what they do!

Tonight we played spikeball on the beach in the middle of another downpour. We were soaking wet but the rain had cleared most of the beach and we laughed at ourselves because we are so bad at spikeball and we had a blast.