Mother/Daughter Hawaiian Retreat, Days 1 & 2

Cheryl's school district had a nice one-week break from school for "ski week" last week so she asked me if I wanted to get away with her.  We toyed with several trip ideas and decided to go to Hawaii for economic reasons mostly. Both of us had been to Hawaii twice already, but we couldn't turn down an offer to stay at family friend Heather Bradbury's house for free. Her husband, Sundan, is in the military and is deployed for six months so she welcomed house guests to help keep her company while he is away.  Heather has 4 children and they live right on the beach.  Here are some pictures of her back yard.

 View from her upper deck off the living room

You take a short path

and you end up here.  Such an amazing place to live!

Heather has two brothers who live on O'ahu also - Ethan & Brett Lee - who we also planned to see.

DAY ONE:  I need to mention the flight over. It was the roughest I have ever experienced. The turbulence was so rough that at one point it lasted about 45 min. and many of the passengers were getting sick.  The flight attendants were handing out barf bags. I thought for sure Cheryl was going to get sick, but fortunately she didn't. Her Dramamine did the trick. She just closed her eyes and rode it out. I hope to never experience something like that again. It was scary. Some passengers were kind of screaming with fear.

About four days prior to our trip, Alan got sick.  He didn't want me to get it and spoil my trip, so he graciously wore a mask around the house.  In spite of his best efforts, I had a sinking feeling that I would end up getting sick and I was right. I felt it coming on even during the flight over.  

On our way to Heather's in our rental car, we saw the Dole Plantation and decided to stop. We purchased a pineapple ice cream cone.  It was delicious!

DAY TWO:  In spite of not feeling 100% on our first full day there, I was still able to have some fun in the sun.  We were able to go to Turtle Beach.

We were hungry after the beach so we went to Brett's restaurant not far from Turtle Bay for a smoothie.  It was delicious.  Here are a couple of pictures of his place.

We then ended the day at a pool side birthday party for Brett's daughter Andie who turned one.  The food was great and it was fun to be able to chat with Ethan & Lezlie and Brett & Cassie once again.  It had been a while since I had seen them. I don't know why I didn't take any pictures of them. Oops!

By the time we got back to Heather's, my illness was really starting to set in. My head was pounding, my sinuses hurt, and I felt like I could have a fever. This was confirmed a short time later. Oh, great!