Sherri Toole's Bday in Laguna Beach

I'm kindda lagging on my blog posts but it has been a helluva few weeks... this last post is from July 25th the weekend we celebrated Dan's mom's bday.

We took her to brunch at Las Brisas, which is one of both of our favorite places! We love this area in Laguna Beach. (somehow I didn't end up with a pic of all of us, Nancy?) Here's Dano and I very happy and full after a delicious late brunch.

The surf was awesome and huge.... a gorgeous day in So Cal!
After Las Brisas we went to celebrate yet another bday, Sherri's at the beachhouse in Laguna. It is a gorgeous location. We got to see John and Heather! Here they are posing just before sunset.
Dan and I decided that we could totally move HERE... what a great location!
The Bday girl, Sherri and her husband, Pat. They have been friends with Dan since Highschool!
Laguna Sunset
By the end of the night I was the only sober person there. I can't explain to you how much that can suck sometimes. Till I figured out that I could make myslef useful and keep occuppied by taking over the role of bartender. I actually had a lot more fun doing this than drinking (well, I keep telling myself that). I stayed back there till I ran out of most of the alcohol. You DON'T want to be behind the bar with people asking for drinks you don't HAVE... LOL


John and Dano. Still as cute after all these years... it's so sweet, they've been such good friends since they were kids!

Sweet Heather and I. LOVE this woman.
Dan and Pat and (forgot this guy's name...sorry) provided the entertainment
Heather, Sherri and I, bringing down the house
Happy Birthday Sherri! Thanks for having us... great party!

:)

Amber and Tyler's wedding reception

We were pretty excited to celebrate our friends' marriage (they got married in Arizona and this was another reception with all their local So Cal friends) and it was a really nice time. They are absolutely adorable.

The bride and groom, Tyler and Amber
The glowing Amber and I
"The boys." Chris, Jesse, Nick, Jeff, Tyler, Dano, Doug and baby Olivia and Ramon.
My man and I in the very cool orange lounge
Andrea (baby Olivia's mom) Junko, Christine and I on the Leopard Print stage.


As you can see, It seems I only have gorgeous friends...:)
I love this picture. Hilarious!
Congratulations, Amber and Tyler! We love you!

Our big island adventures, Part II

We explored as much of the island as we could until we simply ran out of time and days.

A really nice find was the Pu'uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park on the West side, just south of Kona.

The Tiki art work was amazing and very well preserved.

One of my favorite days was when we drove all the way to the southernmost part of the island. We basically drove south until the land ran out. It ended in these cliffs, where locals have built these cliff diving platforms. This south point is called Ka Lae.
Of course, we wanted to jump off... and Dan did. (I could not for obvious reasons).
Woooooo, Danomyte!

The diversity of the island is one of the things I liked the most. Sugar soft sand on the West coast and Black Sand Beaches on the East coast. This was at Punaluu Black Sand Beach park.
Where there "usually" are a lot of turtles... but we didn't see any on the beach. Dan saw two while he was snorkleing here...
On the East side. we visited Rainbow falls.
Which had an easy hike thru the coolest trees ever, that were so easy to climb!
Also on the east side we visited Onomea Bay and Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens

There were so many plant, tree, and flower species. By far my favorite was this tree, called the Cannonball Tree. It grows these heavy flowers all on its trunk and branches. And as I was looking up wondering "why do they call this a cannonball tree?" I got hit in the chest by a "cannonball." The tree releases these flowers and they fall like cannonballs every few minutes. It's so funny!
Another treat was the ride to Pali, to see the one active volcano. I at first didn't think I was going to be able to ride, because of "liability reasons" they don't allow pregger bikers. But when we got there, the guys were so cool and maybe I had that "I can ride circles around any of these people" look, but they let me ride. It was SUCH a fun day and the ride was easy and I enjoyed it so much. We rode thru different plantations, ranches, and finally to the coast as we made our way to the volcano.
We are just a few miles away here, you can see the plume of smoke where the fresh lava meets the ocean (just behind my head)


We stopped at a place to have dinner and wait for dusk at another black sand beach. It was just beautiful
This is entering the Volcano park
And just after sunset, the lava meeting the waves, makes this constant gorgeous explosion.
This was on our very last day on the island, back on the west side at Maumai beach and then for lunch to the Mauna Kea Resort.

Back in Kona, having one last drink and watching the sunset before the dreaded trip to the airport for our red-eye flight...

It's over! Oh, say it isn't so!!! Back on the plane and back to California...

Thanks babe, for such an amazing trip and a great week together! (And you look so cute all tanned and browned!)

ALOHA!