2024-Dec-23
Man it is early, as 4:15am alarm goes off on the latest and greatest iPhone. I put on my pre arranged clothing laid out the night before when I packed. Niamh’s 2024 flood car didn’t arrive on Friday so need to figure out how to ‘sign’ for it when we are on a plane at 40 thousand feet. It is suppose to arrive between 9-11 am from Sacramento via easyhaul. My good friend and car guru Paul signed up for this silly service.
The scheduled Lyft driver, Daniel, arrived at 5am. I had my bagel and cold coffee so was ready. I was not ready for the freggin 7 bags that were going to check plus a personal item per person. I sat with the heaviest bag, Niamh’s, roller bag in my lap since good-old-what’s his nuts wanted to see out back seat versus comfort of people in chairs. We arrived and the bag check machine would scroll down to print out a checked bag sticker per person. We went to another and scrolling was a thing. We printed it out and checked in all 7. We then moseyed over to the gate and Corey and Darci had managed to get 5 seats near the gate. I got a Dunkin’ drink since the line at Starbucks was ridiculous. Then we got on in boarding group B and was in row 7. We missed out on one seat to sit 6 across. Lawson had his own seat in row 8 next to window. I sat next to a jumpy little kid who kept stepping on my feet and raising up the blind to take a video out the window. I had an espresso martini and a vodka hazelnut and a cheese plate. I also frantically tried to reach out to Paul on status of the flood car. The guy didn’t arrive till 1 which was 2 hours after the planned time. No battery and a hole in the oil pan. Doesn’t look flooded, but smells smoked in. Hum. Hopefully engine is still good. Stick with plan of changing oil and transmission fluids first. Getting a battery and inspecting the spark plugs, and then scoping out the cylinder heads. Vacuum up the carpets and shampoo the carpets and then presto a fabulous car… oh, it needs tires too. So will fingers crossed it will all be done by end of January!
Anywho we arrived. Got all 7 bags and hopped on the bus to the rental car place. Alamo eh. We got a standard which was the most basic Toyota Camry. I picked white to match the basic nature of the car. I tried to go to the 409 restaurant which unfortunately was in the heart of Pearl Harbor tourism. We put our name down and then drove out to the Jorge’s Mexican Restaurant and Bar. It was great as I had Negro Modelo and some nachos. Then I had another Negro Modelo and then off to Turtle Bay.
We arrive at 3:30 and check in was at 4, but we managed to make into the condo with all of our junk. We setup shop and then over the Lei Lei’s for dinner at the club. I had a ceaser. Then I came back and crashed as has been awake for way too long.
Dec 24
Apparently two ‘gun shots’ went off at 2:30 am. I was not disturbed. I rolled out at 9am Hawaiian with the Fiona. We popped down to the foodland, but of course I put in grocery store and ended up at some random place that Fiona said, ‘ Uh, no.’ too. Bah. So we went a bit further and spent a small fortune at foodland. Then I asked the friendly looking cashier who took my cell number to give us the coupon pricing where we could find a basketball. Long drugs of course a few miles down the road. Basketball found. 43 dollars? What the hell. We are taking this sucker home. We also snagged a Brita water filter for our watering needs.
Made it back and loaded up the fridge. Pumped up the basketball ball and played a bit on the tennis court. I lost horse of course. I muscled my way into the net thru scrawny Lawson who is all of 87 pounds but ever so slightly taller than the Niamh who towers at the height of 5’ 1”. She is all about her wide back. So…. Anywho we finish and then bigger off back to the historic north shore to walk around and shop. We park at the harbor which is at the top end of town.
We stop at Teddy’s burger bar and the Niamh and Fiona split a burger, Lawson gets his own, and I get a kids grilled cheese with a toy. It was a bouncing ball. But the dark Maui beer was good with cheese of grilled. W then walk and buy things like Hawaiian shirts, rash guards, an SD card for the insta360. It is a fun little town. I need new slider flip flops as the reef ones I’ve had for 5 years are really rubbing on my fragile little toes. Poor dainty feet. Ffffffuuuuucck, did Lawson lose his freggin warriors sun glasses we literally got him 4 days ago. He took them off at one of the places he stopped in to get a swimsuit that he forgot. He left them hanging on a hook in the changing room. We didn’t figure this out until a changing room later while doing something amazing. She we trodded back and luckily the nice lady recognized us and said the glasses where at the register. But not after we stopped at the last changing place where the glasses were not… yeah we now had glasses back for the kid. Apparently Niamh’s name is Jewish? Need to confirm that, but am thinking no? The girls buy smelly things and look ‘so’ much younger. Oh, wait. Then back to car and we go back to condo. I remember the gate code. Then we go to pool. Pool code we received via email does not work. Lame. We hop the fence. By we I mean Lawson. We go swimming and figure out the insta360 camera. I try and go back to condo, but my phone is inside. Niamh gets code. I get in. I shower. We drive back to old north shore and park in same place. The Harbor (say this with a Boston accent is is so much more fun). We make it to Uncle Bo’s PuPu bar and grill. We order way too much food for family sharing. Uncle Corey nibbles at his chicken, I split a veggie pizza with Darci, iain and Cheryl join us for dinner. There are 10 crazy people eating Christmas Eve is Hawaii. Lol. I had a tickle pickle, gummy bear, and a two Japanese beers (Kirin) with my half of the pizza. I then threw on doughnut holes as a desert. These were monster holes. We walk back to car and slowly make our way to condo. We watch Holidate which is a really bad movie Niamh loves as she likes Emma Roberts since they are both 5’ 2”. I can’t handle the commentary so peace out and when the movie is over the kids start bickering. Oh good. Fiona tries to parent by yelling. Super. Eventually things r quiet. I have to sleep upright since I ate too much food.
Dec 25
Merry Christmas! I get up at 7am and go for a run. I see the stables, pill box, secret beach, which take about 40 minutes to trudge around as a holiday run. I arrive back no Fiona. I see she has scampered off on her own so I go finder her since the kids r still logs. I find her and we go back to the main hotel. I have a chocolate frappe and a chocolate croissant. We walk down to beach at 9:30 and get a cabana. Damn need a real plastic card none of this Apple pay stuff. We shuffle back and get kids and plastic and scoot back to pay for the day.
We are in our little sandy heaven. We see a turtle. I swim. It is chilly. I insta360 the turtle. I beer and Mai tai my way thru lunch. I work out warrior tickets at the same time as Fiona. I see and she finds a taker. Selling wins. Next time. I have the crispy cowiflower. It is tasty. It is 3:30 and I’m by myself in the cabana waiting for the menu guy to come by but he must have left to open his presents?
He did leave. It is 4 and I close out with another guy. I snap a photo of the receipt and load it into Tricount app. I’m not sure how to do percentages, but will figure it out later. I walk back in my stupid hurting slides carrying a Tommy Bahama chair with broken shoulder straps. I strip down to only my suit and grab a towel. The blind old fat man is off to the pool. I tried 2 more pool codes to get into the pool. Nope. Stupid pool codes. A kind 22ish girl lets me in who is with a hunky guy and in the pool is the girls mom. I ask what do they think the code is, they r not sure but spit out yet another 4 digit monster that im sure doesn’t work. Will have to compare to what Darci and Corey have as a pool codes. Oh, hum. No Lawson. I jump in anyway. Float for 5 minutes. Say thanks and wonder to the ‘second pool’. Why would he go there? He is lazy like me and wants to only put in as much effort as needed if not excited, I guess he is excited with a pool and maybe the code works on the second pool. So I saunter over and peeek thru gate. Nope. No Lawson. Man these sliders suck. I need a new pair that will not chew into my toes. Back at 26 Fiona is confused why I can’t find Lawson. I am just as confused as apparently he is taking a shower. Good boy.
I also take a shower, but our lovely daughter and the 2 other people who are cherubs use up all the hot water. It is not cold as it is Hawaii but is not like ‘cold’ like when you run out of hot water in San Jose. That is like 40 degree water this is like 68 degree water, so tolerable when your last one in a family where teenagers don’t take 5 minute showers.
We skip over the unit 18 and auntie and uncle unit has stairs that are safe unlike ours which are steep and narrow. I pop back over to our unit to get a few beers. I tell a few dad jokes from a deck of cards my son lovingly gave me for Christmas. The shovel was a groundbreaking invention.
Niamh wanted to see the sunset. So Alan, me, Lawson, and Niamh went to the left of the hotel and managed see a nice one.
<insert nicest sunset picture ever, that is what it was, honest>
Then back to hotel, where we all put on headgear from Corey.
<insert headgear photo of 10 people, there are dots of light on Darci because she radiates>
We make our way down to Roy’s which is the same place we had lunch from but the menu is much nicer but in the same font. The drinks are nicer too. I had a martini which apparently I have to guzzle down like a frat boy as I got shit for sipping a freggin martini. What am I? (Don’t answer that). Geez. Let me enjoy sipping on a goddamn pineapple rum and vodka martini. I got another to go with my aloo gobe which was interesting as it was potatoes, cauliflower and curry. It was heat hot, but once it cooled down a bit was pretty good. Not the best ever as it had some other stuff in it I was not sure about and a bit of fish sauce all pooled in one area. It was good not great. I hope Lawson loved his wagu beef. The only thing left was a potato so I think he liked it. Not sure what Fiona or Niamh had, but people seemed to think it was good. It took over an hour to get our food. The place was slammed. We sent stupid photos of ourselves that the kids helped to inspire.
I am tired, as I ran 3 miles, walked 3, swam with turtles, and rubbed my toes raw. I’m asleep by 10:30 which is 12:30 PST eh.
Dec 26
I’m up at 7. Blogging. It is 8 now. Time for coffee? Need to make that lunch reservation eh? I made the reservation for 12:30 at Smith and Kimg. No problem. Lawson was feeling ‘sick’ with a dry cough and a throat that has to be cleared. Sure. Ok. So we leave 30 minutes early to make a pit stop at foodland (the one 6 miles on the way to Pearl Harbor). I missed the fact there was a coffee place next door as I was being a dullard. Anywho (for those that are freggin counting let me write without having the ‘please’ my reading audience, ahem, DARCI) we made our way to Pearl Harbor and instead stopped at the Coffee Bean which was 3 miles away from the museum. I ordered two drinks. Wait grabbed two coffees and got back in car. Shit I grabbed the guy in front of me coffees. Close enough. NIamh wanted a carmel thing but got a vanilla thing, mine was an iced mocha instead of blended. Ah, crap. Sorry bald man in hawaiin shirt my bad, but your coffee was good. Next time will pay closer attention. Bah… we arrived at 10 and saw people walking. We did a people swap. I got the better deal as I ended up with Corey. I ended up parking at the same 604 restaurant that we tried to have lunch at the same day we landed. Darci is insisting we make it back in time for lunch but we can always move the reservation. We have no clue what we are doing or where we are going. We stand in line for a bus to see the Missouri. We miss first bus. Bummer. We take a 15 minute ride to see the last In service battleship. 3 wars. Countless shells that travel 26 miles and make 50wx20d foot craters with a well trained crew can be loaded in 30 seconds. Wow. A marvel of destructive engineering wonder. The bow of the ship curved up, was barely small enough to fit thru the Panama Canal at the time which was no larger than 110 feet, the made the ship 108.5 feet, and was slightly longer than the titanic. It could hold upto 3000 people. We saw bunks, captain quarters, mess halls, the captain’s crows nest with a mess of phones, knobs, and switches. A dental office with chairs to boot, showers which required shower shoes, low ceilings, high doors, a rats maze of walk ways and ladders. I feel the guy who game up with shoots and ladders was on a ship he was spot on as I was now in that game with no idea of my location or time. I moved lunch to 1:15 when we first arrived, but we didn’t finish the look about until 12:30, so was going to be close. Missed the bus by that much. Stopped at the aviation museum on way back. There was some cool stuff, but stayed on bus and moved closer to front. Choas erupted when we got off the bus. I was getting car, but kids were told 3 different things from 3 sets of different adults. Oh joy. I got car. I managed to get my set of people. We were going to be 15 minutes late. Damn construction. Damn parking. We were considerably later than 15 minutes all said and done and arrived around 1:45. Way off. Iain and Cheryl gave up on our way to restaurant, but found a nice parking garage. It was an interesting little part of Honolulu. Lunch was good. I had grilled cheese and tomato soup. The children tricked me into eating a bit of chicken and hamburger for their very tasty French fries. It was a haul back. We arrived back around 5. Then a call was put out for drinks and a sunset. But of course.
<insert photo of sunset>
Espresso Martini. Yes please. 4. Sure. No, I had four of them. See. I too a time lapse which was cool.
<insert time laspe>
We drank with Iain and Cheryl, Darci and Corey. We left sick boy behind. Alan and Rowena showed up. Anywho I found a 15 person van over drinks which I now get to go hail. Yippie. I accept tips. Money or drinks will work. lol.
Dec 27
I’m up at 7 writing this blog. It takes about an hour. I leave for airport at 8ish to get van at 9:30. I go early recognizing I will get lost and take wrong turns and I need gas. I plug in a gas station that is on way and close to airport. I drive. I listen to tunes. I drive into a military base to try and get my gas. I wait in line of course to this to hand my license to a mil person to get walked out and then handed back my license. Stay to the right and you will see a gas station. For the directionaly challenged this blew up my plan. I can’t wing it and hope to find a gas station? Like it will pop out of the ground and say hello to me instead. Yup, I tired it and much yelling and swearing ensued as I drive 3 miles winging it as I drove past a shell station that i couldn’t turn right into as there was an off ramp to the ‘street’ from the freeway, but a no turn right sign from ‘freeway’ even though the freeway has freggin stop signs. Come on. Bah. Anywho like a kept staying right and eventually pulled over 3 miles away. Lame. I plugged in the shell station that I saw. Apparently I can turn left but not right. What the bleedn heck. Oh way they trick you with two left turns, one right before the light and then at the light. I managed to wiggle my way into the best left turn. Fill up my thirsty car, and then not understand how stop signs work as it was a two way instead of four way. Yup. I’m gunna die trying to get this stupid big honking #%^*? van.
I find the Alamo. I wait. A nice lady come up and I say whatever is easiest to get a van that is what I want to do. I need a new contract. Awesome. I turn in the car. Bound up the stairs like a like elk being chased by Elmer Fud. I sign my life away. I agree not to use the van to take k-12 children to school. Hum. I leave the snarky comment alone and say yup no school runs for me. Up to 3rd floor. There are 6 white beasts. A lady says to get one with a big screen not the tiny 3 inch screen, and gas is by the driver door. I find one. Not to shabby. The visibility is amazing. Up high lots of windows. The only thing in my reach is the door next to me and 18 cup holders. No. Not 18 but 5 in my reach. Awesome. I miss my truck, but I like fast no top kinda cars now. I drive back Moby Dick and park at condo at 11.
Off to doctor for Lawson’s cough. We are in and out in 40 minutes. I get coffee with Niamh across street at the grind. We take the van. Park. Get coffee. Drive back and wait 40 minutes. NIamh does gymnastics in the van. The van is tall enough she can stand with hitting her head. We go to a Mexican place to eat at the Polynesian center. It is not good. I thought it was a nice inside place, but no it was super expensive tourist trap food. We arrive back at condo and Tiffany, Emme, and Sean have arrived in their jeep.
We way go to pool and I jump in. Get out and shower. Change for the Mauka Warriors Luau which is in the middle of no where and an hours drive. We take pictures, wait in traffic, I get yelled at for flooring it. We arrive around 5:15 get our tickets, wrist bands, luau leis, and seated at table 25. There are 13 of us but only 12 seats. Doh. We get another seat. Everyone sits. Then everyone scatters. No scenic group picture. I am driving so I have a Blue Hawaiian and an Irish Coffee when we arrive then juice and coffee for the night. Lawson gets shoved up on stage and manages to get a sweatshirt as they r waiting in line for a Hanna Tattoo. They get a nice tattoo. Lawson gets a crab. Emme has one that is twice the size with flourishes. Guess it pays to chat up the tattoo artist. Lawson is not feeling well which is why he is not talkative.
We buffet at 6:30. Lawson manages to sneak up to buffet early and come back to table. Alan nearly kills himself by getting fish stuff, but eagle eyed Fiona stops him. Luckily. We all sit back down. We eat. There is talk of Fiona and Lawson getting an uber to leave early. They disappear. They come back. I have no idea what is going on, but they don’t sit with us at the table? We leave early. I get insulted. I get yelled at for not listening. I yell back for a guide to get me out of lot. I get out and drive back. It is nicer without traffic. We arrive back around 9:45. I’m tired. I go to bed.
Dec 28
I get up at 7:15 to blog. I put out a text for any takers to go with me back to airport to drop off van. It is too early for kids so they can’t go and Fiona has to baby Lawson. Corey goes with me. We leave at 8. We find the Texaco station, at 4561 Salt Lake Blvd, Honolulu, HI without any issue and I manage to use our Safeway gas discount so we are definitely coming back. We find the car return. I rent out another car. We go up to many floors as escalator to 3rd floor is broken. We walk back down. No full sized cars. Lame. For 80 dollars more a day we can get an Audi? Hum. We wait. Wait some more. I ask lady if we can get the Audi, but then I see guy comes up with Nissan Altima. It is so much nicer than Toyota Camry. Push to start, nicer engine, no hamster wheel sound when accelerating, the steering is nicer, it does not have climate with numbers but it is auto with A/C. It is also silver instead of white.
I planned out our day while waiting in line for the rental car. The Iolani Palace, Waikiki Beach, and Diamond Head. Leave at 3:30 to get back at 5 as it will take an hour to get back. I find parking at the palace for 2 bucks for an hour. We arrive and get our ticket at 10am. We mostly need a bathroom. Corey needs special yellow powder to turn into a walking rainbow, but since he doesn’t have it turns into an anxious angel soft bear. We need a reservation to see the entire palace and need to budget 60-90 minutes to see it at 27 dollers a ticket. We get the poor mans haven’t got a clue ticket for 5 smackers instead and the bathroom code. We then walk a 15 minute film made in 1994 about the history of the palace and the history of a monarchy to be overthrown by American businessmen who didn’t allow native Hawaii people to vote in 1887. They fashioned their monarchy after England, but it is odd that the ministers didn’t back up their queen unlike England who figured this out. Anywho, we toured the basement because that is where poopers go who don’t have a reservation. There was a 13 carat diamond that was pretty cool. We took off at 10:45 and rolled down Kalākaua Ave. I tried to find parking. I asked for valet parking at some random hotel. Nope. I did SpotHero. We drove to it. Nope. I asked for a refund. We drove to the Lewers and Ala Wai Blvd and found street parking, for free. What? Yup we are amazing.
We walked down Lewers and made an opentable reservation at Tommy Bahamas at noon. We stopped in at 11:40 and the restaurant didn’t actually open until 12. We went in a walk to see the infamous Waikiki Beach. I was trying to get to the bar called, The Edge of Waikiki. Corey spotted two foil board people walking so we followed and bingo at the ocean! We walked down to the Royal Hawaiian through the Sheraton and then back to lunch around 10 minutes past 12. We then proceeded to have friends this and frozen that of the Mai Tai, Lava Flow, something that tasted of grass that we sent back. Ended up have 4 frozen blended drinks and a ceaser salad that I should have asked for the dressing on the side. We drank for a good long time. Like until 2. With our server named Oak. I think it was part of her last name like Oakson and Corey thought it was something to do with ‘A Ok’. Either way she was nice and we tried to guess her first name. Corey landed an Audrey and I was Aubrey. We staggered out of Tommy’s and the proceeded to walk for another hour and a half down the shopping strip. We learned that we would be eating at the Stonefish Grill so told the group we would meet them there at 5. Before we left we tried to make it to the top of Diamond Head for a quick lookout and a pee. Nope. Needed a reservation. Bummer. So told the guard we walked to turn around and the proceeded to bomb down the road to save my bladder from exploding. We arrived and I made it. We ordered another frozen delight. People showed up. We said goodbye to Cheryl and Iain. I ended up eating other salad if I remember correctly. Drove home. Yelled at people for having the TV being to loud. Was asleep by 10:30 or 11.
Dec 29
It was Sunday. Back to Waikīkī as my pictures and experience was too good for the little shopper not to experience. By little shopper I mean Niamh eh. I get my meta glasses to work and connect. We end up parking at the Waikiki Galleria Tower on the 7th floor. Getting there was super boring as now I’ve been in car each day for hours trying to get places. We arrived down to ground floor. Got a bathroom code and then walked down to Cheeseburger in Paradise. We got there at 11:45ish before the crowds and managed to snag a table with a very sassy server named Katie. I had a grilled cheese and then the kids copied me, except for Lawson who couldn’t pass up a burger. I also had a Mai Tai. Back to car for swim stuff and bag of towels. I put on sun screen. We walk down to a very busy beach. The Fiona and Tiffany find a table right next to beach at the Royal Hawaiian under red umbrellas. I wonder down to the super busy beach with kids toting my fashionable Walmart bag. We walk all the way back to Sheraton to little beach that appears to now only host catamarans. We turn around. Kids want to stop at first opening I say no as Fiona and Tiffany found a spot under red umbrellas. We we walk back, and find a spot. I do a deck change. Fiona and I manage to find each other. I do a handoff of stuff and go into the water. It is very shallow. It is very rocky in places. I swim very far out and in my deck change see I forgot to remove my Pokemon watch. It is dead. Poor watch you will be missed. I took the Insta camera out. I find kids. They ignore me. I swim super far out. I can stand up still 500 yards out. Water is warm since it is so shallow. Kids are never getting out. I float back into shore. I shower. I sit down and proceed to have three frozen drinks and truffle fries. These fries top the smith and king fries. They are very very good. With lightly dusted parmesan cheese. Wow. So good. We have Haley to start, and Mark to finish. We learn that Mark has an extended family of 316 which is nuts. He has 14 brothers and sisters. Duggars much? Back to car by 5. We didn’t eat dinner as we were too full from lunch and our snack. More yelling of to turn TV down. I was up late and didn’t sleep well.
Dec 30
Went for a run at 7:20. Out 3 miles and took a super picture of sun coming thru clouds. I ran out where the path just ends and ended up looking for directional markers to make my way back. The beach was full of plastics that were being collected by the waves. Dumb humans. Fiona and Tiffany were off to find the glass blowing place. I had my Starbucks in a can so put on a clean shirt, flip flops and followed. Fiona couldn’t find it and swore it was before the hospital we turned around at the Polynesian Cultural center and I mentioned that felt it was closer to Longs. We turned around anyway and stopped by the sea glass shake. Fiona couldn’t admit that she might be wrong. We turned around and this time went by the Polynesian Center and bingo there was the glass guy. We made a plan to eat lunch and stop back by at noon. Andrew from https://www.ohanahotglass.com had only been open a week. Lol. We were is first customers to blow glass. There were 8 of us to partake in this experience. We drove back, changed into closed toed shoes, and stopped back by the SevenBrothers for lunch. It was a random assortment of food trucks. We poked around and the beach bus was closed on Monday’s. No waffles or churros for me. Instead I had spicy coleslaw and half a cheese sandwich shared with the Fiona. I polished it off with a never seen beer from the Hana Koa brewing company called the Horchata Golden Ale. There was nothing ‘ale like’ about it as was more sour than ale. It was still good. Before leaving booked times to make a globe for the kids and a fish for me. I was not sure what Fiona, Darci, or Tiffany wanted but was a beta tester for Andrew’s scheduling platform. It was odd, but worked. We have notes.
We arrived at noon. Picked out our pieces, our colors, got our safety briefing, signed our life away and got down to blowing glass. Niamh went first and Sean was the assistant, she made a blue ornament. Sean went and Niamh was the assistant. He also made a blue ornament. Emme was third and made a purple ornament with Lawson assisting, and lastly Lawson made a green and purple ornament with Emme assisting. Each took 20 minutes and the assistant had to blow. And the peanut gallery chimed in and cheered them on to ‘Blow’. Each kid got to knock off their piece and into the cooling kiln it went.
I did an orange fish with Fiona assisting. It has a gimpy fin but is freggin huge 😉 I used a sorts of tools to press and shape the fish. Lots of fun. Then Corey and kids took off to the hidden beach while the final three completed their glass blowing experiences. Darci made a green bowl while Tiffany assisted. This required blowing and sucking. lol. Many more jokes, heckles, and snarky comments ensued as Tiffany and Darci blew and sucked each other’s bowls. Darci’s bowl will be very organic which is a nice way to say it will not be uniform in nature but yet still represents a bowl. Darci’s assistant sucked to much to quickly so folded in on itself. I think it will allow more grip or if you turn it over is a sad little mouth. Regardless it is not going to be a boring glass bowl.
Fiona was last and I was her assistant. I blew and sucked like the best of them, but did a bowl but with the addition of being a turtle with clear glass fins, head, and tail. We finished by 3. I went to hidden beach with Emme and sat with Corey. Niamh and Sean walked back. We packed up at 4:30 and got back to condos and it was a mad rush to find dinner. I helped Lawson shower by pool. A handyman was around to fix the primary bedroom slider that I had managed to break by separating the frame from the glass. He also ‘fixed’ the ductless mini split by cleaning it. However you have to clean both sides do doubt it was work well. I took Corey, Lawson, Emme, up to dinner and got a call to go to Lei Lei’s instead. I made a reservation for 11 and proceeded to get a blended Mai Tai with Corey. I left my credit card with the bar tender but didn’t know that until I went to pay for dinner. I managed to get it back. Alan and Rowena didn’t appear so that shrunk our party size down to 9, which was one more than 8. So we got in quickly and did family style with 5 entrees and 4 starters. The ribs didn’t last long. I had the potatoes and coleslaw. It was a successful meal. Emme managed to stub her big toe in a race with Lawson who had personally challenged himself to run to a golf flag and back. Fiona showed up to give a status update on everything that was broken or wrong in our condo. The only thing I like are the beds. Everything else is ok or broken. We have basic internet which is 25 down and 8 up. It works which is good enough. The dryer handle broke so there is not a good way to open dryer. Both washer and dryer are old and take forever to wash or dry. I already covered the primary slider not working. The vacuum was full of stuff and not emptied before we arrived. The bath towels are meh. The beach towels are plentiful but well used. The beach chairs work but the shoulder straps can’t be used as they r broken, the primary AC is loud, there are cockroaches running around, there is a mess of stuff on the porch that we had to organize and throw away broken stuff like fins, the mini split does is not blow cold air, we never had a parking pass (until today), the pool code was wrong, the primary bed looks to be patched but not painted, the drapes don’t hold together well with a strong breeze as the bar falls out, the water heater can’t handle more than 3 people, and the shower wand stopped working. In short am not impressed with this owner or the property manager with the amount of neglect, lack of maintenance, and wrong information. Like I said the beds are nice.
The kids disappeared and so the 5 adults made it to the lounge at the Ritz. I had two espresso martinis, but service was super slow. The bar had run out of glassware and the dishwasher was broken. lol. Not sure what they r going to do for new years. Anywho back to condo by 9:30, made sure Darci landed in her condo, and gave Tiffany leftovers for Sean to nibble on tomorrow afternoon. Lawson is insisting to watch squid games 2 which is way too disturbing to watch by himself. I go to bed at 10:30.
Dec 31
Happy New Year’s Eve!!! I’ve been blogging now for 2 hours. Geez. Niamh woke up and is fetching a chocolate croissant for me. It is 9:30 and time to sign another waiver. Zip lining today. Good thing we finished up our family planning this year.
That was fun. We had three guides: Chuck, Jessie, and Corinne. We, the 7 of us, arrived got into our gear (harness and helmet) and did a baby zip line which was pretty cool. Then a Polaris took us up a mountain and we zipped down. At two points we had to go down instead of across, but otherwise went across rope bridges, or rope stairs. The first platform shifted with the wind or people, but the others seemed ok. The longest line was a minute long which was nuts. Emme got stuck twice and Corinne had to spider monkey emme from her stuck spot by putting her get against the zip line and pulling back with get and hands to get to the brake/pull line. Lawson managed to make it with Chuck going tandem. We meet a nice couple with two kids from Tacoma who are not far from UPS which was pretty cool.
We ate at McDonald’s for lunch which was French fries for me, very salty fries. Then popped over to pick up our blown glass. They glass blowers redid my fish since in the cooling process it cracked. They also redid Darci’s bowl to not look like a sad organic emoji. We then stopped at foodland and picked up dinner for the evening since there was no room for dinner. I got an orange bell pepper and some olives to go with my 5 cheese stuffed crust Digiorno Pizza.
We then popped back to the condo and got berated by a guy out of deliverance who was a security guard who was off duty since we gate crashed the entry by not putting in our own gate code. Ok. Fine I’ll stop, wait for arm to come back down, reach across and put in our special gate code, wait for gate, and then drive thru. Sure. I’ll also wait endlessly for people without the gate code to try and get help to go through to also put in my code at that time too. Yup. Get right on that.
I showered. I then had the little mini rums that Fiona bought which where the same mini rums I left in Kauai. I got to enjoy all 6 before walking to the Ritz at 8:30. We then got admitted to the VIP section where our snacks were oysters or sushi. I had two oysters. I then paid 35 dollars for a glass of champagne and left a generous tip to Chad the bartender so Darci could have a light up Moët champagne stopper. I also might have more tokens of the night for the other champagne drinkers in our group. We didn’t take the Moët ski googles, but the group behind us took the bottle and the googles and at the new year squirted down junior with it rather than drink it. I guess that was it was for? Ah, whatever I’m just glad I was not the sucker that had to wear champagne soaked clothing back to my car to get back to wherever they hailed from. I think the kids had a good time with the live band and dancing. We did the 10 second countdown, midnight hit we all cheered in the new year.
Jan 1
Man I’m a hot sweaty mess. Happy New Year!!!
