I’m Back: Hawaii Recap

After leaving sunny Hawaii on Sunday afternoon, we arrived late into San Jose to a rainy, dark night.  I’ll admit it was a rude awakening back into reality and I have a bit of the vacation return blues.  But I have a lot of client meetings this week so that’ll help me to get back into the swing of things.

Here’s a little recap on the trip…

While in Hawaii, we always go on excursions and they usually involve hiking.  This time round my pinched sciatic nerve pain in my left lower back that I’ve been experiencing since about month three of pregnancy, decided to spread to my left hip and knee.  I look and feel like an overweight, elderly arthritic person.  One day at the beach, I saw an elderly woman wading in the ocean with a cane.  I’ve never been so jealous of a cane before in my life; I couldn’t take my eyes off of it.  I wrote Dr. Google about my situation and he told me to rest and to take Tylenol.

With hiking off the agenda, we went for some road trips instead.  The first trip, we set out for Hawi a small town north of Kahala coast.  It’s a cute little spot with a few shops.  I found things to bring home, obviously.  This sweet striped elephant for baby girl…

and this bracelet for myself…

Graham came home empty handed but that could be because he was mostly relegated to the “husband bench”…

While in town we had the best food we have had to date on the big Island.  It’s a cafe called “Zest”; it’s bit of a hole in the wall with mismatched thrift store furniture and an unassuming facade.  However, looks can be deceiving.  We were absolutely blown away with the quality of the food.  All ingredients were fresh and local.  We devoured our homemade tagliatelle pasta with fresh marlin and the house mushroom ravioli.

Once we finished licking the plates of our entrees, we were offered dessert that we couldn’t resist.  A dark chocolate brownie mixed with orange zest and homemade mint ice cream.  We literally watched the chef cut the mint leaves for our ice cream…talk about fresh.  “Zest” is a spot you must go to in Hawi.

With a full belly for Graham and a very, very full belly for me, we drove to the end of the road to check out the view…

Not too shabby.  Hawaii is a breathtaking Island.

Our second excursion, we set out for our favorite banana bread in the world, located at a bakery in Kona. This type of bread takes dedication to get as it is a 45 minute drive away from where we were staying.  But we rarely come here without making the trek.  Yes, it’s that good.

This time round, we made an impromptu stop at Kona Joes.  It was fascinating to see where coffee grows and it was the prettiest spot for coffee.

Hyped up on caffeine, we continued our trek to the banana bread spot only to find the bakery has new owners and they are hippies.  No offense to hippies.  I’m one quarter hippy myself but they messed with mamma’s banana bread.  It wasn’t as (brace yourself for this word) moist as it should have been.   I’m afraid the hippies removed the butter, eggs or worst of all, the fat.  Nonetheless, the bread was still consumed.  Shocker.

On the way back from “Upcountry Bakery”, we stopped in an antique shop.  Nothing jumped out at me.  But here were the treasures I left behind for others.

Vintage apothecary bottles; I loved the vintage wallpaper lining the cabinet…

Butterflies with an agate rock frame

Moroccan style brass dish…

Besides those two excursions, most of our days were spent at the beach club.  For the first time in my life I did not lie in the sun until my skin turned to leather.  Feeling like a protective mom, I didn’t want to overbook baby and so I sat in the shade of the cabana while Graham got his leather skin on.  We mostly read, swam, snorkeled and napped on those days.

While on the trip, baby turned 23 weeks in my belly.  Baby center reported she’s now the size of a large mango.  It felt like the perfect fruit for the week and I insisted on a mango/belly shot.

Last week she was the size of a banana.  Hmmm.  Strange growing…

Since this was a babymoon, we did milk the trip.  Most nights we ate out at delicious restaurants.  Every day, we treated ourselves to at least two fruity cocktail/mocktails.  We watched the sunset on the beach with Kona Longboard/ St. Pauly’s girl beers and cheese and crackers and Graham got to feel baby girl kick.  Best of all, we got a sunset couples massage on the beach.

I highly, highly recommend the concept of a baby moon.  Dare I say, I’d place it higher than a “baby ring?” Yes, I sound awfully spoiled.  But after struggling with infertility, I can help but feel a little beach time is well deserved. And in the near future when we are bleary eyed caring for an infant in the middle of the night, we can look at each other and say, “remember that trip to Hawaii?” as if it was a lifetime ago.