Ahhh, more vacation time

Wow, I have been at my new job for an entire year. This has earned me another week of paid vacation- giving me a total of 3 weeks.....it's much better than 2 weeks, but not nearly as good as the 6 weeks I had at Rush. Now....how & where to spend it?

Upcoming trips

This nurse is getting out of the funk of the on going divorce....

Upcoming trips:
Thanksgiving: NYC, yes I'm going to bite the big apple for the Thanksgiving weekend!
December:
Dec 10 to 13:Going down to Disney for Dreams Unlimited Travel & The Dis Podcast party!!! This means going down to a private after hours party being held at Disney Studios....aka Disney MGM. I also hope to attend some of the other great events being hosted by Dis members. You either have the Disney gene, or you don't....
Dec 24 to 27: St. George, Utah via Las Vegas. Spending some quick, but quality time with my family in Southern Utah. Will give this girl a chance to remember what it is like to be around her entire family, for just long enough to not induce feelings of self harm. Not that my family isn't wonderful, but after living away for so long....I tend to get overwhelmed when all 7 brothers & sisters are in one spot, with all million grandchildren. I'm the only one who has ONE child and no, not all of them are Mormon....

While I would never advocate stealing...

I look at this as just using Bing's kindness for a little longer...

http://www.gadling.com/2009/09/27/steal-boingo-wireless-by-clearing-your-cookies/

Get me the heck out of this cold weather!!!!!

So, where have I been since Hawaii????
Wow. I couldn't believe I hadn't written in SUCH a long time.

Well,there have been a few life changes.
Some good and some bad.
But hey, it is what it is and really, what CAN you do???

I need to update with a few Florida trip and a cruise....

But, guess what the really cool thing is????

I'm going to Hawaii again in February!

However, this time I am going to be spending a week in Kauai. Haven't been there and I'm really looking forward to it! I have a new little camera that will allow me to post video & photos. So, hopefully there will be some fun new travel writing.


Did I mention that the new toy is WATER PROOF????

Get ready to see some fish!

Ciao!
C

Java

This is a coffee plant.

These are coffee berries, known as a coffee cherry.

MONSTER!

Huge cinnamon bun- enough for Robb and me!

This was the view from the cafe, too bad for the power lines.

More hotel

Turtle in the lobby. Sorry these aren't great, these are all from my phone.

The hotel beach, early sunset.

More hotel

On side of the bathroom. It had a double sink, with sep. Toilet and shower

This pond is filled with yellow tangs, turtles, and pacific chubs. (lots I don't know the names of)

The room

We had two queen beds, a wet bar, large bathroom, and balcony

This was the "cheap" view when using DCL points. We could see the ocean in the distance.

Noah says hang loose

They gave us leis

Music in the lobby, later they were joined by a dancer.

Mauna Lani Bay hotel

The hotel is very beautiful and is in the Pacific-Asian style. Reminds me a lot of the hotels in Indonesia. We are staying here through our Disney Vacation Club. The entry walkway has water on both sides and is filled with koi fish. Think these fish are used to having people feed them?

Beautiful!

Mini pineapples, white pineapples, kifer limes, and other foreign delights!

Apple bananas, mountain apples, dragon fruit, strawberry papaya!

A dream come true!

So, these odd looking brown items are fruit called salak fruit! I had a different variety of these in Bali and fell in love with them. I have been unable to locate these any where in the states. I had heard that they could be grown in Hawaii, but had been unable to find a grower online and hadn't seen them in any store.

Well, I kept on hearing that there was a great fruit stand on the big island with lots of tropical fruit. I urged Robb to take me there, right when we got off of the flight. I was looking for passion fruit and was totally shocked and delighted to see salak fruit! I purchased four, two of which are already gone! They have a skin that feels like snake skin and it peels off in sections and almost feels like leather. Under it all are what appears to be large garlic cloves. You bite these and they taste like a starchy apple. In the largest bulb- there is a large brown seed. I'll take photos of the next one I eat. So, I'm happy- having a great time, remembering another trip!

Some where over the...

This was the last thing we saw before we went into the airport. It wasn't as dark as it looks, it didn't photograph well. We saw many partial bows over our stay in Maui, this was the only full one.

Foiled Again!

We were able to get out to Molokini this time, but we weren't able to me the second stop on Lanai due to rough seas! More people doing protein spills! Lucky for us, due to meds, all were fine. We were able to see some new fish that we hadn't seen before and I will post when I get access to wi-fi at the new hotel. What really bummed me out was that we couldn't go to the area with the dolphins. We are beginning to feel a little cursed- a hurricane, tsunami advisory, missing dive sites, AND an earthquake on the big earthquake two days before we are due to go there! Somebody find me a virgin to toss!

Technical difficulties!

After spending hours on the phone with the fine people at tmobile and blackberry, remote posting should start again! I felt bad having no photos to post from yesterday, so this is computer hula girl. A very nice girl picked and gave me this flower, because it "matched" my coloring. Mahalo!

How can you be afraid of a name like Flossie??

Despite a few phone calls and emails from our friends and family at home, we are hearing very little about Flossie. The most impact it has had on us was when we tried to go to Molikini to snorkel today. Due to the "high" waves- which were two to three feet, they wouldn't let us out of the boat because of the large amount of new snorkelers. It was pretty odd knowing that we had the most experience out of everyone on the boat. Robb and I were also two of the few people who didn't throw up. God bless Bonine! (Motion sickness med) Noah was one of the many who decided to feed the fish....poor Noah.

Anyways, they took us to two different sites and we got to see lots of turtles and I got to see a really, really small octopus. Robb stayed in the boat with Noah post protein spill- as I got to be with him during the incident and clean it up. So only I got to see the little buddy, but I did get a great photo for Robb and Noah.

After the dive, we went to a great place for fish tacos, called Jawz Fish Tacos. They had all sorts of salsa and they were pretty good! After all of the swimming and eating, we really needed a nap. We drove to the local beaches by Wailea and took a nap in the car and then we went out for ice cream. I had pineapple and vanilla soft serve, just like I had in Walt Disney World the other month. Yes, it was made by Dole- just like the stuff at the World.

After coming back to the condo, the boys went into the unit and I went out onto the reef. I was really excited to see two huge turtles! I attempted to get photos, but due to the tide coming in and the poor visibility due to the hurricane, none of them turned out very well. With that being said, it was really exciting to be within six inches of the ones here. I wasn't trying to be that close to them, there was one time that I turned slightly from trying to take a photo of a box fish and the turtle was RIGHT next to me. I actually had to grab the rocks and pull myself back to prevent myself from bumping into him due to the waves. I finally swam away from the turtles to see what else was out there and was following some unicorn fish, when I saw a small school of barracudas....after that, I decided it was time to get out. I can hardly wait to see what adventure awaits us tomorrow.

STARTED!!!

Okay, I Celeste started pole dancing classes last week just before I got on the flight to Maui. The darn class completely kicked my ass! Yep, I was hurting for three days after- even the muscle in my hands hurt from grabbing the pole for dear life. However, I can do three moves on the pole and that was pretty cool. I will continue them when I get home, but man- am I out of shape!

See more progress on: take pole dancing lessons

The road to Hana

I tried to take this photo to show how narrow some of the roads were, which this doesn't show very well. Had I not been white knuckling it past Hana and the Seven Pools area, I would have taken photos of those roads, which made the rest look like four lane highways! However, that area was even more beautiful than the others. We were going to try and drive over the gravel portion of the road to complete the loop, but there were men there not allowing anyone to go forward due to rock slides. After all, to hell with the rental car, how are they supposed to know if we drove it past Hana as long as the car comes back in one piece? Too bad we didn't get to see if a Toyota Corolla could make it...

Some where in there is me and Noah.

Absolutely worth the drive